February 2016

FEATURED POET: Nathaly Rosas Martinez was born in Minnesota, in the U.S., though she grew up in Mexico where she lived in Veracruz for thirteen years. In 2014, at age fifteen, she moved back to the U.S. only with her mother. She speaks two languages, English and Spanish. In her country she saw all kinds of food because her family likes to cook things like tacos, salsas, sopes, chileatoles y picaditas and they also like to cook new things. She hopes to go back to her Mexico in 2016. She is proud of her culture because she thinks that in her culture there are many special traditions. She would like to share her experience of being Mexican with the world. Two of the most important goals in her life are to go to college in Veracruz where she grew up and to support her little brother to achieve his dreams. Nathaly believes that food is our identity, our force, and that our cultural food is our principal source. She believes that each bite of our food has memories of our nation and that food is an important piece of our traditions. Nathaly also believes that food is the blood and soul of our ancestors and that every culture should be proud of their food. And she believes that making food is an art and a way of expressing our memories.

Nathaly Rosas Martinez is part of the book Stories of Arrival: Refugee and Immigrant Youth Voices Poetry Project.    

Check both of our poets from the last two months out Here


MY FATHER'S HANDS

I remember my father’s hands

Putting a red apple every morning

In my hands,

Wishing me a good day at school

Gently wiping the apple for me,

Sometimes I thought his hands had the scent

Of the perfume of my mother

She hugged me every time

Before going to work.

Sometimes my father’s hands felt like the soft hands

Of my brother holding my hand

On my way home from school.

How many memories can save a simple apple?

Sometimes the world revolves

Around this small apple

and we don’t know it.

This apple sometimes cries with me

When I remember all the things

That makes me smile

like the tiny arms of my brother.

Remembering the people in my life

my father, my friends, my family

they are waiting to be alive again.

—Nathaly Rosas

WHERE FOOD IS AN ART

I am from a place where

The food is an art and every bite

Is a spicy piece of our culture

Where the smells call you to enjoy

And the flavors take you to your memories

I am from where the trees grew up everywhere

Guayabo, naranjo, alamos,manzano and palmera*

And the children take the special gift from them

Naranjas y limas, limas and limones **

Where the grocery stores have fresh items

Epazote, elotes, manzanas,melones y granada ***

And bring us an exquisite dinner

Kneading and rolling, combination of flavors

Flavors that our indigenous ancestor gave us

Combination of oils and onions always mixed

Picante y salado **** gather and dance together

Our food is not only food

It’s a way to communicate our feelings

It’s a way to talk with our family

It’s our history, our identity

But now everything is not the same

The tortillas smell different, the salsa is not spicy

Our special gifts are mixed with chemicals

Our food enclosed in a plastic prison

Gradually, we will lose the essence even in our countries

The hands of our grandparents and our people were killed

The food of my family was thrown into garbage

The cookbook of my grandmother was burned

There is still hope

The gentle hands of my mother

Every day serving food

Our kitchen table will be in another country

And the people who ate with us

Are no longer here

But we will return to gather

In the morning lights

And the darkness nights

At the strong sound of the rain

My aunties give this wisdom to my cousins

My parents give it to my brother and me

to conserve our specials secrets.

* Fruit trees

**A pun in Mexico

***Epazote, corn,apples, melon and pomegranate

—Nathaly Rosas

WRITE YOUR POEM

Our food is not only food

It’s a way to communicate our feelings

It’s a way to talk with our family

It’s our history, our identity

Nathaly teaches us that to create in any "genre" whether it be cooking, writing poems or sewing a quilt that we use it to communicate.  Any of these shared art forms are a special code within themselves as much as the heroic couplet or the iambic pentameter.

Use Nathaly's lesson to us here to practice your poem.  "Our commute is not only a commute..."

Write your poem in a rain puddle.  Write your poem on the wind. Share it with someone today.