Poetry Cafe: Lena Bartula, Wendy Bichel and Bernardine Lortis

Poetry Café Bellas Artes presents:
Lena Bartula, Wendy Bichel, and Bernardine Lortis

Thursday, Jan. 16, 2020, 5:00–6:00 PM

Sala Literaria, 1st Floor
 El Centro Culturál Ignacio Ramírez “El Nigromante”
Hernández Macías 75

Suggested Donation 50p

Three Poets Ring in New Year at January Poetry Café

by Catherine Marenghi

Three poets with varied artistic interests will read at the Poetry Café at Bellas Artes on January 16 at 5:00 PM.

Lena Bartula is an artist, poet, and author of “Whispers in the Thread,” a new bilingual book that features her art, poetry, stories, artistic process, and writings by contributing authors. A visual artist for more than 35 years, Lena moved in 2004 from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to Mexico and lives and works in San Miguel de Allende. Her repertoire includes painting, installation, printmaking, constructions, book arts and mixed media. Her art often combines imagery and pattern, textured layers, and words or letters in English or Spanish. The huipil, an indigenous blouse in the Mesoamerican tradition, called her attention to the “why” of writing one’s personal and collective history in symbols. Out of this was born a series of contemporary huipils, a tribute to women whose voices and visions have historically been silenced or suppressed. Her works are shown in museums and galleries, in her San Miguel studio La Huipilista Artspace, and in collections worldwide.

Wendy Bichel is a lyricist, librettist and composer with an MFA in music theater writing from New York University. Her works have been produced in New York City and San Miguel de Allende. Fred Dannen, a member of the board of the San Miguel Playhouse, said about the recent production of her musical, Bikers in Camelot (for which she wrote book, music and lyrics), “It was by any measure the most successful show in our theater’s history.” In the last six years Wendy has expanded from lyrics into poetry, but the musicality remains. “My Affair with Rumi,” her poetry manuscript, is a rich collection of the sacred and the profane. She is married to pianist and composer Ken Bichel.

Bernadine Lortis began submitting her writing to literary journals in 2016, after writing secretly and sporadically for years. As family responsibilities lessened and freed her to commit to writing seriously, her fiction, creative nonfiction, and over 25 poems have been published in online journals and print anthologies. She credits her love of and respect for nature to growing up on a farm in southwestern Minnesota on the prairies of the Buffalo Ridge. With degrees in interior design as well as adult and elementary education, and real estate licensure, she lived briefly in San Francisco and then settled in St. Paul with her husband of 50 years. Along with writing, she reads, gardens, and dabbles in watercolor painting.

Founded in January 2016, Poetry Café Bellas Artes typically meets the third Thursday, September through April. The all-volunteer organization presents local and visiting poets, both established and emerging, sharing their work in a casual setting.

Please arrive a few minutes early. Seating is limited.