Ernesto Trejo
Ernesto Trejo was a Mexican poet and translator, known for his ability to blend personal experiences with surreal imagery and conceptual magic in his work. Born on March 4, 1950, in Fresnillo, Mexico, he later moved to Mexico City and Mexicali before relocating to Fresno, California, in pursuit of education. Initially focused on engineering, he shifted his studies to economics and poetry, earning both bachelor's and master's degrees at California State University, Fresno, where he became part of the influential Fresno School of poetry. Trejo continued his education with a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop. Throughout his career, he worked as an economist and educator while also translating works of notable Spanish poets, such as Jaime Sabines. His poetry, characterized by its colloquial language and intimate reflections on ordinary experiences, drew attention for its profound insights into life. Trejo published five books of poetry, with his first collection, *The Day of Vendors*, released in 1977. He passed away in 1991, leaving behind a legacy that resonated with both peers and audiences alike, enriching the literary landscape with his unique voice.
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Ernesto Trejo
Poet
- Born: March 4, 1950
- Birthplace: Fresnillo, Mexico
- Died: 1991
Biography
A poet and translator, Ernesto Trejo turned his own background into the poetic landscape of his imagination, where conceptual magic and surreal imagery brought intense, surprising significance to commonplace memories. He was born in the small mining community of Fresnillo, Mexico, on March 4, 1950. His family subsequently moved to Mexico City and then to Mexicali on the border with California. In 1967, hoping to attend university, he moved to Fresno, where he worked in his aunt’s restaurant. He entered the California State University there, originally majoring in engineering, but he soon changed to economics and poetry. He earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in economics while becoming part of the Fresno School of poetry under the leadership of Philip Levine and Peter Everwine. He then attended the Iowa Writers’ Work at the University of Iowa, receiving a master’s of fine arts in 1976. A position as an economist with the administration of President José López- Portillo took Trejo to Mexico City that same year. He moved back to Fresno in 1983 and worked as a part-time instructor of English and Spanish at California State University. From 1985 to 1990 he taught creative writing and literature at Fresno City College. Trejo died in 1991.
Having worked for the International Translation Program while in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Trejo continued to translate Spanish poets, most notably the works of Mexican poet Jaime Sabines. Trejo’s own work includes poems in both Spanish and English. His first poems appeared in literary magazines and anthologies in the early 1970’s, including Entrance: Four Chicano Poets (with Gary Soto, Leonard Adame, and Luis Omar Salinas). The first of his five books, The Day of Vendors, appeared in 1977. The distinctive feature of them all, according to literary critic Christopher Buckley, is the capacity of Trejo’s poems to “make us take a second and third look at the world around us and at ourselves.” This often means that Trejo reexamines ordinary experience, usually his own, from unexpected perspectives and with striking imagery. Moreover, the use of colloquial, even conversational, wording gives his poems an intimate, musing quality. For instance, the title poem of Entering a Life concerns an uncle who disappeared when Trejo was twelve. He invents a life for this uncle, complete with postcards from exotic locales and a bittersweet love interest—a fictional life that yet pulls back from affectionate fantasy to meld poignantly with life as most people know it: “Years pass/and you are left a little less happy and unsure/of everything and ashamed at being shortchanged.”
Trejo won an attentive audience among his fellow poets and was often in demand to read from his works. For example, he was invited to the New Latin American Poetry conference in Durango, Colorado, in 1985, and at the Day of the Dead reading for the Arte Américas Foundation in 1989.