Praisesong for Dreaming

It’s National Poetry Month, a time when we celebrate all that poetry means to us, and what poetry means to the world.

I’ve been grateful to promote my poetry this month while being home, as well as the opportunity to provide workshops and presentations, both with the wonderful poets who participated in my workshop with Gemini Ink and the students and professors at San Antonio College.

I tabled at the Southside Book Fair, and folks purchased copies of my poetry chapbook, Offerings to a Tumbled Temple, for their friends and loved ones, telling me that they want to share the book with them since they are going through a rough time with their health, are navigating the grief of pregnancy loss, or are newly disabled. These conversations and opportunities to hold space for others really filled my cup!

But my hope, concentration and will has been tainted many days with so much darkness. While in San Antonio, my husband’s family was affected by a school shooting, though thankfully no other students were injured or killed. Still, it shook the family’s sense of safety and made me feel so angry for days about how we keep letting this happen to the children of this country.

Last week, I was trying to work on a project and read some of my client’s work, but was distracted and anxious the entire day as the president casually threatened a nuclear holocaust against the Iranian people. The constant dehumanization of Muslim and Arab peoples, especially during what is also Arab American Heritage Month, by the US, Western media and politicians which I’ve seen my entire life continues unabated. The moral injury of witnessing, and, through our tax dollars, being complicit with mass death and destruction every day takes it’s toll.

One of the biggest challenges we face now is not just the overwhelm of so much destruction, but how our dreaming and actions towards creating better lives, a better world, are constantly disrupted by the global elite hellbent on stripping our communities, government and the natural world for parts and leaving nothing left. How can we dream, change, innovate when we are constantly reacting to systemic harm that knocks us ten steps back in our progress? This is where despair and apathy begins to take root.

I’ve been reading a lot of poetry this month and watching spoken word and slam performance poets share their powerful words of hope, justice, change and liberation. I am late to appreciate the prolific work of Saul Williams, who plays Sammie Moore’s father in Sinners, but started following him on social media and Youtube, and really appreciated this most recent video he posted.

“Poets are the death doulas for a dying empire.”-Saul Williams

I have posed this question to myself and others in this newsletter before: what is our role as writers, as poets, in times of fascism, collapse, genocide, war? It is easy to become so mired in this question that our creative impulses are stifled, our work rendered meaningless. But seeing so many poets writing their truths, creating multi modal, multidimensional works to spark conversation, action, change, paves the way for more of us to treat our work as the sacred act that it is.

This past week I participated in a panel with the Writer’s League of Texas with three writers I greatly admire, Vanessa Angélica Villarreal, Taisia Kitaiskaia and Bianca Alyssa Pérez. We discussed being poets and prose writers and how our work changes across these genres. Both Vanessa and Taisia talked about creating poetry as work that often flows from somewhere deep inside, taking over our minds and hearts until the piece is written. I appreciated this description, as I felt that mirrored much of the way I write poetry, especially when I feel that I come to poems with an image or particular feeling, but usually with more questions than answers.

This Saturday, I got to return to the Pflugerville Library to share my work and lead discussion with the Pflugerville Poetry Society. It was bittersweet being back at my home library after a long absence to spend time with poets at all stages of their writing lives, earnestly connecting with one another over craft and sharing their work. They were so gracious and open with me, and I got to read their work that they had published in a chapbook!

These opportunities to connect with other poets, artists and lovers of poetry this month has been a vital reminder of why I do what I do, both as a writer and a teaching artist. Sharing poetry with others, creating opportunities for others to explore and share their work, these are some of the ways I feel called to contribute to community building.

It also felt fitting that it is almost Earth Day, and I had the opportunity to attend the Texas Mushroom Conference yesterday with my mom and Ramiro, where we met so many interesting people from teachers, insurance agents, therapists, healing practitioners, growers and advocates, and folks like us interested in fungi. There we panels and workshops dedicated to the science and study of fungi, cultivating edible mushrooms, advocacy and policy for psilocybin therapies in Texas and beyond, and much more!

One workshop session that stuck with me was from Angel Schatz, the Executive Director of the Central Texas Mycological Society. Their presentation, Eat the Epstein Class, involved a nervous system re-set using sound therapy from a large gong, and a discussion about how resistance to the life-ending global extraction of capitalism, patriarchal and sexual violence and the extractive systems that harm us is to take a lesson from fungi as they have evolved over millions of years. Their points iterated that the systems we live in are not broken, or aberrations, but rather they are working as intended to extract everything from us: our labor, our bodies, our lives. “Extraction is not the problem,” they said, “extraction without reciprocity is the problem.” They reminded us that in order to resist, to build more than what we have, we must act as mycelium, connecting ourselves to one another to give and receive resources, information, joy, love.

These two months being home have been wonderful times to re-connect with all of my loved ones and beloved community. It is hard, thinking of leaving them again very soon, but I am so grateful for all the time we have together, and look forward to seeing them again once we return from the next part of our travels West. In a recent visit with my friend Laura, she gifted me a poem that she had gotten at a local maker’s market from a typewriter poet. The title and subject were so fitting, and honestly made me a little weepy with gratitude for friendships like hers that span many different seasons of our lives and never diminish, even with distance and time.

In an interview in his book, How to Fall in Love with the Future, author Rob Hopkins spoke with organizer Phoebe Tickell about her work with Imagination Activism:

“It’s not about optimism; it’s about, in the worst possible odds, choosing a love of humanity, of the planet, of the future.”-Phoebe Tickell, Imagination Activism

Dreaming, and hope are not the same as toxic positivity or willful ignorance. There is no excuse for people to claim, “I don’t do politics,” or “let’s keep it positive,” when we and the world around us are in so much pain. Rather, talking about our fears, our grief, our rage, is collective care. It takes courage, and vision to maintain radical hope in these times.

Poets have been, and continue to be those dreamers, digesting the world as it is to enrich the substrate of our understanding, creating a richer environment for new things to grow.

If you’re interested in becoming a paid subscriber to support the newsletter and my work, I’d love to have you! Just $5 a month will help me continue to offer curated book recommendations, writing prompts, author spotlights, resources and more! You will also receive discounts on future workshops and editing services. It’s hard to be an independent artist, and your monthly support helps make my work more sustainable.

What’s Happening with Leticia?

Now that I am back in Texas, I have started doing more scheduled readings and events to celebrate my poetry chapbook, Offerings to the Tumbled Temple, out now from Purple Ink Press! You can purchase a copy here. Chapbooks like these make great gifts for your poetry loving friends! You can also order a copy from your local indie bookstore or, if you love your local library, you can request that they stock a copy.

Indie bookstores currently stocking my book:

• BookWoman in Austin, TX
• Lark and Owl Bookstore in Georgetown, TX
• Nowhere Bookshop in San Antonio, TX
• Boerne Bookshop in Boerne, TX
• Secret Garden Books in Seattle, WA

My next horror collection, The Remedy is the Disease, will be in the world on May 15th from Undertaker Books. You can pre-order your copy now using the link above!

I will be celebrating the release of The Remedy is the Disease with a virtual reading on Friday, May 15th at 7pm CST on Zoom. I’ll be reading alongside two of my favorite writers and supporters, Rios de la Luz and Ryan C. Bradley. Use the link to register!

Here are some ways that you can help me to promote my book (and other indie poets and writers):

• Buy a copy if you can.
• Share the book with your loved ones.
• If you love your local library or independent bookstore, you can request that they stock a copy.
• Nominate my book(s) for your next book club read!
• If you or anyone you know reviews books, you can request an copy from me to review!
• I am now booking for 2026 events, so if you have a bookstore, community organization or space you would like for me to provide a workshop or reading/event for, comment or reach out via my contact page on my website to plan further!

Here is a recent spotlight that the Letras Latinas Blog 2 and the Women in Horror Month interview published about me and my work!

2026 Workshops and Events

I am currently planning my readings, workshops and events for 2026 and will announce more details in soon. Here’s what is on my calendar so far:

1. Reading at Lark and Owl Bookstore in Georgetown on Saturday, April 25th at 7pm
2. Reconnecting to the Body Virtual Workshop with Charis Books (free!) on Sunday, April 26th from 2-4pm EST
3. Smushed Blueberries Reading on Sunday, April 26th from 5-7pm at Epoch Coffee on Anderson Lane in Austin

We will be traveling through New Mexico, Colorado and through the west coast May-December of this year, so if you have any community members or booksellers you suggest I connect with, please let me know!

Get Support for Your Creative Projects!

I offer editing and consulting services to help you with your own creative projects! I have over a decade of experience helping writers of all ages develop their creative voices and their work with a caring and supportive approach. I love helping people learn more about their creative processes to best tell their stories.

I am currently taking on clients ages 16 and up for my services, although if your child would like support honing and publishing their work, I am happy to work with younger clients upon request. Since I write across a variety of genres, I am able to work with folks who are writing poetry, creative nonfiction, short stories, novels and more, with a special place in my heart for horror, speculative fiction and fantasy. If you are working on a comic, that is fantastic. I would love to work with you! Or, please share with other writers you know who might be interested!

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What I’m Reading and Watching: Poetry!

In their book, How Poetry Can Change Your Heart, Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley write that “Poetry is the passport that proves we are, all of us, citizens of the world, and through poetry we can even heal that world.”

Here are some poets and their books that are proving that true for me right now!

• Praisesong for the People Anthology edited by Amanda Johnston
  • So many poets I know, love and admire are in this book. It is such a powerful compilation of voices and words about what makes the people and communities of Texas beautiful, multifaceted, caring and resilient in the face of everything. I got to contribute a lesson plan to the anthology resources that you can check out here.
• Brava by Violeta Garza
  • I got to meet Violeta during my Gemini Ink workshop in San Antonio and was blown away by her gracious soul and incredible work. I read their book in two days and cannot recommend it enough!
• The Past is a Jean Jacket by Cloud Delfina Cardona
  • Cloud is both a friend and incredible poet, editor, artist and designer, and if you aren’t reading her work, you should be. I am excited to start reading their collection, which just won the Texas Institute of Letters Naomi Shihab Nye Award for Best First Book of Poetry!
• Forest of Noise by Mosab Abu Toha
  • Recommending this book again because I love it and it is a vital read. I had the opportunity to share this poem from the collection with the workshop participants in San Antonio and everyone really connected with it.
• Falling Back in Love with Being Human by Kai Cheng Thom
  • I loved listening to the audiobook narrated by the poet from the Queer Liberation Library, and highly recommend it.
• You Better Be Lightning by Andrea Gibson (but also like, all of their work!)
  • This collection is incredible, but one poem that really stuck with me is “Love Me to Life,” which I taught a few times this month and think you should watch immediately!
• The Hungering Years by Summer Farrah
  • I have this collection on my TBR from one of my favorite indie presses based in Austin, Host Publications, and plan to pick up a copy this week!
• I would also like to highlight the incredible resources that poet and teacher Ariana Brown provides, including resources on Spoken Word Poetry and a myriad of incredible classes and other offerings.

Journaling Prompts

Create a poem as a praisesong or ode to something, somewhere, or someone who has shaped your world. Use your senses and specific images or descriptions to capture what you remember about them or are grateful to them for.

Call to Action: Community Care Spotlight

Going forward, I plan to use this space to spotlight communities, creators and activists who are taking action to resist and do caring things for others. This month, I am highlighting two organizations I admire that you can support:

• Torch Literary, an organization in Austin founded and led by poet Amanda Johnston, who works to uplift and celebrate the work of Black women poets.
• Central Texas Mycological Society is a local, volunteer-run advocacy group celebrating fungi in all it’s forms through education, preservation, classes, giving away mushroom blocks for home cultivation and much more!

In addition, here are some submission opportunities for poets out there who have work they are ready to put into the world!

• Host Publications open to full-length poetry manuscripts!
• Texas Review Press open to submissions
• Black Lawrence Press open to chapbooks

Leticia