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Guild Literary Complex news
We look at literary culture and ask - "What's missing?"

Last Chicago Events of 2011
Next week is the last Palabra Pura of the year, featuring Luis Humberto Valadez and Tim Z. Herna'ndez in a poetry face-off. (Fortunately they're old friends, so any blood-letting will be in good fun.) If you haven't heard Luis or Tim live, it's one of the most unique experiences you'll have with poetry. For example, check out Luis in action.

Palabra Pura: Luis Humberto Valadez & Tim Z. Herna'ndez
Wed., Nov. 16, 2011, 7:30pm
at La Bruquena restaurant (upstairs), 2726 W. Division, Chicago

Then the next night in Hyde Park, we're presenting the contemplative fiction and non-fiction of Sergio Troncoso. He'll be reading from his new books From This Wicked Patch of Dust (University of Arizona Press) -- a novel about the Martinez family, who struggles to stay together despite cultural clashes, different religions, and contemporary politics across the U.S.-Mexico border -- and Crossing Borders: Personal Essays. Learn more about Troncoso here.

Reading with Sergio Troncoso
Thurs. Nov. 17, 2011, 7:00pm
University of Chicago's International House
1414 East 59th Street

{From La Bloga: Also check out Daniel Olivas's interview with Sergio Troncoso this past Monday here.}

Finally, in Donation Watch: thanks to generous gifts from people like you--or maybe the person next to you--we are half-way to our $400 matching gift goal for December 1st, and one step closer to our overall fundraising goal for the year-- huzzah! Please help us keep up the momentum!

If you know someone else who might be interested in these articles, events and audio clips, please forward this information. Better yet, bring them along to the next Guild show!

The Guild Literary Complex

While his note is geared to Palabra Pura poets, I would ask gente in the Chicago area and elsewhere to read this, give generously, and support what is a seminal Latino poetry venue. Palabra Pura Feed the soul, celebrates our luminaries, makes poetry accessible for our community in a way that no other literary institution does. For more info about who and what Palabra Pura is, read: http://labloga.blogspot.com/2007/07/conversation-with-francisco.html
and http://labloga.blogspot.com/2008/02/palabra-pura-news-new-latino-poetry-on.html.



October 16, 2008

Dear Lisa:

As a board member of the Guild Complex in Chicago, last year I had the privilege
of weighing in on the discussion that produced this re-vamped mission statement:

The Guild Complex, a community-based literary organization, presents and
supports diverse, divergent and emerging voices through innovative programs
including performances and readings. We look at literary culture and ask,
“What’s missing?”

In the Fall of 2005, then board member and current board president Mike Puican
answered that question (“What’s missing?”) in the following way: “There are no
poetry reading venues in Chicago that deliberately and systematically welcome
Latino and Latina poets.” So when Mike called me one morning and asked if I
would be interested in helping create a Latino poetry reading series, one of my
most enriching professional collaborations began. You know what I am talking
about because you are a PALABRA PURA alum. And I am writing to more than thirty
of you—our PALABRA PURA familia!

As the Guild Complex moves forward in planning season four (2009), we are faced,
as you can imagine, with growing challenges. We’ve received funding in the past
from the Illinois Council on the Humanities and the Joyce Foundation. In fact,
we have a grant proposal submitted to Joyce right now. We also recently
submitted a proposal to the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) for PALABRA
PURA. And yet we have come to understand that in order for this series to have
long-term viability, we are going to have to tap individual giving, as well.

And it occurred to me: who better understands and, I hope, appreciates this
series than those poets who have read in it? Who better understands that
PALABRA PURA aims to promote community between poets, specifically through our
pre-reading salon dinners, in addition to providing a Chicago venue for Latino
and Latina poets to share their work?

We have ten readings per year where we invite a “visiting poet” from outside
Chicago. With me so far? We are asking you to look at it this way: We are
asking you to donate $5 to each of those ten visiting poets. If you can think
about this in terms of giving future Palabra Pura readers $5 each, it will go a
long way towards our being able to keep offering honoraria, in addition, of
course, to travel and lodging.

And here’s the part I like the most: it’s a model for increasing sustainability.
Next year, at the conclusion of season four, we’ll be joined by more PALABRA
PURA alums, so that each year your $50 donation will be increased (if we remain
faithful) by at least $500. It’s as if we were all forming a living and growing
endowment for the future of the series. But don’t get me wrong: the annual
budget for PALABRA PURA is much much larger than the $1500 or so I hope to
raise from all of you. But it is an excellent and meaningful start at being
more intentional about tapping individual giving. Also: future potential
funders will be impressed if we can say that former participants in the series
are among our most faithful supporters.

And finally: your $50 donation buys you an annual membership to the Guild
Complex. If you have any questions about what a Guild “membership” means, please ask
(this letter is already too long!) And it goes without saying that if the
spirit moves you to donate more than $50 please do so since I imagine and
understand that there may be personal economies who can’t give as much as $50.
It also goes without saying that any amount, however modest, would be greatly
appreciated.

In a nutshell: I am asking you to consider making a tax-deductible donation of
$50 towards a program you were a part of and, we trust, was a meaningful
experience for you. You can make your donation by writing a check to “The Guild
Complex.” Please write in the memo line “Palabra Pura.” Alternatively, you can
make the donation online through pay pal by going to the Guild website (
http://guildcomplex.org ). We only ask that you let us know if you have gone
this route as we would like to keep track of the number of PALABRA PURA alums
who have contributed. If you opt to send a check, the mailing address is:

Guild Complex
P.O. Box 478880
Chicago, IL 60647-9998

Again, please feel free to contact me, or Ellen Wadey, the Guild’s Executive
Director, if you have any questions.

Thank you so much,

Francisco

Francisco Aragón
Co-curator, PALABRA PURA
Board member, The Guild Complex

Your humble writer this week was blessed had the task of trying to fill the shoes of Johanny Vazquez, at this month's Palabra Pura. La Divina is in Puerto Rico where I'm sure she's enjoying family and holding court. In a bedrock venue of Chicago's Mexican community, Decima Musa, Palabra Pura offered  two dynamic poets, and the pre-show conversation was a lively, full-bodied discussion on female aesthetics and female presence on stage. The evening resonated with work that puts flesh on the bone, that breathes a sense of everyday spirituality and working-class nobility into their work. 

Naomi Ayala is the author of This Side of Early (Curbstone Press, 2008) and Wild Animals on the Moon (Curbstone Press, 1997). Her third collection of poems is forthcoming from Bilingual Review Press in 2009. Ayala’s work has appeared in numerous journals and has been anthologized in Seeds of Fire: Contemporary Poems from the Other USA (Smokestack Books/U.K., 2008), Boriquén to Diasporican: Puerto Rican Poetry from Aboriginal Times to the New Millennium (University of Massachusetts Press, 2007), The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry (University of Arizona Press, 2007), and Latino Boom: An Anthology of U.S. Latino Literature (Longman, 2005). Ayala works as an education consultant (with a specialty in curriculum design and development), a translator, and teacher, and is currently serving as the Director of Development for Fiesta DC.

From Consortium, about This Side of Early...These poems straddle two landscapes—contrasting the imprints of gentrification with the supernal, come by way of the woods. Ayala’s poems deconstruct the political world of man, offer hope through a compelling, lyrical spiritual intimacy, and bridge the gap between the two with words full of ecological intensity. Her deep connections with the working class combine with a love of the land to offer us lilt and dream, revelation and foretelling. Many of the "seeings" she brings us walk the edge of cultural resilience, where the illusion we see of the outside world speaks to us most when we turn within.

Diana Pando is a megaphone for Latinos in the arts. She has been Managing Director of Teatro Vista, Interim Managing Director for Teatro Luna, and worked with Luna Negra Dance Theatre and DeLaTorre Fine Arts. Through Teatro Vista she has been able to initiate dialogue between communities and arts groups resulting in youth outreach programs in the Back of the Yards neighborhood and increased Latino theatre in Little Village. She is one of the founding members of Proyecto Latina, a collaborative between Teatro Luna and Tianguis Bookstore and former contributing writer for Dinero Magazine. She has contributed writing to Teatro Luna's critically acclaimed show MACHOS, Lunaticas, collaborated with artist Luis DeLaTorre and maintains a blog called Art Botanas for Latinos in the arts.

She is a member of the Latina Leadership Council for the Chicago Foundation for Women. This October she will be the featured reader at Proyecto Latina hosted at RadioArte. Currently, she works with the Community Media Workshop helping nonprofits tell their stories. She is a lifelong resident of the Bridgeport neighborhood where she resides with artist Luis DeLaTorre and their dog Cometa

“I know a doctor who wishes he could teach literature. I know a lawyer who secretly writes children stories. I don’t know any writer, however, who hankers after an alternative profession. If you are a writer and you are writing, there may be problems but never doubt.”

“While most writers understandably dream of making their living practicing their craft, there are advantages to making your living in other ways.” such as not be isolated and not being motivated by the money to get things completed but letting it find its own pace."

Uh there's been a while since I've last posted here. And actually this is my second time - that was my secret ;-)