In recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month, Sigma Tau Delta student members penned original poems that delve into the layered themes of Natalie Diaz’s acclaimed debut collection, When My Brother Was an Aztec. This collection, selected as the 2025 Sigma Tau Delta Common Reader, confronts the complexities of family, identity, addiction, and cultural heritage, inspiring these young poets to reflect deeply on their own lives. Submitted to the Hispanic Heritage Month Poetry Writing Challenge as part of the Sigma Tau Delta partnership with the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), their work echoes Diaz’s evocative imagery and courageous storytelling, offering fresh perspectives on similar issues and forging a strong dialogue between her poetry and their own.
De México
She whittles each fleshy agave leaf
down to a layered city, fragile and papery,
a pointed needle, threaded. An embroiderer
weaves fibers into poncho photographs
that are as much of nature as of cityscape,
all sculpted saguaros and painted desert.
We drive through Juárez, Teotihuacán,
Chapultepec, cities whose names
trip on my tongue but whose graffiti
grows as a well-loved temple to which
I wish was a language I spoke.
Yet I devour chile rellenos, barbacoa,
and lengua, from a childhood fragrant of
coriander and cumin, charred jalapeños
and corn tortillas. I take to a home in
each taqueria and supermercado,
they warn of spices I already know
as if I have grown so foreign of this
place that I cannot eat from their plates.
We drive to Guadalupe, a town only
heard in scarce stories where the grave
of my uncle lies tended at the road,
where once a wedding was held, where
my father fried burgers, where he’d
watch the lights of Fabens flicker across
a boundless border before he ever
imagined starting a family in the States.
Today we saunter to a stone foundation,
remnants of a remembered life. A home
sandblasted and stolen.
Yet my father now owns the property,
making me the rightful heir to a palace
of prickly pear and jackrabbit, ocotillo
and kingbird. But god, I am not my father
in the ways I must be, not yet a painter
or a sculptor of landscape. Language
languishes on my tongue, threatening to
vanish, but I am as much a part of white pine
and moose, blueberries and granite bays.
She finishes whittling the agave into a
single smooth and threaded spine
which, passing around our audience,
falls into my hands as a souvenir.
Chantelle Natalie Flores
Rho Chi Chapter
University of Maine, ME
Chantelle Flores (she/her) studies English and Art History at the University of Maine, where she works as a Writing Center consultant. She has work published in Aisthesis, Barzakh, Livina Press, and The Basilisk Tree and has presented work at the 2024 Maine Council of English Language Arts Conference, Maine Plunkett Poetry Festival, and Telling Room’s Speak Up Summer Reading Series. In her free time, she enjoys drawing, cross-stitching, and spending time with friends and family, which includes her cat, Murray.
My Grandpa Said
To me, one starry, frigid night
That blood maketh, not the man
But my nine-year-old ears heard
That men don’t bleed.
Except I saw my daddy
Beat a man
His blood splattered across his white shirt
And dripped from his knuckles
He told the kids that Halloween
He was wearing a costume
I guess that man wasn’t a man.
Then, one Christmas, I saw my daddy
Beat a woman
Until she fell asleep
Her blood oozed out
And stained the carpet
He yelled at that woman,
This hurts me more than it hurts you!
I guess that woman wasn’t a man.
So, what is a man?
I asked the mirror
My reflection only gazed
With curious eyes at the bruises
On my lip
On my hip
I suppose I am not a man.
My grandpa said to me one early spring
That blood maketh, not the man
But my twelve-year-old ears heard
That men are created with blood
That summer, I bleed—my first period
This must be what Grandpa meant
I waited for the change to happen
I waited 7 days
But in the end, I stayed the same
I was no man.
One balmy autumn
My grandpa sat me down
His mouth began to slide into place
To say that “Blood maketh, not the man.”
But I held my fifteen-year-old hand up
I firmly told him:
From blood, men might be made
But if blood is spilled from man
Then he is no man
And when my blood ran for 7 days
I was not turned
I remained the same
What know you of men?
My grandpa chuckled as he rose.
He stopped by the window and said:
Aye, from blood, men and women are made
But blood that causes you pain
That makes you break
And hangs you by your sins
And halts your steps
That man or woman is no hu-man
Man and woman are genders
They are roles we play
Forged by the choices we make
So, to be a man
It is much more than blood
In his reflection, I saw his smile lines
My thoughts played with the words he said
At his olden tresses, I rested my weary shadows until
He spoke of brown leaves one day falling off sapling trees
And shade he’d never grow to see
I whispered to myself
My grandpa is the man I want to be
He must have heard me
For he said
Nay, be better.
Karolyne Ochoa
Rho Omega Chapter
University of Houston, Clear Lake, TX
Karolyne Ochoa is an undergraduate student at the University of Houston Clear Lake, where she is also the Vice President of the Rho Omega Chapter of Sigma Tau Delta. Her poems, published in the Bayou Review, Accents, and First Flight magazines, delve into identity and cultural heritage themes. Drawing from her experiences growing up in a vibrant Hispanic community, Karolyne’s work intricately weaves cultural traditions with contemporary perspectives while addressing feminist themes and challenging gender roles. Through this fusion, she explores the nuanced intersections of tradition, modernity, and gender in her poetry.
La sanadora
She is still here, in the warmth
of a mug full of lemon and honey
singing over the water.
“Que se le quite la tos.”
Lovesweet are the sips
now soothing the throats
of her grandchildren.
Over the river, entre la lluvia,
mi madre cruzó con su miel
y limón, cantando y curando
el agua llena de sangre y salvación
y un amor compartido para los niños
que siguen.
Joe Lozano
Omega Epsilon Chapter
Texas State University, TX
Joe Lozano was born in Mesquite, TX, but has called Austin home since he was two years old. A first-generation US citizen, Joe is the son of hardworking, tenacious, and loving immigrant parents from Mexico whose commitment to family and the pursuit of a better life provided Joe with the support he needed to become the first person in his family to graduate from a university. While the pressure to succeed was immense, Joe used this to motivate himself to be an inspiration to his younger siblings and others from his community to seek out new opportunities both academically and beyond. Upon graduating from UT-Austin with a degree in English and Creative Writing, Joe welcomed an adorable baby girl, Anahi Sophia, and began teaching high school English for a few years. Joe left teaching in 2021 to explore and develop his writing at Texas State University’s MFA program in Poetry.
¿Quien es ella?
A mosaic of mutiny, deep, murky, yet crystal clear in the
Under
current, it pulls you in and down
neath the printed words
standing embosses itself upon you
Like a tattoo, but not that permanent, yet that familiar
¿Quien es ella?
no la conozco
pero la entiendo
porque una vez mis hermanos fueron guerreros, también.
Maybe the soil here is tainted, with her rebellious salt?
They didn’t know about her
Theirs was an apotheopesis with generational PTSD
Perhaps things can be
Re
pared, with compensation? Money can’t buy you love.
versed, with rehabilitation? It may take longer than twelve steps . . .
stored, to warrior status? Don’t live in the past they say.
Pero, en serio, ¿quien es ella?
No la conozco, pero la entiendo
No se porque, pero sentí que entendía sus palabras
Porque soy una hermana, una hija, una reina
. . . sin corona
Ten Cuidado, you don’t want to offend.
Appreciation got hijacked by appropriation
I birthed my right, I got receipts.
A favorite line, “He was home. He was gone”
Pues, sabes, la conozco
Ella es
una hermana, una hija, una reina
. . . sin corona
Ella también tiene recibos.
Leslie Rico
Alpha Epsilon Tau Chapter
Azusa Pacific University, CA
Leslie Rico’s favorite work is as a wife, mother, graduate student, and writer. During the week, she uses her skills and talents as the Office Administrator for the Hixon Writing Center, and the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Outreach at the California Institute of Technology where she has worked for over 30 years. Leslie earned a BA from the University of LaVerne in English with a minor in Creative Writing. She is currently pursuing her MA in English from Azusa Pacific University, where she is a member of Sigma Tau Delta.
More from Footnotes: November 12, 2024
Celebrate Wicked with a T-Shirt and Stickers
2025 Convention Update
Advertise Your English Programs
Little Free Library
Add Comment