Writing soothes Summerville poet’s soul

LA GRANDE — Poetry is to Puerto Rico what corn is to Iowa.

As a young child, Summerville’s Amelia Diaz Ettinger began reciting poetry and grew to love the art form.

“It was something that was very present in most Puerto Rican families,” she said. “The extended families would get together for big lunches and dinners where poetry was recited. It was natural. Poetry was also prevalent on TV, featuring Carribbean poets.”

Now Ettinger has had a collection of her poems, “Speaking at a Time,” published by Red Bat Books. A book launch party will be held at 6 p.m. Thursday at Looking Glass Books in              La Grande.

The recently retired La Grande High School biology, world science and Spanish teacher said the poems all originated from a time when she was missing Puerto Rico.

“There’s a thread of nostalgia woven through the poems,” she said.

“I miss the extended family,” Ettinger said. “Most of the poems in the book were written when my kids were little. I was thinking about the enrichness they were missing. The food. I could come close to preparing the dishes, but back then, in the ’80s, there was a limited amount of ingredients available here for an authentic Puerto Rican kitchen. I missed the beaches, the coral reefs, the parties that always included dancing and music.”

Ettinger gets lots of her inspiration from reading. A couple of Ettinger’s favorite poets when she was writing the book were Federico Garcia Lorca from Spain and Pablo Neruda from Chile.

Growing up, Ettinger was inspired by two poets who were very visible and recited their negroid onomatopoeic poems on TV — Palés Matos of Puerto Rico and Nicolas Guillén of Cuba.

Tastes, however, change.

“I now read a wide eclectic group of writers,” she said.

Poems, she said, are born in different ways.

“You take a framework and begin adding and subtracting until you get something that conveys what you want to say and something that might give people some fulfillment,” she said.

Ettinger said she believes writing a poem is a lot like cooking.

“People either love cooking or they don’t,” she said. “In poetry, I have a thought and then I see it on paper. When you finish, you think, ‘Wow, that’s kind of cool.’ You can taste it, feel it, be moved by it.”

The poet believes a key to good writing is to immerse yourself in a lot of good poetry.

“I like to play with words,” she said. “A lot of good poetry is playing with words. I like to take a poem in Spanish and sit down and translate it into English. Writing down poems on paper opens areas in your brain. You see how words are put together by a master, and it improves your own writing.”

Because of her career, along with raising a family, Ettinger took a long hiatus in writing. Now she is back full force, rediscovering work she did earlier, rewriting and polishing.

“I’m still writing poetry,” she said, “but it’s more eclectic now, not as thematic as the book.”

Ettinger is also writing a novel carrying the working title “False Memories.” It’s a loosely autobiographical tale about growing up on the islands.