Monday, February 14, 2011

Spotlight on the new poetry collection by Gregg Barrios, “La Causa”

Playwright and poet Gregg Barrios has also been a journalist for the Los Angeles Times, a book editor for the San Antonio Express-News, an editorial page editor for Rumbo (a Spanish language daily), and a teacher in Texas. Barrios has three books to his credit including Puro Rollo, The Air-Conditioned Apollo, and Healthy Self. His poetry has appeared in publications ranging from Hecho en Tejas, an anthology of Tejano literature, Latina magazine, and the UCLA anthology, Aztlán and Vietnam. More recently, his poem “Chale Guerra” was the only Latino contribution to the anthology Home Front: An America at War Reader.

His latest collection of poems is La Causa (Hansen Publishing Group). As described by the publisher, this new collection “is a fascinating interplay of the eras, voices, and regions of Aztlán, all in a simultaneous dialogue with each other. La Causa is an evolution in time, maturity, political sophistication, and expectation an invaluable document to any artistic or historical study of the soul of El Movimiento. The poems in this volume range from sonnets, concrete, songs, ballads, prose and narrative verse. It is a chronicle of the changes made in the aftermath of the Chicano Mexican American civil rights movement.”

Praise for La Causa:

La Causa is an always-fresh perspective from a writer whose history is a Zelig from the Chicano movimiento.” —Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street

“Barrios reminds us of the Chicano fight...bringing the struggle to the minds of a new generation. —The Texas Observer

A sample from La Causa:

"Carnales"

brothers in arms
explorer scouts search
party pass and nudge
earthy quakers sitting
down thee and thou
walkman on water
turquoise & silver
borderline new mex
music in 4/4 time
uniform walk on dark
glass observation deck
banging drum sticks
a muzak beat to wake
Lazarus from the dead.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

very nice. Glad to see that Chicano poetry is still alive and well. The Floricanto at USC last year shows that poets like Barrios, Alurista and others are still in the forefront of the onda Chicano/a. As part of the new generation of Chicana/o poetas, I continue to gain inspiration from the work of our elders.

Elsa Cardona