A Door in the Mountain: an Interview with Diana Marie Delgado

Matthew Flores: Hello Diana, can you tell me a little bit about your trajectory and arrival to Tucson as the director of the University of Arizona Poetry Center.

Diana M. Delgado: When I moved to Tucson I had actually been there once before. I had this mental image from that time when I went to this really beautiful residency called Casa Libre. It’s unfortunately no longer around, but it was a valuable respite for me as an emerging writer living in New York City. I was able to spend 2 weeks in downtown Tucson writing as well as also going to the top of Mt. Lemmon, where I saw the saguaro for the first time. 

There's something about the desert at night and it may have to do with the wind. It just feels different on your skin; some change of vibration or energy. I noticed it at the time, of course, but never really thought too deeply about it.

I was living in New York and kind of frazzled with the amount of work that I was doing over those 13 years, and then the opportunity to work at the UA Poetry Center came up. I became excited because of all this. I had been to the Poetry Center before but during that one visit I had focused more on the Center For Creative Photography. And I just thought: Wow what a great connection between these feelings I have for the desert and a job opportunity working with poets! In New York, I was the Director of Community Centers, and more focused on literacy initiatives in youth and adult programs in under-resourced communities. 

I showed up to Tucson in the middle of summer; it was July and unbearably hot but I really wanted to come at the worst time of the year just to haze myself and really be with the desert (laughs). In a way it’s like: accept it. One of the things that fascinates me about the desert is its brutality in the summer and how it is trying to kill you in some ways. It really made me respect those who have lived here originally on this land. They endured it without a/c right! 

I do want to mention that right around the time when I was going to leave New York for Tucson my grandmother was passing away, and I spent a night in her bedroom, which was serving as at hospice for her. I told her that I would be moving to Arizona, and she shared with me this beautiful story about how she and her family drove from Mexico through the Sonoran desert. She recounted a memory of their descending a hill and the road flanked with desert flowers. I felt that it was a sign I was returning to a place where she had made a real connection with the land. She shared this with me and then passed soon after I moved to Arizona and now I always think about that story. I actually had to leave during my interview at the Poetry Center to go see her one last time. 

MF: I think this story about your grandmother is perfect for this interview. I kind of feel similarly connected to the land through my grandparents who lived in Arizona for a while as well. My grandfather was working the fields as a young teenager and went to high school near Mesa for a year or two.

DMD: It's weird how these things sometimes connect you to places. There's a mythology to it.

MF: Yes, I think that’s definitely the case. I want to get back to this too because I have questions related to it later on. This may be an overly simplistic question as well, after your last response (laughs), but it’s about your poetry collection Tracing the Horse. The majority of these poems are about your home in the San Gabriel Valley city of La Puente, California, and yet you’ve also lived many years in New York City. How have the experiences influenced your experiences in Tucson? Those all initially seem to me like vastly different places. How have these different homes come to effect your understanding and experiences in the Sonoran desert?

DMD: I think that Tucson reminds me of the San Gabriel Valley in many ways. It took me some time to understand why but one of the reasons is there’s a train that goes through Tucson. If you listen closely it sounds similar to the one in La Puente, California, that I grew up hearing. Also, in front of my home in Tucson there's this huge palm tree. There are a lot of palm trees where I grew up in California, and you never get to see the moon without a palm tree in the background.

Tucson reminds me of Mexico, too, where I spent a lot of time in San Juan de Abajo, Nayarit, with my maternal grandparents when I was a kid. We spent a lot of time outside while we were there, getting to see all of the really beautiful nature in the shapes, textures, and vegetation. I think those things are similar to Tucson. When I look at the landscape I see the overlap like, oh! This is really  Mexico. You know, even though the border is here, this really is the ecology and flora of my people. So there's something about it that makes me feel very grounded.

MF: So when you first moved to Tucson did anything alter for you with the process of writing poems? Was it slow to arrive after the move? Personally, it took me a minute to feel grounded writing here. 

DMD: What’s your process, how was it for you?

MF: For me it has a lot to do with writing the land. I’m from the Corpus Christi area of South Texas and have lived in Houston for a while so both of these places are very green, and it took me a couple of months to feel grounded and really appreciate the life of the desert. Although, I’m a little slow with process in general.

DMD: You know I've never written a poem about New York even though I lived there for over 13 years. The only thing I did write about while there was the water. It was in a poem where I talk about the Hudson and how its water goes in different directions where the currents cross. But I dream about the San Gabriel Valley. I can be immersed in a different place and that’s really where my poetry comes from, those experiences I had up until my late twenties in the San Gabriel Valley.

I almost want to write a poem about the desert but I'd rather experience the desert than write a poem about it. I don't think that's doing a service to how beautiful it is. I think that Tucson is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been and it's also somewhere you don't really know about until you're in it–just why you like it. It's something that I've tried to think more about. Like how do I transcribe the joy that I get simply from being outside and looking up at the moon with the palm trees. It is because you're in a different part of the world that the moon looks very different than if you were in another, and I believe it's because the desert is closer to the West Coast. 

I have yet to write my Tucson or desert poem and I'm looking forward to it, but I don't necessarily feel pushed to do it. It is something I would like to do as an ode or a tribute at some point, because the flora here is just remarkable.

MF: In your poetry collection Tracing the Horse, which I know you wrote before moving to the desert, there are very difficult situations caused by the complexities of family, but also many instances where you frame this personal history in fragments that highlight a poetic generosity which is seemingly already part of these events. For example you write: “We will look through family photographs. I can show you what the wind and I did.” Which is to say in moments like these your perspective doesn't simply just pick and choose, glossing over heartbreaking events to more efficiently arrive at some “greater” and more palatable truth regarding Latinx family life, but instead you compassionately highlight the glimmers of tenderness in complex relationships. 

Effectively you are saying poetry has always been in and around your family history. Yet, I’m also left feeling this is related to the desert. It’s perceived as an austere site of scarcity but in reality that’s so far from the actual case. So expanding on this definition of the desert alongside how U.S. society deems certain spaces as void-like, such as the communities and homes of non-white peoples, can you tell me more about your re-narrativization of these spaces as seen through your poetry’s generous gaze? 

DMD: You know, I think there's this idea of what you shared in that particular poem that, in some way is asking: who am I? Who am I if not everyone that came before me and everyone I'm connected to by blood and community? Despite the many traumatic circumstances, that was an important aspect of the book. It was still there in this kind of pool, an obligation to write about family from a place that demanded recognition that these were people I cared about. People who loved me despite my traumai–and who I loved despite the consequences of their actions. 

I believe I frequently write from a fragmented perspective because I want to create a constellation. It is a method that weaves together and connects the missing pieces that frequently occur in memory, particularly when it has been subjected to traumatic situations. Memory works very differently on paper than it does in real life, which reminds me of another story my grandmother told me about the desert and abundance. 

When I was in New York, Lucie Brock-Broido, with whom I studied, held these really fascinating seminars and lectures and during one of them she asked us, "Does anyone know what duende means?" Oh yeah, you're talking about los duendes! As I raised my hand. Los Duendes are these mischievous little people who live in the cactus and do all these crazy things–they also don't speak and just giggle. That's what I thought because that's what my grandmother told me when I was a kid. This always made me wonder how much life there was in the desert..

Of course, Lucie wasn't asking for that definition of duende. She was asking for Lorca's definition of black sound; the dance between death and art, everything that comes with the knowledge that we are going to die. So I think the desert can mean different things to different people, but it was always drawn out through my grandmother as this really beautiful place of water, monsoon rain, and these little people who live in cactus alongside the flowers for me.

I didn't answer your question, but I'm hoping that maybe this will lead us in a direction that is going to be fruitful (laughs).

MF: That’s wonderful, I think your grandmother’s stories are doing something more for this interview than I could have ever anticipated (laughs). 

I was thinking, like, Diana just dropped right into the desert or something, but what you're saying really highlights the narratives we already arrive with to the desert. I’m grateful to hear your grandmother’s stories and your background with the land, which is a kind of survival, too.

DMD: I think that you can't have a story without place, and that's reflected in the work I'm drawn to and am compelled to write. I’m keeping a written photo album that’s focused on communities that are dismissed, generally these places are seen as violent. But that narrow perspective doesn’t reflect the humanity that’s also there. It does not reflect the impact of existing and designed systems that oppress people in the community, preventing them from rising up in an intergenerational way. 

As a result, we are at a disadvantage in comparison to other communities with greater resources. When I talk about where I'm from, it's important to me to not shy away from the dark places, but also to explore the joy and connection we all have in the culture.

MF: What has it been like for you as a woman of color in leadership to live away from family while in Tucson, Arizona, and engage in the work of a Literary Director? Traditionally, women have been represented in positions of support that are not really equitable, how has that been for you?

DMD: This is so hard to articulate, even for me. I'm still learning the rules set by a historically white workplace, especially in leadership.

Let’s start here. When you look at the chancellors, you might think that you are looking at the governance of the United States, images of deceased presidents. Academia is not an escape or relief from the system that we have all repeatedly, both graciously and vociferously, demanded be abolished in order for us to truly be on equal footing with one another.

It’s not just academia–we are still working from a framework where women are seen as a source of labor and are kept in the hallways when it comes to decision-making that can create new systems. 

Isn't there always some form of enslaved population? I don't think academia is any different. Perhaps it wishes to be different but is unable to do so, or perhaps I just don't get it. In academia, I was not treated more intelligently, and I learned that someone could express extraordinarily racist and sexist things in such a beautiful way that your head spins and you wonder if you're hallucinating. There are fewer direct confrontations and more intuitive gut feelings that what is happening is harmful and part of a larger system; what are we calling it now–white supremacy? I wish we would stop calling it different things. Calling it different things will not change it. 

I'm really happy to see a lot of the DEI initiatives focused on access, inclusion, and intersectionality, but I don't think that's going to happen in academia despite having such language in the space. I could write a book about this. It has been a very challenging experience for me and I could not even be here right now to talk about these things without having other women of color who have said “Yes, I know because I’ve experienced it also.” 

MF: I’m grateful for you sharing this experience here. When arriving to Tucson you had a relationship with Casa Libre, so having that community already present must have been very important to you? 

DMD: It really was. Especially for me to be seen and accepted without having to change my entire identity. What we do is really about being accepted in a community with people that also respect us; Sometimes those folks just don't let us in, but Casa Libre was a community that did, and one I was eager to join. I only wanted to be a poet, and they let me in. 

I don't recall what I was writing at the time, but it was really raw and they were enthusiastic about it. This inspired me to continue writing in that way while also gaining a better understanding of my own process. I had two weeks to write [during their residence] and found that I'm the type of person who unspools pages and pages and then keeps maybe a third of it. I rarely save much of what I write. Those early versions are simply my thoughts on paper. It’s like that Jean Valentine poem, where she pleads, “Door in the Mountain / Let me in.”

MF: Would you like to talk a bit about the project you're currently working on as editor, Like a Hammer Across the Page: Poets Writing Against Mass Incarceration?

DMD: I am incredibly honored to be editing this book. I cry every time I read through it again. It makes me angry. It makes me feel ignorant at times about the work I need to do on these matters, but I'm also honored to put together a book that I believe will spark more conversations about how important art can be in supporting concerns dealing with mass incarceration. It's also not an easy problem to fix. It's been made even more problematic recently by the detention centers that house babies and children who have been separated from their families, then to get out and only work in the meat factories of the Midwest. Children doing men’s jobs for pennies. 

All of this, in my opinion, is linked, and I believe the book is starting a new discussion on the subject. It emphasizes the transformative power of art as a vehicle for social change by demanding that we talk about the realities of what it means to house people in these corporatized complexes, concealed from much of the public eye. 

The foreword is written by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, and includes poetry from: Hanif Abdurraqib, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, Natalie Diaz, Nikkey Finney, Randall Horton, Ada Limón, Tongo Eisen-Martin, John Murillo, Angel Nafis, Raquel Salas Rivera, Patrick Rosal, Nicole Sealey, Evie Shockley, Patricia Smith, Sin á Tes Souhaits, Vanessa Angélica Villarreal, Candace Williams, Brian Batchelor, Kennedy A. Gisege, Christopher Malec, Eduardo Martinez, Gustavo Guerra, Catherine LaFleur, Kenneth Nadeau, James Pearl, Erica "Ewok" Walker, Leeann Parker, Sandra Jackson, Vickie Hicks, Cody Bruce, Christina Pernini, Jessica Hill, and Sarah Lynn Maatsch.

This book tells the stories of individuals caught up in the system, as well as a call to action for readers to approach the problem differently, collectively. It's a problem for all of us and not just the people who are immediately affected. When someone disappears into the criminal justice system, it has repercussions for many generations. This collection aims to recount the story of what happened to these families while also encouraging others to reconsider their own relationship to the situation. 

MF: I also feel like you do a really good job of conveying the ripple effects of this on family life, even without naming it as such in the moment. In the book you’re humanizing through complexity those who are caught inside the carceral system by showing the belated effects of incarceration among the family.

DMD: A brown teen boy who is disruptive in class exemplifies the type of behavior that gets criminalized at a young age. My brother experienced something similar. He went to a youth intervention camp in the San Gabriel mountains and now has a full-time career and stability working at a grocery store, but it took him more than 15 years outside of prison to truly integrate back into society. He's an unusual example of what happens to those who can't adjust or have difficulty finding work afterward. This is something that has definitely made an impact on me–seeing so many men and women close to me disappear into these systems at disproportionate rates.  

MF: And it’s typically the women in the family who are left to pick them up and do all that work. 

DMD: Yes, I believe that is a separate issue. When a man is in prison, his mother, children, and significant other are all affected by the trauma that passes through the body. It lives on and is passed down through the family. So I believe people are more conscious of this now, but when you look at the figures, it's simply awful that we are doing this to predominantly brown and black men.  

MF: So my last question is related to the topic of what is passed down to other members of the family. In an interview you did previously with Ada Limón you discuss the dead, specifically in the ways they may present themselves to us, but you also mention how they can maintain a somewhat isolating distance. It’s because “they're busy” you reply to her at one point. I know you already touched on this a bit, but can you tell me a bit more on how the landscape of the desert, and the events of your past back home in the San Gabriel Valley may have informed your response to her?

DMD: Yes, I mentioned earlier in our talk that Tucson feels like ancestral soil to me. I don't mean that as claiming the land in any sense, but rather acknowledging that I’m connected to this ancestral lineage through land. I believe the desert is a rare site where you can gaze out over Gates Pass and see miles of open countryside. That is hardly seen nowadays. So I believe it is vital for us to return to where others have spent time because they leave a little piece of their spirit behind. 

You get to be around that here, and I believe it's one of the reasons why people appreciate the desert. There's a lot of material that's still unspoiled in some ways but has the essence of what was there before. In comparison to, say, Mexico City. 

I remember the first time I went to Mexico City and there was this gigantic cathedral and in the back was the torn down Templo Mayor. That's when I realized, hey, Mexico City is constructed atop the Aztec empire. I knew this of course but had to travel there to witness and feel the competing energies of the two histories; the genocide of that confrontation between Spain and the Mixeca. That is to say, I believe there is something similar about the terrain in Tucson that has a history of its own, and I believe I can pick up on those energies.

You can't dispute that this place has a mystical quality about it. Growing an arm on a saguaro takes about 60 years. Then realizing that all of the thorns were once leaves but that evolution created this new shape and structure to keep it safe from predators. That's quite amazing in my opinion. 

MF: This area really is so beautiful, and I like what you said earlier about experiencing it in the summer also. It’s always moving forward, anticipating the change. 

DMD: You've never done summer here yet? 

MF: I've done one summer here so far. But the way you framed it earlier in that it's meant to kill you also reminds me of my home, which is more chaparral than desert. Specifically, at the points where people traverse around border patrol checkpoints in really inhospitable land and weather. So being here in Arizona has imprinted onto my senses how the land can be weaponized by the state through cruel legislation and technology.

DMD: It's meant to kill you from the dehydration because there's no water in the air. So if you have water in your body it’s quickly sapping it from you.

People are risking that in order to have a better life here. Then those same people are met with a lot of shame and prejudice. You know these things are not being governed by anyone really, and the rights of these people constantly and violently shift in almost untraceable ways. The laws continually target them according to racialized policies.

It's something that becomes siloed along with all of the other issues we're encountering in our lives right now. And yet these are human beings that eventually become adults, then we wonder why this person is responding to their surroundings in a peculiar way, through a lens of incredible trauma. 

MF: Okay so my last question is what do you do for healing ? 

DMD: I try to spend a lot of time alone. I'm very at ease with myself. I’m reading and sleeping. As I get older I understand how wonderful it is to sleep for 9 hours. So maybe not even reading because as a writer you're always reading or workshopping the book like, oh, I want to do that! So I'm simply spending time by myself and with people that elevate and accept me unconditionally, which is the community of authors I have out here. 

Sitting in the sun by myself also gives me the most energy–that's all there is to it right now, around March or April. I'm not very complicated in terms of recharging and I'm not sure if that's even possible. I know people talk about self-care right now as a hot topic, but it's like, I'm still fairly exhausted (laughs). 

Also, being among friends rather than foes, because we all have them you know. Really basic stuff such as being with my animals! Alex, the senior cat I rescued from New York City is an exceptional bodega mouser, and then Violetta is feral but sweet as a cupcake. She's a black cat with yellow eyes whose happiness is contagious. 

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Matt Flores is originally from South Texas and received their BA in English from the University of Houston and is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at Arizona State University. They have received fellowships from the Mellon Foundation, Virginia G. Piper Center, The Center for Imagination in the Borderlands, and the Ideafund through Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts. Their published work can be found in Defunkt Magazine, Houston Art's Alliance, and Gulf Coast.