Beatriz Badikian-Gartler’s Own “Song of the Lark”

by Donald G. Evans

In the course of four decades in Chicago, Beatriz Badikian-Gartler has established herself as a notable poet, teacher, and social justice advocate. Born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Beatriz was an important contributor and organizer in Chicago’s emerging Hispanic poetry community of the early 1980s. Around that time, in 1982, she published her first poetry collection, Akewa is a Woman. Sandra Cisneros wrote an introduction to that collection, and Carlos Cumpián was the editor.

Beatriz followed that up with Mapmaker Revisited: New & Selected Poems in 1999. Then she switched forms and published a novel, Old Gloves: A 20th Century Saga in 2005. That novel chronicles a family's journey across three continents, from Turkey to Greece, Argentina, and finally Chicago. Finally, in 2014, Beatriz published Unveiling the Mind (2014), in which she explores various personal and social themes. She holds a PhD in English/Creative Writing from the University of Illinois Chicago. She’s taught literature, writing, and women's studies all over the city, including at Northwestern University, Roosevelt University, Loyola University, Columbia College, and the Newberry Library. In 2000, she was named one of the "One-Hundred Women Who Make a Difference in Chicago" by Today’s Chicago Woman magazine.

Beatriz is also a collage artist who has exhibited at the Woman Made Gallery and other Chicago venues, often using images from journals and newspapers to create visual stories.

DGE: You were born and raised in Buenos Aires. At what age did you come to America? Was Chicago the place to which you originally relocated?

BBG: I came to the USA at age 19. After about eight months of traveling to a few different locations, we relocated in Chicago.

DGE: What was it like to acclimate to a new country and city? How did you find Chicago initially, and how have your thoughts about this city evolved over the years?

BBG: It was very difficult to acclimate to a new country and city. So many different customs and idiosyncrasies. At first Chicago felt very provincial. It was 1970. Coming from a very cosmopolitan city, this place looked small and stuck in the past. Fortunately, over the years the city has evolved and developed into a metropolis with cafes, theaters, bookstores.

DGE: What made you pursue creative writing? Were you writing at a young age?

BBG: I wrote my first poem at age 16. I loved poetry and read quite a bit so it was natural to write that way. I had a journal/notebook where I copied poems I liked and then tried my hand at writing. When I say read, I mean Latin-American and Spanish poets, for the most part. 

DGE: What are your reading habits like?

BBG: My reading habits have changed over the years. Before graduate school I read fiction and poetry. During graduate school I had to incorporate critical works, nonfiction, etc. Now I fluctuate between all of them.

DGE: In 1982, you published your first poetry collection, Akewa is a Woman. Sandra Cisneros wrote an introduction to that collection; Carlos Cumpián’s March Abrazo Press published that book, and he also served as editor. You were all part of an emerging Latino/Latina poetry scene back then. What was it like to be a writer in Chicago back then?

BBG: Back then, it was fantastic. I met all the poets in 1982 at a workshop led by Sandra and Carlos. I had no idea who anyone was, nor what the poetry scene was like. We had readings, workshops, fundraisers, and enjoyed going out together. It was one of the best times of my life. That's when I became a "poet" and still call myself that.

DGE: More than four decades later, you’ve all established yourselves as important contributors to the Chicago poetry scene. Tell us about those relationships and what it was like finding your voice and audience.

BBG: The relationships go back, as you say, forty years, during which we lived and developed a plethora of experiences. Finding my voice and audience meant the world to me. I feel like it just happened, surprising me and delighted.

DGE: Mapmaker Revisited: New & Selected Poems, published in 1999, contains poems about travel, identity, and the artistic life. These are complex ruminations on your place and role in an ever-complex world. These are very important and difficult themes, then and now. Were you naturally drawn to these themes, and are you still exploring them now?

BBG: Yes, I was and am naturally drawn to these themes. Travel is natural as well as identity, given my complex background. I taught travel writing and published essays, as well. The artistic life envelops me whether I like it or not. I am an artist. In recent years I have also started a visual art practice with collages and paintings. By the way, since the beginning of my writing career I always drew and painted along with the poetry writing.

DGE: Old Gloves: A 20th Century Saga was published in 2005. That novel chronicles a family's journey across three continents, from Turkey to Greece, Argentina, and finally Chicago. How much of this was based on your personal history?

BBG: At least half of the novel Old Gloves is based on my family's history, especially the grandparents, the first decades of the 20th century. 

 

DGE: The title poem of Unveiling the Mind goes:

Although your brother
failed in school, he was rewarded
by playing outside. You,
who succeeded,
were rewarded by working in the kitchen.
The schoolbooks said:
the stars were created by God. But...
who created God? you asked.

An explosion of white hair,
every life is important, you say.
Write your life.

In prison, paper and pen
are more dangerous
than guns. You wrote your memoirs
on smuggled out toilet paper with
an eyebrow pencil
from a prostitute; you hid them
in a tin can under the floor. The guard
never found them. Writing more
necessary than breathing, you ask:

Why do we write?
And answer: Not to die, to be immortal.
And demand the unveiling of the mind.

That poem encompasses some of your major themes, such as women’s struggle for equality, or at least respect, and it also articulates your sense

of literature from an artist’s standpoint. All these years later, have you written your life, or is it an ongoing occupation?

BBG: I really think that writing my life is an ongoing endeavor which I will never finish. New thoughts and ideas are born every day. I use them to keep writing my life.

DGE: You’ve written a poem called “Song of the Lark,” which you’ll read at our annual cocktail fundraiser in just a few days. What inspired you to write this poem?

BBG: The poem "Song of the Lark" was born as an assignment to write an ekphrastic poem. Ekphrastic poetry is poetry about the visual arts, i.e. paintings, photos, sculptures, drawings, and so on. I chose that painting because it has always fascinated me.

DGE: You’re still active in the poetry scene. I noticed you read at Dandelion Books in Oak Park last October. I know you enjoy reading before an audience. What do you enjoy about live performances, either as a reader or an audience member?

BBG: Live performances are my life blood. I love to read in front of an audience. And I enjoy listening to poets read their works. Poetry is meant to be read aloud, recited. Remember that it was born as song in the ancient world before it was written down.

DGE: Teaching is another way you engage with others on the subjective of creative writing. Tell me a bit about the balance between academia and the world of the poet?

BBG: Academia was a newer experience for me. I never thought I would be teaching but when I started I really enjoyed. It's my way of passing on my knowledge and thoughts to other people, especially the younger generations.  

DGE: You also do some work in the visual arts. Ana Castillo, another peer of yours, also works in the visual arts, as do other Chicago Latina poets. Is there a natural relationship, for you, between the visual and literary arts?

BBG: There is an absolutely natural relationship between the written word and the visual. For years I used to copy poems I like and illustrate the pages of the notebooks. Writing is painting with words.

DGE: I’m very much looking forward to hearing your poem at our cocktail party.

BBG: Thank you, Donald.

 

Donald G. Evans is the author of a novel and story collection, as well as the editor of two anthologies of Chicago literature, most recently Wherever I’m At: An Anthology of Chicago Poetry. He is the Founding Executive Director of the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame.