“A Brief Meditation on Breath”: Five Questions for Yesenia Montilla
Yesenia Montilla was born and raised in New York City and she currently lives in Harlem New York. She received a BA from Hunter College and an MFA from Drew University in poetry and poetry in translation. Her second collection Muse Found in a Colonized Body, published by Four Way Books in 2022, was nominated for an NAACP Image Award.
In 2015, her collection The Pink Box was published, and it was later long-listed for a 2016 PEN Open Book award. She is the recipient of fellowships from CantoMundo and the New York Foundation for the Arts, and her work has been published in The Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day series, Prairie Schooner, and Gulf Coast.
Her poem “A Brief Meditation on Breath,” which is among the selections in the 2021 edition of Best American Poetry, was first published in July of 2020. Later, her “How To Greet a Warbler” was also featured in Best American Poetry. Central to “the poem”A Brief Meditation on Breath” is the Covid 19 pandemic, which was a universal experience for millions of people, making the poem especially relatable. I enjoyed how it zeroed in on the current events at the time and pressing issues in America such as racial discrimination. After doing additional research on Montilla, I found that many of her poems celebrate her racial background while also marking her struggles.
What is the significance of your descriptions of breathing and breath in “A Brief Meditation on Breath”?
Because of what happened to Eric Gardner, and because of the symptoms of COVID-19, the not being able to breathe in either case: Gardner because of excessive force by police and Covid having symptoms of losing breath, I tried to create a space that felt breathless. The title is truly the poem, I was trying to meditate on how we take breath for granted, how it’s something we just do, and seldom think about, but what happens to us when it’s scarce or taken away from us. So the poem meditates on my relationship to breathing and being alive.
I noticed that two of your poems are based on events that took place in 2020. How significant was that year for you?
Because of the pandemic, definitely. I was working from home at that time, oftentimes up to 16 hour days because so much changed so fast, there was a lot of work, and at that time I worked at a Law Firm and had tons of responsibilities. It was incredibly bewildering to me how so many people were dying all around me and yet I was expected to work and function like a regular human being. It still boggles my mind that all of this happened but there has never really been anytime for national mourning. Grieving is a part of healing and I am not sure if the world has grieved for all that was lost in 2020 and even still today.
You use the word “death” only once in “A Brief Meditation on Breath,” but it seems like there is death all around in the poem. Is there any specific person whose passing impacted you and inspired the poem?
Death is a part of life I believe. I think that having lost a lot of folks in my life: grandparents and dear friends has made me acutely aware of how precious the time we have on this earth is and should be treated as treasure. So many folks died during Covid and I do not think we as a people were prepared for the shock of the pandemic, for how it transformed us. Even though the poem is ultimately about breath, you can’t write about breath without writing about death too. I tried to make that clear in the poem, I am glad that you were able to see the death too, through the breathing, Phoebe.
“But like the police it can kill you fast or slow.” I found this line to be very impactful and influential. Can you tell me more about this line?
I was referencing the line about Eric Gardner mostly. I was also thinking of George Floyd who was murdered by the police right before so many of our eyes that May during the pandemic.
I saw that you received your M.F.A. from Drew University. Is there something notable you learned from that program that marks your work today?
Yes, the most important thing I learned during my MFA is that community is everything. The people you choose as family, your friends, the folks who read your work, who critique your work and who see you and want the best for you are the real story of what matters most in life. Finding connection with others is what life is all about, and I found so many beautiful connections during my MFA and treasure them.