CLAUDIA CASTRO LUNA was 14 years old when she moved to the United States in 1981 during the height of El Salvador’s civil war. To this day, she is working through the effects of that experience, the terror and silence that stemmed from that period, through her writing.
Luna didn’t speak a word of English when she left home. A poet, writer, teacher, and speaker, Luna has gone on to become a Poet Laureate of the Academy of American Poets (2019), Washington State Poet Laureate (2018 to 2021), and Seattle’s inaugural Citizen Poet (2015 -2018). She teaches at Seattle University, while her writing portfolio includes A river, a thousand voices (Chin Music Press); nominated by Pushcart Maria’s murder (Two Sylvias Press); the chapter This city (Floating Bridge Press); and non-fiction There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love: Letters from a Crisis (Good quality).
Her latest release, Cipota under the moon (Tia Chucha Press), a poetry collection spanning a decade, reflects on the Salvadoran immigrant experience in the United States.
“It’s really my first book of poetry; it’s almost like a memory,” Castro Luna tells Stir. “It is a very personal book.
“I start the book with my experience as a girl in the middle of this war in El Salvador,” she explains. “And the book goes through my experience living in the US as a Salvadoran immigrant. So there’s a moment in the book where the struggle I’m talking about becomes the struggle in the streets—the ongoing struggle that brown and black people endure… right here in the United States.”
Castro Luna is among the prominent international names appearing at the 2022 Vancouver Writers Festival.
She is one of seven artists participating in the festival’s signature The Poetry Bash, which also features readings by Maya Angelou Book Award-winning Threa Almontaser (The wild fox of Yemen); Andrew Faulkner, author of Flowering head, a “poem collection of buddy cop drama”; New Zealand poet Tayi Tibble, whose Poūkahangatus is a powerful and intimate exploration of life as an Indigenous woman; Alexandra Oliver, of whom Hello, Invisible Guardian it’s a picture of “suburban weirdness”; and ReLit Award winner Charlie Petch (Why was I late?). Billeh Nickerson waits.
Castro Luna is also participating in Latin American Brilliance, which sees the Vancouver Writers Fest partner with Vancouver’s Latin American Cultural Center for the first time. The event is part of VLACC’s Latin Expressions, a multidisciplinary celebration of Latin American Heritage Month. Moderated by Carmen Rodríguez, Latin American Brilliance also features Natalia García Freire (This world does not belong to us)who will join virtually. Authors will discuss topics such as overcoming disagreements, the craft of writing itself, and up-and-coming Latin American authors.
Castro Luna reveals that at The Poetry Bash, she will read one of her favorite poems, “Vía Láctea,” which includes the lines: “I leave you with a pair of maracas to accompany the dead in their procession and to encouraged the living. in their duels./You are not alone. I am with you, here, naked, holding my baby teeth in a plastic bag, my back against the rough bark of the tree…”
