Beatriz Fernandez never considered herself good at haikus. But when she saw the O, Miami and WLRN call for Zip Odes submissions, she thought she could meet the challenge.
" I thought this was a type of haiku I could handle,” said Fernandez. “Maybe a little bit more words. Not counting syllables, but counting words."
The poet and Florida International University reference librarian was just beginning to write for publications, and she was looking for creative ways to spark inspiration — like contests and challenges.
That’s when she found out about Zip Odes.
READ MORE: Love letters to South Florida: Poems about neighborhoods, in five lines
“ I just thought the idea was so much fun, to have poets from all these different zip codes write about their areas and say what it's like to live in their area,” said Fernandez. “Express the humor and the pros and cons of living in South Florida.”
Fernandez followed the rules provided: A five line poem inspired by your zip code, with each number in a zip code determining the number of words used in each line.
Her zip code is 33185.
To my west,
nature's palatial prairies
Everglades.
To my east, fruity palace of men's palates:
El Palacio de los Jugos.
Fernandez would not find out until recently — 10 years later — that her first ode to her West Kendall zip code was the very first Zip Ode ever submitted.
She has written several more throughout the years. A recent one was about the plumeria tree in her backyard. There was another one about the bridge collapse in front of FIU’s main campus.
Fernandez, who grew up in Puerto Rico, even wrote a Zip Ode about Hurricane Andrew. It happened a year after she moved to South Florida with her husband James Webb, an astronomer and FIU professor who is coincidentally named after the famous telescope.
WLRN recently spoke to Fernandez about her very first Zip Ode. She talked about how her West Kendall neighborhood has changed and why she has continued to write Zip Odes throughout the years.
This interview has been edited lightly for length and clarity.
WLRN: Walk me through those moments ten years ago when you wrote that first Zip Ode, and also what inspired it.
FERNANDEZ: We had moved to this area, it's called Lakes of the Meadows in West Kendall, and the next stop over is the Everglades. And it felt like we were on the edge of the world here. And so when I thought about writing about the zip code, I felt, ‘Well, as I drive up to the road I usually take to go to work, The Tamiami Trail, what's on my left? What's on my right?’ I thought it was such a beautiful blend of the nature that we're privileged to live so close to, and yet also we have Cuban restaurants and fruity drinks and things like that, you can stop by on your way to work and have a drink.
You also submitted a few other Zip Odes that same year. You've submitted throughout the years, too. So tell me what it’s like to write about where you live and how has the area you wrote about changed or not changed?
It's changed incredibly. I mean, when we first moved here, we were at the very end of the road. There was nothing but a dirt road beyond us. There was, all around us, empty fields undeveloped. And since then, everything has exploded around us.
We're basically now in the middle of everything instead of being, you know, on the far edge. A lot of development in the area, a lot of more traffic and everything that comes with it. In 2015, I guess it was still what maybe you would consider bearable. It's getting a little bit worse and worse, people complaining a lot. And some of my zip codes were about noisy neighbors.
"I think the challenges of living here and the diversity of our population and the different cultures coming together are really something that inspires you."Beatriz Fernandez
What has kept you wanting to keep submitting Zip Odes throughout the years, and also how do you find inspiration in general as a writer and a poet?
The Zip Ode, it always pops up and I just love what other people write and they always surprise me and they always make me want to contribute as well. But I look around me and I see the beauty of the nature here. Some of the other people, they're buried in snow and we're here enjoying this beautiful South Florida weather. Right now is particularly nice.
So that inspires me a lot. In general, as for inspiration, when I'm writing, it's not so much nature that I turn to, but I try to represent unheard voices. I look for women's voices that are either characters or real people that we don't know that much about. And I try to give them a voice, whether they're fictional or real people. And I also, lately, I've been writing a little bit of speculative poetry, more science fiction-oriented because that's one field that I like to read a lot in.
Whether you're writing about sci-fi or poetry about nature, do you think South Florida is good fodder for writing material? What about this place makes it inspiring to write, whether it's in a positive or negative way?
I think the challenges of living here and the diversity of our population and the different cultures coming together are really something that inspires you.
And just the different languages you hear. When I go to campus, I hear like 10 different languages being spoken. You get to meet so many people from all over the world. People have been through horrible things and are so happy to be here, and other people who are going through horrible things right here.
I really think that it's a really wonderful multicultural context for any type of poetry, and I don't specifically try to write about it, but of course, it comes through in a lot of my poems. I have been here a long time, and I've experienced lots of things. And then the contrast of the beautiful nature, plus the urban sprawl that challenges our senses and challenges our mood, it challenges everything.
What has O, Miami inspired in you?
O, Miami has always come up with interesting challenges, and I see that they appreciate poets and writers, and they try to nurture them, and that's wonderful.
Miami, I appreciate it more and more as I get older because it is so unique. And it does remind me of Puerto Rico. So it has that little tug to my childhood where I grew up mostly. I know if I move away — and we have moved away from Florida and then we really regretted it — we always want to come back.
And I think if I move away from Miami, which I may do, I am going to miss it because it's so unique because there's nothing reproducible about Miami. And what O, Miami does is celebrate that, and really inspire poets to think about that and to also feel appreciated and feel heard.
There's always people like me who are out there writing, maybe at untraditional ages, or not maybe associated with any type of group or maybe who don't have friends who write, and this makes them feel included. This gives them a way of saying, ‘Hey, this is an outlet for my creativity and there's other people doing it, and people are listening to us.’
This year marks 10 years of Zip Odes. WLRN and O, Miami are taking submissions for 2025. You can submit your Zip Ode here.
