Sonia Gutiérrez
Sonia Gutiérrez is the author of two full-length bilingual poetry collections, Spider Woman / La Mujer Araña (Olmeca Press, 2013) and Paper Birds: Feather by Feather / Pájaros de papel: Pluma por pluma (El Martillo Press, 2024), recipient of an honorable mention for the ILBA’s The Juan Felipe Herrera Best Poetry Book Award—One Author—Bilingual, and the novel, Dreaming with Mariposas (FlowerSong Press, 2020), winner of the Tomás Rivera Book Award 2021, the International Latino Book Awards 2022, and the ILBA Book into Movie Awards 2023. She teaches composition, critical thinking and writing, and creative writing. Sonia Gutiérrez is currently working on her first illustrated book, The Adventures of a Burrito Flying Saucer and Sana Sana Colita de Rana: Poems to Not Perish / Sana sana colita de rana: Poemas para no morir, a bilingual poetry collection. She lives in the Californias. To learn more about Sonia Gutiérrez and her work, visit www.soniagutierrez.com.
Paper Birds: Feather by Feather / Pájaros de papel: Pluma por pluma
Paper Birds: Feather by Feather / Pájaros de papel: Pluma por pluma is a bilingual poetry collection, in English and Spanish, by the recipient of the Tomás Rivera Book Award Sonia Gutiérrez, with translations by Francisco Bustos.
"Sonia Gutiérrez's poems dive into the blue/turquoise feathers of life along the border, within the cultural waves of Raza tumult and celebration; her poems strike the bone like drumsticks. These poems pat the heart like a mother's loving hand, lock arms with sisters and brothers like a fellow guerillista, she sings from the blood like the ocean waves the shore, she spirals her poetic magic until transformation occurs, and we are changed-bravo!"
—Jimmy Santiago Baca, author of No Enemies: Poems
Buy Paper Birds: Feather by Feather / Pájaros de papel: Pluma por pluma
Sonia Gutiérrez's Dreaming with Mariposas, written in a Tomás Rivera and Sandra Cisneros bildungsroman vignette style, recounts the story of the Martínez family as told through the eyes of transfronteriza/transboundary Sofía Martínez, “Chofi,” Francisco and Helena’s daughter, as well as multiple narrators, emulating oral tradition. The novel embraces food as a communal practice with the ability to heal a family through storytelling. Dreaming with Mariposas presents glimpses of poetic diction in times of anti-rhetoric, inspiring readers to reclaim their sacred spaces and voices and to pursue dreams even when the future looks dismal. Chofi witnesses institutional racism, sexual harassment, and colorism and learns to navigate her parents’ dreams and her dreams as she discovers her superpower, the strength of her Mexican Indigenous heritage, and the spirit world.
BOOKING
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