Blooming Blood by Zamna Urista-Rojas

To be honest, this collection of poetry was never intended for any reason aside from the personal need to try to understand and reflect the changing world around and within. This collection ́s making spans over ten years and didn’t begin hasta que yo cruze el charco. Un Xicano en Europa dando vueltas, realizing how all people are more alike than different. My voice and savior was music and somehow it became my profession. The first real power I felt in my life that could heal invisible wounds. The more music I created the more I was hooked. When I took a break from my obsession I would write, it too began to call me, to tell me secrets, to reveal them. The colors of the words are intoxicating in combination, they are meant to give form somehow to feelings and revelations, to make them somehow graspable in my hands. The unknown that stirred in me wanted to be known, freed. Like ghosts somehow trapped in a body who yearn to be alive anew. To say the least, these passages healed, opened doors. What does it mean to be human, an adult, Xicano? Where is your place in this confusion of “reality” ? What is love , hate, hope? What is worth doing or being in this life? Who am I?

-Zamna Urista-Rojas