The Department of English and Creative Writing are co-sponsoring April for the Word, a cultural event run by the Department of Spanish and Portuguese since 2016 and in partnership with the Poetry Meeting of Angels in The Land of Enchantment since 2023. This year marks the third annual Poetry Meeting and features Mary Oishi, an Albuquerque Poet Laureate who will read from some of her work on Thursday, April 3, 2025, at 2pm in the Frank Waters Room in Zimmerman Library. Héctor Contreras López will also read Oishi’s work in translation. The event is bilingual, free and open to the public, with a reception to follow.
Oishi is a celebrated poet, one of twelve poets from the United States selected for 12 Poetas: Antologia De Nuevos Poetas Estadounidenses (2017), a project of the Mexican Ministry of Culture. The daughter of an American soldier and Japanese mother, Oishi navigates the borders of race, nation, and culture, bridging the differences that divide even her own family ancestry. In the 2011 West End Press collection, Spirit Birds They Told Me, Oishi dedicates the small collection to many women, including her mother, “Chizu ‘One Thousand Cranes’ Oishi” and daughter, “Aja ‘One Who Cannot Be Conquered’ Oishi.” In Rock Paper Scissors (2018), Oishi and her daughter compose a two-part collection of mother-daughter poems, opening with a quote from the authors’ mother and grandmother, “Oishi means ‘big rock,’ / Like the Rock of Gibraltar,” chiseling further the intergenerational links of Oishi’s poesy. In 2020, Oishi was named Albuquerque Poet Laureate (2020-2022) and hosted a series of zoom conversations with poets in conjunction with the city’s public libraries. Oishi’s One Albuquerque, One Hundred Poets: Poets in the Libraries Anthology, published by the ABQ Library Foundation, won the best in Poetry Anthology for the 2023 New Mexico-Arizona Books Awards. Oishi is also the author of the most recent Sidewalk Cruiseship (2024), published by UNM Press, and creator of the blog “A Poet’s Kiss,” https://poetoishi.blogspot.com/.
April for the Word is a cultural event run by the Department of Spanish and Portuguese since 2016 and in 2023 was joined by the Poetry Meeting of Angels in The Land of Enchantment. The activities that make up this event include book presentations, scholarly talks, poetry recitals, classroom demonstrations, and much more, including student translation projects. One of the main activities characterizing April for the Word since its inception is the bilingual reading of a New Mexican poet or one related to New Mexico. Thanks to the Ricardo Aguilar Melantzon Translation Workshop, directed by Héctor Contreras López, students enrolled in a 300-level Spanish course initially translate the poetry. Contreras López oversees the translation and keeps in communication with the author to maintain a steady collaboration between students and author, and to ensure a genuine translation of the original poetry. Contreras López will read some of Oishi’s poetry in translation following her presentation and poetry reading.
Please join us for “Songs for a City Held in Common / Canciónes para una ciudad en común,” a bilingual poetry reading in the Frank Waters Reading Room on Thursday, April 3 @2pm. For more information or questions, contact Carmen Julia Holguin-Chaparro, cjhch@unm.edu or Melina Vizcaíno-Alemán, mviz@unm.edu.
