Platica Y Poetics S3E3 W/ Amber Ortega

In honoring Women’s History Month, we engaged in a profound platica with poet Amber

Ortega, exploring the intersections of embodied writing, ancestral memory, and the healing

power of the natural world. The episode opened with a tribute to influential female poets,

including Gabriela Mistral, Sylvia Plath, Gloria Anzaldúa, Audre Lorde, Idea Vilariño, Rupi

Kaur, Laura Esquivel, Isabel Allende, Alejandra Pizarnik, and Natalie Diaz—with a reading of

Diaz's evocative poem "The First Water is the Body." Throughout the interview, Amber reflected

on the intimate relationship between the body, spirit, and the written word, describing her

approach to poetry as an embodied practice, where the physical sensations, ancestral memory,

and the natural world converge. She shared how this intimate connection emerged. The

emotional texture present in her work, especially in poems like Needed to Go Grocery Shopping,

and Nest, a poem that explores the temporal landscapes highlighting how the passage of time

shapes our experiences and identities. She shared that the concept of language is a living code,

paralleling the body’s interconnectedness to ancestry and belonging. Poetry itself functions as a

nest—sacred space to hold sensations, memory, and transformation. We explored the theme of

movement and belonging, speaking to the embodiment and fluidity that mirrors the ever-

evolving relationship between the self, the land, and the stories we inherit.