Michael Sedano
Tom Miller. Writing on the Edge. A Borderlands Reader. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2003.
ISBN 978-0-8165-2241-5
Tom Miller adds to his storied borderland accomplishments with an exhaustingly comprehensive anthology that covers the US-Mexico
borderland from TJ to Tamaulipas, from New York City to Modesto Califas, with extended visits to Juarez/El Paso. Readers already familiar with Miller's wonderful collection of his own travel writing, Revenge of the Saguaro, know he's a writer with a yen for research and a pen with a funnybone. Miller's eye takes in the obvious, like Rosa's cantina or black velvet painting that any eye sees, then digs deeply to share penetrating insight knit into a fascinating fabric of hitherto unknown facts. Put down the completed Miller and you've filled gaps you didn't know existed.
Miller's and the University of Arizona Press' 2003 publication, Writing on the Edge A Borderlands Reader, offers the same kind of experience. Clearly a product of keen research, Miller shares snippets about la frontera from poets, novelists, historians, and memoirists, gente like José Vasconcelos, Grahame Greene, Oscar Zeta Acosta, Maya Angelou, Sam Shepard, Elena Poniatowska, Demetria Martínez, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, William Carlos Williams, and on and on and on, with eighty-one writers (plus two anonymous pieces) filling out a fabulous table of contents.
And there's the rub, the problem--if there's any--with this collection. Miller packs in so much good work between the covers of the 360 page volume, there's simply not enough meat--other than poems, which inherently come in compact wholes--to dig into. Writing on the Edge is like standing at the best buffet spread you've ever seen but served by one of those new-fangled minimalist chefs who think a lettuce leaf with a dab of sauce and an anchovy rib is a stomach-stretching salad.
Ni modo. There's no time limit to reading Writing on the Edge so you can savor each sample at its own pace, then come back for a second helping and never grow sated. Of course, you'll want more. Miller's added a key resource as the final 27 pages: author bios as well as a conventional alphabetized listing of original sources. Another grand resource comes via the internet, Miller's PDF literary map of the contents, allowing a reader to see on a map where along the border a piece lies, with a sidebar listing the authors and titles by place, and on a second screen, a UofA Press bibliography to extend the breadth of one's post-anthology reading.
Although Miller divides the collection into eight segments, each having its own ideational unity, I see the collection having fundamentally two kinds of border writing: Insider and Outsider work. La frontera, to many an Outsider, satisfies one's sense of adventure with a taste of the exotic. For some writers, Outsiderness engenders viewing the border distastefully, and ultimately as depraved. It's not merely the Anglo writer who draws such conclusions. Zeta, Oscar Acosta, writes about Juarez justice with an Insider-as-Outsider witlessness that characterizes the oxymoron of being Chicana Chicano. As the judge tells Acosta, he should spend less time whoring around Mexico and more learning his father's language. Ouch.
Insider writing celebrates the gente and cultura of the region but with a clear sense of the looming otherness of el otro lado. Miller supplies an extended example of this from Charles Bowden's Blue Desert. A pair of good-hearted Estadunidenses walk a mile in a border-crosser's boots, forty-five times. They walk the route taken by thousands of undocumented men, women children. Starting from a truckstop in the middle of the Mexican Sonora desert to a spot on Interstate 8, the journey can be lethal. It's no walk in the parque. The well-equipped Bowden and buddy find it daunting but doable. Unlike true undocumented immigrants, the pair of Outsiders-as-Insiders end their sixteen hour hike devouring iced tea and breakfast at a diner in Tacna AZ.
Miller's and the University of Arizona Press' 2003 publication, Writing on the Edge A Borderlands Reader, offers the same kind of experience. Clearly a product of keen research, Miller shares snippets about la frontera from poets, novelists, historians, and memoirists, gente like José Vasconcelos, Grahame Greene, Oscar Zeta Acosta, Maya Angelou, Sam Shepard, Elena Poniatowska, Demetria Martínez, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, William Carlos Williams, and on and on and on, with eighty-one writers (plus two anonymous pieces) filling out a fabulous table of contents.
And there's the rub, the problem--if there's any--with this collection. Miller packs in so much good work between the covers of the 360 page volume, there's simply not enough meat--other than poems, which inherently come in compact wholes--to dig into. Writing on the Edge is like standing at the best buffet spread you've ever seen but served by one of those new-fangled minimalist chefs who think a lettuce leaf with a dab of sauce and an anchovy rib is a stomach-stretching salad.
Ni modo. There's no time limit to reading Writing on the Edge so you can savor each sample at its own pace, then come back for a second helping and never grow sated. Of course, you'll want more. Miller's added a key resource as the final 27 pages: author bios as well as a conventional alphabetized listing of original sources. Another grand resource comes via the internet, Miller's PDF literary map of the contents, allowing a reader to see on a map where along the border a piece lies, with a sidebar listing the authors and titles by place, and on a second screen, a UofA Press bibliography to extend the breadth of one's post-anthology reading.
Although Miller divides the collection into eight segments, each having its own ideational unity, I see the collection having fundamentally two kinds of border writing: Insider and Outsider work. La frontera, to many an Outsider, satisfies one's sense of adventure with a taste of the exotic. For some writers, Outsiderness engenders viewing the border distastefully, and ultimately as depraved. It's not merely the Anglo writer who draws such conclusions. Zeta, Oscar Acosta, writes about Juarez justice with an Insider-as-Outsider witlessness that characterizes the oxymoron of being Chicana Chicano. As the judge tells Acosta, he should spend less time whoring around Mexico and more learning his father's language. Ouch.
Insider writing celebrates the gente and cultura of the region but with a clear sense of the looming otherness of el otro lado. Miller supplies an extended example of this from Charles Bowden's Blue Desert. A pair of good-hearted Estadunidenses walk a mile in a border-crosser's boots, forty-five times. They walk the route taken by thousands of undocumented men, women children. Starting from a truckstop in the middle of the Mexican Sonora desert to a spot on Interstate 8, the journey can be lethal. It's no walk in the parque. The well-equipped Bowden and buddy find it daunting but doable. Unlike true undocumented immigrants, the pair of Outsiders-as-Insiders end their sixteen hour hike devouring iced tea and breakfast at a diner in Tacna AZ.
Writing on the Edge is filled with delights as well as ironies. One or two pieces will prove irritating in the writer's self-disclosure of the kind of xenophobia that magnifies itself into something like Arizona hate laws. But Miller doesn't take the collection that far. He's made a wise decision to keep extremism out of the mix. Look around--read the poetry below--there's ample work highlighting our divisions. Writing on the Edge helps build bridges, not walls, lets a reader with eyes open see and understand the humanity, humor, contradictions and aspirations that characterize that long southern border and its gente.
Writing on the Edge has been out there since 2003. I'd not wait another year to get a copy. Not that the material is getting old or outdated--some goes back to the mid-19th century--but with so much new stuff being written today, Tom Miller's provided a useful volume to catch up on material that fills gaps some readers didn't know existed. And if it's too much of not enough, follow up with the original sources and extend the enjoyment.
Free Belinda Acosta Novel - La Bloga / Hachette Book Give-Away.
Just what makes a book "a woman's book"? My mother is a woman of few words, and that is her description, and recommendation, of Belinda Acosta's newly released novel, Sisters, Strangers, and Starting Over.
My mother, who recently came to live with me and my wife, fits the "avid reader" description to a "T". Books, books, books filled her home to offer a major clean-out hurdle as we vacated the old family homestead. Now she's begun a new collection, with this novel, that the publisher describes in a way that my mom may see parallels her own life and the plot: Beatriz Sánchez-Milligan is shocked when her 14-year-old niece, Celeste, stumbles into her 25th wedding anniversary party. Celeste reveals that her mother, Perla, has died and that she has nowhere else to go. Beatriz immediately takes Celeste in
I will read the novel when my mother finishes, and review it here at La Bloga. In the meantime, La Bloga is giving away one free copy right now. If you're the person who receives it, you're invited to pen your own review of Sisters, Strangers, and Starting Over and share it as a La Bloga guest columnist! Why not?
To get the single free copy Hachette authorizes La Bloga to give away, click here. In your email, provide your mailing address--U.S. only, lastima and disculpa--with the answer to this question: How many miles did Charles Bowden walk to get to Tacna?
The winner will be selected at random from all the correct answers received on July 13 as of 1700 Pacific time (that's 5:00 p.m. in El Lay). Suerte, readers.
Flor y canto graphic by Magú. Prismacolor on artboard. ©2009 by Magú.
Festival de Flor y Canto. Yesterday • Today • Tomorrow
The University of Southern California's Doheny Memorial Library will soon announce the final schedule for the almost 50 writers who will be presenting their work on September 15, 16, 17, 2010. USC, site of the 1973 Festival de Flor y Canto, is celebrating Chicana Chicano Latina Latino poetry, novels, and short fiction in this three-day event open to the public and, except for the $8.00 parking fee, free.
USC has invited poets whose videotaped performances in 1973 have been digitized and will be released to the public as part of the Digital Library Initiative of Doheny Memorial Library. A number of leading contemporary poets and writers are included in the roster. Rounding out the list of readers will be a handful of young writers, some making their debut appearance in a major festival.
Festival de Flor y Canto. Yesterday • Today • Tomorrow is mounting a gallery showing of photographs taken of 1973 performers by Michael Sedano. The photo exhibition will have a gala opening on the festival's final day, and runs for several months thereafter.
Some of the photographs do not yet have identifications. If you recognize any of the people below (not all will hang in the exhibition but Sedano would like the identities) please click the link below each image to send the subject's name and whereabouts to Michael Sedano, who will provide los datos to the exhibition Curator.
Note: click the title of this La Bloga post to view a set of pages of fotos that require identifications. Thank you de antemano for your valued assistance. If you are in any of these fotos, send email to msedano to receive a printable file of yourself from back in 1973.
Click here to identify this reader.
Click here to identify this reader.
Click here to identify Prof Loera or provide a link.On-Line Floricanto. Poets Respond to Arizona Hate Legislation.
"Know the Names of Things" by Lorna Dee Cervantes
"The Last and Lasting Glance" by Susmita Chatterjee Paul
"Fourth of July Poem" by A. D. Winans
"When The World Ends in My Garden" by Andrea Hernández Holm
“Diluyamos las fronteras” por Margarita Robleda
"Este Poema / This Poem" by Francisco X. Alarcón
"Keeping it Real" by Rose Valencia
Know the Names of Things
by Lorna Dee Cervantes
for immigrants everywhere anytime
Know the names of things.
How 3+1 equals nada
in a barrio flat. How many
unknowns there are in a single
bottle of pills. How much
it costs to breath through
the nicotine, the anxiety,
the three times a million lost
nickels in the foreign exchange,
in a bushel of sterile seed.
Know the names of things.
How to live. How to love
the you in all. How to call
out to the impoverished ancestors.
How to feed a future. Call
it what you will. Call power
in a name. Name the world
to own it. Learn hammer
and sickle. Learn the many
names for drought. Name the
expedient past, the succumbing future.
Name what you will. Will what
you name. The power of the tsunami
in the syllables of truth, the reconstruction
of the hurricane in the uplifting vowels.
Learn the names of all the treaties
never honored by our government.
Name the dead, too.
Know the names of things.
How to count. Count the many ways
life changes life and death
changes nothing and never gives.
There is a way if you name
it. If you follow it the road
will come. Be the strings that hold
up this house of time held
by the wisdom of the abuelas
with words holding taut the strands.
In the beginning was an absence.
Name that, too.
Know the names of things.
How to tell the singer
from the song. How to swear
on a star, become the jury
of one. How to tell over
the cacophony of a thieving
crow. How to chant the mastery
of who enslaves whom, who orders
the gun, the bomb, the shock
and awesome truth. Name this, too.
Know the names of things:
auricle from ventricle, aorta
from vena cavae, arteries from
aurioles; all matters of the heart.
Save with the words for it.
Then be it, a savior
with your words. We,
the named, we, knowers
know the power, the power to name,
to see, to know, belongs
to the perceiver, the receiver
of knowledge — all in a name:
our name, your name, the stolen
names, the original names,
the slaughtered names, the slaughtering
names, names for The People for people
who need no names, who need food,
who need the crystal water
because 3+1 in a barrio flat
equals nada. Name this, too.
Know the names of things.
and heal.
6/11/10
Lorna Dee Cervantes
The last and lasting glance
By Susmita Chatterjee Paul
Across the strange borders,
I see myself blooming:
in forgotten pathways,
in manicured gardens,
in bonsai artefacts,
in frozen mummies.
My eye sees the horizon...
a few dotted lines
-lines in pink, blue and green-
cast the slippery wet norms.
The me in the mirror is refracted.
They tell me, it's you.
I spread my hands
and follow my master,
floating in the air,
above the anomalies of the self:
as I float by your universe,
memoirs of the road
sting my feet
...
I was so sure
I touched me in you
photograph: Himalayas, Uttarakhand, India; self
FOURTH OF JULY POEM
By A. D. Winans
stepped on, pissed on
cheated and abused
taken advantage of blue collar man
caught up in the American scam
don’t tell me anyone
can be anything they want to be
if they put their minds to it
bull shit crap laid on like butter
on the working class stiff
save your message for
the deaf dumb and blind
it’ll never sell in the ghetto
or to the immigrants
you’ve turned your back on
high-fiving, jiving court jester
with an act as old as death
out of step reeking from bad breath
take your message to the church
tell it to the men on death row
tell it to the starving poor
tell it to the sick and lame
tell it to the rich folks
tell it to the politicians
tell it to the serial killers
tell it to the bankers
tell it to Wall Street
tell it to the union busters
tell it to the man on the gallows
tell it to the cowardly terrorists
tell it to the last man at the Alamo
tell it to the chiseled faces on Mount Rushmore
tell it to Madonna
tell it to the street whore
tell it to the last wino on the bowery
tell it to the butcher
tell it to the unemployed
tell it to the circus clown
tell it to the insane
tell it to the outlaw
tell it to the in-laws
tell it to the panhandler
tell it to the conman
tell it to the baby found stuffed
in a garbage can
tell it to the displaced factory worker
tell it to the elderly
tell it to the re-po man
tell it to the academics
tell it to the poetry politicians
tell it to the last space alien
hiding out in Roswell
tell it to the militia
tell it to the FBI sharpshooters
at Ruby Ridge
tell it to the arsonists at Waco, Texas
tell it to the junkie with dry heaves
tell it to the farm worker
tell it to the dishwasher
tell it to the orderlies
tell it to the flag waver
tell it to the Chinese peasants
working the rice fields
for a dollar a day
tell it to the garment worker
slaving away in sweat shops in Chinatown
and the Latin Quarter
tell it to the garbage man
tell it to corporate America selling
torture devises to fascist nations
tell it to big business
tell it to the oil barons
tell it to the tobacco merchants
tell it to the children addicted
to television and video games
tell it to the fur industry
who club live baby seals to death
for the clothing merchants
with blood on their hands
tell it to the molested children
tell it to the battered wives of America
tell it to the pharmacy industry dispensing
billions of dollars of drugs each year
tell it to the millions of people
dying from air pollution in Mexico and abroad
tell it to the man on his deathbed
not sure why he lived or what he is dying for
tell it to Jesus Christ
shout it to the stars
line the traitors up against the wall
rewrite the Ten Commandments
and start all over again
When The World Ends in My Garden
By Andrea Hernández Holm
I melt in the leftover sunlight
While la luna,
Resting heavy and pregnant above the Catalinas,
Waits for her turn in the sky.
Sweat stings the corner of my eye
Where the crow has left her mark.
I breathe easy enough
Thankful
Somewhat blessed and peaceful
Because I have given myself nothing
But the calm of this moment
That I choose not to share
With angry children,
unhappy parents, troubled friends,
Oppressed hermanos, thirsting travelers
Burning turtles, drowning cranes, dying dolphins
Sweltering deserts, blistering feet, broken limbs
Empty wallets, hollow words, or shattered hearts.
I gather strength from this moment
From the deep sweet smell of mesquite pollen
Wet as I water where the wind has carried it among
The roses, the sunflowers, the tiger aloe
The mums, the nopales, the lantana,
The cat’s claw, the barell cactus, the geranium,
The yerba buena, and all the plants whose names I don’t know.
The birds watch me suspiciously from atop the cacti
And between the vines clinging to the wall
Chirping, singing their praises when they see the earth
Darken as it drinks the water I offer it.
I need this fraction of time
When the waters
And I
Move only to the rhythm of the moon overhead
A brief respite from the anger of the day.
I turn to offer my thanks
My heart full
And my moment
Begins to splinter from the inside out.
I am the epicenter
Quaking, trembling
As I realize that the sun has fallen
Plummeted to the earth
In my backyard.
His shards pierce the hard dirt
Like knives penetrating flesh.
I scoop up pieces, squinting through the night
Trying to find each fragment
Before the water rushing from the hose
that I've dropped in the dirt
Washes them away through the opening in the wall
Down through the arroyo and deep into the desert.
Tonatiuh, come back.
Tonatiuh, come back.
I sing frantically to myself,
Keep going, don’t stop to cry
Don’t stop to question or worry or fear
What every moment after this will bring.
Andrea Hernandez Holm
DILUYAMOS LAS FRONTERAS
Margarita Robleda
No vine nomás hasta aquí
pa´hacerte la guerra,
ni pa´robar tu ganado,
ni pa´volarte la novia,
ni pa´colarme en la noche,
como un ladrón cualquiera.
Vine a darte mi mano,
pá que juntos
construyamos la casa,
y que unidos,
inmigrantes casi todos,
junto con los herederos,
inventemos a esta gran nación.
No me pidas que me hinque
ni que agache la cabeza,
no esperes que te suplique,
ni que humille a mi descendencia;
que pa´eso tengo bien presente
quienes fueron mis abuelos:
talentosos arquitectos,
matemáticos brillantes,
que hasta inventaron el cero.
Artistas, artesanos,
hombres y mujeres de bien;
alegres, trabajadores y cariñosos;
astrónomos y sacerdotes.
También, pa´que negarlo,
hombres águilas,
caballeros tigres:
feroces guerreros.
Sí, las fronteras
las inventaron los hombres,
que los hombres las derriben;
que una sola es la casa,
una sola es el alma.
Y si una sola es la tierra,
una sola, también,
es la herida.
Que seres humanos somos todos
sin importar el color.
Y si una es la sangre...
¿Por qué no podemos pedir
que sea uno solo el corazón?
Que nos llamemos hermanos,
hermanas,
que compartamos el pan,
la alegría y el dolor?
Yo quiero darte mi canto,
mi risa y mi cultura de más 5000 años;
quiero aprender de ti
constancia, tenacidad,
tu capacidad de prever el futuro;
quizás,
hasta un poquito,
un cachito tan sólo…
de tu cordura.
Noche y día,
Día y noche;
que dancen las estrellas,
que suenen los cascabeles,
que hoy estamos de fiesta;
que la tierra es de todos.
¡Viva la independencia!
Sin importar los límites,
sin importar las lenguas;
que el respeto
sea el salvoconducto
que diluya las fronteras.
Sabemos que el que se cierra, pierde;
que la conciencia de ello,
nos permita reencontrarnos
y derribe nuestras barreras:
las tuyas, las mías
las de los mercaderes,
las del egoísmo,
las del miedo,
las de los gobernantes;
las del hambre.
No vine nomás hasta aquí
pa´ robarles nada...
Vine a compartirles la vida:
el sudor, la sangre,
el cariño,
la alegría,
los sueños
y la esperanza.
Sep. 15 de 1997
Mc Allen TX Fiesta de El Grito en el Consulado.
"Este poema / This Poem" by Francisco X. Alarcon
I have translated the poem into Spanish. These are the versions in Spanish and English of "THIS POEM." I envision the poem in three columns so that the poem could be read vertically, horizontally, diagonally, or on any way the reader may decide to read it.
ESTE POEMA
a Poetas Respondiendo a SB 1070
Por Francisco X. Alarcón
*
este poema
está si nombrar
sin enlistar
andando está
antes de salir
el sol
esperando
el siguiente autobús
o camión de labor
este poema
no tiene página
sino calor carnal
sus líneas poéticas
son las arrugas
en su piel
besos al anochecer
besos al amanecer
lo hacen rimar
este poema
tiene la cadencia
que da el abrazar
amorosos senos
brazos y muslos
para noches sin dormir
cantando con fe
la canción de esta Tierra
de la Oportunidad
*
este poema
es tan quieto como
la noche del desierto
las estrellas del cielo
marcan en sus versos
la puntuación
las ramas de árboles
este poema lo pueden
de memoria recitar
este poema
tiene los mismos
sueños que tú
las mismas
pesadillas
metas y temor
temblando
ante los noticieros
su persecusión
este poema
nada podrá tener
pero cara sí
es un joven brillante
atrapado en lo oscuro
de esta tierra de nadie
sin alma, sin sueños
que un Acta de Sueños
podría desvanecer
*
este poema
al final del autobús
se pone a llorar
al ir del viejo barrio
del centro urbano
a los suburbios
lágrimas de niños
borran las líneas
de este poema
este poema
es una madre
un padre
un vecino
un ser humano
de carne y hueso
caminando para ir
a comprar comida
pañales de desechar
este poema está
más allá de cualquier
antología de poesía
“tenemos corazón
alma y familia
igual que tú”
este poema es
el poema de esta Tierra
que está por escribir
© 2010 Francisco X, Alarcón
to Poets Responding to SB 1070
By Francisco X. Alarcón
*
this poem
is nameless
unlisted
already up
before the Sun
comes out
waiting for
the next bus
pick-up truck
this poem
is pageless
but warm flesh
wrinkles
on skin mark
its poetic lines
night kisses
morning kisses
its best rhymes
this poem
has the cadence
of embraces
loving breasts
arms and thighs
for sleepless nights
faithfully singing
the song of this Land
of Opportunity
*
this poem
is as quiet as
the desert night
sky stars are
the punctuation
marks of its verses
tree branches
recite this poem
by heart
this poem
has the same
dreams as you
the same
nightmares
goals and fears
trembling
before the news
of its own demise
this poem
is everything
but faceless
is a bright teenager
trapped in the dark
soulless, dreamless
no man’s land
that a Dream Act
could just vanish
*
this poem
cries on the last
seat rows of the bus
leaving the inner
urban old barrio
for the suburbs
children’s tears
wipe out the lines
of this poem
this poem
is a mother
a father
a neighbor
a human being
bone and flesh
walking around
buying groceries
disposable diapers
this poem
is beyond any
poetry anthology
“we have a heart
a soul, a familia
just like you”
this poem
is the unwritten
poem of this land
© 2010 Francisco X, Alarcón
"Keeping it Real" by Rose Valencia
Wrote this about seven years ago...and nothing has changed at all, it's only gotten worse.
Eduardo Y Jesus
(EdWardo & Hay-suse)
traveled the dangerous journey
to our "Land of Milk & Honey."
They weren't trying to take your jobs,
your females or property.
They were two men, simply trying
to support their families.
Jesus perished.
Arizonas' ruthless sun fried him
like an egg.
Laying there delirious
I wonder if he thought about
his wife and children
within his last lucid thoughts.
A Mexican man
died a horrible death
on American soil.
His brother Eduardo
watched on in horror,
trying to hang on,
while his brother passed over
writhing in agony,
into the next life.
I felt deep sadness.
Watching this grown man
on the ten o'clock news.
Laying there in his hospital bed
Only Intravenous lines,
& oxygen,
keeping him alive.
The tears in his eyes
did not measure
the sea of pain
drowning his floundering heart.
He told us how his brother
perished,foaming at the mouth.
In my eyes
they are the new
Freedom Fighters
They have my respect.
Remember this true story
next time you feel angry
at those "WETBACKS"
BEANERS AND SPICS."
They pick your fresh veggies.
Scrub your toilets.
Serve cocktails poolside.
They stand around on corners,
groups of dark skinned men in straw hats.
They ain't sellin' rock
or trying to suck dick.
This is America baby,
for them this is IT!
Opportunities await!
A last chance,
to feed those babies.
They ain't as lazy
or low down as you think.
Workin' 25 hours a day
10 days a week,
gettin' paid under the table.
Same jobs our fellow Americans
are more then able,
to do, but WON'T!
'Cuz it ain't cool
or 4.00 per hour pay ain't about shit!
This is what they risk death & life for.
Pride.
Try livin' it.
Jesus died keepin' it real.
Rose Valencia
(C) 2002-2010
BIOS
"Know the Names of Things" by Lorna Dee Cervantes
"The Last and Lasting Glance" by Susmita Chatterjee Paul
"Fourth of July Poem" by A. D. Winans
"When The World Ends in My Garden" by Andrea Hernández Holm
“Diluyamos las fronteras” por Margarita Robleda
"Este Poema / This Poem" by Francisco X. Alarcón
"Keeping it Real" by Rose Valencia
"Know the Names of Things" by Lorna Dee Cervantes
"The Last and Lasting Glance" by Susmita Chatterjee Paul
Susmita Paul has done her Masters in English Literature from University of Calcutta in India. She has worked as a Part-Time Lecturer at two Undergraduate colleges in Kolkata, India. Writing is her passion and she is deeply interested in reading about history and cultures of people across the globe."Fourth of July Poem" by A. D. Winans
"When The World Ends in My Garden" by Andrea Hernández Holm
“Diluyamos las fronteras” por Margarita Robleda
Margarita Robleda Moguel, nació en Mérida Yucatán México el 25 de abril de 1950. Su madre nació en San Antonio Texas, lugar de residencia de sus abuelos por más de 60 años, por lo que ella creció disfrutando el ir y venir y se reconoce: bilingual, bicultural, but most of all, by heart!Ha escrito cerca de 100 canciones y 107 libros publicados en México, Colombia y los Estados Unidos. En este país, empresas como Houghton Mifflin, Scott Foresman, Schollastic, Mcgraw Hill, Hampton Brown y Hardcourt Brace han incluido sus cuentos dentro de sus programas bilingües. Santillana USA le publicó la colección de cuentos para los más pequeños: “Rana, Rema Rimas” y le tiene especial cariño a sus libros “Paco, un niño latino en los Estados Unidos” y “María, una niña latina en los Estados Unidos” ambos en inglés y en español, porque los tejió pensando en ofrecerles a los jóvenes información que les ayudará a fortalecer el orgullo de sus raíces.
Con frecuencia es invitada dar conferencias y talleres a maestros y padres de familia así como a las escuelas y ferias de libros para que los niños y niñas tengan la oportunidad de conocer a una autora latina. En esos casos, le gusta decirle a su público: “Aquí no hay mojados ni colados, estamos en este país para compartir. ¿Para qué estamos en este país? ¡Para compartir! –gritan alegremente los niños y las niñas. “Y mi abuelo hizo el Castillo de Chichen Itzá, ¡ha, ha!, Sin computadora, ¡ha, ha, sin metales, sin maquinaria pesada… es más, le dio el cero a Microsoft para que hagan la computadora”.
Como parte de la Secretaria de Turismo federal, fue directora por el lado mexicano del Proyecto Binacional de Los Caminos del Río, por lo que vivió muy de cerca la vida diaria de la frontera Texas-Tamaulipas. Cuando se presentó en George Town University en un encuentro nacional de Heritage Corridors, Margarita leyó su primer poema en ingles que le valió que en la plenaria, frente a cerca de 1000 especialistas de todo el país, se le mencionara: “Agradecemos la presencia de Margarita Robleda de México porque nos vino a recordar el idioma de los sentimientos y del corazón”.
En este momento presenta charlas de prevención a jóvenes del estado Campeche en México y diluye fronteras con el Sur, haciéndole lagartijas a las neuronas y cosquillas al corazón de las personas, sin importar la edad, de Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador y Guatemala.
Es Premio Nacional de Cuentos para Niños 1991 por Bellas Artes en México. Premio El Caracol por su oralidad en 2009 y recibió las llaves de la ciudad de Port Arthur Texas, aunque nadie le dijo dónde se encuentra la puerta, por lo que, como en todo, sigue en camino, en búsqueda, siempre en proceso intentando diluir fronteras de aquí y de ahí, visibles o no.
"Este Poema / This Poem" by Francisco X. Alarcón
"Keeping it Real" by Rose Valencia
Rose Valencia Sanchez was born to Santos and Claudia Valencia in East Los Angeles California. Although her family was poor financially, they were rich in love. Rose developed a love for words and reading at a young age, due to playing word games, and reading together with her family. She also enjoyed listening to the many stories of her fathers childhood in New Mexico. He painted such a vivid picture with his words, that Rose aspired to do the same.By the time she was in 6th grade Rose and her parents moved to Mesa, Arizona. There Rose met an inspirational teacher, Mr Lance McClure who encouraged Rose to write what came from her heart, instead of trying to please others. Currently, Rose feels she is "horrible" at writing that "love stuff" poetry, and her passion is writing about issues that plague society.Particularly, intolerance & racism. Rose feels that so much can be taught, and expressed through poetry and the written word, and her goal is to give the gift of understanding, and healing to others.
Rose is currently living in Arizona, and is fighting against the racial intolerance and hatred aimed at the people she was always taught to be so proud of. The first thing you see when you walk up to Rose's front door is a sign on her front window that states "NO SB1070." She carries this statement inside her heart, and it fills up her every waking moment. If all she has to fight this battle with is her words, then her weapon is drawn, and she is ready for battle.
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