Episode 135 with Briana Muñoz, An Activist, Dancer, and Poet of Healing, Challenging, Beautiful Words and Author of Loose Lips and Todo Vuelve a la Tierra/Everything Returns to the Soil

Episode 135 Notes and Links to Briana Muñoz’s Work 

 

    On Episode 135 of The Chills at Will Podcast, Pete welcomes Briana Muñoz, and the two discuss, among other topics, her upbringing and relationship with bilingualism and poetry, an eminently memorable visit to hear Michele Serros read, Briana’s performance experience in dance and poetry, inspiring and challenging poets who have inspired her, the issues and themes that populate her work, and exciting and important future projects she is working on.

    Briana Muñoz is a writer from Southern California. Raised in

San Diego, she spent a lot of her time at her mother’s Mexican

folklore dance classes and at ranches where her father trained horses

into the sunset. She is the author of Loose Lips, a poetry collection

published by Prickly Pear Publishing (2019). Her work has been

published in the Bravura Literary Journal, LA BLOGA, the oldest

Chicana Chicano Literature blog in history, the Poets Responding

page, and in the Oakland Arts Review, among others. In the 2016

publication of the Bravura, she was awarded the second-place fiction

prize. Her poem “Rebirth” was featured in the Reproductive Health

edition of the St. Sucia zine. Briana’s work was one of ten chosen

for The Best of LA BLOGA from 2015. When she isn't typing

away, she enjoys Danza Azteca, live music, cats, and thrift shopping.

Briana Muñoz Instagram

 

Buy Loose Lips

 

Buy EVERYTHING IS RETURNED TO THE SOIL/ TODO VUELVE A LA TIERRA

 

“Briana Munoz: The TNB Self-Interview”

 

‘WRITTEN WITHOUT SHAME’: MEXICAN-AMERICAN POET BRIANA MUÑOZ ON POETRY, PERFORMANCE AND HER INDIGENOUS ROOTS" from Ampersand LA

 

Briana performs her work at Voices of California, Part II (Briana’s segment starts around 41:10)

 

At about 2:50, Briana talks about her growing up- her experience with writing and language, her bilingualism, and her family’s performance background

 

At about 6:15, Briana speaks about early influences and who she was reading when she was a kid/adolescent, writers like Sandra Cisneros

 

At about 7:30, Briana gives background on a turning point in attending a live reading by Michele Serros

 

At about 10:00, Briana talks about early reading and former and current favorite readings and how she has endeavored to “decolonize your bookshelf”

 

At about 11:20, Briana responds to Pete’s question about how she reads now that she is a published and accomplished poet

 

At about 12:40, Briana shouts out the great work of Cesar De León 

 

At about 14:30, Pete asks Briana about how much she and the speakers in her poems are synonymous 

 

At about 16:10, Pete wonders about how music figures in for Briana’s creative process, and she continues to explain her family’s performance background

 

At about 18:30, Briana details her experience with and love for danza azteca, and how it influences other parts of her life, her poetry, and her mindset 

 

At about 22:30, Briana discusses the background for the subject matter of her first collection, Loose Lips

 

At about 23:20, Briana details the “big motivation” that came from a poetry trip through Cuba

 

At about 24:10, Briana describes how writing has been a part of her life since 10 years old and how her creative writing professors were very “motivating” for her

 

At about 26:00, Briana cites Sonia Gutierrez as a motivating influence

 

At about 27:20, Briana explains her performance “stage fright,” or lack thereof 

 

At about 28:20, Pete wonders, and Briana responds to his question, about readers “decoding poetry” 

 

At about 29:30, Briana talks about “seeds” for her most recent collection, the title’s significance, and a blur by Odilia Galvan Rodríguez that Briana feels sums up her writing styles 

 

At about 31:30 and 33:10, Pete and Briana explore the Epigraph for the collection and a few selected poems, especially its focus on Mother Earth as a collection throughline

 

At about 32:20, Briana speaks on the idea of poetry as “catharsis” and “torment” and various and slippery emotions

 

At about 34:15, The two discuss themes of ancestral wounds and legacies 

 

At about 38:10, Briana ponders what it is like to write about family members, and the personal feelings involved 

 

At about 40:30, The two discuss “My Poem is not a Persuasive Essay” and its standout images, phrases, and its craft 

 

At about 43:10, Briana explains the audience for her poem “Gente”

 

At about 45:00, Briana talks about the poem “Resilient Girl” and salient themes 

 

At about 46:30, Briana discusses the conscious and subconscious meanings of hands, a strong motif in the poems

 

At about 48:30, Pete highlights some stellar lines in her work as the two discuss themes of authenticity and sentimentality and nostalgia and trauma

 

At about 51:15, The theme of sensuality is discussed with lines from Briana’s work, and Pete asks her about her views on poetry as rational/emotional

 

At about 52:50, Pete cites the collection’s last poem as lines about transition are explored

 

At about 53:50, Briana reveals when she knew her collection was “done,” and helpful guidance from editor/publisher Edward Vidaurre

 

At about 55:30, Briana gives out her contact info: social media particularly, and talks about Mutual Aid Poetry Show and other future projects

 

At about 58:10, Briana reads “My Poem is not a Persuasive Essay”

 

At about, 1:01:00, Briana reads “Soft Girl”

 

At about, 1:01:50, Briana reads “Why I Refuse to Celebrate the Opening of the Sixth Street Bridge”

 

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    Please tune in for Episode 136 with Jose Antonio Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Emmy-nominated filmmaker, and Tony-nominated producer. A leading voice for the human rights of immigrants, his best-selling memoir, Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen, was published by HarperCollins in 2018. His second book, White Is Not a Country, will be published by Knopf in 2023.

The episode will air on August 2.