SPOTLIGHT ON MICHELE SERROS

Monday’s post from Daniel Olivas…

Michele Serros was still a student at Santa Monica City College , when her first book of poetry and short stories, Chicana Falsa and other stories of Death, Identity and Oxnard, was published. When the original publisher of Chicana Falsa went out of business, Michele continued to sell copies from her garage. In 1998, Riverhead Books reissued Chicana Falsa and as well as Serros' latest collection of fiction, How to be a Chicana Role Model. The latter instantly became a Los Angeles Times Best Seller and both publications are currently used as required reading in U.S. high schools and universities. In 2002, Michele wrote for the ABC television sitcom, The George Lopez Show. "An opportunity," she says, "that hopefully with my contribution opens the door for a wider representation of Latinos in the mass media." Currently living in New York City, Ms. Serros is writing Honey Blonde Chica , a young adult novel for Simon and Schuster (Pulse) to be published spring 2006.

A LITTLE POETRY: Here is a poem by David A. Hernandez:

"Sex and Death"

Always the same two themes pushing through
the revolving door of the page or canvas:

O’Keefe’s skulls and vaginal irises, petals
engorged and flaming crimson. It’s the story

of the teenagers walking their libidos
to a moonlit cemetery, their studded tongues

clinking in the dark. And the mortician,
after a long day of opening cadavers like purses,

comes home to his magazines, glossy women
touching themselves as if to say, Here I am.

Here too, how the ashes of a woman I never met
cool inside the urn on a shelf. Gray dust,

bone-chip of pelvis or femur, her daughter
in the next room, her pelvis crashing into mine,

the bedroom fertile with the night’s soil
for us to plant the blue flowers of our breathing.

All done. Pardon the brevity of this post but I’m actually in Hawaii right now! Until next Monday, enjoy the intervening posts from my compadres at La Bloga. ¡Lea un libro!