Manuela Theiss, US

 

 

Free Verse   King's Canyon   Not many men feel our fear of walking alone in the woods miles of the main trail more afraid of lust than of the bears. One rarely encounters the bodies of men found decomposing due to foul play in some ravine of the High Sierra. A slip, perhaps or an encounter with a combative beast, but never left to wither with the residue of sperm spotting his undies. (Unless the great outdoors led to a private self indulgence of sorts.) That primal terror of a hungry, horny bugger hiding behind a bush ready to pounce on prey like me is distinctly feminine.     About Manuela Theiss   Manuela Thiess, originally from Germany, had her coming of age in Venice, California. there she did the coffee house circuit, writing poetry and learning all she could that belied her girl-school training. She sank in the quagmire of drugs and alcohol for almost a decade before she reemerged - sober and a lot saner - and moved to Hollywood, where she wrote several one-act plays for the Los Angeles Actor's theater, and acted in two productions. She also acted in a couple of films before she moved to Monterrey, California, where she got her Master's Degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. She taught at the local colleges for several years before she became a correctional educator at the Correctional Training Facility in Soledad, home of the famous Soledad Brothers. In 2000, she took an early retirement from state service and taught at the local juvenile hall before returning to teaching part-time at the colleges. In 2008, she moved to Guanajuato, Mexico with her husband, Gustavo Garcia Aguilar, an artist and a lens maker, where she currently resides and teaches English part-time. Throughout, she has retained her early interest in writing poetry.