Response to Lorna Dee Cervantes

Dear Ms Lorna Dee Cervantes,

I am writing to thank you for coming to speak at Pitzer College earlier this month. I am so glad that I was able to attend the event. Until recently, I had never identified myself as Chicana and, although I am an English major, I had never really been exposed to Chicano literature. So, I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to be exposed to your writing. Because I had never read your poetry prior to hearing you speak, I did not know what to expect. However, I was surprised to see how energetic and engaging you were and I really enjoyed listening to you recite some of your poems. Although it’s been a while since I went to see you speak, your poetry has left a great impression on me.

One of the things you talked about that I found really interesting was your new collection of poems your working on, 100 love Poems to Strangers. The project of writing love poems to people you have never met is very appealing to me because I think that writing poetry is one of the most difficult things to do. I can imagine it being especially difficult when you do not have anybody to write to or write about. It was difficult enough, for me, to try to figure out whom I would want you to write a poem to. However, what interested me the most about this project is the idea of selling the poems to people. I think that selling poems is fantastic because it adds another dimension to the project. Selling the poems does not only allow people to be involved in an exchange, I think that it also encourages them to take interest in and be involved with the project. I was a little disappointed that I could not buy a poem and that I could not figure out whom I wanted you to write the love poem to, but hopefully I can buy one next time. Nevertheless, even if I cannot have a poem included in the collection I am definitely going to check out your new collection when it comes out.

Although I really enjoyed hearing all of your poems, I was very excited to hear you recite “Poem for the Young White Man…” I will also be reading this poem for my American Literature Survey course later in the semester. So, I am glad that I got to hear your own thoughts on the poem before I read it for class, especially since racism is such a difficult topic to address and even harder to analyze and discuss in a classroom setting. You said that you were once told that the poem was not a political poem because it did not offer a solution and that your response was that the poem was not meant to be political because it was about the experience and emotions that accompany racism. That statement really impacted the way that I interpreted the poem because it made the words more personal to me and allowed me to interpret it by thinking back on what I have experienced.

There were several lines throughout the poem that really stuck out to me because I think that they were really good at showing how complex the topic and the experience of racism are. One line, in the poem, that I thought was very interesting was “they are not shooting at you” in response the people’s belief that stating that there is “a war between races” is an “exaggeration”. To me, that line addresses the fact that although racism is projected to a certain group of people, being a victim of racism is an individual experience. I think this idea is also emphasized because that line also implies the idea of being isolated; the person that experiences racism is literally singled out like a target. That line also really stuck out to me because it made me think about the response that I have had to other people’s response to racism. Racism is something that cannot be fully understood and sometimes ignored by a person who is not being specifically targeted. Although I can identify with the poem as a person who has had to deal with racism at some point in my life, your poem also calls for me to put myself in the position of the “young white man,” the poem addresses, and rethink the way I perceive discrimination when I am not the person being targeted. However, the one line that I think really resonated with your statement that the poem is not meant to be political is, “Racism is not intellectual.” That line emphasizes how complex racism is and how hard it is to explain. It is difficult to find a solution to racism because at times it is hard enough to determine the cause of racism and to explain it because it exists in so many different forms and affects people in so many different ways. I really loved this poem because it is a poem that I could relate to in a way and interpret it based on my own experience, but it also made me think about how I perceive the problem of racism.

Again, thank you so much for coming to speak at Pitzer. You were amazing. My friends and I were talking about your poetry reading for days. As I said before, you were very energetic and engaging and I really enjoyed hearing you speak. I look forward to hearing you speak again in the future and I am very excited to read some of your other poems.

Sincerely,

Helen Veyna

Scripps College 2011