Introduction: Sirena Rayes

Featured reader Sirena Rayes is 18 years old. She is the only one in her family who was born in Albuquerque, and is very happy to hold the first generation slot. Writers on the other hand, show up in her family repeatedly from generation to generation. Luckily that gene made it to Albuquerque, and Sirena is honored to have held a pen long enough to be considered one of the poets.

The past three years she has been proud to be a student of the Voces program, which is a month long intensive writing workshop, among so many other great things. Sirena has performed poetry throughout this city on many stages as well as many sidewalks and feels very privileged to have that choice.


Esperanza Drive (Ditch Rider's Sunday Poem, June 20, 2010)



I grew up
on hope
esperanza drive
somethin' funny
about sitting hope on top a stop sign
hits me a little
too close to home

home
built of 1930 adobe
mud
after all these years
dirt is still
dirt

a block off Central
street names
take on a whole other meaning after dark
wrong turns wait
at every sharp corner
most who walk here gave up
on asking
what's right

so what's left?
sometimes bullet holes
sometimes dandelions
sometimes childhoods
so far grown
they've forgotten
a child ever existed
before hood

and I don't always remember
the grass
or how those blades made me feel safer
than any knife in my pocket
or that breeze
bent
on beautiful
no strand standing still

I was still
stranded
but there are photos
that graph me close enough

take a hit
or miss
and I do
I miss it