Juliana Aragón Fatula 2018 Crestone Poetry Festival

 Storyteller, poet, performance artist.

Juliana Aragón Fatula as Carmen Miranda

My first visit to Crestone, Colorado I attended a poetry festival and met some incredible people. I read for thirty minutes and performed the best set I've ever done. An American Poet, Art Goodtimes, wrote a review of my performance as “the wildly, irreverently and wonderfully funny standup Chicana poet and wise woman from Cañon City. She had us all cheering and crying.”

When I read that review I thought, now I can die happy. When I was a little girl I watched Carol Burnett on TV and told myself, someday, I'm going to be a comedienne. Well, apparently my poem, My Homegirl Don't Eat Pork was so funny the audience cheered. I also read my poem The Hat a tribute to my father and made the audience cry they were so moved by my words.

Who knew? So, now I'm thinking maybe I should brush off my one woman show and hit the road. People tell me I"m funny. But memorizing a thirty minute set of comedy scares me to death. As I've grown older, I've turned down parts offered to me by well wishing directors because I'm afraid I won't be able to remember my lines. But in Crestone I was able to improv because who knows my stories better than me, no one that's who. 

I was on fire that night and I'll tell you why. The two women who performed before me, Eutemia and Ester, were phenomenal. They made me rethink going last and in order to be successful I had to pull out all the stops and give 150%, so I did. Afterwards the audience circled around me and asked me to sign copies of my book they bought. It was total chaos. Someone handed me a book, someone else handed me money, and a third person tried to hold a conversation with me while I tried to sign books and shove money in my pockets. The only thing, there was no one with me to witness my magnificence. I was flying solo. My husband was at the room with our two dogs, Bear and Yogi.

It was so much fun and so stimulating, it took me two days of rest to recuperate from the performance. Two people emailed me and wanted to book me in Salida and Telluride, CO. I'm going to Salida March 18th and I hope I bring it because I have a reputation of being “the wildly, irreverently and wonderfully funny standup Chicana poet and wise woman from Cañon City.” People will be expecting me to make them laugh and cry simultaneously. Wish me luck. And if you are in Salida on Sunday March 18th stop by the Salida Steamplant and say hello. 

I stumbled into writing like I stumbled into being a performer. It was in my stars, it was meant to be. Thank you, Carol Burnett, Whoopi Goldberg, Gilda Radner, Charo, and thank you mom and dad for gifting me with the funny gene.