THE POEMS OF LUCY APONTE
Lucy Aponte was born in Spanish Harlem in 1946 of Puerto Rican parents. In 1953, Lucy and her younger siblings moved to the Fordham section of the Bronx with their paternal grandmother, Donia Lucia Benedetty Aponte. The grandmother had heard the children were abandoned, eating in the streets and stealing to survive. She was happy to go to her grandmother's in the beautiful Bronx and not have to scrounge for food, or fight off the perverts. She attended P.S. 85 and credits her first teacher, Mrs. Mahrs with instilling a love of reading and poetry in her. Ms. Aponte attended Jane Adams High School, graduating in 1963 and going on to nursing. In 1966 she became a Mom for the first time.Through the years of raising her children, as a single Mom, Ms. Aponte attended the Herbert H. Lehman College, majoring in sociology, with psychology and education minors. Her dream of getting her degree ended with the governmet financial cutbacks in her final year. As a single parent, Ms. Aponte was a foster and adoptive parent for over 17 years of very special needs children. Through her childhood experiences, Aponte had a deep understanding of the emotional makeup and needs of these battered, bruised and traumatized children. She also set out to disprove the long held belief that an abused child grows to become an abusive adult. That is a stigma that is held over the heads of those who have been abused and adds to the silence about their experiences and further perpetuates the abuse through labeling.
Her years parenting children with autism, sexual abuse history, abandonment, schizophrenia, alcohol and drug abuse and various traumas, led her to become a creative parent in dealing with the related behaviors.
Ever the fighter for correcting an injustice, she became a child advocate, a great source of information for parents of children with disabilities, a tenant advocate, a community leader.
Today, Ms. Aponte has followed her passions as an artist, poet, writer and speaker, as well as some acting in productions, one which was based on her writings. Her work has been featured in Latina Magazine, the Village Voice, Daily News, Bronx Times, Bronx Cable Access TV's Bronx Talk and Bronx Magazine.
Ms. Aponte is the creator of an innovative early literacy program and tool and offers her "Creative Parenting seminars at various venues.
Her website can be found at http://www.livinglearningarts.com/