>> Oh, this is an honor and I feel privileged to be part of welcoming Gloria Anzaldua.
The poem that I'm going to read is a response to Gloria Anzaldua's work.
And when I read Borderlands, La Frontera, it helped me put together some things
because for me -- My father is from Aguascalientes,
Mexico and my mother was a German war bride, Maria Kramer,
and I've got a little mixed up sometimes and I ended up living on a lot of edges.
So what I'd like to do is to read a poem that helped me put some things together
and after reading Gloria's text, I began to see that I too am a mestiza.
So this poem is the response to Gloria's work and a grateful acknowledgment
of the influence she's had on my writing.
The poem is called Swimming Borders.
Swimming Borders, a response to Gloria Anzaldua's poem
To Live in the Borderlands Means You.
You are the crosser swimming borders, el río and, above you, the bridge.
Your hair, bright red.
Whatever you dream as you swim is holy.
A shred of your heart which you offered many times to la migra, which you gave over
and over to a white world backstroke.
Pero when you live in a world of borders, on the edge, on the river, you learned how to sink
into dark holes, spend time in trenches,
slide your brown belly alongside the dark thing you thought was your enemy.
Something slithering on the underside of your soul, yourself, loose,
the dead skin you've tried to crawl out of.
Keep swimming, you tell yourself and you are a woman swimming alone.
Fish hands, [? cold ?] mujer, whose only desire is
to live the dark shore edge of the other side shining.
River, your mouth taking the shape of a rose.
Sangre, beating dark in your [? cunt ?].
La perdida, you are the dark one, wounded bird ya con alas.
You are raising tender wings.
First flight out of the swollen water.
Thank you.
And now if you'll help me give a very warm welcome to Gloria Anzaldua.