Erica Mena

Poet | Book Artist | Translator

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Category Archives: Teaching

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Tying Knots: A language of anxiety

April 1, 2019 by Erica Mena

CW: Ableism, mental illness, lots of personal stuff   How might you read this work. If I tell you that each French knot is a wound, or is wound 3 times with 2 strands of floss around a needle poked first front to back through the postcard, then sewn through the pre-punched hole back to front, and returned through the hole. That each hole is placed individually in relation to the work as a whole as it unfolds. That I […]

Categories: Art, Teaching • Tags: ableism, academia, adjuncting, anxiety, aphantasia, art, borderline, burn out, embroidery, mental health, mental illness, neurodivergence, personal

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Experimental Poets of Color

September 19, 2016 by Erica Mena

Up until a few years ago I thought I had to choose between being a “Puerto Rican poet” and being an “experimental poet.” Puerto Rican poets write about things like their abuela, or El Morro, o la isla, o salsa, o Nuevayork, o cualquier cosa. It probably didn’t help that the only Puerto Rican poet writing in English I knew, knew of, or had ever heard of was Martín Espada, whose work is exceptional and beautiful and extremely lyrical and more or less […]

Categories: Poetry, Teaching • Tags: experimental poetry, poetry, teaching

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Some Days Are Great

August 14, 2013 by Erica Mena

Today is a beautiful day. I’m totally soaring right now because I just got copies of the course evaluations from the course Matt and I taught in the first part of the summer at UMass Boston (The Art of Stealing). We had thirteen students in the class, and boy were they amazing. I’ve said this about every class I’ve taught so far (maybe I’m just super lucky with students?), but this was by far my favorite class. When the semester […]

Categories: Teaching • Tags: #stealart, culture jamming, teaching, the art of stealing

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Speed & Fragmentation

May 29, 2013 by Erica Mena

I had a long conversation last night with a good friend of mine. We’d had this conversation before, and we’ll have it again. I am pulled in too many directions, have too many projects going on simultaneously. He says I need to slow down, focus. This I’ve been told again and again by almost everyone who I discuss my artistic practices with. And the thing is I know they’re right, but I can’t help myself. I’m like an addict. Anyway, […]

Categories: Teaching

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Notes on Conceptualisms by Richard Fitterman and Vanessa Place

May 11, 2013 by Erica Mena

Was considering assigning this for The Art of Stealing, but though there are moments that are very interesting, as a whole the book fell short of my hopes. The Fitterman section seemed a little too enamored of its own brilliance, as evidenced by the reliance on fairly obtuse language and a lot of the kind of name-dropping reference that is fine for notational purposes but I think is really a kind of self-satisfied flouting of ones’ own library. Though I […]

Categories: Reading Journal, Teaching • Tags: art of stealing, conceptual writing, manifesto, notes on conceptualisms, richard fitterman, translation

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The Art of Stealing

May 4, 2013 by Erica Mena

This summer I’m once again teaching a course of my design at my alma mater, UMass Boston. Go Beacons! (Ok, that may be the lamest mascot ever, but since I never cared about sports, I just think it’s funny.) The course starts in a little under a month, and frankly, I’m feeling a tad panicky. But the good, stage-fright kind where I’m so excited about the course, and have so much I want to do that I’m panicking that we […]

Categories: Teaching • Tags: art of stealing, creative appropriation, syllabus, teaching, uncreative writing, unoriginal genius

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Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith

December 14, 2012 by Erica Mena

I’ve been putting together a syllabus for an undergraduate poetry workshop, and I decided I wanted to teach a section on speculative poetry. It’s something I’ve been interested in recently, and want to learn a lot more about. (Suggestions?) Anyway, I was excited to see that the Pulitzer Prize was given to a young, black woman poet writing speculative poetry earlier this year, and so I got Tracy K. Smith’s Life on Mars. I haven’t read any of her earlier work, […]

Categories: Poetry, Reading Journal, Teaching • Tags: Life on Mars, poetry, poetry syllaubs, Pulitzer Prize, science fiction, science fiction poetry, speculative poetry, teaching, teaching poetry, Tracy K. Smith

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Antigone, Pride and Teaching

October 12, 2011 by Erica Mena

I have the class I’m teaching today, Literary Classics and Film Adaptations. I’m having several difficulties with the class. Not the students, the students are amazing – I’m so lucky to have such a wonderful, engaged, class. But, the syllabus. Haven’t had a single film adaptation, and don’t have one on the syllabus. The professor said to one of the students in my section that the only reason it has “film adaptations” in the title is to trick students into […]

Categories: Teaching • Tags: antigone, atheist, teaching

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Strategies of translation, translation as strategy

June 8, 2011 by Erica Mena

Strategies of translation Last class we talked about Robert Bly’s “Eight Stages of Translation” in which he somewhat artificially maps out eight things a translator must (or should) do in translating. Briefly, they are: 1. Create a literal version (a trot) 2. Read closely for deep meaning 3. Turn the literal into English 4. Turn it into spoken English 5. Focus on the tone and mood 6. Focus on the sound, meter, rhythm, rhyme 7. Have it read by someone […]

Categories: Teaching, Translation • Tags: Lawrence Venuti, read translation, review translation, Robert Bly, teach translation, teaching, translation, translation as art, Words without Borders

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Teaching Translation as Art

May 31, 2011 by Erica Mena

Translation as Art. That’s the name of the class I’m starting tomorrow. I’m very excited – I’m teaching at my alma mater, in my field, a course of my design. It’s the dream, or at least, my dream. Summer session is condensed, seven weeks of two long meetings a week, and of course when I started the syllabus I was overly ambitious. I thought we’d do a book a week, and in my crazy head that made sense. I’ve come to […]

Categories: Teaching, Translation • Tags: Action Books, Autumn Hill Books, experimental translation, New Directions, Open Letter Books, Small Beer Press, syllabus, teaching, translation

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