ALBUQUERQUE, NM--Isabella Lobaina, is a winner in the youth category of the Statewide Ekphrastic Poetry Contest held in March to celebrate National Poetry Month. The contest sponsored by the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs and was open to everyone in two categories, youth, grades 6 to 12, and adult. Ms. Lobaina writes with sophistication that masks her age. The 17-yearold who wrote “Cracked Ice” inspired by the painting “Water Girls” by Laguna artist, Marla Allison, will graduate this year from Cottonwood Classical Preparatory School and already has ambition to attend University of Southern California in the fall.
Lobaina described the theme as “kind of looking at yourself in a different light, or like talking to yourself in the mirror.” Think of a reflection in good lighting that lets you see yourself as you honestly look. Oh dear. “Cracked Ice” as I watch you, I always see your need for me, your want for me, and I love it. i soak it up like how rice soaks up water. but as i watch you, always pushing me away, not wanting to be around me. oh but trust, you will see me again. and i will see that desperation whenever you pull me in once more.
(Isabella Lobaina and New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs) The poet is always writing, and she had recently finished her winning poem when she saw Allison’s painting and realized it expressed how she felt in her own creation. “you will see me again., and i will see that desperation” reflects how we see ourselves even though we may not want to. That inescapable honesty.
Lobaina is prolific and won the poetry contest for Poetry New Mexico with another insightful, beautiful piece that she wrote during the fall semester, “my grandfather’s granddaughter.” The artist is a second generation Cuban-American and is protective of her family though she can express her emotions in literature.
One line from her poem “my grandfather’s granddaughter” is i can’t help but wonder why these plates are moldy and sticky.
i know the Cuban blood in me will come out
“The plates were meant to be a reflection of a culture as well as a mental health perspective,” Lobaina disclosed. “Sometimes people, and I include myself, can be difficult to clean up because of a person’s mental health. So, I wanted to reflect that in a way that made sense for my culture.” por soy cubano. though i might be seen as a farmer, who gathers sugar and beans, i can never forget that my blood traveled through the ocean to get safe from a place I used to call home for I have no shame but they shed my blood in that place. drip. drip. drip.
Though her grandparents don’t often talk about Cuba, the third stanza of Lobaina’s poem reflects her grandfather's flight from his homeland during the Castro regime.
The artist likes to express herself in various mediums. She is working on a painting and will be studying theatre at the university, as well as poetry and writing. But she writes in poetic form because of the intimacy of the form.
“Sometimes it starts out as little thoughts and it grows into a poem. And sometimes it is never over, you will always be adding more.”
Vietnamese poet and essayist, Ocean Vuong, inspired her “grandfather…” poem. “He writes about the effects of mental health and familial bonds.” Her instructors have encouraged Lobaina to study Vuong, “who he is as a person and how that is reflected in his writing.”
How has, or has, New Mexico inspired Lobaina? “I wasn’t born here, but I was raised here, so I feel like I can’t really be myself without New Mexico, in a sense. There’s so much. I really like nature. I run cross-country and a lot of where we run is in the trails, in the Bosque, so I really enjoy walking through those trails, or running through them to truly admire the nature that we have around us. Because of the climate and the environmental action, I’ve come to realize that a lot of the time this probably won’t be here in a while. So it’s important for me to learn as much as I can. But New Mexico as a whole, I really enjoy the people here. There’s so many kinds of different people to meet, and so many young people with different ideas. I feel inspired by the people I’m surrounded by, and that goes for my family, too. “
Being so accomplished at a young age, one can’t help looking forward to her expressions in the decades ahead. Her friends lovingly tease her about her writing, “that’s how I can tell they like it.” We all do. No joke.