Exploring Inspiration

I was surprised and inspired when my girlfriend, who is doctor, mentioned that cells producing mucus (including snot) are called "goblet cells"—weird! The word "goblet" usually means a fancy ruby-studded silver cup that knights or queens drink from in fantasy stories. Once I was imagining little goblets in our bodies, I started wondering: what other fantasy characters would come with them? The similar sounds of "goblet" and "goblin" led to my gunky goblin metaphor for viruses, and the homophone of "cilia" and "sillier" opened the door to my funky clowns.

When writing my poem, Buñuelos, I thought about my own childhood traditions and how the memories made me feel. I remember feeling pure joy as my family gathered in the kitchen to help my abuela make the delicious treats. I hoped to capture those moments, and how we celebrated a new year in our home. Food and family are strong connections to my Mexican-American culture. I incorporate my heritage into much of my writing, including my many poems, and most recently, a middle-grade novel in verse that I’m revising.

Natalie Goldberg, the author of Writing Down the Bones, talks about drawing from our "compost," as it were while writing. While the initial spark was a photo of a centuries-old house (the writing prompt for a contest), this poem mainly grew from my childhood memories.

As a free-range kid of the 70s and 80s, my dog and I wandered the woods frequently. We'd come across the ruins of old fallen-down houses from time to time. Even when I was a kid, I've always been fascinated by time and our place in its stream. Exploring the lonely chimneys and crumbling foundations broken apart by tree roots, I imagined who'd once lived there and the lives they'd led.

In some small way, I'd love for the poem to spark a young reader's curiosity about our connections to all the lives—human and otherwise—who came before and will come after our own.

I've always liked writing about ordinary situations and sprinkling a bit of magic into them. I think everyday occurrences are inherently very magical. "The Autumn Vixen" is inspired by an experience I had when I was younger, one lonely October afternoon. I was walking (like the reader in the story) to the park, when I saw a fox crossing by an old farm house. I'm not a person who is particularly prone to gasping, but something about seeing her trot through the autumn leaves made me breathe in so sharply she turned to look at me. It was a very magical moment.

I wrote "The Tiger and the Wren" for two of my daughters when they were preschool/kindergartners, each of whom has one of those animals as a nickname. They share a room, and sharing space can be difficult. The story under the story here is one sister upset at her sibling for invading her bed after a naptime nightmare. The sister whose bed was invaded was initially really grumpy about it, but then as the space invading sister snuggled in it ended up being a really sweet moment between the two of them. The frightened Wren started singing to herself and it calmed both of them back to sleep. The Tiger who'd been so grumpy came out after a nap, telling me how I needed to be very quiet so I wouldn't wake up Wren.

Frida Kahlo first tried painting as a way to process her experiences with disability and pain following a traumatic bus accident. Later, she was inspired to explore other aspects of her identity through her artwork, because "I am my own muse. I am the subject I know best. The subject I want to know better." In many ways, my own creative journey has followed Kahlo's. After experiencing disability and chronic pain, I began reflecting on various aspects of my identity and my childhood experiences with parental absenteeism and addiction, kinship care, homelessness, and food insecurity. I started writing poems and stories for my child-self, which has been both therapeutic and liberating. Now I also write for other children who have similar identities and experiences, to be a voice for them—the voice I needed when I was young. And the more I embrace my child-self, the louder my voice gets for children like me.