Gina Franco Reading
Gina Franco reads selection of poems from The Keepsake Storm. Franco explains how both her upbringing in a Latino culture, and later her study of the traditional literary canon, informed the poems in her collection. It is due to this combination of influences that Franco considers her writing style to be “polyphonic.”
During a question and answer session, Franco discusses her reverence for Romantic poetry. She expresses her love of John Keats’ poetry, claiming that his is “perfect poetry” with “not a hair out of place.”
Franco goes on to explain her childhood spent in an Arizona mining town; she had never consider writing an option-- it was more important to make money to help support the family. She recalls how the creative writing classes she took at a local community college eventually led to her further education on the East Coast. Franco points out that it is difficult for her family to understand what she does for a living, but are nonetheless supportive.
Franco ends by discussing the storms that form a theme throughout her poetry collection. She tells that her initial inspiration for the book was a woman she had once cared for, who had lost her memory long before Franco had met her. The woman had survived Hurricane Cleo while on a boat, and it was the only memory that she could still recall.
In: "Live from Prairie Lights" Audio Archive | Poetry
Authors: Gina L. Franco
Date Recorded: June 22, 2004
Works Read: "These Years, In the Deepest Holes," "Darkling," "The Spirit That Appears When You Call," "The Walk Like Old Habits," "That Cried to the Whole City 'Sleep No More,'" from The Keepsake Storm, by Gina L. Franco
Program: Live From Prairie Lights
Format: reading
Contributors: Introduction by host Julie Englander.
Topics: Latino heritage, Romantic poetry, Arizona, mining, natural disasters