Margarita Engle

Poet, novelist, and journalist Margarita Engle was born in Pasadena, California, to a Cuban mother and an American father. She earned a BS from California State Polytechnic University and an MS from Iowa State University, and she studied for her doctoral degree in biology at the University of California, Riverside. From June 2017 to June 2019, she served as the Poetry Foundation's Young People's Poet Laureate. Engle is the author of many children's books and has won several awards. Engle’s writing has appeared in the Atlanta Review, Bilingual Review, California Quarterly, Caribbean Writer, and elsewhere. She has received a San Diego Book Award, Willow Review Poetry Award, Jane Addams Award, Claudia Lewis Poetry Award, the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature, and she was a CINTAS fellow. Engle lives in central California and has taught agronomy at California State Polytechnic University. Source

Turtle Came to See Me

The first story I ever write

is a bright crayon picture

of a dancing tree, the branches

tossed by island wind.

I draw myself standing beside the tree,

with a colorful parrot soaring above me,

and a magical turtle clasped in my hand,

and two yellow wings fluttering

on the proud shoulders of my ruffled

Cuban rumba dancer's

fancy dress.

In my California kindergarten class,

the teacher scolds me: REAL TREES

DON'T LOOK LIKE THAT.

It's the moment

when I first

begin to learn

that teachers

can be wrong.

They have never seen

the dancing plants

of Cuba.

Published:

2015

Length:

Regular

Literary Movements:

Children's

Anthology Years:

2023

Themes:

Childhood & Coming of Age

Education & Learning

Intersectionality & Culture