Memories and Presents: 25 years of Poetry, Friendship and Books by Tanya Torres, Yarisa Colón and Verónica Durán
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In the times of Mixta Gallery, I met the women together with whom I became an artist.
At the time, I had already rebuilt the first floor of my old building at 1706 Lexington Avenue, with the idea of starting an “art gallery.” I had little knowledge of what this meant, but I knew that it would be a place where I would return to my original dream of becoming an artist.
I had recently graduated from my Master’s in Fine Arts, and immediately gone to work as a teacher, and later on, as an editor of educational textbooks. I enjoyed the work, but I also felt that, each day, I was getting farther away from my dream.
Then I had my son and, while at home and doing some freelance editorial work, I obtained a commission to illustrate 3 children’s books.
I worked so hard! My friend, the artist Soraya Marcano, would sometimes help me by going to Pearl Paint to get me materials. It was challenging to do it all, but in the end, I made enough extra money to reconstruct the first floor of the building, and turn it into a beautifully rustic art space.
I launched the project on December 1999. My friend Carlos Sanchez said I should open it before 2000. I guess it was a way to start the 21st century already in motion. I scheduled one exhibition per month and figured this would connect me to people and artists. And it did.
Anyone who proposed a project had the space to do it. I was definitely not a businesswoman at the time, and in a way, this allowed me to more easily connect to other artists and poets from all over New York and the world. Free was for freedom.
During one of the first few events, a Puerto Rican poet named Prisionera, proposed that we create La Noche de Poesía en Español de Mixta Gallery (Mixta Gallery’s Spanish Poetry Night.) She would be the MC, and we would have an open mic after a guest poet presented their work.
Soon more poets, musicians and creatives of all types joined. The poetry nights were arts nights with live music and lots of young people exploring all that New York had to offer at that time.
Of the people who joined us, there were some who stayed and became part of the heart of the space. Verónica Durán (who became Verónica de Nadie soon later,) and Yarisa Colón, both moved next door, and joined me in inviting people and taking care of the space.
Yarisa and Verónica were two of a group of young poets who had not yet published books, and whose talent and style distinguished them during the open mics at the gallery. I invited them to join me in creating a book for each of them, with 12 poems each and my illustrations. The other poets were Prisionera Jamás, Tita Dalia, and Yarí Taína Rodríguez Benitez. I also created my own miniature book made mostly of the leftover materials from the other books.
I had always been interested in books, and as part of my thesis exhibition had created a small handmade and handwritten book of poems. I had also created an edition of prints with silkscreened writing in a handmade box that I also presented as part of the exhibition. Based on those experiences, I showed them what we could do.
They all accepted and we published 6 beautiful, illustrated poetry books, and presented them during the Spanish poetry night. We took a beautiful photo that day that was published in Siempre Newspaper.
This book project was extremely exciting because it required an entire community to come together to make it possible. We invited anyone who wanted to join to fold paper, cut cardboard, spread glue, and anything else that we needed in order to create the 6 editions of 50 books each for “las poetas de Mixta” (Mixta Gallery’s poets.)
The New York Times included a small review of our books by Holland Cotter within a review of one of the exhibitions in the gallery. El Diario/La Prensa published an article about us and our books. We were invited to share in other venues, like the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, where we met more poets, including our beloved friend, the poet Sheila Candelario. We created a small movement that nourished us and connected us with the community at large.
Mixta Gallery did not last long. By 2002, it had transformed, mostly due to my cancer diagnosis and treatment. But the 2 years that it lasted gave me the most precious gifts, including my friends Verónica and Yarisa, who continue their poetry careers until today, and with whom I continue connected at the heart.
We had not met Myrna Nieves yet. But her name always came up as a reference in Puerto Rican and Spanish language poetry. At the time, Myrna hosted a poetry event at Boricua College that would soon turn 20 years old: La Serie Invernal de Poesía (Winter Poetry Series.) Some of us were invited to present our work in this poetry space and we connected over literature, poetry and Puerto Rican themes. We continue collaborating to this day.
As time passed, Verónica, Yarisa and I, and Myrna, have continued our work and remain together in spirit.
Verónica returned to Ecuador after a few years in the United States, taking back with her the poetry she created in New York, in El Barrio/East Harlem, our home at the time, and a place that remains alive in her imagination.
Yarisa went to live in Puerto Rico for a while, and there she created several handmade book editions in collaboration with diverse artists. She returned to New York, and her work continues to grow and evolve. She currently teaches Spanish in college and also is completing a PhD.
Myrna retired from teaching at Boricua College, and has since then published several books, including Breaking Ground: Anthology of Puerto Rican Women Writers in New York, 1980–2012 (Editorial Campana, 2012), which includes work by Puerto Rican women poets from both Puerto Rico and the United States. Yarisa’s poetry and mine appears in this important collection of Puerto Rican women’s poetry.
It’s been 25 years. That’s an immense amount of time when life is happening so fast in New York. During those years, we have always stayed in touch, even across continents. But we were never able to be together again in one space with our respective work. And the time finally came on 8/8/26.
When Verónica announced that she was coming to New York with her new book, an anthology that
includes all her published works as well as new ones, I offered to help her secure a space to present the book and promote the event. My friend, the artist Minerva González, helped reserve the gallery at El Barrio’s Art Space. And because my book Alma creativa was also brand new, I asked Verónica if she would like to present our books together. She immediately answered with an enthusiastic yes, and I asked Yarisa if she would join us.
I didn’t remember the photo that Edwin Pagán had taken so many years ago and published in the AHA Magazine with an article about us and the gallery. But it was the perfect illustration for our gathering.
Looking at that photo brings me a mix of joy, sadness, comfort… and so many other emotions together. It’s a moment of sweetness. We were so young. I had been going through cancer treatment or would be soon. I was about to lose all that the photo represents. And I was growing into the person I am today. Them too. It’s inevitable, life expects us to keep going beyond the good and the bad times.
Our Reencuentro was like the photo. Sweetness, sadness, great joy, the comfort of being among those who loved together during a very unique time in our lives.
Across from us in the audience, as I was talking, a woman looked at me with understanding. She would smile and nod, and I didn’t know who she was or whom she was there for. It was our friend Christina, who attended almost every poetry night and who gave me my first haircut after my hair grew back.
And there was also our friend Ernesto Quiñonez, already a well recognized author by the time he came in the gallery one day. He continued to come yo the gallery and support our work. Now he was present once again, looking the same, as if time had not passed.
Two women entered and I didn’t recognize them. They were Wanda and Madeline, from my time with the Puerto Rican artisans and La Marqueta.
Papoleto, the Nuyorican poet, was there, once again, to support his beloved Verónica.
Our good friend Luis Rodriguez, poet and photographer, whom Veronica left me as inheritance when she left New York.
My students: Annie, who calls me her “artistic mother,” Keylon, who shared his secret love of poetry, and Luis, who sold my books as if they were his best product ever. Verónica’s family in New York. The poets Maria Mar and Madeline Millán. Our friend, the artist Lina Puerta. So many people, past and present.
One of my people, a woman also named Madeline, stayed and asked me to sign her book, and told me how a letter I sent her made her feel. This moment truly made my day, because I know that’s my true mission. To help people somehow, through words. Through images. Through the transmission of feeling soul to soul. It’s both wonderful and disconcerting to reaffirm this and also feel I can never do enough. Time goes so fast.
For our Reencuentro, Myrna accepted the invitation to present us. Verónica told us stories of her poems and our friendship, and read us her magical words. Yarisa brought her gift of abstract composition in word, stitched with feeling, and dyed with red blood. As for me, it was not really poetry what I read, but a poetic weaving of the advise of my heart to my own heart, put into pages in case anyone else needs it.
Myrna’s introduction captured the essence of our re-encouter:
“And this implicit call for unity […] is precisely what Verónica, Yarisa, and Tanya so graciously achieve here: Puerto Rico, New York, Ecuador, presenting their ideas, experiences, feelings, and their experiments with the artistic medium, perception, feeling, and being. I congratulate them on this effort to unite, on this act of courage and love, because ultimately, they want to offer their experiments, achievements, and goodwill as a gift to the audience gathered here. It is this capacity for us all to unite and share our gifts with the world that will bring more peace and light to this planet, so in need of both.”
At the end, questions: of all kinds and from all angles. Through the questions of the audience, we learned more about our own work, and each other.
When people came closer, and their faces were in sharp focus, I was able to see the new versions of them, after 25 years, living a moment with us. They spoke of community and of finding home, once again.
I have never told anyone this, but when I was 31 years old and was diagnosed with cancer, I thought to myself: If I have to die now, I feel satisfied with what I have achieved in life. That’s how I felt at the time of Mixta Gallery. I only worried about my little son.
I survived, and life went on, full of surprises, failures, achievements, projects, new lessons and a rich artistic life. And now, after all these years, I know that the friends of my heart, the friends I made in my last few years of innocence, remain gloriously present in my life.
Memories are presents, and are present, forever, in our hearts.
Books by Tanya Torres, Yarisa Colón and Verónica Durán: (Photos by Suley Deras)
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