PVCC Puma Press: March 2003

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	PVCC English faculty and poet Marianne Botos has been awarded a $5,000 poetry fellowship from the Arizona Commission for the Arts.
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It's a balmy winter afternoon, birds are cheerfully chirping, and poet Marianne Botos is pondering what part poetry will play in the rest of her life. A smile comes to her face as she shares the answer.

"Poetry will always be there ... like my breath," says Botos.

And Botos is breathing a little easier these days because the Arizona Commission for the Arts awarded her one of its eight $5,000 poetry fellowships for 2002-2003. The award was a complete and ironic surprise to her since she needed more than a little nudging to enter the competition.

"My friend and fellow poet, Thea, pushed me and pushed me until I finally gathered up my best poetry and submitted it to the Commission," says Botos. "I don't write safe poetry for mass audiences so I wasn't sure if I had any chance of winning. I was so surprised when I won that I called Thea right away and we screamed back and forth."

Botos needed a little nudge to submit her work not because she's lazy, just extremely busy. She is an adjunct faculty member at PVCC, teaching two English composition classes and two Creative Writing classes. She also is club advisor for the PVCC Writer's Guild, moderator for the PVCC Book Club and works three days a week helping students work out their writing problems in The Writing Center at PVCC.

"I love to write at night ... I seem to come alive and can focus on what I'm feeling," she says. To help with inspiration, Botos keeps a journal, capturing images that pop into her consciousness. "It's like a word camera."

Botos is a native Phoenician, so the desert is finely woven into her poetry. Growing up during the early 70s, she lived on the fringes of Phoenix, using the desert as her backyard, playing games with the coyotes and falling in love with horses. She fondly remembers saving $150 from her baby sitting jobs to buy a mustang horse and the exhilarating freedom of riding in the desert.

"Even to this day, horses are very present in my poetry," she says.

Botos' first venture into poetry was a sixth grade writing assignment. But at 10, she was precocious, and in love with playing guitar, singing rock and roll, ballet and camping, so her gift for poetry remained dormant. It wasn't until high school, when she fell in love with 17th century British Metaphysical poet John Donne, that her gift for poetry began to crystallize. Metaphysical poets startle their readers and coax new perspectives through paradoxical images, subtle argument, inventive syntax and imagery. Botos incorporates some of this approach in her poetry.

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Poetry will always be there ... like my breath
— Marianne Botos, English faculty
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But when she took a Creative Writing class at ASU in the mid 90s, her life as a poet took a significant turn. There, she met Regents Professor Norman Dubie and he became a valued mentor. "He's the reason I discovered what poetry really is," she says.

He saw her potential and encouraged her to enroll in the ASU Master of Fine Arts program. For three years, she was immersed in a world filled with reading, writing, discussing and debating poetry.

"I really miss those days ... it was like heaven," she remembers.

Botos graduated from the MFA program in 1999 and poetry has been in her blood ever since. She still relies on Dubie for support and guidance. "I will be eternally grateful to Professor Dubie for helping me to find my voice."

Botos feels that poetry is an amazing platform for expression, much like jazz. "Poetry allows room for experimentation and interpretation. It allows your feelings to soar, undefined and discordant."

She feels that writing poetry came naturally to her, but she never takes it for granted, constantly keeping her senses open to the soaring sounds of life. "My poetry is lyrical ... using word sound, image and internal rhyme to express feelings."

When she conjures up images of her future, she sees herself settled in one of two places.

"I would love to teach creative writing and literature at the university level, or if I win the lottery, I'd buy a ranch off the California coast, open a writer's ranch and let writers stay for free and just write."

No matter where she ends up, Botos says poetry will always be there: "Poetry is who I am, like breath."