The award-winning poet Nancy Vieira Couto is a Portuguese-American of Azorean descent She received a BS in Education from Bridgewater State College and an MFA in English from Cornell University Her writing awards include two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships and an American Antiquarian Society research residency received the prestigious 1989 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize was published by Foothills Publishing in 2011 she has been poetry editor for Epoch magazine Vieira Couto delivered a paper about DNA testing her paternal grandmother had just been widowed when she brought her children to New Bedford and her maternal grandparents came to New Bedford earlier In this interview for the Portuguese American Journal Vieira Couto answers questions about DNA testing You recently had a number of DNA tests–any surprises What I learned is that nobody is 100% anything I took two different DNA tests: mtDNA and autosomal DNA sometimes called “Family Finder” or “Relative Finder,” tests all the DNA and finds cousins of various degrees of relationship within about seven generations The mtDNA test looks at the mitochondrial DNA which is passed from mother to daughter to daughter and shows the straight maternal line of my autosomal DNA matches have Azorean ancestry Probably my biggest surprise was learning that my mtDNA haplogroup is H1e the haplogroup of Moroccan Jews who fled Jerusalem after the Second Temple Why did you decide to look into DNA testing and genealogy My brother started work on our family tree many years ago and he was able to collect information from an aunt who has since died Then he hit a brick wall and put the project aside But in recent years everything has changed and a lot of brick walls are crumbling has been gradually putting the church records on line for all the islands of the Azores And there are other useful resources like the Azores Genealogy group that I belong to The group now has over 1200 members; there are a lot of us Most of what I know about Azorean genealogical research I learned from the generous members of this group For a long time I resisted the idea of taking a DNA test because it seemed like cheating and it’s not really cheating because the traditional paper trail is still needed if any meaningful connections are to be made and he was the chief chronicler of the Kingdom but he became ill on the way and died on the island of Kamaran in the Red Sea What’s cool is that his book Chronica de el-rei D I can’t read it–my Portuguese is nowhere near good enough–but I like knowing it’s there Maxine Kumin selected your book The Face in the Water for the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize in 1989 a book Publishers Weekly says “ revolves around the theme of exploration How have your journeys informed your poetry Everything I’ve experienced in my life informs my poetry but it is rare for me to write about a place immediately after visiting it The one exception is my poem “Night Watch,” from The Face in the Water I had never heard the Dutch language before Late in the evening the sounds of the city were punctuated by bicycle bells But usually I’m more influenced by history than by geography Online you post about virtual walking tours Walking just for exercise seemed like a waste of time and what could be better than a cross-country walk and calculated the distances between cities I set up a spreadsheet so that I could enter each day’s mileage and track my progress My first virtual walking tour took me from Ithaca to San Francisco by the most direct route but this time I varied my itinerary by going up the coast to Vancouver and then walking across Canada as far as Toronto before heading back to the U.S I had met a young English woman who was planning a trip across Canada along a route her grandfather had once taken and described in his diary  Her grandfather had especially enjoyed fishing in Kamloops Both my grandfathers died before I was born in Kamloops seemed like a good way for me to go fishing I completed the final mile of my trip home on the morning of April 11 as I was walking down Powell Street in San Francisco I think it’s ironic that my trip ended actually where it began virtually My immediate goal is to reach Moissac by Halloween I’m enjoying the (virtual) French food What’s your favorite Portuguese dish from childhood although I don’t get to enjoy them very often and I think they’re roasted in the oven instead of being cooked on top of the stove As with caçoila the meat is marinated for at least 24 hours and it tastes so good with a fresh Portuguese roll When I was a child I was too young to appreciate bacalhau which requires a more sophisticated palate or at least a stronger sense of adventure the epitome of fine Portuguese comfort food When I was in Lisbon for Disquiet (a literary program I had bacalhau at least four times during the two-week period Is there a special place that is close to your heart  I probably spent more time in São Roque than anywhere else on the island and my paternal grandmother’s ancestors My paternal grandfather was born in Arrifes São Roque is in the concelho of Ponta Delgada and there’s a walkway along the rocky coast The old name for the freguesia of São Roque is “Rosto de Cão,” or “face of the dog,” after a very large rock that really does resemble a dog I just finished a Ruth Rendell mystery and a memoir by Diane di Prima I am also reading two histories of the Inquisition In the on-deck circle is An Unnecessary Woman as well as books by Portuguese-American and Portuguese writers I love Eça de Queirós and have gobbled up everything by him that’s available in English translation I recently reread Saramago’s The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis and think it’s his best book The Inquisitor’s Manual by Antunes is another favorite of mine And I’m trying to keep up with contemporary writers as well as with younger Portuguese writers who are being translated I am impressed by the diversity of voices and the range of subjects and settings Don’t ask me to pick favorites just yet when I have enough of a poem so that I know where it’s going I start doing my drafts on the computer and printing them on yellow paper What one book do you wish you could have written I would love to have written Kristin Lavransdatter I admire the way Sigrid Undset was able to make fourteenth-century Norway more real to me than real life In the mornings I found it difficult to leave Kristin and Erlend to get dressed and take the cable car to my office building and to deal with electricity and running water and typewriters and other modern inventions when I was halfway through the middle volume And it was probably thirty years before I managed to buy my own copy in a new translation and to start all over again And the timing was right–no cable cars this time although I still had electricity and running water and even a computer But I gave myself the space to live in the book I would love to be able to write something that good sometimes demanding all kinds of arcane knowledge and always demanding honesty not in the confessional sense but within the framework of what is being written and I’ve been writing since I was five years old Before that I wanted to be an astronomer or a dressmaker What is your least favorite part of the writing process I always think I could make it better if I worked on it for a couple more years I think Sweet Melinda in Bob Dylan’s “Just Like Tom Thumb Blues” is very much like me although hers is probably better than mine is (*) Millicent Borges Accardi is a contributor to the Portuguese American Journal the author of three books: Injuring Eternity She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and Barbara Deming Foundation “Money for Woman.” She also organizes the literary series Kale Soup for the Soul: Portuguese-American writers reading work about family Representatives from M-Arquitectos will respond to you via e-mail. 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Projects (10)SortLatestOldestA-ZZ-A✕ResetDate Tags:SaveSaveSign up to unlockmore of your company's projects The best Architecture Professionals behind the projects we publish If you have done all of this and still can't find the email foi morta na manhã deste domingo (13) após ser atacada pelo próprio cachorro da raça pitbull dentro de casa O incidente ocorreu no Parque Estrela Dalva A vítima estava com a companheira e a filha Segundo relatos de vizinhos à Polícia Civil de Goiás Os gritos da mulher alertaram moradores da região os vizinhos o mataram a pauladas e facadas não conseguiu prestar detalhes às autoridades Vizinhos relataram que o pitbull havia sido adotado pela família já adulto e vivia com elas há cerca de um ano O caso será investigado pela delegacia local que deve apurar as circunstâncias do ataque e se havia histórico de agressividade do animal O corpo de Stefane foi encaminhado ao Instituto Médico Legal (IML) para exames A família de Stefane recebeu apoio de vizinhos e amigos enquanto aguarda a conclusão das investigações