La Bloga friend Vanessa Acosta of Cultural Arts Tours & Workshops will be sponsoring an extensive series of workshops and festivals for writers and artists. The first workshop event comes this weekend at Church of the Angels at 1100 Avenue 64, Pasadena, CA 91105.
Naomi Quiñonez, noted poet and scholar, conducts the 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. workshop. Enrollment continues through the day of the event, but reservations strongly advised as Dr. Quiñonez prefers a small group and will close registration at 15 poets.
Writers who have been writing poetry and are comfortable with their voice and satisfied with their themes and style are encouraged to attend. The workshop will help writers develop their language use as a tool to create stronger and more powerful metaphors, symbolism and imagery and to create awareness of how language serves to establish tone, enhance themes and improve style.
For details, click the images below, or call / email Vanessa at 323.300.0060 /
[email protected] .
Michael Sedano
"4th Sunday of Every Month," the email taunts me. Taunts, because invariably my good intentions of attending a La Palabra Monthly poetry event run afoul of some other commitment. I have subscription seats to Sunday concerts for LA Phil at Disney Hall and
Coleman Chamber Music Association at Cal Tech. Often our tickets fall on a fourth Sunday.
Or sometimes I start an early morning project that grows like topsy into the afternoon, and 2:00 p.m. comes and I'm covered in dirt or chicken poop and would make a poor seat mate to some hapless poetry lover.
And poetry lovers are whom one meets at La Palabra's monthly poetry celebration. At any rate, that's how it turned out for me when I was able to get cleaned up early enough on Sunday the 23d of November (tempus fugit!), to arrive unfashionably late.
I'm so late that I don't get a program and can show only the portraits of the gente reading their well-crafted work. I cannot tell you the names of these poets.
La Palabra evidently holds Open Mic readings to launch the afternoon, followed by scheduled poets. The Emcee pictured here with a close-up of her Open Mic sign-up board is most likely the Co-Host of La Palabra, Laura Longoria.
Despite the sign-ups of three men and a woman, one of the poets either did not perform, or, owing to my tardiness, she read before my arrival, and I missed her work.
So I am treated to readings by the three Open Mic men. It's an intimate setting, a white-walled space with twenty or so plastic chairs arranged three rows deep. Being a photographer, I zig and zag myself through the chairs to take an empty seat in the front row. The space is small enough that every word would likely be audible from the back row. This adds to the enjoyment of the verse, not straining to make out the words.
One gentleman, weara a "Poetry Daily" t-shirt publicizing the
website of the same name.
Another reader announces he's just written the piece he'll read. He reads his work off the back of the program.
Dog gone it, I wish I could tell you the name of the Cubana who reads several pieces about her cultura and growing up in Habana
with Orishas and Yemeya and Babalaos. She weaves an entertaining narrative between her formal pieces, playing a vinyl disc and a CD that illustrate her work. Fabulously entertaining, she doesn't, or cannot, stay at the lectern but moves about. At one point she dances to the infectious beat of island drumming.
Next up is Don Newton. I can tell you his name because he's one of the sponsors of La Palabra, and Don's and Emcee Laura's name is on the publicity posted at Avenue 50 Studio's
homepage, the host of the event. Don shares some autobiographical work recounting events growing up in New Jersey, Mexico, and Brazil.
It's clear that Don and la Cubana are close friends. I'm sure their bonds aren't the sole reason they read today. Obviously both enjoy the process of reading and performing their poetry.
I am relieved I finally had the opportunity of a free fourth Sunday. Here all this time I'd been castigating myself thinking I was missing a grand experience. And I was right, La Palabra is a grand experience, not to be passed by under ordinary circumstances.
Now if the Phil or Coleman would just cooperate and not schedule competing events, I'd have no conflicts and could happily attend every La Palabra. Who knows, maybe next time I have a conflict, I'll give away my concert tickets and sign up for the Open Mic.
Flor Y Canto Progress Report
I spent last week at the University of California, Riverside Tomás Rivera Library Media Center, digitizing the library's collection of
U-matic video cassettes. This is a time-consuming process that is 25% completed. Next week I'll post a few snippets of work, for example, Omar Salinas, whose readings would have been the ideal accompaniment to Karen Harlow McClintock's
touching eulogy of her friendship with the poet.
I am happy--make that overjoyed--to report that USC, as the Copyright owner, has granted me permission to make these copies and share them with La Bloga and Read! Raza visitors. Rest assured I'm no
Digital Millenium Act scofflaw.
I'll be conducting a workshop in "reading your stuff" at next year's
National Latino Writers Conference, and am integrating selections from some of these 1973 Festival de Flor Y Canto readings as part of my lesson plan.
With the creation of DVDs of these historic performances, planning for the 2010 Festival de Flor Y Canto is making great progress. Click
here for the Call for Writers to that event. If you're an alumna alumnus of that 1973 Festival, please contact me for an invitation to the 2010 reunion!
That's the final Tuesday of November 2008. It's the week for tofu turkey loaf, if you're so inclined, or real roasted bird. My grandmother, Emilia Macias, was the best poultry dresser of the Inland Empire. People used to drive from all over southern California to DeYoung's Poultry in Redlands to get a bird prepared by my grandmother. Granma, you wouldn't recognize what they do to coconos nowadays.
Happy Thanksgiving, whether you're having tamales or turkey or tofu. See you next week, December 2, with some of those 1973 readers.
Ate, les wachamos,
mvs
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Review: Primera Pagina. Poetry from the Latino Heartland.
Kansas City, MO: 2008
ISBN 978-0-9791291-1-7
Michael Sedano
A few weeks ago, at the National Latino Writers Conference, I had the pleasure of hearing several of the women read their work included in this welcome anthology coming to us out of Kansas City, Missouri. These are effective, competent voices that fit well into the encompassing genre of "Chicana Chicano" arts.
"Latino" in the subtitle lets the collection cover a lot of ground, but principally this collection features Chicana Chicano poets. Which is to say, the poems reflect many of the themes and images that have populated poesía chicana over the years.
Among the preponderant themes echoed in this collection is the "lost and ruined homeland" that evokes places like barrios or Aztlán. Here, the subtitle, "from the Latino Heartland" places all the works into that geographic perspective. We may write in Kansas, the theme suggests, but we're from someplace else, the same place as the rest of you, the rest of us.
One expression of place is Gabriela N. Lemmons' "Kansas," where the poet declares, "I know when they harvest winter wheat,/ when corn needs to be planted, and how/ close to God people think they are. / But I don't know one multi-tongued latino, / where I can buy pumpkin empanadas, / dulce de leche and De La Rosa Mazapán. / Whether La Llorona roams in white or black /in these parts and what creeks she frequents? / I cannot remember how/ a wetback smells anymore, / soon after he crosses el Río Grande-- / the vein of my roots meandering / in hues of azul."
Lemmons adopts a tactic of footnoting all her Spanish phrases for the English-only reader. Empanadas (italicized in the note, not in the poem) are pies; dulce de leche is caramel; mazapan (sans diacritic) is peanut butter candy; La Llorona is the legendary wailing woman (Mexican Tale); azul is blue.
Another commonly read theme, the Anglo as devil, the exploitation of gente by officialdom, comes in for an interesting twist in Chato Villalobos' "Brown Eyes in Blue". The twist is the poet writes in the voice of a police officer who believes his presence brings security and justice to his pueblo. Aware of the contradiction, the poet writes, "I hesitate before looking in the mirror / That's when visions of Malinche appear / Because nothing really looks out of place / Until I see the brown skin of my own face." Pride of position overcomes fear of contradiction as the poem resolves with the thought, "The barrio calls for me I can't refuse / 'Cause I know they'll be safe with brown eyes in blues."
Not every writer attempts to put an ethnic or cultural gloss on their work. For instance, José Faus' work covers 28 pages of work that defies its placement in a "Latina Latino" collection. In contrast, Xánath Caraza writes facing-page bilingual poems. Speaking of language, English is the mode of expression for these pages.
Primera Página is a delightful collection of relatively new voices--the opening poet is San Diego's Taco Shop Poet, Tomas Riley. Aside from the pleasure of finding promising new poets, I found an excellent approach to these poets is reading the women first, then the men. An opportunity for dialog emerges from this approach. Some women expose the brutality of abusive men, as when Linda Rodriguez' "P.O.W." recounts the savagery of sexual abuse of a 9-year old girl by her father. The men are oblivious to these charges. To them, women are objects for play and seduction, as in Andrés Rodriguez' "Chronicle of a Salvadorian Girl," whose saving grace is the man and woman are clueless together. I would think the follow-up volume will bring these disparate points of view into confrontation. Since the anthology is product of a collective, I hope they'll do this and let us see what emerges.
One Bit: Printmaking and BBQ in Highland Parque.
Grand Opening
Sunday, June 22, 2008 @ 5:00 pm
Sonia Romero’s Printmaking Studio
Museum of Traffic, LLC
and
Launching of community partner LACommons’s website (www.lacommons.org)
Sunday, June 22, 2008 starting at 5:00 pm
Please join us for a barbeque/barbacoa afternoon as we celebrate the new at the Avenue 50 Studio
Food ~ Music ~ Art
Plus, a demonstration of printmaking by Sonia Romero
We invite you to join us and bring a refreshment or food in celebration
Avenue 50 Studio(s), Inc.
131-135 No. Avenue 50
Highland Park, CA
90042
323/258-1435
Bit Two: Latinos in Lotusland reading and book signing.
Among the major independent booksellers on the eastside of the Los Angeles basin is Vroman's, in Pasadena. The two locations don't stock a lot of Chicana Chicano literature, so it was a pleasant surprise to read that the store was to host an evening of writers featured in the Daniel Olivas-edited anthology.
It was a pleasantly full house of readers and writers who attended to enjoy some stimulating presentations. Most encouraging was the energetic jostle after the readings and Q&A. Vroman's must have sold a goodly number of the increasingly popular title. I hope the attendance and sales persuade Vroman's to host more Chicana Chicano Latina Latino writers.
Sandra Ramos O’Briant. Lana Turner Slept Here.
O'Briant clearly practiced her reading, plus she's an effective reader. But beyond that, O'Briant went to the extra effort to pare her story down to what she felt was a manageable time, and read from a typescript rather than the book. Two strangers in a chance encounter share painful marriage stories and learn that caring for others has a price, and it's probably worth it.
Victorio Barragán. Daylight Dreams.
Barragan shared his first published work, a tale of bitter irony and crashing expectations. A shy man has admired a cute woman who rides his bus. He's worked up a romantic fantasy about the stranger. Today he will talk to her. In his dreams she will instantly respond and a long, happy relationship will come of it. Dashed. A slick jerk steals his woman from him and the bus pulls away with the woman happily flirting with the other guy. Carpe diem, loverboy.
Conrad Romo. The Cement God.
Romo's powerful voice enhances this gem of a boy-fatherhood story. Capturing small details of a boy's front stoop conversation with his grandfather, a master cement finisher, the tale sparkles with genuine warmth. The story favorably evokes the powerful cement-pouring scene from Richard Vasquez' novel, Chicano. In fact, Olivas has included that scene as the final entry of the anthology.
Lisa Alvarez. Sweet Time.
Alvarez' mother-daughter-stepsister story carries the tension of a mother's final stay in the hospital. The writer successfully conveys the distance that grows between families split apart by serial monogamy and alcoholism. Alvarez' dry humor gives the story added zest, transforming what could be a dreary tale of regret into something positive.
Daniel Olivas. Bender.
Olivas' metaphorical critter story has a lot of sexuality packed into such a tight space. Reprinted from his collection Devil Talk, it's a gem of perplexity that will have readers going back to page one to reassure themselves they've grasped what the writer told them. "Bender," as the other stories read that evening, is a delight.
I'd like to encourage authors to develop fuller eye contact with the house. O'Briant's strategy of practicing and using a typescript allow her the luxury of pulling eyes off the page and looking out at her listeners. Too often a reader briefly glances up--I wonder if they even see what's before them--then glues the eyes to the page. Lecterns are unfriendly instruments. The slanted desktop makes it difficult to display the book. Any photo of an author reading will benefit from including the cover in the shot.
A Sadness in This Piece.
This email comes from Oscar Garza, Editor In Chief of Tu Ciudad Magazine.
Friends, sorry for the mass e-mail, but I have a lot of people to reach out to. If you have the June/July issue of Tu Ciudad—our third anniversary issue—hang on to it: it's the last one that will be published. Last Thursday, Emmis Communications announced that it is "suspending" publication of the magazine, which means that they're pulling the plug. Emmis is not to be blamed because, in fact, the company went far beyond the financial commitment they originally made to Ciudad. We simply couldn't sell enough advertising to succeed. For the past 14 months our Founder/Publisher, Jaime Gamboa, has been seeking additional investors, but his efforts—which continued even until last week—have been unsuccessful.
The media business is undergoing a revolution. Print, in particular, is in trouble (e.g., Los Angeles Times). The notion of killing trees to print words and pictures is increasingly archaic and expensive—as is the cost of mailing a magazine, which we were doing (for free) to 85,000 households.
That said, I am proud of what we produced at Ciudad and for the contribution we made to Latino cultural history. The most common response I heard from readers was: "Finally! I've been waiting for a magazine like this for a long time." And it was especially touching and bittersweet to hear such sentiments during the past few weeks while knowing that our possible demise was imminent.
My own future is undetermined at the moment. I have a few options and I'll let you know where I land. (This e-mail address will be operable until June 20. After that you can reach me at: [email protected].) But the first thing I'm going to do is wean myself off Tylenol PM, which I got hooked on to combat sleepness nights of magazine-related worry. (Maybe you'll see me on VH1’s “Celebrity Rehab.”)
One of my favorite magazines is No Depression, which celebrates all styles of American roots music. Coincidentally, it just published its final issue—a victim of two industries that are in flux. That magazine took its title from the Carter Family song, "No Depression in Heaven." And I too will take my cue from the song: there's no depression in the closing of Ciudad, only pride and gratitude.
Thanks to all of you for being loyal readers and supporters.
That's it for June's third Tuesday. Next week, I'll be looking at Akashic's Trinidad Noir, another in the publisher's growing noir series. So far, so good, but then, I've just started it.
ate,
mvs
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Please take some time to read about the land struggle that is currently underway, and not being covered by mainstream media. Margo Tamez, author of Naked Wanting and Raven Eye, wants readers to know about the struggle between the Department of Homeland Security and native peoples on the issue of border rights.
Border struggle article, here.
For background on Margo, her poetry, and her commitments, read my conversation with her, here.
Lisa Alvarado
Sheryl Luna, author of Pity the Drowned Horses, an award-winning book of poetry, will grace the NY poetry scene:
http://www.timeout.com/newyork/events/books/41746/gabe-gomez-
sheryl-luna-erika-wurth
Finding Us
Bluestockings is located in the Lower East Side of Manhattan at 172 Allen Street between Stanton and Rivington - which means that we are 1 block south of Houston and 1st Avenue.
By train: We are 1 block south of the F train's 2nd Avenue stop and just 5 blocks from the JMZ-line's Essex / Delancey Street stop.
By car: If you take the Houston exit off of the FDR, then turn left onto Essex (aka Avenue A), then right on Rivington, and finally right on Allen, you will be very, very close.....
It's a night to put your pen and papelitos away, and instead whip out your dancing shoes, and open up to inspiration. Proyecto Latina invites you to join us and celebrate our 2nd Anniversary Soiree Saturday, January 19th @ 7 p.m. to ?
Junior's Sports Bar (In Pilsen)
2058 W. Cermak Road.
No cover. Antojitos for the early arrivals. The spoken word artists will start at about 7:30 and the band should kick in by 8:00...y despues el baile. The afterparty will have a Morrisey Tribute night.
I wish La Palabra had been around when I was in L.A. Neat to see Don Newton on La Bloga. I haven't seen his mug in many years!
Thank you for this. It means a lot.
Thank you for this post. The Palabra fourth Sunday series sounds like a gem. And thanks for the work you're doing with Flor y Canto