Melinda Palacio
 |
| Joseph Millar, Aaron Smith, Melinda Palacio, Maria Gillan, Richard Blanco |
Last Saturday, I enjoyed my fifteen minutes (or more) of fame. I'm still feeling the glow of being including in the finalists for the Paterson Poetry Prize. I had the pleasure of meeting three poets with varying and powerful styles, including our winner, 5th Inaugural Poet Richard Blanco of Beyoncé and Anderson Cooper fame, and finalists Aaron Smith and Joseph Millar. What a way to celebrate Poetry Month! 
I'll skip the whiny details about my flights being delayed and then cancelled. Flying into Newark resulted in only a four-hour delay, but the airline gave me a one-hundred dollar voucher, which I'll use for an upcoming trip to Chicago where La Bloga will celebrate its 10th anniversary at the International Latino/a Studies Conference in July. I guess I'm going to complain a little bit more about my travel. On the way back, my plane was delayed by 12 hours, and then cancelled after midnight with no voucher or hotel stay because the problems was weather related. You win some, you lose some, I kept telling myself, and continued telling myself when I realized I had lost an entire day and a half at the airport in Newark.
 |
| Cancelled, delayed, bumped, and finally rerouted to Houston the next day. |
Speaking of winning, I sure felt like a winner being included in the Paterson Prize for my book, How Fire Is a Story, Waiting (Tia Chucha Press). Our winner, Richard Blanco, delighted the audience with a reading from his latest book, Looking for The Gulf Motel (University of Pittsburgh Press). Blanco reads poetry like a dancer. His foot and hand movements are reminiscent of el maestro Martín Espada. I enjoy watching poets who read with their entire bodies, offering body, soul, and voice to the listener.  |
| Richard Blanco |
 |
| Joseph Millar |
Next, Joseph Millar took the stage and read from Blue Rust (Carnegie Mellon University Press). Millar had a casual delivery that impressed me with his ease at being in front of a packed room, his ease at being a poet, and his ease at simply being. He's a cool cat who returned to poetry after two decades of working a various jobs in the San Francisco Bay Area. And he didn't miss a beat.
 |
| Maria Gillan |
Maria Gillan, Founder and Executive Director of the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College told us ahead of time that Richard would be reading first, but we didn't know the overall order. I may have been nervous and spacing out during that memo, but recall feeling joyous when she called me up to read at the historic Hamilton Club Building in downtown Paterson, a beautiful building that was once a gentleman's club. Paterson is a town that could use some maintenance and TLC for its gorgeous building and famous Paterson Falls.
 |
| Paterson Falls |
 |
| Melinda Palacio |
 |
| The Poetry Center |
 |
| Aaron Smith |
Aaron Smith brought us home and brought down the house with his reading from Appetite (Pitt Poetry Series University of Pittsburgh Press). I already felt as though I knew Aaron because we have a mutual poet friend in New Orleans, Brad Richard, who I had the pleasure of reading with two days before I left for Newark at the Reading Between the Wines Series at Pearl Wine co.  |
| Aaron Smith asked me to sign his book before we read. |
Aaron also bought my book and asked me to sign it. In fact, he bought all of our books, a wonderful gesture of poet to poet support and camaraderie. Aaron has allowed La Bloga to reprint his poem,
| Like Him |
|
| by Aaron Smith |
|
|
| I’m almost forty and just understanding my father doesn’t like me. At thirteen I quit basketball, the next year refused to hunt, I knew he was disappointed, but never thought he didn’t have to like me to love me. No girls. Never learned to drive a stick. Chose the kitchen and mom while he went to the woods with friends who had sons like he wanted. He tried fishing—a rod and reel under the tree one Christmas. Years I tried talking deeper, acting tougher when we were together. Last summer I went with him to buy a tractor. In case he needs help, Mom said. He didn’t look at me as he and the sales guy tied the wheels to the trailer, perfect boy-scout knots. Why do I sometimes wish I could be a man who cares about cars and football, who carries a pocketknife and needs it? It was January when he screamed: I’m not a student, don’t talk down to me! I yelled: You’re not smart enough to be one! I learned to fight like his father, like him, like men: the meanest guy wins, don't ever apologize. |
Upcoming April Events
April 30, UCSB Little Theatre, 4pm
May 2, First Friday Phoenix, 6:30 pm at Obliq Gallery
Lisa Alvarado - Interview with Luz Maria Umpierre
Luz Maria Umpierre has wrought a legacy, a challenge, a history, a love letter, a sinuous and sentient record of personal identity, revealing the crosshatched scars and singing victories of a warrior, the yielding body and the body politic in
"I'm still standing- 30 Years of Poetry -available through her website
http://luzmaumpierre.com"Luz Maria Umpierre is, quite simply, one of my heroes in a postmodern world that insists on ridding us of icons and pedestals in an attempt to level all people and institutions. Paradoxically, some institutions seem to merit such debasement when they never miss an opportunity to hound the historically marginalized and alternative voices out of the academy." Dr.Eric Pennington (Seton Hall)
She is an established scholar in the fields of Puerto Rican, Caribbean, Latina/o Studies, Poetry, and Gender Studies, with multiple publications in leading journals, including Hispania, Latin American Theatre Review, Revista do Estudios Hispánicos, Bilingual Review, Chasqui, Explicación do Textos Literarios, Chicana/Latina Studies and The Americas Review. Co-founder of the journal, Third Woman. Also published in internet journals, including La Acera, Diálogo Digital, Cruce and La Bloga.
Author of two books of literary criticism, ten collections of bilingual poetry, numerous book chapters and over 50 articles of literary criticism on Latin American scholars and writers from several generations, including a seminal article on writers and migration published in MELUS in 2002 and currently included in an anthology of essays in honor of Isabel Allende.
Her collected works and personal papers currently housed at De Paul University, Latina rare book collection housed at Bryn Mawr College.
She is recognized internationally as an authority on the interdisciplinary study of Literature, the Social Sciences, History and Language, especially regarding race, culture, gender identity and ethnicity. Complete list of publications available on request.
What do you believe is the purpose of poetry?The purpose of poetry is to liberate the spirit, our soul, so that it has a concrete expression that is palpable. And as Julia Alvarez said in one of my favorite poems of all times, to be able to say "Whoever reads this poem, touches a woman." I am hoping that I am quoting her correctly because my copy of her book is at my rare book collection at Bryn Mawr. I can and will accept to be corrected in my quote but not in my idea. LOL
What do you consider to be "Latino/a" themes?All themes are Latina themes. It is the vision or the approach we take as Latinas what gives them a sabor or authenticity that is ours. For example, many years ago I took Vanguardista poetry which was highly non-politicized and turned it into political poetry. From there, for example, emerged my Poemas Concretistas.
To say that there are Latina themes is to reduce us. Granted there are subject matters such as identity that we explore more than other groups of writers but I would not say that there are Latina themes and non Latina themes. All themes are human themes and that is overall the most important theme to me.
Describe the intersection of sexual identity and culture as it lives in your writing?I learned from Audre Lorde years and years ago that I cannot be asked to divide my Self into separate pieces of identity and ignore some in favor of others. That to me would be mutilation. I refuse to mutilate my rich identity for the sake of pleasing the eye of a beholder or for an aesthetics of a political correctdness of beauty. Thus all aspects of my identity and culture live in harmony in my works.
What would you say to critics of your lesbian-identified work? That they get a life and start living in the 21st. century. I never forced them to leave their heterosexist and nationalist macho agenda views through meanness, non inclusion or actual shuning. On the contrary, I questioned them publicly and made my dissenting opinions known to them. I did not go back stabbing them, making calls to bad mouth them into being denied jobs, I did not refuse to teach them in my classes. To the contrary, I included them because I wanted to have an open dialogue about difference. But "I'm Still Standing" as the only dancer on that inclusion floor because some of these people are so petty that they refuse to engage me in public and face to face or, as Lorraine Sutton marvelously said in one of her poems: "to cunt-front" me.
How has academia enhanced/impinged upon your creative process?They have always wanted to deny me a claim to my poetry as an academic achievement. However, I have not allowed them to infringe on my freedom to write. I have used my academic struggles precisely to question antics and tactics in academia and make fun, mock and criticize their elitism and snobbery.
Who are some authors who move you and why? Adrienne Rich, her book The Dream of A Common Language has been my Bible since the 1980s. Nemir Matos Cintron has poems in her collections A través del aire y del fuego pero no del cristal and in Aliens in NYC that have made me cry time and time again because of her portrayal of genuine human identity angst. I recently re/read a poem by Ana Castillo entitled: "I Ask The Impossible" and I am afraid that I ruined the Thai Lemon Tilapia dish that I was eating while reading it because I began to cry uncontrollably. I feel that we have all have wanted to be loved that way and her poem is a voicing of a human need that I had never read exposed in poetry. Lorde also moved me with some of her poems on women. Marge Piercy's book The Moon is Always Female has some of my favorite poems of all times because of her delving into what constitutes to be a strong woman. Julia de Burgos, of course she is part of our collective unconscious as Puerto Ricans. The theme of the river in her poetry and the sea attracts me.
What are some thoughts you would share with newer poetas/poetisas/Nuyorican poets?To remember that many people paved a path for them and they should be honored, not bullied, harassed, shunned and most importantly, not disrespected.
I think Puerto Rican poets of the younger generation have no respect towards their elders, their sages, those who broke a path for them now to enjoy. They are not like other Latina groups. I am marveled by the respect of Mexican Americans towards their wiser older Latinas/Latinos something that is totally lacking among young poets be they Puerto Rican or Nuyorican.
I would like to let them know that one day they will inevitably be older and if they do not change their ways and attitudes, they too will be the subject of disrespect.
What sustains your creative and spiritual longevity?The power to love, to find love, to see everything with fresh eyes, to be able to marvel at beauty and to be passionate about living. But also, as the poem says: "To be of use."
New poetry anthology
An upcoming anthology of Latino poety includes Bloguera Lisa Alvarado and others, making this a fine collection. A review or reviews soon to come on La Bloga.
Me No Habla With Acento: Contemporary Latino Poetry
Edited by Emanuel Xavier
From the publisher:
This anthology of contemporary Latino poetry celebrates the rich mosaic of a major arts movement within the United States featuring poets and spoken word artists from across the country. Pages are filled with English, Spanglish, and even Spanish, but the unifying theme throughout this uncompromising book is the great oral tradition and diversity of a community that has significantly contributed to American culture beyond bookstores and cafes.
The inspiring and powerful voices captured in this collection include: Edwin Torres, Rigoberto Gonzalez, Maria Rodriguez-Morales, Erik "Advocate of Wordz" Maldonado, Bonafide Rojas, Luzma Umpierre, Paul S. Flores, Roberto "Simply Rob" Vassilarakis, Caridad de la Luz "La Bruja", Nancy Mercado, Urayoan Noel, Chris "Chilo" Cajigas, Latasha N. Nevada Diggs, Roberto F. Santiago, Frank Perez, Sheila Maldonado, John "Chance" Acevedo, Machete Movement, Lisa Alvarado, A. B. Lugo, Jason "Majestik Originality" Hernandez, Myrna Nieves, Tito Luna, and Carlos Andres Gomez. Also includes B&W artwork by Juan Betancurth and a foreword by Gonzalo Casals, Director of Education and Public Programs for El Museo del Barrio. Published in association with El Museo del Barrio.
For interview requests or promotional photography of the editor or any of the featured contributors, please email emanuelATemanuelxavierDOTcom.
For more info, click here.
_ _ _ _ __ _
Letras Latinas Blog
Check out the Weblog of the literary program of the Institute for Latino Studies, at the University of Notre Dame. Today there's a posted article called "Victor Martinez, Chicano Poet/Author Passed Today," written by amigo Francisco X. Alarcón.
And here's what they say about the website:
Letras Latinas, the literary program of the Institute for Latino Studies, seeks to enhance the visibility, appreciation and study of Latino literature both on and off the campus of the University of Notre Dame. We are partic
Francisco Aragón interviewed by Lydia Gil
LG: Could you comment on the representation of Latino poets during National Poetry Month? Were there any major events that highlighted Latino poets?
FA: Two events come to mind with regard to events featuring Latino and Latina poets this month. One took place this past April 17th in the Bronx: "ACENTOS Festival of Latino and Latina Poets." Fish Vargas and Rich Villar were, I believe, the principal organizers and among the poets that took part were Martin Espada and Willie Perdomo among more established voices and Diana Marie Delgado, Rachel McKibbens, and Paul Martinez Pompa, among more emerging ones. But there were many more. The other signature event this past month took place at an AWP off-site event in Denver, CO on April 9th: it was a "One Poem Festival" sponsored by Momotombo Press and PALABRA and whose organizers included the poets John Michael Rivera, J. Michael Martínez and elena minor, the editor of PALABRA. This event featured nearly 30 poets from all over the country, including Richard Blanco, Diana Garcia, Tim Z. Hernandez, Kristin Naca, Gloria Vando and so many others. One special feature of the evening was that at its conclusion, Silvia Curbelo, the judge of the Andres Montoya Poetry Prize, officially announced Emma Trelles as the winner of the 4th edition of this prize, which supports the publication of a first book by a Latino or Latina poet. I would also point to the Latino Writers Collective in Kansas City, MO, particularly the efforts of Linda Rodriguez in organizing both readings and workshops there.
LG: Have you seen any major developments in the visibility and production of Latino poets in the US in the past decade? If so, to what do you attribute them?
Thank you so much!
Gracias a Lisa y La Bloga por darme una manera de llegar al mundo amigo de California.
Phebe Karen Beiser: As a poet, woman, & lesbian, I am honored by all your contributions to the world. Brava!
Message Left on Facebook!