How to use this Page

Photo "borrowed" from Raquel Gutierrez' website

Looking at Raquel’s cover, I can’t help but get nostalgic about my own chapbook making aventuras. The last time I put together a poetry chapbook was in 2010 with tatiana de la tierra. Inspired by the cardboard books of Latin America, we set out to make a limited edition of self-published cardboard poetry books. For months, cardboard book-making ruled our worlds. We loved cardboard. We explored its strengths and weakness. We folded it. We punctured it. We painted it. We hoarded and fought over it. We slept near our growing piles of cardboard; carton thoughts and energy seeped into our dreams; we were one with the cardboard, tatiana and I. And despite the cardboard cuts and mess, these little poetry books filled us with utter joy and self-publishing power. Of course, we blogged about it: http://labloga.blogspot.com/2010/05/cardboard-creations-homemade-libros.html

tatiana eating cardboard poetry

Raquel's chapbook isn't made out of cardboard, and it has its unique estilo and presence, yet it reminds me of tatiana de la tierra, Myriam Gurba (whose chapbooks I blogged about a couple of weeks ago (http://labloga.blogspot.com/2014/03/queer-little-chapbooks.html), and every other hardworking two-tongued, two-spirited escritora/artista out there creating arte a su brave manera. In the end, despite todas las diferencias, it's the same general fuerza that propels us forth and fuels creation, poesίa, self-published libritos. Locura. Passion. Because you have to be kinda crazy and in love with words to make your own books. Resilience is a must, and humor is a definite plus. There's no big bucks earned here. You can purchase Raquel's Breaking Up With Los Angeles for a very affordable seis dolares: http://raquelgutierrez.net/chapbook/ Or Gurba's latest A Flower for That Bitch for a muy barato $3: https://www.etsy.com/shop/Lesbrain. That's freshly made literature for the cost of a couple of tamales and a café or a champurrado. There's no glory or guarantees in rasquachi book making either. The writer usually distributes and hustles. Libritos! Libritos! Calentitos y deliciosos! Compren sus libritos! It's like blogging or writing a poem or knitting a bad-ass scarf or sweater. You may pour out your heart into your arte, spend countless hours refining the finished product, and get back a, "That's cute."

Photo by Kevin Campbell

Having moved from LA to the Bay Area a little over a year ago, Gutiérrez shares that her new chapbook Breaking Up With Los Angeles marks a “habitual haunting” of the city she broke up with. In her blog (http://raquelgutierrez.net/blog/) she writes: "This project is simply the receptacle for the ache...of leaving home...Poetry has always functioned as a site of no rules...A small holder of my psychic messes. A document. A textual object. Or an embrace for when all other embraces fail to keep me safe."

Using numbers instead of titles, Gutiérrez delivers 22 poems about loving, living in, and leaving Los Angeles. In poem #11, she write:

Partner with loss
Embrace change
Resist nostalgia

It's a mantra that thematically echoes throughout the collection. Whether she's recalling a nightclub in Hollywood full of joteria and Naco Power, a sighting on Silverlake of a truck with "lavender colored testicles hanging so low," the haze of Sour Diesel, her mother's laughter welcoming her home, or the busquedad of her "Ole Dad" and herself in cantinas, Gutiérrez weaves in and out of the cityscape, gathering poetic fragments of the distant and recent past, re-membering/re-constructing that which has been lost or broken, all the while resisting nostalgia.

But where one lives and loves, there are always those glimpses of nostalgia, no? In poem #7, Gutiérrez recalls a few of "the good things:"

telling white people to not speak Spanish to me
having everyone at Homeboy Industries know me by name

I want to stay..

Despite the grappling with grief and loss, and the resistance to nostalgia, there's a sense of love and longing for Los Angeles. For example, in poem #13, Gutiérrez leaves behind a poetic directive of her last rites:

scatter me in the mouth of Los Angeles
her stomach the desert
her shoulders the mountains
and her womb
the east Los Angeles freeway interchange

for the 5 brought me all of California
while the 101 took me to where it was possible
impossible on the 10 during rush hour
and the 60 carried my broken teenage heart home

Tributes to the recently deceased are also found in Breaking Up With Los Angeles. In poem #8, LA poet Wanda Colemen who inspired so many of us is remembered. The impact of her loss deeply felt:

Photo by Mark Savage

I mourned her from a lonely bedroom
Deep in the East Bay
Her departure underscoring
an exile from Angels
a burn, a light and tender

a severe degree
that severs me










Although this is her first chapbook, Gutiérrez isn't knew to the arts. She has long been a performer, curator, playwright, and cultural activist. She was a co-founding member of the now retired performance ensemble, Butchlalis de Panochtitlan (BdP), a community-based and activist-minded group aimed at creating a visual vernacular around queer Latinidad in Los Angeles. Raquel also co-founded other Los Angeles-specific art projects: Tongues, A Project of VIVA and Epicentro Poetry project. Raquel's work has been published in The Portland Review and Ambientes: New Queer Latino Writing (edited by Lázaro Lima and Felice Picano). Poems are forthcoming in Sinister Wisdom and Huizache next year.

During the past two weeks, I had an opportunity to ask Gutierrez a few questions over email. Here are my questions and her responses:

Can you share a little about your current transition from performance to poetry? Are you still doing both?

I like the insularity of writing poems. Performing relies on collaboration and a certain familiarity. Being in a new place, living away from Los Angeles, made me retract, reflect...I think I am done with the stage for now but when I read some of these poem aloud, there's a different rawness present that isn't so much about proving myself as an artist. I'm regenerating in a new way.

When I was in El Paso, Texas all I did was write about Los Angeles. I found that the distance and desert allowed to write about LA in ways that I may not have been able to do had I still been at home. Did you have a similar experience when moving to the Bay Area?

When I was living in New York I couldn't write anything about L.A. The distance of course helps, but I don't know if being in a new city leads to being able to produce writing about L.A. I think a new place coupled with the ability to inhabit certain truths makes the writing come easier.

What do you miss most about Los Angeles?

I miss the 24-hour-ness of L.A. The thrift store near the old Sears. La Estrella's fish burritos. The 110 freeway tunnel from Chinatown into Figueroa. The sun coming up on Bandini Boulevard.

Literary rock stars that you admire?

Rubén Martinez, Wanda Coleman, Charles Bukowski, Roberto Bolaños, Helena María Viramontes, John Rechy, James Baldwin, Chris Kraus, Ali Liebegott, Salvador Plascencia.

Are you taking on any new projects any time soon?

I'm excited about a chapbook press endeavor I am taking on called ECONO TEXTUAL OBJECTS. This [making chapbooks] was so much fun I don't want it to stop. I'm working on another chapbook for the Spring, along with chapbooks by friends and conspirators Félix Solano Vargas and Nikki Darling. These chapbooks are due out in May 2014.

In closing, even though you broke up with her, do you still love LA?

I'll always love LA.


To learn more about Raquel and her current projects, visit: http://raquelgutierrez.net/
To visit Raquel's blog: http://raquelgutierrez.net/blog/
To purchase Breaking Up With Los Angeles:
http://raquelgutierrez.net/chapbook/breaking-up-with-los-angeles

Add a Comment

Introduction: The Winter Solstice (December 21, 2012) Doesn’t Mark The End Of The World But The Start Of A New Era And Poem

by Francisco X. Alarcón

Mesoamerican Calendar
December 21, 2012 marks the conclusion of a b'ak'tun—a time period in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar which was used in Central America prior to the arrival of Europeans. Although the Long Count was most likely invented by the Olmec, it has become closely associated with the Maya civilization, whose classic period lasted from 250 to 900 AD.
Unlike the 260-day tzolk'in still used today among the Maya, the Long Count was linear rather than cyclical, and kept time roughly in units of 20: 20 days made a uinal, 18 uinals (360 days) made a tun, 20 tuns made a k'atun, and 20 k'atuns (144,000 days or roughly 394 years) made up a b'ak'tun.

Maya Date 13.0.0.0.0 (December 21, 2012)
The Long Count's "zero date" was set at a point in the past marking the end of a previous era and the beginning of the current one, which corresponds to 11 August 3114 BC in the Gregorian calendar. This means that the current era will also have reached the end of its 13th b'ak'tun, or Mayan date 13.0.0.0.0, on 21 December 2012.

The end of the 13th b'ak'tun did not mark the end of the calendar but the start of a Sun or new era. Most major current Mayanist scholars agree that there is nothing in the Maya or Aztec or ancient Mesoamerican prophecy to suggest that they prophesied an apocalypse of any sort in 2012. The Maya did not conceive the end of the 13th b'ak'tun as the end of creation of the work as many have suggested.

Tonalpohualli, Sacred Nahuatl Calendar
In the Nahuatl Calendar that is very similar to the Maya Calendar, the date December 21, 2012, corresponds to the following temporal coordinates:

http://www.azteccalendar.com/?day=21&month=12&year=2012

The tonalli or day sign of December 21, 2012, is Nahui-Xochitl (Four-Flower). The digital (Four) corresponds to the number in the 13-day wheel of time. Xochitl (Flower) is the last day sign of the 20-day wheel of time. This tonalli is governed by Xochiquetzal (Flower Feather). the Protector of Poetry and the Arts. The new era in the Aztec tradition is called Xochitonatiuth (Flower Sun). Xochitl symbolizes beauty and truth, especially that which speaks to the heart who knows it will one day cease to beat. Xochitl reminds us that life, like the flower, is beautiful but quickly fades. Xochitonatiuth announces a new era whose main symbol is Xochitl (Flower), that stands for the best in nature and humanity.

In the Maya calendar the Long Count date 13.0.0.0.0 strongly signifies a new beginning. According to the Maya, the end of the previous era and the start of our current era will occur on a day 4-Flower with the Long Count date 13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.0.0.0.0. falling on the winter solstice, the start of the return of the summer, further emphasizes the quality of a new beginning.

The thirteen day period (trecena) that starts with day Ce-Ollin (One-Movement) is ruled by Tlazolteotl. This trecena is governed by the goddess of cotton and weaving, of sexuality and childbirth, she who is the Eater of Sins and the Mother of all Seasons waiting for us at the end of our life journey. The year in the Aztec calendar corresponds to Ce-Calli (One-House).

New Collective 2012 Winter Solstice Poem

The following poems come from a new Collective 2012 Winter Solstice Poem (Haiga) that sought contributions by poets and artists from all over the globe. We all are truly one. We all share the same dreams and aspirations of world peace, tolerance, and understanding with the whole humanity in balance with nature especially during the celebration of the new era (the Sixth Sun) in the Mesoamerican tradition that begins on the Winter Solstice (December 21, 2012) that in the Nahuatl calendar corresponds to the date "Four-Flower" (Nahui-Xochitl). In the Nahuatl tradition this new era is identified as the "Flower Sun" (Xochitonatiuh). We give thanks in advance to all who are wiling participate in making this human wonder something tangible and real.

"Xochitonatiuh / Sol Flor/ Flower Sun" by Francisco X. Alarcón


CEREMONY
by Alma Luz Villanueva

Climbing the Sixth Sun,
Sacred Sun Pyramid,
straight up, warm
Sun, cool morning
Wind God pushes me
up, I pause to
breathe deeply,
drink water, a boy
of four behind me
begins to cry, he's
thirsty, forgot to
bring him water, I
offer mine, he smiles
and drinks- work at
the top, not able
to climb to the top,
a great-grandmother in her
eighties is helped to
the almost top, her
family bracing her,
no one is bracing me, it
seems to be my path,
to climb the Sacred
Pyramid of the Sixth
Sun alone, the only
(grown) child I miss
is my youngest, but
la vida calls him,
as it should, his own
family, families in great
need, a daily warrior
in the world, and I
needed to come alone,
all one, to greet
the Sacred Sixth
Sun, and one thirsty
four year old boy.
Unable to climb to the
top, I circled, my
rattle singing, next
year I will be a
great-grandmother and
no one will brace me,
yes they will love me,
that's allowed, maybe
in my eighties when I'm
a great-great-grandmother,
maybe, right now the
waiter has read my mind,
plays native flute, drums,
rattles, my birth
day gift, so well
deserved, bird song,
rattles, all day
sacred white butterflies
followed me, yellow
monarchs, little bees,
brash young men, “Hola
hermosa...I have a special
gift for you...Mi amor...
Take it it's free,” I
didn't do my usual come
back, “I'm old enough
to be your grandmother,”
now “I'm old enough
to be your great-grandmother,”
I just laughed, right now
the music is only rattles,
the sound of sweet
bones, the ancestors
winging home, I'm a
baby, I'm an
ancient, I'm not
born, I'm dead/transformed,
I'm newly born, always
to the song of rattles,
sweet bones, winging us
home, dancing us home-
I just told the waiter, my
grandson, youngest son's
age, “This music, flute, drums,
now only rattles, is
perfect, gracias.”
“It suits this place,
your presence.” (He
doesn't bullshit me
with senorita, I've
been called senorita all
day, I laughed, they
wanted some thing, my
smile, my money, my
life)- he's an eagle
dancer, a deer
dancer, a wind
dancer, a sun
dancer, I know
his mother loves him,
he loves his mother,
the women in his
family, sacred, he
knows I need the
sweet bones of the
ancestors, a pure
chocolate cake woven
with fruit, drizzled
with honey/chocolate,
a perfect birth day
cake- I sit by the
pool, too cold to
swim, a clay flower
painted senorita, I
laugh.
* * *
An older man, probably
my age, asked me if
I'd done ceremony on
the Pyramid of the Sun,
without thinking I answered
yes, the two silver bracelets
symbols of Quetzalcoatl,
Sacred Sixth Sun,
I bought, 50 pesos each,
the third a gift,
he smiled, “Fuego,”
fire should always
be a gift, the
entire day, a
ceremony, the gift of
water and fire,
I hear the laughter of
my four grown
children, grandchildren,
great-grandchild in the
cosmic womb dreaming,
the ancestors singing
the rattle song, all
my friends, some over
thirty/forty years, my
students seeing me whole, I
see them whole, we are the
gift. We are the
ceremony.
* * *
White butterflies,
ancestor souls,
guide me/us to
Quetzalcoatl's Temple,
some know it,
some don't,
yet we all
arrive, Quetzalcoatl's
Spirit laughing in the
young grass, the
large rocks tiny
red ants carry to
their mound/pyramid, bleeding
cactus fruit/flowers, ancient
clouds/air Quetzalcoatl
breathed, laughing, I
hear him laughing,
some times weeping
for his children,
I sit facing
steps that he
climbed (still
climbs Full Moon
Mother blessing him),
flanked each side Sacred
Snake, Sacred Jaguar,
Sacred Eagle, Sacred
Shell, I hear him
laughing, take out my
bird rattle, Quetzalcoatl's
flute I bought here
thirty-four years ago
at the foot of Pyramid
of the Sun, lone vendor,
almost sunset, newly
married, we climbed to the
top that day, each
playing it, we became
Gods, today I play
bird rattle, snake/eagle
flute, weaving tears and
laughter, loss and gift,
folly and wisdom, marriage
to the Other, marriage
to the Self, silence
and song, stillness
and such dancing, today
I became fully
human.
* * *
We all
we all circle
we all circle the
we all circle the sacred
Pyramid of the Sun
rattles in hands
flutes to our lips
laughing weeping silent
singing limping dancing
we all
we all enter
we all enter the
we all enter the Sixth
we all enter the Sixth Sacred
we all enter the Sixth Sacred Sun
we all enter the Sacred
Sixth Sun
bracing each
other up
together
together
together




CIERTA VEZ CAMINAMOS
JUNPECH XOJB’EHIK
por Claudia Hernández

En lo más alto
del templo de La Danta
mi gente canta en pocomchi’

Su flor y canto se origina
de las montañas más
antiguas de Nakbé

Sus proverbios
nos alientan
a brotar como

orquídeas palpitantes;
como Luna llena
bajo un Sexto Sol


WE ONCE WALKED
JUNPECH XOJB’EHIK
by Claudia Hernández


At the peak of
La Danta temple,
my people sing in Pocomchi’

Their flower and song
comes from the oldest
mountains of Nakbé

Their sacred proverbs
enlighten us
to sprout like

Pulsating orchids—
a new Moon
under the Sixth Sun



Winter Solstice Era of Promise

by Karina Oliva

daughter arises
from the womb of hunab ku
flower of the sun

a change has come
spiraling from the milky way
foretold in her eyes

we are the sixth born
geometry on our palm
voices from the core

we will make this world
no more tolerance for war
children will guide us

wake up and transform
rooster crows in dawn of peace
her flowering leads

we are from the source
of creation, so create
a way to nurture

life



SEXTO SOL
por Graciela Ramírez

Girasol, Marisol
Acoplados
Sol y Flor.


El nuevo sol sonríe
Al ver risa en tus labios
Al llamar bella flor
Al magno Sexto Sol.


El Sol

imaginable estrella
nace y muere
en miles de años.

La Flor

belleza imaginable
nace y muere
en unas pocas horas.



CUATRO FLORES
by Israel Francisco Haros Lopez

ojos de jade
abriendo la boca
de las aguas de quetzalcoatl
__________
birthplace of the sun
birthplace of water
own me. re-member me
_____________
sacred obsidian dancer
illuminate the fire
in the opaque new moon sky
_______________
abre la boca
a tus países collapsing
the heart of hearts of the sky is opening
__________________
abre la luz de tus palmas
abre el vientre de pacha mama
con el canto de tus palabras
________________________
open the sun/tonatiuh/sol
con el sonido de tu pecho
you are nebula and soul
______________________
eres mi alma sin fin
eres mi otro sol
eres mi otro teotl
______________
sing to me coyoxauhqui
remind me of the llantos de llorona
que sanan la tierra con cada gota
____________________



LA CRUZ DEL TIEMPO
by Arturo Mantecón

The Cross of Time spins,
and the world turns from the north--
bows to eastern Sun,

Bows to eastern Sun--
new blooming morning glory--
Xochitl Tonatiuh,

Xochitl Tonatiuh,
mid-Winter Sun, heaven god,
flaring golden hair,

Flaring golden hair…
sixth flor de la guirlanda,
usher of beauty



A NEW SUN IS BORN
by Aurora Levins Morales

a new sun is born

rivers of light cascade
through the open door of time
in each tight furled heart

a new sun is born

soft clouds unravel
history’s wintery steel softens, melts
petals of hope open wide

a new sun is born

fiery star of love
golden possibility
out of the rich black earth

a new sun is born

ancestral egg, great seed
ripening through centuries of pain
the flowering time is here:

a new sun is born.

NACE UN NUEVO SOL
by Aurora Levins Morales


nace un nuevo sol

ríos de luz se derraman
por la puerta abierta del tiempo
en cada corazón encapullado

nace un nuevo sol

las nubes suaves se deshacen
el acero invernal de la historia se ablanda, se derrite
pétalos de esperanza se abren plenamente

nace un nuevo sol

ardiente estrella de amor
posibilidad dorada,
desde la tierra rica y negra

nace un nuevo sol

huevo ancestral, gran semilla,
madurándose tras siglos de dolor,
ha llegado la hora de florecer:

nace un nuevo sol





BIOS

"Xochitonatiuh / Sol Flor/ Flower Sun" by Francisco X. Alarcón
"Ceremony" by Alma Luz Villanueva
"Cierta vez caminamos / We Once Walked" by Claudia Hernández
"The Sixth Sun" by Genny Lim
"Winter Solistice Era of Promise" by Karina Oliva
"Sexto Sol" por Graciela Ramírez
"Cuatro Flores" by Israel Francisco Haros Lopez
"La Cruz del Tiempo" by Arturo Mantecón
"A New Sun is Born - Nace un nuevo sol" by Aurora Levins Morales

Francisco X. Alarcón, award winning Chicano poet and educator, born in Los Angeles, in 1954, is author of eleven volumes of poetry, including, From the Other Side of Night: Selected and New Poems (University of Arizona Press 2002), and Snake Poems: An Aztec Invocation (Chronicle Books 1992)m Sonetos a la locura y otras penas / Sonnets to Madness and Other Misfortunes (Creative Arts Book Company 2001), De amor oscuro / Of Dark Love (Moving Parts Press 1991, and 2001).

His most recent book of bilingual poetry for children, Animal Poems of the Iguazú (Children’s Book Press 2008), was selected as a Notable Book for a Global Society by the International Reading Association, and as an Américas Awards Commended Title by the Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs. His previous bilingual book titled Poems to Dream Together (Lee & Low Books 2005) was awarded the 2006 Jane Addams Honor Book Award.

He has been a finalist nominated for Poet Laureate of California in two occasions. He teaches at the University of California, Davis. He is the creator of the Facebook page POETS RESPONDING TO SB 1070 that you can visit at:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Poets-Responding-to-SB-1070/117494558268757?ref=ts

Alma Luz Villanueva was raised in the Mission District, San Francisco, by her Yaqui grandmother, Jesus Villanueva- she was a curandera/healer from Sonora, Mexico. Without Jesus no poetry, no stories, no memory...
Author of eight books of poetry, most recently, 'Soft Chaos' (2009). A few poetry anthologies: 'The Best American Poetry, 1996,' 'Unsettling America,' 'A Century of Women's Poetry,' 'Prayers For A Thousand Years, Inspiration from Leaders & Visionaries Around The World.' Three novels: 'The Ultraviolet Sky,' 'Naked Ladies,' 'Luna's California Poppies,' and the short story collection, 'Weeping Woman, La Llorona and Other Stories.' My fourth novel, 'SCORPION HUNTER,' and new book of poetry, 'GRACIAS,' to be published in 2013. Some fiction anthologies: '500 Great Books by Women, From The Thirteenth Century,' 'Caliente, The Best Erotic Writing From Latin America,' 'Coming of Age in The 21st Century,' 'Sudden Fiction Latino.' The poetry and fiction has been published in textbooks from grammar to university, and is used in the US and abroad as textbooks. Has taught in the MFA in creative writing program at Antioch University, Los Angeles, for the past fourteen years. And is the mother of four, wonderful, grown human beings.
Alma Luz Villanueva now lives in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, for the past eight years, traveling the ancient trade routes to return to teach, and visit family and friends, QUE VIVA!! And taking trips throughout Mexico, working on a novel in progress, always the poetry, memory.
www.almaluzvillanueva.com


Claudia D. Hernández was born and raised in Guatemala. She's a bilingual educator, poet, writer, and translator in the city of Los Angeles. She's pursuing an MFA in creative writing at Antioch University Los Angeles. Her photography, poetry, and short stories have been published in The Indigenous Sovereignty Issue of The Peak, Hinchas de Poesía, KUIKATL Literary Journal, nineteen-sixty-nine an Ethnic Studies Journal, Blood Lotus, REDzine, Kalyani Magazine, Along the River II Anthology, among others.

She’s currently working on a project titled: TODAY’S REVOLUTIONARY WOMEN OF COLOR. This is a yearlong project that will tentatively culminate on November 2013, with a walking photography exhibit and the publication of a photography book.

The exhibit and the book will feature everyday women who are role models in our communities. Artists, activists, editors, writers, poets, painters, social workers, teachers, professors, therapists, and mentors share their stories of resilience through short-filmed interviews, creative photography shots of them, and exceptional artistic pieces that will also be included in the photography book.

Claudia’s main goal is to inspire and empower women. If she raises the necessary funds for this project, she hopes to give the book as gift to all the women who attend the opening night of the photography exhibit.

These interviews are available to the public on: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdIj9ANucaTRIdniOLBqfjg


Genny has performed in poetry & music collaborations with jazz legends
such as Max Roach, Jerry Gonzalez, Herbie Lewis, including local
musicians, John Santos, Francis Wong and Jon Jang. She has been
featured poet at World Poetry Festivals in Venezuela, Sarajevo and
Naples, Italy. Her award-winning play "Paper Angels," aired on PBS
American Playhouse in 1985 and was reprised in 2010 in San Francisco
Chinatown’s Portsmouth Square, receiving the San Francisco Fringe
Festival Best Site Specific Award. Her performance piece, "Where is
Tibet?" premiered at CounterPULSE, S.F., in 2009 at AfroSolo Arts
Festival and Women on the Way Festival in January 2011. She is author
of two poetry collections, Winter Place, Child of War and co-author of
Island:Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island.



A native born Salvadoran, mother, professor, artist, and poet, Karina Oliva believes in the practice of mutual empowerment and in the interconnectedness of knowledge, art, and experience. Her poetry has been published in Mujeres de Maiz Zines, La Bloga, and most recently in Ban This! The BSP Anthology of Xican@ Literature. She continues to teach Chicana/o and Latina/o literature and topics at CSULA in the Chicano Studies department.



Graciela B. Ramírez. Poet, memoir writers, dreamer, educator. Born and raised in Mexico City, Graciela immigrated to the USA in 1965. After earning three Masters degrees as a returning student, she taught Spanish and Ethnic Studies at California State University, Sacramento (CSUS) for 25 years. Graciela has written two books, yet unpublished: Sacraztlán, Una Épica Chicana, written in verse is a historical account of the Chicano Movement at CSUS. For 11 years Graciela was the Coordinator of “Los Escritores del Nuevo Sol / Writers of the New Sun,” a writers’ collective based in Sacramento. She also served as a Board Member of La Raza/Galería Posada of Sacramento. She has been a mentor to many writers and poets, a true role model, and an exemplary cultural activist respected by the whole community.


Israel Francisco Haros Lopez is both a visual artist and performance artist. His work is an attempt to search for personal truths and personal histories inside of american cosmology. The american cosmology and symbolism that he is drawing from is one that involves both northern and southern america that was here before columbus. The work both written and that which is painted is attempting to mark and remark historical points in the americas and the world.The mark making attempts to speak to the undeniable presence of a native america that will continue to flourish for generations to come.The understanding which he is drawing from is not conceptual but fact and points to the importance of honoring and remembering ancestral ways of living as a means of maintaining healthy relations with all humans,the winged, all those that crawl on this Earth, all Life, the Water, the Sacred Fire, Tonanztin, Tonatiuh,the Sacred Cardinal Points,everything inbetween, above and below and at the center of self and all things in the universe. Currently the visual motifs are drawn from both a pre-columbian america that had far far less physical, mental or spiritual borders . Recent works are exploring Xenophobia in laws such as "SB 1070" both in written and visual format. Israel considers himself an environmentalist poet seeking to awakening those harming our first mother Tonantzin.He also draws inspriation from the contemporary styles of inner city youth who use public space by any means necessary as their method of artistic expression. Israel also draws much of his inspiration from his peers and contemporaries who constantly show him innovative ways to approach cultural and political dilemnas. The written words cannot be without the painted image. The painted image cannot be without words. Neither the written work or visual work can be without sound without vibration, as all things on this earth carry vibration. As such his written and oral work is constantly shifting as it is performed or recording. The same poem,story,monologue or abstract diatribe shifts within the space it is performed taking into consideration audience and the theatrics and vibration of the moment. he is currently working on a chicano spiritual sci fi thriller the work in progress can be seen at :
www.seedsong.wordpress.com
you can see his visual, audio and film/ed work at :
www.waterhummingbirdhouse.com



Arturo Mantecón was born in 1948 in Laredo, Texas and grew up in Detroit, Michigan. His poems and prose have appeared in several reviews and anthologies. In 2011 his translation into English of selected poems by Leopoldo María Panero (title: My Naked Brain) was published by Swan Scythe Press.


Aurora Levins Morales is a chronically ill and disabled Puerto Rican Jewish writer and artist, currently living in Cambridge, MA with her Papá. She is the author of Remedios: Stories of Earth & Iron from the History of Puertorriqueñas, and Medicine Stories. Her blog can be found on her website, www.auroralevinsmorales.com.

Display Comments Add a Comment

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."

Display Comments Add a Comment

Over a glass table and several glasses of wine, the collective at What Books Press was born. They are cultural workers, made up of professors, poets, filmmakers, and, as bloguero Daniel Olivas mentioned, a haunting and famous L.A. artist, Gronk.

Poet and professor at LMU, Alicia Partnoy said the Glass Table Collective were fed up with non-responding publishers and ego-filled editors when they decided to form their own publishing company, What Books Press.

The non-writers in the group, Partnoy’s husband Antonio and artist Gronk add dimension and perspective. Alicia says, “Gronk and Antonio keep us sane because they are not writers.” Their logo is a piece by Gronk, a book stranded on an island. Partnoy says What Books aims to save those stranded books.

The story of how the group came to be and the friendships they’ve formed is at the heart of What Books Press, a labor of love in itself. Colleagues at What Books Press and LMU, professors Gail Wrongsky and Alicia Partnoy, have grown their friendship over the past ten years, so much so that both poets have translated each others work.

When Alicia decided to translate Gail Wrongsky’s So Quick Bright Things, poems about A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Alicia learned more about Shakespeare from Gail as she bemoaned the awful Argentine translation she had studied. She sat in Gail’s Shakespeare class at LMU in order to soak up the surrealist poems in conversation with A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The result is a whimsical bilingual text, worth reading even if, heaven forbid, you’ve never read the Bard. The bilingual book features Gronk’s Neue Sachlichkeit, mixed media on paper on the cover. The cover depicts a blue cake, red candles and a devil figure behind the cake. Gail knew immediately when she saw Gronk’s images that she wanted that as the cover for So Quick Bright Things.

Gronk has told the collective they have full use of his images for the covers of What Books Press. When the East L.A. born artist was creating his first book, he chose not to do a splashy coffee table book, but rather have his book look like a book of poems or fiction. The enigmatic artist may have an intimidating scowl, but he laughs a lot and lights up when he talks about his work. He describes his book, The Giant Claw, as his uncensored visual diary. Each drawing says something and Gronk challenges the reader to find the humor in his work.

What Books publishes poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, and the visual as represented by Gronk. For now their books are print on demand and there is no submission process; instead they invite selected authors. The future of What Books Press looks very bright with more anthologies and the publication of books by contest winners. The current goal is to make the books in hand more accessible to readers.

More Readings and Information Panels from What Books Press at Beyond Baroque, February 1

Display Comments Add a Comment

I'm getting ready to go on a silent retreat, so I turn to poetry to quiet the soul in preparation. Here's a poem by Miguel Gonzalez-Gerth, from his bilingual collection of the same title:

LOOKING FOR THE HORSE LATITUDES

(after the painting Rooms by the Sea by Edward Hopper)

Something unseen weighs heavy.

on the resilience of the mind.

The usual apparitions

have all been exorcised.

The sea that seemed at first

to hesitate has come

at last into the rooms

leaving in the dark a wedge of light.

It's there -somewhere-

a spectral springboard

from which one might jump

into the sea.

and yet drown in the sky?

Or else fall to the ocean floor

where unconfessed anxiety

can find oblivion?

So many things are heard

and yet are never said.

What solitude! What endless prize

of isolation that is not,

surprisingly, bereft!

Such silence can be seen.

It begs response and scatters

glimmers of reflection.

Here lies the telltale vacancy,

the vacant compass.

The emptiness that lures and cries

with mirror-like precision,

the essence that absorbs all substance,

inverted vision turned aright

past the axiometer's reflection.

Could one fall into color

and dissolve in sheer liquidity?

Is space the pure and primal

ruler of our eye,

so that no surge can lead

to anywhere but there,

to preordained discovery?

Those people, yes, the crowds

who are not here, they are so lonely

they crave the mystery

that can present the future of the past.

They are so lonely, and thus a door

has been left open quietly

that they and we and all can gaze

into the sound and some day,

when weary of the walls of time,

set sail and ride the wind toward the night.

I think my soul is now more alert than ever...

Display Comments Add a Comment