Synopsis
MAMA SAPPHO: Poems con Sabor a Caló is a collection of poetry written during the 1970s by a XxicanXx lesbiana Osa (Dr. T. Osa Hidalgo de la Riva), between her teen years and early twenties. Originally entitled WITH POEMS as GUNS, several of the poems in this collection were performed on tour with her lesbiana poet sister Liz, at some of the first battered women’s shelters, women’s cafés, and bookstores throughout Aztlán, the U.S. Southwest. In 1980, the MAMA SAPPHO manuscript came together as the author’s creative thesis for one of the three master’s degrees she would complete before receiving her Ph.D. in Cinema and Media Studies from the University of Southern California. Published in book form 38 years later, the MAMA SAPPHO poems are joined by the author’s Poetic Afterword, an essay that reads as fierce manifesto. A truly timeless—or, time-expansive—collection, MAMA SAPPHO could have read as contemporary poetry in any of the four decades it has traversed since taking its thesis form, and will surely read as such in its book form for the four decades to come.
About the Author
Dr. T. Osa Hidalgo de la Riva is an internationally renowned filmmaker, public scholar, and writer. Holding three master’s degrees in Film Production, English & Creative Writing (both San Francisco State University), and History of Consciousness (University of California at Santa Cruz), she received her Ph.D. in Cinema and Media Studies from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. As a post-doctoral fellow, Dr. Eagle Bear, as she is also known, taught Erotic Women of Color: The Case of Hollywood and Sexuality, Gender and Media in the University of Southern California’s Critical Studies Division. From 2008 to 2013, she taught Ethnicity and Race in Contemporary Film at the University of California at Berkeley and in 2012 was the recipient of the Chancellor’s Public Scholar Award from the University’s Ethnic Studies Department. Dr. Hidalgo de la Riva’s films include Mujería: The Olmeca, Mujería: Primitive and Proud (both formally distributed by Women Make Movies, New York), and, Two Spirits: Native Lesbians and Gay Men (Third World Newsreel, New York). The Mujería films debuted in San Francisco, CA, at the Kabuki Theater and Roxie Cinema, respectively, and attracted capacity audiences. “Las Olmecas,” Dr. Hidalgo de la Riva’s animation artwork, was selected to be part of the award-winning 500 years of Chicana Women’s History/500 Años de la Mujer Chicana, edited by Dr. Elizabeth “Betita” Martínez. Dr. Eagle Bear has lectured and spoken at numerous film festivals, seminars, community centers, and universities throughout California and nationally, as well as internationally in México, Canada, and Europe.
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