Conjuro

Xánath Caraza's first book-length collection Conjuro(Spellbound), with introduction by Fred Arroyo, is published by Mammoth Publications, a Native-owned literary press. In this tri-lingual text, Caraza combines Spanish, English, and Nahuatl (language of the Aztecs) to create a continuous spell of verse. Caraza's writing derives from her awareness of Indigenous thought: words are tangible objects, not abstractions, and capable of influencing physical reality's web of interactions. The poet's connection to her Indigenous and Mexican heritage energizes her meditations and proclamations, which are set in Veracruz, Spain, Paris, Chicago, and Kansas City, her present home. Caraza is a dynamic performance poet as well as a skilled writer. This debut collection establishes her as a major voice of 21st American letters. This book shows how multiple cultures co-exist for United States immigrants. It is appropriate for young adults, Latin American Studies, Indigenous American Studies, and Midwest U.S. Studies. Xánath Caraza is a traveler, educator, poet and short story writer. Originally from Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico, she is a Kansas City resident. She has an M.A. in Romance Languages. She lectures in Foreign Languages and Literatures at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Her chapbook Corazón Pintado: Ekphrastic Poems (2012) is from TL Press. She won the 2003 Ediciones Nuevo Espacio international short story contest in Spanish and was a 2008 finalist for the first international John Barry Award. Caraza is an advisory circle member of the Con Tinta literary organization and a former board member of the Latino Writers Collective in Kansas City. Rigoberto González writes of Conjuro: "A decisively Amerindian song breathes through the pages of Xánath Caraza's Conjuro, a charitable book of invocation, incantation, lamentation and healing. Caraza's poems are the antidote to our troubled times: they reach toward ancestral spirit and woman-strength, they collect wisdom from the natural and experiential landscapes, they reorient language away from duplicity and back to the "oral traditions of the heart." A truly moving, and spellbinding, debut."

Literature & Fiction

Caraza, Xánath

Poetry

Mammoth

Fiction. Latino/Latina Studies. Translated from the Spanish by Steven Holland-Wempe, Sandra Kingery, and the author. "This debut collection is amazing. The finesse of the storytelling is a pleasure on every page. The importance of immigrant issues becomes not a political statement so much as an epic story of all peoples' survival. Although the stories are not linked and take place in various geographies—China, Europe, the United States, and Mexico—still, the continuity remains with the heroine figure. She is a woman who travels through miseries, between the worlds of the living and the spirits. La Llorona's shadow casts a spell on these stories, where loss occurs, but the natural world offers solace, as well as unexpected beauties. This is a book of songs as well as myths."—Denise Low-Weso

Lo que trae la marea/What the Tide Brings

Contemporary

Mouthfeel Press

Poetry. Translated from the Spanish by Sandra Kingery. Bilingual Edition. "Come on this journey, brave the violence in Mexico, in Bosnia, in the U.S. Don't stop. Move through the ancient and mythical, tread the mountains and valleys of the natural world, let the seas swirl at your ankles, follow the jungle trail of the tenacious Ocelocíhuatl, the jaguar-woman, with each step pulsing with the unfaltering rhythms and patterns that mark these poems. Caraza's words cast a spell, seep under our skin, into our bellies and hearts, and remind us that poetry is how we survive."—Donna Miscolta

Ocelocihuatl

Author Xanath Caraza leads the reader on a highly visual archeological dig across the strata of time and history in this poetic tour through the ethos of Mexico's "mother culture": the Olmec civilization.

Labios de Piedra: Lips of Stone (Spanish Edition)

The Raving Press

Xánath Caraza's Corta la piel is a very powerful piece of writing. These 62 interconnected short prose poems move the reader with images encompassing everything from the personal struggles of the protagonists to current events to the conquest of the Americas.

Corta la piel: It Pierces the Skin

FlowerSong Books

Xanath Caraza's second full-length collection of verse, Silabas de viento / Syllables of Wind, establishes her as a premiere author of both Spanish and English verse. Her global reach is always rooted in her Indigenous American heritage. A native of Xalapa and resident of Kansas City, Caraza gives testimony to the powerful transformative experience of global identity. "From Olmeca land to Bilbao, Andalusia, Morocco, Bosnia, and back to the Midwest, Xanath Caraza's words flow like chants calling us back to the mystery and majesty of our ancient ones who surround us in the physical world. Her written imagery calls forth a poetic spirit in me that I did not hear before. I am grateful." Lara Medina, author of Las Hermanas: Chicana/Latina Religious-Political Activism in the U. S. Catholic Church (Temple University Press) "Reading these poems means disentangling those mysterious underpinnings, that commitment to culture itself, joined in a universal whole, in which there is an expression of the splendor of the jungle, the healing of the shaman, the sacred animal who we are as well, and a luminous daybreak overcoming death." Carlos J. Aldazabal, Introduccion / Introduction Xanath Caraza teaches at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and presents readings and workshops in Europe, Latin America, and the U.S. Her book of verse Conjuro (Mammoth) and book of short fiction Lo que trae la marea / What the Tide Brings In (Mouthfeel) have won national and international recognition.

Silabas de Viento / Syllables of Wind (English and Spanish Edition)

Noche de colibríes: Ekphrastic Poems by Xánath Caraza and published by Pandora lobo estepario Productions press is a bilingual chapbook, Spanish and English. Noche de colibríes: Ekphrastic Poems is synonymous with painting with words that which emerges from the center of a woman, poet. Polychromatic rhythms are expertly mixed throughout the pages of this book. Images accompany each poem which celebrates each image. This book goes beyond description to create a poem, a story, yet possessing rediscovery in each of them. Caraza, as previously demonstrated, is a painter-poet where each verse impregnates each page with color and is most certainly worth reading not only with one’s sight, but also with one’s senses of smell, touch, taste and sound. Noche de colibríes: Ekphrastic Poems por Xánath Caraza publicado por Pandora lobo estepario Productions press es un plaquette bilingue, español e inglés. Noche de colibríes: Ekphrastic Poems es sinónimo de pintar con palabras que emergen desde el centro de una mujer, poeta. Ritmos policrómaticos se mezclan expertamente entre las páginas de este libro. Imágenes acompañan cada poema que las celebra, no las describe sino crea un poema, una historia, redescubriéndolas. Caraza, como lo ha demostrado con anterioridad, es una pintora-poeta donde cada verso impregna la página con color y merece ser leído no tan sólo con la vista, sino con el olfato, el tacto, el gusto y el oído.

Noche de Colibríes: Ekphrastic Poems

Pandora Lobo Estepario Productions

A book of poems by Xanath Caraza translated by Sandra Kingery, and a foreword by Elizabeth Coonrod Martínez. There are a thousand registered ancient Maya city sites just in the Mexican state of Campeche (west side of the Yucatán peninsula), including the dozen visited by poet Xánath Caraza, where she composed the poems in this text. Balamkú is one of those sites, and most moving to view and experience. It is small for a Maya site, and yet still covers 62 acres, with structures in two sections: one of which has three plazas, the other four, and a large ballcourt. Its architectural style is in the Petén tradition. Only re-discovered and opened in 1990, the site’s highlight is an elaborate and extraordinary plaster fresco or frieze, protected through the centuries due to being enclosed in the interior of a building. Native civilization has long been ignored and denigrated by our educational system, due to the colonizing message, and an attitude passed from generation to generation in our societies. The ancient cities of our hemisphere, Calakmul, Balamkú, others under the “Maya” umbrella term, and many in central Mexico, are important to view and study. Xánath Caraza’s verses will provide a spiritual roadmap.Hay más de mil sitios mayas antiguos registrados sólo en el estado mexicano de Campeche (el lado oeste de la Península de Yucatán), incluyendo la docena visitada por la poeta Xánath Caraza, donde compuso los poemas en este texto. Balamkú es uno de esos sitios, el más conmovedor para ver y experimentar de todos. Es pequeño para ser un sitio maya, y aun así cubre sesenta y dos acres, con estructuras en dos secciones: una de las cuales tiene tres plazas, la otra cuatro y una extensa cancha de pelota. Su estilo arquitectónico es parte de la tradición del Petén. Fue tan sólo redescubierto y abierto en 1990, lo más destacado del lugar es un fresco revocado o friso elaborado y extraordinario, protegido a través de los siglos por estar localizado en el interior de un edificio. La civilización nativa ha sido largamente ignorada y denigrada por nuestro sistema educativo, debido al mensaje colonialista, y a una actitud transmitida de generación en generación en nuestras sociedades. Las ciudades antiguas de nuestro hemisferio, Calakmul, Balamkú, otras bajo el término amplio “maya” y muchas en el México central son importantes para ser vistas y para ser estudiadas. Los versos de Xánath Caraza nos proveerán de un mapa de ruta espiritual

Balamku

In An Exercise in the Darkness / Ejercicio en la oscuridad, Xánath Caraza has given us poems that vibrate on the page. The writer's ink, imbued with a throbbing life force, is barely contained by the white spaces that surround it. Nature envelopes her, speaks to and through her. Color, light, and sound play against each other. The world shifts between dark and light, between internal and external landscapes: gray skies over shimmering lakes; a blue dragon on the face of the moon; birds devouring her fears.Each of the 66 poems in this volume is dual in nature: first we encounter a poem in prose, followed by a very brief poem of no more than six short lines. In the prose poem, certain words and phrases are highlighted in bold; these become the text of the short poem that follows. The short poem - sometimes only one word - speaks to the subtext of the prose; it may crystallize, complement, or confront it.

Ejercicio en la oscuridad: An Exercise in the Darkness (Spanish Edition)

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Books by Caraza, Xánath

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Caraza, Xánath. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Conjuro

Conjuro

Lo que trae la marea/What the Tide Brings

Ocelocihuatl

Labios de Piedra: Lips of Stone (Spanish Edition)

Corta la piel: It Pierces the Skin

Silabas de Viento / Syllables of Wind (English and Spanish Edition)

Noche de Colibríes: Ekphrastic Poems

Balamku

Ejercicio en la oscuridad: An Exercise in the Darkness (Spanish Edition)