Brenda Cárdenas is Wisconsin’s newest poet laureate. She began her three-year term at the beginning of this year.
As the state’s ambassador for poetry, the Milwaukee native hopes to inspire creativity through workshops, projects, and meeting with young people.
July’s issue of Milwaukee Magazine explores how Cárdenas blends music, language and visual mediums into her poetry. It also highlights how she's inviting people to explore ekphrastic poetry — a form of poetry that collides with visual art.
Lake Effect’s Xcaret Nuñez spoke with Cárdenas to learn more.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What does it mean to be a poet ambassador for all of Wisconsin?
For me, it means to spread the good news of poetry through workshops, readings, talks, and to move about the state, both rural and urban, to help people enjoy poetry and have access to poetry. Not to have people think that poetry is something that's only for academics up in the ivory tower, and that it's impossible to understand. I think sometimes poetry gets a bad rap — ”this poem has to mean x,” whereas poems can actually have many different interpretations, and a reader always brings their own experience and worldview to anything they read. So [being poet laureate,] it’s to help people realize that [poetry] doesn't have to be that hard to understand or even to write. Also, to bring some joy, because we're living in — I mean, I guess every generation can say this — but we're living in some pretty tough times right now. And there's a lot of division. And so I'm hoping that poetry can bring people together, and that I can help do that through it.
Part of being Wisconsin's poet laureate is to create a project and work on it throughout your term. Can you tell me about the project you proposed?
So the project is what I would call an ekphrastic relay. Ekphrasis is just a mode of poetry in which a poet is inspired by a work of visual art, or writing a poem that's in some way in conversation with a work of visual art. It's interpreting that work of visual art, or it's a jumping off point for the poet to riff off of … that's all that means.
So for my project, we divided the state into seven regions, and if a poet wants to participate, they just go to the [Wisconsin Poet Laureate Project website], and they can register as a poet within their region. If a visual artist wants to participate, they’d do the same thing. They go to the website and register as a visual artist within their region.
The website has all kinds of prompts and materials, so you don't have to know about [ekphrasis]. The first 10 or so poets who sign up in each region can then submit an ekphrastic poem that responds to or is inspired by any work of art in the world. Then, visual artists who have signed up can look at those poems, pick one, and make a piece of visual art that is inspired by that poem. They can then photograph their art and submit it to the website.
Then a new set of poets comes along… They’ll look at those pieces of visual art. They’ll write a poem that's inspired by one of the pieces of visual art. Then more visual artists will come along… So it's in a way, like the old game of telephone or a relay, right? What began it and what’s going to be at the end of it will be very different from one another. And all of the pieces, both the poems and the photographs of the visual art, will be archived on the [Wisconsin Poet Laureate Project website], so everybody will be able to look at this work.
What advice do you have for creatives who want to get started in writing poetry?
First, I'd say, read, read, read! Read a lot of poetry, and read all different kinds of poetry, because then you’ll see what's all possible out there. I mean, there was a time when I had never read another Latina or Latino author who mixed Spanish in with their English. Growing up, they didn't give us anything like that in school to read. And when I first discovered that, I was like “Oh, my God, I can do that?” So I think [reading different poetry] gives you ideas and examples. The other thing I would say is, just write. Don't worry about it being a poem at first. Just get down your impressions and your observations. A poet needs to be observant of the world around them. Then you can bring it to the page. So just write. And if nothing's coming to me, I'm just going to write whatever gobbly gook is in my head, because if you do that, eventually something will start happening.
You can visit the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Project website to learn more about the ekphrastic poetry relay and Brenda Cárdenas’ work. You can also learn more about Cárdenas’ project in Milwaukee Magazine’s July issue, which is out now.
