1
00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:02,640
Speaker 1: As an artist, whatever kind of artist you are, you

2
00:00:02,640 --> 00:00:05,360
Speaker 1: feel like you must get all of this out all

3
00:00:05,400 --> 00:00:08,400
Speaker 1: the time, right, what's your next project, what's the next thing,

4
00:00:08,440 --> 00:00:12,000
Speaker 1: what's your next publication? And I think as I've aged,

5
00:00:12,039 --> 00:00:15,880
Speaker 1: I have felt that it's really essential for me to

6
00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:18,919
Speaker 1: not focus on production all the time, but to focus

7
00:00:18,960 --> 00:00:22,880
Speaker 1: on listening and being and sort of sitting with the world,

8
00:00:23,560 --> 00:00:25,759
Speaker 1: because you know, how do we listen deeply to the

9
00:00:25,800 --> 00:00:27,800
Speaker 1: world if we're always talking to it?

10
00:00:31,920 --> 00:00:36,200
Speaker 2: From Fudro Media, It's Latino Usa. I'm Maria Nojosa Today.

11
00:00:36,320 --> 00:00:40,479
Speaker 2: Poet Aida Lemon and the making of her debut poetry collection,

12
00:00:40,960 --> 00:00:48,000
Speaker 2: Lucky Wreck. Without realizing it, Aida Lemon spent her whole

13
00:00:48,040 --> 00:00:53,559
Speaker 2: life training to become a poet. She'd be exposed to

14
00:00:53,640 --> 00:00:56,600
Speaker 2: literature at an early age by her parents, who work

15
00:00:56,720 --> 00:01:00,639
Speaker 2: in speech therapy and the arts. Her high school job, bookstore,

16
00:01:00,640 --> 00:01:04,040
Speaker 2: became a crash course on famous poets of the world.

17
00:01:04,920 --> 00:01:08,720
Speaker 2: While studying theater at the University of Washington, Ada began

18
00:01:08,840 --> 00:01:12,720
Speaker 2: to take poetry seriously as her true passion. She'd go

19
00:01:12,800 --> 00:01:15,440
Speaker 2: on to earn an MFA in creative writing at New

20
00:01:15,520 --> 00:01:21,800
Speaker 2: York University. Aida now has five poetry titles under her belt.

21
00:01:22,160 --> 00:01:26,319
Speaker 2: Her poetry collection Bright Dead Things was named a finalist

22
00:01:26,480 --> 00:01:29,959
Speaker 2: for the National Book Award, and her most recent book,

23
00:01:30,080 --> 00:01:34,160
Speaker 2: The Carrying won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry.

24
00:01:35,160 --> 00:01:39,360
Speaker 2: She currently teaches poetry at the Queen's University of Charlotte

25
00:01:39,520 --> 00:01:44,479
Speaker 2: in the Creative Writing MFA program. This spring, her first

26
00:01:44,520 --> 00:01:48,600
Speaker 2: collection of poetry, Lucky Wreck, was re released in honor

27
00:01:48,600 --> 00:01:50,360
Speaker 2: of its fifteenth anniversary.

28
00:01:50,880 --> 00:01:53,640
Speaker 1: This is a pretty big deal. Not that many books

29
00:01:53,720 --> 00:01:56,960
Speaker 1: get to go into a.

30
00:01:55,960 --> 00:01:59,680
Speaker 2: Fifteenth at the stage, it's pretty fad Ida's study.

31
00:01:59,760 --> 00:02:02,360
Speaker 1: With anniversary edition.

32
00:02:06,480 --> 00:02:10,799
Speaker 2: The poetry collection explores themes of loss, heartache, and the

33
00:02:10,919 --> 00:02:14,079
Speaker 2: chaotic blessing of life.

34
00:02:14,760 --> 00:02:17,359
Speaker 1: I actually heard a radio interview with a poet who

35
00:02:17,360 --> 00:02:20,240
Speaker 1: had said like he wished he could burn his earlier work,

36
00:02:20,320 --> 00:02:22,960
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh God, am I going to

37
00:02:23,040 --> 00:02:24,280
Speaker 1: have that experience? You know.

38
00:02:25,880 --> 00:02:29,280
Speaker 2: On this episode of our How I Made It series,

39
00:02:29,600 --> 00:02:32,960
Speaker 2: we follow Ada from her upbringing to the release of

40
00:02:33,080 --> 00:02:37,200
Speaker 2: Lucky Wreck, and here are her reflections on her first

41
00:02:37,240 --> 00:02:39,840
Speaker 2: poetry collection fifteen years later.

42
00:02:45,040 --> 00:02:49,200
Speaker 1: Hi, my name is Italy Mone and I am a poet.

43
00:02:50,200 --> 00:02:53,320
Speaker 1: I was born on a green couch on Carragar Road

44
00:02:53,760 --> 00:02:58,280
Speaker 1: at home in Sonoma, California, and then was raised in

45
00:02:58,400 --> 00:03:02,000
Speaker 1: Glen Ellen and Sonoma. I loved growing up in California.

46
00:03:02,120 --> 00:03:04,000
Speaker 1: I still think of it very much as my home.

47
00:03:04,639 --> 00:03:08,160
Speaker 1: I think that one of the things that was really

48
00:03:08,320 --> 00:03:12,960
Speaker 1: important about my upbringing was my connection with the natural world.

49
00:03:13,680 --> 00:03:15,480
Speaker 1: And I think you can see that a lot in

50
00:03:15,560 --> 00:03:20,200
Speaker 1: my own poems, in the idea that the land and

51
00:03:20,360 --> 00:03:24,400
Speaker 1: the trees and the birds, and the creek across the street,

52
00:03:24,520 --> 00:03:27,960
Speaker 1: the Calabasas Creek, all of that was as important to

53
00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:31,079
Speaker 1: me as some of my human ancestors. They became such

54
00:03:31,120 --> 00:03:33,960
Speaker 1: a part of my world and my making as an artist.

55
00:03:36,320 --> 00:03:40,280
Speaker 1: My family influenced me a great deal as a poet.

56
00:03:40,640 --> 00:03:44,800
Speaker 1: My mother is a painter and my stepfather as a writer,

57
00:03:45,000 --> 00:03:47,600
Speaker 1: and both of them gave me a lot of permission

58
00:03:48,160 --> 00:03:52,760
Speaker 1: to follow my dream, and no one dismissed my wanting

59
00:03:52,960 --> 00:03:56,960
Speaker 1: to write poems. And then my step mother and my

60
00:03:57,200 --> 00:04:02,920
Speaker 1: father were also very supportive. And my father was an

61
00:04:03,040 --> 00:04:07,320
Speaker 1: educator and my stepmother at the time was a speech pathologist,

62
00:04:07,960 --> 00:04:13,000
Speaker 1: so language was key in that household. I remember writing

63
00:04:13,160 --> 00:04:19,880
Speaker 1: songs and reciting poems that I wrote for my labrador Dusty,

64
00:04:20,320 --> 00:04:25,000
Speaker 1: and running through the little alleyways and reading poems to

65
00:04:25,080 --> 00:04:32,000
Speaker 1: my dog at quite a young age. I remember one

66
00:04:32,080 --> 00:04:36,039
Speaker 1: of the first poems that I adored was one art

67
00:04:36,120 --> 00:04:38,719
Speaker 1: by Elizabeth Bishop. I read it when I was fifteen,

68
00:04:39,560 --> 00:04:42,159
Speaker 1: and I remember I was sort of heartbroken at the

69
00:04:42,200 --> 00:04:46,320
Speaker 1: time because I was fifteen and she writes about loss

70
00:04:46,480 --> 00:04:50,240
Speaker 1: so beautifully, and no one ever really talks about that

71
00:04:50,320 --> 00:04:54,320
Speaker 1: poem being a love poem, but I remember at fifteen

72
00:04:54,480 --> 00:04:58,360
Speaker 1: I was desperately in love with that poem and thought,

73
00:04:58,400 --> 00:05:04,880
Speaker 1: this is this amazing love poem. And then after that,

74
00:05:05,240 --> 00:05:08,360
Speaker 1: I worked at a bookstore, Reader's Books and Sonoma, and

75
00:05:08,560 --> 00:05:12,159
Speaker 1: my favorite task when it was slow was to dust

76
00:05:12,240 --> 00:05:18,360
Speaker 1: and reorganize and re alphabetize the poetry section. I kind

77
00:05:18,400 --> 00:05:21,880
Speaker 1: of treated it like my own personal library. And from there,

78
00:05:22,000 --> 00:05:24,880
Speaker 1: you know, I was reading Audrey Lord and Lucy Clifton,

79
00:05:25,360 --> 00:05:31,360
Speaker 1: Jimmy Santiago Bacca, Lorna di Savantes, Robert Haass, Philip Levine,

80
00:05:31,480 --> 00:05:35,440
Speaker 1: Joy Harjoe, and those were some of those first voices

81
00:05:35,480 --> 00:05:40,080
Speaker 1: that I thought, Oh, poetry can be so many things.

82
00:05:41,120 --> 00:05:44,599
Speaker 1: And I don't think I knew that, you know, I

83
00:05:44,640 --> 00:05:46,479
Speaker 1: sort of thought, oh, it can be this one thing.

84
00:05:47,680 --> 00:05:49,880
Speaker 1: And then you know, you open these collections and you

85
00:05:51,040 --> 00:05:55,800
Speaker 1: read Anne Carson, or you read you know Neruda, and

86
00:05:55,800 --> 00:05:58,320
Speaker 1: suddenly you feel like, wait, oh, it can do all

87
00:05:58,360 --> 00:06:03,000
Speaker 1: of these other things. And I remember thinking that if

88
00:06:03,040 --> 00:06:08,400
Speaker 1: I signed up for a life of poetry, I would

89
00:06:08,480 --> 00:06:13,920
Speaker 1: sign up for something that was not limited. I don't

90
00:06:13,960 --> 00:06:18,560
Speaker 1: think I really started taking it seriously until college as

91
00:06:18,640 --> 00:06:23,080
Speaker 1: an undergraduate, when I was studying to be an actor,

92
00:06:23,360 --> 00:06:26,840
Speaker 1: and I had taken all the electives in acting, and

93
00:06:27,720 --> 00:06:29,560
Speaker 1: they had said, you need to go outside of this

94
00:06:29,640 --> 00:06:33,520
Speaker 1: program and take some electives in another field. And so

95
00:06:33,640 --> 00:06:37,000
Speaker 1: I remember loving poetry and with that first class, I

96
00:06:37,000 --> 00:06:43,039
Speaker 1: remember going, oh, right, this is a sort of freedom

97
00:06:43,560 --> 00:06:47,599
Speaker 1: in finding your own voice. And suddenly the idea of

98
00:06:47,760 --> 00:06:51,320
Speaker 1: voice meant something entirely different to me than what it

99
00:06:51,360 --> 00:06:55,560
Speaker 1: did in the theater world, and it quickly became my passion.

100
00:07:00,160 --> 00:07:04,960
Speaker 1: Any artist making something is a part of confronting it,

101
00:07:05,120 --> 00:07:07,680
Speaker 1: confronting whatever it is that's going on in your life,

102
00:07:08,320 --> 00:07:12,640
Speaker 1: whether it's heartbreak or something as massive as September eleventh,

103
00:07:12,800 --> 00:07:18,000
Speaker 1: or the pandemic, or racial reckoning, or you know, whatever

104
00:07:18,040 --> 00:07:22,280
Speaker 1: it is. I think that there's a place where poetry

105
00:07:22,400 --> 00:07:26,120
Speaker 1: can find a way to you when you need it.

106
00:07:26,200 --> 00:07:30,040
Speaker 1: We always think of ourselves as the maker and I

107
00:07:30,080 --> 00:07:33,200
Speaker 1: think sometimes we are also the receiver, and so a

108
00:07:33,240 --> 00:07:36,080
Speaker 1: poem comes to us, the images come to us, and

109
00:07:36,120 --> 00:07:38,680
Speaker 1: they can be healing. And I don't know if we

110
00:07:38,800 --> 00:07:43,360
Speaker 1: give ourselves or give poetry enough credit for being a

111
00:07:43,400 --> 00:07:52,000
Speaker 1: healing art. I'm always surprised by how my own work

112
00:07:52,080 --> 00:07:54,760
Speaker 1: can change me. We always think about the work of

113
00:07:54,800 --> 00:07:59,200
Speaker 1: others changing you, But I do think the act of writing,

114
00:08:00,120 --> 00:08:04,800
Speaker 1: the act of negotiating what's on the page and asking yourself,

115
00:08:05,160 --> 00:08:07,800
Speaker 1: what is arising for me, what is happening to me

116
00:08:07,920 --> 00:08:10,760
Speaker 1: right now? What is it that I find important? What

117
00:08:10,840 --> 00:08:13,400
Speaker 1: is it that I must say now? And why now?

118
00:08:14,240 --> 00:08:18,320
Speaker 1: I find that interrogation of the cell incredibly useful, not

119
00:08:18,680 --> 00:08:22,800
Speaker 1: just in the making of art, but in the living

120
00:08:23,000 --> 00:08:27,200
Speaker 1: of life. Lucky Wreck is aligned from one of the poems.

121
00:08:28,680 --> 00:08:32,800
Speaker 1: It is seven in the morning, another boat, another treasure.

122
00:08:33,840 --> 00:08:37,920
Speaker 1: Now I am watching TV upside down, and what would

123
00:08:38,000 --> 00:08:42,840
Speaker 1: I rather be? The diver or oh, lucky wreck to

124
00:08:42,920 --> 00:08:52,679
Speaker 1: have been found. I kept thinking that I wanted it

125
00:08:52,720 --> 00:08:59,280
Speaker 1: to be something that acknowledged the mess of us, the

126
00:08:59,400 --> 00:09:02,920
Speaker 1: mess of all of us, the chaos of us. But

127
00:09:02,960 --> 00:09:05,800
Speaker 1: then also that idea that how lucky we are to

128
00:09:05,840 --> 00:09:09,400
Speaker 1: be alive, How lucky we are to be living in

129
00:09:09,400 --> 00:09:17,800
Speaker 1: this chaotic and painful and almost unbearable world. The impulse

130
00:09:18,320 --> 00:09:21,720
Speaker 1: at the core of the book is about coming to

131
00:09:21,840 --> 00:09:24,880
Speaker 1: terms with the fact that my stepmother was given a

132
00:09:25,000 --> 00:09:28,360
Speaker 1: terminal diagnosis. A lot of the book is coming to

133
00:09:28,440 --> 00:09:31,960
Speaker 1: terms with not just her mortality and the idea of

134
00:09:32,000 --> 00:09:36,640
Speaker 1: losing her, but also the idea of mortality itself. And

135
00:09:36,720 --> 00:09:40,959
Speaker 1: like many people who lose their parents or lose someone

136
00:09:41,000 --> 00:09:43,800
Speaker 1: close to them or dear to them in their twenties,

137
00:09:44,320 --> 00:09:48,400
Speaker 1: it suddenly feels like, oh, right, here is our purpose.

138
00:10:00,520 --> 00:10:03,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just saw a plane go into the building.

139
00:10:03,640 --> 00:10:05,120
Speaker 2: This is as close as we can get to the

140
00:10:05,160 --> 00:10:07,760
Speaker 2: base of the World Trade Center by coming up from

141
00:10:07,800 --> 00:10:11,160
Speaker 2: all over. Then all the prints the huge hole right now.

142
00:10:16,000 --> 00:10:19,400
Speaker 1: Living in New York during September eleventh, there was no

143
00:10:19,559 --> 00:10:23,280
Speaker 1: other thing that was happening. It felt like it was

144
00:10:23,320 --> 00:10:29,120
Speaker 1: all happening around that event. Grief was so present in

145
00:10:29,160 --> 00:10:33,720
Speaker 1: all of us, and even those moments of loving the

146
00:10:33,760 --> 00:10:38,559
Speaker 1: city felt so much deeper. The attachment felt deeper, that

147
00:10:38,840 --> 00:10:41,920
Speaker 1: the attachment to your neighbors, checking on your neighbors, all

148
00:10:41,960 --> 00:10:46,320
Speaker 1: of that felt deeper. I think in tandem with that,

149
00:10:47,400 --> 00:10:54,800
Speaker 1: dealing with my stepmother's diagnosis her impending end was another

150
00:10:55,240 --> 00:11:03,040
Speaker 1: impetus for the poems. This book also deals with what

151
00:11:03,080 --> 00:11:08,400
Speaker 1: it is to be distinctly connected in the way a

152
00:11:08,440 --> 00:11:11,840
Speaker 1: giant city can make you connected, and then also be

153
00:11:11,920 --> 00:11:17,520
Speaker 1: distinctly alone and feel that loneliness, and when grieving, what

154
00:11:17,559 --> 00:11:20,760
Speaker 1: that loneliness kind of does to you. And I think

155
00:11:20,920 --> 00:11:24,760
Speaker 1: in that sort of sense, the book is about what

156
00:11:24,880 --> 00:11:30,040
Speaker 1: isolation can be like when you're in the middle of

157
00:11:30,080 --> 00:11:36,040
Speaker 1: all this abundance. So right after September eleventh, we frequented

158
00:11:36,000 --> 00:11:41,720
Speaker 1: a bar in New York called the Turkey's Nest, and

159
00:11:41,800 --> 00:11:46,120
Speaker 1: at one point we were all there. When I say

160
00:11:46,120 --> 00:11:49,640
Speaker 1: we were all there, it was my friends and near

161
00:11:49,679 --> 00:11:53,000
Speaker 1: the bar window there were off duty firemen that had

162
00:11:53,080 --> 00:11:56,720
Speaker 1: just come off duty, and they were drinking and dancing,

163
00:11:57,800 --> 00:12:01,520
Speaker 1: and it was probably just a month after September eleventh,

164
00:12:02,200 --> 00:12:06,080
Speaker 1: and it felt like they needed this sort of release

165
00:12:06,920 --> 00:12:11,920
Speaker 1: and to witness them in their suffering, finding some sort

166
00:12:11,960 --> 00:12:14,400
Speaker 1: of connection with each other what they had gone through,

167
00:12:15,200 --> 00:12:17,840
Speaker 1: and then us sort of feeling a part of that,

168
00:12:18,000 --> 00:12:20,240
Speaker 1: even though of course we weren't dancing with them. It

169
00:12:20,320 --> 00:12:25,680
Speaker 1: was just this moment of recognizing that they were joined

170
00:12:25,880 --> 00:12:31,080
Speaker 1: in this way. That only great overwhelming grief can join

171
00:12:31,160 --> 00:12:33,760
Speaker 1: you can bond you. And the poem the firemen are

172
00:12:33,840 --> 00:12:44,720
Speaker 1: dancing came out of it. Everyone is talking about parties.

173
00:12:45,120 --> 00:12:47,920
Speaker 1: The vice cop keeps looking at the guy we call Red,

174
00:12:47,920 --> 00:12:50,640
Speaker 1: and that's fine by me because I don't like him,

175
00:12:51,000 --> 00:12:57,480
Speaker 1: never have. Oh, and the firemen are dancing. My favorite

176
00:12:57,520 --> 00:13:02,640
Speaker 1: part is how they are dancing so close. One is

177
00:13:02,679 --> 00:13:05,920
Speaker 1: pulling the other to his hip, and one with a

178
00:13:06,040 --> 00:13:08,920
Speaker 1: hat is laughing and tossing his head back as if

179
00:13:08,920 --> 00:13:14,640
Speaker 1: they were seventeen, or even as if they were alone.

180
00:13:14,880 --> 00:13:17,760
Speaker 1: In the poem a little distantly as one should, which

181
00:13:17,840 --> 00:13:22,240
Speaker 1: is about my friend Jake Atkinson, who passed away when

182
00:13:22,800 --> 00:13:27,200
Speaker 1: this book was being written. And I grew up with him,

183
00:13:28,240 --> 00:13:31,360
Speaker 1: and it was one of those deaths that felt so sudden,

184
00:13:32,480 --> 00:13:36,800
Speaker 1: and he was such a kind hearted person that always

185
00:13:36,880 --> 00:13:41,480
Speaker 1: felt like he had your back, you know, And it

186
00:13:41,520 --> 00:13:43,840
Speaker 1: was one of those first moments. And I know many

187
00:13:43,920 --> 00:13:46,439
Speaker 1: people go through this, but for me, it was one

188
00:13:46,440 --> 00:13:50,400
Speaker 1: of the first of losing someone who you had such

189
00:13:50,520 --> 00:13:55,560
Speaker 1: a fondness for, and yet it wasn't your death degree

190
00:13:55,840 --> 00:13:59,679
Speaker 1: really because he wasn't my best friend. He was at

191
00:13:59,679 --> 00:14:04,800
Speaker 1: my brain. I keep wanting to write about accidents and

192
00:14:04,840 --> 00:14:09,800
Speaker 1: how I hate them, and it's so obvious everyone hates accidents.

193
00:14:10,559 --> 00:14:13,600
Speaker 1: So instead, I've been watching my neighbors set up their

194
00:14:13,640 --> 00:14:17,720
Speaker 1: picnic table and tent. You call it a cabana. The

195
00:14:17,800 --> 00:14:21,400
Speaker 1: man is wearing a bandana and a leather vest. And

196
00:14:21,440 --> 00:14:24,520
Speaker 1: so I was thinking about what it was to grieve

197
00:14:24,560 --> 00:14:28,600
Speaker 1: at a distance, a little bit right to love, but

198
00:14:28,720 --> 00:14:33,160
Speaker 1: also recognize what it is to not be the owner

199
00:14:33,400 --> 00:14:37,480
Speaker 1: of that entire grief. Jake and I listen to a

200
00:14:37,560 --> 00:14:41,160
Speaker 1: Neil Young album in my old apartment over and over

201
00:14:41,360 --> 00:14:46,120
Speaker 1: again for hours. Every time I tell someone that he's died,

202
00:14:46,880 --> 00:14:50,840
Speaker 1: that same image pops into my head. He's sitting on

203
00:14:50,880 --> 00:14:54,360
Speaker 1: the windowsill with a light behind him so you can't

204
00:14:54,360 --> 00:14:58,600
Speaker 1: see his face. I'm very aware that he's younger than me.

205
00:15:05,000 --> 00:15:09,840
Speaker 1: Lucky Wreck has poems throughout it that have the title

206
00:15:09,880 --> 00:15:15,000
Speaker 1: little like Little Obsession, And these poems sort of serve,

207
00:15:15,320 --> 00:15:17,560
Speaker 1: I think, at least for me when I was making it,

208
00:15:18,200 --> 00:15:26,200
Speaker 1: as these moments of bringing in the now to the work.

209
00:15:26,960 --> 00:15:33,400
Speaker 1: I am not obsessing. I'm just sitting here perforating this

210
00:15:33,560 --> 00:15:44,640
Speaker 1: post it with a pushbin. Oftentimes, in poetry, we're going

211
00:15:44,680 --> 00:15:48,680
Speaker 1: backwards in time, we're talking about something that happened. Even

212
00:15:48,680 --> 00:15:52,080
Speaker 1: if it's yesterday, it's usually in the past. So the

213
00:15:52,160 --> 00:15:55,680
Speaker 1: little poems and especially little obsession comes out of what

214
00:15:55,800 --> 00:16:00,560
Speaker 1: it is to realign myself with this very very press moment,

215
00:16:00,600 --> 00:16:03,040
Speaker 1: what is right in front of me. And in this case,

216
00:16:03,600 --> 00:16:06,400
Speaker 1: it was a post it note, And what I was

217
00:16:06,440 --> 00:16:08,720
Speaker 1: doing with the post it note was literally taking a

218
00:16:08,760 --> 00:16:13,280
Speaker 1: pushpin and perforating the post it note, And I kept thinking,

219
00:16:13,760 --> 00:16:20,520
Speaker 1: what is it that I'm dealing with? Like many artists,

220
00:16:20,800 --> 00:16:23,360
Speaker 1: the work that I get most attached to is the

221
00:16:23,400 --> 00:16:25,680
Speaker 1: work that I'm working on right now in the moment.

222
00:16:26,400 --> 00:16:30,160
Speaker 1: So the idea of looking back at a book that

223
00:16:30,320 --> 00:16:34,280
Speaker 1: was released fifteen years ago was a little terrifying for me.

224
00:16:35,320 --> 00:16:37,840
Speaker 1: Even though I knew I loved the poems, I just

225
00:16:37,960 --> 00:16:41,320
Speaker 1: kept thinking, well, maybe I loved them then, you know,

226
00:16:41,560 --> 00:16:44,320
Speaker 1: but that was a long time ago. And one of

227
00:16:44,360 --> 00:16:48,040
Speaker 1: the things that struck me, I think, in rereading it

228
00:16:48,080 --> 00:16:50,840
Speaker 1: was just how much of me was still there, how

229
00:16:50,920 --> 00:16:55,920
Speaker 1: much of my voice was still present and almost unchanged

230
00:16:56,680 --> 00:17:00,240
Speaker 1: into the later books. And then I kept thinking, oh,

231
00:17:00,600 --> 00:17:03,280
Speaker 1: you know, the person who wrote this did a good

232
00:17:03,400 --> 00:17:06,919
Speaker 1: job with the tools she had. Instead of sort of

233
00:17:06,960 --> 00:17:09,600
Speaker 1: being hard on myself, or going in there and thinking, oh,

234
00:17:09,600 --> 00:17:11,480
Speaker 1: I would change that line break now, or I would

235
00:17:11,560 --> 00:17:15,359
Speaker 1: change that word or whatever I decided to praise it.

236
00:17:24,080 --> 00:17:28,879
Speaker 1: If someone were to pick up Lucky Reck now, I

237
00:17:28,920 --> 00:17:33,159
Speaker 1: would hope that they took a sense of resilience from it,

238
00:17:35,920 --> 00:17:41,160
Speaker 1: a sense of hopefulness, a sense of witnessing the true

239
00:17:41,200 --> 00:17:46,280
Speaker 1: mess of the world, and also a celebration of the

240
00:17:46,320 --> 00:17:47,879
Speaker 1: weirdness that makes us human.

241
00:17:55,960 --> 00:17:59,720
Speaker 2: That was poet Ada Lemont. The fifteenth anniversary edition of

242
00:17:59,760 --> 00:18:24,639
Speaker 2: her Bo Lucky Wreck is out now. This episode was

243
00:18:24,640 --> 00:18:28,320
Speaker 2: produced by Oscarde Leon, who was edited by Alejandra Salasad

244
00:18:28,600 --> 00:18:32,399
Speaker 2: and mixed by Julia Caruso and Gabriela Baiez. The Latino

245
00:18:32,520 --> 00:18:37,120
Speaker 2: USA team includes Andrea Ropez, Grussado, Marta Martinez, Mike Sargent,

246
00:18:37,359 --> 00:18:42,760
Speaker 2: Julia Ta Martinelli, Victori Estrada, Patricia Sulvaran, Gini Montalbo, Renaldo

247
00:18:42,840 --> 00:18:46,240
Speaker 2: Leanos Junior, and Julia Rocha, with help from Raoul Perez.

248
00:18:46,520 --> 00:18:50,920
Speaker 2: Our editorial director is Julio Ricardo Varella. Our senior supervising

249
00:18:50,960 --> 00:18:54,920
Speaker 2: engineer is Stephanie Lebau, additional engineering by Lea Shaw Damran.

250
00:18:55,200 --> 00:18:58,960
Speaker 2: Our digital editor is Luis Luna. Our New York Women's Foundation.

251
00:18:59,080 --> 00:19:02,960
Speaker 2: Ignite fellow is Maria Eskinka. Our theme music was composed

252
00:19:02,960 --> 00:19:05,400
Speaker 2: by Zane Robinos. If you like the music you heard

253
00:19:05,400 --> 00:19:08,400
Speaker 2: on this episode, stop i Letindousa dot org and check

254
00:19:08,440 --> 00:19:12,240
Speaker 2: out our weekly Spotify playlist. I'm your host and executive producer,

255
00:19:12,280 --> 00:19:15,439
Speaker 2: Mariano Rosa. Join us again on our next episode, and

256
00:19:15,480 --> 00:19:18,000
Speaker 2: in the meantime, look for us on all of your

257
00:19:18,000 --> 00:19:19,600
Speaker 2: social media Chao.

258
00:19:21,040 --> 00:19:26,400
Speaker 3: Latino USA is made possible in part by wk Kellogg Foundation,

259
00:19:26,880 --> 00:19:31,560
Speaker 3: a partner with Communities where Children Come First, New York

260
00:19:31,640 --> 00:19:36,240
Speaker 3: Women's Foundation, the New York Women's Foundation, funding women leaders

261
00:19:36,280 --> 00:19:40,359
Speaker 3: that build solutions in their communities, and celebrating thirty years

262
00:19:40,400 --> 00:19:45,200
Speaker 3: of radical generosity and the chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

263
00:19:48,800 --> 00:19:50,640
Speaker 1: I'm going to pause for a second because now my

264
00:19:50,880 --> 00:19:59,439
Speaker 1: dog is actually drinking water, I mean animals.

265
00:20:00,600 --> 00:20:03,960
Speaker 2: I'm Maria, you know Josa. Next time on Latino USA,

266
00:20:04,320 --> 00:20:08,480
Speaker 2: The hidden world of diplomatic domestic workers. How their special

267
00:20:08,560 --> 00:20:12,159
Speaker 2: visas exposed them to abuse and exploitation in the US.

268
00:20:12,359 --> 00:20:16,840
Speaker 1: These domestic workers could not hold the diplomats accountable in court.

269
00:20:16,880 --> 00:20:19,240
Speaker 3: They couldn't bring them to justice in any way.

270
00:20:19,720 --> 00:20:27,920
Speaker 2: That's next time on Latino USA,