Un Mango Grows in Kansas (Poems)
Details
Un Mango Grows in Kansas (Poems)
By: Huascar E Medina
Translated by: Julie A Sellers
Huascar E Medina is Kansas' 7th Poet Laureate (2019-2021).
Kansas Notable Book 2021
In this collection of poems, Huascar E Medina explores the boundaries between location and identity by strengthening the readers understanding of the soil to which each poem sprouted.
As represented in his poem Per Aspera Ad Astra (an excerpt):
By: Huascar E Medina
Translated by: Julie A Sellers
Huascar E Medina is Kansas' 7th Poet Laureate (2019-2021).
Kansas Notable Book 2021
In this collection of poems, Huascar E Medina explores the boundaries between location and identity by strengthening the readers understanding of the soil to which each poem sprouted.
As represented in his poem Per Aspera Ad Astra (an excerpt):
We were lost in the plains,
beautiful and ordinary,
Sunflowers in the fields;
seeds of fallen stars,
standing tall; deeply rooted
in this land.
His poems are written in Spanish and English, and sometimes together like in the poem, Surrogate City (an excerpt)
She hums a highway lullaby
of old Paseo Puente,
so I may pass the nights,
skylines don’t resemble,
mi vieja san ciudad;
in peace
This is Huascar E Medina third poetry book.
Paperback; 154 pages
ISBN: 978-1952411045
About the Author
Huascar E Medina (Kansas' 7th Poet Laureate 2019-2021) is a poet, writer, and performer who lives in Topeka.
He currently works as a freelance copywriter and as the Literary Editor for the seveneightfive magazine publishing stories that spotlight literary and artistic events in northeast Kansas.
He has two other previous books of poetry, How to Hang the Moon published by Spartan Press, and St. Rilke: Pray for Us, which is available on his website as a free download (https://huascarmedina.com).
He is the winner of ARTSConnect’s 2018 Arty Award for Literary Art.
About the Translator
Julie A Sellers is an Associate Professor of Spanish at Benedictine College and a Federally Certified Court Interpreter.
She has twice been the overall prose winner of the Kansas Voices Contest and has been published in Kansas Time + Place, The Write Launch, Kanhistique, and New Works Review.
Her third academic book, The Modern Bachateros, was published in 2017 (McFarland).
She lives in Atchison, Kansas
Praise for Un Mango Grows in Kansas...
"Huascar's book is full of ordinary magic, of seeing the sublime in the everyday, and that makes this book a true joy to read.
Speaking of mangos, Huascar writes, 'Fruit flies are angels born in their own kind of heaven.'
This is that kind of book, something sweet to savor--full of revelations and culture, observations and human unity."
--Kevin Rabas, Poet Laureate of Kansas (2017-2019), On Drums
Speaking of mangos, Huascar writes, 'Fruit flies are angels born in their own kind of heaven.'
This is that kind of book, something sweet to savor--full of revelations and culture, observations and human unity."
--Kevin Rabas, Poet Laureate of Kansas (2017-2019), On Drums
"With Un Mango Grows in Kansas poet Huascar Medina redirects our generational sense of place to illuminate the possibilities and the promises that place holds.
He reimagines Kansas, the Midwest, the Americas, and the stars by expanding our perspective and examining our routines and our over mapped corners.
Medina guides us through this new American journey reaffirming that our struggles with love, infatuation, obsession, loss, death, family, self, and other are, like the mango seed itself, necessary and beautiful and without them, it would never be as sweet."
-Miguel M. Morales, poet, co-editor of Pulse/Pulso: In Remembrance of Orlando.
"At 134 pages, “Un Mango Grows in Kansas” is ripe and ready to pick. Take it in your hands. Penetrate its fleshy skin and let the juices run down your chin.
It is truly a gift not just to Kansans but to all the world. It addresses the interior and exterior realities of our modern existence and the struggles of people who need to have their grievances resolved.
In all that, there is room to breathe."
---William L. Domme, author, regular contributor to the seveneightfive magazine.