Interview of Mario Duarte by Xánath Caraza

Interview of Mario Duarte by Xánath Caraza

 

Who is Mario Duarte? 

 

I am a Mexican American poet and fiction writer born and raised in Western Illinois.  My family has lived in the Midwest for over a hundred years and my family and Mexican culture is an important part of the foundation of who I am and informs my interests, topics, and my outlook.

 

As a child, who first introduced you to reading? 

 

My mother guided me through my first readings. She would read to me before bed, and often recited poems from memory that she learned in grade school. My mother told me that even as a very young child I showed a great interest in books, and I remember reading Little Golden Books.

 

How did you first become a poet? 

 

In my first year of college at the University of Iowa, I enrolled in Interpretation of Literature, which sparked my interest in English and writing and I even wrote some sonnets. Soon, I became an English major, and after a couple years started taking creative writing classes. At first, I mostly wrote short stories, but after my first poetry writing class, I was hooked and have never stopped writing poetry. I am a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop where I studied and wrote poetry. About a dozen years ago, I started writing short stories again.

 

Iowa Writes Workshop

What else would you like to share with La Bloga readers?

 

I divide my time writing between short stories and poetry. In January 2024, my micro poetry collection To the Death of the Author will be published by La Resistencia Press, and in April 2024, my short story collection Monkeys will be published by the Ice Cube Press.

 

The following poems were inspired by time spent in Anton Chico, New Mexico, summer 2023, when wildfires were raging nearby.

 

I Am Not My Father’s Dream

 

counting smoke plumes

on the mesa horizon

while yucca spire buds

 remain un-blossomed.

 

Between rocks guarding

the front door, a sunflower

stalk bends. I welt too.

Yellow flames wake the air.

                                                  

Am I the elk rushing

out of the forest,

on fire, moaning into

hot wind while flames lick

 

my ankles, my torso?

Today is iron red,

a fiery dust

devil swirling us.

                                        

A hummingbird flits,

beats by my head, pauses.

I bite my tongue,

salt tides in my mouth.

                                                  

I raise a hand, high,

but its zeros off, why? —

yellow smoke hammers

every last mesa away.

                    

 

Ricardo from his Adobe Says

 

See the rusty horseshoe

embedded in the threshold—fading.

 

Listen to the screeching

of the turkey out back.

 

 Place your eye to the pane,

soon nothing but darkness.

 

A tear does not retrace

a trail back into the eye.

                                                  

On three sides of the sky,

plumes of wildfire fly.

                    

Sunlight ghosts a chemtrail

pointing straight down at us.

 

The sentence is mine, yours,

a string of dry chiles.

 

Slow down, like the pendulum

inside the mantle clock.

 

Conquistadors used crossbows,

long daggers, and spears—time

                                                  

is a rotting horse, a tale

of history, closing distance.

 

 

Mario Duarte is Mexican American writer of poetry and short stories. He grew up in Western Illinois, and his family has lived in the Midwest for over a hundred years. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the University of New Hampshire and is an academic advisor for the University of Iowa. His poems and short stories have appeared in American Poetry Review, 2River Review, Abstract Elephant, American Writers Review, Bilingual/Borderless, Digging Through the Fat, Lunch Ticket, Pank, Rigorous, Sky Island Journal, Plainsongs, Write Launch and Typishly. In January of 2024, his micro poetry collection To the Death of the Author will be published by La Resistencia Press. In April of 2024, his short story collection Monkeys will be published by the Ice Cube Press.