Transcendental Train Yard

Transcendental Train Yard is a collection of color serigraphs accompanied by bilingual poems, in Spanish and English, inspired by the artwork. Transcendental Train Yard provides the reader a glimpse of the role the railroad and the carpas (itinerant vaudeville troupes) played in the Mexican American community. Artist Marta Sanchez and poet Norma Elia Cantú collaboratively render images and words that poignantly reflect specific periods in that history.

"Their expressionistic, dreamlike representations bring to consciousness reservoirs of feelings and primordial images from the Mexican collective unconscious...This is what Transcendental Train Yard does; it invites us to reminisce, to meditate on these issues and to dwell in our memories." —Tomás Ybarra-Frausto, Ph.D.

"For Marta Sanchez, trains and train yards are sites of struggle and wonder and dreams. They are transcendental loci, and it is through her journey and her art that she shows us the possibilities of discovering the nature of divinity and joy in the environment that surrounds us." —Constance Cortez, Ph.D.

"In Marta Sánchez’s work, both the carpa and the railyard emerge as reoccurring dream images in which personal pleasures and collective traumas repeat themselves." —Peter Haney, Ph.D.

"For Sánchez, the train yard is a compelling muse, born of a fascination that started for her when she was very young and the view from the family home’s front porch was the train yard here in San Antonio. Trains meant travelers. She writes in the book’s artist statement about itinerant clowns and circus workers knocking on the front door to ask for food or for work on odd jobs. Cantú was likewise surrounded by a landscape of trains in the various places she’s lived, including Laredo. The book offers a kind of history of trains and train yards. The railroad is an intrinsic part of Mexican-American history and culture. Here are richly drawn poems about train workers, travelers and the loneliness of the train’s winsome trek across two countries." —Yvette Benavides, San Antonio Express-News

"La visión de un medio de transporte como el ferrocarril y su influencia en la vida de dos artistas se ve reflejada en un libro que combina poemas bilingües y una serie de serigrafías denominado Trascenden- tal Train Yard (Patio de trenes trascendental), re- cientemente publicado por Wings Press . . . . A veces produciendo primero la imagen y en oca- siones el texto literario, art- ista y escritora, llegaron a un acuerdo sobre el nombre." —Malena Charur, AnteSala

"Transcendental Train Yard is a free spirited book of reflection and creative collaboration. It is difficult for the Latino community to speak about trains without recognizing the grieving allusion to the most infamous and deadly one of all, La Bestia . . . . Yet trains are a means in which we travel to our desired destination. They are a symbol of progress and hope for those who seek new opportunities or perhaps a new beginning.Transcendental Train Yard's words and illustrations are filled with life and death, warmth and pain, memories and a tangible future. It is a book that will encourage readers to contemplate the vicissitudes of their own journey as well as the quests they are yet to embark." —latinobookreview.com

Norma E Cantú was born in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico and grew up in Laredo, Texas. Her novel Canícula: Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera received the Aztlán Prize in 1996. Other projects include co-edited and edited work such as Moctezuma’s Table: Rolando Briseño’s Chicano and Mexicano Tablescapes, and Chicana Traditions: Continuity and Change. Born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, Chicana painter Marta Sánchez is deeply inspired by traditional Mexican folk art expressions.