Just the ‘write’ words, a Q&A with Luivette Resto

By Cheyenne Scharff
Issue date: 5/6/09

Do you remember the first poem you wrote? What was it about?

“Yeah, the first poem I wrote was in the 7th grade. It was called “Push.” It won a little class contest. I remember it being an emotional kind of poem about me being pushed or feeling pushed by people, not on a physical level but on a metaphorical level. I wrote that when I was 12, I think.”

Have the things you write about changed, as you’ve gotten older?

“Absolutely. I read the collection every so often and some of the poems that are in there are seven years old. I’m writing new poems now and I sound different. I see things differently the older I get, so therefore I describe things differently. I compare my voice to what it was earlier on and sometimes I wonder, “How did I even get chosen to go to school?”


Do you resent being a poster girl for feminism, or minority issues?


“I don’t resent it. The problem stems from feeling like the representation of all those things whether it is in a classroom or in a social environment. I feel that way when I’m the only woman in an all-male room. When Hillary Clinton was running for president, someone would ask, “Well, what do you think about that, Luivette?” And I [would wonder], “Why do you think that I have an opinion? Is it because I’m a woman?” A lot of assumptions are made just because you are female, because you’re Puerto Rican, because you speak different languages. I feel the load on my shoulders. You want to be a good representation, but [you] don’t have all the answers. It gets very overwhelming.

Do you consider yourself a feminist or an advocate for minority rights?

“I have been an activist. I was very active in college. I do consider myself a feminist. I tend to become involved or active in not just the minority rights, but also any injustice that is going on. I get involved with my community as much as I can because to me the definition of community is very fluid. To me, my community is the four walls of my home; my community is here [at Citrus College]; my community is L.A.; my community is in my classroom.

What would you consider your greatest muse or inspiration for your writing?

I try to channel my anger or my frustration; instead of lashing out I just take it to the page. Some of the poems came from people that I enjoy, like poets, and getting inspired by them.

How does your family feel about the success of your book?

My family has never read any poems. That’s a side of me that unfortunately they have never seen. I know my mother and grandmother have a copy of the book, [but] my dad is the only person that I’ve talked to about it. He read the book and he called me a couple a months ago from the East Coast. He said, “Are you going to ever ask me about your book?” I said, “No, I don’t want to know what you think.” I don’t want to get into what’s fiction and what’s fact. He said that he never knew that I had such a command of the language. He did admit that some of the poems made him uncomfortable. Some of them made him feel a little bit squeamish because he’s my dad.

What does your poetry do for you?

For me it’s a form of therapy. I need to write. There is a necessity in my life for it. I have a hunger and I have to satiate that hunger. I always write to music. I cannot write with silence. It so bothers me.

My favorite poem is “Faded Lipstick.” Can you tell me what is behind this poem?

That one was considered my abstract poem, [it] stems from my thought process. I have a very odd thought process and my poems are the place for the oddities that I think about. I love that poem too; it became one of my favorites.





http://media.www.theclariononline.com/media/storage/paper353/news/2009/05/06/Life/Just-The.write.Words.A.Qa.With.Luivette.Resto-3737648.shtml

LatinoStories.com
The Credible Source for Latino Literature

Book Review By Jose B. Gonzalez


Book Review: Unfinished Portrait
Author: Luivette Resto

In Unfinished Portrait, newcomer Luivette Resto has put together a poetry collection that recounts the types of experiences that too many Latinos in the U.S. have encountered. And that is the beauty of this book–its themes, though at times tragic, at times somewhat comical, resonate with any Latino who has ever stepped foot inside a predominantly Anglo classroom, who has ever faced cultural conflict with parents, and who has ever felt what it’s like to grow up Brown within a monolingual society that has preset expectations.


This poet has talent and Unfinished Portrait is an ideal example of the purpose of effective poetry. An example of this is “Translator,” in which Resto describes being at the dreaded Registry of Motor Vehicles in Hadley Massachusetts, reading Judith Ortiz Cofer’s Latin Deli, when three men walk in, in need of a translator. She confesses:


I didn’t want to help.
I didn’t want to translate.
I didn’t want.


She wishes that someone would help them, despite the fact that she identifies them. In fact, she goes so far as to compare them to her grandfather. But like an experienced, crafty writer, Resto tells us just enough and then omits enough details in such a creative way that the poem is strengthened. Her last stanza reads:


I didn’t want to help.
I didn’t want to translate.
I didn’t want.
As I watched the brothers
ask a stranger “Habla espanol?”


The reader can’t help but wonder whether the story ends in a reconciliation of sorts–i.e. she steps up and pays homage to her working-class relatives who had similar language issues–or whether she leaves the men, and the guilt of abandoning them in a time of need becomes a heavy weight that she has to carry. Within the poem is that implicit message that even the smallest of decisions in a seemingly simple world can be quite complex for a bilingual, bicultural Latina.


These complexities are further examined in various other poems. “Response to the Young White Man Who Asked Me If I was Scared of Being Marginalized as a Poet” revisits the concept of marginalization, while “Just Too Much,” looks at the question of what it means to be considered, “too Latina.”


Within these poems, Resto both tells stories and leaves us thinking. This collection has much to offer, and Tia Chucha Press should be proud of itself for giving a stage to this talented poet.


http://www.latinostories.com/Brown_Latino_Literature_Project/Brown_Literature_Project_Book_Reviews/Review_Unfinished_Portrait_Resto.htm

The “white girl” in Luivette Resto

Friday, December 12, 2008
Cindyrodriguez

Luivette Resto is a poet whose collection, “Unfinished Poetry” (Tia Chucha Press, 2008), swirls with playful insights about what its like to be bi-cultural in a nation that lately has been frothing with xenophobia. (You can blame Lou Dobbs, in part, for that.)

It’s beautiful writing. Here’s one of her poems, followed by a Q&A with this amazing Boricua poet.


The White Girl in Her
Because the accent does not match the skin,
all her friends think she was hatched
or fell on her head when she came off the plane.


Others say it is the white girl in her.
She is supposed to have trouble
with common American phrases,
pronounce “this” like “deece”


translate Spanish to English with ease
for the new mainlanders,
work with the underprivileged,
hate the white oppressor,
own records by Ricky Martin.


Instead the white girl
makes her listen to Tony Bennett,
dancing to whatever the radio plays.
The white girl got her into Cornell
and helped her in boarding school,
gave her knowledge of Europe,
stole her accent and
replaced it with one from the Valley.


It is the white girl that makes her that way,
the city whispers.
The girl with the curly hair and
dark circles around her eyes
stares at her friends and family
gathering around her with the Santero,
the Puerto Rican flag, César Chávez’s picture,
homemade rice and beans, and booming congas
as they await for the Latin exorcism to begin.

Q.: As a Latina who writes about issues of identity I’m sure you are often asked how you define yourself. Is this something you can easily answer or do you find that the answer continues to evolve as you do?

A: I definitely see myself like the poems I write: a work in progress. As I get older, my definition has gotten broader. For example, when I became a mother, my perspective on life completely changed. When I was editing my book, I made sure to dedicate it to my children. It is important for me to show them that art exists and thrives.

Q.: What is it like for an East Coast Latina of Puerto Rican descent writing about Latino culture in predominantly Mexican/Chicano Los Angeles?

A.: Moving to California has expanded my definition and understanding of being Latina. Living out here has made me take note of the similarities between my culture and my husband’s culture. My observations and experiences are channeled into my poetry.

Q.: For whom do you write?

A.: I must admit that sometimes I write for me. Many can agree that writing poetry is therapeutic, a way to release emotions that cannot be said aloud. The majority of the time I write because certain stories have yet to be documented.

Q.: You express a lot wide range of issues in your work. Why have you chosen poetry as a vehicle for those thoughts?

A.: I enjoy the challenge of finding the right set of words to express a series of thoughts, emotions, or observations in a compacted space. For me, poetry can be the most beautiful way to express some of the most painful yet truthful side to life.


For more on Resto, check out her blog. http://www.luivetteresto.com


http://cindyrodriguez.wordpress.com/2008/12/12/the-white-girl-in-luivette-resto/

English professor publishes poetry book

By Cheyenne Scharff

Issue date: 5/6/09
At yesterday’s Cinco De Mayo celebration, Citrus College English professor, Luivette Resto, spoke to Citrus students and shared a few of her poems. Audience members heard selections from Resto’s “Unfinished Portrait,” which was recently named one of the best Latino books of 2008.


Resto’s poetry is written in the colored ink of culture and with the steady hand of experience. She tells of short interludes between lovers, with imagery that ranges from seductive sand fights on the beach to a passionate affair between two women.


She illustrates responsibilities and expectations that befall many women who identify as Hispanic Americans. In “Nightly Prayer to the Unborn Child” she asks an aborted child: “Do you forgive me–or hate me for living without you.” Resto also questions why some would deny bilingualism a place in poetry. She squeezes into this short 64-page book the story of a farmer, a streetwalker, and a son mourning the death of his mother. Resto creates an individual in her poems that, as her bilingual stanzas command, is a “quazabara”, or warrior.


Most of the collection is carried over from her master’s thesis said Resto. “I took some poems out of the manuscript and I wrote some new ones when I came to L.A.”


Those new poems, such as “City Limits,” “605 Strawberries,” “Adela’s Purse” and “Dichos y Refranos of the Sweet Complaint” are newer and fresher than the other ones, she said. One of them, “605 Strawberries”, was written when she was still new to the L.A. area. The poem is an interpretation of the strange way she felt sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the 605 freeway while watching farmers pick strawberries in the nearby fields.


“I was taken a back by that kind of picturesque scene, and I started jotting things down,” she said.


Resto, who grew up in the Bronx, has lived in the United States since the summer of 1982 when, at only 4 years old, she left Puerto Rico with her mother and grandmother to come to the U.S. She recalls her first day of kindergarten in the states being especially difficult since she spoke no English.


“I remember [ . . .] not being able to communicate with anybody in the classroom, and asking another little girl in the classroom to translate for me,” Resto said.


Resto went on to finish 10th in her high school graduating class and attended Cornell University, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in English literature. Four years later, she received a Master of Fine Arts in poetry and creative writing at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Resto has been teaching English 30, 40, 100 and 101 at Citrus since 2005.


She stumbled upon teaching as a profession, she said. She had to find a way to pay for graduate school on her own, and she was able to do that working as a teaching associate.


“In the beginning I thought [teaching] was just going to pay my way, but I actually found out that I enjoyed it,” she said. “I enjoy being in an academic environment and listening to peoples’ ideas.”


“Educating yourself [about something] is the only way. It’s good to have a drive but you have to get yourself into a program of some sort.”


Resto said that she hopes her students learn from her that being an artist is a profession and, that, “it is an option.”


“If you’re passionate about something, then you’ll find a way to study it and do it for a living,” she said.


Resto wants her students to see past stereotypes about poetry. “I want [my students] to know that I can speak in two different languages, and that poetry doesn’t have to rhyme,” she said.


She wants to break a stereotypical image of what a woman sounds like in a love poem, or what she writes about. Resto recalls reading Dorothy Parker’s poem, “Indian summer,” that included the line, “If you do not like me, so then to hell with you.”


“I remember reading that poem, and that was when I realized, ‘Wow, Women can write about love, and it doesn’t have to be about the trees and the birds’,” Resto said.


She also remembers reading Bernadette Mayer and other poets and says, “I don’t think I would be the same type of writer if I hadn’t read these women.”


Resto is already working on her next poetry collection. She hopes that it will be finished within the next two to three years. For the present, she plans to continue teaching Citrus students. Eventually she would like to earn her Ph.D. in creative writing.


For now, we can revel in Resto’s work, relating it to ourselves, the people we know, and the people we think we know, while we anticipate what she will offer us next. “Unfinished Portrait,” is available in all major bookstores and also on Amazon.com.


Resto recently took some time to sit down with the Clarion and answer questions about her childhood and writing in general.


Cheyene Scharff can be reached at ccclarion@hotmail.com


http://www.luivetteresto.com/Press_files/Clarion%20Article.pdf

Luivette Resto, Poet, Scholar, Ruerto Rican

Unfinished Portrait

Luivette Resto was born in Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico but proudly raised in the Bronx. She received her BA in English Literature with a concentration in US Latino Studies from Cornell University in 1999. In 2003, she completed her MFA in Creative Writing specifically poetry at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.


Her work can be read in several publications such as Harpur Palate, Albion Review, Falling Star Magazine, The Furnace Review, Latino Today, and Kennesaw Review. Currently, she lives in the Los Angeles area with her husband, Jose and their three children, Antonio, Sofia, and Joaquin. Resto is a professor at Citrus College and Mt. San Antonio College where she teaches English Literature and composition writing.


The poems in “Unfinished Portrait,” are a sociopolitical, cultural conglomeration of thoughts, reflections, observations, and experiences. As a first generation Puerto Rican, the privilege of a college education has been a blessing for Resto, but it has divided her from family and friends who did not have the same opportunities. Being the first of her family with a college diploma, Resto’s accomplishments and failures are not seen as individual but communal.


Some of the poems in “Unfinished Portrait” depict the dichotomy of being true to one’s culture and language, while taking advantage of the existing educational opportunities. Resto considers these poems as rebellious to the Latino status quo in the way women are perceived and treated. In addition, some of the poems question aspects of religion, specifically sexual experimentation, premarital sex, promiscuity, abortion, and the significance of life.


For many years when women wrote poems of sex and love the expectation was that it had to be beautiful and meaningful. Only men seem to have the right to interchange sex and love and write about it freely without judgment. Many of Resto’s poems prove that women can write about the joys of sex as well as the beauty and devastation of falling in love.


Growing up in New York and moving to Los Angeles, code-switching has been commonplace in Resto’s home and social circles. However, the power and place of language in classrooms, around water coolers, restaurants, and homes have been questioned and continue to be questioned by many including Latinos. The poet continues this perennial discourse in “Unfinished Portrait,” her first book. And there are poems that comment on the social fascination of Latinos since the alleged “Latin Invasion” of the 1990s.


Defiance, humor, and music is a vital part of Resto’s poems as much as it is of her culture.