ISBN 9781558856004.
Michael Sedano
Stella Pope Duarte's Vietnam war/Chicano movimiento novel, Let Their Spirits Dance, tells a powerful story that merits reading, both for its view of movimiento organization around the Vietnam war as well as Duarte’s skillful writing.
I know some readers--I among them--were put off by Duarte's stridently nationalistic stance at the conclusion of her Vietnam novel, the roll call of war dead Duarte limits to dead Chicano soldiers, to the exclusion of other names. That was her author's prerogative, signalling that Jesse's life and death in Let Their Spirits Dance was the story of all those dead Chicano soldiers whom history and United States literature would otherwise ignore. All the men I trained with at Ft. Ord—not just raza--who followed orders and went off to die in Vietnam deserved to be noticed, not ignored. To me, the only color that mattered was the green uniform we all wore, hence my discomfort with Duarte's politics.
Ultimately, Duarte’s strategy proves prescient, doesn’t it? PBS’ WWII series planned to burn us out of our role in that history. Texas pinheaded textbook writers are erasing us out of US history. In today's Arizona, its "breathing while brown" law would stand Jesse and all those names up against a wall and demand they prove their citizenship. All those names Duarte omitted could walk past whistling Dixie without a care in the world. My apologies to Stella for resenting her insight.
It’s unlikely Duarte’s work in Women Who Live in Coffee Shops will engender even a whit of rejection from readers based on their ethnicity or Duarte’s focus. The thirteen stories feature either very young or very old people, and in addition to Chicana Chicano characters, Duarte peoples her tales with Italian, Polish, and Appalachian Anglos.
Here are Arizonans trapped in their own lives by poverty and its pernicious economic culture. But Duarte isn’t writing some bleeding heart tales of woe, but rather how hard scrabble people find ways to earn hope, or just a soupçon of satisfaction.
The title story, which comes fourth in the sequence, for example, has a host of locals—Chicana, black, Anglo--unite to protest the arrest of an Italian coffee shop owner. Duarte suggests Sal is guilty of something, maybe the revenge murder of a jewel thief, or something else. The piggish cops earn no respect from the locals, who relish poking a sharp stick in officialdom’s eye. When the child narrator’s mother hands Sal back the inciminating evidence she’d absconded in advance of the search warrant, it’s a measure of justice.
“Homage” shows how women and men readily close ethnic and class-based gaps. The first-person narrator is a clerical factotum in the county courthouse. Overdrawn and perpetually broke, she’s painfully aware of the fancy cars in prime parking spots, and the expensive consequences from the letters she and her co-worker stuff and put into the mail. She catches the eye and, owing to a studied vocabulary, the ear, of a mid-level manager. They flirt. He turns a cold shoulder to a needy Chicano couple. She nags. He has a change of heart. The couple will profit, and the clerk and the boss will have a date and who knows, a happily ever after future.
Readers will note how efficiently Duarte uses her words and material. In the coffee shop story, for example, a colorful bagwoman called Margaret Queen of Scots, is good for a couple of paragraphs, then forgotten as the plot turns to the central action. But as the collection closes, Margaret’s back in “Enemy Lines.” The colorful habitué of Sal’s coffee shop comes back in a haunting first-person story as her life spirals to its end. She’s a joke to the doctor, an irritation to the emergency room nurse, who summons a sincere young cop to haul her away.
Duarte gives the bag woman a name, Margaret Claybourne. In her final moments, Margaret’s memories revert to her happiest time, a passionate love near a small Ohio settlement. The social worker whose job is to administer the county’s extreme unction exhibits genuine care for the old woman. She hallucinates, calls the young man by her long-ago lover’s name, wails for the son given up for adoption. As the social worker writes up his report it’s likely he fails to see the irony a reader knows. It should be corny, adopted son helps his lost birth mother take her last breath. In Duarte’s hand, it’s a masterfully heartbreaking tale.
As with any collection, readers will find some stories they prefer above others. Because of this, Women Who Live in Coffee Shops would be a great book club selection. Duarte makes it look easy but let folks get into a discussion of their favorite story or character and there’s sure to be passionate discussion about characters, themes, events, and writing. A truly enjoyable collection, reading it turns Duarte's dedication on its head, "Dedicated to the invisible city dwellers of the world. Someday we will all be invisible."
Michael Sedano
Stella Pope Duarte's Vietnam war/Chicano movimiento novel, Let Their Spirits Dance, tells a powerful story that merits reading, both for its view of movimiento organization around the Vietnam war as well as Duarte’s skillful writing.I know some readers--I among them--were put off by Duarte's stridently nationalistic stance at the conclusion of her Vietnam novel, the roll call of war dead Duarte limits to dead Chicano soldiers, to the exclusion of other names. That was her author's prerogative, signalling that Jesse's life and death in Let Their Spirits Dance was the story of all those dead Chicano soldiers whom history and United States literature would otherwise ignore. All the men I trained with at Ft. Ord—not just raza--who followed orders and went off to die in Vietnam deserved to be noticed, not ignored. To me, the only color that mattered was the green uniform we all wore, hence my discomfort with Duarte's politics.
Ultimately, Duarte’s strategy proves prescient, doesn’t it? PBS’ WWII series planned to burn us out of our role in that history. Texas pinheaded textbook writers are erasing us out of US history. In today's Arizona, its "breathing while brown" law would stand Jesse and all those names up against a wall and demand they prove their citizenship. All those names Duarte omitted could walk past whistling Dixie without a care in the world. My apologies to Stella for resenting her insight.
It’s unlikely Duarte’s work in Women Who Live in Coffee Shops will engender even a whit of rejection from readers based on their ethnicity or Duarte’s focus. The thirteen stories feature either very young or very old people, and in addition to Chicana Chicano characters, Duarte peoples her tales with Italian, Polish, and Appalachian Anglos.
Here are Arizonans trapped in their own lives by poverty and its pernicious economic culture. But Duarte isn’t writing some bleeding heart tales of woe, but rather how hard scrabble people find ways to earn hope, or just a soupçon of satisfaction.
The title story, which comes fourth in the sequence, for example, has a host of locals—Chicana, black, Anglo--unite to protest the arrest of an Italian coffee shop owner. Duarte suggests Sal is guilty of something, maybe the revenge murder of a jewel thief, or something else. The piggish cops earn no respect from the locals, who relish poking a sharp stick in officialdom’s eye. When the child narrator’s mother hands Sal back the inciminating evidence she’d absconded in advance of the search warrant, it’s a measure of justice.
“Homage” shows how women and men readily close ethnic and class-based gaps. The first-person narrator is a clerical factotum in the county courthouse. Overdrawn and perpetually broke, she’s painfully aware of the fancy cars in prime parking spots, and the expensive consequences from the letters she and her co-worker stuff and put into the mail. She catches the eye and, owing to a studied vocabulary, the ear, of a mid-level manager. They flirt. He turns a cold shoulder to a needy Chicano couple. She nags. He has a change of heart. The couple will profit, and the clerk and the boss will have a date and who knows, a happily ever after future.
Readers will note how efficiently Duarte uses her words and material. In the coffee shop story, for example, a colorful bagwoman called Margaret Queen of Scots, is good for a couple of paragraphs, then forgotten as the plot turns to the central action. But as the collection closes, Margaret’s back in “Enemy Lines.” The colorful habitué of Sal’s coffee shop comes back in a haunting first-person story as her life spirals to its end. She’s a joke to the doctor, an irritation to the emergency room nurse, who summons a sincere young cop to haul her away.
Duarte gives the bag woman a name, Margaret Claybourne. In her final moments, Margaret’s memories revert to her happiest time, a passionate love near a small Ohio settlement. The social worker whose job is to administer the county’s extreme unction exhibits genuine care for the old woman. She hallucinates, calls the young man by her long-ago lover’s name, wails for the son given up for adoption. As the social worker writes up his report it’s likely he fails to see the irony a reader knows. It should be corny, adopted son helps his lost birth mother take her last breath. In Duarte’s hand, it’s a masterfully heartbreaking tale.
As with any collection, readers will find some stories they prefer above others. Because of this, Women Who Live in Coffee Shops would be a great book club selection. Duarte makes it look easy but let folks get into a discussion of their favorite story or character and there’s sure to be passionate discussion about characters, themes, events, and writing. A truly enjoyable collection, reading it turns Duarte's dedication on its head, "Dedicated to the invisible city dwellers of the world. Someday we will all be invisible."
On-Line Floricanto: Poets Respond to Arizona Hate Laws.
Davis, California poet Francisco X. Alarcón has been sending La Bloga the weekly on-line floricanto selections. Introducing this week's On-Line Floricanto of Poets Responding to Arizona Hate Laws, Francisco recounts the process used to select the poems. "Em" Sedano is my Facebook name owing to Facebook's rejection of a single letter first name; normally my internet handle is msedano.
Dear Readers of La Bloga:
On April 24, 2010, as a direct poetic response to the xenophobic SB 1070 that was passed by the Arizona Legislature and then signed into law by Arizona governor Jan Brewer, a Facebook page was created, POETS RESPONDING TO SB 1070. There was an immediate great response from poets from all over the country. Currently we have around 3,300 “fan” members, more than 430 poems have been posted and indexed, and the Facebook page is visited by more than 2,000 times a week.
Currently there are 11 moderators of POETS RESPONDING TO SB 1070 who are able to post poems, announcements, articles, and statements directly on our Facebook page and also write comments to posted poems: Alma Luz Villanueva, Odilia Galván Rodríguez, Meg Withers, Scott Maurer, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Abel Salas, Israel Francisco Haros, Hedy Treviño, Andrea Hernández Holm, Elena Díaz Bjorkquist, and Francisco X. Alarcón, the original creator of the Facebook Page.
Em Sedano, Tuesday editor of La Bloga, invited the moderators to select 5 to 7 poems from the poems posted on POETS RESPONDING TO SB 1070 for the on-line issue of La Bloga that is released on Tuesdays. The selection process is that most moderators read and comment each poem as it is posted, and send their weekly selections to Francisco, who then tabulates them and sends the final selections to Em Sedano.
So far, 47 poems have been published as part of ON-LINE FLORICANTO at La Bloga. These poems reflect the tremendous diversity of the poetic communities they come from. These poems are a showcase of the richness of poetic forms, styles, and, yes, of the depth of feelings, concerns, positions, testimonials against a discriminatory law that promotes racial profiling. These poems are timely and yet timeless; they represent the best of the human spirit; they are a celebration of solidarity and good will; many are more than just poems, they are songs/invocations/prayers intended to heal the social wounds opened by irresponsible and opportunistic politicians. Our present aim is: "Civil Rights to All! For a Humane Immigration Reform Now!"
The moderators are seeking to publish a hard copy poetry anthology. We hope that you re-read the poems listed on this list:
Selected Poems for Tuesday June 15 Issue of La Bloga:
1. "We Will Sing Hope Songs" by Odilia Galván Rodríguez
2. "Today I Return As The Sun" by Hedy García Treviño
3. “You also have books? You also understand the signs by which you communicate with the absent?” by Scott Maurer
4. “Sunset Stanza” by Dionisio de la Viña
5. "Tortilla Telethon" by Nephtalí De Leon
6. “Reasonable Suspicion” by Manuel Ramos
7. “Brown Skin” by Hector Carbajal
8. "My Sweet Dream, My Living Nightmare: Adobe Walls" by Manuel Lozano
Selected Poems for Tuesday June 8, 2010:
1. “Hummingbird Medicine” by Devreaux Baker
2. “Yolotl Xoxoctic Tlalticpac-Green Heart On The Earth” by Diana Joe
3. “Arizona Goddamn” by Joseph McNair
4. “Two Missing, One White, One Brown, One Rich, One Not so Rich” by Elena Díaz Bjorkquist
5. “What The Day Brings and The Night Finishes” by Kristopher Barney
6. “Borders” by Matt Sedillo
7. “Las Uvas de la Ira” by Will Auther
Tuesday June 1, 2010:
1. "Invocación al Sol" by Maria del Carmen Cifuentes
2. "The Ghost Dance" by Hedy Treviño
3. "I Am From Two Different Homes" by Itzie Alarcón
4. "La regla de los ladrones / The Law of Thieves" by Avotcjia
5. "Scavenger Dreams" by Jeanette Iskat de Aldana
6. "Hierba Loca: The Children of Aztlan" by Lorenzo HerrerrayLozano
7. "Three-Ten to Tule" (Mixtek, Spanish, English) by Octaviano Merecias-Cuevas
Tuesday, May 25 2010:
1. “Chook Son, Arizona” by Abel Salas
2. “Wolf and Spider House” by Israel Francisco Haros López
3. “Escritores del Nuevo Sol” by Phil Goldvarg
4. “brə-sâr'ō” by Rachelle Linda Escamilla
5. “Qué Pinche” by Alma Luz Villanueva
6. “Whale Songs” by Francisco X. Alarcón
Tuesday May 18 2010
1. "End of An Affair" by Cathy Arellano
2. “Say/Mean/Think: by Miguel Morales
3. “Wilderness of Hope” by Yasmeen Najmi
4. “The Dead Speak” by Jessie Reyes
5. "Teachers Line up at the Tattoo Parlor" by Catriona Rueda Esquibel
Tuesday May 11, 2010:
1. “My Place” by Mariam Muradian
2. “Arizona Green (manifesto #1070)" by Juan Felipe Herrera
3. “The Immigrant” by Genny Lim
4. “Nepantla” by Odilia Galván Rodríguez
5. “on issues of aliens and immigration” by devorah major
6. ” I Call Out” by Elena Díaz Bjorkquist
7. “Where We Belong” by Andrea Hernandez Holm
8. “Legal Humans” by Jules Villanueva-Castaño
Tuesday May 4, 2010:
1. “Breathing While Brown” by Alma Luz Villanueva
2. “Synergy of Hate” by Antoinette Nora Claypoole
3. “Borderlines” by Meg Withers
4. “Insist and Resist” by Manuel Lozano
5. “Border Ghost of Sonora” by Carmen Calatayud
6. “For The ‘Capitol Nine’” by Francisco X. Alarcón
Let the Poets Sing!
1. "We Will Sing Hope Songs" by Odilia Galván Rodríguez
for Andrea
we will
sing our hope songs~
real songs of healing us.
of real love holding in its hands
this planet
blue, light
buoying up
our sadness, against hate - madness
which we choose to face head on
fearless
Quetzal-
coatl is
returning to the earth
molting into shades of Sixth Sol
birthing
whale songs
reach all the way
to the landlocked Black Hills
and wake children dreaming of peace
nightly
never
will we lose hope
our dancers and drummers
will heal the circle ~ erase our
despair
©Odilia Galván Rodríguez
9 Junio, 2010
photo is adapted and ©: http://www.flickr.com/photos/windsorschild/2909988816/in/set-72157607570673018/ used via Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
2. "Today I Return As The Sun" by Hedy García Treviño
TODAY I RETURN AS THE SUN
By Hedy Garcia Treviño
In the early morning hours of my life
I stood there brown like a fawn in
early Spring
I pledged your flag
and learned your words
recited prayers in your church
and stood there tall
as you struck my hand
with your ruler of oppression.
But I never let you see me cry.
I watched my brothers return
from fighting dirty wars.
But I never let you see me cry.
I watched in horror at the way you
treated my elders.
But I never let you see me cry.
Today I'm neither here nor there
Quetzalcoatl whispers ancient secrets
in my ear as I look upon the morning star
as Chaac brings wind and rain and Hopop Cann
lights up the sky.
Today I long to jump into the fire
and return as the sun.
I call upon Mother Goddess Coatlicue
I'm searching for a breath of life.
Hedy Garcia Treviño 2010
3. “You also have books? You also understand the signs by which you communicate with the absent?” by Scott Maurer
"There is another fact I think I should not omit. A learned lawyer called Corales, who is a judge at Darien, reported that he encountered a fugitive from the interior provinces of the west, who sought refuge with the cacique. This man, seeing the judge reading, started with surprise, and asked through interpreters who knew the cacique's language, "You also have books? You also understand the signs by which you communicate with the absent?"
He asked at the same time to look at the open book, hoping to see the same characters used among his people; but he saw the letters were not the same."
De Orbe Novo, 1530
-Peter Martyr d'Anghiera
1514*
exploring textures
in this unfamiliar landscape
my bare feet planted in moist loose soil
cozy within fresh newly-minted moment
pleasurably enjoying
simple
joyful
acclimation of new experience
within today's sun cycle
marked by sublime sunrise to east
faraway over restless Atlantic seas
over impossible distances from faraway familiar home
we strangers washed ashore barely alive
alien beings to this soil
travel-wearied to exhaustion and beyond
our energies a long-forgotten memory
on weeks-hungered sea ration ached stomachs
in small landing boats we newcomers rowed ashore dreamlike
waking from nagging disbelief we’ve actually arrived
each of us seeking safe harbor from mind's productions of fears
surrenders
submits to our accompanying priest
arbiter of benevolent malevolent God
as dumfounded here at this moment as any among us
faraway from home faraway from anchoring companion-communicants
he trembles incessantly can barely speak
as flag and cross unpacked from ship’s safekeeping
are transplanted here into rich coffee-black beachfront soil
as if here never before had place-name
we declare we rename
Santa María la Antigua del Darién
priest’s comforting spell to my ears reruns at least partial ruse
pep talk for survival pep talk for momentary comfort
and I seek instead nature's forgiving comfort
I wander into jungle
loosen my internal long-mangled self
mixing mingling what remains of my insides
blending into fusion with unknown landscape
my insides' tightest grasp unclenched finger by fast-frozen finger
yielding my ego’s chokehold
my lifetime’s illusory reality-construction
my preoccupied focus loosens movie-like
my suspension of disbelief
my essence my being slowly melting
releases
my imagined management of waking moments
my soothing escape into comforting solace
inside me what still remains is on automatic-pilot
I am escapee into pleasing panorama of jungle
where I write in journal safe-carried from faraway home
carried like child's security blanket
I am asleep
I am awake
I am dream-spilling
out through my pen
somewhere in my consciousness I hear or I distractedly sight
movement
I look up mid-sentence stunned I am not alone
she is other-worldly
she is familiar
she is radiant
she is poised
she exudes confidence
and her relaxed gaze
her spoken tone
her pattern of speech
as if we are old friends made safe comforted by mutual presence
both here for each other
her voice is calming
these moments with her are magical
pleasurable
yet I not even know meaning of her words
we are long-distant cousins
separated by millennia
separated by scarcely-navigated seas
expedition interpreter parses her beautiful Nahuatl words
I learn her first spoken words to me
"you also have books?"
"You also understand the signs by which you communicate with the absent?" **
everyone here
this remarkable place
timeless beyond any place-name
knows her as Xochiquetzal
Forgive my playing with facts.
In 1514 Cueva people lived at place renamed Santa María la Antigua del Darién.
All Cueva people were dead within 25 years, by 1535.
I put factual words from De Orbe Novo into mouth of Xochiquetzal, "Flower Feather, the ever young and pretty goddess of flowers, love, pleasure and beauty. She is a patron of artists."
http://www.azteccalendar.com/god/Xochiquetzal.html
* In De Orbe Novo, 1514 is mentioned before this quote and 1515 is mentioned after.
** "The man may have been a Peruvian or of the civilised plateau people of Cundinamarca. Wiener, in his interesting work, Perou et Bolivie, studies the Peruvian system of writing."
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12425/12425-h/12425-h.htm
4. “Sunset Stanza” by Dionisio de la Viña
SUNSET STANZA by Dionisio de la Viña † Dedicado a Marina Gipps †
The poet gets his power from nature:
The sunset never ends.
When the great Thunderbird has done its work
The sun finds his new solitary nest
And sets it on such blessed fire
-Oh holy ritual de mis amores!-
That fills the Arizona sky with ethereal illumination.
The poet walks home full of power
Finds his mate in their nest
And the room glows ‘til morning.
The nature of poetry is power:
The sunrise never ends.
The poet walks down the trail
He smells the scent of the Desert Dragon
Where is yesterday’s fear?
Only the great Thunderbird knows.
© 2010 Dionisio de la Viña
5. "Tortilla Telethon" by Nephtalí De Leon
Tortilla Telethon!
(-- beyond the Arizona blues…)
© by Nephtalí
on a telephone interview…
I was asked out of the blue
“so much is going on,
what kind of a people are u?”
without thinking I said:
“we’re not an old tortilla
but the living bread
Christ split
upon the mount
we’re not an old cerveza-beer
but the spring water clear
turned into wine to celebrate
the prophesied rebirth
of the children of the sun
la Raza Cósmica de Aztlán
we’re not Malinche, or la llorona
we’re the communal ghost
of the women of Juárez
the spirits rising
from the bleached
family bones
spread
upon the desert sands
genies popping out
from caravans
of calcium trails
dotted
by empty plastic jugs…
we’re the drowned spirits
of the river coming back
chupacabra relatives to haunt you
beings from the wall of shame
built upon our border brains
our heart and wings in chains
we’re the martyred souls
in airless gasping trucks
human traffic people traps
the migra dead tortured by ice
we’re here
to render all accounts
knocking on your door
we want our country back
we can’t keep track of death
we wont accept a no
from a government house
white-washed
with our sun-bleached bones
we won’t take no
for an answer
despite all appearances
there is no turning back
u cannot hide behind the mask
we’re all the disappeared
revived by holy water Tlaloc
EEhcatl, God of wind…
cared for by Tonantzin
Guadaliberty dear
(sweet mother earth…)
do u hear
el gigante dormido
is awake
knocking on your door
we were never asleep
just knocked out
when u thought u killed us all
we’re back
the living and the dead
we never disappeared
that is why we share
chocolate con pan dulce
when our spirits return
on `el dia de los muertos´
and every day we have
tortilla telethons
to celebrate
that we’re right on…! “
nephtali3000@hotmail.com
http://Nephtali.Net
Nephtali De Leon reading at May 1st 2010 March in Dallas, Texas
6. “Reasonable Suspicion” by Manuel Ramos
REASONABLE SUSPICION
By Manuel Ramos
For any lawful stop, detention or arrest made by a law enforcement official or a law enforcement agency of this state or a law enforcement official or a law enforcement agency of a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state in the enforcement of any other law or ordinance of a county, city or town of this state where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration status of the person, except if the determination may hinder or obstruct an investigation
The people defined
with reasonable suspicion
are everywhere
without
being anywhere
and that’s suspicious
Viejita hunched
over loads of
dirty hotel laundry
stands as short
as my impossibly short
grandmother
Young roofer
with insolent walk
wears my father’s nose
as though they were brothers
from the same regal line
of kings and warriors
so suspicious
Joke-telling scrubber
of the Pollo Rico grill
could be my cousin
if my cousin
had lived
through Nam
Laughing girl
cleaning toilets
spooks me
with eyes
that must have been
stolen from my mother
very suspicious
Daily encounters
with familiar strangers
do not subdue the hate
or calm the hard wind
and we are, again,
the usual suspects
Arizona drowns
in sands of suspicion
as it denies
reflections
of my family
are saviors
7. “"Brown Skin" by Hector Carbajal
BROWN SKIN
By Hector Carbajal
We plead with you, ancestors, for esperanza
We plead with you, ancestors, for más fuerza
Seguimos adelante knowing que caminamos juntos
Now, more than ever, seguimos rezando:
Brown skin is palabra—imagen y sonido de grito
Brown skin is celebración—somos flor somos canto
Brown skin is historia—páginas volando con el cambio
Brown skin es amor—corazón mundial
This, my brown skin, is memoria—my father’s face en la pisca debajo del sol
This, my brown skin, is strength—enduring veins in my mother’s arms
My brown skin is desire—tongue pressing against nipple
My brown skin is love—offering lo sagrado
Antepasados, deseamos sobrevivir
Antepasados, deseamos que nuestro coraje sea estratégico
Because:
In brown skin, laws seek to shoot
In brown skin, lines are drawn
Entréganos la fe
Entréganos la paz
Como en el pasado
Como en el pasado
Cuando trajimos lo mismo
Y nos enfrentamos
Contra el deseo del poder
8. "My Sweet Dream, My Living Nightmare: Adobe Walls" by Manuel Lozano
My Sweet Dream/My Living Nightmare: Adobe Walls
By Manuel Lozano:
What did I hear?
It is hard to describe,
The drums and the chanting
Of a beautiful tribe.
The flutes and the rattles,
Echoes and prayer-
The heartbeat of battles
Came out of nowhere.
I saw it all,
In one swooping brush stroke,
The vision was swirling
In the rising smoke.
The pendants were jaded,
Beaded and strung out,
We felt we made it
In the places we hung out.
The fragrance was rising
With a hint of delight,
And the moon in a crescent
Was hooked on the night.
I took in the perfume
As the starlight was gleaming,
And it was safe to assume
That the garden was dreaming.
The treble shook me,
And we rumbled through,
It felt like forever
Was looking like new-
Rugged and raw,
And we pounded along,
With the clay and the straw
In the brick holding strong.
Oh, I could taste it,
The indigenous air,
With a hint of red earthenware clay,
And a magic so rare—
Now a living nightmare,
For the wild wind is blowing.
There was nobody there
When the rooster came crowing.
© Manuel Lozano 2010
By Manuel Lozano:
What did I hear?
It is hard to describe,
The drums and the chanting
Of a beautiful tribe.
The flutes and the rattles,
Echoes and prayer-
The heartbeat of battles
Came out of nowhere.
I saw it all,
In one swooping brush stroke,
The vision was swirling
In the rising smoke.
The pendants were jaded,
Beaded and strung out,
We felt we made it
In the places we hung out.
The fragrance was rising
With a hint of delight,
And the moon in a crescent
Was hooked on the night.
I took in the perfume
As the starlight was gleaming,
And it was safe to assume
That the garden was dreaming.
The treble shook me,
And we rumbled through,
It felt like forever
Was looking like new-
Rugged and raw,
And we pounded along,
With the clay and the straw
In the brick holding strong.
Oh, I could taste it,
The indigenous air,
With a hint of red earthenware clay,
And a magic so rare—
Now a living nightmare,
For the wild wind is blowing.
There was nobody there
When the rooster came crowing.
© Manuel Lozano 2010
BIOS
1. "We Will Sing Hope Songs" by Odilia Galván Rodríguez
Poet and writer, Odilia Galván Rodríguez, is of Chicano-Apache ancestry born in Galveston, Texas and raised on the south side of Chicago. She has done extensive work as a labor/community organizer, with the United Farm Workers of America AFL-CIO, and as a cultural worker and social justice activist. Most recently she worked as the English edition editor for Tricontinental Magazine in Havana, Cuba. She is the author of three books of poetry, of which Migratory Birds: New and Noted Poems is her latest. Odilia offers Empowering People Through Creative Writing Workshops internationally.
2. "Today I Return As The Sun" by Hedy García Treviño
2. "Today I Return As The Sun" by Hedy García Treviño
Name Hedy Garcia Treviño (nickname Jaritta Little willow) because i spent my childhood in the river by the willows. Born in New Mexico. Hispanic Family was in New Mexico before this area was a territory of the U.S and native family has been here forever.Mother of 2 wonderful children and 1 precious granddaughter who lives in Phoenix. I started writing poetry as a young child when i was hit with a ruler for speaking Spanish in school. So poetry has always been my 'healer' my medicine, and poets responding is my temple. Professionally I'm a substance abuse and mental health therapist.
I was raised by my Spanish speaking grandparents in rural new mexico surrounded by corn fields which sang to me. It was a blessed and fortunate event that my parents abandoned me to the care of my grandparents because i experienced the ancient histories of my familia due to that experience. I practice herbal healing and come from a long family history of 'healers' and gardeners and those who work the land. I feel best when my hands are connected to the blessed earth.
3. “You also have books? You also understand the signs by which you communicate with the absent?” by Scott Maurer
Scott Maurer is a multilingual writer influenced y motivated by Latin American Literature, an Administrator of the Facebook page Poets Responding to SB 1070, y dedicates this poem to Associação Paulista De Motociclismo, São Paulo, Brasil, Dr. Donald B. Cooper at The Ohio State University, Francisco X. Alarcon, Rakel Delgado, y everyone at Poets Responding to SB 1070"
4. “Sunset Stanza” by Dionisio de la Viña
Like all children in Nicaragua in the 1960s, Dionisio de la Viña memorized poems to recite at school events. In San Francisco, California he received a B.A. in political science, an M.A. in Spanish Literature, and a Ph.D. in education have given him a very broad education. Mr. de la Viiña has taught Spanish literature and Education at the University of Arizona for the last 35 years. He has had the opportunity to study in Italy, Spain and Brazil. This experience has taught him to appreciate the cultures of many people. He is the father of two daughters and resides in Tucson, Arizona. Dionisio de la Viña only started to write poetry very recently.
5. "Tortilla Telethon" by Nephtalí De Leon
3. “You also have books? You also understand the signs by which you communicate with the absent?” by Scott Maurer
Scott Maurer is a multilingual writer influenced y motivated by Latin American Literature, an Administrator of the Facebook page Poets Responding to SB 1070, y dedicates this poem to Associação Paulista De Motociclismo, São Paulo, Brasil, Dr. Donald B. Cooper at The Ohio State University, Francisco X. Alarcon, Rakel Delgado, y everyone at Poets Responding to SB 1070"
4. “Sunset Stanza” by Dionisio de la Viña
Like all children in Nicaragua in the 1960s, Dionisio de la Viña memorized poems to recite at school events. In San Francisco, California he received a B.A. in political science, an M.A. in Spanish Literature, and a Ph.D. in education have given him a very broad education. Mr. de la Viiña has taught Spanish literature and Education at the University of Arizona for the last 35 years. He has had the opportunity to study in Italy, Spain and Brazil. This experience has taught him to appreciate the cultures of many people. He is the father of two daughters and resides in Tucson, Arizona. Dionisio de la Viña only started to write poetry very recently.
5. "Tortilla Telethon" by Nephtalí De Leon
Grew up as a migrant worker. Spent later years in West Texas, bordering with several middle-America states, as his early years bordered with Mexico. The artist is a self taught creator with no formal or institutional higher education. After attending several lower schools, wherever the migrant trail would take him, he made it through high school. With an authentic non-academic approach to his craft, he freely practices the visual and literary arts that have a resonance and relation to the community he comes from. His art forms and reflections have developed as a result of his multi-lingual multicultural dialogue with a great part of the immigrants and natives he has come in contact with. He is often thought of as the Gypsy vagabond poet of his community.
6. “Reasonable Suspicion” by Manuel Ramos
Manuel Ramos is the Friday columnist for La Bloga. Manuel's current novel, King of the Chicanos, is enjoying critical acclaim surpassing that accorded his earlier novels, the Luis Montez detective series, and Ramos' provocative Moony's Road to Hell.
7. “"Brown Skin" by Hector Carbajal
Héctor Carbajal is a queer poet, historian and researcher interested in the ways in which writing is a form of action against all forms of oppression. He earned a B.A. in English at New Mexico State University and an M.A. in Borderlands History at the University of Texas El Paso. His creative writings have been published by Frontera-Norte Sur, Zacatecas: A Review of Contemporary Word, La Voz de Esperanza. His work is also featured in the Lambda Literary Award finalist this bridge we call home: radical visions for transformation (New York, Routledge, 2002), edited by Gloria E. Anzaldúa and AnaLouise Keating. His poetry is currently featured online by the Freedom Road Socialist Organization. He is a current doctoral candidate in English Rhetoric and Writing Studies at the University of Texas El Paso.
8. "My Sweet Dream, My Living Nightmare: Adobe Walls" by Manuel Lozano
Manuel Lozano, self-taught writer and artist, lives in El Paso, “El Chuco,” Texas, cradle of the pachuco. Manuel writes traditional verse “to the rhythm of the Matachines.” His work has appeared in Xican@ Poetry Daily and La Bloga. Visit his blog, Manuel Lozano: Xicano Writing. manuellozano7.blogspot.com
6. “Reasonable Suspicion” by Manuel Ramos
Manuel Ramos is the Friday columnist for La Bloga. Manuel's current novel, King of the Chicanos, is enjoying critical acclaim surpassing that accorded his earlier novels, the Luis Montez detective series, and Ramos' provocative Moony's Road to Hell.
7. “"Brown Skin" by Hector Carbajal
Héctor Carbajal is a queer poet, historian and researcher interested in the ways in which writing is a form of action against all forms of oppression. He earned a B.A. in English at New Mexico State University and an M.A. in Borderlands History at the University of Texas El Paso. His creative writings have been published by Frontera-Norte Sur, Zacatecas: A Review of Contemporary Word, La Voz de Esperanza. His work is also featured in the Lambda Literary Award finalist this bridge we call home: radical visions for transformation (New York, Routledge, 2002), edited by Gloria E. Anzaldúa and AnaLouise Keating. His poetry is currently featured online by the Freedom Road Socialist Organization. He is a current doctoral candidate in English Rhetoric and Writing Studies at the University of Texas El Paso.
8. "My Sweet Dream, My Living Nightmare: Adobe Walls" by Manuel Lozano
Manuel Lozano, self-taught writer and artist, lives in El Paso, “El Chuco,” Texas, cradle of the pachuco. Manuel writes traditional verse “to the rhythm of the Matachines.” His work has appeared in Xican@ Poetry Daily and La Bloga. Visit his blog, Manuel Lozano: Xicano Writing. manuellozano7.blogspot.com
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