Rudolfo Anaya’s Poetic Side By Emmaly Wiederholt
In 1972, the quintessential New Mexican author Rudolfo Anaya published his best-known novel, Bless Me, Ultima. In it, he depicts his early childhood on the rolling flatlands of the desert outside Santa Rosa, known as the llano. Bless Me, Ultima and the many novels, essays, plays, short stories and children’s books Anaya later authored have come to be as definitive of New Mexico’s essence as our red-hued sunsets or unraveling expanses.
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ut did you know Anaya is also a poet? 2015 marks the release of his first book of poetry, Poems from the Rio Grande. “I’ve written the poems over the years. Though I’m not a poet, so to speak, I’ve always read poetry and been drawn to poetic instinct,” says Anaya. “My editor was waiting for my new novel, and he asked what else I had. I told him I had drawers full of poems.” The poems span both time and place, drawing on his childhood llano and from contemporary experiences. For example, “Isis in the Heart” is a love poem to his wife based on their travels to Egypt. It combines Egyptian mythology with New Mexico’s own mythological landscape. “My poetry, fiction, essays and plays have to be understood in the context of New Mexico,” Anaya asserts. “I was born and raised here, and have lived a very charmed life here. I remember when I started writing Bless Me, Ultima, one of the reasons I wrote it was because all those beautiful people I knew in my childhood shouldn’t be forgotten. The town drunk, for example, should not be forgotten. He was a fabulous mythological man who sometimes hung out with my father. The accidents and death that happened to him seemed to belong in a book. That’s what a book or a poem do… they capture time and put it on paper. They come out of the moments when life is tragic, when life is joyful, when there’s good health, when there’s poor health, when there’s love, when there’s hate… that’s life, and that’s what you have to put down on paper. That’s what a poem is about.”
Born from the snows and summer rains, in the Sangre de Cristo your veins were formed. Murmur of waters, happily bubbling, you flow down singing. Splashing! Sparkling! Dancing! Dressed in finery a river stupendous! You are the soul of our New Mexico. An excerpt from “Song to the Río Grande”