1. I've been reading quite a lot of poetry lately. For grown-up poems, I've been reading that new Neruda book I blogged about as well as re-reading Ted Kooser's Valentines. In the kidlit arena, I've been reading the finalists for the CYBILS awards, since I'm one of the judges for the poetry category. Very good stuff on the short list this year.
2. The Airborne Toxic Event has a new single, "Changing", which has a major hook to it. "I am a gentlemen" is STUCK IN MY BRAINRADIO. I've heard it once in concert and once on the radio and now I'm hooked - can't believe I can't buy it until February, but it was kind of the band to post the track on YouTube!
3. I backed my computer files up today. I mention it in case it's something you need to do too - it can be so easy to let these things slide, somehow, isn't it?
4. On Tuesday, my friend Lisa and I are to see & hear author Brad Meltzer speak at the Free Library of Philadelphia. I'm looking forward to it - and it will make my second theatre-like cultural event this month, so I'm exceeding that particular well-filling goal!
5. January 19th marked the occasion of Edgar Allan Poe's 202nd birthday. Blogger Jef Otte came up with "Five weird ways to celebrate", which is presented in countdown format. Number five, entitled "Creeping", is:
In Tell-Tale Heart, perhaps the most famous of Poe's stories, the narrator spends all night slowly creeping toward his neighbor, who is lying asleep in his bed, intent upon murdering him. Today, try spending a couple of hours creeping toward the guy in the cubicle next to you on your rolly chair. If he says anything, shine a penlight in his vulture eye.
I happen to find #1 ("The cask") hilarious, despite it being very, very wrong: "Invite a friend over. Get him drunk. Bury him alive in your basement."
me, p
1. Give what you want to receive. The flow of Abundance is already all around you. To step into this flow is easy. Give to someone else the very thing you would like to receive. And give it freely without expectations of receiving, as if you already had more than enough. If you want more kindness in your life, be kind to someone, if you want more happiness in your life, make someone else happy, if you want more money in your life, share a little of what you have. Give it away easily, like you already had all that you need and there is plenty more from where that came from.
2. Trust and know. The next step is to trust and know you have just stepped into the flow of abundance and are now aligned with what you want. Know there is more than enough to go around.
3. Take Action. Participation is an important part of Abundance. While you are knowing you are now aligned with the flow of the abundance you want, it is also important to participate and help make things happen. Follow your inner knowing and your intuition and do your part to help create the abundance you would like to have. Continue to participate until you are receiving what you want.
4. Be Grateful. Gratitude is a vital step in the flow of abundance. It is a powerful magnet which keeps us in the flow and aligned with receiving all the wonderful things we desire. Fill yourself with gratitude all the time, even about the small and seemingly simple things in your life. There is always something to be grateful about. When you notice a little of what you want flowing to you, take a moment and be grateful for what you have received, regardless of how big or small it may be. Be grateful and say thank you.
5. Pass it on. When you receive a little abundance take a moment and pass some of it on and assist someone else in feeling a little more abundant. When you pass on some of what you receive, do it easily as if you already have more than you need, expecting nothing in return. When you pass it on in this way you are now starting the process all over again and have once again taken the first step to "give what you want to receive." In this way the flow of abundance continues and becomes more and more each time.
Martin Espada
From Our Friends at Acentos:
Acentos Writers Workshop welcomes Martin Espada Eugenio María de Hostos Community College Friday, May 8th, 2009 at 7pm.
Acentos Writers Workshop welcomes Martin Espada to Eugenio María de Hostos Community College on Friday, May 8th, 2009 at 7pm sharp. FREE!
We are extremely excited to announce that Martin Espada will facilitate a workshop for Acentos. Called “the Latino poet of his generation” and “the Pablo Neruda of North American authors,” Martín Espada was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1957. He has published sixteen books in all as a poet, editor, essayist and translator, including two collections of poems last year: Crucifixion in the Plaza de Armas (Smokestack, 2008), released in England, and La Tumba de Buenaventura Roig (Terranova, 2008), a bilingual edition published in Puerto Rico.
The Republic of Poetry, a collection of poems published by Norton in 2006, received the Paterson Award for Sustained Literary Achievement and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Another collection, Imagine the Angels of Bread (Norton, 1996), won an American Book Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Other books of poetry include Alabanza: New and Selected Poems (Norton, 2003), A Mayan Astronomer in Hell’s Kitchen (Norton, 2000), City of Coughing and Dead Radiators (Norton, 1993), and Rebellion is the Circle of a Lover’s Hands (Curbstone, 1990). He has received numerous awards and fellowships, including the Robert Creeley Award, the Antonia Pantoja Award, the Charity Randall Citation, the Paterson Poetry Prize, the Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award, the National Hispanic Cultural Center Literary Award, the Premio Fronterizo, two NEA Fellowships, the PEN/Revson Fellowship and a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship.
His poems have appeared in the The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, Harper’s, The Nation and The Best American Poetry. He has also published a collection of essays, Zapata’s Disciple (South End, 1998); edited two anthologies, Poetry Like Bread: Poets of the Political Imagination from Curbstone Press (Curbstone, 1994) and El Coro: A Chorus of Latino and Latina Poetry (University of Massachusetts, 1997); and released an audiobook of poetry called Now the Dead will Dance the Mambo (Leapfrog, 2004). His work has been translated into ten languages. A former tenant lawyer, Espada is now a professor in the Department of English at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, where he teaches creative writing and the work of Pablo Neruda.
Espada will facilitate a 2 hour poetry workshop for free. Yes, I said free. We are welcoming the community at large. Yet, there will not be massive chaos. There will be a registration process. If you have not e-mailed [email protected] to register, you will not be able to take the workshop. Notice, this workshop is on a Friday evening at 7pm. Bring your pens, bring your paper, bring your hearts. Palante papi, Siempre palante.
Eugenio María de Hostos Community College Savoy Building, 120 East 149th Street, corner of Walton Ave, Multipurpose Room, Second Floor New York 10451 • Phone 917-209-4211 7pm sharp! Directions to Hostos Community College
Hostos Community College is located at a safe and busy intersection just steps from the subway station and bus stop. By subway: take the 2,4,5 IRT trains to 149th Street (Eugenio María de Hostos Boulevard) and the Grand Concourse.By bus: take the Bx1 or cross-town Bx19 to 149th Street (Eugenio María de Hostos Boulevard) and the Grand Concourse. By car:From Manhattan, take the FDR Drive north to the Willis Avenue Bridge to the Major Deegan Expressway (87N). Proceed north to Exit 3. Take the right fork in the exit ramp to the Grand Concourse and proceed north to East 149th Street (Eugenio María de Hostos Boulevard) From Queens, take the Triborough Bridge to the Major Deegan Expressway. Continue north to Exit 3. Take the right fork in the exit ramp to the Grand Concourse and proceed north to East 149th Street (Eugenio María de Hostos Boulevard).From Westchester, take the Major Deegan Expressway south (87S) to Exit 3.
Turn left at the light. Turn left again at Grand Concourse and proceed north to East 149th Street (Eugenio María de Hostos Boulevard) .From New Jersey, take the George Washington Bridge to the Major Deegan Expressway south to Exit 3. Turn left at the light. Turn left again at Grand Concourse and proceed north to East 149th Street (Eugenio María de Hostos Boulevard)
Fish Vargas 917-209-4211
Lisa Alvarado
Martín Espada
Dear Readers:
I was teaching an intro to lit class yesterday and afterward one of my students said that reading Federico's Ghost changed his whole view of poetry. He said he previously thought poetry was irrelevant to everyday people, obtuse, precious. However, Martín Espada changed what he thought and what he was going to read. He went on and on about the use of images that got under his skin, images that made the labor and the suffering a visceral, unforgettable experience.
(Ah, we poets, we teachers, live for that!)
Please take a look at that life-changing poem and a repeat look at my review of his Pulitzer Prize nominated book, The Republic of Poetry.
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Federico's Ghost
The story is
that whole families of fruitpickers
still crept between the furrows
of the field at dusk,
when for reasons of whiskey or whatever
the cropduster plane sprayed anyway,
floating a pesticide drizzle
over the pickers
who thrashed like dark birds
in a glistening white net,
except for Federico,
a skinny boy who stood apart
in his own green row,
and, knowing the pilot
would not understand in Spanish
that he was the son of a whore,
instead jerked his arm
and thrust an obscene finger.
The pilot understood.
He circled the plane and sprayed again,
watching a fine gauze of poison
drift over the brown bodies
that cowered and scurried on the ground,
and aiming for Federico,
leaving the skin beneath his shirt
wet and blistered,
but still pumping his finger at the sky.
After Federico died,
rumors at the labor camp
told of tomatoes picked and smashed at night,
growers muttering of vandal children
or communists in camp,
first threatening to call Immigration,
then promising every Sunday off
if only the smashing of tomatoes would stop.
Still tomatoes were picked and squashed
in the dark,
and the old women in camp
said it was Federico,
laboring after sundown
to cool the burns on his arms,
flinging tomatoes
at the cropduster
that hummed like a mosquito
lost in his ear,
and kept his soul awake.
from Rebellion is the Circle of a Lover's Hands
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Martín Espada's The Republic of Poetry reminds me of Oscar de la Hoya's boxing. Beautiful to behold, it's unerring in its aim. Pared down to the essential--it's body blows to the chest, to the gut, head blows that annihilate the opponent and leave the viewer stunned, reeling, gasping for air. Democracy subverted in Chile and by implication, everywhere, reverberates on every page.
The Republic of Poetry is not an elegy, it's an upper cut to complacency, a left hook to amnesia. Wake up, remember what was, see what's happening right in front of you. The comparison of Espada to Neruda, to Whitman are many, but to me, what comes to mind is poet warrior, able to fight and raise an army with the power of his words.
But in case you're not convinced, here is some additional praise for this remarkable book.
“What a tender, marvelous collection. First, that broken, glorious journey into the redemptive heart of my Chile, and then, as if that had not been enough, the many gates of epiphanies and sorrows being opened again and again, over and over.” —Ariel Dorfman
“Martín Espada is a poet of annunciation and denunciation, a bridge between Whitman and Neruda, a conscientious objector in the war of silence.” —Ilan Stavans
“Martín Espada’s big-hearted poems reconfirm ‘The Republic of Poetry’ that (dares) to insist upon its dreams of justice and mercy even during the age of perpetual war.” —Sam Hamill
“Martín Espada is indeed a worthy prophet for a better world.” —Rigoberto González
This is tight, muscular writing. Espada make his point with an economy of language, concealing a dense terrain of imagery and meaning. In this universe, the dead are not ghosts, but fully fleshed--staving off the soldiers, marching in the battlefield, struggling in the streets, and inspiring new generations. Read these and you'll see what I mean.
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The Soldiers in the Garden
Isla Negra, Chile, September 1973
After the coup,
the soldiers appeared
in Neruda’s garden one night,
raising lanterns to interrogate the trees,
cursing at the rocks that tripped them.
From the bedroom window
they could have been
the conquistadores of drowned galleons,
back from the sea to finish
plundering the coast.
The poet was dying:
cancer flashed through his body
and left him rolling in the bed to kill the flames.
Still, when the lieutenant stormed upstairs,
Neruda faced him and said:
There is only one danger for you here: poetry.
The lieutenant brought his helmet to his chest,
apologized to señor Neruda
and squeezed himself back down the stairs.
The lanterns dissolved one by one from the trees.
For thirty years
we have been searching
for another incantation
to make the soldiers
vanish from the garden.
The soldier leaves, not because the poet is super human, but because he's supremely human. Poetry taps into a power that no bullet can halt nor cancer eat away. Armies of everyday people have been set loose with words like Neruda's. Then and now, the men in power with bloody hands know it's dangerous, know it's subversive. But in the end, it remains unstoppable. Black Islands
for Darío
At Isla Negra,
between Neruda’s tomb
and the anchor in the garden,
a man with stonecutter’s hands
lifted up his boy of five
so the boy’s eyes could search mine.
The boy’s eyes were black olives.
Son, the father said, this is a poet,
like Pablo Neruda.
The boy’s eyes were black glass.
My son is called Darío,
for the poet of Nicaragua,
the father said.
The boy’s eyes were black stones.
The boy said nothing,
searching my face for poetry,
searching my eyes for his own eyes.
The boy’s eyes were black islands.
What possibility dwells in those black eyes? What page of history will be written for him to read, and what page will he write himself? Knowing that Espada is a father, I can only imagine how many times he's asked himself those questions in the still hours of the night, watching his own child sleep. Toward the end of The Republic of Poetry, Espada meditates on the "smaller" world of family and relationships, personal joy and private grief. Every fighter has his scars, and every poet, his pleasures.Now, stop reading this, it won't get the job done. Go. Get the book. Read that instead.
It's time to wake up.The Republic of Poetry W. W. Norton - ISBN-10: 0393062562
- ISBN-13: 978-0393062564
Lisa Alvarado
In no particular order:
I wish for...
Universal health care for all
Universal literacy and the means to achieve it
Meaningful work at a true living wage for all
A planet without us wounding it by thoughtless use of resources
And end to gun barrel diplomacy
I am grateful for...
a spiritual outlook and a real relationship with Spirit
some small gift to be able to write
a larger gift to be able to appreciate the genius, hardwork,
and talent of so many others
Martin Espada
Dina Ackerman
Luis Rodriguez
Pablo Neruda
the blogueros
Ann Cardinal in particular
strength, both physical and emotional
the ability to find joy and beauty in everyday life
the ability to laugh
Lisa Alvarado
For those of you still in a love poem state of mind, three works of genius, and a small burnt offering from me.
Don’t Go Far Off, Not Even for a Day
Don't go far off, not even for a day, because --
because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.
Don't leave me, even for an hour, because
then the little drops of anguish will all run together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
into me, choking my lost heart.
Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;
may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance.
Don't leave me for a second, my dearest,
because in that moment you'll have gone so far
I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?
Pablo Neruda
From his book, Cien sonetos de amor (100 love sonnets),1986
Translated by Stephen Tapscott
University of Texas Press
ISBN: 978-0-292-76028-8
You Bring Out the Mexican in Me
You bring out the Mexican in me.
The hunkered thick dark spiral.
The core of a heart howl.
The bitter bile.
The tequila lágrimas on Saturday all
through next weekend Sunday.
You are the one I’d let go the other loves for
surrender my one-woman house.
Allow you red wine in bed,
even with my vintage lace linens.
Maybe. Maybe.
For you.
You bring out the Dolores del Río in me.
The Mexican spitfire in me.
The raw navajas, glint and passion in me.
The raise Cain and dance
with the rooster-footed devil in me.
The spangled sequin in me.
The eagle and the serpent in me.
The mariachi trumpets of the blood in me.
The Aztec love of war in me.
The fierce obsidian of the tongue in me.
The berrinchuda bien-cabrona in me.
The Pandora’s curiosity in me.
The pre-Columbian death and destruction in me.
The rainforest disaster, nuclear threat in me.
The fear of fascists in me.
Yes, you do. Yes, you do.
You bring out the colonizer in me.
The holocaust of desire in me.
The Mexico City ’85 earthquake in me.
The Popocatepetl/Ixtaccíhuatl in me.
The tidal wave of recession in me.
The Agustín Lara hopeless romantic in me.
The barbacoa taquitos on Sunday in me.
The cover the mirrors with cloth in me.
Sweet twin. My wicked other,
I am the memory that circles your bed nights,
that tugs you taut as moon tugs ocean.
I claim you all mine,
arrogant as Manifest Destiny.
I want to rattle and rent you in two.
I want to defile you and raise hell.
I want to pull out the kitchen knives,
dull and sharp, and whisk the air with crosses.
Me sacas lo mexicana en mi,
like it or not, honey.
You bring out the Uled-Nayl in me.
The stand-back-white-bitch in me.
The switchblade in the boot in me.
The Acapulco cliff diver in me.
The Flecha Roja mountain disaster in me.
The dengue fever in me.
The ¡Alarma! murderess in me.
I could kill in the name of you and think
it worth it. Brandish a fork and terrorize rivals,
female and male, who loiter and look at you,
languid in your light. Oh.
I am evil. I am the filth goddess Tlazoltéotl.
I am the swallower of sins.
The lust goddess without guilt.
The delicious debauchery. You bring out
the primordial exquisiteness in me.
The nasty obsession in me.
The corporal and venial sin in me.
The original transgression in me.
Red ocher. Yellow ocher. Indigo. Cochineal.
Piñon. Copal. Sweetgrass. Myrrh.
All you saints, blessed and terrible,
Virgen de Guadalupe, diosa Coatlicue,
I invoke you.
Quiero ser tuya. Only yours. Only you.
Quiero amarte. Atarte. Amarrarte.
Love the way a Mexican woman loves. Let
me show you. Love the only way I know how.
Sandra Cisneros
From her book,
Loose Woman, 1994, Random House
ISBN: 978-0-679-41644-9
WILDFLOWER
Yesterday, you called me wildflower,
and I knew what you meant; a free spirit
blooming outside domestic gardens,
precious for that, bursting with color,
but destined to be always and irrevocable other.
Perhaps you were imagining the field
by your house where wildflowers struggle
up upon their roots, despite harsh winds
and human traffic, or how, in the wild
flowers use their softness to crack through rock,
thirsting deep to hidden springs.
Because the wild flowers inside you,
your eyes sometimes melt,
and I feel awe washing over me
as you savor the iridescent wildflower
perched on a leather outcropping
only a few feet away, in a Byzantine land
where winds brawl, tempests toss,
and driven wild, flowers fly in all directions.
After hours, when time crashes down,
I wonder, do you sit below the cauldron
of night, watching the moonlight spill
onto the savage farm and wildflowers appear
as if by incantation, to beguile you
with their slow recital of dreams?
There, a chaotic winds whisper
over the cold lips of the wilderness
faint clues to life's exuberance
and reach, I know you're searching
for lost words of redemption, and hope
you find some with me, where the wild flowers.
Diane Ackerman
From her book,
I Praise My Destroyer, Vintage, 2000
ISBN-10: 0679771344
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PAST ALL THAT
I have loved you
past the place where
we were good poetry.
Past the Coltrane courtship songs,
past the stories of the ones that didn’t work out;
the ones we could have never loved like this.
I have loved you past the giddy laughter
right before you kiss me.
I have loved you to this place.
The place where we hold on;
trying not to forget.
Where we tell each other
everything will be alright.
When we know there's no money,
and sometimes you go away.
We drink our coffee
as a sacrament.
It was all scented skin
in the beginning.
We have transcended all that.
We are ordinary.
We are bedrock and cool earth.
We are married.
PASO VERDE
I am dreaming
dreaming a world
soft
green
flowing
world is word
word is my body
I am flowing
I am flowing to the place
where I meet myself
where the body is earth
there is no difference
I am curving
curving upward
arcing
I carry a green cup
I drink from it
evergreen
It holds water
a promise
I need this water
to live
all that lives in me
needs this promise
I am curving
I am arcing
I am flying
to my completion
to you, my love
the sky.
"Federico's Ghost," the greatest middle finger in literature.
Thanks for sharing this wonderful post,
MP