{"id":313476,"date":"2025-10-18T13:17:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T13:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/313476\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T13:17:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T13:17:14","slug":"writers-block-not-when-you-live-in-a-river-of-words-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/313476\/","title":{"rendered":"Writer\u2019s block? Not when you live in \u2018a river of words\u2019 \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

She didn\u2019t realize it until later on in her life, but the words were always finding their way to, and through, Gerda Govine Ituarte<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m connected in so many different ways to words. Back in the day, I used to be a typing teacher and a shorthand teacher; I dealt with words all the time, but it was just doing my job as a teacher,\u201d she says. \u201cThe shift to writing poetry right now is part of my breathing, it\u2019s part of my breath.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her earlier careers included teaching and becoming national director of education for the NAACP in New York City, where she grew up; as director of the Pasadena Commission on the Status of Women; as a consultant through her G. Govine Consulting firm; a diversity consultant and expert witness in employment discrimination; and then in arts and culture through co-founding the Border Council of Arts and Culture nonprofit with her husband, artist Luis Ituarte; and operating La Casa del Tunel: Art Center in Tijuana. She started writing poetry after the death of her youngest adult daughter, in 2010, and has since written five poetry collections and was included in the local author showcase in 2024 through the San Diego Central Library for her book, \u201cBallet of Ingredients.\u201d Her work has been featured in numerous arts exhibitions and programs, and published in various outlets, including the Altadena Poetry Review, the Journal of Modern Poetry, and Ms. Aligned.<\/p>\n

Today, at 83, she lives in Jamul with her husband of 20 years, Luis. She took some time to talk about her writing, never getting writer\u2019s block, and how \u201cwords allow access to people\u2019s lives in ways that can bring comfort and make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> You began writing poetry after the death of your daughter, Dorie? Are you comfortable talking about how poetry became your preferred way of navigating your grief?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>That was the only thing, initially, that kept me breathing. The other thing that I did before she passed away is that I called Kaiser and asked them to connect me with a therapist because I knew I would need some kind of therapy. I called her and she said, \u201cNo, I don\u2019t think you should see me, but I have a group of women who have lost their children,\u201d so I went to that group for three years and they saved my life. They saved my life because somebody would come in and they would start crying, and we let them cry. We never had to ask each other questions because we knew the answers already. Then, when I published my first book, they took me out to dinner and we had wine. I mean, I don\u2019t know what I would\u2019ve done without them because I was preparing myself for life without my daughter; I had two daughters that passed. So, for me, I would not change my life one bit; because of them, I\u2019m still here. For me, it\u2019s a life that has blessed me so many times, and yes, there\u2019s been tragedies, but it just emboldens me to keep going.<\/p>\n

I also used to write for the Pasadena Journal. As I started writing poetry, I looked back at my articles, and the poetic forms were in there and I didn\u2019t have a clue. So, I\u2019ve been writing poetry all my life without knowing it. That switch to writing poetry was really a gift because, as a poet, I trust the words and the words trust me, and we always show up for each other no matter what\u2019s going on. I don\u2019t have writer\u2019s block and I do not write every day. If I had to write every day at 2 o\u2019clock, I\u2019d never write again. I can\u2019t put myself in a box like that; but if it\u2019s an assignment and it\u2019s due tomorrow, I will get it done today. So, for me, poetry is woven into the fabric of my life\u2014good, bad, it\u2019s there\u2014and it\u2019s my salvation, my savior. And I\u2019m learning so much because I write poetry. It gifted me. It was interesting, when my older daughter passed away, my younger daughter was, maybe, 12 at the time and she said, \u201cMommy, you made a promise. You promised Lisa and I that you\u2019re going to finish your degree.\u201d I was working on a dissertation at Columbia, and I\u2019d finished all my coursework, but I hadn\u2019t done my research. A month later, I quit my job, took ballet classes, and did my dissertation. If she hadn\u2019t insisted and said that I couldn\u2019t break my promise? It helped me to continue my path.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0<\/strong>When you say you\u2019ve learned so much through poetry, what are some of the things that you realize it\u2019s been teaching you?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>Well, we live in a world of poetry, we live in a world of words, and because I\u2019m writing, the words always find me. I did two things, and I didn\u2019t plan to do this: usually, with whatever I\u2019m doing, I hear a phrase or two words, and I write it down. It\u2019s something I call \u201cpoetry particles.\u201d The other thing is, on Facebook, there are certain artists and photographers who put stuff on Facebook, and I respond with two, three, four words. I can look at something and words pop up, so I write it and send it to them. Sometimes, when I read, I do on-the-spot readings. For me, poetry is in my DNA, I just didn\u2019t know it.<\/p>\n

What I love about Jamul\u2026<\/p>\n

I love\u00a0the people. Even people that we\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0know,\u00a0they\u2019ll\u00a0honk or\u00a0they\u2019ll\u00a0wave. Being\u00a0here reminds me of St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, where I grew up, where half of the people are your relatives anyway. Other than that, everybody knew everybody, so if you were doing something wrong, before you got home your mother knew about it. Or, that person will say\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0not going to tell your mother this time, but they will next time. So, it was a certain comfort level I felt as a kid, that I feel here.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0<\/strong>You\u2019ve collaborated with visual art exhibitions in which your poetry has been included, and you\u2019ve been commissioned to create poetry to accompany different works of art or exhibitions. Can you talk a bit about your process for these kinds of projects?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>When I started writing and I had my first book out, I was working for myself because I had my own consulting business. I got a call from the City of Pasadena\u2019s cultural affairs office and they had an NEA (National Endowment of the Arts) grant and got money to do dance, music, storytelling. They said they didn\u2019t have anything dealing with poetry and they needed me to come up with something and to be included in this. I didn\u2019t know what to do, so I made a list of 10 poets whose work I really, really like, and then I called them. I said, \u201cWould you be willing to do this?\u201d and my husband christened us the Rose Poets. For two years, we read at the senior center, we read at city events, we started reading at the library, and so forth. We\u2019re celebrating our 10th anniversary next year and we\u2019ve published two book collections, and we have a third collection coming.<\/p>\n

One day, I went to a city council meeting to let them know about what we were doing during the public comment section. I\u2019d finished in a minute, minute and a half, and I still had another minute and a half left. I had a poetry book with me, so I opened it up and I read a poem. I went to the mayor and the council and told them that was what I wanted to do. For two years, the members in our poetry group would take turns and read during public comment at the city council meetings. It got to the point where the mayor called me and said, \u201cYou\u2019re making a difference with the poetry because before and after we come in, we\u2019re rushing or whatever, and we hear the poetry and we can exhale and then deal with the tough issues we have to deal with.\u201d I didn\u2019t plan to do anything, I was just reading because I had some time. We\u2019ve read in LA County, San Diego County, and some other places. The grant wasn\u2019t planned because I didn\u2019t know about it; the readings at the city council meetings weren\u2019t planned because I didn\u2019t think of it until the moment it happened. A lot of what we do as a group is just that we are able to plug into places like street fairs and other places where most people go. There are seven of us and the issue for us is to keep poetry alive. It\u2019s like, I\u2019m in this river of words and it\u2019s taken me into places that I didn\u2019t expect.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0<\/strong>In your 2023 book, \u201cBallet of Ingredients,\u201d<\/a> you talk about how \u201cthe ability to make choices gifts us with boldness and bravery to bring deliciousness within reach.\u201d What kinds of choices stand out for you in your own life, that have led to the kind of deliciousness you\u2019ve found in everyday moments?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>Meeting my husband is a big reason why. Having lived through the death of both of my daughters, it\u2019s like I am more determined, I am more willing, I am more forgiving. At the same time, whatever I do in my own way, I know I\u2019m honoring them. We live in Jamul, and we lived in Pasadena for 20something years. We were getting ready to retire and we both agreed that we wanted a place where we could breathe. We have found a community that\u2019s unbelievable. We have a group of around 20 people and every Wednesday night, we go to a different house and just have food and all of that. We\u2019ve been doing that for the last four years. It\u2019s like the United Nations, and we have a rule: we do not discuss politics or religion, even though we know where we all are, because our relationship is more important than any of that.<\/p>\n

We help each other out. Sometimes the women hang out and we call ourselves the Lawson Valley Girls. There are about 12 of us and we go to the movies, we go shopping, sometimes we\u2019ll just make cookies together. It\u2019s unreal, but this is what we\u2019re a part of. We found peace in a place that we really didn\u2019t know. We found peace in a space where we thought we would be kind of isolated, and we\u2019re not. We see the neighbors, they come by, they drop stuff off, we help each other. It\u2019s like a storybook, but it\u2019s real. Luis did an open house and I think that did it, it\u2019s all Luis\u2019s fault (laughs). We had a three-day open house when we first got here and invited people in, and they came. We have an annual yard sale that he started doing. It was like, \u2018We couldn\u2019t get rid of you or Luis, so we decided to keep you.\u2019 One woman is a musician and was also a librarian; one woman who was going to become a nun, but instead she became an undercover police agent; a mechanic who works for the city of San Diego; a Russian Orthodox priest, and his wife, who\u2019s a wonderful photographer. You just have this bunch of people who, in another life, would never know each other. If anything goes wrong with any of us, they\u2019ll come running. One time, we had a lot of weeds in the back, and Luis was getting tired of it\u2014and then there was a weedwhacker, a bulldozer, and about 10 people. Luis loves to cook, so he cooked a big meal for them. It\u2019s a community that\u2019s based on trust and love. It sounds corny, but it\u2019s real.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0<\/strong>How did you and Luis meet?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>I have a friend named Suzanna, who\u2019s the daughter of a friend who passed away. I\u2019ve known Suzanna since she was in high school, and one day she called me and said she\u2019d like for me to come down to this annual wine festival in Baja with her and her mother, and her boyfriend. I said, \u201cSay no more\u201d because I knew that if I was there with her mother, that would keep her busy so she could be with her boyfriend. So, we go, and we saw a bullfight and we had some food, and then we were going to go dancing. I\u2019m facing the vineyard and looking at it, and all of a sudden, I see this guy in a cowboy hat, a three-piece suit, and a satchel over his shoulder. I kept blinking because it felt like I was having some kind of experience, and when he comes up, Suzanna says, \u201cLuis!\u201d She said, \u201cI want you to meet my friend, Gerda,\u201d and God\u2019s honest truth, I felt the earth shake under my feet. I said to myself, \u2018OK, this is trouble. Nope! Nope! Nope!\u2019 He looked like somebody out of a movie, good looking guy. Then, we were going to do some dancing, but Luis said he was going to stay behind and sketch the sunset. Later, he comes in and he\u2019s dancing like a wild man with everybody, and then he grabs my hand to pull me in, and he wouldn\u2019t let go.<\/p>\n

We were getting ready to leave because we were staying in this ranch house nearby, but we didn\u2019t know how to get there. He said he knew how to get there because he was staying in the same house. I slept upstairs and Luis was downstairs on the couch. I forgot my suitcase downstairs, so when I go downstairs, he\u2019s lying on his back, all relaxed. As I\u2019m walking back up the stairs, he says, \u201cYou don\u2019t have to go upstairs. You can stay with me.\u201d I was pissed! I looked over my shoulder and said, \u201cIn your dreams, buddy.\u201d He called after me, \u201cI\u2019m still dreaming!\u201d The next morning at breakfast, he tells everybody I kept him awake all night. Then, we decide to have lunch in Tijuana and I have to sit in the back seat with him; I don\u2019t want to sit in the back seat with him. So, I\u2019m sitting near the window, straight up. When the car moves, I\u2019m trying not to fall toward him, not to touch him, nothing. He says, \u201cI don\u2019t bite, you can relax. Sit back, you\u2019re making me nervous.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, we go to lunch and this guy is a storyteller like nobody else I\u2019ve ever met, and I begin to melt a little bit. We exchange phone numbers, he stays in Tijuana, and I go back to LA. Maybe two months later, I get a phone call and it\u2019s a message from him. He comes to LA, we go out to eat. We dated for maybe two years, and he invited me to come to Tijuana. Every weekend he would have a get-together of art promoters and artists and singers. So, we\u2019re dating, he comes by and stays with me part of the time, everything\u2019s fine. We have a schedule. Then he says he needs to talk to me, that he wants to be together all the time and asks me to be his wife. I went into some kind of trance. He said my eyes went blank and he literally had to touch me to bring me back. I don\u2019t remember how long it took, but I finally said yes.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0<\/strong>Your website also mentions his support for your writing in his early encouragement of your work, telling you to focus on writing and he would take care of everything else, from translation to artwork to publishing. What kind of impact do you think that level of support had on you artistically?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>I\u00a0was able to fly. I was able to fly, not just walk. I was able to fly because he was right there all the time. He made suggestions. In some of the books, he drew sketches for each of the poems, and he read everything first before he did any of the artwork. He really took the time and customized it in a way that\u2019s just wonderful. He\u2019s very interesting. He\u2019s good looking, of course, and we just have a relationship where we support each other. We\u2019ve dealt with a lot of things. He had cancer two years ago, and it didn\u2019t look good at all because he was in the hospital for a while, and I would spend the nights at the hospital. I didn\u2019t ask permission, I just wouldn\u2019t leave and they never said anything to me. It was scary, really scary. Thinking about life without him scares me a lot. He says, \u201cWell, I\u2019m not going anywhere\u201d and I said, \u201cWell, I\u2019m not, either,\u201d so we\u2019ve got a deal. I\u2019m lucky, I\u2019m blessed. We are able to do things that we really feel good about, and support and help each other because it just comes second nature to us now. I married the right person.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0<\/strong>Who are some writers or some poets whose work you\u2019re a fan of?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>Nikki Giovanni because I met her years ago when I was working for the Pasadena paper. They said she was going to be performing and would I like to interview her. I was the first one from the media there, so when I got in the room and she starts talking to me, she starts talking about her mother and her sister; her mother had just died, and her sister had brain cancer. As she\u2019s talking to me, she starts to cry. I\u2019m, like, frozen, so I\u2019m just listening. Then, there\u2019s a knock on the door and she goes to the door, and the organizer says they\u2019re going to run out of time because the other reporters were waiting for their interviews. Nikki said, \u201cWhen I\u2019m ready to be interviewed by the next person, I will come and get you.\u201d She comes back and she looks at me and says, \u201cI don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on, but I have to talk to you,\u201d so I put my pencil down and listen. After that, whenever she was in LA or in Southern California, I would just show up. We became pen pals, I would send little packages with feathers or stones that she liked, and she would send me stuff. We really became close friends and I appreciated that because she didn\u2019t have to deal with me, she knows everybody. To this day, I don\u2019t know why, but she said she needed to talk to me that day. I think that was really something.<\/p>\n

As a group, the Pasadena Rose Poets, they are just the best. Three of them have been poet laureates for Altadena, for Pasadena. There are so many people that have their fingerprints on my life, and I really appreciate them. It\u2019s just a pleasure to still be alive and to live the life we\u2019ve managed to create, with the help of our friends and family. Life can give you heartbreak, but it can also give you miracles and pleasure, and I have more of the miracles and pleasure in my life.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0<\/strong>What is the best advice you\u2019ve ever received?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>I think the best advice I\u2019ve received was from Luis. After my second daughter passed, he said, \u201cYou still have to live. You have to live your life. Your daughters would be very unhappy if you didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0<\/strong>What is one thing people would be surprised to find out about you?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>Well, I\u2019m 83. People\u2019s eyes kind of pop out when I tell them that.\u00a0I think the people that know me are very surprised that I\u2019m with Luis after 20 years. That Luis and I are together and we\u2019re thriving, and we have a lot that works for both of us. We live in an art gallery because I told him that I want every room in this house to have his paintings in it. Being with him is a joy in lots of ways. We\u2019re on the same page, we take care of each other without having to be told. We read each other very, very well.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0<\/strong>Please describe your ideal San Diego weekend.<\/p>\n

A:<\/strong> Being home. We\u2019re on four-and-a-half acres and we exercise; we just walk up and down the hill, around the property. It\u2019s a home that\u2019s giving, it\u2019s a home that\u2019s loving, and it\u2019s a place where we can breathe, no matter what. That\u2019s the key part.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"She didn\u2019t realize it until later on in her life, but the words were always finding their way…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":313477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,1073,20161,40036,1370,728,50,3546,3549,3550,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-313476","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-columns","12":"tag-east-county","13":"tag-jamul","14":"tag-latest-headlines","15":"tag-local-news","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-people","18":"tag-san-diego","19":"tag-san-diego-county","20":"tag-sandiego","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115395365716764821","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}