I was born in Germany, a year before WWII began. Not a good time for little kids, but from it emerged a novel and a poetry collection. I wrote her first Angst poems in German, of course, and most of them rhymed, of course. As soon as I could, I left home, my language, culture and any prejudices I may have acquired, in order to travel, and I wrote more poetic prose in Paris, at night when I couldn’t sleep and couldn’t (yet) communicate. And so it went. Eventually I married and had two children in London, and that was my new life, my new language, my new culture… and, of course, as much as is gained, as much is lost and there is always a price to pay. 

Now my language is English, to which I tend to bring a certain foreignness in images and perceptions. Perhaps. I live with the word and can’t imagine a world in which I wouldn’t write. Having alienated my mother tongue to reinvent myself in English, I must now guard her (almost) native English against the encroachment of Spanish. But I am delighted to be able to read Cesar Vallejo, Pablo Neruda and Octavio Paz in the original. 

I am married for a second time and live and work in Lima, Peru. Author of two novels and eight full-length poetry collection and a chapbook, my work has been widely published in US poetry reviews (online and print), as well as in Diane Lockward’s ‘The Crafty Poet’. I won third prize in in the 2009 ‘Margaret Reid Poetry Contest for Traditional Verse’ (US), was semi-finalist in the ‘Naugatuck Poetry Contest’ 2012/13, and have been a finalist in several of the now defunct Goodreads poetry contests, winning it an unheard-of three times: in October 2014, January 2016 and April 2018; I have been a Pushcart and Best of Net nominee.

At over 87 I have seen, watched, felt, accused and forgiven. I can appreciate the unusual and wonder of the impossible. Join me on this journey to inner and outer worlds.