I’m grateful to share that my poem, “How to Ride a Train in the Andes,” is a runner up in the 2020 Sandy Crimmins National Prize in Poetry! The poem has been published in the Spring 2020 issue of Philadelphia Stories.
This poem was born during NaPoWriMo in 2018, so it is very fitting that it ended up being published in April. It’s the first poem that I wrote about my grandmother, my Abuelita, who was born in Alausí, Ecuador. Although my grandmother most likely only had a sixth grade education, she was a renaissance woman. She taught herself many things, especially in the arts, including painting, how to play several instruments, knitting, crochet, and most importantly sewing. My Abuelita was a master seamstress, and 3D fabric artist. She could make anything out of cloth.
My poem “How to Ride a Train in the Andes” is an homage to the Guayaquil-Quito trans-andean railroad that my grandfather worked for, and the decisions my grandmother took to break free and a create different life for herself. While the poem sounds fantastical, it’s all based on facts. Click on the link, and take a ride with me. If this story fascinates you, as it fascinates me, you can read more about it here.
The G&Q train moving up the switchback called Devil’s Nose, in the Ecuadorian Andes mountains.
Lupita Eyde-Tucker is a bilingual poet and translator raised in New Jersey and Guayaquil, Ecuador. She is the winner of the 2021 Unbound Book Festival Emerging Poet Award, the 2019 Betty Gabehart Prize, and in 2018 was selected as an AWP Writer to Writer Mentee by poet Maggie Smith. In 2022 her poetry manuscript, "Eucalyptus," was a finalist for the Andrés Montoya Prize from Letras Latinas. The manuscript explores her Sephardic Jewish ancestry and bi-cultural heritage.
Not Enough Poetry 
Please let me know what you think of this poem. I love comments!