By Edyka Chilomé
One of three chapbooks produced as a part of Deep Vellum's Central Track Writers Project.
Publication Date: August 30, 2019
Biographical Note
Edyka Chilomé is a literary arts activist, performer, and cultural worker currently based in Dallas. She is a queer child of Salvadorean and Mexican migrant activists, and was raised in social justice movements grounded in the tradition of spiritual activism. Edyka holds a BA in social and political philosophy with an emphasis on social justice from Loyola University Chicago, and an MA in Multicultural Women’s Studies from Texas Women’s University where her research focused on the decolonial power of spiritual [art]ivism. In 2017 Edyka was named top 25 most influential artists in DFW by Artist Uprising Magazine. Her play “Where Earth Meets the Sky,” produced by Cara Mia Theatre Company, was praised as 2018’s top Latinx Theatre Production in the DFW by Theater Jones Review. In the summer of 2018 Edyka was apart of Sandra Cisnero’s Macondo Writers Workshop and is currently a 2018-2019 Intercultural Leadership Institute Fellow.
Description
In defense of memory
I pray to the headwaters
violent encounters
carving out limbs
excavating tender soil
desperate for the depth
of a living promise
as expansive as the sea
En defensa de la memoria
ruego a los nacimientos
encuentros violentos
tallando extremidades
excavando tierra tierna
desesperada por la profundidad
de una promesa viva
tan ancha como la mar
This chapbook publication is brought to you by the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs through a Cultural Vitality Project grant.