Xánath Caraza

Poet Xánath Caraza is a multi-International Latino Book Award-winner and a contributor to the Smithsonian Latino Center. In part one of this 2019 interview on stage at the Johnson County Arts and Heritage Center, she describes her approach to her creative writing, which often begins in Spanish, and talks about her partnership with literary translator, Sandra Kingery. She reads from her award-winning bilingual book, Sin Preambulos/Without Preamble, and shares her poem about Kansas City, where she has lived for two decades. She also talks about her travels, including a pilgrimage to see a jade mask on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, which inspired some of the work in her collection Balamku, 2nd place winner of the inaugural Juan Felipe Herrera Best Book of Poetry in the 2020 International Latino Poetry Awards. Caraza also shares poetry from her earlier book Ocelocihuatl/Jaguar Woman. Part Two of this interview, as well as an earlier 2014 program with Xánath Caraza, are also available in our audio archive.