BCC Shines A Light On: Gavin Garza
Name of the piece published by BCC:
For the 90 Year Old Sleeping In Her Pontiac
When/where was it originally published:
RamsTelling, 2024. Defunct student journal. (((Fund the Humanities!!!)))
Tell us more about your piece! What is the background of the piece? What led you to write it? What’s your process?
Not to demystify a poem, but I’m hardly being figurative here. I had just quit my job to pursue writing and everything was uncertain. Work study only covered enough for my portion of rent, so I was walking a mile every morning to be the first at our student pantry. For weeks there was this woman—wrinkled, gray-haired, red and puffy from crying—who’d I’d find sleeping in her car at the halfway point to campus. She kept her toiletries in Cool Whip bins and photographs were scattered across the dashboard. She slept so still, I thought she was actually dead a couple of times. I’d been bold and didn’t apply to any safety colleges; there isn’t a safety net for me if I fail. So, it’s still vivid to me: the binders, Mike Briggs, the cleanup crew when someone found her dead, my confiding in David Berman’s poetry, etc. This was an attempt (and a failure) to put myself in her shoes. It’s more outburst than meditation. The thought of ending up alone and unhoused was something I had to confront every morning before breakfast. I don’t even remember writing the poem.
How did you feel when it was first published and how have your thoughts or feelings on the piece changed from then to now?
In hindsight, the time between the acceptance letter and publication was a journey of its own. I was excited. Fresno has an extreme prejudice against the homeless—just to give you an idea, those tontos at city council just passed a law making homeless camping punishable with one year of jail time—and I believed I had something to say.
Then I got wound up in a brief, yet abusive relationship (coincidentally we were in the same issue of RamsTelling together) before winning Dean’s Medallion and transferring to UC Berkeley. I used to think of it as storybook. But when I read this poem now, as I have been over and over again for my manuscript, I see some part of my character that I’ve lost or betrayed. There’s someone in this piece, in both the narrator and their subject, who’s just praying to be found again. Some of it is artistic growth, too. I try not to be so reliant on the first-person these days; I don’t always want to be myself.
Is there a specific message you would like readers to take away from reading this piece?
Not particularly. I always feel meek and amazed when someone compliments my work and shares their interpretation with me. They always go beyond my intention which, as I’ve come to learn, is the goal for any artform. It really makes my day.
If anything, I say just look more closely. Homeless death isn't a mercy killing.
What else would you like to tell readers about your writing? (Doesn’t have to refer only to your BCC piece)
Despite everything so far, I still think of myself as a budding poet. I’m a little over a year into this pursuit, and since arriving at Berkeley there’s been so much precarity now that I'm able to unpack my life.
I mean, I think the main draw to my work, if there’s been any, is the fact that, yeah, I grew up in a cult. But I don’t think anything I wrote in community college (such as this piece) engaged with the core of that perspective the way I wanted it to. Especially not while I still lived in Fresno. Now my memories are coming back, and I just have to trust my subconscious’ judgment that I’m ready to relive and process these experiences. I’m not the same writer I was a few months ago. These new poems want to express a rage and viscerality that I’ve been deeply unsettled having in my body. If it’s scary for me, then I can only imagine the editors weighing my work right now. I can’t say what’s next for my craft, but I'll take you up on a Dr. Pepper sometime.
Where can readers find more of your work? (Website/social media, etc)
You can find my work in The Acentos Review, MudRoom, Eucalyptus Lit, Bullshit, Five Minutes, plus more. My Instagram/Twitter/Bluesky is @gavinopoet.
Send me memes, share your favorite songs. I’m not omnipotent—ideally my being a poet should render me approachable.
