Foreword: In Honor of Rudolfo Anaya

By Melina Vizcaíno Alemán

Issue 42 • Fall 2020

Rudolfo Anaya (1937-2020) closed the final chapter of his life this year, but his legacy lives on in the Southwest and at UNM. Over the past six years, I worked with Mr. Anaya to plan the Rudolfo and Patricia Anaya Lecture on the Literature of the Southwest, a series he launched in 2010 and named in honor of his late wife. Though I never met Patricia, I felt the mutual love, respect, and dedication the two shared in their home, where Mr. Anaya warmly hosted me with a bottle of uncorked wine and a beautiful view of the Sandía Mountains from his dining-room table. We talked and imbibed at the table, and these table talks gave me an intimate view into the home space of New Mexico’s literary luminary. Few words can explain my deepest sorrows and sympathies in the twilight of his passing, one of New Mexico’s most important Chicano writers.

This latest issue of Blue Mesa Review is a fitting tribute to Mr. Anaya, who founded the literary magazine in 1989 and dedicated the first issue to the Southwest. In Fall 2019, BMR ran an interview with Mr. Anaya in its 30th-anniversary issue (vol. 40), and the following Spring 2020 (vol. 41) featured the poetry of US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, who was to deliver the tenth annual Rudolfo and Patricia Anaya Lecture on the Literature of the Southwest in Fall 2020. Much has changed since our pre-pandemic lives and prior to Mr. Anaya’s passing. In Spring 2020, I collaborated with then Editor-in-Chief Tori Cárdenas and Fiction Editor Mario Montoya to publish Harjo’s poetry as part of BMR’s ongoing celebration of Mr. Anaya’s contributions to Southwestern writing and writers. Since then, we postponed Harjo’s lecture and Montoya proposed a tribute issue to Mr. Anaya. As Editor-in-Chief, Montoya wanted to honor Mr. Anaya in the next two issues of BMR. We brainstormed ways to connect BMR to the Anaya lecture series while also honoring one of New Mexico’s leading literary luminaries in the twilight of his passing. This issue is a collaboration across the critical and creative work that we do in the English Department at UNM, especially during times of loss and crisis. We join forces to honor Mr. Anaya’s life and lifelong commitment to student success, and we hope this issue lends deeper insight into the critical and creative outlets he worked to establish in the name of Southwest literature and culture.

Two feature essays lead this issue, one by Belinda Henry, Mr. Anaya’s niece, and the other by opera composter Héctor Armienta. Belinda’s essay offers an intimate window into Mr. Anaya as a person and a caring uncle. I wanted to hear Belinda’s memories of Mr. Anaya, who was not only a literary master but also a family member, a teacher in the classroom and at home. Belinda and I first met when I began visiting Mr. Anaya in his home, and we became better acquainted after the 2018 lecture featuring Héctor Armienta, who had just premiered the Bless Me, Ultima opera at the National Hispanic Cultural Center. The trust and friendship that Héctor engendered with Mr. Anaya and his family was evident. By that time, Mr. Anaya had stopped attending the lectures and other public events, but his family stayed connected and came out especially for Héctor’s lecture on the heels of the Bless Me, Ultima opera. I am incredibly grateful to Héctor and Belinda for the time, care, and attention they paid to their words and memories. With Belinda’s assistance, we also acquired the right to publish Mr. Anaya’s poem, “The Pulse of Life,” composed in memoriam of the 49 victims of the 2016 mass shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida. This issue thus honors Mr. Anaya with two essays and perspectives that give us a full view of his personhood and significance as a master of fiction, but it also includes Mr. Anaya’s own philosophical perspective and poetic voice, with a critical lesson about the human condition, understanding, and worth.

As Belinda points out in her essay, the success of Bless Me, Ultima led to Mr. Anaya’s position in the English Department at UNM. In many ways, the novel paved the way for BMR and other initiatives Mr. Anaya spearheaded, even after his retirement. My vision for this tribute was to strike a balance between family and the profession, art and the academy, with attention to the literature and lecture series that Mr. Anaya established throughout his lifetime. The Rudolfo and Patricia Anaya Lecture on the Literature of the Southwest has hosted a number of prestigious speakers throughout its history. Héctor’s essay highlights this prestige but also illustrates the timelessness and aesthetic innovation of Mr. Anaya’s now classic New Mexican novel. On October 5, 2021, the English Department will host US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, who was once a student of Mr. Anaya and is a UNM alumna. Harjo’s lecture will double as a homecoming and a celebration of Mr. Anaya’s life, which came to a close in 2020 but continues to endure as part of his literary legacy, in the initiatives he established and the literature he produced.

As with any collaborative project, we did not know what this endeavor would produce. The end result is even more dynamic than what we had envisioned. This issue of BMR brings together our two feature essays, Mr. Anaya’s poem, and the prize winners from this year’s writing contests. Collectively, the contents of this issue and the next one under Montoya’s editorship will pay respect to the past while also providing a publication venue for emergent and future writers, the poets laureate and other artistic voices that continue to define the Southwest as a feeling and a place. These writers are a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the importance of literary expression during times of crisis in the past, present, and future. We hope to illustrate how Mr. Anaya’s own “pulse of life” beats on in these new and future voices.

Melina Vizcaíno Alemán

University of New Mexico

December, 2020