Carmen O. Menéndez

Carmen-Oliva Menéndez earned an M.A from Indiana University in Comparative Literature and published the essay, “Glimpses,” on Unamuno and Sartre, before turning to architecture and linguistics. Out of her interest in traditional architecture, she carried out extended research on West European thatching, later published as a book, Teitos, which received the Europa Nostra Research Award in 2011. As a linguist she has specialized in technical terminology and is the author of several bilingual dictionaries of architecture. She has lived and worked in New England and the Midwest, as well as in Bordeaux, Southwest France, before settling back in Madrid, her hometown, where she currently teaches Applied Linguistics at the Architecture School in Madrid Polytechnic University. She enjoys taking fine photos and writing poetry both in English and Spanish. The poems here belong to a collection entitled Places—with her poem “The Thatcher’s Old Wisdom” having been awarded a prize in Philadelphia in 2004.