Diana Renee: Tell Me About the Telarana

Tell Me About the Telarana

Diana Renee: A Poet in Our Midst

     Diana Renee is an anomaly. She is currently living in the state of Washington, “near the North Pole,” she told me in jest. But she was born in Pennsylvania and traveled cross country with her family to live in Montana for a year. In 1995, she moved to Costa Rica where she lived for five years in Guaitil, near Santa Cruz and for another ten years in Playa Tamarindo. She returned to The States but still visits here in her body sleeps, she confided, and her soul has free time to visit the garden at the house here where she used to call home.

     Diana is an accomplished journalist who wrote wonderful articles for The Howler, which were also spot-on in their accuracy. But she has been writing poetry since the age of ten when she was so taken by the Rocky Mountains during her aforementioned family excursion that she simply had to describe it and voila! her first poem was born. Now Ms. Rene has decided to publish some of the poetry she created during her fifteen years in Guanacaste. The book is titled, “Tell Me About the Telerana (media vida de poemas)”.

     The poetry is flowing and flawless, autobiographical and rooted in nature. A lot can happen in a person’s life in fifteen years and Diana depicts and expresses her half-life here in all its naked beauty, with the wonder of life and abundance of Nature here as both a backdrop and canvas for her art. The writing can be sparse yet rich, abundant with life without overflowing. Some of the poems were written in English, some in Spanish. Some are presented in this single version while others have been translated, presented side-by-side versions in the book. Still other poems are written in “Spanglish” which, the authoress confessed, is her favorite format for her poetry. Some of the poems are published only in the language in which they were written, because Diana felt the translation would not do the original poem justice. The book is divided into nine sections, the titles as bilingual as the poetry itself: Cielo, sun, stars, viento; Peces/Fish, aves and other creatures; Tress, tierra, grass; Night/la noche; Dientes, bones; Gritos/Shouts, cries; Belly, heart/corazon; Rain, tormenta, river, mar; Mountains, stillness, esperar. We watch Diana become the life around her, or do the mountains and trees become her? Diana may visit us in her sleep but a big part of her heart will always be here, as she demonstrates to us in her poetry. I particularly like “boat poem”, where we discover from the poet:

I prefer the tickle of fish

to the safety of sand

And “Biking Home at Night”, where the poetess explains:

I make my swooping left turn

perfectly

while watching the stars

and dodging potholes I haven’t noticed

in years.

     I can relate exactly to what she is telling me, but I could never explain it in those terms. She is concise and prolific, spare and voluptuous in her use of language, which is why poets are venerated.

     “Tell Me About the Telerana” is available at the Jaime Peligro bookstores in Playa Tamarindo and Quepos.