Helena C.S. ’25 had the honor of introducing Ms. Cordero to our campus community inside Kiggins Auditorium, noting the ways Karla’s work reflects the mission of Emma Willard School: 

As a descendant of the Chichimeca people of Northern Mexico and a proud Chicana, Karla often features Mexican culture in her poetry. She uses her work to highlight the struggles faced by multiple groups of people across the world, and seeks to bridge education with activism—something which shows not just in her writing but in her participation in various non-profit organizations like Glassless Minds, an open mic venue in Oceanside, California, which historically welcomes underserved youth.

Before she comes onstage, I would like all of us to take a moment to reflect on what it means to have Karla here today. Her work exemplifies many parts of our school’s mission—a mission which, among other things, asks young women to use their intelligence and moral strength to serve and shape their world for the better.

As she speaks here in Kiggins, and as she goes over her work with you all in your classes, I would like you to keep our Emma mission at the forefront of your mind. Think about the strength of character and the time and the skill it takes to not only write beautiful poetry, but poetry that changes the world reader by reader.

As Karla took her place at the podium, the audience was instantly at ease and captivated by her demeanor: she emphasized that this reading was a communal experience, and encouraged the audience to participate in the poetry itself by offering responses that were easy for a sizeable crowd to manage. 

 

 

“I want to make sure that when I share poetry,” Karla says, “it’s as engaging and collaborative as possible. Because when you get other people involved, they’re invested, and it makes them think about the possibilities versus building a wall between the authoritative figure reading and the audience who must be quiet. Instead, have fun and speak your truth in the middle of that; make it collaborative.” 

Karla’s time in the competitive poetry world helped develop this sense of the importance of a communal poetic experience. 

“When I was exposed to competitive poetry, I started writing stories that were important to me, and it was really beautiful to see people resonate and connect emotionally to the story. I really loved how poetry and telling stories can function as a form of activism; can function as a form of civic engagement.” 

During her reading in Kiggins, and later in conversations with writers for The Clock (Emma Willard School’s student newspaper), Karla underscored the importance of mentorship and representation. Karla is a descendant of the Chichimeca people from Northern Mexico, a Chicana poet whose work chronicles her experiences of the complications and celebrations of that identity. Though the presentation and conversation in Kiggins was celebratory, Karla noted the absence of someone who looked like her throughout her academic experiences: someone who knew how hard it is to be a female Latina in an academic system that doesn’t offer relevant cultural texts. 

 

 

This experience helped guide her to spoken-word poetry events and competitive poetry, but also to her work visiting campuses, speaking to students, offering workshops, and employing poetry in the work of activism (as she sometimes calls it, her ‘ARTivism’), becoming the image of a poet that was lacking in her academic experiences. 

“I want to make sure that when I have the privileged opportunity to enter college spaces, university spaces, high school non-profits, that my poetry can be a temporary mentor that says your story, our story, is relevant and important.”

In addition to speaking to the Emma Willard campus community in the morning, Karla visited several English classes, spent time with the Student Diversity Leadership Group (SDLG), and signed copies of her book. The busy day wrapped up with interviews (with The Clock and the Emma Willard School Communications Office), where Karla generously spoke at length about her work and ideas about poetry. Throughout her time at Emma, Karla offered suggestions of contemporary poets, authors, and artists whose work she is moved and inspired by: Ada Limón, Aracelis Girmay, José Olivarez, Sandra Cisneros, and Martin Isak, alongside the comic books that sparked an interest in telling stories (The Amazing Spiderman, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and other superhero narratives). All functioning as a door, or a window, to the audiences where they might view different perspectives, or ways of viewing their own. 

“I hope that the poetry I share offers a place where someone can feel like they belong, a place of open-mindedness and understanding of different perspectives,” said Karla. “It becomes the blueprint for how to show people the importance of archiving and being historians of their own backgrounds and just using poetry to continue to build a sense of empowerment and a place where they can use language to find freedom and liberation.”

 

Karla Cordero is the author of the chapbook, ‘Grasshoppers Before Gods’ (Dancing Girl Press 2016) and her first full length collection titled,  ‘How To Pull Apart The Earth’  was a 2019 San Diego Book Award winner and award-winning finalist for the 2019 International Latino Book Award and the International Book Award. 

You can follow her work @karlaflaka13