Sandra M. Castillo is a poet and South Florida resident. She was born in Havana, Cuba and emigrated on one of the last of President Lyndon B. Johnson'sFreedom Flights. Castillo's family's number for the Freedom Flights was 160,633. Sandra Castillo is not only a poet, but also a professor at Miami Dade College and she teaches in the History Department.
She attended
Florida State University
Florida State University (FSU) is a public research university in Tallahassee, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida. Founded in 1851, it is located on the oldest continuous site of higher education in the st ...
, receiving both a Bachelor's and ultimately master's degree in Creative Writing.
:[Castillo has said that she is haunted by all things Cuban and that much of what she remembers about her Cuban childhood, those eight years of her life, linger in her memory like photographs, like ghosts. Her Tio Berto, to whom she has made repeated references, was an amateur photographer whose photographs documented not only her family's past but a Cuban life. Such photographs captivated her and "formed the basis of [her] aesthetic."] She writes about loss, history, gender, language and explores issues of memory. Her work "depicts contradictory worlds, the memory of a homeland and memory politics while examining the ordinary reality of exile. Her poetry is inspired by her childhood experiences, photographs, stories told by her family, arrests, and the streets and lives left behind in Cuba. She is inspired by poets like Jack Kerouac and the Chilean poet, Omar Lara. Similarly, her and Jack Kerouac "are fascinated by the history of place", and she was inspired by his attempt to "shape and define his world through his adopted language." Omar Lara's "ability to capture time and place at a critical time" inspired her to write a poem called, photograph.
Bibliography
Her work has appeared in various
literary magazine
A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry, and essays, along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letter ...
s, including: ''
Puerto del Sol
''Puerto del Sol'' is a non-profit literary magazine run by faculty and graduate students from the MFA program in Creative Writing White Pine Press, 2002), was selected by
Cornelius Eady
Cornelius Eady (born 1954) is an American writer focusing largely on matters of Race (classification of human beings), race and society. His poetry often centers on jazz and blues, family life, violence, and societal problems stemming from questi ...
who called Castillo "A tough, clear-eyed poet who is willing to gamble with passion (thank God!!) in order to get the poem where it needs to go."
In ''My Father Sings to My Embarrassment,'' Castillo delves into her Cuban childhood, and we follow her family as they "start over without a language." The poems chronicle the visit of a Cuban uncle, who is surrounded by relatives that "twenty years and English have turned into strangers," and Castillo's bittersweet return to her homeland: "Even a map cannot show you the way back to a place that no longer exists."
See also
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Cuban American literature Cuban American literature overlaps with both Cuban literature and American literature, and is also distinct in itself. Its boundaries can blur on close inspection. Some scholars, such as Rodolfo J. Cortina, regard "Cuban American authors" simply as ...