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My progress through Iain M. Banks's science fiction novels, and particularly his Culture sequence, has been deliberately haphazard.  I've picked the books up as they came to me, in used bookstores, convention dealers' rooms, and my trips abroad.  It's one of the strengths of the Culture sequence that the universe it describes is so broad and full of storytelling potential, and yet underpinned by

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Pressgang, the small press affiliate of the writing program at Butler University, is looking for a book-length collection of prose (stories or essays).

Submissions will be accepted online along with a $25 entry fee. We're okay with simultaneous submissions, and we comply with the CLMP contest code of ethics.

Prize: $1200 + publication + a reading at Butler University. Judging: Winner will be selected by Editor and editorial board, and announced in August. All other entries will be considered for standard publication.

Deadline: 6/1/2013

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We are currently OPEN for submissions.
The reading period for Issue 2 is February 1, 2013 through April 15, 2013.

Submission Guidelines
As Us accepts original and previously unpublished works by Indigenous women and women of color. Simultaneous submissions are allowed but please inform us immediately if your piece is accepted elsewhere for publication. As Us accepts poetry, spokenword, creative nonfiction, fiction, academic essays, and more. If you have some innovative work or want to send us other genres, feel free to send it. We are looking for writing that moves us in some capacity whether that be on a craft, emotional, or story level.

ALL submissions should be in 12 pt Times New Roman, typed, paginated, and should include your name, address, phone number, and email address in the header of each page.

Poetry: please send us 3-5 poems.
Fiction: No more than 7,000 words.
Creative Nonfiction: No more than 7,000 words.
Academic Essays: No more than 7,000 words.
Spokenword: please send up 1-3 pieces. You may also include an audio or video of your work as well.
Reviews: If you have a review of a book written by an Indigenous author or a woman of color whose work you feel needs to be promoted we are definitely interested.

Email:

asDOTusDOTjournalATgmailDOTcom (Change AT to @ and DOT to .) for queries.

For ONLINE issues: We also accept photo essays, web comics, dance submissions, audio poems/prose, and more! If you think you have something that fits the mission, but isn’t listed on our page here, try us anyway!

For international submissions: Please include your writing in your language along with an English translation.
Email submissions to:

asDOTusDOTjournalATgmailDOTcom (Change AT to @ and DOT to .)

Include name and genre in the subject line. (First Name Last Name – Poetry / Fiction / etc)
Include a brief cover letter with a short biographical statement (including your Indigenous affiliation or cultural heritage) with each submission.
Response time is typically 1-3 months.

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Call for submissions & cash prize: Mason's Road Online Literary Journal

We are now accepting your best fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, drama, and craft essays. Issue Seven's theme is POINT OF VIEW, and we are looking for unique and arresting takes on first, second, or third-person narration.

Our submissions period runs for through April 1, 2013. There are two ways to submit to Mason's Road.

You can submit for free any time during our submissions period, and your work will be given thorough consideration for publication.

Or, you can submit with a $10 fee, and your work will also be considered for our Mason's Road Winter Literary Award, which includes publication and a $500 prize to the best entry we receive. For more information about how to submit or the cash prize, go here.

Sponsored by the Fairfield University MFA in Creative Writing Program, Mason's Road is an online literary journal with a focus on the lifetime learning of the writing craft. It is run by the program's graduate students and its goal is to be both educational and inspiring.

Submit today! Good luck!

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William Faulkner – William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition

Deadline: Mon, 4/01/2013

Categories
Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry

Entry Fees
Between $10 and $200 depending on category and manuscript length. (Note: Highest fee applies to books in excess of 225,000 words. Smaller fees apply to shorter works.)

Prizes
Between $750 and $7,500 depending on category.

Description
Accepting entries in eight categories: novel, novella, book-length narrative nonfiction, novel-in-progress, short story, essay, poetry and short story by a high school student. Only unpublished work accepted. No self-published or web-published material. See website for category details.

Contact Information:
Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society
624 Pirate's Alley
New Orleans, LA 70116

faulkhouseATaolDOTcom (Change AT to @ and DOT to .)
Website

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Ploughshares Emerging Writer's Contest
Submit here.

Deadline:
Tue, 4/02/2013

Categories
Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry

Entry Fees
$24, includes a year's subscription to Ploughshares. Current subscribers may submit for free.
Prizes

Prize:
$1,000 and publication in Winter 2013-14 issue of Ploughshares for the winner of each category.

Description
Open to previously unpublished writers. Fiction or nonfiction under 6,000 words and between 3-5 pages of poetry accepted. Submit via online submission form.

Contact Information:
Ploughshares, Emerson College
120 Boylston St.
Boston, MA 02116

psharesATpsharesDOTorg (Change At to @ and DOT to .)

Website

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The Indian River Review is currently soliciting submissions for its third issue scheduled for publication in late spring/summer 2014. The theme for this issue is “Technology,” and we plan to take a very broad view of this theme. As man moved from an oral to a literate culture, technology has affected the way we communicate and live. At one time, even the simple number 2 pencil was a technological advancement. From quills to computers, from knitting needles to the Mars Rover, technology comes in many forms, and we would like to explore this concept in our third issue.

The deadline for submissions is January 15, 2014. Genres include short fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, critical essays, black and white photography, and book reviews. Please go to this link at the journal's weblog for submission details.

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CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Alice Walker famously argued that a"woman is not a potted plant." Whether we choose our paths or plant our own "seeds of change," women strive to fit in to the skin we are given. In our own words, writers,teachers, and speakers share their stories of finding themselves through shifts--from great to small.

We are seeking submissions for an anthology that will focus on stories about major life shifts regarding unspoken needs, social change, community, and defining self. This book will be written by and for women about change.

Submissions can be short stories,essays, plays and poems. 3,000 word maximum.

Submit to:

musewritecommunityATyahooDOTcom (Change AT to @ and DOT to .)

by June 1. 2013.

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Ontologica, a Bi-annual literary magazine of art and thought is open for submissions starting 3/1/2013 - 4/30/2013. We will be accepting submissions in Non-Fiction, Fiction, and Art.

Ontologica aims to present an eclectic mix of prose and art. Ours is a journal of differing perspectives. Readers will be just as likely to encounter the Christian as the Marxist, the relative as the absolute, the liberal as the conservative in the essays we present. We want to offer material that is illuminating, challenging, and, if need be, antagonizing. Above all it must accessible. Accessibility here doesn't just mean a lack of specialized language, but a writing style that invites the reader in. Work with a philosophical slant is preferred, but not required. What is required is contemporary relevance and, more or less, general appeal. (An essay on the difference between Transcendentalist and Romantic poetry, no matter how well written, will most likely not find a home in Ontologica). Unless you lived a sublimely amazing life, no so-called creative non-fiction or memoirs.

We will include a small amount of fiction, and visual art in every issue. There is no clear-cut definition of what we're looking for in fiction, though, like non-fiction, accessibility is a good keyword. We want fiction and poetry that moves beyond simple entertainment. In the words of Robert Bly, we want work that punches a hole in the pervading culture of denial: The health of any nation's soul depends on the capacity of adults to face the harsh facts of the time. Pieces that point to the injustices of the world and reminds us of our own mortality, rather than giving us reason to ignore them, will be greeted here. Genre pieces are okay as long as, like the work of Cormac McCarthy or Robert Heinlein, the story transcends the limitations of the genre. Pieces that treat intense subjects without linguistic finesse or subtlety will not likely appear in the magazine--bring us to the battle lines without blatant preaching, childish whining, or melodrama.

All this applies equally to visual art submissions. Above all the work must have a distinct sense of subject. No ultra-modern, Jackson Pollock slapdashery. This doesn't mean we want black-and-white photos of your lawn furniture. The art we present must engage our readers, whether through shock or awe. Ontologica wants art that fantastically suggests the possible, or horrifically portrays the actual.

Non-fiction and fiction submissions should be no more than 25 pages in length. Flash fiction is generally discouraged. For art, send between 3 and 5 high quality JPEG or PNG files. Send all submissions as attachments. For more submission information, please see our Submissions page. Send all submissions to:

ontologicajournalATgmailDOTcom (Change AT to @ and DOT to .)

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Television, we're often told, is a writer's medium.  The combination of limited budget and little scope for fancy visuals, and the need to keep feeding the hungry beast of continuous story--be it a serialized drama, a character-based soap, or even a procedural--serves to prioritize the writer's toolbox.  It's the reason, I think, that television so easily amasses obsessed, engaged fandoms, and

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Subject: Re: “Sustainability” Essay Contest and Call for Submissions

For a special "Human Face of Sustainability" issue, Creative Nonfiction, in association with Arizona State University's Global Institute of  Sustainability, are looking for essays that illuminate environmental, economic, ethical and/or social challenges related to the state of the planet and our future.

The full call for submissions can be found on the Creative Nonfiction website.

A cash prize of $10,000 will be awarded for the best essay. Selected essays will be published in Creative Nonfiction #51 (early 2014), and an expanded book version will be published in Spring 2014. All submissions received before May 31, 2013, will be considered for both the magazine and the book.

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The pilots of winter continue to pour in, and I think we can identify a trend: fall is when the respectable doctor and lawyer shows premiere; winter is when TV puts on fancy dress.  This latest bunch of shows includes fantasy, thrillers, science fiction, and lots of weirdness.  Not all of it works, unsurprisingly--in the time between starting this post and publishing it, the most rancid of the

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Last weekend was a great one for reading about Australian writing, with the launch of two new e-publications.

The University of Western Sydney is supporting the brand spanking new Sydney Review of Books, which launched with several articles on Friday. There will be fresh reading every week for the next two months of this pilot project headed up by critic and editor James Ley, so get along there.

First postings include critical essays and reviews by Kate Middleton, Evelyn Juers, Kerryn Goldsworthy, Peter Pierce, Mo Yan and Nicholas Jose, as well as a call to arms for a watch on criticism by Ben Etherington.

Charlotte Wood, author and essayist, has begun a series of interviews available by subscription, The Writer's Room Interviews. You can sign up for them here, at an annual cost of $27.50 for six issues. The first interview was with Tasmanian writer and Patrick White prizewinner Amanda Lohrey, and I found it completely absorbing, probably because I love her work.

There were two things from the interview, among many, that struck me.

Firstly, I liked what Lohrey had to say about how taste affects the reading of fiction:

CW: A painter friend of mine says people think they don’t know what good art is, but that in every show he’s ever had, the best pictures sell first. You don’t understand it,but you know it.

AL: You do know it. It’s instinctive. But at the same time I think that’s more true of the visual arts than of literature. For it’s also true with fiction that there is no single standard of excellence. A book is a meeting of subjectivities and the subjectivity of one writer will speak to one reader but not to another. There are some writers who don’t speak to me at all but I can see why they speak to other readers, can see that they are in the same zone in terms of their preoccupations, and their conditioning, what’s important to them. It’s just not important to me and I’m not interested. So I don’t mean to say — I’m not trying to posit an idea of excellence that everybody responds to. I think literature is very much a one-to one conversation, which is why I cannot argue with someone who says The Alchemist is their favourite book when they’ve obviously got a lot out of it.

Secondly, Lohrey made some useful remarks about what she called 'inventive' realism:

I’ve always been interested in exploratory and inventive modes of realism, not for their own sake but because each new project demands its own aesthetic. I could get very technical on the subject but this is probably not the time or place. I would say, however, that one of the important functions of university writing courses is to encourage students to interrogate taken-for-granted modes of representation. If you decide to write in a conventional way, at least know why you’ve made that decision. Traditionally, film-makers have been much more concerned with issues of representation and more innovative. And to be fair, the camera gives them more scope, but that doesn’t mean that we as writers shouldn’t think about it. You don’t have to be obviously ‘experimental’, you don’t have to write like Gertrude Stein or James Joyce — small unorthodox manoeuvres can have potent effects.

Small and unorthodox. I like the sound of that.

I've been so busy reading these two publications that I did not have time to blog about them at the time. Which speaks for itself. Go, enjoy, be enlightened or enraged, as you will.

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This week marked the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice, which seemed like the perfect excuse--if any were needed--to reread it.  It also seemed like a good opportunity to write about it, especially since it's the only Austen novel I haven't written about in the course of this blog's existence (well, to be precise, one of the very first Austen-related entries posted to

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It's long past the point where new shows are a fall thing--long past the point, in fact, where I ought to have been making this sort of review a quarterly business.  But somehow this winter season seems particularly fecund, possibly as a result of the fall's disappointing crop, possibly because British TV seems to take the end of the year as its time to launch new shows, which means this report

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Friends, I have a sad confession to make: in 2012, I read all of 31 books.  That's... pretty damn low, for me.  It's roughly half the books I read last year, or the year before.  It's probably the fewest books I've read in any year in the last decade, and certainly since I started keeping track.  There are any number of reasons for this sudden drop: early in the year, the stress of scrambling for

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This time last year, it seemed like Homeland and Dexter couldn't have more different trajectories.  Dexter was coming off a plodding, padded sixth season that had devolved into the butt of a sad joke, full of nonsensical plot twists, increasingly boring subplots involving the show's perennially underserved secondary characters, and an growing sense that no one involved with the show knew what to

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School Library Journal asked me to contribute to their annual series in which authors and illustrators share a holiday memory.

You can read my piece here!

And while you're there, check out their extensive archives.

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Endeavor’s Memorable Fly-by: Outer Space in the Backyard

Michael Sedano

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.


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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:

t's graduation time at Centro Latino!  This Friday, Sept 28th, Manos Amigas will celebrate a record 155 newly literate adults who will receive their completion certificates. They range in age from 19-73 and 69% are women. Their native countries include Guatemala, Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Belize and Peru. 33% speak an indigenous language, including Quiche, Canjobal, Mam,and  Zapoteco. There's still time to purchase a ticket or make a contribution. Contributors Reception starts at 5:00 and the graduation is at 6:30 p.m   For more information and to purchase tickets or donate on-line visitwww.centrolatinoliteracy.org/manos-amigas

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In Manhattan: Casa Azul Bookstore

Sergio Troncoso, Tony Diaz, Martín Espada, Melinda Palacio, Luis Alberto Urrea

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

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.”

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.

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Here's a recommendation: even if you've already read it, take the time to reread Wolf Hall before reading Bring Up the Bodies.  This is less in order to be reminded of details from the first volume of Hilary Mantel's projected trilogy about the life of Thomas Cromwell--Mantel is actually quite good about catching up readers who haven't read Wolf Hall or read it a while ago, and anyway the broad

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I watched Looper two nights ago, and since coming out of the movie theater I've been trying to work out just why this film left me feeling so unimpressed.  It's not that there's anything wrong with Looper, which in fact wears the crown of intelligent, thought-provoking SF filmmaking better than almost any other claimant to that title in the last few years.  It's well-made, intelligent, and

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Well, that was a long week and a half of new TV, and with not much to show for it in the end.  These write-ups represent a small minority of the new shows to premiere this fall--I haven't said anything about the season's new comedies, which run the gamut from terrible (Partners), to underwhelming (Ben and Kate, The Mindy Project), to competent but uninspiring (Go On, Animal Practice), to bizarre

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We're coming near to the end of what has been a singularly unimpressive pilot season.  Progress report on the shows I've stuck with: Revolution has so far failed to ignite and if it doesn't within the next few weeks I'll probably ditch it.  Vegas's second episode bored me, so it's been dropped.  Elementary, on the other hand, had a strong second episode that deepened the two main characters, but

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The first half-dozen essays I wrote for my book on the human voice followed what friends might see as predictably tomboyish interests: war cries, football sportscasters, Marlon Brando. I enjoyed the explosive tone the collection was taking; I was conducting interviews with Elvis impersonators and Screamo singers and politicians who frequently used the word "assclown." [...]

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The most recent issue of Time has an essay by Joel Stein about the Common Core requirements regarding nonfiction in the schools. He says that he has "found out that there are English teachers who assign my column as reading material."

When my sons were in the upper grades of elementary school and in middle school in the 90s, writing essays was being pushed big time in their schools, primarily just before the state mandated tests, which tested essay writing. To my knowledge, they never read essays at school. I saw nothing to even suggest they saw anything that would show them what an essay should be or make them want to read or write one.

I did, indeed, slip my sons the occasional Joel Stein column in those days. He could use a thesis statement and then continue writing about what he had told readers he was going to write about. Sounds simple, doesn't it? Then why doesn't every essay writer do it? On top of that, Stein is self-deprecating and witty without being cruel.

I'm not saying he's the perfect writing role model. But, seriously, the Gauthier boys could have done a whole lot worse.

And, yes, they can write.

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