Tula ["Books are door shaped"]

"Tula [City life is a whirl of poetry readings]" by Margarita Engle (2013)

This poem appears in the final section of The Lightning Dreamer (titled “Part Five: The Hotel of Peace, 1836) and describes Tula’s experiences in Havana. Being in the large Cuban city allowed her to meet other poets from many different walks of life. Tula was inspired by the wide variety of people who share their “secret verses / rooted in startling / new ideas” (Lines 8-10). This echoes the secret mental books of “Tula [Books are door-shaped].”

"To A Butterfly" by Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, translated by Manuel A. Tellechea (1841)

This is a poem by the real-life Tula, Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, who inspired Engle’s persona poems. Only a few of Gómez de Avellaneda’s poems have been translated into English. “To A Butterfly” describes the wanderlust of a butterfly, using it to explore the transient quality of beauty and life.

"To A Butterfly" performed at the Nashville Repertory Theatre (2021)

As part of their series “I’m Speaking: The Words of Women Through History,” Nashville actor Prenda Mercado presents a dramatic reading of Gómez de Avellaneda’s poem (translated by Tellechea).