Senior Spotlight With Heaven Santiago

By: Hannah Cornell

Heaven Santiago

is a second-year student who primarily writes poems. We interviewed her to learn more about her thesis project. 

Cafe MFA: What is your thesis about? 

Heaven Santiago:  My thesis is about a combination of things—I’d like to think it’s a story of events that have changed me drastically or made me who I am today. It includes personas that I gravitate towards that people in the real world wouldn’t necessarily perceive me as. Two of the central personas are ‘the archer’ and ‘the assassin.’ One of the exciting aspects is that a handful of weapons are sprinkled throughout and act as motifs! A central force of it relates to archery. Archery has changed my life in so many ways, the second being writing—I’ve had a bow and arrow since I was around twelve years old. Some other themes include: homelessness, womanhood, empowerment, identity, and violence.

Cafe MFA: Who is on your advisory board for the project?

Heaven:  David Keplinger and Kyle Dargan are my current thesis advisors. Keplinger has great enthusiasm and he’s so thoughtful and supportive! He treats every student’s work with care and importance. He is about all things poetry! Dargan, similarly, (though he may seem brooding) is just as supportive. He has a sharp eye for revision and, admittedly, has lots of great ideas/feedback. 

Cafe MFA: How did the idea for your thesis come about? 

Heaven: My idea stemmed from incredibly painful memories. Rachel Louise Snyder, David Keplinger, and Kyle Dargan are actually the people who influenced me to delve more into those memories—I was hesitant at first, but I think it paid off! I hope I turn years of pain into something beautiful, past and present.

I experienced homelessness at sixteen, which is when I also stopped practicing archery for a long period of time and felt depressed and ashamed. During this time, my mother and I received multiple anonymous death threats (which is definitely addressed  in my thesis.) I’d like to think that I can write my own happy endings.

Cafe MFA: What has been your biggest challenge with your thesis thus far? 

Heaven: My biggest challenge with my thesis has been organizing my poems! You would think that the main source of stress would be the actual writing part, but no—it is surprisingly the technicalities of formatting and ordering of poems. My mind is always changing, and organization is a task I struggle with and ruminate over constantly.

Cafe MFA: What has been your biggest success thus far? 

Heaven: During the summer, I wrote two poems that I’m particularly proud of. The first one infuses the Japanese language and, not to mention, is littered with weapons! The second one is a persona poem titled after the largest lizard in the world and also mentions weapons! Both poems share strong themes of empowerment!

Cafe MFA: What has this project taught you? (About yourself, your writing, the process, etc.)      

Heaven: This project made me rip my heart out and put it on the page, so to speak. It made me unearth feelings and experiences that were tough to rediscover, but also allowed me the opportunity to reflect. Through writing I can change things—tell my side of the story, re-invent myself, create a future for myself I might have not envisioned otherwise. Lastly, on the more technical side, I love a good play on words when it comes to writing poems.

Cafe MFA: What advice would you give first-year students who are planning their thesis work? 

Heaven: I would say go for it! Any idea that strikes a bit of uncertainty or fear—go for it! Write with intention, make the most of it because you can’t be in a MFA program forever, right? All those ideas you may have abandoned because you don’t know if they would work out—make them come to life! Also, never be afraid to ask for help—ever. My advisors, my professors, past and present, and my peers are all extremely supportive—don’t be hesitant to reach out to others, even if it's just to discuss writing! The faculty cares, your peers care and will guide you, so don’t fret, make connections along the way! This may sound dramatic, but I write as if I’ll be gone from Earth the next day—take it seriously! Be passionate and be you!

Thoughts from the Editors: Heaven Santiago’s interview highlights the power of writing as a form of catharsis. Many of us in the MFA community and beyond know that writing pushes us to confront painful or challenging experiences head-on in a way that can be incredibly frightening. However, what we get from confronting those experiences in our work is the opportunity to reflect, reclaim the past, and set ourselves on a path to creating the futures we want to see. Heaven’s work is doing just that - reclaiming the past and reinventing the self for a brighter future. It is an awesome model for what all of us should seek to do in our writing. Heaven also shared two of her poems that will be featured in her thesis. 

Heaven: This first poem is titled “Artemis,”  detailing when I won a tournament medal in archery but also close to the time I became homeless. 

Artemis

My second friend was a Hoyt Olympic recurve bow.
My arrows’ fletching were feathery fiery reds & bright whites.
I fired them into the foam bail target, earning myself 
a proud gold disc glistening in the summer sky.
For once, I conquered something out of my reach,
The target, some twenty yards away. 

My future, even farther.

My present—a waning crescent.
My home housing a sinkhole. Irreversible. 
As we descended into homelessness, 
I don’t know when

My arrows lost their fletching, their points,
halved the length & soul, strength & heart.

Heaven: The second poem is titled, “The Assassin”, this was written after some anonymous person threatened to kidnap me sometime around 2 years ago.

The Assassin 

After the threats,
something in me switched,
In me, something cracked.
The pressure of silence—
finally broke through—and out
poured the rage like lava. 

By then, I was driven insane.
Had a friend drive me to buy
a karambit knife, that flicked
outward to reveal its jagged edge. 

The knife and I are one in the same. 

With it, no threat will ever unravel me again— 

I’ll be there
crouching 

like a leopard