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Here's some things to ponder....

Politico, Prisoner, street poet...aside from these obvious roles,
what is the lasting impact of raulsalinas?

What are both the specific and universal messages in his work?

What were his spheres of influence as a writer and poet?

How has he personally affected your writing, your ethos, your sensibilities?

How would you summarize his example as to what it means to be a man,
a Chicano (a), a creative person, a spiritual person?

Share your thoughts and your stories here with us next week....

Please take some time to read about the land struggle that is currently underway, and not being covered by mainstream media. Margo Tamez, author of Naked Wanting and Raven Eye, wants readers to know about the struggle between the Department of Homeland Security and native peoples on the issue of border rights.

Border struggle article, here.

For background on Margo, her poetry, and her commitments, read my conversation with her, here.


Lisa Alvarado

Beyond poetry’s elegant use of language, it has the power to heal. Deeply.

John Fox explores this capacity in Poetic Medicine. Through the use of poetry, writers/readers can gain access to the restorative power of creativity. This a different tack than the general premise of art therapy, in which there an outside construct, psychology, is used to interpret and shape work. Fox believes in the inherent power contained in the actual process of writing, in naming and describing one's own reality.

In the chapter When God Sighs, healing from loss, illness and death are explored, with the idea that writing can be a vehicle to confront and transform our feelings about these difficult subjects. Through this process of naming and claiming, I've written about childhood abuse, and now have a kind of mastery over it. Through writing poetry and scripting a performance, tried to move from journaling to something transcendent, and hopefully, universal in its scope.

In Poems of Witness in a Conflicted World, Fox uses the chapter to call on writers/readers to look at social issues, take a stand and publicly comment on them. The idea of bearing witness is taken to a new level, as Fox insists that the writer can be a be a challenge to the status quo, and should take on that role as challenger as an explicit responsibility. Again, in asking the audience to take a hard look at the culture-wide ambivalence toward violence, I try to echo Fox's sentiments in personally bearing witness and asking others to share in that. Surviving violence is the theme in both past and current work. The cultural issue of violence and our ambivalent, voyeuristic relationship to it continues to be a theme for me, and I hope to create dialogs with the audience on these issues.

Throughout the book, Fox uses works by famous and unknown writers to illustrate how poetry sheds light on dark places, and shapes hearts and minds. While the book also contains writing exercises, its strength is that it calls upon writers/readers to root themselves in the beauty, the struggles, and daily life that surrounds them. I found the general perspective, his direct writing style, and excerpts of a vast range of poetry an incredible resource. It reinforced why I write, the reason I choose the subject matter I choose, and my understanding of who is my audience.

Poetic Medicine Bag: (From the Poetic Medicine website)
Exercise 3: Prayer Poems

Prayer is a way to communicate with the Divine.

Prayer is a way to love the spirit of whatever is dear to you. Prayer is a way to let your heart cry out. Prayer is a way to come exactly as you are to the Unknown, the mystery of it all. Bring to your prayer what is raw, what is sublime. Prayer is a way to welcome a wider vision of life for you. Are you aware of the silence that your prayer words join with? Prayer is words strung like beads on the thread of your silence.

What fertile silence do you long to enter? How does this kind of silence effect your world?

How does divine guidance respond to your plea for help? What oppressive silence do you want to break? And by saying what? Who reaches your heart in those times when no one else can?

What are you in awe of? What do you want to praise? What awakens your heart to great joy?

Try writing a prayer of your own. Here is an example:

The Dreamer

Pour my eternity
into the chalice of today
Let me drink, drink, drink
my journeys down
and travel the night on three white horses
I with a rose
dangling from my mouth
a star in each eye
a sun in my heart
and the moon to give my crossroads light.

--Sherry Reiter from Finding What You Didn't Lose: Expressing Your Truth and Creativity Through Poem-Making

An Evening with "MACHOS" BY TEATRO LUNA Presented by CHICAGO FOUNDATION FOR WOMEN'S Latina Leadership Council An Evening with "MACHOS" BY TEATRO LUNA 6:30 p.m. wine and cheese reception 8-9:30 p.m. performance Friday, Nov. 9 Chicago Dramatists 1105 W. Chicago Ave. Chicago Call (312) 577-2801 ext. 229. Tickets are $45. Proceeds from this event benefit the Unidas Fund of the Latina Leadership Council. No refunds or exchanges. A world premiere production, "MACHOS" is an interview-based play about contemporary masculinities. As always, Teatro Luna asks hard-hitting questions, such as: Exactly how did you learn to use the urinal? "MACHOS" presents a range of true-life stories with Teatro Luna’s trademark humor and unique Latina point-of-view. "MACHOS" follows Teatro Luna's critically-acclaimed shows "S-E-X-OH" and "LUNATIC(A)S." It moves beyond the everyday stereotypes of gender, offering a complex look at how 50 men (and eight Latina women) learned how to be men. Performances are drawn from interviews with 50 men nationwide and performed by an all-Latina cast in drag. After the performance there will be a reception with director Coya Paz and the actors. Featuring Belinda Cervantes, Maritza Cervantes, Yadira Correa, Gina Cornejo, Ilana Faust, Stephanie Gentry-Fernandez and Wendy Vargas. Learn more about the Latina Leadership Council of Chicago Foundation for Women. Chicago Dramatists is wheelchair-accessible. If you have other accesibility needs or questions, please contact Marisol Ybarra by Nov. 6 at (312) 577-2836 / TTY (312) 577-2803 or [email protected].

OYE-LISTEN! A Bi-monthly Performance Series

About the performance and presenting artists -
Sharmili Majmudar & Amisha Patel, Dawn Herrera/Terry

Teatro Luna and Jane Addams Hull-House Museum join forces to showcase new works by emerging, Chicago-based performing artists. This collaboration aims to provide women artists of color a space to share personal stories and reflect on contemporary social issues facing their community. By remaining true to the lives and experiences of women of color, this series creates bridges among Chicago ethnic communities.

OYE-LISTEN! MONDAY, September 24, 7-9pm

Our Living by Sharmili Majmudar & Amisha Patel
Our Living a collaborative spoken word piece with musical background written and performed by two Gujarati Indian American women that interweaves our experiences and explores identity, sexism, racism, colonization, and re-emergence through reclaiming our true selves. In this piece, we remind ourselves of how our living depends on each other, despite and in the face of the oppression we experience. Through poetry, we reclaim truth and each other.

PORTALES: Mitologia Subjetiva (Matrilineal) by Dawn Herrera/Terry
Something between monologue and performance, PORTALES is a gently surreal portrait of a personal history, offering one possible account of the how borders may be internalized and inhabited. A work in progress, PORTALES will eventually weave together more strands of family narrative to further explore physical, cultural, emotional and spiritual legacies.

For more information about the artists, please visit: www.hullhousemuseum.org.

7pm - 8:40pm Performance
8:45pm - 9:00pm Post-show discussion
Jane Addams Hull-House Museum
Residents' Dining Hall
800 S. Halsted St, Chicago, IL

This is the third event in the series; the first two were standing room only:
make your reservation soon!

This event is FREE. Light refreshments will be served.

Reservations are recommended,
call 312.413.5353
This event is ADA accessible. If you have a disability and need additional accommodations to attend this event, please inform us at the time of reservation

Christy Adair is a freelance writer and cultural critic, contributing to such dance journals as Spare Rib and Everywoman. Women and Dance: sylphs and sirens (Macmillan, 1992), is a text used on dance and performance courses in Britain, America and Asia. Adair contributes reviews and articles to journals, magazines, radio and television both nationally and internationally. She also facilitates a range of performance and education events. Adair is a Reader in Dance Studies at York St John University and is committed to radical performance which communicates an exhilaration of moving and challenges social contexts. Christy has significant links with the dance performance industry both locally in the UK and internationally. Her current research interests focus on gender and ethnicity in relation to dance studies and performance. Her forthcoming book is entitled Dancing the Black Question: The Phoenix Dance Company Phenomenon.

In Women and Dance, Adair introduces the reader to an analysis of Western dance from the point of view of gender and post-feminist analysis. Despite the traditionally high profile of women as principal dancers, Adair asserts that modern Western dance is far from a woman-centered medium. Due to the lack of women choreographers and directors, the genre’s vision of women continues to be rooted in patriarchal notions of the female. It is a representation of the female body that is seriously limited, still unable to reflect the depth of women’s reality.

Adair sees the most synchronous images of women having their origins in dance/performance companies that evolved as in the period post 1970. According to Adair, these groups reflected the fluid, politically progressive images of women following the last wave of the feminist movement. Their major contribution was the development of a type of performance that pushed the boundaries of gender and sex-role expectations. In a piece entitled She Is Giving Birth to Herself, Adair describes how the group Bush Mama explores the primacy of woman relating to other women, not woman-as-male-love-object.

The most useful portion of the book was: “The subversives...women’s dance practices.” It underscores Adair's central tenet that images of women will only be expanded with women themselves taking control of developing, directing, and mounting their own work. This, according to Adair, must occur despite the social and economic barriers involved.

This is particularly potent for me as I try to work more on dance and spoken word pieces. I came to the same realization over the last ten years that I needed to do whatever was necessary to control my own work, how it was showcased, etc. It's also an opinion I've shared with other writer/performers, such as Tara Betts and Sharmili Majmudar, as well as initial discussions with dramaturg and performer Coya Paz, founding member of Teatro Luna here in Chicago.

My only two hesitations in recommending Women and Dance are these: it's an extremely dense read, which made for laborious, although worthwhile reading, and that the book is expensive and better gotten through library sources. But simply put, Women and Dance a vital sourcebook for women performers across the board.

• ISBN-10: 0814706215
• ISBN-13: 978-0814706213

Sam Quinones's new book ANTONIO'S GUN AND DELFINO'S DREAM,
a book of vignettes on immigration that has been lauded in the San Francisco
Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, Publishers Weekly, and Library Journal,
as well as having been featured by La Bloga's Daniel Olivas.

Quinones has spoken about immigration--indeed a hot topic again as
Homeland Security begins cracking down on companies that hire
"illegals"--on NewsHour, NPR, and CSPAN.

The newest feature of Sam's website, www.samquinones.com is a link
where the public can tell their "True Tale," the name of which taken
from Sam's first book, TRUE TALES FROM ANOTHER MEXICO.
Here's the link, which has five or six stories from people on it.
http://www.samquinones.com/other_stories.asp 

Aracelis Girmay writes poetry, fiction, & essays. Teeth, her collection of poems, was published by Curbstone Press in June 2007. Her poetry has appeared in Ploughshares, Bellevue Literary Review, Indiana Review, Callaloo, & MiPoesias, among other journals. Her collage-based picture book, changing, changing, was published by George Braziller in 2005. Girmay is a Cave Canem Fellow & former Watson Fellow. She teaches writing workshops in New York & California.

(That's the official bio, gente, but I think you'll love hearing Aracelis on Aracelis in a recent email I received.)

*****

"I've loved books & the idea of reading since I was little. The story goes "you used to memorize the books & sit & read from memory before you knew how to really read." I used to sleep with my books. I LOVED to read, and then, I used to tell my younger brother stories. My grandmother still has folders of stories I'd write at her house. When I was 13, though, I read The Bluest Eye, I remember thinking: Oh, god, we're allowed to write like that? The way we think? The way people talk? The ways my people talk? Oh, really? It opened up this door of permission---I didn't know, really, that writing could represent me, not until then. wow, something in the way that I perceived writing & reading changed in me then.

I started sharing my work with other people when I was in college--Writing has always been my lifeline--my way of figuring & making sense & asking questions & maintaining hope, a hope. But it wasn't until college that I realized that I HAD to cultivate this work--that I HAVE to write. It is one of my absolute necessaries. Circulation, breath, communication, memory, wildness, & order. My mom is Puerto Rican & African American (Georgian)--from Chicago, & my dad's Eritrean, born in Gondar, Ethiopia. Both of them are amazing story-tellers--who tell the stories in very different ways. But, oh! The stories--they are essential--I always had the sense (even when I was very small) that these stories would be the only landscapes in which I'd meet, say, my Great Aunt Tiny, my uncle Samuel, my grandparents, my countries.

I knew, too, that the stories were not only important for me & my brother to hear (my sisters weren't born yet), but for my parents to say out loud. I remember witnessing the powers a story can have on the person telling--the way connections that weren't made before can be made in the telling. I write because it is my way of speaking, my way of figuring, my way of connecting, moving deeper into my life. I write, too, in the words of Carolyn Forche: against forgetting. I write the things that others wish I would forget. The things I cannot bear forgetting. The things I cannot survive forgetting. I write to get something back: world, that is, to still myself, somehow, & consider the things the world is constantly showing: see, see this! hear, hear this! say this! remember, remember!

I write to undo time, to go back & fiddle, to sit with what I've been given, to learn something, really, to visit the ghosts & let them know I see them.

Influences--poets, fictionists, painters, musicians: Helene Cixous, Aime Cesaire, Audre Lorde, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Toni Morrison, Frida Kahlo, Martín Espada, Gwendolyn Brooks, Nazim Hikmet, Anna Akhmatova, Ovid, Etta James, Derek Walcott, Naomi Shihab Nye, Cy Twombly, Lucille Clifton, Caetano Veloso, Pharoah Sanders, Taha Muhammad Ali, James Tate, my students, a few of Hayden Carruth's poems knock me out--hugely, church stories, my family's stories, my parents, my family's dead; and every accordion: every accordion is my influence."

*****

And if you haven't already fallen in love with her and her writing, take a look at what others have to say about the Divine Ms. Girmay.

"In Teeth, the poems of Aracelis Girmay ring out with a burning truth as she transports the reader into the world of despair, discrimination, sorrows, triumphs, joy and the courage it takes to flourish as a woman of color. Her keen observations are put forth with an appetite for life without fear or self-consciousness as she weaves her words into a range of potent poems." -- Nicholasa Mohr

"The poetry of Aracelis Girmay is so strong, so brave, so lyrical, so fiery, so joyful, that the usual superlatives fail. I think of Sandra Cisneros and her words of praise for another writer, Denise Chávez: 'I love this book so much, it sounds like I’m lying.' Exactly." -- Martín Espada

"In the foreword, [Espada] calls the poems, 'hard, cutting, brilliant, beautiful.' As I read Teeth, I have to say that it did not take long for me to agree with [his] opinion. But more than that, I have to say that Girmay has put together one of the best debuts by any poet in recent memory...This collection is sure to continue to create a significant amount of well-deserved buzz. No doubt it will garner more praise and will be mentioned among nominees for literary awards. Indeed, Aracelis Girmay is the real deal."-- Jose B. Gonzalez, Co-Editor of Latino Boom

"In her powerful debut collection of poems, Teeth, Aracelis Girmay reaches out to her various cultural lineages (Eritrean, Puerto Rican and African American) and weaves them into a distinct voice, political and beautiful as 'bullets of ivory'...Teeth delivers on its promise to be a fierce, proud book of poems that provokes thought and invites its readers to be a poet's unique and expectant universe, where celebration and protest, lament and solace, sound and silence, intertwine and thrive."-- El Paso Times

Aracelis Girmay makes me want to be a better writer. TEETH is a stunning piece of work de sudor y socorro. She has the gift -- able to craft indelible work fashioned from the bones of ancestors and living, singing blood. Girmay's been blessed to be mentored by Martín Espada but make no mistake, her voice is wholly and fully her own, as is her subject matter. Her mastery of poetic form and an almost ruthless, heartbreaking beauty is shot through this unforgettable volume. Like Espada, she seamlessly fuses the personal and political, revealing where the wounds lie. And Girmay always, always, returns to the indomitable, unquenchable spirit that saves even the most disadvantaged, the most abused from being mere victims. She is also brave enough, wise enough to show her heart in love and at play.

But the social power of this book is never diluted At its essence, TEETH reminds me of a passage in Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior. A young woman, a peasant girl, has completed her training to become a soldier, the means by which her family and her village will seek justice against the overlord. With a whisper-thin blade, her parents inscribe the history of abuse which all of them have suffered. The girl's back becomes her eternal oath, a record laid into the flesh, but it is never reduced to a scar.

ARROZ POETICA

I got news yesterday
from a friend of mine
that all people against the war should
send a bag of rice to George Bush,
& on the bag we should write,
“If your enemies are hungry, feed them.”

But to be perfectly clear,
my enemies are not hungry.
They are not standing in lines
for food, or stretching rations,
or waiting at the airports
to claim the pieces
of the bodies of their dead.
My enemies ride jets to parties.
They are not tied up in pens
in Guantanamo Bay. They are not
young children throwing rocks. My enemies eat
meats & vegetables at tables
in white houses where candles blaze, cast
shadows of crosses, & flowers.
They wear ball gowns & suits & rings
to talk of war in neat & folded languages
that will not stain their formal dinner clothes
or tousle their hair. They use words like “casualties”
to speak of murder. They are not stripped down to skin
& made to stand barefoot in the cold or hot.
They do not lose their children to this war.
They do not lose their houses & their streets. They do not
come home to find their lamps broken.
They do not ever come home to find their families murdered
or disappeared or guns put at their faces.
Their children are not made to walk
a field of mines, exploding.

This is no wedding.
This is no feast.
I will not send George Bush rice, worked for rice
from my own kitchen
where it sits in a glass jar & I am transfixed
by the thousands of beautiful pieces
like a watcher at some homemade & dry
aquarium of grains, while the radio calls out
the local names of 2,000
US soldiers counted dead since March.
&, we all know it, there will always be more than
what’s been counted. They will not say the names
of an Iraqi family trying to pass a checkpoint
in an old white van. A teenager caught out on some road
after curfew. The radio will go on, shouting
the names &, I promise you,
they will not call your name, Hassna
Ali Sabah, age 30, killed by a missile in Al-Bassra, or you,
Ibrahim Al-Yussuf, or the sons of Sa’id Shahish
on a farm outside of Baghdad, or Ibrahim, age 12,
as if your blood were any less red, as if the skins
that melted were any less skin, & the bones
that broke were any less bone,
as if your eradication were any less absolute, any less
eradication from this earth where you were
not a president or a military soldier.
& you will not ever walk home
again, or smell your mother’s hair again,
or shake the date palm tree
or smell the sea
or hear the people singing at your wedding
or become old
or dream or breathe, or even pray or whistle,
& your tongue will be all gone or useless
& it will not ever say again or ask a question,
you, who were birthed once, & given milk,
& given names that mean: she is born at night,
happy, favorite daughter,
morning, heart, father of
a multitude.

Your name, I will have noticed
on a list collected by an Iraqi census of the dead,
because your name is the name of my own brother,
because your name is the Tigrinya word for “tomorrow,”
because all my life I have wanted a farm,
because my students are 12, because I remember
when my sisters were 12. & I will not
have ever seen your eyes, & you will not
have ever seen my eyes
or the eyes of the ones who dropped the missiles,
or the eyes of the ones who ordered the missiles,
& the missiles have no eyes. You had no chance,
the way they fell on avenues & farms
& clocks & schoolchildren. There was no place for you
& so you burned. A bag of rice will not bring you back.
A poem cannot bring you. & although it is my promise here
to try to open every one of my windows, I cannot
imagine the intimacy with which
a life leaves its body, even then,
in detonation, when the skull is burst,
& the body’s country of indivisible organs
flames into the everything. & even in
that quick departure as the life rushes on,
headlong or backwards, there must, must
be some singing as the hand waves “be well”
to its other hand, goodbye;
& the ear belongs to the field now.
& we cannot separate the roof from the heart
from the trees that were there, standing.
& so it is, when I say “night,”
it is your name I am calling,
when I say “field,”
your thousand, thousand names,
your million names.


IN THE CANE FIELDS

You are a steel-blade woman,
I am a steel-blade man.
When we dance like this,
head-high in the cane,
my heart beats red with want.

It’s a dangerous taste
gonna swing me from some hanging tree.

I am a steel-blade woman.
You are a steel-blade man.

If the Boss Men follow
down the dirt red road,
accuse us of blackness & of love,
let us live again, sweet,
come back & haunt these fields.


FOR ESTEFANI LORA, THIRD GRADE, WHO MADE ME A CARD
for Estefani Lora, PS 132, Washington Heights

*
Elephant on an orange line, underneath a yellow circle
meaning sun.
6 green, vertical lines, with color all from the top
meaning flowers.

*
The first time I peel back the 5 squares of Scotch tape,
unfold the crooked-crease fold of art class paper,
I am in my living room.

It is June.
Inside of the card, there is one long word, & then
Estefani’s name:

Loisfoeribari

Estefani Lora

*
Loisfoeribari?

*
Loisfoeribari: The scientific, Latinate way of saying hibiscus.

*
Loisforeribari: A direction, as in: Are you going
North? South? East? West? Loisfoeribari?

*
I try, over & over, to read the word out loud.
Loisfoeribari. LoISFOeribari.
LoiSFOEribari. LoisFOERibARI.

*
What is this word?

I imagine using it in sentences like,

“Man, I have to go back to the house,
I forgot my Loisfoeribari.”

or

“There’s nothing better than rain, hot rain,
open windows with music, & a tall glass
of Loisfoeribari.”

or

“How are we getting to Pittsburgh?
Should we drive or take the Loisfoeribari?”

*
I have lived 4 minutes with this word not knowing
what it means.

*
It is the end of the year. I consider writing my student,
Estefani Lora, a letter that goes:

To The BRILLIANT Estefani Lora!

Hola, querida, I hope that you are well. I’ve just opened the card that you made me, and it is beautiful. I really love the way you filled the sky with birds. I believe that you are chula, chulita, and super fly! Yes, the card is beautiful. I only have one question for you. What does the word ‘Loisfoeribari’ mean?

*
I try the word again.
Loisfoeribari.
Loisfoeribari.
Loisfoeribari.

*
I try the word in Spanish.
Loisfoeribari
Lo-ees-fo-eh-dee-bah-dee
Lo-ees-fo-eh-dee-bah-dee

& then, slowly,

Lo is fo e ri bari
Lo is fo eribari

*
love is for everybody
love is for every every body love
love love everybody love
everybody love love
is love everybody
everybody is love
love love for love
for everybody
for love is everybody
love is forevery
love is forevery body
love love love for body
love body body is love
love is body every body is love
is every love
for every love is love
for love everybody love love
love love for everybody
loveisforeverybody


Last words on TEETH ---

Sigh. Sigh Again. Glorious. Go. Buy. The. Book.


ISBN 978-1-931896-36-8

*****

L-R -- La Familia Acentos: Sam "Fish" Vargas, Maria Nieves, Oscar Bermeo, Ed Garcia, Raymond Daniel Medina, and Rich Villar. Photo courtesy of Peter Dressel


Today's column is about the unstoppable, about what community, strong words and strong voices can do. We'll be talking to one of the louderARTS/Acentos collective, Rich Villar, but first let's take a look at the group and what they're committed to do.

The louderARTS Project is a not-for-profit arts corporation committed to developing constructive and challenging spaces for artists to create, critique, present, and teach poetry.

The louderARTS Project seeks to:

• create a literary and artistic environment for both its artists and audience by expanding perspective, voice and critical vocabulary.

• sponsor literary arts programming in underserved communities.

• encourage experimentation and growth by its artists by creating opportunities to craft and present collaborative, cross-genre work incorporating mixed media, music, dance, and theatrical elements.

• foster a deeper understanding, within its artists and audience, of the oral and literary traditions which underlie today's poetry.

• work in partnership with other organizations to maximize the strengths and expertise of each.

The louderARTS Project is dedicated to uniting the various worlds of poetry (writing and performing, traditionalist structure and slam form, study and action, personal and political, solitary and collaborative, genre-specific and genre-bending), in a way that is both altruistic and personally and artistically evolutionary.



ACENTOS BRONX POETRY SHOWCASE

"Acentos is one of the best audiences, one of the best venues, I've ever seen. The organizers do a great job, not only in terms of spreading the word, but also in terms of creating anticipation. I feel like I'm part of a community, part of a movement. Aquí estamos y no nos vamos." Martín Espada

The debate may rage forever as to who or what constitutes Latino poetry. Here, there is no such identity crisis. We are already here, writing the histories of our neighborhoods, following the traditions of our ancestors, as well as the poetic traditions that came before us. To paraphrase Baldwin, the poet's task as historian is to keep the story new, even when the telling is costly. This is the aesthetic we foster at Acentos. It is always about the word, the work, and it all begins here.

Poetry, we believe, provides the most honest witness to our world, and it is among the oldest art forms on earth. Each poet is a breathing history, and we invite each poet to ring out in his or her own distinctive voice. Acentos celebrates a diversity of voices, communidad both on the open mic and within the universe of Latino and Latina poets on our feature stage.

Acentos Bronx Poetry Showcase is committed to maintaining a safe open space for the expression and enjoyment of poetry, no matter what the language, without translation or apology. Each reading is a celebration of our work as colleagues, friends, and family.

Proudly based in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx, New York, at the Bruckner Bar and Grill (Corner of Third Avenue and Bruckner Boulevard), Acentos showcases nationally recognized Latino and Latina poets alongside emerging voices every second and fourth Tuesday of the month in a setting designed to foster an increased sense of community.

Acentos Bronx Poetry Showcase
2nd and 4th Tuesdays @ 7:00 pm
The Bruckner Bar & Grill
1 Bruckner Boulevard (Corner of Third Avenue)
Bronx, NY
6 Train to 138th Street
FREE ($5 Suggested Donation)

For more information, write to:
acentos at louderarts dot com

For a full listing of scheduled features for Spring and Summer 2007, visit us on MySpace: myspace.com/acentosbronxpoetryshowcase

Maria Nieves at the Acentos 3rd Anniversary show, March 2006.
Photo courtesy of Peter Dressel

The lovely photo is of an equally lovely and powerful writer, Tara Betts. (Not quite the plain brown wrapper...) It's been almost ten years ago that I was paired with Tara as her mentor in a City of Chicago arts program. To this day, I'm not sure what I taught her, but it has been my privilege to read her work, watch her develop and soar as a writer, a performer, and as a critical thinker. She is a person of crystal clear intent and ethics and it is that clarity and that moral compass that infuses all of her work. Tara is that rara avis who is able to dive into the canon, retrieve what she needs and resurface to the real world where the rest of us dwell. She knows her sestinas, her villanelles, her haikus, but she is not seduced by the prettiness of form over content. Her work is rigorously constructed, but framed with direct, clear language, unambiguous. Tara Betts knows where her loyalties lie --- the African American experience, femaleness, urban life, the place where class and race intersect, and as readers we are all the better for it. Take a close look at the pieces following this interview, and you'll see exactly what I mean.

I wanted to help La Bloga celebrate LGBT Pride month by profiling Amigas Latinas, an affinity group here in Chicago and one of its founders, Evette Cardona. I was lucky enough to meet Evette through her partner, Mona Noriega, both of whom have done groundbreaking work in the Latina and queer communities, with local and national impact. As a typical example of the kind of support the organization offers, when I, Ann Cardinal and Jane Alberdeston Coralin launched the release of Sister Chicas in Chicago in 2006, the Amigas were in full force at a reading they co-sponsored with a landmark Chicago independent bookstore, Women and Children First. With love and gratitude, I offer this post.

Find out more about this remarkable woman who is also an inductee in the City of Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame and this vital organization.

Evette Cardona

Proyecto Latina Survey



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Tianguis books|libros 2003 S. Damen Chicago, IL 60608 www.tianguis.biz

About Proyecto Latina

Proyecto Latina is a collaborative between Teatro Luna, Tianguis, and Mariposa Atomica Ink. We are excited about showcasing Latina talent and are always seeking outgoing Latina poets and performers for our monthly open mic series. Proyecto Latina takes place the third Monday of every month. Its an open mic so everything's game: Poetry, spoken word, music, monologues, shorts y en el idioma que prefieras. And if you're too shy to get on stage come and be one of the lucky spectators.

Proyecto Latina -- Recent and upcoming performers/2007 Calendar --- Mondays at 7 p.m.

January 15th: Diane Herrera
February 19th: Luna Blues Machine
March 19th: Silvia Rivera
April 16th: Sylvia Manrique
May 20th: Paloma Martinez-Cruz
June 18th: Lisa Alvarado.........it's shameless self promotion, forgive me.

...more dates coming soon...


And, again, DO NOT MISS THIS READING:

Please join PAGE in welcoming three outstanding writers
to our last reading of the season:

MIN JIN LEE
Free Food for Millionaires
(Warner)

MANUEL MUÑOZ
The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue
(Algonquin)

and

HELENA MARÍA VIRAMONTES
Their Dogs Came with Them
(Atria)

*

Thursday, June 14, 2007
7:00 p.m.
The National Arts Club

free and open to the public
open bar and refreshments
books sold at a discount
jacket requested

*

The National Arts Club * 15 Gramercy Park South * NYC 10003
PAGE is directed by Fran Gordon and Wah-Ming Chang.

For more information,
please e-mail [email protected]
or go to
http://pageseries.wordpress.com.

*

Lisa Alvarado

Yo Soy Chicago/I Am Chicago

New performance about race and identity in Chicago, curated by Coya Paz of Teatro Luna and sponsored by the Center for The Study of Race, Politics, and Culture.

From a gun-toting apparition of the Virgin Mary to a humorous drag take on Puerto-Rican identity to the real life stories of young Muslim women, I Am Chicago/Yo Soy Chicago brings together Chicago's most vibrant performing artists to explore race and identity in Chicago. I Am Chicago/Yo Soy Chicago is a multimedia celebration of Chicago's culturally and aesthetically diverse performing arts communities.

Yo Soy Chicago/I am Chicago

featuring work from Teatro Luna, Idris Goodwin, Ni'ja Whitson, Grupo Okokan, Tanya Saracho, Yolanda Nieves, Awilda Rodriguez Lora, the Hijabi Monologues and more.

Francis X. Kinahan Third Floor Theater
5706 South University Avenue

sponsored by:

The Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture
Theater and Performance Studies / University Theater


Lisa Alvarado

Alfredo+Corchado%22

YOLANDO NAVA [Marketing] Director of Marketing for NM Monuments of DCA. She is a specialist on writing for marketing and commercial media. Author of It's All in the Frijoles, Nava is an Emmy award-winning broadcast journalist, author and motivational speaker. Her book was winner of the Latino Literary Hall of Fames' 2001 Best Self-help Book Award and was also featured in the Writers Corner of Spirituality.com. Google "Yolanda Nava."

JAVIER GRILLO-MARXUACH [Screenwriting] is a writer for major TV serials like Boomtown, Medium, Lost, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Charmed and many others. He also writes his own comics with titles like Super-Skrull which he did for Marvel Comics Mini Series and Middleman, which he did for Viper Comics. He hosts a weekly video show performed entirely by Grillo-Marxuach. New episodes appear on his main website, RadioFreeJavi.com or Google "Javier Grillo-Marxuach."

This three-day conference costs a total of $300.00 including all meals. Previous attendees receive a "founders discount" of $50.00 if you register by February 1st. Travel and lodging will be your responsibility. Participating hotels are listed on the registration form. For more information please call 505.246.2261 x148 or email [email protected].

Más y más -- from the northern outpost of Aztlán

Palabra Pura

April 3, 2007 – To celebrate National Poetry Month, the Guild Complex’s bilingual reading series, Palabra Pura, will feature internationally acclaimed poet Victor Hernández Cruz in a reading on Wednesday, April 18, 2007. Palabra Pura features Chicano and Latino poets reading work in Spanish, English and a combination of the two languages. The series offers Chicago’s large Spanish-speaking population, the third largest in the United States, a venue to read their poetry as originally composed and helps audiences learn more about the strong tradition of poetry in Spanish. A special emphasis is placed on poets who have recently published books or won recognition for their work.

Exploding onto the poetry scene in the 1970s with a distinctive voice in the Nuyorican school of émigré poetry, Victor Hernández Cruz probes the grammatical and syntactical conventions within English and Spanish to create his own bilingual idiom. He is the author of numerous poetry collections, most recently The Mountain in the Sea. He will be introduced by award-winning journalist, Achy Obejas, who will also lead a question and answer session following the reading.

Palabra Pura is a collaborative project between the Guild Complex, Letra Latinas of the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame, the Rafael Cintron-Ortiz Latino Cultural Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Arena Cultural and contratiempo. Co-sponsors for this special presentation are The Poetry Foundation and HotHouse, the center for International Performance & Exhibition. This series is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Humanities Council.

Held the third Wednesday of every month, Palabra Pura continues its second year of programming. The Victor Hernández Cruz reading will be held Wednesday, April 18 at HotHouse, 31 E. Balbo, Chicago. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. The reading begins at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free. 18 and over. For more information, please check the Guild Complex website http://guildcomplex.org, or call 1877.394.50

And to further entice you, The Poetry Foundation's website is posting an interview conducted by Francisco Aragon with Victor Hernandez Cruz in the next couple of days. Get a glimpse of his spare and evocative poetry at http://poetryfoundation.org. Along with the interview will be a selection of five poems with commentary to give you a preview of what will be a can't miss night of poetry in Chicago.

This month is National Poetry Month. What I'll being doing to celebrate is featuring two of my favorite poetry how-to books. I'll also be interviewing and reviewing Margo Tamez, on her life as an indigenous woman in the Southwest, what it means to be a poet, and give you a look at her books, Naked Wanting and Raven Eye.

Mind you, as a poet myself I'm biased, but I agree with Neruda's assessment that when dictators take over, one of the first groups they come after is the poets. Why? Better writers than I have put to paper their thoughts. Let me share them with you.

“...Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.” Robert Frost, American poet, 1874-1963

“Peace goes into the making of a poem as flour goes into the making of bread.” Pablo Neruda, Nobel Prize Winner for literature, 1904-1973

“Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.” Plato, 428 BC-348 BC

“Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.” Thomas Gray, English Poet, 1716-1771

“A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.” Robert Frost, 1874-1963

“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.” Rita Dove, Former U. S. Poet Laureate, born 1958


Words to think about, I hope. Now, take a look at the first book I've chosen, and I think you'll see where the rest of the month is headed.