Diana Marie Delgado
Photo by Ana Leiva Photography
Bio
Diana Marie Delgado received her MFA in Poetry from Columbia University and a BA in Poetry from University of California, Riverside. Her poetry chapbook, Late-Night Talks With Men I Think I Trust, selected by Cornelius Eady, won the Center for Book Arts 2015 Poetry Chapbook Competition. Her poetry has appeared in Ploughshares, Ninth Letter, The North American Review, Prairie Schooner, TriQuarterly, and Fourteen Hills. She has been awarded numerous awards, with the most recent from Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference and The Frost Place Conference on Poetry. A poet and playwright, her work is rooted in her experiences growing up Mexican-American in Southern California.
Author's Statement
Writing poetry is possibly the most precarious of challenges that one can choose in life. Thanks to an NEA grant I will be able to meet this challenge by taking much-needed time off to write a book that I have dreamt of writing my entire life.
"Little Swan"
Most nights I’m face-to-face with the stars. No
one is more afraid of this than me.
I find places to lie down and
signify, I’m practicing
a play where my brother is in prison and
I’m locked out of the house.
Talking is like falling down or
watching your uncle
pull himself onto his wheelchair, the
sun moving over
his arms like a blessing. At
least I have a mother
who can sew her name into
my hair.
I want to lie in her stomach again,
understand the drive to hurt
something young and
wild with stars.
Scene: my father and brother enter and
one of them says,
You should start this story with
the death of a child.
Words on my shoulder.
Words in my hair.