"Keep Your Pennies"     Gabriela Anaya Valdepeña

Gabriela Anaya Valdepeña

    Born in Mexico City, Mexico, Gabriela Anaya Valdepeña’s first language was Spanish. Though she could always understand it, when she began writing poetry at age 33, she could barely speak or write it with any facility. She retaught herself by watching novelas, and in the process temporarily developed the Venezuelan accent of the protagonist she mimicked, practicing aloud.
    English remains Gabriela’s dominant language, but she believes being bilingual has given her a more expansive poetic voice. The poems in this collection were all born in Spanish. The first and last poems in this five poem collection were translated into English by Gabriela; the others, by Douglas James Martin.
    Some of the poems are acknowledged in Gabriela’s poetry collections Exaggerated Gender Signals (Darkness Visible Books 2003), and Welcome, Eavesdropper (Darkness Visible Books/dPress 2005). For this latest collection Gabriela was recently awarded a San Diego Book Award for best poetry.