Rossy Evelin Lima

Early life

Lima was brought up in a family which enjoyed story-telling, poetry, declamation, music and writing. Lima began writing short poems and stories at the age of six. Her biggest influences were her mother and grandfather, who introduced her to the realms of poetic expression.

In "Ecos de Barro de la Memoria a la Imagen, de la Imagen al Poema",[2] Lima describes how her grandfather would give accounts of his hypnotizing adventures to her and three other children, listening to their favorite story. "It was the oldest story we knew, but it was always different." According to her grandfather, they lived among elves, witches and wizards who could turn themselves into animals. This encouraged Lima to create her own stories and other means of literary expression.

At the age of five, Lima's parents decided to leave the coast of Veracruz to find new employment opportunities in northern Mexico, and at the age of 13 she emigrated to the United States, where she would later earn her degree in literature and linguistics. She has since resided in southern Texas.

Social activism

At the age of 22. while still a graduate student at the University of Texas-Pan American (now University of Texas Rio Grande Valley), Rossy became president of the Hispanic Honor Society Chapter Xi Rho, where she began a campaign of social activism through the promotion of education. This campaign required members of the chapter to visit middle schools and high schools in southern Texas and give presentations to students promoting and instilling the idea of a college education. Rossy's leadership work and her excellence in the Spanish language, literature and culture earned her the National Gabriela Mistral Award by the National Hispanic Honor Society in April 2010.[3]

Poetic work

Rossy's poetry has been translated to English, Portuguese and Italian, and includes themes such as social justice, the immigrant identity and struggle, as well as pantheism. In poems such as "Indio, Mujer, Mi color, Arabia Saudita, Canto de tristeza, Cuicani, and Llorona" we can identify her profound calling for social justice and equality for indigenous people, immigrants and women. Poems such as "Dos lenguas," "El río y la frontera" and "La culebra" talk about the identity, acculturation and discrimination struggles of immigrants. Pantheism is also a theme throughout Lima's poetry and can be identified in poems such as "Soy la flor de loto," "Percibo" and "Vidrio."

Publications

Lima has been published in various literary magazines and journals internationally, including Wildness: Platypus Press, London, UK (2016), 3D3 Revista de Creación: Asociación Cultural Myrtos, Andalucía (2010), Negritud, Atlanta, Georgia (2012), Trajín Literario, Xochimilco, Mexico (2012), Hartz No. 22, Madrid (2012), Stellar Showcase Journal, Toronto (2012), Letralia, Cagua, Venezuela (2013), La Soga, Coquimbo, Chile (2014), Latino Book Review, USA (2017), among others.

She has appeared in several anthologies such as: La ruta de los juglares, McAllen, Texas (2007), Letras en el estuario, Matamoros, México (2008), La mujer rota, Guadalajara, Jalisco (2008), El Retorno: Our Serpent’s Tongue, Edinburg, Texas (2012), Along the River II, Rio Grande Valley, Texas (2012), Fuego del aire, Houston, Texas (2015), Nuevas Voces Poeticas, Austin, Texas (2015), and co-edited the anthology Outrage, Austin, Texas (2015).

Ecos de barro

Ecos de barro and Ecos de barro de la memoria a la imagen de la imagen al poema are two works by Rossy. The first is a poetry book published in 2013 by Otras Voces Press, the second is her master's thesis, where she outlines the relationship between the use of memory as a creative process and the different phases of identity. This also includes some poetry. They are complementary in understanding Rossy's poetic voice and purpose and give insight into the author's poetic realm.

Aguacamino/Waterpath

Aguacamino/Waterpath is Lima's second poetry book published in 2015 by Mouthfeel Press. This is a bilingual poetry book where the author expresses her experience as an immigrant writer in the U.S. Some of the most recognized poems in this book are "Many Islands", "Crossing the Border", and Immigrant City", where the author voices her struggle as an immigrant and makes a humanitarian call for unity and compassion. [4]

Migrare Mutare

Migrare Mutare is Lima's third poetry book published in 2017 by Artepoética Press; a bilingual poetry book translated by Don Cellini. Migrare Mutare expresses the author's process of evolution and adaptation as an immigrant. It was rated Amazon's #1 New Release in the category of Spanish poetry for the month of July 2017. [5]

Critics

"Poetry calls for understanding and vision; in her work, the poet Lima proves her worth on both counts, understanding and dominating the material. Her poetic vision is clear, unadulterated, and, just as important, focused. I read her poems aloud and discovered a new voice in Hispanic literature."

“Rossy Lima’s poems are encompassed by a border theme, and not only establish a song of denunciation, but a sense of broad solidarity. The author doesn’t pretend to speak for entire communities but realizes that by illuminating such painful realities, a new form of understanding emerges, of possible solidary approximations, and the creation of new esthetic options.”

“Eighty radiant poems of genuine character highlight a restless spirit, filled with exuberant creativity. In Rossy’s verses we find, (Who can doubt it?) a dialogue with Walt Whitman. She, as well as he, feels in her chest and in the deepest part of her heart, that which holds multitudes. Her verses are structured with ancestral telluric elements, of a universal mythological and autochthonous flow; polyphony which Mikhail Bakhtin would probably have enjoyed with special fruition.”

“The poems about our mother tongue touched my soul. The structure, the images and the poetic voice that sprouts dearly and is expressed in a completely original way, unadorned, very personal, very moving for the reader as well.

U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera

"Rossy Lima offers us a migration and migrant metaphysics, a river of personal and collective speakers, a labyrinth of voices, a woman serpent, of skulls and coyotes, an ongoing conjure of voices and lives of limbs and multi-tracks of birth-death, of borders and borderlessness. This is a prism of outside-inside, in-between, an always shifting set of reassessments—re-castings, memory and forecast—the elixir and poison of migrant exile without exile. Notice the urgent notes in this collection—perhaps in the timbres of a border mermaid, a skinned figure, almost formless, Cortazar’s axolotl, a half-amphibian, half human, a migrant existence, always in rapid, unknowable, transparent, brutal change. A magnificent set of poems, in a most appropriate time. Lima is a lyrical warrior crossing."

Pop Culture

On Chapter Twenty-Nine of Season Two of the television series Jane the Virgin on The CW network, Rossy Evelin Lima is mentioned as part of the plot. In this scene, Jane (the protagonist) nervously plans to approach Dr. Lorraine Bolton, a New York Times best-selling author during a grad school Christmas party, hoping that Dr. Bolton can become her grad school advisor. Jane had carefully researched a list of five topics that she thought would be spontaneous and funny anecdotes in order to create a good impression. One of these topics is Rossy Evelin Lima.

Publisher

In 2016, Rossy Lima co-founded Jade Publishing; a publishing company dedicated to the publication and promotion of emerging Latin American literary talent in both English and Spanish. [6]

Awards

Other works

Besides being an active participant in literature and linguistic symposiums since 2006, Lima organizes artistic community events, including creative writing workshops with a focus on the discovery of identity through the use of poetry.