……………………… Kathleen Rietz Illustrator, Desert Baths with author Darcy Pattison ……………….. Please welcome to Kid Lit Reviews a prolific children’s book illustrator and fine artist Kathleen Rietz. She is here to chat with us about herself and her new book with Darcy Pattison titled Desert Baths. Hi, Kathleen, let’s start off with what first interested [...]
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The show is a blur. They played a lot of new stuff, some old stuff, mostly upbeat, although I do love their sad ones. Thankfully, they played my most recent obsession, “Another New World,” and their song list gave me a chance to do a lot of clapping, knee-slapping, and general “woohoo”-ing. They have such presence, these boys. They thrive off each other’s energy. They dance around the stage (which made it very hard to get good photos). The audience can feel that energy, and by the end of the show, we were begging for more, more, more. On several occasions, vocalist and mandolin player Chris Thile made the comment, “I can’t believe we’ve never been here before!” I agree. Punch Brothers, Phoenix has been waiting, and we expect you to come back.
I walked up and said, “I’m Sara. How was the tequila?” to which he replied with much hugging. We reminisced over their Charleston performance years before. He signed my Moleskin and gave me another hug before we had our picture taken together—a fan’s freakin’ dream. Then, I waved and was gone, making him promise the Punch Brothers would one day come back to the Valley of the Sun.
By: msedano,
on 10/8/2012
Blog: La Bloga (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: poetry, poems, Arizona, Floricanto Movement, Add a tag
What then, to make of a Chicana writer like Gina Ruiz, who wants to be funny? Ruiz’ playful fiction “Chanclas and Aliens” blends barrio iconography with weird science and the familiar refrain no good deed goes unpunished. Another writer, Xicano X gets wrapped up in his own hang-ups and strives to be offensive as a strategy for getting attention through asco and scatology. Where is the arroba aesthetic in that?
Despite the editorial shortcoming, ¡Ban This! makes a valuable contribution to a bookshelf or library. Rivera’s assembled a magnificent variety of work valuable for the breadth of coverage, from poem to political science to science fiction to anthropology and history.
Half the book’s 332 pages publish short poems. Opting for quality, the first two poets out the gate are Francisco X. Alarcón and Luis Urrea.
Alarcón’s bilingual work features intricate architecture that defies conventional use of the page. Instead, an Alarcón poem may be read from left to right or top to bottom, or alternatively, read an English stanza then its corresponding Spanish stanza, plus the left/right/top/bottom opportunity. Alarcón invests his poems with multiple possibilities and resources, at once thoughtful and diverting.
Urrea’s lead poem, “Arizona Lamentation,” is a spectacularly difficult poem. Opening with the strident phrase, “We were happy here before they came”, the persona expresses resentment of newcomers. Except the persona speaks in an anglo voice, projecting fantasy history onto the land, “Then their envy, their racial hatred / Made us build a border fence / To protect our children. / But they kept coming.” Just as the alarmed reader is about to toss the book out the window at that crud, the persona shifts, “But their wagons kept coming and coming. / And their soldiers.” And in closing, the one voice again becomes displaced by the other, while between the lines their sentiments echo one another’s fears. What an intractable mess.
Oddly positioned, near the end but not the final piece, is Odilia Galván Rodriguez’ title piece, “¡Ban This!” The piece reflects well off Urrea’s. Spoken in a raza voice, Rodriguez’ poem is one of puro affirmation. Addressing book banners, the poem illuminates qualities and beliefs supporting raza peoplehood, not a subversion of the anglo internal colony. The poet’s restrained anger sounds loud and clear. It doesn’t need a gimmick, an “X” or an arroba, to declare unequivocally, “words live / we remember / them, our love, our stories ~ / history, cannot be erased / not banned”
Chicanas Chicanos write a lot of poetry. Maybe that’s why ¡Ban This! has such a heavy proportion of it. The prose work--fiction, memoir, essay—offers a rich potpourri of information, but suffers from editorial neglect. As an editor, Rivera needed to get after sloppy spelling and stilted construction. Instead, it appears the editor simply cut and pasted submissions, favoring laissez-faire publication rather than exercise the editorial authority writers deserve.
Two seminal essays merit widespread reading. Roberto “Dr. Cintli” Rodriguez’ “From Manifest Destiny to Manifest Insanity,” and Rodolfo Acuña’s “Giving Hypocrisy a Bad Name: Censorship in Tucson.” The essays are scholarly, and entirely readable. That’s less true of other prose work in the collection.
David Cid’s “Silent No Longer: The Visual Poetic Resistance of Chicana/o Cinema in the Experimental Films of Frances Salomé España” is a recycled term paper. Cid gives interesting information but it’s nearly indigestible owing to that seminar paper style. Cid promotes the “Chicana / o” construction, rather than the arroba. In one sentence the trick gets away from Cid and his editor; one woman is labeled a “Chicana / o”.
Del Zamora’s Los Angeles Times piece, “Where Are The Latinos In Films, TV?” is one of those pointless Op-Ed pieces that complains only to close with irony instead of constructive ideas. “It’s either that or stop purchasing tickets and renting videos of movies and television shows that do not include us. After all, as one Hollywood executive explained to me, ‘We don’t have to put you in movies…there were no Latinos in Gotham City and you still came.”
Miguel Jimenez, “Veterans Empathize: HB2281 and The Attack On Mexican History And Culture” illustrates the cyclical nature of Chicana Chicano history. Jimenez’ memoir of his Iraq service echoes draft-era complaints that military service validates one’s identity as a Unitedstatesian, even in the face of rejection and exclusion.
Maria Teresa Ceseña brings a homily on self-identity, “The Turtle Caught in the Fire.” She opens with a powerfully composed non-fiction equivalent of spoken word art. Here Ceseña the academica advances a feminist rationale she defines as “oppositional consciousness”. She follows that introduction with her poem, “Piecing It Together,” then spins off from there describing a life experience in much the ways anthologies describe the status of a literature. Put the shards together under a blazing sun and for one moment achieve a freeze frame of where everything is, in relation to anything else. Except the point of the essay curiously is about giving up. Ceseña encourages dreamers that it’s never too late to change by giving up an old dream in view of what’s hot right now.
This reader is grateful for the end-wrapper from Mario Barrera, “Science and Religion in a Border Town,” a generous helping of humor to lighten the weight of the deadly earnest essayists who’ve preceded Barrera’s memoir.
Andrea J. Serrano's "Lament" exemplifies how Chicanas Chicanos respond to banning books. Not with a big knife in a steady hand, but a broken heart and a loaded ink pen.
Frank Sifuentes Moving On
La Bloga friend Frank Sifuentes' body is shutting down, surrounded by love and family, as it should be.
Frank's daughter sends along her father's news. I'm sure Frank would have preferred to deliver the news en propria persona, with a joke and a winding tale with a twist at the end. Nos wachamos, Frank.
Pictured below is Frank during a tense moment at the 1973 Festival de Flor y Canto. Frank coordinated the event and was flying high, energized surrounded by so many artists, feeding off the energy in the green room and being out among 'em in the jam-packed audience.
The crisis. Oscar Zeta Acosta refuses to go inside, where a full house awaits the Brown Buffalo's reading. Outside, spectators mill about in panicky unease. The door opens and Frank steps outside. Zeta explains his refusal to go on. They negotiate and Zeta enters to take the stage.
A few years back, Frank laughed about the whole pedo. What he remembered better, albeit hazily, was his wild all-night drive through the streets of Aztlán. Frank, rrsalinas, Ricardo Sánchez doing tourist tripping, eventually evading cops on a memorable journey across LA to Acosta's pad.
Ay, Frank, so many stories, so little time.
Here's Frank at the 2010 Festival de Flor y Canto. Yesterday • Today • Tomorrow, that reunited dozens of artists from that first Festival de Flor y Canto.
You can hear Frank read at 1973's floricanto by visiting the USC Digital Library archive.
Mailbag
Barrios Interviews Junot Diaz
La Bloga friend Gregg Barrios advises his recent interview with author-on-the-ascendancy Junot Diaz is at the Los Angeles Review of Books site.
It's a rewarding interview between two long-time compañeros, for, as Barrios points out:
Reading Díaz is to discover a new voice in American lit that continually amazes as it informs, his text a vast storehouse of literary references, footnotes, and genre-bending throwaways. His groundbreaking use of Spanish without italics or translation is deeply refreshing to Latino readers, as it is to any reader who recognizes it as part and parcel to the bilingual Latino experience.
Closet of Discarded Dreams at Tia Chucha's September 14
Tia Chucha's Centro Cultural and Bookstore hosts bloguero and La Bloga founder Rudy Garcia on Sunday, October 14 starting at 2:00 p.m. Located at 13197-A Gladstone Ave, Sylmar, California, the popular bookseller and events headquarters provides a welcome atmosphere for a steady parade of writers.
Garcia will be at the Latino Book & Family Festival on Saturday, as noted in Monday's Daniel Olivas column.
On-Line Floricanto for Nine Ten Twelve
Joe Navarro, Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, Fernando Rodríguez, Tracy Corey, Victor Avila
“It Must Be the Chicano In Me” Joe Navarro
“Search and Recovery” Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo
“Indocumentado” Fernando Rodríguez
“Listen” Tracy Corey
“Ban This Poem!” Victor Avila
It Must Be the Chicano In Me
Joe Navarro
It must be the Chicano in me
But when I listen to the music of
Lila Downs singing from the depths
Of her soul or Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan
From Jalisco, the land of my ancestors
Celebrating el 16 de septiembre
I feel proud to be me
When campesinos demand fair wages
That their invisible hands have earned
Or when people openly declare,
“I am undocumented!” fearlessly
Yet knowing they will be forcibly
Detached from the only lives they know
I feel their plight and injuries
When I hear La Raza speaking
English, Spanish and Spanglish
At the mercado or in the park
And when I see mothers bringing
Their children to school in one hand
With younger siblings in strollers
I feel at home in my comunidad
At every tardeada, fiesta, baile or concierto
Where people dance and enjoy music
At marches where workers honor the
Tradition May Day and workers’ rights
At every gathering that honors heroes
Martyrs and luchas for human dignity
I feel the aspirations of my people
I extract pride from holidays
Inspired by people’s desires for
Self-determination and independence
And from magnificent murals and poemas
Honoring our indigenous traditions
And struggles to escape domination
…It must be the Chicano in me
Search and Recovery
Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo
for Brooke
is not like search and rescue, not like the 10 o’clock news,
not like blond daughters sucked out through windows
in the dark night. There is no line of volunteers
combing the woods at the edge of a peach town,
no fleet of police dragging the lake, no pencil sketches
or time-stamped videos of dark men in black hoodies,
no midnight vigils blurred by hundreds of burning white candles,
no posters, no milk cartons, and no alerts.
There is plenty of desert silence between two women
scaling the Atascosa mountains like two specs of dust.
They search for a young man shot by his coyote and discarded
by a wash with cement blocks and black kites fallen from the sky,
or maybe black tires taken from a truck. They exhaust
unreliable reports in a futile act of deciphering hazy, hot landmarks.
They hike and carry what supplies they can slung over backs:
extra water, socks, electrolyte pills, a couple of apples, peanut butter.
Before the sunsets, they set up camp beneath the sky
and wait for the sun to rise so they can try again.
In the day, they search for what remains,
In the night, they fear what remains will look like,
and each woman secretly holds hope close to her chest
that if she crosses a bundle tomorrow, it will once again be branches.
Indocumentado
Fernando Rodríguez
Colgué el teléfono y una lagrima rodo
Del otro lado de la bocina mi hijo el mas pequeño
Aun residen en México,
Como quisiera poder abrazarlos,
La vida si que es dura
No se puede tener todo
Pero valdrá la pena, si le hecho ganas y me supero
Al colgar ese teléfono
Le pedí a mi dios valor, fuerza y paciencia
Para lograr lo que el güero tiene
Su familia a su lado
Veo como todos los días gente se divorcia, separa y junta
Sin saber el verdadero valor de una familia
Sin entender la dedicación,
Yo no soy nadie pa’ juzgar
Solo relato mi versión
Mañana es lunes y otro día de trabajo
Otra vez me la rifo manejando
Iremos para el campo
Pizcando paso mi vida
Para ganarme la plata
Con la que vive mi familia
En mi pobre tierra mexicana
La vida no vale nada
Y menos acá
La gente le da importancia
A un pedazo de papel
Que a la misma vida
El cuello blanco controla todo
Sin ensuciarse las manos,
¿Y yo?
Un simple campesino
Que me ensucio de barro
¡No controlo nada!
Tiene más poder un perro
Por tener esos papeles
Desearía ser importante
Para ayudar a mi gente
El teléfono acorta y alarga mi dolor
Escucho a mis seres queridos
Pero no los puedo abrazar
Tengo que ser conformista
Para poder aguantar
La dificultad no es vida
Pero no hay para mas…
Listen
Tracy Corey
~ for my grandmother, Almira Miller (1924-2011)
Listen to your grandmothers. They are the voices
of your bones whispering to your wings
before grace has found you. When she warned
of that boy, hear her history, and when she closed
her eyes and kissed the baby, see her heart
wink at her feet for the blisters that delivered such beauty.
Listen to her cooking, informing you of the beauty,
of the beaches and the barrios that feed the voices
calling from the winding roads that lead to her heart
and breathe through her veins, giving air to her wings
that felt, when the nights got so dark, a longing that closed
the days with a notion of something that warned
her to listen. And when she did, she was warned
of a life begun again in subtitles, but a life of beauty
without the hardship of hungry days and closed
borders where her children spoke with their voices
bouncing in boxes rather than sailing on wings
that aren’t too heavy from the days to beat in the heart
that can listen because it can hear. And planted in her heart
she wrapped the deepest seeds of home’s garden, warned
of the days when nothing would feel so urgent as wings
to take her home, to the backbone of beauty,
and even the sorrow, just for the familiar voices,
enough to sometimes make you forget the closed
borders. Listen to the seeds she wrapped in the closed
petals of the bright flowers she planted in her heart
and you’ll hear the stories of so many, their voices
building a homesick choir that when warned
of wasted despair all they can recite is, “Beauty
is beauty, even when it flies on broken wings.”
Listen to their song, delivered on the aging wings
of your grandmothers, who know the secret to closed
borders is traveling hand-in-hand with beauty
in the exploding seeds of home’s garden, the heart.
And just for good measure, let despair be warned,
the secret is carried in the many voices
of secret-keepers who, despite being warned
by sorrow, listen to history and sing with their wings.
Ban This Poem!
Victor Avila
Before it is read
And the seed of its ideas spread-
Ban this poem.
For though subtle and unassuming
Consider this a warning
for those hard of heart and fearful of change.
Ban this poem-
Create a law and demand it!
Or it will be a curse to those who live by the tenets of hate.
Xenophobes and war-mongers
this is your chance
to rip up these thoughts before they escape.
Yes, ban this poem
before it is nailed into the door of our consciousness
or a transmutation will take place.
It will certainly gain entrance
and disrupt the lives
of those wrapped up in a barbed wire embrace.
For it does what a poem
is supposed to do
and tap into a humanity we thought once lost.
It is a glimmer of new awakenings,
and a fulcrum of tolerance.
It is a blanket for the homeless should the cold set in.
So ban this poem-It is dangerous.
And out of place with society's values.
Lock it up in the darkest of prisons for it is a contagion of enlightenment...
...And a missive of acceptance...a dispatch of hope.
So ban this poem.
YES, BAN THIS POEM!!!
BIOS
Joe Navarro is a literary vato loco, teacher, poet, creative writer, husband, father and grandfather who currently lives in Hollister, CA. Joe integrates his poetic voice with life's experiences, and blends culture with politics. His poetic influences include the Beat Poets, The Last Poets, Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Alurista, Gloria Anzaldua, Lalo Delgado and numerous others.
Fernando Rodriguez writes from Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico. He is a 25 year old poet who believes in freedom, equality and despite racism in any of its many forms. This poem was written to create conscience about suffering of immigrants in this land.
Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is a high school teacher and native Angeleno. She is the creator and curator of Beyond Baroque’s monthly reading series Hitched and was nominated for a 2010 Pushcart Award. Her manuscript, The Meditation for the Lost and Found, is in part inspired by 10 days she spent patrolling the Arizona-Mexico border volunteering with the direct humanitarian aid group, No More Deaths. Her poetry has been published in The Los Angeles Review, CALYX, and PALABRA.
Tracy Corey has lived in Los Angeles, Seattle and traveled throughout Mexico. She is the recipient of First Place in Poetry 2012 in the award-winning literary magazine, SandScript, and her photographs have been exhibited in Arizona and been used as cover art by an independent press. She has studied creative writing at Antioch University, Los Angeles, and the University of Arizona. She is the owner/operator of a small business that, among other things, edits and proofreads manuscripts for authors already published and/or seeking publication. She currently lives in her hometown of Tucson, Arizona.
Victor Avila is an award-winning poet. Two of his poems were recently included in the anthology Occupy SF-Poems from the Movement. He is also a writer and illustrator. Three of his ghost stories were recently included in Ghoula Comix #2.
By: msedano,
on 10/1/2012
Blog: La Bloga (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: poems, banned books, poetry, Arizona, speculative fiction, Floricanto Movement, Add a tag
But that’s not what I’m most excited about right now. It’s the growing population of Chicana Chicano speculative fiction finding its way to bookstores and downloads.
Not that raza literature hasn’t long contained fantasy and out-of-this-world elements—think of the dead baby in Ana Castillo’s So Far From God who flies out of her coffin up to the rafters. Then there’s “magic realism,” a term some exogenous critic planted upon stuff the critic couldn't tolerate or didn't fully understand. Such writing bears no dissonance for raza writers and readers, whose tolerance for fantastic experience results from quotidian cultural experience, e.g. DDLM, Juan Diego and la Virgen, el cucuy.
Per some critics, "magic realism" is a worldwide movement. Yet, it’s still possible that one’s life-list of Chicana Chicano speclit sightings can include every specimen of the genre. Which is changing: the growth of Chicana Chicano speculative fiction / science fiction / fantasy / horror is as exciting news as spotting a tree full of Least Bell’s Vireo.
Books, unlike birds, don’t end up extinct, glass-eyed and stuffed behind plexi in some dusty museo display case. Books can be resurrected. For example, Bloguero Ernest Hogan--among the earliest practitioners of the art—recently began recasting his rare titles into eBook forms, as he’s recounted in his La Bloga Chicanonautica columns.
And slowly but inexorably, new titles are finding their way through publisher back rooms into the light of day. A few years ago, now-defunct publisher Calaca Press advanced the puro sci-fi Lunar Braceros on the Moon 2125-2148. In addition to Hogan, Blogueros Daniel Olivas and Rudy Garcia, are doing their part to keep spec alive. There’s Olivas’ gem, Devil Tales, and Garcia’s currently touring novel Closet of Discarded Dreams.
The most recent newcomer to the speclit ranks is Sabrina Vourvoulias with an edge-of-your-seat dystopic novel, Ink.
In a tea bagger fantasy world, raza and immigrants from America, Asia, Caribe, Africa, wind up on the losing end of a U.S. civil war that cleaved the democracy into castes of citizens, non-citizen aliens, and “inks.”
Inks wear tattoos branding their country of origin and status, and have chips implanted in their necks to facilitate GPS tracking. “Show me your wrist” has replaced “show me your papers.”
But such profound measures hardly satisfy the most avid baggers. Gangs of crackers roam the streets, kidnapping inks to deport them into Mexico, with a wink from law and ordure.
A great story aside, the key to a successful speculative piece is linking the unknown to the known, constructing the fiction over a framework of actuality. For Vourvoulias this means a world where street gangs have gone corporate; where wingnuts control government but not the hearts and minds of all the gente; where private prisons run rampant; where technology is boon and bane and Ink-detecting devices are as widely available as iPods.
The odds stack heavily against them, but Inks fight back, supported by gente decente like Maryknoll priests, youths, congregants, artists, and artificial skin. The conflict driving the novel will fill readers with dismay, seeing parallels between what has already taken place—Japanese locked in concentration camps, narcos controlling swaths of territory in Mexico, rednecks with power—and the novel’s permutations of today’s ugly commonplaces.
In Vourvoulias' most delighting turn, she gives her Inks nahuales: panther, jaguar, bee spirits, or evil dwarves. These spirits jump in and out their dimension to comfort, rescue, or attack, their endangered Ink. With this dual dimensions set-up, the author develops her agon in suspenseful parallels between the bleeding dystopia and the engaged dimension of spirits.
The author skillfully avoids nagual-ex-machina devices except when absolutely required. The presence of one’s nahual isn’t enough to prevent a rape, nor save some souls. Vourvoulias is not reluctant to brutalize or kill her characters, nor subject them to unspeakable torture at the hands of depraved racists. But I repeat myself.
The United States has devolved into a living Hell for decent folk, and all Inks. Readers who allow themselves to be drawn into the fantasy will find Sabrina Vourvoulias’ story both depressing and constantly arresting, enjoying several surprises along the route. In the end comes an inkling of hopefulness for disbanding the tea bagger hold on liberty, but that’s not certain. Vourvoulias won’t let you off that easy.
The publisher distributes a book book and an electronic one. Whichever a reader elects, Ink’s compelling story drives itself effortlessly, and a reader likely will devour it within a day or two. Ink is fun, and scary as can be. Of course, that's the point of speculative fiction. Can it happen here? A little birdy tells me the known of this novel offers compelling evidence that Ink’s world certainly could, and as current events illustrate, that world is lumbering toward Washington DC to be born.
Banned Books Update
The books are still banned. Tucson's school board gave a vote of confidence to the jefe in charge of banning books, along with a nice salary increase. SB 1070's "show me your papers" got a court go-ahead. Joe Arpaio's re-election campaign advances toward victory.
It's ugly out there. Vote like your freedom depends on it.
La Bloga On-Line Floricanto Two Ten Twelve
Odilia Galván Rodríguez, Maurisa Thompson, Kris Barney, Devreaux Baker, Jabez W. Churchill
“Occupied America” by Odilia Galván Rodríguez
“We Did Not Build Pyramids with Words that Feared Our Skin” by Maurisa Thompson
“What Will It Take?” by Kris Barney
“Recipe for Peace” by Devreaux Baker
“El Procesional” por Jabez W. Churchill
“Processional” by Jabez W. Churchill
Occupied America
by Odilia Galván Rodríguez
so occupied
are they
in their heads
stuck in screens
smart phones
computers
the iOnly CU
online society
who'd rather text
their talking fingers
flying swiftly
over keyboards
to communicate
into the ether
O occupied America
so sick of who's at war
with whom
or don't care and
what new doom will
the yarn spinners spin
what Hollywood or TV
drama will they foist
on the eye glued
masses today
will they cower
in fear then
proudly wave
their death flag
even higher
who will win
the next elections
with Corporations
as people
can we can leave
the driving to them
after all don't cha know
the One Percent
has it rigged
with new fangled
voter fraud schemes
the old ones too
like show me your papers
to vote
while the dead still
rise from their graves
every four years to
pull the lever
at the voting box
automatons speak
the great computers
calculating the numbers
in the chosen ones favor
who will it be
you ask
as if there
were really a choice
lift your voice
in a different way
take to the streets
and yell your stories
no matter how dumb
you think it is
leave your smart phone
at home
Copyright 2012 Odilia Galván Rodríguez
We Did Not Build Pyramids with Words that Feared Our Skin
by Maurisa Thompson
Sister
We did not build pyramids with words that feared our skin
We did not bear entire nations ashamed of the cadence of our hips
the white parent in us
so many ways absent
your father left your mother nursing
you with stories she spoke in Spanish
middle passages coast island migrations
arms of earth always around you
you carried them in this country
talismans on your full lips
my mother’s subconscious praises
for baby blue blue eyes
a classmate’s complexion
all lovely pale and flushed
willowed legs slender thighs
her own hands mute awkward
they were scarred by a lifetime
of dick and jane and sameness
she struggled to hold my difference
in any form of embrace
I could not begin to say these things
until you gave me words beyond
textbooks beyond negro y blanco
eased the secret knot open
trigueña—color of wheat
beneath the nightfall of your hair
morenasa—first word that loved me
beautiful dark woman
the sound rippling gently through
the letters of my own name
what language still throbs
within our mingled bloods
Nele muu ina Oju inun ashe
come we must find and weave it
tuck its medicine in our pockets
I seek each time I glimpse
lightning behind my closed eyes
Sister
after years in this body
I know at least the beginning
We did not bear entire nations ashamed of the cadence of our hips
We did not build pyramids with words that feared our skin
Copyright 2012 Maurisa Thompson
What Will It Take?
by Kris Barney
i burn cedar tonight
and lightning flickers all around the house
thunder booms and rumbles and
i think of yei dancers whose
voices and rattles will sound on
a night like tonight
after the frost melts into the earth
after all vegetation dies back and
aspens and cottonwoods turn yellow
Cedar smoke circles my body as
i rub the smoke on my heart with an eagle feather
as i watch every movement of
smoke wash over my face and my hands and
the fleeting moments that
burn and fade like
ponderosa logs on the fire and
i am tired of praying
i want something more to happen
i want my people to find the strength
inside them to do something
to address or to protect or to
regain honor in my eyes
i want to send a call to every warrior
every man or woman who loves
his/her homeland
his/her family and
how tough can it be to say enough is enough?
how hard is it to stand strong in unity?
how hard is it to stand up
to speak up
to have courage?
or are we just too ill with colonial post trauma and
images of failed attempts to defend and resist?
do we give up or do we just endure
long enough to become another
commodity for corporate disposal?
So my people medicate themselves
be it NAC pills Marijuana Reds Whites and Blues or
wine bottles smashed against windshields and skulls
the webbed nets of disease and dysfunction
dreams bred out of anarchy and alchemy and
this song that runs wild in the purple red neon
as the blood hits the wind and
eyes are the doorways and
i lick i look
i fool myself with your smile and
the beads of sweat that collects down the curves
of your body as i kiss you into the night
and the constellations are the only ones
who hear our voices and white puffs of breath like
dancers painted white dancing by moon star and
firelight and
i hold you closer and breathe in your smell as
suns rise and set and
i hear the hoof beat of horses and
i can taste the rain in my sleep and
rivers running across the desert and
mountains where the deer stop to watch
our passing and hawks circle into
the red iris of the sun
and i walked
and i ran
and i asked questions to the clouds and
rain confirmed in recognition
in voices as old as the ocean and
i drank from water clear and cold
glacier melt water and ice cold streams that
mourn for salmon and
the men and women who weep
my brothers and sisters who weep
our children who weep for parents who are too
traumatized by colonial gods and demons and
rumors of eternity
Our elders weep
silently in nursing homes or
prisons and mourn for the
beauty of their youth or
for relatives long dead
the stories that cannot
be translated into English
stories images and
memories hidden in the blood
on every highway
in America
on every street downtown every city
on every metro train that connects
above to below
on every dirt road where children
board buses or airplanes and die for
wars created by the
wealth and gluttony of greed and
ones who suck the life
out of every living system of life
and i hear the wailing of rivers
birds
insects
whole rainforests and indigenous tribal relatives
fighting death and dams with arrows and spears
and all the marked and unmarked graves
unearthed by stripmine shovels and those who
rob the dead
gold robbers
coal robbers
bone collectors
those who sell trade and barter whole
corpses and the bone fragments
that line museum walls or
spark intelligent and curious
conversations at dinner tables
conversations that
give rise to festive occasions and
celebrations of the
opening of another new strip mall
another ski resort
another oil rig
another mountaintop stripmine
another copper mine
another diamond mine
another uranium mine
another mine where they
mine and drain the blood out of
the bodies of babies and aquifers and
the dust and smoke of charred human remains
settle after wars for natural resources have claimed
another hundred thousand or half million to million
civilian causalities
the lives of the innocent cemented to the lenses of
journalists and scenes that the media
only wants you to see and voices
crushed like how they crushed infant
skulls on the sides of kivas or pit houses or
hogans or long house walls
the blood always runs cleaner on the other side
so they say in the written history in every
colonial country
where the guilt of massacres and genocide
is weighed and bought
by stock market trends and
designer shoes and bleached blonde images
emulated by every modern Native out there
who's impressed by the illusions of the
american dreams and promises of prosperity
those of my people who would sell more
than their souls just
to get him/her a piece of the action
and the blood of the
innocent continues to run when
you are able to deceive those who
dare not think for themselves or think
intellectually and really put it all out there
for the world to see but
even then
images are not enough in today's america
images have not enough value or intrinsic value and
what price can really be put on
clean air
clean water
healthy soil
healthy children/descendants?
and here i look at the
black silhouette of the mountain
behind my house
i am immersed in the
melodies of this wind and
i think of life
all the lives of this earth
all the millions of ancestors and relatives
all the lives of animals
genetically generically modified plant life
the sterilizations
the mass murders
the modern mass global extinctions
the crimes against humanity
the crimes against creation
the crimes and murders against
every living thing
every living breathing entity and
yet my people do nothing
but make excuses and
tell me to pray more or
to be more humble
or tell me to come into the fold of their religions or
to go into some deep part of the world and
find something to distract myself from
the horrors of reality
the wombs of creation and
i wonder
i stop
i sometimes listen
i watch
i look to clouds and wind for inspiration and
i dare to question and i have yet to ask of
them for help
for assistance
i have yet to crank things up a notch
i have yet to lay it all out on the line
i have yet to make things happen and
so i burn cedar tonight
i think of all my loved ones
i think of the recently deceased
i think of all the animals
i think of all my people and relatives
i will not pray for you all
a part of me is tired of praying
of going through the motions of prayer and song
i am tired
i have walked but i have not walked far enough
i have prayed
my feet have bled
my heart has been broken
my body is beaten but my spirit
remains intact
i have no song to sing
no offering stronger than my
own blood to give
i walk now
surrounded by clouds
dark blue and deep purple and
a silver blue moon and this rain which
washes over my skin and i
sit on this hill and i watch the lightning far off
i watch it twist and bend and
the thunder booms in a voice
i have known all my life and
i have no tobacco
no corn pollen
no eagle plumes
no words to comfort me here and now
but only my two hands my two feet and
the scent of cedar smoke close to my chest
and this road of possibility
this lightning that
illuminates
my eyes....
Copyright 2012 Kris Barney
Recipe for Peace
by Devreaux Baker
Bare your feet
roll up your sleeves
oil the immigrant's bowl
open the doors and windows of your house
invite in the neighbors
invite in strangers off the street
roll out the dough
add spices for a good life
cardamon and soul
cumin and tears
sesame and sorrow
add a dash of salt
pink as new hope
add marjaram and thyme
rub lemon grass and holy basil
on your fingers and pat the dough
bless the table
bless the bread
bless your hands and feet
bless the neighbors and strangers off the street
bake the bread for a century or more
on moderate heat
under the olive trees in your back yard
or on the sun filled stones of Syria
in the white rocks of Beirut
or behind the walls of Jerusalem
in the mountains of Afghanistan
and in the sky scrapers of New York
Feast with all the migrant tongues
until your mouth understands
the taste of many different homes
and your belly is full
so you fall asleep cradled
in the skirts of the world
in the lap of peace.
Copyright 2012 Devreaux Baker
El Procesional
por Jabez W. Churchill
La llevo encima de la cruz
arriba de mis hombros,
botas negras y medias de red
hasta el pelo tenido de henna.
No se baja.
Ya estaba
cargando banderas,
fantoches vanos por las calles.
Ni puedo yo,
ídolo caído,
bajarla a abrazar.
Sequimos,
carroza alegorica de uno,
penitente y su Maria Magdalena
por el camino.
Solo el rastro pasado del amor,
condones gastados a los pies,
promesa de noche sin luna,
mi Santa muda
a atestiguar.
Copyright 2012 Jabez W. Churchill
Processional
by Jabez W. Churchill
I carry her upon a cross
above my shoulders,
black boots and fishnet stockings
up to her dyed henna hair.
She will not come down.
Already been there,
carrying banners,
vain caricatures along the streets.
Nor can I,
a fallen idol,
put her down.
We carry on,
allegory of one,
a penitent and his Mary Magdalene,
upon the highway.
Only the faded scent of love,
used condoms at my feet,
promise of a moonless sky,
my Guardian Angel, silent,
to testify.
Copyright 2012 Jabez W. Churchill
BIOS
Odilia Galván Rodríguez, poet/activist, writer and editor, has been involved in social justice organizing and helping people find their creative and spiritual voice for over two decades. Odilia is one of the original members and a moderator, of Poets Responding to SB 1070 on Facebook. She teaches creative writing workshops nationally, currently at Casa Latina, and also co-hosts, "Poetry Express" a weekly open mike with featured poets, in Berkeley, CA. For more information about workshops see her blog http://xhiuayotl.blogspot.com/ or contact her through Red Earth Productions & Cultural Work 510-343-3693.
Maurisa Thompson was born and raised in San Francisco, where she began writing poetry with her spelling words in 4th grade. She graduated from Swarthmore College, where she studied creative writing, and UC Berkeley, where she earned her M.A. in Education. She is a former student-teacher-poet of June Jordan's Poetry for the People, where she learned that "poetry means taking control of the language of your life," and that poetry can create what Jordan called "the beloved community," in which people from different backgrounds can come together and learn from one another while healing and addressing injustice. She currently works as a literacy teacher in San Francisco, and as as an editorial assistant for the Black Scholar: Journal of Black Studies and Research and the Black Scholar Press. She is member of Librotraficante BayArea Califas, a local chapter of a national movement of poets and writers raising awareness of the Ethnic Studies ban in Arizona through public readings and activism around the banned books. Her published poems can be found in The Pedestal Magazine and Caxixi: International Capoeira Angola Foundation Newsletter.
Devreaux Baker has published three books of poetry. Her most recent, Red Willow People, was awarded a 2011 PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award. She is the recipient of a 2012 Hawaii Council on Humanities International Poetry Award and a 2012 Women's Global Leadership Initiative Poetry Award. Her poetry has been widely published in literary journals including most recently; ZYZZYVA, Borderlands Texas Poetry Review, La Bloga, Crab Orchard Review, New Millenium Writing, Albatross, Mas Tequila Review, Liberty’s Vigil: The Occupy Anthology 99 Poets among the 99%, and Occupy SF Poems from the movement.
By: msedano,
on 9/24/2012
Blog: La Bloga (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: essays, science, poems, Arizona, Floricanto Movement, banned books, poetry, Add a tag
The early morning light lured me outside to take in the view on a sharp wintry day in Redlands. It was one of those early Sunday mornings I was home from school. I looked up at the noisy sky. Our home lay under the flight path of San Bernardino’s Norton Air Force Base. In the 1960s, Norton moved millions of tons of materiel from Berdoo to Vietnam aboard gigantic C-141 jets. First thing in the morning, C-141s painted black as if draped in mourning crepe, lifted off from Norton. Every fifteen minutes their roaring overhead signaled the Military Airlift Command’s efficiency. Their roar sounded an ominous reminder the Draft was looking for me, and thousands of teenagers more. I went back inside.
I was looking up at the sky again this week when the Space Shuttle rode piggy back across my backyard bit of sky, Mt. Wilso n’s radio towers above for background. I heard them before I knew them, as nothing ordinary roars with the power that rumbled my house in a sonic earthquake of harmonic sounds. And then it was gone from sight and I stared through empty space at the mountain.
Space. The final frontier. “What does ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ mean?” my kindergarten granddaughter, Charlotte, asks. This is the only time this event will happen, and you got to see it, I enthuse. Charlotte understands this event has never happened before, and will never happen again. So do her classmates. All the kindergarteners waved their arms and jumped around and went "ahgghh" when the big airplane and the little ones, too, cruised past, low and slow.
What a grand way for these 5-year olds to enter their space age. Last Spring, Charlotte declared when she grows up she will be a dancer and a scientist. She's going to make marvels. The space shuttle fly-by marks the end of one era, the launch of the next era of space. Her generation will build on what people of my generation, born in the aftermath of WWII, got to see from the raw beginnings.
When I was in kindergarten, space was airplanes out of Norton. I now and again stood in my backyard staring up at the noisy propeller planes cruising to and from the base. Hands cupped to mouth, I'd shout up, “Hey! Is Hairy Ass Truman in that plane?”
My dad worked at Norton. Once in a while he’d take me into the hangar where he did sheet metal. We'd go in the side door, past the time clock. Inside, the hard light filling open hangar doors silhouettes the hulking C-124 in eye-squinting contrast against the open sky. There were no wings. My father explained how the whole thing comes apart. I didn’t think about that. He fixed the holes in the airplane’s skin, and he also replaced the wings. Every time one of those beasts flew overhead in those days, I smiled. That was my dad’s handiwork in that airplane.
The space race took off in junior high, when the Russians got to space first with Sputnik. A U.S. answer, the Vanguard satellite, was built in Redlands, at Grand Central Rocket Company. The first launch was a spectacular disaster. The rocket exploded on the pad hurling the sofball-sized Vanguard onto the beach. The satellite came to rest beeping impotently in the Cape Canaveral surf. A classmate's dad built the Vanguard satellite. The man walked up to the beeping gold ball wanting a gun to put Vanguard out of its misery. Beep beep beep. Five years later, groups of us high school kids would stare up into a nightime summer sky and name communications satellites whizzing by.
Rocket science found a way to make weapons out of satellites. Many of these were launched from Lompoc, California’s Vandenberg AFB, just north of Santa Barbara. College years, the drive up the parkway from Goleta to UCSB, seeing the “pregnant guppy” was common. It was the cargo plane that ferried rocket motors up the coast to Lompoc. On campus, I lived in a decrepit structure overlooking the swamp and airfield. The roar of a pregnant guppy echoed the sounds of Redlands.
The first person to walk on the moon did it on black and white television in the middle of the day. I watched Armstrong from a bar stool in Hwaak-ni, Korea, where I had arrived the afternoon before the moonwalk, my fourth day overseas.
On the ride up to Bravo Battery the day before, the deuce and a half had bounced past a Korean man plowing a rice paddy with an ox, ankle-deep in brown water that looked like wet shit. It was; human caca. The wind blew in our direction. In the thick humidity, the incredible stink clung to my sweaty fatigues and penetrated deep into my nose filling my head with the smell of the third world.
And there, sitting next to me in the Admin Area bar, wearing his homespun traditional hemp fiber traje, was that farmer. As the ville did not have electricity, the Battery Commander invited the locals to share the event, and he'd taken a day off. If I’d had any money, I would have bought that farmer a twenty-five cent beer. “A small step for a man…” Talk about a “giant leap” for humankind.
Serving on a mountain armed with rocket ships named the “Homing All the Way Killer,” the HAWK anti-aircraft missile, never struck me as outer spacey, except for that farmer. And when the wind blew up the valley. Yet, the space age was everywhere—that missile system is a big lethal computer.
I saw my first zip-lock bag at Bravo—the missile parts arrived in them. I experienced space age adhesives when Robledo, a vato from San Anto, glued my fingers together with the stuff warheads are glued onto the rocket ship with. Instead of cranking a phone, I learned to whistle up a 60 Hz tone. "Wheeoouuuu" click; just like that the mountain is connected to anywhere in the world. It’s definitely space age to be buzzed by a MiG out of nowhere, then be knocked to the ground by a low-sweeping Air Force Phantom. “It if flies, it dies,” is an Air Defense Artillery mottto I remembered as that huge lumbering jet crossed the sky on its way to JPL.
Menso me. I’d decided I have plenty of space age memories and didn't need to photograph the Space Shuttle. The fly-by itself cannot be contained in a prosthesis for memory, and bla bla bla. As the flight comes into view and sweeps painfully briefly across the mountain vista, I jump excitedly and go "ahgghh." My waving arms feel the absence of the lens in my hand. The Shuttle does not return for a second fly-by. That’s what once in a lifetime means.
Banned Books Update in Limbo
Tucson schools has consistently failed to develop an acceptable desegregation program for over 20 years. As a result, the Federal Court maintains supervision over the district. A key element is the Special Master appointed to develop methods to help TUSD meet its obligations under the U.S. Constitution.
The Special Master could order the schools to reinstitute the Mexican American Studies program that was banned along with all those beautiful books. Or, the Special Master could suggest a framework and toss the ball to negotiators from TUSD and the community and let them battle out the details of a lawful "Unitary Status Plan" or USP. Here's the Special Master's job description:
Although the Special Masters Report was, evidently, released on 9/21, the document won't be in public view until at least September 27, 2012, when the document will be released in English and Spanish.
In the background come rumblings of discord entre Chicana Chicano Democrats that could split the local movement apart. Inklings of a krypto coalition between racists and putatively moderate raza politicians point to a festering infection in the movimiento. Signs of the ugly schism include TUSD's decision to re-hire Superintendent Pedicone and pay him a big fat bonus.
La Bloga's Banned Books Update is digging for details and will report on this ugly development when there is concrete information to report.
email inbox
Newly Literate Gente
La Bloga's Inbox this week has this from Vanessa Acosta of Cultural Arts Tours & Workshops, forwarding great news for America: more Americans in the United States can read and write now.
Here's the news from The Centro Latino for Literacy:
email inbox
In Manhattan: Casa Azul Bookstore
Bloguera and Librotraficante Melinda Palacio read at Casa Azul Bookstore last week, along with several La Bloga friends, recognizing efforts by librotraficantes to smuggle banned books into Arizona and wherever democracy has broken down. The event in NYC will not be a rare ritual but one element in an entrepreneurial strategy to keep literacy alive.
The Inbox this week has this from La Bloga friend Sergio Troncoso, news of Casa Azul's ongoing program of readings.
Please come and support a new independent bookstore in Manhattan, La Casa Azul Bookstore, at 143 East 103rd Street, at the corner of Lexington Avenue. I'll be reading from my two books published in 2011 with the poet Renato Rosaldo:
Reading with Sergio Troncoso and Renato Rosaldo
Thursday September 27, 6:00 - 8:00pm
Sergio Troncoso debates and challenges us on the mystery of familias, how they determine our identity and how we break free of them, from fatherhood to interfaith marriage to educating our children. From Tucson to the Philippines, from Palo Alto to Manhattan, Renato Rosaldo's readable poems tell of illness and racism, love and death—all in vivid tones. Savor these poems, slowly, what you inbibe will engage and enrich you.
http://www.lacasaazulbookstore.com/
Fall's First On-Line Floricanto
Francisco X. Alarcón, Tara Evonne Trudell, John Martinez, David Romero, Abyss Borboa-Olivera
"New Huge Galactic Blackhole Named After SB 1070-2B" by Francisco X. Alarcón
"Nuevo Enorme Agujero Negro Nombrado SB 1070-2B" por Francisco X. Alarcón
"De Colores of SB 1070" by Tara Evonne Trudell
"He Had the Smile of a Healer" by John Martinez
"Sweet Pocho Pie" by David Romero
"I Resign Myself" by Abyss Borboa-Olivera
"Renuncio a Mi" por Abyss Borboa-Olivera
New Huge Galactic Blackhole Named After SB 1070-2B
by Francisco X. Alarcón
a new huge
blackhole
discovered
at the center
of Andromeda
Galaxy some
2.5 million
light years away
from Earth
has been named
today after Arizona
law SB 1070–2B
“this is the largest
blackhole we have
ever found in space
it swallows all matter
and even light can’t
escape its huge pull;
because it is a dark
force that we can only
detect by its gravity
we have named it
SB 1070-2B for being
as ‘dark’ as the new law”
© Francisco X. Alarcón 2012
Nuevo Enorme Agujero Negro Nombrado SB 1070-2B
por Francisco X. Alarcón
un nuevo enorme
agujero negro
descubierto
al centro
de la Galaxia
Andrómeda
a 2.5 millones
de años luz
de la Tierra
ha sido nombrado
SB 1070–2B como
la ley de Arizona
“este el mayor
agujero negro jamás
descubierto en el espacio
absorbe toda materia
y no deja que ni la luz
se escape de su imán
porque es una fuerza
oscura que solo podemos
detectar por su gravedad
la hemos nombrado
SB 1070-2B por ser tan
‘oscura’ como la nueva ley”
© Francisco X. Alarcón 2012
De Colores of SB 1070
by Tara Evonne Trudell
the color
of politics
red
white
and blue
corrupted news
passing bills
making rules
taking brown
throwing rights
into spirit wind
overpowering
the fight
proving papers
marking suspects
police questioning
human rights
based on the color
of where
you were born
how brown
your skin
shines
in sun
hides
in shadows
immigration control
wearing green
not addressing
the reality
of humanness
her pink dress
grey nail polish
selling products
in a manicured war
them looking
the other way
promising people
rainbows to follow
their ever changing
definition
of equality
fooling minds
allowing justice
of nazi mentality
to control
the masses
of ancestors cries
red blood
flowing
under brown skin
the people must speak
fast and slow
freedom dissipated
and in their control
brown bodies
piling up
on the border
shot for throwing stones
for being brown
killing first
hiding bodies
in news feeds
conditioning generations
to not care
color scheming
between the lines
of genocide
until the colors
disappear
blinding white
against
the light
of politicians
coloring
Americans fear.
© Tara Evonne Trudell 2012
He Had the Smile of a Healer
by John Martinez
There was nothing
More to do,
Than to pick up
The picket sign,
White-hot summers
Sand underneath us,
A cloudless baby
Blue sky,
The grape pan,
Halfway
Into the row.
We stopped picking
Because the chanting
Told us to stop,
We stopped picking,
Because it was time
And my father saw
The shitty money
Empty from his eyes,
The Foreman, with his white
Man’s neck,
His map
Of a desert face;
He was counting
The trays,
But we dropped
Our grape knives
And picked up
The picket signs
Huelga, Huelga, Huelga!
And we marched
That day,
On the tar,
Softened by the sun,
Carrying our Clorox
Bottles filled
With frozen water.
We knew then,
That we were
Not alone,
That what we felt
About this field,
Was felt by others,
We were going to fight,
Because we could
Feel the poison
From the Crop Dusters
In our lungs,
Blurring our eyes,
Tightning our jaws
Because we knew
It was wrong
To work children,
With the sun,
Like a knife
On our backs,
To pay near nothing
For scorched knees
And burned faces
But this man,
He came to save us,
Yes, this man,
Dressed In School
Teachers clothes,
Brown face like ours,
Black hair like ours,
He had the smile
Of a healer.
© John Martinez 2012
Sweet Pocho Pie
by David Romero
I’m as American as sweet pocho pie
Light flaky crust
Identity crisis inside
Like apples to oranges
We are pochos
Children of these lands claimed
Ambassadors of a great American immigration
That often doesn’t want us
Our ancestors were criminalized for speaking Spanish
Yet, we’re expected to speak it without an accent
Expected to fit a stereotypical appearance
While Spanish stations display the opposite
Ask a career professional on a Latino panel
How to succeed in America and they will answer
“Remember: you’re a professional first
Latino second”
As if the two were mutually exclusive
Pochos pronounce their last names wrong
Argue this has become right
My name is Romero becomes ROW-MARROW
Rolling rs seem as silly as caricatures of twirling mustaches
Saying my own name properly makes me feel like Zorro
Pochos can know more about African American history
Than their own
It can politicize them
Relating to the status of outsider
Like Detroit Red becoming Malcolm X
Or like a boy named Sue with something to prove
Pochos can make for the best of activists
Carrying chips on their shoulders
The size of boulders
Emblazoned scrolls upon these read
“Insecurity” “shame” and “guilt”
Enough for long marches and late nights
To connect with the people
They are ambassadors to America
For a great immigration
That often doesn’t want them
Teases them bare and naked
Points out how tenuous their relationship
To being a Latino is
How it so easily crumbles
Like a soft crust
More apple than orange
Sweet pocho pie
“Sold out” here
Finger pointing
They laugh
“Gringo! Gringa! Gringo!” They cry
Some pochos are sliced into a permanent state of denial
Cut themselves white or “other” for charts
Others go on a journey of discovery of their Latin roots
With all of the subtlety and discretion of Christopher Colombus
Leaving division and destruction in their wake
Crushed hopes
Broken dreams
Promises of a piece of the pie with nothing inside
That’s why some in our communities fear us
Who are we?
Ambassadors to a great immigration
In an America that’s constantly changing
The children you wanted to have a better life
Then got mad at for having
The pochos you didn’t want
The pochos you taunt
For trying to be everything to everyone
We laugh, dance, scream, sing, argue and smile
We taste sweet as pocho pie
Smell the air
Look at the crowd
Feast upon their eyes
America loves sweet pocho pie
© David Romero 2012
I Resign Myself
by Abyss Borboa-Olivera
I resign myself
to be blind to the all truth
I resign to false humility
I resign to lists of demands
I resign to good intentions
if there is no action to prevail
if there is no work to understand
if there is no country to take care of.
I resign to call you brother
if you don’t walk next to me
if you don’t fight for your freedom
to stand wholeheartedly beside me.
I resign to the fake liberty we have
or the censorship that censors our minds
I resign to keep dreaming
if tomorrow never comes.
I resign to be awake early
if I’m a wealthy gentleman
even when I read the newspaper
knowing that my government
has killed an innocent man.
I resign to be invited to your table
wishing for all the women to be alive
I resign to discuss prices
if you don’t know the price of life.
I resign to be a patriot
if I don’t raise my voice with yours
asking for tolerance for our women
that have no freedom or another choice.
I resign to be a poet
if I don’t stand for what I believe
I believe that a cause has get started
and you have been in complicity
because you don’t want to fight
in what we have called reality.
I resign myself
If I have the words to fight for thee
I resign myself
If you haven’t noticed our autonomy.
Our and our women’s freedom
depends upon a dream
showing to the world we can fight together
raising our voices to reality;
we fight together
and together we should be
to show that our hope starts
when people start to believe.
© Abyss Borboa-Olivera 2012
***********************************
Renuncio a Mi
por Abyss Borboa-Olivera
Renuncio a mí mismo
a ser ciego ante toda verdad
reuncio a la falsa humildad
renuncio a los pliegos petitorios
renuncio a las buenas intenciones
si no hay acción que prevalezca
si no hay trabajo que se entienda
si no hay un país que cuidar.
Reuncio a llamarte mi hermano
si tú no caminas a mi lado
si tú no luchas por tu libertad
de seguir completamente conmigo.
Renuncio a la falsa libertad que tenemos
a la censura que amaña nuestra mente
renuncio a seguir soñando
si el mañana no es para siempre.
Reuncio a despertar temprano
si soy un hombre acaudalado
aún cuando lea las noticias
sabiendo que el gobierno
a un hombre inocente ha encarcelado.
Renuncio ser invitado a tu mesa
deseando que todas las muejeres no estén muertas
renuncio a discutir los precios
si no conoces el precio de la libertad
Renuncio a ser un patriota
si no levanto mi voz con la tuya
exigiendo tolerancia para nuestras mujeres
que no tienen libertad ni esperanza.
Renuncio a ser poeta
si no tengo las palabras para luchar por ellas
renuncio a mí mismo
si aún no te das cuenta de nuestra autonomía.
La libertad nuestra y de nuestras mujeres
depende de un sueño inalcanzable
para mostrarle al mundo que luchamos juntos
alzando nuestras voices a las realidades
juntos luchamos
y juntos debemos estar
para mostrar que nuestra esperenza comienza
cuando la gente comience a pensar.
© Abyss Borboa-Olivera 2012
BIOS
"New Huge Galactic Blackhole Named After SB 1070-2B" by Francisco X. Alarcón
"Nuevo Enorme Agujero Negro Nombrado SB 1070-2B" por Francisco X. Alarcón
"De Colores of SB 1070" by Tara Evonne Trudell
"He Had the Smile of a Healer" by John Martinez
"Sweet Pocho Pie" by David Romero
"I Resign Myself" by Abyss Borboa-Olivera
"Renuncio a Mi" por Abyss Borboa-Olivera
Francisco X. Alarcón (was born in Los Angeles, in 1954) is the author of twelve volumes of poetry, including, From the Other Side of Night: Selected and New Poems (University of Arizona Press 2002). His latest book is Ce•Uno•One: Poemas para el Nuevo Sol/Poems for the New Sun (Swan Scythe Press 2010). His most recent book of bilingual poetry for children is Animal Poems of the Iguazú (Children’s Book Press 2008). He has been a finalist nominated for Poet Laureate of California in two occasions. He teaches at the University of California, Davis. He recently created a new Facebook page, POETS RESPONDING TO SB 1070 that is getting lots of poetry submissions and comments. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Poets-Responding-to-SB-1070/117494558268757?ref=ts
John Martinez studied Creative Writing at Fresno State University. He has published poetry in El Tecolote, Red Trapeze and The LA Weekly. Recently, he has posted poems on Poets Responding to SB1070 and this will be his 12th poem published in La Bloga. He has performed (as a musician/political activist, poet) with Teatro De La Tierra, Los Perros Del Pueblo and TROKA, a Poetry Ensemble (lead by poet Juan Felipe Herrera) and he has toured with several cumbia bands throughout the Central Valley and Los Angeles. For the last 17 years, he has worked as an Administrator for a Los Angeles Law Firm. He makes home in Upland, California with his wife, Rosa America y Familia.
David A. Romero is an artist, activist and male model.
Romero is the author of Diamond Bars: The Street Version and Fuzhou, two collections of poems released by Dimlights Publishing. His work has been praised by writers and poets such as the Tony Award winner Poetri, the author of Up the Street Around the Corner Besskepp, and the West Coast Editor of Rock & Rap Confidential Lee Ballinger.
Romero has opened for Latin Grammy winning artists Ozomatli and Latin Grammy nominated artists La Santa Cecilia. He has featured alongside Taalam Acey as well as with a number of HBO Def Poets, including: Beau Sia, Paul Mabon and Thea Monyee.
Romero is the host of Between the Bars Open Mic at the dba256 Gallery Wine Bar in Pomona, CA.
Romero teaches writing and performance workshops on spoken word poetry. His many themes and prompts include: Poetry - The Language of Protest and Mementos & Metaphors - Poems of Family and Identity. Romero has led workshops for the Say What? Teen Poetry program of the Los Angeles Public Library, high school activists at the Santa Monica Mountains Peace Camp and students at the Juvenile Detention and Assessment Centers in San Bernardino, CA.
In April 2012, Romero collaborated with the Nogales High School Poetry Club to produce their first book, F-5. Later that year, he collaborated with the Say What? Teen Poetry program of the Los Angeles Public Library to produce a book of poems written by Angeleno middle and high school students.
Romero is an artist affiliate of the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC) and a member of the Revolutionary Poets Brigade (RPB).
"I enjoy performing funny poems, but I hope that after the laughs, people can stay and listen to the messages that I am spreading with my poetry against racism, against prejudice, against imperialism, against labor exploitation and against economic injustice. I believe in a world free from hunger or any other kind of scarcity."
Romero is a graduate of the University of Southern California, a double major in Film and Philosophy.
Check out his blog, "The Mexi-Asian Perspective: A Mexican's Guide to All Things Latin, Asian, or Both," on www.projektnewspeak.com . Visit his website, http://www.davidaromero.com/ for more.
Abyss Borboa Olivera, Poet, writer, actor and director for ENTRETELONES Theater Group, was born in February 1977 in Tijuana, Mexico. He studied Lengua y Literatura de Hispanoamérica at Universidad Autónoma de Baja California. He is a Professor at Universidad Tecnológica de Tijuana, and teaches literature at Preparatoria Federal Lázaro Cárdenas.
Publications:
Poetry
ACABALLOMÓNTAME by Proyecto Existir 2004.
TÚ ERES EL HOMBRE PENSADO by Lulu 2012.
Novel
MUERTES ESCRITAS by Lulu Editorial. 2012.
Short Story
POST-MORTEM by Lulu Editorial. 2011
Drama
BENIGNA; DETRÁS DE TI by Lulu Editorial. 2012
Most of his work is based on Women and Gender as an ideological paradigm.
By: Eric Orchard,
on 9/12/2012
Blog: Eric Orchard (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: pen and ink, arizona, book covers, harry and silvio, maddy kettle, Add a tag
Working like mad, really enjoying every moment. Finally settling into the new routine with Henry at school. In fact it's proving to be a lot easier than over the Summer where I could get interrupted any moment. I think the pencils will all be done within 3 weeks, hoping less! 
By: msedano,
on 8/20/2012
Blog: La Bloga (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: banned books, poetry, poems, Arizona, Floricanto Movement, Add a tag
Sometimes Ritchie's preference for immigrant art hits the Mark, and saves a season. That's Red. The play's an exhausting fabulous ninety minute no-intermission hyper Socratic dialog between painter Mark Rothko and his assistant. The combination of actors Alfred Molina as Rothko and John Logan as the factotum works with drilling intensity. Theatre sleepers like me stayed alert for every moment of dialog. Silence works, too, like a frenzied scene when the pair drench themselves and a canvas in a red.
Red comes to Music Center Hill via Broadway. Not the Million Dollar on LA's Broadway down the hill, but New York City where the production, Molina, and playwright John Logan, won big awards and grand reviews. Rightfully so. Logan writes some of the best dialog to treat your ears, ever. He stands out as an artist whose work should win him other prizes and enormous satisfaction.
A visit to the Center Theatre Group's promo site for the play is useful. Here Logan offers this précis of what Molina does to the written Mark Rothko. "Fred" the playwright calls the star, embodies "titanic anger, pomposity, seriousness, and rage, yet incredible sensitivity."
Logan's interview at the Music Center's website merits a couple of views for the writer's insights and the snippets of the characters measuring one another's understanding of things that come in red. There's another names-for-red scene that's even better. Wittgenstein would dig it.
Banned Books Update: One Month Until...
Countdown to Special Master Report: One month until September 21, 2012.
Status Quo: The People of the State of Arizona, complicity with Tucson Unified School District, persist in exercising the State's and Board's Constitutional power to ban books.
In northern Los Angeles environs, Tia Chucha's Bookstore and Centro Cultural have become Librotraficantes. The centro hosts a fund raiser and book drive in conjunction with the release of the Special Master Report.
Here's how Tia Chucha's Facebook page describes the 9/21 event:
Tia Chucha's, now a Los Angeles LibroTraficante, invites you to join us as we host a discussion of the anti-migrant hysteria gripping Arizona and celebrate culture and palabra!
This will also be a fundraiser for the Raza Defense Fund and a banned book drive! Your book donations will be used to set up community libraries in the local area and beyond!
for a list of banned books go here: http://librotraficante.com/images/BannedListAnnotatedBibliography.pdf
Visit Tia Chucha's website for details and scheduling. Events include a discussion featuring banned authors Rudy Acuna and Luis Rodriguez, and an Open Mic.
Mexican Cultural Institute Gallery Show of Movimiento History
Tourists strolling El Lay's Olvera Street looking for Pancho Lopez--if they know Lalo Guerrero's old song--will count themselves informed and fortunate to find the increasingly popular gallery of the Mexican Cultural Institute. Here's how the MCI describes its current effort:
Organized by the Chicano Resource Center of Los Angeles, this mixed media exhibit features more than 100 photographs, videos, paintings and archival documents relation of the Chicano Movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
Includes a special tribute to "Women of the Movement Then and Now".
Exhibit open Thursdays through Sundays, 1 to 6 pm.
Through September 9.
Galería MCI is located in the basement of the Biscailuz Building at El Pueblo/Olvera Street.
La Bloga On-Line Floricanto • Penultimate Tuesday of August 2012
Frank de Jesus Acosta, Francisco X Alarcón, Seeyouma Nahash'Chid, John Martinez, Nancy Aidé González
"Warrior Poets Rise" by Frank de Jesus Acosta
"Poetas Puentes" / "Bridge Poets" by Francisco X Alarcón
"Dzil Yijin/Black Mountain" by Seeyouma Nahash'Chid
"Our silence is that we don't know their names" by John Martinez
"Coatl" by Nancy Aidé González
Warrior Poets Rise!
by Frank De Jesus Acosta
The stories flowing thru you are worthy to be told
Set them free to strum a dormant heart-chord searching for its song
Your words are an ancestor’s spirit voice returning in wisdom
Your verse is soulful flor y canto ascending in sacred smoke
The unfinished stanza of a departed relative’s poem
The stories, requiems, & prayers of the warrior poet
Are a confluence of hearts, minds, & souls
Weaving the distal corners of creation, history, & prophesy
Forming one great hoop of nations and relatives upon earth
Flesh & spirit, 7 generations merging past, present, & future
Let your words rise and flow in transformative love
Lifting up the highest virtues of our collective humanity
Rise Warrior Poets; Rise!
BRIDGE POETS / POETAS PUENTES
by Francisco X. Alarcón
a los participantes de Poetas en el Puente: Manuel Luna, Ana Chig,
Elizabeth Cazessús, Sonia Gutiérrez, Luis Gastélum,
Sugar Born, Ricky Zamudio y Ensamble Wamba
12 de agosto de 2012 en Galería
Mariposa/ Papillon
Tijuana
Dzil Yijiin – Black Mountain
Seeyouma Nahash'chid
Why has it come to be for Dine’
Why has it come to be for Kiis’aanii
While we argue over this Holy Land
Corporate AmeriKa rapes our Earth Mother of her seeds
They have turned Kiis’aanii against Dine’
Dzil Yijiin extended so high
Visualized high above where it touches Father Sky
This is our existence
The ancestors home
The Clan people of the Dine’ and Kiss’aanii
Our home of our sacred Indigenous tradition
Our sacred Indigenous heritage
This place where our ancestors spirits roam
Dzil Yijiin cannot be separated from its relations
Yet Corporate AmeriKa does not care
They only want to ravage the sacredness of Dzil Yijiin
Committing devastation and great sacrileges
This most sacred of holy places
Binds the Dine’ and Kiis’aanii to this land of their birth
Dzil Yijiin cannot be separated from its relations
The four sacred mountains
They represent the holy ways of Dine' and Kiis'aanii
In our tongue
There is no word for relocation
How can you stop our sacred ceremonies
Our daily obligations
On the top of Dzil Yijiin
We make our appropriate offerings, songs, and prayers
In this sacred way
Our offerings and prayers will keep us strong
How can we leave our sacred place of offerings
We are tied to this Holy Land
With out this Holy Land
Dine’ and Kiis’aanii would not be able to survive
We cannot just walk away from Creator’s gift
We would be disgraced
This Corporate AmeriKa is always devising some evil way
To steal and take what is not theirs
They are willing to tear our Earth Mother's belly apart
They strip our Mother's flesh and kill the air
To nourish their greed
Clan people we must stand together as one
In order to survive as part of our Mother's very heart
Clan people we are connected to this Holy Land
We will not be moved like the sheep we herd
Here we are known by the Holy Spirit beings
In this sacred way we will sing our blessingway song
Clan people stand in unity
This is our country
Our Dine'taa’
Our beauty way
Our Silence Is That We Don't Know Their Names
by John Martinez
She is locked in a hope chest
In the back of a Van
Crunched, in a fetal position,
She listens to her own breathing,
Thinking of her Mother mending
Her Quinceañera dress,
Of her father hammering
On a tin roof
In the desert the cactus hum
A separate melody, One of sun, sky
And small drops of water,
But without water, without air,
She will blend into the dark square,
Her name never comes through
His feet burned into tongues
That lapped the floor of the desert,
Feeling around for his place,
His lips cracked into crushed glass,
His throat, a tunnel of misplaced echoes,
His name never comes through,
But I know them both.
I also know the child with flower petal hands,
Sleeping on his starving Mother
She remembers when
He was born on a winter night,
Steam rose from her vagina,
His life warmed her that day, but today,
He is a small tremor, sandpaper hair,
Eyes, half open like a broken doll,
His name never comes through
We know of these tragedies, all of us,
As we tuck into our fortunate lives,
We know their howling,
When the clouds bunch over
Our perfect dens, they reach for us,
Their tears fall like rain
Onto our stucco houses,
Our silence is that
We don’t know their names
Coatl
by Nancy Aidé González
Coatl
By Nancy Aidé González
Healing undulating wisdom
astral metamorphosis
illusions shed scales
spitting strength in desert sand
sibilant forked tongue flicking
reptilian transubstantiation
hiss
hiss
hiss
through blurring abstractions
shed old habits
serpentine escort
guide me
through spiral paths of modification
changing static rivers of time
opaque blue eyes stare
snake medicine, I drink.
BIOS
"Warrior Poets Rise" by Frank de Jesus Acosta
"Poetas Puentes" / "Bridge Poets" by Francisco X Alarcón
"Dzil Yijin/Black Mountain" by Seeyouma Nahash'Chid
"Our silence is that we don't know their names" by John Martinez
"Coatl" by Nancy Aidé González
A graduate of UCLA, Frank de Jesus Acosta is the principal at Acosta & Associates, a California-based consultant group specializing in professional services targeting philanthropic, non-profit, and government institutions. A&A specializes in public and private social change ventures in the areas of violence prevention, community development, cultural fluency initiatives, and policy development. Recent clients include Walking Shield, Local Initiatives Support Council (LISC), The California Community Foundation, Liberty Hill Foundation, California Endowment, Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (SAJE), Policy Link, The City Project, Institute for Community Peace, and Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos. Acosta’s professional experience includes leadership tenures with: The California Wellness Foundation; the Coalition for Humane Immigration Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA); the Center for Community Change; and the UCLA Community Programs Office. In 2007, Acosta authored, “The History of the Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos Community Peace Movement,” Arte Publico Press, University of Houston.
Nancy Aidé González is a Chicana poet who lives in Lodi, California. She graduated from California State University, Sacramento with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature in 2000. Her work has appeared in Calaveras Station Literary Journal, La Bloga, Everyday Other Things, Mujeres De Maiz Zine, and La Peregrina. She is a participating member of Escritores del Nuevo Sol, a writing group based in Sacramento, California which honors the literary traditions of Chicano, Latino, Indigenous and Spanish-language peoples.
By: msedano,
on 8/6/2012
Blog: La Bloga (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Arizona, guest writers, Floricanto Movement, banned books, poetry, poems, Add a tag
About Sarah Rafael Garcia
Sarah Rafael García was born in Brownsville, Texas and raised in Orange County, California. She started writing after her father's passing in 1988. She obtained a Bachelors of Science in Sociology at Texas State University, is bilingual in Spanish and knows enough Mandarin to speak to pre-k students and taxi drivers in China. She has lived in Beijing and traveled to various countries including a three-month backpacking adventure in Australia. She is an active writer, community educator and published author who strives to advocate for human rights.
Listen to Sarah Rafael Garcia read a story at Latinopia.
Banned Books Update
On this first Tuesday in the eighth month of the year 2012, Arizona continues to ban books in your name.
After reading last week's La Bloga Banned Books Update, a University of Nebraska researcher wrote Tucson Unified School District Superintendent of Schools John Pedicone. Pedicone insists he has not banned The Tempest, nor any other book. Pedicone alludes kids can get the not-banned books by filing approved interlibrary loan paperwork.
The researcher asked if kids would be expelled for bringing in a non-banned banned book. Pedicone wrote back with his claim that nothing has been banned and if a teacher wants to use a book, Shakespeare's The Tempest, for example, the teacher has that liberty, provided the title is approved for use in that class.
Pedicone refused to answer the question about the kid's liberty. His silence is tacit admission that any kid bringing a non-banned banned book into the classroom will be banned from the classroom, along with that non-banned banned book.
On-Line Floricanto First Tuesday in August 2012
Arnoldo Garcia, Elena Díaz Bjorkquist, Alma Luz Villanueva, Alejandro E. Barajas, Iris de Anda
“My land” by Arnoldo Garcia:
"Ode to Teresita" by Elena Díaz Bjorkquist
"Quetzalcoatl's Radiance" by Alma Luz Villanueva
"El Jefe de la pobreza / The Boss of Poverty" by Alejandro E. Barajas
“Read the fine print” by Iris de Anda
My Land
by Arnoldo Garcia
my country
is the smallest country
in the world.
my country fits
inside one-hundredth
of one molecule
in a touch between one strand of DNA
my country
has room
for everyone
every European
every Chinese
every Mexican
every African
every Indian
every Asian Pacific Islander
every queer
every nomad
of the earth
every two-legged, four-legged,
crawling, burrowing, winged-
beings
fit in my country.
Everyone is welcome, everyone
I'll happily give you
my country
as long as you promise
not just to take care of her
to let everyone
live in her in peace
in garbled flags
in borders without pigment
borders with human pores
to breath freely
to live breathing
My country is everyone, is everywhere
my country is small
bothers no one
invades no one
drones no one
doesn't stamp your passport
doesn't ask for identity documents
my country lets you be
lets you exist as yourself
lets you determine who you are
my country has no borders
other than those of humanity to humanity
my country has no armies
no prisons no police
no homeless no one suffers
at the hands of other humans
my country is all the colors
the clash of colors, the contrast
the muddy blends, the stark yellows
the pink sunrises, the red of your tongue
mu country fits in your veins
fits in the bat of an eye
welcomes you to our bodily paradise
you can have my country, if you want
it's already yours
walk slowly take your time
my country is in no rush
peace and freedom take their time
rest a bit get up work hard, party
in my country
even the dead
get a turn to dance
every now and then
there are no regrets
there is only life
and its mortal pleasures
in my country
oh! in my country
you would be ideal
you would fit right in
like you always lived there
like your ancestors had been buried there
as a matter of fact
I would encourage you
to bury your ancestors here...
to bring your ancestors here
to my country
to bury them here
take care of them here
take care of our country
where everyone
where every living being
fits
my country is so small
that everyone fits.
And in one of her pores
fit all the suns and moon,
my country, you and me...
Ode to Teresita
by Elena Díaz Bjorkquist ©2012
Teresita Urrea, Santa de Cabora,
Mexican Joan of Arc,
You, the spiritual curandera
Who dedicated her life to serve others.
You, the illegitimate daughter
Born of an unlikely union between
A fourteen-year-old india, Cayetana Chavez
And wealthy haciendado, Tomas Urrea.
Abandoned by your mother at twelve,
Accepted by your father at fifteen —
You went from poverty to riches
To become a pampered daughter.
You lived with him, his mistress Gabriela,
Your half bothers and sisters, at Cabora—
Learning from Huila, the rancho’s healer
To become a curandera.
One day, you fell into a trance so deep
Your father thought you’d died,
But you survived with a mission from God
To cure, comfort, and console the sick.
Thousands flocked to Cabora,
To receive your touch,
To seek your counsel,
To be healed.
Afraid you’d lead the indios to rebellion,
Presidente Díaz had you arrested,
Offered you prison or exile.
Prison meant death—you chose exile.
With your father also exiled,
You came to Nogales in Arizona Territory
Became a living saint
Adored by los indios of Mexico.
Your heart broke over Tomóchic.
The slaughter of Tomoticheco villagers
The death of 700 soldiers, the destruction
Of a town—all blamed on you.
Santa Teresita, curandera, spiritual healer,
You moved to El Paso with your family,
Continued your healing work,
Wrote about Tomóchic.
You refused to lead a Yaqui rebellion
That led to the death of seven warriors.
Branded “La Bruja de Nogales,”
Three attempts were made on your life.
You settled in Clifton, found peace
Until you married the wrong man,
A spy sent by Presidente Díaz
To take you to Mexico or kill you.
Disowned by your beloved father,
You joined a medical company to tour
The United States starting in San Francisco—
Ending in New York with a new love.
Another heartbreak—tempered
By the birth of your daughter Laura,
The death of your father whom you
Never saw or spoke to again.
Back to California, to Los Angeles
Where you worked with unions
Until your house burned down
And you returned to Arizona.
Another daughter born in Solomon,
Reminded you of family in Clifton.
So you went back, built a house there,
Died at thirty-three years of age.
Your faithful friends and servants
Mariana and her husband Fortunato
Raised your daughters in Mexico
Until they returned to Arizona.
You, dear Santa Teresa, forgotten
By time, your bones moved twice,
So now you rest in an unmarked grave
People claim is yours.
Cabora crumbled into the dirt
That gave birth to its adobes—
Scarcely an outline of its walls remain,
Broken tiles festoon the ground.
Your only monument, a plaque
On a boarding house in El Paso,
Earmarked for destruction
In the name of progress.
Yet the spirit of La Santa de Cabora,
The spirit of Teresita, your holy spirit—
Lives on in the hearts and minds
Of those of us that love you.
QUETZALCOATL'S RADIANCE
by Alma Luz Villanueva
I live in Mexico
because festivals wake
me up pre-dawn,
Quetzalcoatl shimmering through
sky window, these
fireworks loud like
gunfire, someone's
died, left the body,
someone beloved, they
explode, they weep
for two hours, through
the day, and no
one calls the police, every
one understands some
one's left their body, some
one beloved is gone. I
dream through explosions,
wake to loud joyous
mariachis in the distance,
a marriage, family gathering,
I live in Mexico
because death and
life hold hands
dancing, singing, exploding
with grief and joy-
I live in Mexico
because every car stops
for the funeral procession,
a singer/guitarist sings
the beloved's favorite
songs on the way to
the cemetery, where the
famiies will gather, Dia
de Los Muertos, to
welcome their tender Spirits
home, from babies to
elders, a feast on the
graves, they decorate,
joy/sorrow equally,
beauty, song, candles,
tiny stars flicker all
night long as Spirits
come to taste tamales,
tacitos, tequila, cerveza,
fresh limes, oranges,
sweet cakes, where
the father of his Spirit
teen, grave decorated with
little cars, dancing
muertos, bottles of
empty Victorias (his
favorite), some full,
proudly shows me his
handsome boy, I can't
weep, his smile of
pure joy-
I drove to Mexico
in spring 2005, the
fear color codes of
my country, endless
wars on some enemy,
my dreams filled with
mourning women, holding
Spirit sons and daughters,
only sorrow, only grief,
no graves of marigolds,
feasts, sorrow/joy,
death holding hands
with life, dancing, singing,
weeping, exploding
pre-dawn journey of
the beloved, all day
into the night, mariachis
leading a wedding party to
more joy, holding hands
with life death life-
I live in Mexico
to remember,
to witness
simple human
joy sorrow joy,
those without my
country's great entitlements,
the leaders, the shameless
1% who would haul
off the mourner with
explosive weeping, singing,
who allow one in five
children in my country to
be hungry, who prefer
the poor to die (very)
quickly, while mouthing
how much they love their
country, care for its people,
send the neediest young to
kill/die for their oil wars,
want to control the
sacred wombs of women,
the constant enemy,
the constant fear,
unhinging our young, our
unbonded to our Mother
Earth young, bring
automatic weapons to
schools, universities,
playgrounds, now
theatres where the masses
go to dream, the manufactured
dream of Holly Wood,
dream, all humans need to
dream, many have forgotten
how to dream, vision-
I live in Mexico
because a Huichol family
in full brilliant rainbow
dress motioned me in front
of them, the market, I
thanked them but no, their
rainbow smiles insisted,
and the woman helped
me unload my full
cart, their few carefully
selected items waited, she
smiled her rainbows, I
smiled mine, "Gracias,
gracias, gracias,"
I kept saying, why
I live in Mexico.
I live in Mexico to feel
full sun on my face,
full moon light/shadow,
Quetzalcoatl's radiance.
San Miguel de Allende, July 2012
mi gente llegó
The Boss of Poverty
BIOS
Elena has been doing a Chautauqua living history presentation of Teresita Urrea, la santa de Cabora, since 2001. The Arizona Humanities Council pays her honorarium and she travels all over Arizona introducing people to Teresita. She recently performed as Teresita at the National Hispanic Museum in Albuquerque and the Chamizal National Monument in El Paso. She's also performed at UC Davis, Border Book Festival in Las Cruces, Segundo Barrio in El Paso, and UT in San Antonio.
A writer, historian, and artist from Tucson, Elena writes about Morenci, Arizona where she was born. She is the author of two books, Suffer Smoke and Water from the Moon. Elena is co-editor of Sowing the Seeds, una cosecha de recuerdos and Our Spirit, Our Reality; celebrating our stories, anthologies written by her writers collective Sowing the Seeds.
As an Arizona Humanities Council (AHC) Scholar, Elena also does presentations about Morenci, Arizona. She received the 2012 Arizona Commission on the Arts Bill Desmond Writing Award for excelling nonfiction writing and the 2012 Arizona Humanities Council Dan Schilling Public Humanities Scholar Award in recognition of her work to enhance public awareness and understanding of the role that the humanities play in transforming lives and strengthening communities.
Recently, Elena was nominated for Poet Laureate of Tucson. She is one of the poet moderators for the Facebook page “Poets Responding to SB1070” and has written many poems that were published not only on that page but also on La Bloga. Her website is at http://elenadiazbjorkquist.com/.
Alejandro Esiquiel Barajas was born in Sunnyside, Wa. He was born into a hard working farm-working family. Along with 6 siblngs in the family, everyone knew what one dollor's worth meant at an early age. It was in the year of 2007 that Alejandro began to write about this intricate life, but it wasn't until 2009 that he began to create courage to save his thoughts on a piece of paper. This has now evolved into a self-manifestation of several poems that transcend into different realms inside the mind. Alejandro's personal interest include, but are not limited to: strumming the guitar, waking with the sun, neighboring the shores, and skipping rocks endlessly until the arm gives out. Alejandro will be attending Western Washington University's Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies for the next two years, where he intends to dive into Ethnic Studies/Critical Pedagogy. He also intends to further his studies until he recieves a PhD. 
Another thing: you gotta cover your inner tubes with sheets to keep them from getting too hot. I also learned that the sheets acted as a support system, which allowed me to balance in the middle of my inner tube, Indian-style, for most of the trip … whenever I wasn’t going Navy Seal-style on marshmallow attack missions.
Many women who end up in Perryville are there because of drinking and driving. Think about that. How many times have you driven a car under the influence? One of the saddest stories I’ve heard is that of Jessica Robinson, whose mother, Jeanne, first introduced me to the world of Perryville Prison. Jessica was in radiography school, on her way to a successful career, when her life changed forever on September 5, 2008. She went out with friends that night, had a couple drinks, stayed up late, and fell asleep at the wheel on her way home. Her car accident killed someone, and she received a seven year sentence at Perryville. Her full story is here, at Jessica’s Operation Orange. The same thing could have happened to me. Or to you. Or to your best friend.
Has my life been altered by my experiences at Perryville? Yes. Do I still have visions of Con Air? No, because I’ve come to see these women for what they are: human beings who made horrible mistakes.
By: msedano,
on 6/11/2012
Blog: La Bloga (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: nuclear reactors, Librotraficante Caravan, chicano photography, banned books, poetry, poems, Arizona, Creative Nonfiction, Floricanto Movement, Add a tag
By: msedano,
on 6/4/2012
Blog: La Bloga (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: banned books, poetry, poems, Arizona, immigrants, hector tobar, Add a tag
Is it possible to add another title to the wondrous list of Los Angeles novels?
Absolutely. In fact, name your favorite LA novel, from Chandler to De Lillo to Yxta Maya Murray, and add Tobar’s The Barbarian Nurseries to the top of the list.
Is it possible to find a better Los Angeles novel?
No. The Barbarian Nurseries stands alone as the quintessential cultural portrait of early twenty-first century Los Angeles.
In the novel’s three chapters—three books in one—Tobar begins with an ethnically mixed upwardly mobile family, a Mexican-American software engineer and a down East Anglo mother, caught in their own acquisitional excess and benign neglect of the hired help. The family implodes, stranding the Mexicana maid with two sheltered boys and a hazy notion of where to find the boys’ grandfather.
The final chapter jails the maid for fanciful Anglo-perceived crimes and sends her through the dual processes of a criminal trial and impending deportation.
Tobar takes pains to keep his characters at arm’s length so a reader doesn’t like anyone too much nor despise anyone irrationally.
Araceli, the maid, he paints as a crusty tipa, a Bellas Artes student who bottles her creativity behind pursed lips and curtness. Up until now, life’s greatest slap in the face was getting a scholarship to the instituto but getting no money for brushes and paints. She lives as an example of a character who may die with one thousand masterpieces hanging only from her mind.
Speaking of allusions, stay alert for that Chinese chalk. In preparation, read Olga Garcia’s poem “Sonia on Hope Street.” The poem echoes in one’s memory as Maureen diligently mops away the invisible knowledge locked away in jail with Araceli.
The Torres-Thompson family takes the cake. Actually, several, and all designer-made concoctions. He’s at a career dead-end and she’s stuck at home with two boys and a new-born daughter. We meet Scott sweating and cussing up a storm because his darned lawnmower refuses to cut the lawn as well as it performed for Pepe. Both Pepe, and Maureen’s nanny Guadalupe, had to go, to get expenses under control.
Although Tobar focuses the novel on the pendejadas of Scott, Maureen, and Araceli, he manages to draw the social milieu with broad strokes, as needed using a fine tip to draw out some fine detail from the jumbled landscape that stretches from the Anglo bastions of Orange County to the bus stops of H.P.
There’s the racist ideologue who takes up the cudgel in Tobar’s portrait of thought-absent obsession that sees only “ill” in “immigrant” then stands dumbfounded when her preferred “Just Us” shapes itself to reflect Justice, because bittersweet endings are better than sad ones, and because that’s how The System works. Tobar’s making up only some of this.
There’s the L.A. mayor who talks himself into being undecided whether to choose wishy or washy when it comes to taking a strong pro-comunidad position. In contrast, there’s the Mexican Consul in Santa Ana who is as bumbling a fool as the mayor is a cipher. Much as Tobar dislikes that character, the author gives a final glimpse of the empty man desolate
This past Friday night, Jake and I were sitting around watching Trollhunter—a B-horror movie from Norway—when our pal Brandon showed up at the front door. I had a couple seconds to think, “Huh, why is Brandon showing up at our house when he knows Jake has to work tomorrow?” Then, a girl walked in behind him, and I swore I knew her from somewhere. Then, in the dimness of our living room, I recognized the smiling face of my chica from Charleston, Jenny, who Jake had secretly flown in as a super spectacular birthday present to me. The next minute is kind of a blur, but I’m pretty sure there was a lot of hugging and cheek kissing and crying. So began my thirtieth birthday weekend.
Was I initially excited? Not really, but it was no one’s fault. Well, on second thought, it was the fault of real estate developers and builders in the Phoenix metro area. From what I had seen at friends’ homes and while house shopping with my parents, the houses here were built too close together. (For instance, if you need to borrow a cup of sugar in Phoenix, all you have to do is open a window and yell into your neighbor’s kitchen. You pass the cup of sugar in a similar fashion, by merely reaching arms across.)
Two days later, Jake was looking through the listings sent from our incomparable real estate agents Andy and Cristina Altman when he said, “This one. We have to go see this one. Today.” I was still frustrated, and unlike my husband, I take longer to recover from disappointment. I went along for the ride, though, and as soon as we walked into the one-story ranch on West Westview (ah, redundancy), I was in love. I had the distinct feeling that This Is Our House. We put in an offer that afternoon. We finally get the keys this week.
3 Comments on Published in Canyon Voices: Here but Fading, last added: 4/24/2012
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By: KidLitReviews,
on 12/6/2012
Blog: Kid Lit Reviews (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Children's Books, Interviews, NonFiction, animals, Oregon, Mexico, California, Kathleen Rietz, Colorado, Arizona, Idaho, Wyoming, rattlesnakes, eagles, desert, open, darcy pattison, bats, coyotes, wild animals, hummingbirds, Sylvan Dell Publishing, bobcat, turkey vulture, Prairie Storms, javelina, 5stars, roadrunner, Library Donated Books, Desert Baths, Anna's hummingbird, arid, desert tortoise, diamondback rattler, does, geckos, mule deer, nighttime stars, scaled quail, western United States, western-banded gecko, Add a tag
Blog: Kid Lit Reviews (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Children's Books, Interviews, NonFiction, animals, Oregon, Mexico, California, Kathleen Rietz, Colorado, Arizona, Idaho, Wyoming, rattlesnakes, eagles, desert, open, darcy pattison, bats, coyotes, wild animals, hummingbirds, Sylvan Dell Publishing, bobcat, turkey vulture, Prairie Storms, javelina, 5stars, roadrunner, Library Donated Books, Desert Baths, Anna's hummingbird, arid, desert tortoise, diamondback rattler, does, geckos, mule deer, nighttime stars, scaled quail, western United States, western-banded gecko, Add a tag
By: Sara Dobie,
on 12/6/2012
Blog: Sara Dobie's Blog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Music, Arizona, Chris Thile, Entertainment in AZ, The Punch Brothers, Chris Eldridge, Gabe Witcher, Noam Pikelny, Paul Kowert, Add a tag
Blog: Sara Dobie's Blog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Music, Arizona, Chris Thile, Entertainment in AZ, The Punch Brothers, Chris Eldridge, Gabe Witcher, Noam Pikelny, Paul Kowert, Add a tag
- Befriend their roadie, their merchandise guy, and club security.
- Send the band shots of tequila and a note.
- Basically … just show up.
I saw my favorite band of all time last night. I was nervous. So nervous. Why? I was worried I wouldn’t meet them—that they would be so close, here in Phoenix for the very first time, and I would miss them somehow. I felt the endless anxiety over dinner with my gal pals pre-show. Then, we entered the venue, and I talked up the merchandise guy, who said, “Yeah, if you buy them shots, I’ll send them to the green room.” What better than tequila? I mean, we’re in Phoenix, right? I sent them their shots, along with a note with my name. I’m sure my girlfriends thought I was just a nut, but I didn’t care. I had to meet THE PUNCH BROTHERS.
The phenomenal Chris Thile.
I’ve known their music since the band’s foundation, thanks to an amazing performance experience back in Charleston, SC, at the Cistern Yard downtown. Once I moved out here, I pre-ordered every CD, every single. I wrote a letter to their rep, begging they come to Arizona, because they never come to Arizona (something I was not aware of when I moved here, ah-hem). In response to my letter, I got an autographed poster, but still, no word of an upcoming show.
Then, months ago, while enjoying cocktails at Carly’s, I saw the flyer: the Punch Brothers were coming to Crescent Ballroom. I remember staring at the flyer, thinking, “No, it can’t be true. I’m obviously hallucinating thanks to this delicious jalapeno-infused tequila.” Some kind of Mexican agave voodoo? Nay. They really were coming to Phoenix. That night, I bought my tickets: good thing, too, since they apparently sold out.
I’ve been waiting for weeks, counting down the days to December 5th. Then, yesterday, the day arrived. I did nothing productive all day. I got a massage and laid around my house, so panicked was I at the prospect of not meeting the Punch Brothers while in my hometown.
At Crescent Ballroom, after sending my note and the round of shots, I was pretty confident I would make an impression. Then, I waited. The Milk Carton Kids opened for them—a fabulous duo from LA who were equally talented at music as well as comic repartee. Loved them. Then, my boys came on stage, and I’m pretty sure I almost passed out. It was unreal. I mean, the Punch Brothers were three feet in front of me (because I was obviously at the front of the crowd).
Always moving …
After the show, I literally ran into Gabe Witcher, the phenomenally talented fiddle-player who I love. I almost fell over myself trying to make coherent conversation. Then, I turned around, and there was banjo man Noam Pikelny, who I also approached for an autograph and to give extreme kudos. I didn’t see the rest of the band, and I was all set to go home. I left the venue, dejected at not having met, okay, my favorite band member, Chris Thile. That’s when the roadie I met earlier said, “He’s standing outside the bus right now.” In high heels, I ran, damn it, and it was true: there he was.
Me and Chris.
So meeting the Punch Brothers? Pretty easy. Probably because they’re five charming, humble, hilarious dudes, who love good bluegrass and love their fans. I’m so thankful to have discovered them years ago. I’m thankful they came to Phoenix. I’m thankful God made such talented musicians, because the Punch Brothers manage to inspire and entertain with every show. Thanks, boys, for a great night! I’ll see you next time!
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By: msedano,
on 10/8/2012
Blog: La Bloga (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: poetry, poems, Arizona, Floricanto Movement, Add a tag
Review: Santino J. Rivera, ed. ¡Ban This! The BSP Anthology of Xican@ Literature. Saint Augustine, FL, 2012. ISBN-10: 0615607306 ISBN-13: 978-0615607306
Michael Sedano
A literary anthology can be a snapshot or a portrait. Both supply value. Some snapshots present a marvelous glimpse of what the world looks like in that 1/250th second slice of time. Here, time and light come to a halt in mid act with no inkling if unheard pipes will trill or squeal. A studied portrait, in contrast, represents an artist’s determination to expose depth of character, make a significant statement about time and idea through an image that reaches beyond that 1/250th of a second exposure, out of the future through the present and into the past.
¡Ban This! is a snapshot. Editor Santino J. Rivera cast a wide net and attracts dozens of new and emerging voices. Rivera buttresses the nouveau with the solid quality of several well-respected artists. In putting the collection together, as any editor, Rivera treads a hazy line between all the stuff that’s fit to print and selecting only superb exemplars of the best stuff.
Aside from making a great gift,¡Ban This! will occupy a valued space in anyone’s reference shelves. The collection has some literary gems, particularly among the poets and a couple of de rigueur essays. The editor believes the collection informs a notion of an arroba aesthetic, that weird spelling that supplants gender inflection with unpronounceability. This aesthetic finds a tongue with the publisher’s disclaimer, that the company “assumes no liability should you get your feelings hurt. Except you. And you. And you, too.” The attitude is more the editor’s than most of the collected writers.
Do Xicanarrobas bleed politics, nurture anger, shake fists at power structures, live for confrontation? Not really. The editor makes a big deal about orthography and readers like me who reject that arroba barbarism. Then he avoids analysis, deferring to the contents of the anthology as the “definition” of “Xican@” literature.
Despite the editorial shortcoming, ¡Ban This! makes a valuable contribution to a bookshelf or library. Rivera’s assembled a magnificent variety of work valuable for the breadth of coverage, from poem to political science to science fiction to anthropology and history.
Half the book’s 332 pages publish short poems. Opting for quality, the first two poets out the gate are Francisco X. Alarcón and Luis Urrea.
Alarcón’s bilingual work features intricate architecture that defies conventional use of the page. Instead, an Alarcón poem may be read from left to right or top to bottom, or alternatively, read an English stanza then its corresponding Spanish stanza, plus the left/right/top/bottom opportunity. Alarcón invests his poems with multiple possibilities and resources, at once thoughtful and diverting.
Urrea’s lead poem, “Arizona Lamentation,” is a spectacularly difficult poem. Opening with the strident phrase, “We were happy here before they came”, the persona expresses resentment of newcomers. Except the persona speaks in an anglo voice, projecting fantasy history onto the land, “Then their envy, their racial hatred / Made us build a border fence / To protect our children. / But they kept coming.” Just as the alarmed reader is about to toss the book out the window at that crud, the persona shifts, “But their wagons kept coming and coming. / And their soldiers.” And in closing, the one voice again becomes displaced by the other, while between the lines their sentiments echo one another’s fears. What an intractable mess.
Oddly positioned, near the end but not the final piece, is Odilia Galván Rodriguez’ title piece, “¡Ban This!” The piece reflects well off Urrea’s. Spoken in a raza voice, Rodriguez’ poem is one of puro affirmation. Addressing book banners, the poem illuminates qualities and beliefs supporting raza peoplehood, not a subversion of the anglo internal colony. The poet’s restrained anger sounds loud and clear. It doesn’t need a gimmick, an “X” or an arroba, to declare unequivocally, “words live / we remember / them, our love, our stories ~ / history, cannot be erased / not banned”
Chicanas Chicanos write a lot of poetry. Maybe that’s why ¡Ban This! has such a heavy proportion of it. The prose work--fiction, memoir, essay—offers a rich potpourri of information, but suffers from editorial neglect. As an editor, Rivera needed to get after sloppy spelling and stilted construction. Instead, it appears the editor simply cut and pasted submissions, favoring laissez-faire publication rather than exercise the editorial authority writers deserve.
Two seminal essays merit widespread reading. Roberto “Dr. Cintli” Rodriguez’ “From Manifest Destiny to Manifest Insanity,” and Rodolfo Acuña’s “Giving Hypocrisy a Bad Name: Censorship in Tucson.” The essays are scholarly, and entirely readable. That’s less true of other prose work in the collection.
David Cid’s “Silent No Longer: The Visual Poetic Resistance of Chicana/o Cinema in the Experimental Films of Frances Salomé España” is a recycled term paper. Cid gives interesting information but it’s nearly indigestible owing to that seminar paper style. Cid promotes the “Chicana / o” construction, rather than the arroba. In one sentence the trick gets away from Cid and his editor; one woman is labeled a “Chicana / o”.
Del Zamora’s Los Angeles Times piece, “Where Are The Latinos In Films, TV?” is one of those pointless Op-Ed pieces that complains only to close with irony instead of constructive ideas. “It’s either that or stop purchasing tickets and renting videos of movies and television shows that do not include us. After all, as one Hollywood executive explained to me, ‘We don’t have to put you in movies…there were no Latinos in Gotham City and you still came.”
Miguel Jimenez, “Veterans Empathize: HB2281 and The Attack On Mexican History And Culture” illustrates the cyclical nature of Chicana Chicano history. Jimenez’ memoir of his Iraq service echoes draft-era complaints that military service validates one’s identity as a Unitedstatesian, even in the face of rejection and exclusion.
Maria Teresa Ceseña brings a homily on self-identity, “The Turtle Caught in the Fire.” She opens with a powerfully composed non-fiction equivalent of spoken word art. Here Ceseña the academica advances a feminist rationale she defines as “oppositional consciousness”. She follows that introduction with her poem, “Piecing It Together,” then spins off from there describing a life experience in much the ways anthologies describe the status of a literature. Put the shards together under a blazing sun and for one moment achieve a freeze frame of where everything is, in relation to anything else. Except the point of the essay curiously is about giving up. Ceseña encourages dreamers that it’s never too late to change by giving up an old dream in view of what’s hot right now.
This reader is grateful for the end-wrapper from Mario Barrera, “Science and Religion in a Border Town,” a generous helping of humor to lighten the weight of the deadly earnest essayists who’ve preceded Barrera’s memoir.
Andrea J. Serrano's "Lament" exemplifies how Chicanas Chicanos respond to banning books. Not with a big knife in a steady hand, but a broken heart and a loaded ink pen.
La Bloga friend Frank Sifuentes' body is shutting down, surrounded by love and family, as it should be.
Frank's daughter sends along her father's news. I'm sure Frank would have preferred to deliver the news en propria persona, with a joke and a winding tale with a twist at the end. Nos wachamos, Frank.
Pictured below is Frank during a tense moment at the 1973 Festival de Flor y Canto. Frank coordinated the event and was flying high, energized surrounded by so many artists, feeding off the energy in the green room and being out among 'em in the jam-packed audience.
The crisis. Oscar Zeta Acosta refuses to go inside, where a full house awaits the Brown Buffalo's reading. Outside, spectators mill about in panicky unease. The door opens and Frank steps outside. Zeta explains his refusal to go on. They negotiate and Zeta enters to take the stage.
 |
| Tomás Atencio, Frank Sifuentes, Alurista, Oscar Acosta. Juan Felipe Herrera in background, and unidentified USC co-ed. © michael v. sedano |
Ay, Frank, so many stories, so little time.
Here's Frank at the 2010 Festival de Flor y Canto. Yesterday • Today • Tomorrow, that reunited dozens of artists from that first Festival de Flor y Canto.
You can hear Frank read at 1973's floricanto by visiting the USC Digital Library archive.
Mailbag
Barrios Interviews Junot Diaz
La Bloga friend Gregg Barrios advises his recent interview with author-on-the-ascendancy Junot Diaz is at the Los Angeles Review of Books site.It's a rewarding interview between two long-time compañeros, for, as Barrios points out:
Reading Díaz is to discover a new voice in American lit that continually amazes as it informs, his text a vast storehouse of literary references, footnotes, and genre-bending throwaways. His groundbreaking use of Spanish without italics or translation is deeply refreshing to Latino readers, as it is to any reader who recognizes it as part and parcel to the bilingual Latino experience.
Closet of Discarded Dreams at Tia Chucha's September 14
Garcia will be at the Latino Book & Family Festival on Saturday, as noted in Monday's Daniel Olivas column.
On-Line Floricanto for Nine Ten Twelve
Joe Navarro, Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, Fernando Rodríguez, Tracy Corey, Victor Avila
“It Must Be the Chicano In Me” Joe Navarro
“Search and Recovery” Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo
“Indocumentado” Fernando Rodríguez
“Listen” Tracy Corey
“Ban This Poem!” Victor Avila
It Must Be the Chicano In Me
Joe Navarro
It must be the Chicano in me
But when I listen to the music of
Lila Downs singing from the depths
Of her soul or Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan
From Jalisco, the land of my ancestors
Celebrating el 16 de septiembre
I feel proud to be me
When campesinos demand fair wages
That their invisible hands have earned
Or when people openly declare,
“I am undocumented!” fearlessly
Yet knowing they will be forcibly
Detached from the only lives they know
I feel their plight and injuries
When I hear La Raza speaking
English, Spanish and Spanglish
At the mercado or in the park
And when I see mothers bringing
Their children to school in one hand
With younger siblings in strollers
I feel at home in my comunidad
At every tardeada, fiesta, baile or concierto
Where people dance and enjoy music
At marches where workers honor the
Tradition May Day and workers’ rights
At every gathering that honors heroes
Martyrs and luchas for human dignity
I feel the aspirations of my people
I extract pride from holidays
Inspired by people’s desires for
Self-determination and independence
And from magnificent murals and poemas
Honoring our indigenous traditions
And struggles to escape domination
…It must be the Chicano in me
Search and Recovery
Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo
for Brooke
is not like search and rescue, not like the 10 o’clock news,
not like blond daughters sucked out through windows
in the dark night. There is no line of volunteers
combing the woods at the edge of a peach town,
no fleet of police dragging the lake, no pencil sketches
or time-stamped videos of dark men in black hoodies,
no midnight vigils blurred by hundreds of burning white candles,
no posters, no milk cartons, and no alerts.
There is plenty of desert silence between two women
scaling the Atascosa mountains like two specs of dust.
They search for a young man shot by his coyote and discarded
by a wash with cement blocks and black kites fallen from the sky,
or maybe black tires taken from a truck. They exhaust
unreliable reports in a futile act of deciphering hazy, hot landmarks.
They hike and carry what supplies they can slung over backs:
extra water, socks, electrolyte pills, a couple of apples, peanut butter.
Before the sunsets, they set up camp beneath the sky
and wait for the sun to rise so they can try again.
In the day, they search for what remains,
In the night, they fear what remains will look like,
and each woman secretly holds hope close to her chest
that if she crosses a bundle tomorrow, it will once again be branches.
Indocumentado
Fernando Rodríguez
Colgué el teléfono y una lagrima rodo
Del otro lado de la bocina mi hijo el mas pequeño
Aun residen en México,
Como quisiera poder abrazarlos,
La vida si que es dura
No se puede tener todo
Pero valdrá la pena, si le hecho ganas y me supero
Al colgar ese teléfono
Le pedí a mi dios valor, fuerza y paciencia
Para lograr lo que el güero tiene
Su familia a su lado
Veo como todos los días gente se divorcia, separa y junta
Sin saber el verdadero valor de una familia
Sin entender la dedicación,
Yo no soy nadie pa’ juzgar
Solo relato mi versión
Mañana es lunes y otro día de trabajo
Otra vez me la rifo manejando
Iremos para el campo
Pizcando paso mi vida
Para ganarme la plata
Con la que vive mi familia
En mi pobre tierra mexicana
La vida no vale nada
Y menos acá
La gente le da importancia
A un pedazo de papel
Que a la misma vida
El cuello blanco controla todo
Sin ensuciarse las manos,
¿Y yo?
Un simple campesino
Que me ensucio de barro
¡No controlo nada!
Tiene más poder un perro
Por tener esos papeles
Desearía ser importante
Para ayudar a mi gente
El teléfono acorta y alarga mi dolor
Escucho a mis seres queridos
Pero no los puedo abrazar
Tengo que ser conformista
Para poder aguantar
La dificultad no es vida
Pero no hay para mas…
Listen
Tracy Corey
~ for my grandmother, Almira Miller (1924-2011)
Listen to your grandmothers. They are the voices
of your bones whispering to your wings
before grace has found you. When she warned
of that boy, hear her history, and when she closed
her eyes and kissed the baby, see her heart
wink at her feet for the blisters that delivered such beauty.
Listen to her cooking, informing you of the beauty,
of the beaches and the barrios that feed the voices
calling from the winding roads that lead to her heart
and breathe through her veins, giving air to her wings
that felt, when the nights got so dark, a longing that closed
the days with a notion of something that warned
her to listen. And when she did, she was warned
of a life begun again in subtitles, but a life of beauty
without the hardship of hungry days and closed
borders where her children spoke with their voices
bouncing in boxes rather than sailing on wings
that aren’t too heavy from the days to beat in the heart
that can listen because it can hear. And planted in her heart
she wrapped the deepest seeds of home’s garden, warned
of the days when nothing would feel so urgent as wings
to take her home, to the backbone of beauty,
and even the sorrow, just for the familiar voices,
enough to sometimes make you forget the closed
borders. Listen to the seeds she wrapped in the closed
petals of the bright flowers she planted in her heart
and you’ll hear the stories of so many, their voices
building a homesick choir that when warned
of wasted despair all they can recite is, “Beauty
is beauty, even when it flies on broken wings.”
Listen to their song, delivered on the aging wings
of your grandmothers, who know the secret to closed
borders is traveling hand-in-hand with beauty
in the exploding seeds of home’s garden, the heart.
And just for good measure, let despair be warned,
the secret is carried in the many voices
of secret-keepers who, despite being warned
by sorrow, listen to history and sing with their wings.
Ban This Poem!
Victor Avila
Before it is read
And the seed of its ideas spread-
Ban this poem.
For though subtle and unassuming
Consider this a warning
for those hard of heart and fearful of change.
Ban this poem-
Create a law and demand it!
Or it will be a curse to those who live by the tenets of hate.
Xenophobes and war-mongers
this is your chance
to rip up these thoughts before they escape.
Yes, ban this poem
before it is nailed into the door of our consciousness
or a transmutation will take place.
It will certainly gain entrance
and disrupt the lives
of those wrapped up in a barbed wire embrace.
For it does what a poem
is supposed to do
and tap into a humanity we thought once lost.
It is a glimmer of new awakenings,
and a fulcrum of tolerance.
It is a blanket for the homeless should the cold set in.
So ban this poem-It is dangerous.
And out of place with society's values.
Lock it up in the darkest of prisons for it is a contagion of enlightenment...
...And a missive of acceptance...a dispatch of hope.
So ban this poem.
YES, BAN THIS POEM!!!
BIOS
Joe Navarro, Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, Fernando Rodríguez, Tracy Corey, Victor Avila
“It Must Be the Chicano In Me” Joe Navarro
“Search and Recovery” Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo
“Indocumentado” Fernando Rodríguez
“Listen” Tracy Corey
“Ban This Poem!” Victor Avila
0 Comments on Ban This Review. Frank Sifuentes ave atque. On-Line Floricanto. as of 10/9/2012 4:58:00 AM
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By: msedano,
on 10/1/2012
Blog: La Bloga (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: poems, banned books, poetry, Arizona, speculative fiction, Floricanto Movement, Add a tag
Review: Sabrina Vourvoulias. Ink. Somerville MA: Crossed Genres Publications, 2012.
ISBN-13: 978-0615657813 ISBN-10: 0615657818
Michael Sedano
In my neck of the woods, Pasadena Califas, birder excitement flies high with recent sightings of the rara avis, Least Bell’s Vireo. I’m a birder, and I’m excited at the prospect of renting a long lens and traipsing out to the wash next door to JPL to expose a few frames of this endangered species.
Not that raza literature hasn’t long contained fantasy and out-of-this-world elements—think of the dead baby in Ana Castillo’s So Far From God who flies out of her coffin up to the rafters. Then there’s “magic realism,” a term some exogenous critic planted upon stuff the critic couldn't tolerate or didn't fully understand. Such writing bears no dissonance for raza writers and readers, whose tolerance for fantastic experience results from quotidian cultural experience, e.g. DDLM, Juan Diego and la Virgen, el cucuy.
Per some critics, "magic realism" is a worldwide movement. Yet, it’s still possible that one’s life-list of Chicana Chicano speclit sightings can include every specimen of the genre. Which is changing: the growth of Chicana Chicano speculative fiction / science fiction / fantasy / horror is as exciting news as spotting a tree full of Least Bell’s Vireo.
Books, unlike birds, don’t end up extinct, glass-eyed and stuffed behind plexi in some dusty museo display case. Books can be resurrected. For example, Bloguero Ernest Hogan--among the earliest practitioners of the art—recently began recasting his rare titles into eBook forms, as he’s recounted in his La Bloga Chicanonautica columns.
And slowly but inexorably, new titles are finding their way through publisher back rooms into the light of day. A few years ago, now-defunct publisher Calaca Press advanced the puro sci-fi Lunar Braceros on the Moon 2125-2148. In addition to Hogan, Blogueros Daniel Olivas and Rudy Garcia, are doing their part to keep spec alive. There’s Olivas’ gem, Devil Tales, and Garcia’s currently touring novel Closet of Discarded Dreams.
The most recent newcomer to the speclit ranks is Sabrina Vourvoulias with an edge-of-your-seat dystopic novel, Ink.
In a tea bagger fantasy world, raza and immigrants from America, Asia, Caribe, Africa, wind up on the losing end of a U.S. civil war that cleaved the democracy into castes of citizens, non-citizen aliens, and “inks.”
Inks wear tattoos branding their country of origin and status, and have chips implanted in their necks to facilitate GPS tracking. “Show me your wrist” has replaced “show me your papers.”
But such profound measures hardly satisfy the most avid baggers. Gangs of crackers roam the streets, kidnapping inks to deport them into Mexico, with a wink from law and ordure.
A great story aside, the key to a successful speculative piece is linking the unknown to the known, constructing the fiction over a framework of actuality. For Vourvoulias this means a world where street gangs have gone corporate; where wingnuts control government but not the hearts and minds of all the gente; where private prisons run rampant; where technology is boon and bane and Ink-detecting devices are as widely available as iPods.
The odds stack heavily against them, but Inks fight back, supported by gente decente like Maryknoll priests, youths, congregants, artists, and artificial skin. The conflict driving the novel will fill readers with dismay, seeing parallels between what has already taken place—Japanese locked in concentration camps, narcos controlling swaths of territory in Mexico, rednecks with power—and the novel’s permutations of today’s ugly commonplaces.
In Vourvoulias' most delighting turn, she gives her Inks nahuales: panther, jaguar, bee spirits, or evil dwarves. These spirits jump in and out their dimension to comfort, rescue, or attack, their endangered Ink. With this dual dimensions set-up, the author develops her agon in suspenseful parallels between the bleeding dystopia and the engaged dimension of spirits.
The author skillfully avoids nagual-ex-machina devices except when absolutely required. The presence of one’s nahual isn’t enough to prevent a rape, nor save some souls. Vourvoulias is not reluctant to brutalize or kill her characters, nor subject them to unspeakable torture at the hands of depraved racists. But I repeat myself.
The United States has devolved into a living Hell for decent folk, and all Inks. Readers who allow themselves to be drawn into the fantasy will find Sabrina Vourvoulias’ story both depressing and constantly arresting, enjoying several surprises along the route. In the end comes an inkling of hopefulness for disbanding the tea bagger hold on liberty, but that’s not certain. Vourvoulias won’t let you off that easy.
The publisher distributes a book book and an electronic one. Whichever a reader elects, Ink’s compelling story drives itself effortlessly, and a reader likely will devour it within a day or two. Ink is fun, and scary as can be. Of course, that's the point of speculative fiction. Can it happen here? A little birdy tells me the known of this novel offers compelling evidence that Ink’s world certainly could, and as current events illustrate, that world is lumbering toward Washington DC to be born.
The books are still banned. Tucson's school board gave a vote of confidence to the jefe in charge of banning books, along with a nice salary increase. SB 1070's "show me your papers" got a court go-ahead. Joe Arpaio's re-election campaign advances toward victory.
It's ugly out there. Vote like your freedom depends on it.
La Bloga On-Line Floricanto Two Ten Twelve
Odilia Galván Rodríguez, Maurisa Thompson, Kris Barney, Devreaux Baker, Jabez W. Churchill
“Occupied America” by Odilia Galván Rodríguez
“We Did Not Build Pyramids with Words that Feared Our Skin” by Maurisa Thompson
“What Will It Take?” by Kris Barney
“Recipe for Peace” by Devreaux Baker
“El Procesional” por Jabez W. Churchill
“Processional” by Jabez W. Churchill
Occupied America
by Odilia Galván Rodríguez
so occupied
are they
in their heads
stuck in screens
smart phones
computers
the iOnly CU
online society
who'd rather text
their talking fingers
flying swiftly
over keyboards
to communicate
into the ether
O occupied America
so sick of who's at war
with whom
or don't care and
what new doom will
the yarn spinners spin
what Hollywood or TV
drama will they foist
on the eye glued
masses today
will they cower
in fear then
proudly wave
their death flag
even higher
who will win
the next elections
with Corporations
as people
can we can leave
the driving to them
after all don't cha know
the One Percent
has it rigged
with new fangled
voter fraud schemes
the old ones too
like show me your papers
to vote
while the dead still
rise from their graves
every four years to
pull the lever
at the voting box
automatons speak
the great computers
calculating the numbers
in the chosen ones favor
who will it be
you ask
as if there
were really a choice
lift your voice
in a different way
take to the streets
and yell your stories
no matter how dumb
you think it is
leave your smart phone
at home
Copyright 2012 Odilia Galván Rodríguez
We Did Not Build Pyramids with Words that Feared Our Skin
by Maurisa Thompson
Sister
We did not build pyramids with words that feared our skin
We did not bear entire nations ashamed of the cadence of our hips
the white parent in us
so many ways absent
your father left your mother nursing
you with stories she spoke in Spanish
middle passages coast island migrations
arms of earth always around you
you carried them in this country
talismans on your full lips
my mother’s subconscious praises
for baby blue blue eyes
a classmate’s complexion
all lovely pale and flushed
willowed legs slender thighs
her own hands mute awkward
they were scarred by a lifetime
of dick and jane and sameness
she struggled to hold my difference
in any form of embrace
I could not begin to say these things
until you gave me words beyond
textbooks beyond negro y blanco
eased the secret knot open
trigueña—color of wheat
beneath the nightfall of your hair
morenasa—first word that loved me
beautiful dark woman
the sound rippling gently through
the letters of my own name
what language still throbs
within our mingled bloods
Nele muu ina Oju inun ashe
come we must find and weave it
tuck its medicine in our pockets
I seek each time I glimpse
lightning behind my closed eyes
Sister
after years in this body
I know at least the beginning
We did not bear entire nations ashamed of the cadence of our hips
We did not build pyramids with words that feared our skin
Copyright 2012 Maurisa Thompson
What Will It Take?
by Kris Barney
i burn cedar tonight
and lightning flickers all around the house
thunder booms and rumbles and
i think of yei dancers whose
voices and rattles will sound on
a night like tonight
after the frost melts into the earth
after all vegetation dies back and
aspens and cottonwoods turn yellow
Cedar smoke circles my body as
i rub the smoke on my heart with an eagle feather
as i watch every movement of
smoke wash over my face and my hands and
the fleeting moments that
burn and fade like
ponderosa logs on the fire and
i am tired of praying
i want something more to happen
i want my people to find the strength
inside them to do something
to address or to protect or to
regain honor in my eyes
i want to send a call to every warrior
every man or woman who loves
his/her homeland
his/her family and
how tough can it be to say enough is enough?
how hard is it to stand strong in unity?
how hard is it to stand up
to speak up
to have courage?
or are we just too ill with colonial post trauma and
images of failed attempts to defend and resist?
do we give up or do we just endure
long enough to become another
commodity for corporate disposal?
So my people medicate themselves
be it NAC pills Marijuana Reds Whites and Blues or
wine bottles smashed against windshields and skulls
the webbed nets of disease and dysfunction
dreams bred out of anarchy and alchemy and
this song that runs wild in the purple red neon
as the blood hits the wind and
eyes are the doorways and
i lick i look
i fool myself with your smile and
the beads of sweat that collects down the curves
of your body as i kiss you into the night
and the constellations are the only ones
who hear our voices and white puffs of breath like
dancers painted white dancing by moon star and
firelight and
i hold you closer and breathe in your smell as
suns rise and set and
i hear the hoof beat of horses and
i can taste the rain in my sleep and
rivers running across the desert and
mountains where the deer stop to watch
our passing and hawks circle into
the red iris of the sun
and i walked
and i ran
and i asked questions to the clouds and
rain confirmed in recognition
in voices as old as the ocean and
i drank from water clear and cold
glacier melt water and ice cold streams that
mourn for salmon and
the men and women who weep
my brothers and sisters who weep
our children who weep for parents who are too
traumatized by colonial gods and demons and
rumors of eternity
Our elders weep
silently in nursing homes or
prisons and mourn for the
beauty of their youth or
for relatives long dead
the stories that cannot
be translated into English
stories images and
memories hidden in the blood
on every highway
in America
on every street downtown every city
on every metro train that connects
above to below
on every dirt road where children
board buses or airplanes and die for
wars created by the
wealth and gluttony of greed and
ones who suck the life
out of every living system of life
and i hear the wailing of rivers
birds
insects
whole rainforests and indigenous tribal relatives
fighting death and dams with arrows and spears
and all the marked and unmarked graves
unearthed by stripmine shovels and those who
rob the dead
gold robbers
coal robbers
bone collectors
those who sell trade and barter whole
corpses and the bone fragments
that line museum walls or
spark intelligent and curious
conversations at dinner tables
conversations that
give rise to festive occasions and
celebrations of the
opening of another new strip mall
another ski resort
another oil rig
another mountaintop stripmine
another copper mine
another diamond mine
another uranium mine
another mine where they
mine and drain the blood out of
the bodies of babies and aquifers and
the dust and smoke of charred human remains
settle after wars for natural resources have claimed
another hundred thousand or half million to million
civilian causalities
the lives of the innocent cemented to the lenses of
journalists and scenes that the media
only wants you to see and voices
crushed like how they crushed infant
skulls on the sides of kivas or pit houses or
hogans or long house walls
the blood always runs cleaner on the other side
so they say in the written history in every
colonial country
where the guilt of massacres and genocide
is weighed and bought
by stock market trends and
designer shoes and bleached blonde images
emulated by every modern Native out there
who's impressed by the illusions of the
american dreams and promises of prosperity
those of my people who would sell more
than their souls just
to get him/her a piece of the action
and the blood of the
innocent continues to run when
you are able to deceive those who
dare not think for themselves or think
intellectually and really put it all out there
for the world to see but
even then
images are not enough in today's america
images have not enough value or intrinsic value and
what price can really be put on
clean air
clean water
healthy soil
healthy children/descendants?
and here i look at the
black silhouette of the mountain
behind my house
i am immersed in the
melodies of this wind and
i think of life
all the lives of this earth
all the millions of ancestors and relatives
all the lives of animals
genetically generically modified plant life
the sterilizations
the mass murders
the modern mass global extinctions
the crimes against humanity
the crimes against creation
the crimes and murders against
every living thing
every living breathing entity and
yet my people do nothing
but make excuses and
tell me to pray more or
to be more humble
or tell me to come into the fold of their religions or
to go into some deep part of the world and
find something to distract myself from
the horrors of reality
the wombs of creation and
i wonder
i stop
i sometimes listen
i watch
i look to clouds and wind for inspiration and
i dare to question and i have yet to ask of
them for help
for assistance
i have yet to crank things up a notch
i have yet to lay it all out on the line
i have yet to make things happen and
so i burn cedar tonight
i think of all my loved ones
i think of the recently deceased
i think of all the animals
i think of all my people and relatives
i will not pray for you all
a part of me is tired of praying
of going through the motions of prayer and song
i am tired
i have walked but i have not walked far enough
i have prayed
my feet have bled
my heart has been broken
my body is beaten but my spirit
remains intact
i have no song to sing
no offering stronger than my
own blood to give
i walk now
surrounded by clouds
dark blue and deep purple and
a silver blue moon and this rain which
washes over my skin and i
sit on this hill and i watch the lightning far off
i watch it twist and bend and
the thunder booms in a voice
i have known all my life and
i have no tobacco
no corn pollen
no eagle plumes
no words to comfort me here and now
but only my two hands my two feet and
the scent of cedar smoke close to my chest
and this road of possibility
this lightning that
illuminates
my eyes....
Copyright 2012 Kris Barney
Recipe for Peace
by Devreaux Baker
Bare your feet
roll up your sleeves
oil the immigrant's bowl
open the doors and windows of your house
invite in the neighbors
invite in strangers off the street
roll out the dough
add spices for a good life
cardamon and soul
cumin and tears
sesame and sorrow
add a dash of salt
pink as new hope
add marjaram and thyme
rub lemon grass and holy basil
on your fingers and pat the dough
bless the table
bless the bread
bless your hands and feet
bless the neighbors and strangers off the street
bake the bread for a century or more
on moderate heat
under the olive trees in your back yard
or on the sun filled stones of Syria
in the white rocks of Beirut
or behind the walls of Jerusalem
in the mountains of Afghanistan
and in the sky scrapers of New York
Feast with all the migrant tongues
until your mouth understands
the taste of many different homes
and your belly is full
so you fall asleep cradled
in the skirts of the world
in the lap of peace.
Copyright 2012 Devreaux Baker
El Procesional
por Jabez W. Churchill
La llevo encima de la cruz
arriba de mis hombros,
botas negras y medias de red
hasta el pelo tenido de henna.
No se baja.
Ya estaba
cargando banderas,
fantoches vanos por las calles.
Ni puedo yo,
ídolo caído,
bajarla a abrazar.
Sequimos,
carroza alegorica de uno,
penitente y su Maria Magdalena
por el camino.
Solo el rastro pasado del amor,
condones gastados a los pies,
promesa de noche sin luna,
mi Santa muda
a atestiguar.
Copyright 2012 Jabez W. Churchill
Processional
by Jabez W. Churchill
I carry her upon a cross
above my shoulders,
black boots and fishnet stockings
up to her dyed henna hair.
She will not come down.
Already been there,
carrying banners,
vain caricatures along the streets.
Nor can I,
a fallen idol,
put her down.
We carry on,
allegory of one,
a penitent and his Mary Magdalene,
upon the highway.
Only the faded scent of love,
used condoms at my feet,
promise of a moonless sky,
my Guardian Angel, silent,
to testify.
Copyright 2012 Jabez W. Churchill
BIOS
3 Comments on Show me your INK. Banned books update. On-Line Floricanto in waxing October, last added: 10/5/2012
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By: msedano,
on 9/24/2012
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JacketFlap tags: essays, science, poems, Arizona, Floricanto Movement, banned books, poetry, Add a tag
Endeavor’s Memorable Fly-by: Outer Space in the Backyard
Michael Sedano
I was looking up at the sky again this week when the Space Shuttle rode piggy back across my backyard bit of sky, Mt. Wilso n’s radio towers above for background. I heard them before I knew them, as nothing ordinary roars with the power that rumbled my house in a sonic earthquake of harmonic sounds. And then it was gone from sight and I stared through empty space at the mountain.
Space. The final frontier. “What does ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ mean?” my kindergarten granddaughter, Charlotte, asks. This is the only time this event will happen, and you got to see it, I enthuse. Charlotte understands this event has never happened before, and will never happen again. So do her classmates. All the kindergarteners waved their arms and jumped around and went "ahgghh" when the big airplane and the little ones, too, cruised past, low and slow.
What a grand way for these 5-year olds to enter their space age. Last Spring, Charlotte declared when she grows up she will be a dancer and a scientist. She's going to make marvels. The space shuttle fly-by marks the end of one era, the launch of the next era of space. Her generation will build on what people of my generation, born in the aftermath of WWII, got to see from the raw beginnings.
When I was in kindergarten, space was airplanes out of Norton. I now and again stood in my backyard staring up at the noisy propeller planes cruising to and from the base. Hands cupped to mouth, I'd shout up, “Hey! Is Hairy Ass Truman in that plane?”
My dad worked at Norton. Once in a while he’d take me into the hangar where he did sheet metal. We'd go in the side door, past the time clock. Inside, the hard light filling open hangar doors silhouettes the hulking C-124 in eye-squinting contrast against the open sky. There were no wings. My father explained how the whole thing comes apart. I didn’t think about that. He fixed the holes in the airplane’s skin, and he also replaced the wings. Every time one of those beasts flew overhead in those days, I smiled. That was my dad’s handiwork in that airplane.
The space race took off in junior high, when the Russians got to space first with Sputnik. A U.S. answer, the Vanguard satellite, was built in Redlands, at Grand Central Rocket Company. The first launch was a spectacular disaster. The rocket exploded on the pad hurling the sofball-sized Vanguard onto the beach. The satellite came to rest beeping impotently in the Cape Canaveral surf. A classmate's dad built the Vanguard satellite. The man walked up to the beeping gold ball wanting a gun to put Vanguard out of its misery. Beep beep beep. Five years later, groups of us high school kids would stare up into a nightime summer sky and name communications satellites whizzing by.
Rocket science found a way to make weapons out of satellites. Many of these were launched from Lompoc, California’s Vandenberg AFB, just north of Santa Barbara. College years, the drive up the parkway from Goleta to UCSB, seeing the “pregnant guppy” was common. It was the cargo plane that ferried rocket motors up the coast to Lompoc. On campus, I lived in a decrepit structure overlooking the swamp and airfield. The roar of a pregnant guppy echoed the sounds of Redlands.
The first person to walk on the moon did it on black and white television in the middle of the day. I watched Armstrong from a bar stool in Hwaak-ni, Korea, where I had arrived the afternoon before the moonwalk, my fourth day overseas.
On the ride up to Bravo Battery the day before, the deuce and a half had bounced past a Korean man plowing a rice paddy with an ox, ankle-deep in brown water that looked like wet shit. It was; human caca. The wind blew in our direction. In the thick humidity, the incredible stink clung to my sweaty fatigues and penetrated deep into my nose filling my head with the smell of the third world.
And there, sitting next to me in the Admin Area bar, wearing his homespun traditional hemp fiber traje, was that farmer. As the ville did not have electricity, the Battery Commander invited the locals to share the event, and he'd taken a day off. If I’d had any money, I would have bought that farmer a twenty-five cent beer. “A small step for a man…” Talk about a “giant leap” for humankind.
Serving on a mountain armed with rocket ships named the “Homing All the Way Killer,” the HAWK anti-aircraft missile, never struck me as outer spacey, except for that farmer. And when the wind blew up the valley. Yet, the space age was everywhere—that missile system is a big lethal computer.
I saw my first zip-lock bag at Bravo—the missile parts arrived in them. I experienced space age adhesives when Robledo, a vato from San Anto, glued my fingers together with the stuff warheads are glued onto the rocket ship with. Instead of cranking a phone, I learned to whistle up a 60 Hz tone. "Wheeoouuuu" click; just like that the mountain is connected to anywhere in the world. It’s definitely space age to be buzzed by a MiG out of nowhere, then be knocked to the ground by a low-sweeping Air Force Phantom. “It if flies, it dies,” is an Air Defense Artillery mottto I remembered as that huge lumbering jet crossed the sky on its way to JPL.
Menso me. I’d decided I have plenty of space age memories and didn't need to photograph the Space Shuttle. The fly-by itself cannot be contained in a prosthesis for memory, and bla bla bla. As the flight comes into view and sweeps painfully briefly across the mountain vista, I jump excitedly and go "ahgghh." My waving arms feel the absence of the lens in my hand. The Shuttle does not return for a second fly-by. That’s what once in a lifetime means.
Banned Books Update in Limbo
Tucson schools has consistently failed to develop an acceptable desegregation program for over 20 years. As a result, the Federal Court maintains supervision over the district. A key element is the Special Master appointed to develop methods to help TUSD meet its obligations under the U.S. Constitution.
The Special Master could order the schools to reinstitute the Mexican American Studies program that was banned along with all those beautiful books. Or, the Special Master could suggest a framework and toss the ball to negotiators from TUSD and the community and let them battle out the details of a lawful "Unitary Status Plan" or USP. Here's the Special Master's job description:
In the background come rumblings of discord entre Chicana Chicano Democrats that could split the local movement apart. Inklings of a krypto coalition between racists and putatively moderate raza politicians point to a festering infection in the movimiento. Signs of the ugly schism include TUSD's decision to re-hire Superintendent Pedicone and pay him a big fat bonus.
La Bloga's Banned Books Update is digging for details and will report on this ugly development when there is concrete information to report.
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Newly Literate Gente
La Bloga's Inbox this week has this from Vanessa Acosta of Cultural Arts Tours & Workshops, forwarding great news for America: more Americans in the United States can read and write now.
Here's the news from The Centro Latino for Literacy:
| ||||||
email inbox
In Manhattan: Casa Azul Bookstore
 |
| Sergio Troncoso, Tony Diaz, Martín Espada, Melinda Palacio, Luis Alberto Urrea |
The Inbox this week has this from La Bloga friend Sergio Troncoso, news of Casa Azul's ongoing program of readings.
Please come and support a new independent bookstore in Manhattan, La Casa Azul Bookstore, at 143 East 103rd Street, at the corner of Lexington Avenue. I'll be reading from my two books published in 2011 with the poet Renato Rosaldo:
Reading with Sergio Troncoso and Renato Rosaldo
Thursday September 27, 6:00 - 8:00pm
Sergio Troncoso debates and challenges us on the mystery of familias, how they determine our identity and how we break free of them, from fatherhood to interfaith marriage to educating our children. From Tucson to the Philippines, from Palo Alto to Manhattan, Renato Rosaldo's readable poems tell of illness and racism, love and death—all in vivid tones. Savor these poems, slowly, what you inbibe will engage and enrich you.
http://www.lacasaazulbookstore.com/
Fall's First On-Line Floricanto
Francisco X. Alarcón, Tara Evonne Trudell, John Martinez, David Romero, Abyss Borboa-Olivera
"New Huge Galactic Blackhole Named After SB 1070-2B" by Francisco X. Alarcón
"Nuevo Enorme Agujero Negro Nombrado SB 1070-2B" por Francisco X. Alarcón
"De Colores of SB 1070" by Tara Evonne Trudell
"He Had the Smile of a Healer" by John Martinez
"Sweet Pocho Pie" by David Romero
"I Resign Myself" by Abyss Borboa-Olivera
"Renuncio a Mi" por Abyss Borboa-Olivera
New Huge Galactic Blackhole Named After SB 1070-2B
by Francisco X. Alarcón
 |
| Photo of Andromeda Galaxy by Clifton Reed: “This is the culmination of a lot of work, effort and study. You have my permission to use it any way you wish. BTW--this object is 2.5 million light years away. The time it took the light to travel here is older than human beings.” |
blackhole
discovered
at the center
of Andromeda
Galaxy some
2.5 million
light years away
from Earth
has been named
today after Arizona
law SB 1070–2B
“this is the largest
blackhole we have
ever found in space
it swallows all matter
and even light can’t
escape its huge pull;
because it is a dark
force that we can only
detect by its gravity
we have named it
SB 1070-2B for being
as ‘dark’ as the new law”
© Francisco X. Alarcón 2012
Nuevo Enorme Agujero Negro Nombrado SB 1070-2B
por Francisco X. Alarcón
un nuevo enorme
agujero negro
descubierto
al centro
de la Galaxia
Andrómeda
a 2.5 millones
de años luz
de la Tierra
ha sido nombrado
SB 1070–2B como
la ley de Arizona
“este el mayor
agujero negro jamás
descubierto en el espacio
absorbe toda materia
y no deja que ni la luz
se escape de su imán
porque es una fuerza
oscura que solo podemos
detectar por su gravedad
la hemos nombrado
SB 1070-2B por ser tan
‘oscura’ como la nueva ley”
© Francisco X. Alarcón 2012
De Colores of SB 1070
by Tara Evonne Trudell
the color
of politics
red
white
and blue
corrupted news
passing bills
making rules
taking brown
throwing rights
into spirit wind
overpowering
the fight
proving papers
marking suspects
police questioning
human rights
based on the color
of where
you were born
how brown
your skin
shines
in sun
hides
in shadows
immigration control
wearing green
not addressing
the reality
of humanness
her pink dress
grey nail polish
selling products
in a manicured war
them looking
the other way
promising people
rainbows to follow
their ever changing
definition
of equality
fooling minds
allowing justice
of nazi mentality
to control
the masses
of ancestors cries
red blood
flowing
under brown skin
the people must speak
fast and slow
freedom dissipated
and in their control
brown bodies
piling up
on the border
shot for throwing stones
for being brown
killing first
hiding bodies
in news feeds
conditioning generations
to not care
color scheming
between the lines
of genocide
until the colors
disappear
blinding white
against
the light
of politicians
coloring
Americans fear.
© Tara Evonne Trudell 2012
He Had the Smile of a Healer
by John Martinez
There was nothing
More to do,
Than to pick up
The picket sign,
White-hot summers
Sand underneath us,
A cloudless baby
Blue sky,
The grape pan,
Halfway
Into the row.
We stopped picking
Because the chanting
Told us to stop,
We stopped picking,
Because it was time
And my father saw
The shitty money
Empty from his eyes,
The Foreman, with his white
Man’s neck,
His map
Of a desert face;
He was counting
The trays,
But we dropped
Our grape knives
And picked up
The picket signs
Huelga, Huelga, Huelga!
And we marched
That day,
On the tar,
Softened by the sun,
Carrying our Clorox
Bottles filled
With frozen water.
We knew then,
That we were
Not alone,
That what we felt
About this field,
Was felt by others,
We were going to fight,
Because we could
Feel the poison
From the Crop Dusters
In our lungs,
Blurring our eyes,
Tightning our jaws
Because we knew
It was wrong
To work children,
With the sun,
Like a knife
On our backs,
To pay near nothing
For scorched knees
And burned faces
But this man,
He came to save us,
Yes, this man,
Dressed In School
Teachers clothes,
Brown face like ours,
Black hair like ours,
He had the smile
Of a healer.
© John Martinez 2012
Sweet Pocho Pie
by David Romero
I’m as American as sweet pocho pie
Light flaky crust
Identity crisis inside
Like apples to oranges
We are pochos
Children of these lands claimed
Ambassadors of a great American immigration
That often doesn’t want us
Our ancestors were criminalized for speaking Spanish
Yet, we’re expected to speak it without an accent
Expected to fit a stereotypical appearance
While Spanish stations display the opposite
Ask a career professional on a Latino panel
How to succeed in America and they will answer
“Remember: you’re a professional first
Latino second”
As if the two were mutually exclusive
Pochos pronounce their last names wrong
Argue this has become right
My name is Romero becomes ROW-MARROW
Rolling rs seem as silly as caricatures of twirling mustaches
Saying my own name properly makes me feel like Zorro
Pochos can know more about African American history
Than their own
It can politicize them
Relating to the status of outsider
Like Detroit Red becoming Malcolm X
Or like a boy named Sue with something to prove
Pochos can make for the best of activists
Carrying chips on their shoulders
The size of boulders
Emblazoned scrolls upon these read
“Insecurity” “shame” and “guilt”
Enough for long marches and late nights
To connect with the people
They are ambassadors to America
For a great immigration
That often doesn’t want them
Teases them bare and naked
Points out how tenuous their relationship
To being a Latino is
How it so easily crumbles
Like a soft crust
More apple than orange
Sweet pocho pie
“Sold out” here
Finger pointing
They laugh
“Gringo! Gringa! Gringo!” They cry
Some pochos are sliced into a permanent state of denial
Cut themselves white or “other” for charts
Others go on a journey of discovery of their Latin roots
With all of the subtlety and discretion of Christopher Colombus
Leaving division and destruction in their wake
Crushed hopes
Broken dreams
Promises of a piece of the pie with nothing inside
That’s why some in our communities fear us
Who are we?
Ambassadors to a great immigration
In an America that’s constantly changing
The children you wanted to have a better life
Then got mad at for having
The pochos you didn’t want
The pochos you taunt
For trying to be everything to everyone
We laugh, dance, scream, sing, argue and smile
We taste sweet as pocho pie
Smell the air
Look at the crowd
Feast upon their eyes
America loves sweet pocho pie
© David Romero 2012
I Resign Myself
by Abyss Borboa-Olivera
I resign myself
to be blind to the all truth
I resign to false humility
I resign to lists of demands
I resign to good intentions
if there is no action to prevail
if there is no work to understand
if there is no country to take care of.
I resign to call you brother
if you don’t walk next to me
if you don’t fight for your freedom
to stand wholeheartedly beside me.
I resign to the fake liberty we have
or the censorship that censors our minds
I resign to keep dreaming
if tomorrow never comes.
I resign to be awake early
if I’m a wealthy gentleman
even when I read the newspaper
knowing that my government
has killed an innocent man.
I resign to be invited to your table
wishing for all the women to be alive
I resign to discuss prices
if you don’t know the price of life.
I resign to be a patriot
if I don’t raise my voice with yours
asking for tolerance for our women
that have no freedom or another choice.
I resign to be a poet
if I don’t stand for what I believe
I believe that a cause has get started
and you have been in complicity
because you don’t want to fight
in what we have called reality.
I resign myself
If I have the words to fight for thee
I resign myself
If you haven’t noticed our autonomy.
Our and our women’s freedom
depends upon a dream
showing to the world we can fight together
raising our voices to reality;
we fight together
and together we should be
to show that our hope starts
when people start to believe.
© Abyss Borboa-Olivera 2012
***********************************
Renuncio a Mi
por Abyss Borboa-Olivera
Renuncio a mí mismo
a ser ciego ante toda verdad
reuncio a la falsa humildad
renuncio a los pliegos petitorios
renuncio a las buenas intenciones
si no hay acción que prevalezca
si no hay trabajo que se entienda
si no hay un país que cuidar.
Reuncio a llamarte mi hermano
si tú no caminas a mi lado
si tú no luchas por tu libertad
de seguir completamente conmigo.
Renuncio a la falsa libertad que tenemos
a la censura que amaña nuestra mente
renuncio a seguir soñando
si el mañana no es para siempre.
Reuncio a despertar temprano
si soy un hombre acaudalado
aún cuando lea las noticias
sabiendo que el gobierno
a un hombre inocente ha encarcelado.
Renuncio ser invitado a tu mesa
deseando que todas las muejeres no estén muertas
renuncio a discutir los precios
si no conoces el precio de la libertad
Renuncio a ser un patriota
si no levanto mi voz con la tuya
exigiendo tolerancia para nuestras mujeres
que no tienen libertad ni esperanza.
Renuncio a ser poeta
si no tengo las palabras para luchar por ellas
renuncio a mí mismo
si aún no te das cuenta de nuestra autonomía.
La libertad nuestra y de nuestras mujeres
depende de un sueño inalcanzable
para mostrarle al mundo que luchamos juntos
alzando nuestras voices a las realidades
juntos luchamos
y juntos debemos estar
para mostrar que nuestra esperenza comienza
cuando la gente comience a pensar.
© Abyss Borboa-Olivera 2012
BIOS
"New Huge Galactic Blackhole Named After SB 1070-2B" by Francisco X. Alarcón
"Nuevo Enorme Agujero Negro Nombrado SB 1070-2B" por Francisco X. Alarcón
"De Colores of SB 1070" by Tara Evonne Trudell
"He Had the Smile of a Healer" by John Martinez
"Sweet Pocho Pie" by David Romero
"I Resign Myself" by Abyss Borboa-Olivera
"Renuncio a Mi" por Abyss Borboa-Olivera
Francisco X. Alarcón (was born in Los Angeles, in 1954) is the author of twelve volumes of poetry, including, From the Other Side of Night: Selected and New Poems (University of Arizona Press 2002). His latest book is Ce•Uno•One: Poemas para el Nuevo Sol/Poems for the New Sun (Swan Scythe Press 2010). His most recent book of bilingual poetry for children is Animal Poems of the Iguazú (Children’s Book Press 2008). He has been a finalist nominated for Poet Laureate of California in two occasions. He teaches at the University of California, Davis. He recently created a new Facebook page, POETS RESPONDING TO SB 1070 that is getting lots of poetry submissions and comments. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Poets-Responding-to-SB-1070/117494558268757?ref=ts
John Martinez studied Creative Writing at Fresno State University. He has published poetry in El Tecolote, Red Trapeze and The LA Weekly. Recently, he has posted poems on Poets Responding to SB1070 and this will be his 12th poem published in La Bloga. He has performed (as a musician/political activist, poet) with Teatro De La Tierra, Los Perros Del Pueblo and TROKA, a Poetry Ensemble (lead by poet Juan Felipe Herrera) and he has toured with several cumbia bands throughout the Central Valley and Los Angeles. For the last 17 years, he has worked as an Administrator for a Los Angeles Law Firm. He makes home in Upland, California with his wife, Rosa America y Familia.
Romero is the author of Diamond Bars: The Street Version and Fuzhou, two collections of poems released by Dimlights Publishing. His work has been praised by writers and poets such as the Tony Award winner Poetri, the author of Up the Street Around the Corner Besskepp, and the West Coast Editor of Rock & Rap Confidential Lee Ballinger.
Romero has opened for Latin Grammy winning artists Ozomatli and Latin Grammy nominated artists La Santa Cecilia. He has featured alongside Taalam Acey as well as with a number of HBO Def Poets, including: Beau Sia, Paul Mabon and Thea Monyee.
Romero is the host of Between the Bars Open Mic at the dba256 Gallery Wine Bar in Pomona, CA.
Romero teaches writing and performance workshops on spoken word poetry. His many themes and prompts include: Poetry - The Language of Protest and Mementos & Metaphors - Poems of Family and Identity. Romero has led workshops for the Say What? Teen Poetry program of the Los Angeles Public Library, high school activists at the Santa Monica Mountains Peace Camp and students at the Juvenile Detention and Assessment Centers in San Bernardino, CA.
In April 2012, Romero collaborated with the Nogales High School Poetry Club to produce their first book, F-5. Later that year, he collaborated with the Say What? Teen Poetry program of the Los Angeles Public Library to produce a book of poems written by Angeleno middle and high school students.
Romero is an artist affiliate of the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC) and a member of the Revolutionary Poets Brigade (RPB).
"I enjoy performing funny poems, but I hope that after the laughs, people can stay and listen to the messages that I am spreading with my poetry against racism, against prejudice, against imperialism, against labor exploitation and against economic injustice. I believe in a world free from hunger or any other kind of scarcity."
Romero is a graduate of the University of Southern California, a double major in Film and Philosophy.
Check out his blog, "The Mexi-Asian Perspective: A Mexican's Guide to All Things Latin, Asian, or Both," on www.projektnewspeak.com . Visit his website, http://www.davidaromero.com/ for more.
Abyss Borboa Olivera, Poet, writer, actor and director for ENTRETELONES Theater Group, was born in February 1977 in Tijuana, Mexico. He studied Lengua y Literatura de Hispanoamérica at Universidad Autónoma de Baja California. He is a Professor at Universidad Tecnológica de Tijuana, and teaches literature at Preparatoria Federal Lázaro Cárdenas.
Publications:
Poetry
ACABALLOMÓNTAME by Proyecto Existir 2004.
TÚ ERES EL HOMBRE PENSADO by Lulu 2012.
Novel
MUERTES ESCRITAS by Lulu Editorial. 2012.
Short Story
POST-MORTEM by Lulu Editorial. 2011
Drama
BENIGNA; DETRÁS DE TI by Lulu Editorial. 2012
Most of his work is based on Women and Gender as an ideological paradigm.
0 Comments on Final frontier. The final On-Line Floricanto for Sept as of 9/25/2012 4:13:00 AM
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By: Eric Orchard,
on 9/12/2012
Blog: Eric Orchard (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: pen and ink, arizona, book covers, harry and silvio, maddy kettle, Add a tag
0 Comments on Flying Boat Of Arizona as of 9/12/2012 1:40:00 PM
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By: msedano,
on 8/20/2012
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Taper Gets One Right: Red Fills Seats
Michael Sedano
A few months after I got home from the Army (42 years ago last week), my wife bought a season of Thursday opening nights at the Mark Taper Forum. I've been a season seat holder ever since, albeit now a Saturday matinee tipo. One of the productions that first dazzling year for me stands out, The Trial of the Catonsville Nine. I was one of the audience members selected to sit as a juror in this world premiere performance of Daniel Berrigan's play, Directed by the Taper's Gordon Davidson.
A few years later, I'd see the Taper's dynamic New Theatre For Now series' opening night Zoot Suit, with Daniel Valdez as el pachuco, firing up a joint to spark the opening monologue.
It's experiences like those that keep me buying seats at the Taper, even after they remodeled the place and moved me from an aisle to center of a long row. It's definitely not the output from impresario Michael Ritchie that keeps me buying seats, because Ritchie starves L.A. audiences for quality fare.
A Mark Taper Forum season used to assure ticket holders would have immediate, important, home-grown productions, with road shows of highest quality to spice up a season, like Siobhan McKenna's Irish ladies. Nowadays, the free program offers up bios of east coast and out-of-town actors, directors, and tech people.
Red comes to Music Center Hill via Broadway. Not the Million Dollar on LA's Broadway down the hill, but New York City where the production, Molina, and playwright John Logan, won big awards and grand reviews. Rightfully so. Logan writes some of the best dialog to treat your ears, ever. He stands out as an artist whose work should win him other prizes and enormous satisfaction.
A visit to the Center Theatre Group's promo site for the play is useful. Here Logan offers this précis of what Molina does to the written Mark Rothko. "Fred" the playwright calls the star, embodies "titanic anger, pomposity, seriousness, and rage, yet incredible sensitivity."
Logan's interview at the Music Center's website merits a couple of views for the writer's insights and the snippets of the characters measuring one another's understanding of things that come in red. There's another names-for-red scene that's even better. Wittgenstein would dig it.
It will be interesting to see where Logan takes his art from here. A big artist as subject, lofty romantic questions like "what is art?"make for high drama, deep tragedy. I'd like to see Logan make me laugh.
Red won't force tears so you'll exit the auditorium smiling that you've lived as part of an all-time great performance of a superb play. Red runs at Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum through September 9, directed by Michael Grandage.
Banned Books Update: One Month Until...
Countdown to Special Master Report: One month until September 21, 2012.
Status Quo: The People of the State of Arizona, complicity with Tucson Unified School District, persist in exercising the State's and Board's Constitutional power to ban books.
In northern Los Angeles environs, Tia Chucha's Bookstore and Centro Cultural have become Librotraficantes. The centro hosts a fund raiser and book drive in conjunction with the release of the Special Master Report.
Here's how Tia Chucha's Facebook page describes the 9/21 event:
Tia Chucha's, now a Los Angeles LibroTraficante, invites you to join us as we host a discussion of the anti-migrant hysteria gripping Arizona and celebrate culture and palabra!
This will also be a fundraiser for the Raza Defense Fund and a banned book drive! Your book donations will be used to set up community libraries in the local area and beyond!
for a list of banned books go here: http://librotraficante.com/images/BannedListAnnotatedBibliography.pdf
Visit Tia Chucha's website for details and scheduling. Events include a discussion featuring banned authors Rudy Acuna and Luis Rodriguez, and an Open Mic.
Mexican Cultural Institute Gallery Show of Movimiento History
Tourists strolling El Lay's Olvera Street looking for Pancho Lopez--if they know Lalo Guerrero's old song--will count themselves informed and fortunate to find the increasingly popular gallery of the Mexican Cultural Institute. Here's how the MCI describes its current effort:
Organized by the Chicano Resource Center of Los Angeles, this mixed media exhibit features more than 100 photographs, videos, paintings and archival documents relation of the Chicano Movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
Includes a special tribute to "Women of the Movement Then and Now".
Exhibit open Thursdays through Sundays, 1 to 6 pm.
Through September 9.
Galería MCI is located in the basement of the Biscailuz Building at El Pueblo/Olvera Street.
La Bloga On-Line Floricanto • Penultimate Tuesday of August 2012
Frank de Jesus Acosta, Francisco X Alarcón, Seeyouma Nahash'Chid, John Martinez, Nancy Aidé González
"Warrior Poets Rise" by Frank de Jesus Acosta
"Poetas Puentes" / "Bridge Poets" by Francisco X Alarcón
"Dzil Yijin/Black Mountain" by Seeyouma Nahash'Chid
"Our silence is that we don't know their names" by John Martinez
"Coatl" by Nancy Aidé González
Warrior Poets Rise!
by Frank De Jesus Acosta
The stories flowing thru you are worthy to be told
Set them free to strum a dormant heart-chord searching for its song
Your words are an ancestor’s spirit voice returning in wisdom
Your verse is soulful flor y canto ascending in sacred smoke
The unfinished stanza of a departed relative’s poem
The stories, requiems, & prayers of the warrior poet
Are a confluence of hearts, minds, & souls
Weaving the distal corners of creation, history, & prophesy
Forming one great hoop of nations and relatives upon earth
Flesh & spirit, 7 generations merging past, present, & future
Let your words rise and flow in transformative love
Lifting up the highest virtues of our collective humanity
Rise Warrior Poets; Rise!
BRIDGE POETS / POETAS PUENTES
by Francisco X. Alarcón
a los participantes de Poetas en el Puente: Manuel Luna, Ana Chig,
Elizabeth Cazessús, Sonia Gutiérrez, Luis Gastélum,
Sugar Born, Ricky Zamudio y Ensamble Wamba
12 de agosto de 2012 en Galería
Mariposa/ Papillon
Tijuana
Dzil Yijiin – Black Mountain
Seeyouma Nahash'chid
Why has it come to be for Dine’
Why has it come to be for Kiis’aanii
While we argue over this Holy Land
Corporate AmeriKa rapes our Earth Mother of her seeds
They have turned Kiis’aanii against Dine’
Dzil Yijiin extended so high
Visualized high above where it touches Father Sky
This is our existence
The ancestors home
The Clan people of the Dine’ and Kiss’aanii
Our home of our sacred Indigenous tradition
Our sacred Indigenous heritage
This place where our ancestors spirits roam
Dzil Yijiin cannot be separated from its relations
Yet Corporate AmeriKa does not care
They only want to ravage the sacredness of Dzil Yijiin
Committing devastation and great sacrileges
This most sacred of holy places
Binds the Dine’ and Kiis’aanii to this land of their birth
Dzil Yijiin cannot be separated from its relations
The four sacred mountains
They represent the holy ways of Dine' and Kiis'aanii
In our tongue
There is no word for relocation
How can you stop our sacred ceremonies
Our daily obligations
On the top of Dzil Yijiin
We make our appropriate offerings, songs, and prayers
In this sacred way
Our offerings and prayers will keep us strong
How can we leave our sacred place of offerings
We are tied to this Holy Land
With out this Holy Land
Dine’ and Kiis’aanii would not be able to survive
We cannot just walk away from Creator’s gift
We would be disgraced
This Corporate AmeriKa is always devising some evil way
To steal and take what is not theirs
They are willing to tear our Earth Mother's belly apart
They strip our Mother's flesh and kill the air
To nourish their greed
Clan people we must stand together as one
In order to survive as part of our Mother's very heart
Clan people we are connected to this Holy Land
We will not be moved like the sheep we herd
Here we are known by the Holy Spirit beings
In this sacred way we will sing our blessingway song
Clan people stand in unity
This is our country
Our Dine'taa’
Our beauty way
Our Silence Is That We Don't Know Their Names
by John Martinez
She is locked in a hope chest
In the back of a Van
Crunched, in a fetal position,
She listens to her own breathing,
Thinking of her Mother mending
Her Quinceañera dress,
Of her father hammering
On a tin roof
In the desert the cactus hum
A separate melody, One of sun, sky
And small drops of water,
But without water, without air,
She will blend into the dark square,
Her name never comes through
His feet burned into tongues
That lapped the floor of the desert,
Feeling around for his place,
His lips cracked into crushed glass,
His throat, a tunnel of misplaced echoes,
His name never comes through,
But I know them both.
I also know the child with flower petal hands,
Sleeping on his starving Mother
She remembers when
He was born on a winter night,
Steam rose from her vagina,
His life warmed her that day, but today,
He is a small tremor, sandpaper hair,
Eyes, half open like a broken doll,
His name never comes through
We know of these tragedies, all of us,
As we tuck into our fortunate lives,
We know their howling,
When the clouds bunch over
Our perfect dens, they reach for us,
Their tears fall like rain
Onto our stucco houses,
Our silence is that
We don’t know their names
Coatl
by Nancy Aidé González
Coatl
By Nancy Aidé González
Healing undulating wisdom
astral metamorphosis
illusions shed scales
spitting strength in desert sand
sibilant forked tongue flicking
reptilian transubstantiation
hiss
hiss
hiss
through blurring abstractions
shed old habits
serpentine escort
guide me
through spiral paths of modification
changing static rivers of time
opaque blue eyes stare
snake medicine, I drink.
BIOS
"Warrior Poets Rise" by Frank de Jesus Acosta
"Poetas Puentes" / "Bridge Poets" by Francisco X Alarcón
"Dzil Yijin/Black Mountain" by Seeyouma Nahash'Chid
"Our silence is that we don't know their names" by John Martinez
"Coatl" by Nancy Aidé González
A graduate of UCLA, Frank de Jesus Acosta is the principal at Acosta & Associates, a California-based consultant group specializing in professional services targeting philanthropic, non-profit, and government institutions. A&A specializes in public and private social change ventures in the areas of violence prevention, community development, cultural fluency initiatives, and policy development. Recent clients include Walking Shield, Local Initiatives Support Council (LISC), The California Community Foundation, Liberty Hill Foundation, California Endowment, Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (SAJE), Policy Link, The City Project, Institute for Community Peace, and Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos. Acosta’s professional experience includes leadership tenures with: The California Wellness Foundation; the Coalition for Humane Immigration Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA); the Center for Community Change; and the UCLA Community Programs Office. In 2007, Acosta authored, “The History of the Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos Community Peace Movement,” Arte Publico Press, University of Houston.
0 Comments on Review: Red. Banned Books Update. On-Line Floricanto. as of 1/1/1900
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By: msedano,
on 8/6/2012
Blog: La Bloga (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Arizona, guest writers, Floricanto Movement, banned books, poetry, poems, Add a tag
Guest Columnist: Sarah Rafael Garcia. "Memorias de Mis Besos Nobel"
As I entered the bookstore, I felt a literary spirit penetrate my skin. My body had an ever so tingling sensation that left my hair electrifying and my toes curled in the most sensual position. I was a bit overpowered and a little uncomfortable with the public experience but I went along with it. It felt so good.
I took each step with pure indulgence. I skimmed the tables for something that caught my eye but all I could think of was how excited I felt and took pleasure in the warmth that was spreading from my feminine spot to my inner thighs.
I slowly made my way through the isles, carefully placing my hands on leather-bound books and vibrant illustrations. I ran my fingers through Isabel Allende, Julia Alvarez, Rudolfo Anaya and Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez. As something called for me to return to the front of the store, I took in a deep breath, attempting to hide my internal moans of pleasure. Then I remembered that Laura Esquivel's Malinche was sitting on the front table and I needed two copies for her autograph that I was there to get.
At that very minute, I saw him enter through the magical doors. A young, handsome man gallantly walked besides him, but my focus was on his distinguished presence and gray hair. He was the one that seemed extremely familiar and whose enlightening works ran through my head: One Hundred Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera and the most notable to me, Memorias de Mis Putas Tristes.
I timidly kept my distance but forced my way to the cashier’s desk where he stood signing a book for the owner. My curiosity led me to study the young sales attendant’s reaction. While blushing, she nodded at me as if yelling out loud "Yes! Oh God, it is him!”
I leaned over to see his face. I needed confirmation. I was there to meet one of my top inspirations to become of writer, but I never in my wildest dreams expected to run into him. ¡Mi numero uno!
El que me hace soñar entre sus manos. El que me toca sensualmente con cada palabra. El único que siempre esta allí cuando lo busco. The one who has touched many lives around the world, with just a stroke of a pen.
There he was with his back turned towards me. He was taking a step farther away from my urges. He had one foot out the door, headed back to the fantasy world that he was in prior to this moment. A place that was so remote to me. Could I actually let him slip out of reach just like that?
As calm as I could possibly be while walking towards him, I stated loudly, "¿Con permiso, lo puedo saludar?"
As charming as he is known to be & before he could turn to see my face, he responded, “Solo si lo hace con un beso." With a mischievous smile, I replied, "¡Si gusta le doy dos!"
Then we casually intertwined into a normal conversation about me living in China, writing a book and reading two of his in the last year and a half. I stated how happy I was to be with him. He told me that our worlds could have crossed at many places, since he too spent time getting lost in the walls of the Forbidden City and his own stories. He was so charming and intriguing. His eyes were mesmerizing. I had no choice but to give myself to him. He had full control of the encounter. He inquired about my life and how I survived through such tough times. He made me laugh like a schoolgirl. He made me feel like I was the only woman and writer in the world, “No te preocupes, ya se que vas a hacer una escritora famosa. ¡Por que siempre comenzamos pobres y con hambre!”
I continued to succumb to his every gesture and hung on to each syllable his lips enunciated. He held my hands tightly and played with words as if he knew he was courting my literary whims to reach their climax. Then just like that; he wished me Buena Suerte and expressed his sincerity with a gentle embrace.
The same instant he walked out the door, he disappeared from my vision and returned to my world of passionate dreams. I was left flushed and wanting more. Immediately afterwards I did what every impressionable young woman would do. I shared my intimate moment with a good girlfriend. While describing each minute detail of my rendezvous with the Nobel Prize winner, I realized I had never even told him my name.
Sarah Rafael García was born in Brownsville, Texas and raised in Orange County, California. She started writing after her father's passing in 1988. She obtained a Bachelors of Science in Sociology at Texas State University, is bilingual in Spanish and knows enough Mandarin to speak to pre-k students and taxi drivers in China. She has lived in Beijing and traveled to various countries including a three-month backpacking adventure in Australia. She is an active writer, community educator and published author who strives to advocate for human rights.Since the publication of Las Niñas, A Collection of Childhood Memories in 2008, García has continued to share her writings and community outreach by founding Barrio Writers in 2009, a reading and writing program aimed to empower youth through creative writing, higher education and the cultural arts and hosting Wild Womyn Writers in 2010, workshops that create neutral spaces which empower womyn to explore their creative spirits, free themselves from societal restrictions and learn to embrace their natural instincts.
García’s essay “Crossing Borders” was published in Connotation Press in April 2011 and her spoken word piece "Without a Name" was aired on the 2012 EXSE Spoken Word Showcase and published in Label Me Latina/o in June 2012. Most recently, she is attending Texas State University’s MFA Program in Creative Writing while working on her next book. García’s writings, workshops and lifestyle promote community empowerment, cultural awareness and global sharing.Listen to Sarah Rafael Garcia read a story at Latinopia.
Banned Books Update
On this first Tuesday in the eighth month of the year 2012, Arizona continues to ban books in your name.
After reading last week's La Bloga Banned Books Update, a University of Nebraska researcher wrote Tucson Unified School District Superintendent of Schools John Pedicone. Pedicone insists he has not banned The Tempest, nor any other book. Pedicone alludes kids can get the not-banned books by filing approved interlibrary loan paperwork.
The researcher asked if kids would be expelled for bringing in a non-banned banned book. Pedicone wrote back with his claim that nothing has been banned and if a teacher wants to use a book, Shakespeare's The Tempest, for example, the teacher has that liberty, provided the title is approved for use in that class.
Pedicone refused to answer the question about the kid's liberty. His silence is tacit admission that any kid bringing a non-banned banned book into the classroom will be banned from the classroom, along with that non-banned banned book.
On-Line Floricanto First Tuesday in August 2012
Arnoldo Garcia, Elena Díaz Bjorkquist, Alma Luz Villanueva, Alejandro E. Barajas, Iris de Anda
“My land” by Arnoldo Garcia:
"Ode to Teresita" by Elena Díaz Bjorkquist
"Quetzalcoatl's Radiance" by Alma Luz Villanueva
"El Jefe de la pobreza / The Boss of Poverty" by Alejandro E. Barajas
“Read the fine print” by Iris de Anda
My Land
by Arnoldo Garcia
my country
is the smallest country
in the world.
my country fits
inside one-hundredth
of one molecule
in a touch between one strand of DNA
my country
has room
for everyone
every European
every Chinese
every Mexican
every African
every Indian
every Asian Pacific Islander
every queer
every nomad
of the earth
every two-legged, four-legged,
crawling, burrowing, winged-
beings
fit in my country.
Everyone is welcome, everyone
I'll happily give you
my country
as long as you promise
not just to take care of her
to let everyone
live in her in peace
in garbled flags
in borders without pigment
borders with human pores
to breath freely
to live breathing
My country is everyone, is everywhere
my country is small
bothers no one
invades no one
drones no one
doesn't stamp your passport
doesn't ask for identity documents
my country lets you be
lets you exist as yourself
lets you determine who you are
my country has no borders
other than those of humanity to humanity
my country has no armies
no prisons no police
no homeless no one suffers
at the hands of other humans
my country is all the colors
the clash of colors, the contrast
the muddy blends, the stark yellows
the pink sunrises, the red of your tongue
mu country fits in your veins
fits in the bat of an eye
welcomes you to our bodily paradise
you can have my country, if you want
it's already yours
walk slowly take your time
my country is in no rush
peace and freedom take their time
rest a bit get up work hard, party
in my country
even the dead
get a turn to dance
every now and then
there are no regrets
there is only life
and its mortal pleasures
in my country
oh! in my country
you would be ideal
you would fit right in
like you always lived there
like your ancestors had been buried there
as a matter of fact
I would encourage you
to bury your ancestors here...
to bring your ancestors here
to my country
to bury them here
take care of them here
take care of our country
where everyone
where every living being
fits
my country is so small
that everyone fits.
And in one of her pores
fit all the suns and moon,
my country, you and me...
Ode to Teresita
by Elena Díaz Bjorkquist ©2012
Teresita Urrea, Santa de Cabora,
Mexican Joan of Arc,
You, the spiritual curandera
Who dedicated her life to serve others.
You, the illegitimate daughter
Born of an unlikely union between
A fourteen-year-old india, Cayetana Chavez
And wealthy haciendado, Tomas Urrea.
Abandoned by your mother at twelve,
Accepted by your father at fifteen —
You went from poverty to riches
To become a pampered daughter.
You lived with him, his mistress Gabriela,
Your half bothers and sisters, at Cabora—
Learning from Huila, the rancho’s healer
To become a curandera.
One day, you fell into a trance so deep
Your father thought you’d died,
But you survived with a mission from God
To cure, comfort, and console the sick.
Thousands flocked to Cabora,
To receive your touch,
To seek your counsel,
To be healed.
Afraid you’d lead the indios to rebellion,
Presidente Díaz had you arrested,
Offered you prison or exile.
Prison meant death—you chose exile.
With your father also exiled,
You came to Nogales in Arizona Territory
Became a living saint
Adored by los indios of Mexico.
Your heart broke over Tomóchic.
The slaughter of Tomoticheco villagers
The death of 700 soldiers, the destruction
Of a town—all blamed on you.
Santa Teresita, curandera, spiritual healer,
You moved to El Paso with your family,
Continued your healing work,
Wrote about Tomóchic.
You refused to lead a Yaqui rebellion
That led to the death of seven warriors.
Branded “La Bruja de Nogales,”
Three attempts were made on your life.
You settled in Clifton, found peace
Until you married the wrong man,
A spy sent by Presidente Díaz
To take you to Mexico or kill you.
Disowned by your beloved father,
You joined a medical company to tour
The United States starting in San Francisco—
Ending in New York with a new love.
Another heartbreak—tempered
By the birth of your daughter Laura,
The death of your father whom you
Never saw or spoke to again.
Back to California, to Los Angeles
Where you worked with unions
Until your house burned down
And you returned to Arizona.
Another daughter born in Solomon,
Reminded you of family in Clifton.
So you went back, built a house there,
Died at thirty-three years of age.
Your faithful friends and servants
Mariana and her husband Fortunato
Raised your daughters in Mexico
Until they returned to Arizona.
You, dear Santa Teresa, forgotten
By time, your bones moved twice,
So now you rest in an unmarked grave
People claim is yours.
Cabora crumbled into the dirt
That gave birth to its adobes—
Scarcely an outline of its walls remain,
Broken tiles festoon the ground.
Your only monument, a plaque
On a boarding house in El Paso,
Earmarked for destruction
In the name of progress.
Yet the spirit of La Santa de Cabora,
The spirit of Teresita, your holy spirit—
Lives on in the hearts and minds
Of those of us that love you.
QUETZALCOATL'S RADIANCE
by Alma Luz Villanueva
I live in Mexico
because festivals wake
me up pre-dawn,
Quetzalcoatl shimmering through
sky window, these
fireworks loud like
gunfire, someone's
died, left the body,
someone beloved, they
explode, they weep
for two hours, through
the day, and no
one calls the police, every
one understands some
one's left their body, some
one beloved is gone. I
dream through explosions,
wake to loud joyous
mariachis in the distance,
a marriage, family gathering,
I live in Mexico
because death and
life hold hands
dancing, singing, exploding
with grief and joy-
I live in Mexico
because every car stops
for the funeral procession,
a singer/guitarist sings
the beloved's favorite
songs on the way to
the cemetery, where the
famiies will gather, Dia
de Los Muertos, to
welcome their tender Spirits
home, from babies to
elders, a feast on the
graves, they decorate,
joy/sorrow equally,
beauty, song, candles,
tiny stars flicker all
night long as Spirits
come to taste tamales,
tacitos, tequila, cerveza,
fresh limes, oranges,
sweet cakes, where
the father of his Spirit
teen, grave decorated with
little cars, dancing
muertos, bottles of
empty Victorias (his
favorite), some full,
proudly shows me his
handsome boy, I can't
weep, his smile of
pure joy-
I drove to Mexico
in spring 2005, the
fear color codes of
my country, endless
wars on some enemy,
my dreams filled with
mourning women, holding
Spirit sons and daughters,
only sorrow, only grief,
no graves of marigolds,
feasts, sorrow/joy,
death holding hands
with life, dancing, singing,
weeping, exploding
pre-dawn journey of
the beloved, all day
into the night, mariachis
leading a wedding party to
more joy, holding hands
with life death life-
I live in Mexico
to remember,
to witness
simple human
joy sorrow joy,
those without my
country's great entitlements,
the leaders, the shameless
1% who would haul
off the mourner with
explosive weeping, singing,
who allow one in five
children in my country to
be hungry, who prefer
the poor to die (very)
quickly, while mouthing
how much they love their
country, care for its people,
send the neediest young to
kill/die for their oil wars,
want to control the
sacred wombs of women,
the constant enemy,
the constant fear,
unhinging our young, our
unbonded to our Mother
Earth young, bring
automatic weapons to
schools, universities,
playgrounds, now
theatres where the masses
go to dream, the manufactured
dream of Holly Wood,
dream, all humans need to
dream, many have forgotten
how to dream, vision-
I live in Mexico
because a Huichol family
in full brilliant rainbow
dress motioned me in front
of them, the market, I
thanked them but no, their
rainbow smiles insisted,
and the woman helped
me unload my full
cart, their few carefully
selected items waited, she
smiled her rainbows, I
smiled mine, "Gracias,
gracias, gracias,"
I kept saying, why
I live in Mexico.
I live in Mexico to feel
full sun on my face,
full moon light/shadow,
Quetzalcoatl's radiance.
San Miguel de Allende, July 2012
El Jefe de la pobreza
por Alejandro E. Barajas
mi gente llegó
a un estado mojado
listos para trabajar
llenos de alegría y paz
listos para hacer
la diferencia y más
de tanto dolor y poca educación
ellos fueron la ternura
de la lumbre en este pecho
por dentro del corazón
vive el hombre
vive la hembra
viven aquellos
que fueron maltratados
en el programa de Los Braceros
uno por uno
por la virtud
de trabajar y amar
cantando con el cielo
soñando con la tierra
un canto lleno de amor
soy un hombre
lleno de amor y ternura
soy más que lo que soy ahora
la pobreza hierve
dentro mi sangre
dentro mi corazón
lleno de menos dolor
lleno de más educación
Pan-America Unida es mi ilusión
The Boss of Poverty
by Alejandro E. Barajas
my people arrived
my people arrived
in a wet state
ready to work
filled with joy and peace
ready to be
the difference and more
from much pain and little education
they were the tenderness
of the fire in my chest
within the heart
lives the man
lives the woman
there lives those
whom were mistreated
in the program of Los Braceros
one by one
for the virtue
to work and love
singing with the sky
ringing with the earth
one song filled with love
I am a man
filled with love and tenderness
I am more than I am now
the poverty boils
inside my blood
inside my heart
filled with less pain
filled with more education
Pan-America United is my illusion
© 2012 Alejandro E. Barajas
Read the fine print...
by Iris De Anda
Handshake sells the contract
Loosing contact
Masterminded at ease
You say thank you & please
As "They" give it to us
Commercialized freedoms
Individualized monotone design
We are to feed on consumer disintegration
With a dis-eased population
Become subdued under sugarcoated ties
Fall asleep under lulluby of lies
Corporate head
Institutionalized
Mind Control
Sell your soul
What is the price to brainwash ideals?
BIOS
“My land” by Arnoldo Garcia:
"Ode to Teresita" by Elena Díaz Bjorkquist
"Quetzalcoatl's Radiance" by Alma Luz Villanueva
"El Jefe de la pobreza / The Boss of Poverty" by Alejandro E. Barajas
“Read the fine print” by Iris de Anda
A writer, historian, and artist from Tucson, Elena writes about Morenci, Arizona where she was born. She is the author of two books, Suffer Smoke and Water from the Moon. Elena is co-editor of Sowing the Seeds, una cosecha de recuerdos and Our Spirit, Our Reality; celebrating our stories, anthologies written by her writers collective Sowing the Seeds.
As an Arizona Humanities Council (AHC) Scholar, Elena also does presentations about Morenci, Arizona. She received the 2012 Arizona Commission on the Arts Bill Desmond Writing Award for excelling nonfiction writing and the 2012 Arizona Humanities Council Dan Schilling Public Humanities Scholar Award in recognition of her work to enhance public awareness and understanding of the role that the humanities play in transforming lives and strengthening communities.
Recently, Elena was nominated for Poet Laureate of Tucson. She is one of the poet moderators for the Facebook page “Poets Responding to SB1070” and has written many poems that were published not only on that page but also on La Bloga. Her website is at http://elenadiazbjorkquist.com/.
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By: Sara Dobie,
on 7/10/2012
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Tubing the Salt River is like Mardi Gras, except it takes place on inner tubes in a river, and instead of beads, you throw marshmallows. I didn’t know any of this going into it. I just knew we needed to bring water shoes, snacks, and a hell of a lot of beer. Oh, and sunscreen. Gobs and gobs of sunscreen.
The Salt River is a short drive from Phoenix, located in the Tonto National Forest near Mesa. Upon arrival, it was hard to believe such a beautiful, mountainous, untouched-by-man place could exist so close to the city. I was reminded of Zion National Park, the Narrows hike—a river surrounded by two sheer cliff faces. Once we had our tubes (a fifteen dollar rental, which includes the bus ride to the “launch site”), we were ready to go.
Or not. See, first you have to make your raft. Jake and I went along with five other people. You don’t want to lose these people (which, trust me, did happen once or twice, thanks to unexpected rapids and one cooler rescue mission). Using rope, you must tie your inner tubes together, ideally with the coolers tied in the center for easy access. I watched all this happen while drinking a beer in a bikini on a beach at, oh, eleven AM, under the scalding Phoenix heat.
I could totally do this for a living.
So what’s the deal with the marshmallows? I honestly don’t know. I know we were told to bring marshmallows, but I didn’t fully understand the fire-fight (or pastry-fight) that was due to ensue. Strangers, complete strangers, barrage you with marshmallows all the way down the four-hour river ride. Of course, retribution is sweet. By the end of the day, I was like Upton throwing a run-saving line drive to Montero at home. The huge marshmallows were like prized possessions, and several of our group often went diving halfway across river to grab one of those monsters.
As I mentioned, there were moments when people were almost lost. The Salt River is not, I repeat, not free of rapids, and they have a way of sneaking up on you. All you can do is hold on tight—to each other and to the coolers—and hope for the best.
If I could spend every Saturday tubing the Salt River, I would. It felt a lot like the Rockville Regatta in Charleston, South Carolina, where a bunch of strangers tie their boats together and have a day of romping. On the Salt River, you’re best buddies with everyone. You do strange things for beer (things that will not be mentioned here) and make great friends with funny lesbians (don’t ask). You get body-slammed into deep, blue water, and it’s great. It’s all great!
The Salt River is a place where fully grown adults can pretend, for one afternoon, to be kids again. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, I would suggest you go, as soon as possible. Don’t forget your marshmallows, and be sure to buy more beer than you think you could possibly drink—beca
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By: Sara Dobie,
on 6/19/2012
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Dear, Phoenix: I write you this letter to express my current discontent, although it’s not really your fault; it’s mine. This is my third summer wrapped inside your hellish embrace, and every summer, it seems I grow more impatient with you.
Through winter and spring, I adore you. I offer you metaphorical rose bouquets and heart-shaped chocolates from November through to blessed April. We have a good thing going for over half the year, don’t we?
True, I curse you in October, because let’s face it: you have no respect for Halloween. You don’t realize October should smell like clove cigarettes and wet leaves. You don’t understand that the month should be overtaken by spooky gray clouds and thunderstorms. You don’t even know to be cool and crisp at night, so focused are you on your singular goal of being temperate. I understand you want to make everyone happy. You are a people-pleaser, Phoenix, but consider watching a couple horror movies in order to hone your Halloween craft.
I get a little weirded out in December too, because Christmas is supposed to be cold. Last year, I locked myself in my house behind dark plantation shutters. I used the fireplace function on Netflix and turned our TV into a red-orange inferno. I lit all the Christmas lights in the house, including the pine-scented Yankee Candle. I pretended it was snowy outside. I pretended it was cold, because let’s face it, Phoenix: Christmas is supposed to be cold and covered in snow. As a reference, please see National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.
From January to April, though, you are a thing of beauty. Flowers bloom early. The skies retain a cerulean hue for endless weeks, and in early spring, the city is overwrought by the sweet smell of orange blossoms. As a populace, we uncover pools and start swimming mid-March. Because we can. By your grace, dear Phoenix, you offer us paradise while other states still cower beneath cloud-cover and melting snow. You are a saint, Phoenix, and we frankly do not deserve you!
And then. And then …
What did we do to deserve your summer heat? What offering did we forget to give? What song of praise did we not sing? The fires of hell descend upon us from May through September. Pavement smolders, plants die, and I wilt beneath the merciless summer sun. We say it’s a dry heat. We tell out-of-staters that it’s not that bad, that we can manage the heat because there’s no humidity, but I can admit, I am full of it when I make such claims. I don’t like the summer heat. I don’t want it. Please, Phoenix, take it back.
I cheated on you two weeks ago. I cheated on you with Ohio—a state that is gray six months of the year while the desert sun shines on. Despite horrendous winters, Ohio has something on you, Phoenix. Ohio has warmth but not fire; blue skies that can be enjoyed in the summer, while we in Arizona huddle in air-conditioned homes, praying for respite. Ohio has lush gardens, cool mornings, and cooler nights. Coming back to you was hard after my foray into brief unfaithfulness. As much as I love you, I did not miss you. It pains me to say it, Phoenix, but I only broke your heart because you first broke mine.
You give me sunshine when I want rain. You give me blistering heat when all I want is a cool night. You rob me of seasons because you want me surrounded by sunlight all year round. It’s not your fault; it’s mine. I’m growing older, and
2 Comments on A Letter of Summer Heat, last added: 6/19/2012
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By: Sara Dobie,
on 6/13/2012
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Good pal Sue Ellen Allen harassed me (in a good way) for two years before I finally agreed to volunteer at Perryville Prison. Sue Ellen and friends started a book club, and what better place for me to be than a book club, right? So why the initial hesitation?
Was it because my father was once a parole officer? No. Was it because I don’t like to volunteer? No. Well, I mean, yes, I dislike volunteering (not very Christian, I know), but the main reason I didn’t want to volunteer at Perryville Prison was because I was scared. I had visions of Con Air. I just knew I would end up running from some Steve Buscemi freak show. Or maybe end up murdered. Or kidnapped. Something. Because to an outsider, that’s what prison is—a dark, scary place filled with hardened criminals who know how to turn a toothbrush into a lethal weapon. Was I wrong? Of course.
Getting into Perryville the first time wasn’t fun, however. There were intimidating security guards and metal detectors that went off because of my underwire bra. Once inside, it was obvious I was in prison, what with the barbed wire, heavily locked doors, and women in orange. Then, I met the girls, and they didn’t look much like hardened criminals to me. They looked like waitresses, lawyers, mothers, aunts—normal people in abnormal and unfortunate circumstances.
Jessica, pre-Perryville.
I’ve been to Perryville three times now. During each visit we discuss books like The Secret Life of Bees and Vinegar Hill—novels that beg to be discussed, especially by women. Last night was my first time rolling solo, and I had the chance to meet eleven spectacularly intelligent women trapped in unfortunate self-made circumstances. Yes, they feel guilt over what they did. Last night turned into a full-on therapy session as we discussed forgiveness and how these women worry that their children will never love them again because of the mistakes they’ve made. Then later, we laughed together, because women like to laugh, even in prison.
Inside Perryville.
I believe in the inspirational, healing power of books, which is why I’m glad to host the monthly book club. I believe in second chances, which is why educational activities are necessary at Pe
11 Comments on My Time in Prison, last added: 6/15/2012
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By: msedano,
on 6/11/2012
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Review: Devil's Tango shakes readers to the core.
Michael Sedano
Cecile Pineda. Devil's Tango: How I Learned the Fukushima Step by Step. San Antonio: Wings Press for Cecile Pineda, 2012.
ISBN 9780916727994
Last month as I was enjoying Robert Arellano’s Curse the Names, his doomsday novel informed by outlandishly consequential U.S. nuclear policies, I had simultaneously begun reading Nicole Pineda’s creative nonfiction thriller, Devil’s Tango: How I Learned the Fukushima Step by Step.
Pineda’s doomsday take on global nuclear policies, the deception leading up to and growing out of the failure of GE’s nuclear design at Fukushima, Japan, cast a harsh emotional glare on what should have been a bright, fun read about nuclear disaster.
I had to stop. Not because I can’t dance, but I was terrified to step outside and breathe the air. It’s everywhere.
Pineda scared the living caca out of me. To get around that, I adopt a critical perspective derived from Chapter 104’s title, A Little Bit Goes a Long Way… Fear, like radiation, spreads. The main thing is, don't panic. That's a reading stance to adopt as one reads fact after fact Pineda’s massive research cobbles together to terrify you.
Just as Arellano’s character goes crazy thinking about a nightmare scenario, Pineda’s fact-driven scenarios spur a reader’s imagination to nightmarish personal fears involving one’s grandchildren and loved ones. A little bit of fear goes a long way toward coloring one’s reading. For Devil’s Tango, fear plays continuo behind the driving disharmonies of Pineda’s composition.
There’s the photographer’s story from Chernobyl. From the air, photos showed vast junkyards of radiation contaminated vehicles and other machinery. He couldn’t take a photo at ground level because all that junk, and more, had been swallowed up into the flea market economy. Don’t buy a desk or office chair within the million square miles of Belarus or Ukraine.
There are the soldiers whom Russian leaders sacrificed. Sent them to pick up nuclear waste with their hands, wearing their Army green fatigues and comfortable leather boots. Pineda doesn’t say if they spit-shined those boots.
Three hundred forty thousand soldiers--all of them--died. No record remains of their names, who they were, where they were born or died, or of their cause of death. Pineda denies the unspoken premise, if we don’t know their names, do they matter? QEPD, brothers and sisters. You did your duty. Russian army, U.S. Army, if you see a mushroom cloud on the horizon, you say “yes, sir!” put on your raincoat and march toward the smoke.
If Chernobyl is the boogeyman of nuclear safety, what shall the world consider Fukushima? In the first week after the earthquake, Fukushima has released more radioactive cesium than Chernobyl and all the bombs detonated during the years of atmospheric testing. One hundred tons of fuel…have melted through containment and fallen into the basement of the reactor buildings—something TEPCO admitted only much later. Thousands of tons of radioactive water have been released…contaminating the water and sea life for all eternity or 4.5 billion years, whichever comes first. (84) Scary stuff.
The scariest words Pineda writes are her allusions to all of us being wiped off the face of the earth. Relating a Siberian nuclear accident where years later, the ground still moves, the author observes,
3 Comments on Review: Devil’s Tango. Cultural Tourism. Foto del month. Banned Books Update: Librotraficante film. On-Line Floricanto for the Middle of June., last added: 6/12/2012
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By: msedano,
on 6/4/2012
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Review: The Barbarian Nurseries.
Hector Tobar. The Barbarian Nurseries. NY: Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2011.
ISBN: 9780374108991 0374108994
Michael Sedano
Héctor Tobar has taken the possible and made it impossible.
Absolutely. In fact, name your favorite LA novel, from Chandler to De Lillo to Yxta Maya Murray, and add Tobar’s The Barbarian Nurseries to the top of the list.
Is it possible to find a better Los Angeles novel?
No. The Barbarian Nurseries stands alone as the quintessential cultural portrait of early twenty-first century Los Angeles.
In the novel’s three chapters—three books in one—Tobar begins with an ethnically mixed upwardly mobile family, a Mexican-American software engineer and a down East Anglo mother, caught in their own acquisitional excess and benign neglect of the hired help. The family implodes, stranding the Mexicana maid with two sheltered boys and a hazy notion of where to find the boys’ grandfather.
The final chapter jails the maid for fanciful Anglo-perceived crimes and sends her through the dual processes of a criminal trial and impending deportation.
Tobar takes pains to keep his characters at arm’s length so a reader doesn’t like anyone too much nor despise anyone irrationally.
Araceli, the maid, he paints as a crusty tipa, a Bellas Artes student who bottles her creativity behind pursed lips and curtness. Up until now, life’s greatest slap in the face was getting a scholarship to the instituto but getting no money for brushes and paints. She lives as an example of a character who may die with one thousand masterpieces hanging only from her mind.
Speaking of allusions, stay alert for that Chinese chalk. In preparation, read Olga Garcia’s poem “Sonia on Hope Street.” The poem echoes in one’s memory as Maureen diligently mops away the invisible knowledge locked away in jail with Araceli.
The Torres-Thompson family takes the cake. Actually, several, and all designer-made concoctions. He’s at a career dead-end and she’s stuck at home with two boys and a new-born daughter. We meet Scott sweating and cussing up a storm because his darned lawnmower refuses to cut the lawn as well as it performed for Pepe. Both Pepe, and Maureen’s nanny Guadalupe, had to go, to get expenses under control.
Although Tobar focuses the novel on the pendejadas of Scott, Maureen, and Araceli, he manages to draw the social milieu with broad strokes, as needed using a fine tip to draw out some fine detail from the jumbled landscape that stretches from the Anglo bastions of Orange County to the bus stops of H.P.
There’s the racist ideologue who takes up the cudgel in Tobar’s portrait of thought-absent obsession that sees only “ill” in “immigrant” then stands dumbfounded when her preferred “Just Us” shapes itself to reflect Justice, because bittersweet endings are better than sad ones, and because that’s how The System works. Tobar’s making up only some of this.
There’s the L.A. mayor who talks himself into being undecided whether to choose wishy or washy when it comes to taking a strong pro-comunidad position. In contrast, there’s the Mexican Consul in Santa Ana who is as bumbling a fool as the mayor is a cipher. Much as Tobar dislikes that character, the author gives a final glimpse of the empty man desolate
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By: Sara Dobie,
on 6/4/2012
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Ms. Jenny.
Is the age of thirty any different from twenty-nine? Not particularly. I guess people make a big deal out of it because it’s a nice round number, and it signifies the entrance into a new decade of life. I remember twenty didn’t mean anything, because at twenty, you were old enough to be in college but still too young to legally drink. At thirty, I gain nothing except a three where a two once was, yet because Jenny was here this weekend, I felt like thirty did mean something—because my weekend meant so much.
I met Jenny at work in Charleston, my very first week of habitation in South Carolina. That same week happened to be my birthday week, but I had no plan to celebrate, because I didn’t know anyone. Jenny, however, brought me a cupcake the day of my birthday. It was shocking to have a perfect stranger come into my office and put a cheerfully decorated pastry on my desk. We’ve been friends ever since.
Once Jenny got settled into our new house here in Phoenix, we went out Friday night to Ground Control, where we met friendly bartenders and patrons who bought us expensive shots of Frida Kahlo tequila, bless them. We laughed and laughed until my ribs hurt and I was reminded of all the times we used to cackle on the beaches of South Carolina. Going to bed sounded terrible. Like a kid on Christmas Eve, I was too excited to sleep. I wanted to play, play, play, but since I’m thirty, I’m too old to play, play, play all night … or was I? Friday night, we slept; Saturday night, we didn’t, but we didn’t know what was to come as of Saturday morning, when we put on bathing suits and got mani-pedis together at the spa.
Following a highly productive trip to Total Wine, we went and hung out at a friend’s pool all afternoon. Jake met us there at lunch time, and it was all about the Absolut Miami and pineapple juice. I could have taken a nap, sure, but I didn’t want to miss any Jenny time. We reminisced about Belize, where Jake and I spent every day like Jenny and I spent Saturday.
At five, we showered and dressed, me in a highly out of character skin-tight lavender satin dress. The skin-tight was normal; the pastel color was not. We met the rest of our crew at Hula’s Modern Tiki downtown, where I enjoyed fresh fish and my cocktail of choice, the Dark & Stormy. As a collective, we consumed a Volcano Bowl—a thirty-dollar chalice of mixed liquors and fruit. I received copious offerings of expensive whiskey, tequila, and rum as birthday gifts (I love my friends). The rest of the night was composed of dancing at Sage and Sand, drinking cinnamon-flavored liquor, an after-party at my place (where we tasted all my birthday presents), and an eventual bedtime of 4:30 AM. Who says thi
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By: Sara Dobie,
on 5/22/2012
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JacketFlap tags: Arizona, Add a tag
For the past two years, Jake and I have lived in a two-bedroom, 900-square-foot apartment with one bathroom. As of last April, we added Ripley the sixty-pound dog to that equation. Then, in November, we got married, and once you get married, people assume you’ll do “adult” things like have babies and buy expensive cars. We did neither.
In fact, we wouldn’t have even gone house shopping if not for my claustrophobic stress levels—and the boxes filled with unused wedding gifts in my so-called “office,” which doubled as Jake’s closet. We thought maybe we’d consider buying a house in June of 2012. Then, in April, crushed by the weight of our belongings and lack of yard, Jake said, “I think we should start looking at houses.”
“Give us more space!!”
Furthermore, the houses here had no character. They were faceless, soulless, and lacking in history or sentimentality. Based on my claustrophobia and my love of all things classic, I felt a teaspoon of hopelessness as we set out to shop.
Let me tell you, it wasn’t easy at first. We started with models in neighborhoods at the base of the White Tank Mountains. The models were excellent (that is their intended purpose). However, lack of yard and far off location deterred me and suffocated my enthusiasm. There were the occasional nightmare houses, too: the one that smelled like cat urine, for instance, or the one that had a carpeted master bathroom with no door separating the toilet from the rest of the room. I had visions of waking up in the morning to Jake on the porcelain throne. Shiver.
Then, we did find a house we liked with a perfect view; a nice, updated interior; and a family who seemed happy to move. It was located at the base of the Estrella Mountains, which was fine, except I knew it would be a lifestyle change. No longer would we be within five minutes of our friends, our gym, or our dog park. We put in an offer regardless, and I prayed and prayed that we were doing the right thing. God is a smart guy, however, and He allowed the offer to fall through. Back to square one …
The soon-to-be Bauer abode.
From 900-square-feet we will grow to 2800. From two bed, one bath, we have become four bed, three bath, with a massive kitc
5 Comments on We Bought a House, last added: 5/25/2012
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By: Sara Dobie,
on 4/24/2012
Blog: Sara Dobie's Blog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Writing, Arizona, Canyon Voices, Canyon Voices Literary Magazine, Here but Fading, Sara Dobie Bauer, Add a tag
Blog: Sara Dobie's Blog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Writing, Arizona, Canyon Voices, Canyon Voices Literary Magazine, Here but Fading, Sara Dobie Bauer, Add a tag
Tonight, I will attend my very first magazine launch party at ASU-West for their literary magazine Canyon Voices: Journal for Emerging Writers and Artists. A non-fiction essay I wrote entitled “Here but Fading” made the cut for their spring 2012 edition. Although this may have been the hardest essay I’ve ever written, they’ve asked me to read it at the launch party tonight. Idiot that I am, I agreed. Wish me luck. For your consideration, an excerpt from my most recently published work.
Here but Fading
My grandfather turns ninety this year. As usual, the family will take him out to Red Lobster for his birthday. He won’t remember it. My grandfather has dementia.
His name is Barney Schwind. He joined the Navy when he was just out of high school, left the family farm in Ohio, and headed to Chicago. He would later admit the only reason he joined the Navy was to get a college education for free. See, Papa is a smart guy. He met my grandmother while visiting a buddy in New York City.
Papa’s buddy’s name was Vernon Cochran. Everyone called Vernon “Rusty” because he had red hair. According to the story, Rusty said, “Hey, Barn, you doing anything tomorrow?” My papa said no, so Rusty invited him to a picnic. Rusty promised food, beer, and girls. Papa’s response? “Put me down for three.” He met my grandmother at that picnic. Although he now says he liked her “knockers,” I think he liked a lot about my grandmother. Hell, they’ve been married for over sixty years.
When he tells you the story, he gets a far-off look in his eye—like he’s watching a black and white film version of that particular day. Papa remembers everything from the old days. He remembers classes he took in college. He remembers the one time he stopped over in Charleston, South Carolina. He used to tell me that story all the time when I lived there. I probably heard it a dozen times. The story got old, but hearing his voice never did.
I don’t know if it’s possible to pinpoint the onset of dementia. Dementia is one of those sneaky diseases that creeps up in the dark and makes a home in your head. We knew it was bad when Papa went mad. He claimed Grandma was sleeping around. The accusation would have been funny, considering my grandmother more closely resembles an apple every year. I should have laughed when my mom called to tell me about the incident. She giggled while she explained.
But I didn’t laugh. I couldn’t. Papa was gone, replaced by something foreign and sick. I would later realize my mom had no choice but to laugh. What else could she do? …
(There’s plenty more where this came from. Head over to the Canyon Voices website to read my essay in its completion.)
3 Comments on Published in Canyon Voices: Here but Fading, last added: 4/24/2012
By: Sara Dobie,
on 4/23/2012
Blog: Sara Dobie's Blog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Arizona, Entertainment in AZ, Florence + The Machine, Yayoi Kusama, Arizona Science Center, the art of doing nothing, the art of the moment, Van Gogh Alive, veronique vienne, You Who Are Getting Obliterated in the Dancing Swarm of Fireflies, Add a tag
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JacketFlap tags: Arizona, Entertainment in AZ, Florence + The Machine, Yayoi Kusama, Arizona Science Center, the art of doing nothing, the art of the moment, Van Gogh Alive, veronique vienne, You Who Are Getting Obliterated in the Dancing Swarm of Fireflies, Add a tag
I’m extremely fond of Veronique Vienne, author of masterpieces like The Art of Doing Nothing and The Art of the Moment—small, square-shaped books that hold a lifetime of French wisdom. In the latter of the two aforementioned books, Vienne dedicates a chapter to “The Art of Wonder.”
Quote: “Your attention can allow you to see the beauty of a vacant lot, of an overpass, of a parking lot, even of a blank wall. … In contrast, when you are self-involved (when you are held hostage by your internal dialogue) everyday reality feels quite banal. If you are in a distracted mood, everything is a blur, a drone, a blah—a so-what. … Absorbed in your thoughts, you are not mindful of what’s going on around you. Why should you be? As far as you are concerned, nothing is happening. But wait a minute! Are you sure that nothing is happening? Or could it be that what you assume is ‘nothing’ is, in fact, the lull that precedes a really important event.”
Last week, I experienced events that pulled me out of my banal internal dialogue and threw me into the magical world of wonder. Let me share them with you.
First, I attended a beautiful luncheon at the Phoenix Art Museum. Following my lovely lunch, my companion and I walked around the museum. We almost missed the exhibit that would change my day—and possibly my entire mindset—until a museum guide said, “Did you see the fireflies? You have to see the fireflies.” The fireflies were hidden on the second floor. The only indication that they were actually present was a small white arrow painted on a big, black wall. That little arrow led me into a true out-of-body experience.
The installation is called “You Who Are Getting Obliterated in the Dancing Swarm of Fireflies” by artist Yayoi Kusama. Walking in, you are consumed with blackness until your eyes begin to focus and then you see them: the fireflies. They’re really just a bunch of LED lights, hung at different levels, reflected in mirrors on the walls, ceiling, and floor. Sounds simple, and yet, inside the installation, I lost myself. I lost any sense of my body or mind. I lost the worries of today and the fears of tomorrow. I just stood there and allowed myself to be obliterated. Now, in moments of stress, I try to remember the fireflies, and I plan to go back as soon as possible.
On Thursday night, I attended a volunteer appreciation event at the Arizona Science Center. I was there for one reason and one reason alone: Van Gogh Alive. Combining the troubled artist’s work with light, music (the one they played with Starry Night HERE), and animation, this exhibit is a must see. There are strategically placed benches, and I could have sat there for hours. Not only was the art stunning (especially when projected on room-size canvases), but Van Gogh Alive felt a lot like the fireflies. I lost myself. I had no worries. I felt peaceful, relaxed, and very Zen. The exhibit will be open until June 17. Don’t miss it, and try to go very early in the morning or late in the day. It’s more fun when there are less people around.
Finally, Friday, Jake planned a super-secret date. He told me to wear a nice
4 Comments on Week of Wonder, last added: 4/23/2012
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By: msedano,
on 4/9/2012
Blog: La Bloga (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: poetry, translation, Arizona, chicana literature, Literature in Translation, Add a tag
From Eulogy to Loa
Loa a un ángel de piel morena, NuriaBrufau Alvira’s translation into Spanish of my novel Eulogy for a Brown Angel, was released late in 2011 by theUniversity of Alcalá de Henares’ Instituto Franklin, to whom I am indebted for makingthis possible. I was thrilled, of course, and posted the news on my Facebookwall. Michael Sedano sent his enhorabuenato me. He commented that he was looking forward to reading the opening scene atthe National Chicano Moratorium march and riot in the novel in Spanish. He thenasked for my impressions, for my feelings when Gloria Damasco first “spoke” tome in Spanish. I had asked myself similar questions when I had read the firstand the final drafts of Nuria Brufau Alvira’s splendid translation of my GloriaDamasco mystery novel. Long before, I had also assisted Catherine Rodríguez-Nieto when she translated my poetry into English, and voice in translationbecame one of my concerns.
Of course,literary provocateur that he is —in the best of ways— Michael then invited Nuriaand me to write companion pieces about our respective experiences as author andtranslator for La Bloga. And here we are:
LuchaCorpi
Oakland(California), 2012
A translator´s account of the process
And onceagain, Lucha and I have intertwined our discourses in order to ease the access tothe translation chamber, that frontier space between languages and cultures,where we, as author and translator, have met. And it has been a real encounterbecause we were coming from different locations with dissimilar ways of lovingthe text we were going to work on.
Allowingsomeone to translate one’s text constitutes the maximum act of generosity, becausedespite the impossibility of having absolute control over the meaning of ourown words, we all write in the hope that we will be transmitting certain ideasand values, and that we will be stimulating certain senses in our readers. Honestlyspeaking, all writers aim at spreading a specific message, be it aesthetic or ofanother kind. By allowing someone who is alien to such a creative act torewrite our text we assume the risk of that someone not sharing or even misunderstandingits intended sense, or purpose. For that reason, having one’s text translated reallyis, as I see it, an act of bigheartedness and trust. On the translators’ part, acceptingsuch a task implies the need to welcome each new text with the open attitude ofsomeone that is willing not only to understand and feel, but also to helpothers to understand and feel too. After all, translating is allowingcommunication between those who are different.
Luckilyenough, in this case our efforts of generosity and warm welcome, as well as ofmutual trust, have been greatly and mutually corresponded. Lucha had writtenthe text thinking of an American audience who is more or less familiarized withthe Chicano movement and its claims, but who might als
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By: msedano,
on 4/2/2012
Blog: La Bloga (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: banned books, poems, Arizona, bless me ultima, Literature in Translation, Floricanto Movement, women detectives, fiction in translation, Librotraficante Caravan, Add a tag
Guest Columnists: Lucha Corpi and Nuria Brufau Alvira. Translation and Voice: A poet’s and writer’s views.
Michael Sedano
La Bloga is honored and excited to present this two-part series by Lucha Corpi and Nuria Brufau Alvira, Translation and Voice: A poet’s and writer’s views. The pair examines the process of Nuria's translating Lucha's Eulogy for a Brown Angel into the 2011 Spanish novel, Loa a un ángel de piel morena.
In Eulogy, Corpi writes one of the best opening scenes in chicana chicano literature, a woman fleeing the police riot at Laguna Park, stumbles upon grisly infanticide. Corpi grabs the reader's attention and hurls the reader into a moral morass. The publisher notes:
Loa a un ángel de piel morena es una novela trepidante, de gran suspense, y llena de personajes diversos e interesantes. En el apogeo del movimiento chicano a favor de los derechos civiles en 1970, el cuerpo profanado de un niño pequeño yace inerte en una calle del Este de Los Ángeles, durante una de las manifestaciones socio-políticas más violentas en la historia de California. La activista política Gloria Damasco descubre el cuerpo del pequeño y, en ese instante, se enfrenta también el hecho de que su modo de percibir la realidad es un «don obscuro» que va más allá de la lógica «normal». En el transcurso de las siguientes cuarenta y ocho horas, dos personas más mueren asesinadas. Gloria no se permite sino el seguirle la pista a los asesinos hasta verlos entre rejas, así le lleve toda la vida. Cada paso en su investigación la conduce de Los Ángeles a la Bahía de San Francisco. Así mismo, la introduce en el camino de una conspiración internacional, una sangrienta venganza, y la violenta y trágica conclusión del caso en la pintoresca región vinícola de Napa, California.
In today's guest column, Lucha Corpi relates the writer’s experience in seeing her creation transformed in the hands of another, in understanding the uniquely creative writing process of translating chicanidad along with the words.
Next Tuesday, April 10, Nuria Brufau Alvira relates the translator’s experience negotiating the confluences of language, speech, cultural content, plot, and character, to fashion for Spanish language readers the same novel United States readers recognize as a classic of la literatura chicana.
La Bloga readers can order both novels via their local independent bookseller.
Lucha Corpi. Nuria Brufau Alvira. Loa a un ángel de piel morena : una novela de misterio. Madrid: Alcala de Henares Universidad de Alcalá, Instituto Universitario de Investigación en Estudios Norteamericanos "Benjamin Franklin", 2011.ISBN 9788481389432 8481389439
Lucha Corpi. Eulogy for a brown angel: a mystery novel. Houston: Arte Publico Press, 1992.
ISBN 15
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By: Shari Lyle-Soffe ,
on 4/2/2012
Blog: Shari Lyle-Soffe (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: family, love, God, animals, Oregon, honor, parents, faith, Arizona, Christian, marriage, pregnant, birth control, Add a tag
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZR6DqWkcVo&feature=youtu.be
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By: msedano,
on 3/26/2012
Blog: La Bloga (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Librotraficante Caravan, poetry, poems, Arizona, Rudolfo Anaya, Floricanto Movement, Add a tag
Librotraficante Phase II – the FU
Michael Sedano
“Something is wrong in this country,” the waiter said, then the headlines screamed Trayvon Martin was gunned down then someone died to give Dick Cheney a heart and gente like that waiter stopped thinking about the banned books that remain banned.
So it goes. Book banning enters the churn.
Now los Librotraficantes and those likewise outraged by Tucson AZ racists banning books face the key stage in any endeavor: FU.
Either Follow Up or Foul Up. Follow Up and keep alive the message. Foul up and become flavor-of-the-month, last month’s causa.
“When Arizona decided to erase our history,” Tony Diaz says, “we decided to make more history.”
Beneath the insouciance glares a serious mission, to make history. Of course, one cannot not make history. The wetbooks imperative holds there be one continuous voice out of the future through the present and into the past to time immemorial. It’s why the current literary movimiento should have staying power.
Moral imperative alone isn't enough. Staying power means a message finds its audience. The audience forms an attitude. For Tony Diaz and the Librotraficante busriders, the opportunity opens to stoke intensity among like-minded listeners.
Los Librotraficantes continue a P.R. program, announcing Phase II of their plan on their website. Houston is home base for los wetbooks right now, with media hubs coming out of Alburquerque and Los Angeles, helping find audiences.
Independently, two video sources enrich the outlook for ongoing expressions from the caravan, the host of the Alburquerque fundraiser, the Alburquerque Cultural Conference, and Latinopia.
Latinopia is the video host of both the ACC-produced fundraiser video and an upcoming series of La
1 Comments on On-Line Floricanto Wrapping March, last added: 3/27/2012
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By: Elvin Lim,
on 3/6/2012
Blog: OUPblog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: RNC, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, super tuesday, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, *Featured, Elections 2012, Republican nomination, santorum, Law & Politics, Current Affairs, elephant, Michigan, Arizona, romney, ohio, Add a tag
By Elvin Lim
The clumsy elephant / J.S. Pughe. (Puck, 1908). Source: Library of Congress.
And therein lies the weakness of Romney’s candidacy. He had his donors sweating yet again when news spread that Democrats in Michigan’s open primary were going to turn out to tip the state in Santorum’s favor. The result is that Romney’s three-point win there pales in comparison to his lead over the eventual nominee back in 2008, which was nine percent. In 2008 there was only one anti-Obama candidate by March. Romney faces not one, but three anti-Romneys this late in the game. Looking ahead to Super Tuesday, Newt Gingrich has a home field advantage in the biggest delegate prize so far in Georgia and Ron Paul is positioned to do well in the Alaska and North Dakota caucuses.
Rick Santorum, for his part, still has some momentum left in him because the Michigan results were partly masked by the fact that 184,000 had voted early and Santorum’s surge occurred only recently. The campaign will try to clinch a symbolic win on Sunday in Washington, which is a caucus state (but whose delegates will not be bound by the results). With or without Washington, Santorum has a real shot at victory in Ohio, where he polls well with blue-collar conservatives. All told, there are still not implausible ways out of the Romney nomination.
This is not all the candidate’s fault, however — bland and awkward performer he may be. If the RNC wanted to lengthen the nomination process and expand proportional representation (rather than winner-take-all) in the races, it should have waited until there was an open race on the Democratic side as well. In other words, Republican elders tried to mimic what the Democrats managed to do in 2008 and it is starting to blow up in their face. What compounds this strategic misstep is that in order to punish states who had moved their primaries up the calendar, the RNC, by stripping errant states for front-loading, made it even more possible for a slew of early contests to name a different frontrunner than in previous contests. Thereby they permitted more chaos when they should have known that this would occur alongside an incumbent Democrat with no challenge to his nomination. And of course there was the added wild card of Citizens’ United and the resulting superPACs that has made the survival of little-known candidates more likely than before.
Moving forward, the RNC will have to weigh the costs of controlling the primary calendar, because doing so has weakened the momentum of whoever emerges as the party’s nominee and shortened the time left for him to campaign as a general election candidate. For his part, Romney will be throwing everything but the kitchen sink in to sustain his air of inevitability; but the RNC has effectively determined by rules set in 2010 that the deal definitely won’t be sealed next Tuesday.
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By: Alice,
on 2/28/2012
Blog: OUPblog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Arizona, A Better Pencil, *Featured, Lexicography & Language, ballot, Law & Politics, cabrera, luis, Dennis Barron, Alejandrina Cabrera, city council elections, official English language laws, poor english, San Luis, Spanglish, alejandrina, xxviii, “state, officers”, Add a tag
By Dennis Barron
For perhaps the first time ever, a candidate was struck from an Arizona ballot for poor English. Judge John Nelson of the Yuma County Superior Court ruled that Alejandrina Cabrera cannot run for city council in the border town of San Luis because she doesn’t know enough English to fulfill her duties. The State Supreme Court upheld that decision on appeal.
90% of San Luis’ 25,000 residents speak Spanish as they go about their day. But Cabrera’s candidacy was challenged by the town’s mayor, a political rival who admits that his own English could be better, because Arizona law requires elected officials to speak English. A court-appointed sociolinguist determined that Cabrera possessed only survival-level English skills, and so Judge Nelson disqualified her.
Cabrera, an American citizen, appealed the decision, arguing that since the law doesn’t specify how much English an office-holder needs to know, it should be up to the voters and not the courts to decide if she is qualified. Arizona has one of the most restrictive official English laws in the country, but a close reading of that law shows that even if her English is halting, she should be back on the ballot.
The Arizona constitution, adopted in 1910 in anticipation of statehood, which was granted two years later, imposes an English requirement on some state officials: “The ability to read, write, speak, and understand the English language sufficiently well to conduct the duties of the office without the aid of an interpreter, shall be a necessary qualification for all state officers and members of the state legislature” (Art. XX, sec. 8).
Above: Article XX, sec. 7, of the 1910 Arizona Constitution provides for secular public schools which “shall always be conducted in English.” Below: Sec. 8 of the constitution also requires “state officers” and members of the legislature to know enough English to do their jobs without the help of a translator.
The requirement — with its reference to interpreters — is aimed at those Arizonans who speak Spanish or Native American languages, but it only covers legislators and “state officers,” defined in article V of the constitution (as amended in 1992) as the governor, secretary of state, state treasurer, attorney general, and supervisor of public instruction.
Reporting to Congress on the applications of Arizona and New Mexico for statehood in 1911, the House Committee on the Territories forced New Mexico to drop a similar language qualification for office holders from its 1910 constitution (Art. 21, se
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By: Jessica Lanan,
on 2/7/2012
Blog: Jessica Lanan Illustration (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Painting, sketch, watercolor, Arizona, Tucson, Add a tag
It may be cold and snowy in Colorado right now, but it seems I am thinking of warmer climates. Here’s a watercolor sketch I made this evening based on a photograph I took in Tucson. A nice spot to have some tea and read a book if you ask me.
By: msedano,
on 2/3/2012
Blog: La Bloga (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: banned books, photography, Arizona, art Surrealism, Add a tag
La Bloga-Friday columnist Melinda Palacio is taking the day off owing to an exhausting two-day sitting with noted portratist Margaret Garcia. Ms. Garcia has accepted Tia Chucha Press’ commission to paint Melinda’s portrait for the cover of Palacio’s upcoming poetry collection from Tia Chucha Press. Melinda, via Denise Chavez, sends along news of Librotraficantes infiltrating Arizona with banned books.
Librotraficantes Caravan Coming To Mesilla
Because Latino Studies has been banned in Arizona, writers and activists are organizing a caravan to Tucson to smuggle banned Latino books back into Arizona! Librotraficante Banned Book Bash Caravan will be filled with authors and activists bringing banned books back into Arizona, to give away. The bus will be filled with authors who were banned, new authors, as well as other advocates concerned with preserving First Amendment rights of Equal Protection and Freedom of Speech.
Librotraficantes Banned Book Caravan leaves Houston Monday, March 12. Librotraficantes Banned Book Caravan arrives in Tucson Saturday, March 17.
Librotraficantes Banned Book Caravan plans stops in Texas and New Mexico prior to infiltrating Arizona's lightly guarded Eastern border. Additional stops will be listed as they are finalized, and as funding permits. Donations can be given to Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say by visiting the website www.librotraficante.com
Librotraficante Tony Díaz, accompanied by various writers, holds a press conference and a Quick Lit Throw Down reading on Thursday, March 15 at ten a.m. at Cultural Center de Mesilla, home base of the Border Book Festival. The caravan heads to Albuquerque that evening for a Librotraficante Banned Book Bash at a location to be announced.
Among banned authors participating throughout the week will be Sandra Cisneros, Dagoberto Gilb, Luis Alberto Urrea.
Foto Essay: "In Wonderland: The Surrealist Adventures Of Women Artists In Mexico And The United States"
Michael Sedano
It’s as good as you think it’s going to be. That’s my final verdict on "In Wonderland: The Surrealist Adventures Of Women Artists In Mexico And The United States,” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art until May 6, 2012. Not that the experience comes unflawed, but the art certainly co
1 Comments on Bits & Pieces On A Winter Friday, last added: 2/3/2012
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Re your comment: "What I’m most excited about right now is the growing population of Chicana Chicano speculative fiction."
Bloguero novelist Ernest Hogan put it another way: " I hear rumors of an international Latino New Wave in speculative fiction."
Ink sounds like another Chicano nail in the coffin of Anglos' stranglehold on American spec lit. While we will yet write of El Cucui, we've begun injecting our Spanglo palabras, our Chicano characters and our Raza experience into mainstream spec lit. A ver qué va pasar.
RudyG
Best of luck to Sabrina Vourvoulias with INK! It's time for the future to zigzag across the border.
Thank you, Ernest and Rudy (and Em)!
Unidos en la lucha,
Sabrina