EKIWAH ADLER-BELÉNDEZ, POET

“I think that what poets do is decipher silence.” —Ekiwah Adler Beléndez

“I fall into the sea of poetry which drags me to the forgotten archipelagos of my Being. Or, drowned by the ocean I reincarnate as a crab that plays the lovers game...a crab that draws near, a crab that grows distant.”—Ekiwah Adler Beléndez

Blue Flower Arts is proud to introduce to the United States audience, 19-year old poet Ekiwah Adler-Beléndez, from Amatlan, Mexico, a small village an hour from Mexico City. The son of a North American father and a Mexican mother, Ekiwah is a poetic prodigy whose powerful verses have mesmerized Mexico's literary scene. Born September 14, 1987, Ekiwah is the author of three volumes of poetry: Soy (I Am); Palabras Inagotables, (Never-ending Words); Weaver (2003), his first book in English, and The Coyotes Trace, which features an introduction by Mary Oliver. Ekiwah lives in Massachusetts, has dual citizenship and is bilingual. He has a younger brother, Dhyan.

Ekiwah began writing poems and stories at the age of 10. He sent his writing to the Institute of Culture of Morelos (ICM), and upon reading Ekiwah's poems, the director of the Institute immediately offered to publish them. In June 2000 Soy (I Am) was published. Ekiwah was 12-years-old. He presented the newly published book to a numerous audience at the Jardín Borda in Cuernavaca and became an immediate literary sensation. At 14, Palabras Inagotables (Never-ending Words), was published, and at 16, Weaver. The latter books were also presented at the Jardín Borda of Cuernavaca, causing Elena Poniatowska, one of Mexico's finest writers and journalists, to hail Ekiwah as "A young Prometheus chained." Ekiwah was awarded an Honorable Mention for the contest Premio Nacional de la Juventud, (National Prize for the Youth), by the Governor of the Sate or Morelos. He was twice granted a 6-month scholarship by the FONCA (the National Institute for Support of the Arts)—an unusual occurrence as scholarships are not granted to persons his age. Ekiwah has since written and acted in three plays, and has begun writing prose.

Ekiwah, which means Warrior in the language of the Purepecha, is an appropriate appellation. He has been battling cerebral palsy at birth—born 10 weeks early and weighing less than two pounds. Ekiwah writes, "I cannot walk by myself, yet in my poems I not only walk, but give myself license to have eight legs and experience movement. When I read a poem, on an ephemeral level I go to the places the poet describes." His warrior nature also allows him this wisdom: "I don't feel my cerebral palsy is a battle I have to win. I don't battle more or less then anyone else—my cerebral palsy is simply there. For me the connection of my name with my struggle has to do with the fact that I fought in my birth to live."

Ekiwah's literary career continues to blossom. He is speaking and reading his poems at universities, high schools, and conferences in Mexico and the U.S. He has an extraordinary ability to relate to his audience, heart to heart. At a shared reading with poet Mary Oliver in Provincetown, Massachusetts, Oliver introduced Ekiwah stating that although his is indeed a powerful story, the poems themselves stand alone with a clear and distinct—and soulful—power of their own.

ABOUT CEREBRAL PALSY & DR. NUZZO

“In a way cerebral palsy has forced me to do what I love the most:
stop dead in my tracks and write.”—Ekiwah

Despite years of hard therapeutic work Ekiwah developed a severe scoliosis that required surgery or would prove fatal. From Mexico, the family sent X-rays to Dr. Roy Nuzzo, a Pediatric Orthopaedist and Surgeon in New Jersey—and included Ekiwah’s books and English translations. In a Dateline special entitled The Gift, about Ekiwah and Dr. Nuzzo’s meeting, they said, “The fact that [Ekiwah’s poems] reached this doctor, in a routine request for medical intervention, may indeed have been a sign of divine intervention because Dr. Nuzzo knows almost as much about meter and rhyme, as muscle and bone. He's not only a surgeon, but a lover of poetry and a writer, himself, and what he read that day stunned him.”  Upon reading the book of poems that fell out with the X-rays, Dr. Nuzzo said, “Ekiwah is simply an extraordinary talent . . . I was trying to figure just when I was last so taken by a specific series of writings. Who so stunningly allowed the rest of us to experience so internally the feelings of another? I decided . . . . [Ekiwah] has the force of Dante but delivered with the temperament of Poe." Nuzzo declared then that saving Ekiwah’s life was the most important thing he would ever do.

Operating for free Nuzzo quickly recruited Dr. Thomas Errico, chief of spinal surgery at NYU Medical Center and at the Hospital for Joint Diseases, and Dr. David Feldman, chief of pediatric orthopedics at NYU, to volunteer their services. On December 15, 2004 a team of NYU Medical Center doctors successfully performed a massive spinal surgery. Within hours of his surgery, Ekiwah picked up a notebook, wrote, and handed the following poem to Dr. Nuzzo:

I am the snow of white sharks in a sea of mercy.
And around me, there are luminous hands that open the wound.
Those luminous hands speak to my bones
the metal that they temper makes the strongest sword.
In that sweet hour, I discover through being the slow snake,
that spark of intelligence. I am the warrior.

The following year a smaller surgery was performed, also by Dr. Nuzzo, to facilitate Ekiwah's ability to walk. Ekiwah and Dr. Nuzzo were the keynote speakers at the annual National Association for Poetry Therapy conference in Boston in, 2006. www.poetrytherapy.org

Ekiwah Adler-Beléndez Website

"Poet Prodigy Well-Versed In Adversity" by Juan Gonzalez, New York Daily News
http://www.ekiwah.com/cgi-bin/htw.cgi?lang=2&table=company&kid=64

“Poetry & Immobility” Essay by Ekiwah http://www.vsarts.org/prebuilt/showcase/openbook/onlinejournal/featured_essay.cfm