Empower House Radio KXEP-LP

In the first virtual Plática y Poetics I had the privilege of sitting with two powerful poets and dear
amigas, Lauren Oertel and Bree Bailey, whose collections invite us into the complicated terrain
of the body, memory, survival, grief, love, and transformation. Lauren Oertel’s Scars & Other
Luxuries asks us to look closely at the wounds we carry, physical, emotional, inherited, and
societal. They lead us to consider how those wounds can become sites of memory, resilience,
connection, and even beauty. Lauren’s conversation moved into scarcity and the difficult choices
we make to survive, the social judgments attached to those choices, and the ways our bodies
become sites where shame, control, pleasure, and liberation collide. She spoke about how the
body becomes a place of reclamation and freedom, focusing on the details under a scope of the
unseen networks that nourish, communicate, regenerate, and hold one another up. “Scars &
Other Luxuries” reflects on the body as archive reminding us that what we often take for granted,such as health, safety, shelter, connection, the ability to heal can itself be modern luxury. The
plática shifted with Bree Bailey, into a conversation of intimate landscape: grief, motherhood,
divorce, heartbreak, anxiety, humor, memory. It felt like we were tight roping between the
complicated act of continuing to live. Reading Wailing on Whisper Street felt, for me, like being
at her bedside when she entered a stream of though—sometimes laughing, grieving, sometimes
recognizing myself in the brutal honesty and language of the page. Bree’s humor becomes a way
of entering difficult truths without softening them, using repetition mirroring the mind replaying
moments, relationships, memories, and the versions of ourselves we are still trying to understand
after loss. The past remains behind us, entering our present, interrupting, changing the way we
inhabit our lives. Our conversation became an acknowledgment of the strange simultaneity of
loving someone who is no longer here while continuing to move through the world. Her poems
create beautiful architecture where language, intimacy, memory, and poetry become intertwined.
Poetry is word architecture, and love becomes something we can preserve within word
structures, stanzas, and prose. This was a plática about what our bodies remember, what our
hearts have had to endure, and the language that allows us to reclaim, as both witness and shelter.

My Plática y Poetics conversation with multidisciplinary artist and photographer Kristina
Salinas felt less like a sit down and more like walking into Blue Star Contemporary in the trendy
King William on a random day like randomly moving from canvas to canvas of process, detail,
color as language, community, and curation. Pausing intentionally, zooming closer into what
makes art and the process so unique. Rather than approaching critique of the work, we delved
deeper into the who behind the art. Kristina shared candidly about her creative practice, and the
many ways she experiences art through detail, color, place, energy, memory, and connection. We
talked about what happens before a piece becomes a finished work, the trance feeling of being in
the creative zone, and most important the visual language, sometimes-unspoken feeling that
guides an artist toward what the intention, soul of a painting. As a multidisciplinary artist,
Kristina moves fluidly between photography, painting, and other creative dimensions of her
practice. She shared what becomes possible when an artist refuses to be confined to a single
medium, and how different forms can reveal different parts of an artistic vision. We lingered on
the detail, like admiring a lover of texture, color, objects, and visual moments that can suddenly
shift a moment and vision. Color, a language we both speak, was the neutral intoxicating essence
in the room. It is what arrives emotionally and instinctively, the metaphorical canvas. There is
power when the voice of cultura, heritage come beckoning into the creative realm, and Kristina
listens to both transient voices, gifting them a permanent home, en ambos lados, in both spiritual
and metaphorical spaces. Ushering and reclaiming her space across borders and identity.

Nusaiba interviews Max Amey from Youth Code Jam, a nonprofit organization in San Antonio that teaches kids K-12 to code. Max shares his experience as being an educator, program manager, and his other responsibilities throughout being at Youth Code Jam. He also mentions the special impact the organization has with the neurodivergent community and teaching young girls how to code.

Nusaiba interviews Mary from the Center for Refugees in San Antonio. Mary shares her experience working for a platform that helps refugees start their new journey in San Antonio. She shares her experiences from helping people get access to healthcare, jobs, getting education, etc. She shares what it is like to help people that come into the country with having no knowledge on the American systems, with the clothes on their back, and only knowing their native language. Mary helps us get an insight on the behind the scenes aspect of what it looks like to work for the Center for Refugees.

Nusaiba interviews Kaitlyn from Students and Startups, a nonprofit organization that helps students cross the bridge from being in school to step into their careers by guiding them through the internship processes. Kaitlyn talks about how she was introduced into the program, what are some hardships they face as a nonprofit, how the behind the scenes looks like for their portion of the program, and the fulfilling moments of being part of an organization that helps the future generation start their careers.

In honor of Juneteenth, Nusaiba interviews a local Black Artist in San Antonio named Lanai. She gives us an insight on her experiences as a black artist from Chicago now navigating her artistry and life in San Antonio. This episode contains important conversations and awareness towards racism and the reality of Black and African Americans till this day. Black culture is extremely important for the music industry and we honor the artists that pioneered the music industry. Lanai talks about what inspires her music and expresses her opinions along with her experiences with the community.

The 2nd episode of Nusaiba's Neighbors introduced a local San Antonio artist, Yasmeena Yaani, as she gives us an insight on being a Syrian R&B artist. She hold on to her Syrian identity as she uses her culture to express herself in her music with a twist. Yasmeena gives us an insight in her life as she allows the audience to get to know the deep and vulnerable parts about her and how music has saved her life. We share our common traditions and sing a few songs. She debuts her song "Inte Feene," which means "You are within Me."