Michael Sedano
Twenty years ago, Andy Ledesma started painting a mural on a beautiful wall belonging to a local furniture company in his northeast Los Angeles neighborhood of Highland Park on the corner of Avenue 61 and Figueroa.
Ledesma's friend and fellow artist, Eagle--Anthony Ortega--joined him. They painted a mural and cemented a community.
As the artists worked on the busy corner, kids began stopping by. Ledesma and Eagle made friends and kids willingly joined in. Given a grid square, a brush and some paint, the community team created Mexico-Tenochtitlan: A Sequence of Time and Culture.
Something there is that loves a community wall, so the mural withstood taggers, changes of building owners, and ignorant Chamber of Commerce tipos who had already painted out a nearby Frank Romero mural ("I didn't know," said the necktied vandal with the can of white paint.)
This year, joined by artist Joe Bravo, Ledesma and Ortega, with assistance from the Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles, once again enlisted community members and restored Mexico-Tenochtitlan: A Sequence of Time and Culture. The mural was re-dedicated in a blessing ceremony and community celebration on March 19, 2016.
Xipe Totec Danzantes Azteca, a highly accomplished troupe, conducted the mural blessing ceremony with concha fanfares, copal, and dance.
The speakers at the dedication acknowledge the importance of arte and murals in helping form a community. The parking lot site exemplified the spirit as a barber college allowed the event to take over its parking lot on a busy Saturday afternoon, prime time.
Charlie Fisher, an historian and leader of the Highland Park Heritage Trust, shared the history of the building hosting this mural, and efforts of communitarians like him to interrupt developer plans to raze the architecturally distinctive buildings in the northeast. Despite their work, hipsters and gentrification have begun changing the character and tenor of the area. The mural represents an important element in preservation and counter-statement. Y no nos vamos.
Fisher explained how the muralists had done it with good smarts. They signed a contract with the original building owner, who so strongly supported his community and the mural that he installed lighting to illuminate the work through the night. Thus, although the building changed hands multiple times, the mural held its wall. It was in the contract.
Dennis Cruz, a powerfully ironic poet, shared an extended set featuring barrio- and vato-themed work. He writes, according to one interview, because he has no choice. He also writes because he wants to connect with people like himself. Unlike probably any other Chicano poet, Cruz was kissed by Gregory Corso.
The Poet Laureate of Los Angeles, Luis J. Rodriguez arrived after a bit of a delay. There was an event on Figueroa Street and traffic was a jumbled mess in the area. Rodriguez arrived along with his friend John Densmore. Rodriguez read from his sonnet project, telling the audience he enjoys the formalism of the Shakespearean sonnet.
Densmore read a poem by his former musical partner, Jim Morrison. Densmore and Morrison were members of The Doors.
It fell upon Zero, an accomplished spoken word artist, to wrap up the day's literary work. An indigenist themed writer, Zero shared work from his mixtape CD, Tonal y Nahuatl.
Zero took over the stage with confidence and power. His fluid presentation and powerful presence offered a wondrous mirror of cultural confluence, growth and cultural sequence. It is the capstone of a day celebrating a mural named Mexico-Tenochtitlan: A Sequence of Time and Culture. The day began with prehispanic music and dance, progressed to movimiento poetry, Chicano sonnets, and concluding with twenty-first century spoken word.
QED: sequence of time and culture.
View Mexico-Tenochtitlan: A Sequence of Time and Cultureat at the corner of Avenue 61 and Figueroa Street.
Be sure to have a meal (tasty ceviche, red menudo on Saturday and Sunday) at La Estrella, itself a wonderfully muralled structure, across the street from the mural.
La Bloga On-line Floricanto for Fukushima
Sonia Gutiérrez, Iris De Anda, Sharon Elliott, Meg Withers, Alfonso Martínez Pretel, Xánath Caraza, Frank Acosta, Teresa Mei Chuc, Silvia Santos, Kai Coggin
Through efforts led by Odilia Galván Rodríguez and the Moderators of the Facebook poetry community, Poets Responding to SB 1070: Poetry of Rebellion, La Bloga proudly yet sorrowfully shares a fourth On-line Floricanto remembering the gente of Fukushima, Japan and victims of TEPCO's incompetence in the face of natural disaster. Click here for the first in 2011, and second in 2014, and third in 2015 La Bloga On-line Floricanto for the people of Fukushima. Click here for a review of Cecile Pineda's Devil's Tango: How I Learned the Fukushima Step by Step.
When life gives you Fukushima and other nuclear disasters, read and write poetry. It's better than screaming.
The Colors of Death By Sonia Gutiérrez
Querida Pachamama By Iris De Anda
Remembering Fukushima, Nagasaki and Hiroshima By Sharon Elliott
Now I know why they offered to work at Fukushima By Meg Withers
Tankas to Mother Earth By Alfonso Martínez Pretel
Abismo Por Xánath Caraza
Mother Earth is Crying By Frank Acosta
Love After Fukushima By Teresa Mei Chuc
Fukushima. Por Silvia Santos
Washed-Up Dinosaurs By Kai Coggin
The Colors of Death
By Sonia Gutiérrez
Ask Fukushima
if she drank
clean water this morning.
If she closes her eyes,
she was too embarrassed
to confess
radioactive water seeped
into groundwater
and seaweed water
all year long.
Ask Fukushima
if those tumors,
oozing blood
were removed
from the gaping mouths
of fish and if their eyes
saw their own fins
disintegrate.
Ask Fukushima
if she smelled
the bloated bellies
of salmon
along the warm
ocean shores.
With dry eyes
and chapped lips,
she will answer,
“The hands that protected us
from the power plant’s
demise all year long
did not come this morning
and will not
come tomorrow.”
Ask Fukushima,
“What is the color of death?”
She will answer,
“Death is the color of Chernobyl . . . Cadarache,
and of our abandonment
in broad daylight.”
Querida Pachamama
By Iris De Anda
Querida Pachamama,
This is it. Road is coming to an end. Let us go out like fire flies. Luminous road, volcanic ash, this walk we are taking together. Remember, mountain ranges and desert sky nestled in my eyes. A sigh of deep relief knowing you will be here long after I leave. A perfect geometric spiral of us laid across your Maiz crops. Seeds of wonder planted by ancestors. Prickly cactus embraces change. We roam together querida from sunrise to sunset. Morning dew full of esperanzas. Hummingbird stillness spreads in afternoon quiet. Shh. Listen to your hum. Om. Namaste. As above so below dear earth mother. Ignite us with movement so that we may save your last rainforest. There is no room for extinction and if there is let it be those who poison your path. Let us undo the clash and find peace in the becoming. Yo soy tu Rainbow Warrior & I will die trying to save you.
De todo Corazon,
Tu hija rebelde
Remembering Fukushima, Nagasaki and Hiroshima
By Sharon Elliott
“Human memory has a tendency to slip, and critical judgment to fade, with the years and with changes in life-style and circumstance.”
~ Yosuke Yamahata, who photographed Nagasaki a day after the atomic bomb was dropped
serene brutality of the sea
conjured
by mad dogs
and bent men
throwing juju at the cold moon
folly of arrogance
speaks
with chaotic urgency
a storm created in her name
by misuse and ignorance
casts towering waves on the sand
ravenous
at the edges of perception
radioactive
mothers
gather young ones
with seaweed hair
in arms too weak to hold them
sing their own hearts
into vapor
aching moans scratch
at brains attempting
to make sense
of broken morning
fingernails crack
torn away from the beds
weary from holding on
small watchers
befriend snakes
poisonous frogs
too feeble to move
may this fate never
come to them again
three times is
three too many
moratorium
must be enforced
by those responsible
those who know
and do nothing
those who cast a blind eye
this very moment
arguing economics
the door is open
can’t be closed
or locked
rusting hinges
can only be partially cleaned
so they don’t squeak
quite so much
Now I Know Why They Offered to Work at Fukushima*
By Meg Withers
"The work's not hard, if you don't think about the radiation."
- Minoru Ikeda, 63, retired postal worker who joined the cleanup effort at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in 2013.
I have tried to
write stained
water flowing into
the world
about sea otters
anemones and perch, and
their silent graceful sluice
from one underwater to another.
I cannot contend
with bleakness
when news focuses
a harsh lens on a beach
strewn with blue fin whales:
our relatives
our precursors
whole families of fishes.
I have tried and there
are no words
this plight we have
descended
upon ourselves.
An absence of dolphins
in their sleek pods
gill, fin, sentience
gracious source
the death of us all.
*The title comes from the deaths of Japanese workers and other citizens at Fukushima, who chose to go back into the deadly environment to help assuage the guilt over having sent such a deadly, irrevocable force into the world’s largest and most precious natural resource.
Tankas To Mother Earth
By Alfonso Martínez Pretel
Mother Earth, your soul,
deep inside the blue planet,
suffers for so long
because her human creatures
forget the most primal love.
They call it progress,
but you know that sometimes greed
becomes pollution
for your air, land and rivers
for your watery sea dress.
Why this harassment
to the origins of all?
if a pure nature
must be the prolific womb
for the new generations.
Why this egoism
make you breathe the harmful smoke
for your hair of clouds?
You have got to pour grey tears
along your own fertile feet.
But you forgive them
with the look of a sunrise,
the voice of a brook
and the caress of seasons.
Oh, Mother, you must be God.
Madre Tierra, tu alma,
profundamente dentro del planeta azul,
sufre durante mucho tiempo
porque sus criaturas humanas
olvidan el amor más primigenio.
Lo llaman progreso,
pero sabes que algunas veces la codicia
se convierte en contaminación
para tu aire, tierra y ríos,
para tu acuoso vestido marino.
¿Por qué este hostigamiento
a los orígenes de todo?,
si la naturaleza pura
debe ser la prolífica matriz
para las nuevas generaciones.
¿Por qué este egoísmo
te hace respirar el humo nocivo
para tu pelo de nubes?
Tienes que verter lágrimas grises
a lo largo de tus propios pies fértiles.
Pero los perdonas
con la mirada de un amanecer,
la voz de un arroyo
y la caricia de las estaciones.
Oh, Madre, tú debes ser Dios.
Abismo
Por Xánath Caraza
Acuático envenenamiento
en densas aguas
profundas corrientes
el abismo se expande
Agua de Fukushima
caótica fuerza
a tu paso la huella
del sangrado mortal
Letales ríos submarinos
costas americanas
emanan hirvientes
fluidos radioactivos
Mother Earth is Crying
By Frank Acosta
Mother Earth is crying
A wounded, ailing corpus
Commodified in avarice
As if creation has no soul
With arrogant contempt
Toxic greed poisons waters
Exhales vile to the four winds
In culpable immunity, mammon
Rips, defiles, scorches, her face
Impales her earthen womb
Children of the earth
Hear our mother’s wails of pain
In storms and violent torrent
Fertile fields turned wasteland
Foretell respect we have forgotten
Rise in a protective circle
Or sit idle in complicity
Loose the arrogance of dominion
Over earth and creation
Ways of ecology honor truth
Nature abides kindred spirits
Let us connected with one another
Bound in mutual stewardship
There is ample sacred harvest
To feed our global village
We are called in covenant
Of love, respect, compassion
Children, elders, ancestors, unborn
One sentient circle of being
Tlamish Tonatiuh, one sun upon us all
Love After Fukushima
By Teresa Mei Chuc
I want the
courage of
the elderly who
volunteered
in the clean-up
at the
Daiichi plant
To be filled
with a desire
to live
and know that death
is a reality of
isotopes rearranging
in the body
Five years later
cesium-137
cesium-134
are still leaking
into the Pacific
Bluefin tuna
a neon green
I think I am
growing two
hearts
They beat one
after the other
in a constant
drumming with
no silence in
between.
“Love After Fukushima” was published in the San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly
Fukushima.
Por Silvia Santos
El mar
se lo lleva todo;
galopa, ganando espacio tierra adentro,
y barre, rompe, enmudece
los gritos de auxilio.
El bramido del mar
y objetos resquebrajados
es registrado en videos.
Ahora podemos ser espectadores
en tiempo real…
Pero mi mente
no entiende.
Azorada, contemplo,
leo las estadísticas
sobre la magnitud del daño,
miro el desastre
¿Y qué puedo hacer?
Fukushima Daiichi
tan lejos parece;
pero el mar es el mar
y sus corrientes muchas.
Llegará el eco
hasta las playas lejanas
con el rumor de olas fluorescentes Fukushima.
Fukushima,
tan lejos,
tan cerca,
Fukushima
Fukushima Daiichi.
Washed-Up Dinosaurs
By Kai Coggin
Sea Monsters
have been found on the shores of California beaches.
Two, in the last week.
Catalina Island, Los Angeles coast,
the first sea monster was 18 feet long,
an oar-fish, or sea serpent, that surfaced from
the dark, unknown depths of our ocean.
One of the ill-famed, mariner-eating monsters,
this lochness lookalike, this giant underwater dragon,
viking swallower, ship capsizer of ancient days,
died in such a humble and uneventful way,
washed up only 15 feet from the Catalina Island shore,
where a young marine biologist snorkeled in the afternoon sun.
She saw the flash of a silver tail shining underwater,
and dragged the half-floating sea serpent
to the sands where her friends and other beach goers stood amazed at her catch.
Sixteen people had to carry its majestic shimmering silver
body out of the gently crashing blue water,
posing for a photo-op with this beast of Nordic lore.
Its cold silver dollar eyes and ravaged silk mouth did not smile.
There is an old Japanese legend that says
that oar-fish beach themselves as an omen to
a Great Earthquake.
A reporter said that dozens of oar-fish
were found beached days before the devastating
2011 Fukushima 7.1 earthquake in Japan.
Is this sea serpent a harbinger of impending doom?
The smiling sixteen people in the Catalina Island photo,
with the silvery banner of ocean’s untimely demise spread across their chests,
don’t seem to think so.
Two days later,
another rare, great beast of the ocean
was found stranded on the shores of tourist-soaked
Venice Beach, California...
of all places.
An Alaskan saber-toothed whale,
all 15-feet and 2,000 blubbery pounds of her,
washed up on shore barely alive,
surrounded by a swarm of onlookers,
some who tried to push her back into the water to save her,
and some who did nothing but took out their cell-phones
and snapped selfies for Instagram and Facebook
with the dying whale in the background,
her muted, humble whale-song the soundtrack to barbarism.
The female saber-toothed whale
does not grow the giant saber-tooth;
only the male is strapped with this magical unicorn horn
protruding down like a sword out of the side of his mouth.
The female is a calm giant,
a frigid ocean deep swimmer who prefers the waters of the Arctic
to the warm California coast.
What brings her to Venice Beach?
There was undigested plastic and spooled nylon strands in her belly.
“Not enough to cause her death,” the scientists say.
Exactly how much plastic IS okay
to have permanently undigested in your belly?
Fuckers.
Washed up dinosaurs of the ocean’s dark and deep womb,
stranded sea monsters, falsely-accused viking hunters,
flailing on the shallow sands of an unfamiliar coast,
Humanity’s coast, where the bustling consumer landscape meets the water,
and destruction is the only language that nature understands.
What are these royal beasts trying to say to us that we are just not hearing?
I have my ear to a distant whale-song
and a sea serpent’s quiet hum of liquid movement.
I have my ear to the heart of something bigger than me
that I can so easily become swallowed in... willingly.
I have my ear to a nautilus’ emptied shell
to hear the Divine Secrets of the Ocean,
the indecipherable and infinite wishing of waves.
I am listening.
Meet the Poets
The Colors of Death By Sonia Gutiérrez
Querida Pachamama By Iris De Anda
Remembering Fukushima, Nagasaki and Hiroshima By Sharon Elliott
Now I know why they offered to work at Fukushima By Meg Withers
Tankas to Mother Earth By Alfonso Martínez Pretel
Abismo Por Xánath Caraza
Mother Earth is Crying By Frank Acosta
Love After Fukushima By Teresa Mei Chuc
Fukushima. Por Silvia Santos
Washed-Up Dinosaurs By Kai Coggin
Sonia Gutiérrez’s work promotes social and human dignity. She is an Interim Assistant Professor of English at Mt. San Jacinto College at the San Jancito Campus.
Her poems have appeared in the San Diego Poetry Annual, La Jornada Semanal, Konch Magazine, and Poetry of Resistance: Voices for Social Justice, among other publications. Her poem, “The Garden of Dreams” is forthcoming in El Tecolote Anthology. La Bloga’s “On-line Floricanto” is home to her Poets Responding to SB 1070 bilingual poems, including “Best Poems 2011” and “Best Poems 2012.” Her vignettes have appeared in AlternaCtive PublicaCtions, Huizache, and Sunshine Noir II.
Sonia’s bilingual poetry collection, Spider Woman / La Mujer Araña (Olmeca Press, 2013), is her debut publication. She is a contributing editor for the The Writer’s Response (Cengage Learning, 2016). Her manuscripts, Kissing Dreams from a Distance, a novel, and Legacy / Herencia, her second poetry collection, are seeking publication. Since 2014, Sonia has been a moderator for Facebook’s Poets Responding to SB 1070, founded by her Chicano role models, Francisco X. Alarcón.
Bio by Olga García. Iris De Anda's recent book of poetry Codeswitch: Fires From Mi Corazón is an offering, a pumping heart, and in that heart are 4 chambers that burn. Rage. Love. Revolution. Evolution. The idea for creating 4 chapters or chambers in Codeswitch came to Iris late one night as she was drifting off to sleep. "This gave me a blueprint to work with, where I plugged in my personal medicine wheel and the poems that spoke to each section."
Born and raised in Seattle and living in Oakland, Sharon Elliott has written since childhood. Four years in the Peace Corps in Nicaragua and Ecuador laid the foundation for her activism. As an initiated Ifa priest, she has learned about her ancestral Scot/Sámi/African Caribbean history, reinforcing her belief that borders are created by men, enforcing them is simply wrong.
Her book, Jaguar Unfinished, was published in 2012. She has featured in poetry readings in the San Francisco Bay area and was an awardee of the Best Poem of 2012, The Day of Little Comfort, http://labloga.blogspot.com/2013/01/best-poems-of-2012.html
Meg Withers teaches at Merced College. The author of Must Be Present to Win (Ghost Road Press), A Communion of Saints (Tinfish Press), and Shadowed: Unheard Voices (The Press at Fresno State), as poetry editor, she is dedicated to the creation of an egalitarian society.
Alfonso Martínez Pretel, born in Cartagena, Province of Murcia, Southeastern Spain, in July 1968. He studied Law at the University in Murcia. He is married and father of two male kids. Unpublished poet. Up to the date, he hasn’t had the opportunity to see his poems collected in a printed book, though he shares, almost daily, his Poetry in Facebook and also in his literary blog (http://miralfondo.blogspot.com).
Xánath Caraza es viajera, educadora, poeta y narradora. Su poemario Sílabas de viento recibió el 2015 International Book Award de poesía. También recibió Mención de Honor en la categoría poesía en español para los 2015 International Latino Book Awards. Su poemario Conjuro y su colección de relatos Lo que trae la marea han recibido reconocimientos nacionales e internacionales. Sus otros poemarios son Ocelocíhuatl, Noche de colibríes, Corazón pintado, Tinta negra (en imprenta), Donde la luz es violeta (en imprenta) y su segunda colección de relatos Pulsación (en progreso). Enseña en la Universidad de Missouri-Kansas City y da talleres de creación literaria en Europa, Latinoamérica y Estados Unidos. Caraza recibió la Beca Nebrija para Creadores de 2014 del Instituto Franklin, Universidad de Alcalá de Henares en España. Es columnista de La Bloga, Periódico de Poesía y Revista Zona de Ocio.
http://xanathcaraza.webs.com/
Frank de Jesus Acosta is principal of Acosta & Associates, a California-based consulting group that specializes in professional support services to public and private social change ventures in the areas of children, youth and family services, violence prevention, community development, and cultural fluency. Acosta provides writing and strategic professional support in research, planning, and development to foundations and community-centered institutions on select initiatives focused on advancing social justice, equity, and pluralism. In 2007, Acosta published "The History of Barrios Unidos," and is presently authoring and editing a book series focused on issues related to boys and young men of color for Arte Publico Press.
Author of two full-length collections of poetry, Red Thread (Fithian Press, 2012) and Keeper of the Winds (FootHills Publishing, 2014), Teresa Mei Chuc was born in Saigon, Vietnam and immigrated to the U.S. under political asylum with her mother and brother shortly after the Vietnam War while her father remained in a Vietcong "reeducation" camp for nine years. Her poetry appears in journals such as CONSEQUENCE Magazine, EarthSpeak Magazine, Hawai’i Pacific Review, Kyoto Journal, The Prose-Poem Project, The National Poetry Review, Rattle, Whitefish Review, Verse Daily and in anthologies such as New Poets of the American West (Many Voices Press, 2010), With Our Eyes Wide Open: Poems of the New American Century (West End Press, 2014), and Mo’ Joe (Beatlick Press, 2014). Teresa’s poetry is forthcoming in the anthology, Inheriting the War: Poetry and Prose by Descendants of Vietnam Veterans and Refugees. Her new chapbook of poetry is How One Loses Notes and Sounds (Word Palace Press, 2016). Teresa Mei Chuc is a graduate of the Masters in Fine Arts in Creative Writing program at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont and teaches literature and writing at a public high school in Los Angeles.
Silvia Santos. Nacida en Mérida Yucatán, formó parte de la Banda de Música Infantil y Juvenil
Del Estado, la Compañía de Teatro del Estado y El Coro Magisterial Polifónico de la ciudad, como solista.
Estudia la carrera de Licenciado en Teatro de la Universidad Veracruzana.
Como actriz participó en unipersonales, diversos videos independientes y programas del ILCE. Se dedicó a la promoción y difusión de Son Jarocho con el grupo Híkuri, con el cual fue invitada por Universidad de Santa Barbara (UCSB) y SONando Santa Barbara, a impartir Master Class, talleres y presentaciones en escuelas de la región de Santa Bárbara y en foros de Los Angeles, CA. Grabaron los CD's "Híkuri en Vivo Santa Barbara" y "Ya no vale la Razón" grabado por Greg Landau. Participó en el CD "Entre mujeres" Womens Making Music Across Borders”, en diversas recopilaciones: Encuentros de jaraneros, Cuadernos de México, de Winter &Winter; Son Jarocho, Guía histórico-musical C.D. de Rafael Figueroa Hernández, entre otros.
Desarrolla igualmente su trabajo como atrezzista, artesana, joyera, compositora de Sones, ilustradora, cantante de otros géneros musicales, considerando la necesidad de un discurso multidisciplinario para enriquecer su visión del entorno.
Actualmente participa en diversos foros y encuentros de Narradores Orales con la pieza teatral “La cuentera y el Fandango”, con la cual acerca a diversos públicos la imaginería e historia del son Jarocho.
Participa en el XXIII Encuentro Internacional de Mujeres Poetas en el País de las Nubes, efectuado en noviembre del año 2015 en el estado de Oaxaca.
Kai Coggin is a poet and author living on the side of a small mountain in Hot Springs National Park, AR. She holds a BA in Poetry and Creative Writing from Texas A & M University. Kai writes poems on love, spiritual striving, injustice, metaphysics and beauty. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Blue Heron Review, Lavender Review, Broad!, The Tattooed Buddha, Split This Rock, Yellow Chair Review, Drunk Monkeys, Snapdragon, ANIMA, Elephant Journal, and many other literary journals and anthologies.
Kai is the author of PERISCOPE HEART (Swimming with Elephants Publications, 2014) and her forthcoming collection, WINGSPAN (Golden Dragonfly Press, 2016). Her poetry has recently been nominated for The Pushcart Prize and Bettering American Poetry 2015. She is also a Teaching Artist with the Arkansas Arts Council, specializing in bringing poetry and creative writing to youth. www.kaicoggin.com
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| Ave 61 and Figueroa, Mexico-Tenochtitlan: A Sequence of Time and Culture |
Twenty years ago, Andy Ledesma started painting a mural on a beautiful wall belonging to a local furniture company in his northeast Los Angeles neighborhood of Highland Park on the corner of Avenue 61 and Figueroa.
Ledesma's friend and fellow artist, Eagle--Anthony Ortega--joined him. They painted a mural and cemented a community.
As the artists worked on the busy corner, kids began stopping by. Ledesma and Eagle made friends and kids willingly joined in. Given a grid square, a brush and some paint, the community team created Mexico-Tenochtitlan: A Sequence of Time and Culture.
Something there is that loves a community wall, so the mural withstood taggers, changes of building owners, and ignorant Chamber of Commerce tipos who had already painted out a nearby Frank Romero mural ("I didn't know," said the necktied vandal with the can of white paint.)
This year, joined by artist Joe Bravo, Ledesma and Ortega, with assistance from the Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles, once again enlisted community members and restored Mexico-Tenochtitlan: A Sequence of Time and Culture. The mural was re-dedicated in a blessing ceremony and community celebration on March 19, 2016.
Xipe Totec Danzantes Azteca, a highly accomplished troupe, conducted the mural blessing ceremony with concha fanfares, copal, and dance.
 |
| Andy Ledesma reflects on his 20 year legacy, ready for another twenty. |
Danzantes Xipe Totec
Synchronized movement, incredibly detailed costumes representing hundreds of hours needle work enchanted the audience. The danzantes' intense drum beats accompanied with the snapping rhythm of Chachayote anklets, echoed the Mexica-themed mural's cultural themes of an prehispanic land fittingly celebrated by its modern-day descendants. Wafting incense infiltrated the senses, awakening cultural memories that multiplied the significance of the symbolic painting.
The Speakers
Connectedness, along with renewal, was the theme of the handful of speakers and poets.
 |
| Andy Ledesma |
Mural originator Andy Ledesma pulled up stakes in LA to settle in Texas. But for the recent months Ledesma resided in his Highland Park hometown to repaint the mural. His joy at the recovery of his art was manifest as he emceed the event, remarking how the triumphant return of the beautifully restored artwork was almost enough to draw him back to Califas on a longer-term basis.
Rather than term the project a mere "restoration," the new color and protective finish must be termed a complete renewal, at once a return to its original condition, yet more perfect than before. Hence, an instauration.
 |
| Eagle, Anthony Ortega |
Anthony Ortega, whom many knew in his youth as Eagle, explained the process of restoration and how once again neighborhood youth were drawn to the project to help clean and paint.
 |
| Joe Bravo |
Joe Bravo, the innovative painter who popularized painting on tortillas, told the gathering how he'd been restoring near-by murals and when he learned of this project started bringing his ladders and brushes to lend his expertise to the project. He had recently finished the Virgin's face.
Bravo displayed his Bernie Sanders poster that puns on the candidate's name with Sanders thrusting a flaming finger to the top of the frame.
Bravo displayed his Bernie Sanders poster that puns on the candidate's name with Sanders thrusting a flaming finger to the top of the frame.
The speakers at the dedication acknowledge the importance of arte and murals in helping form a community. The parking lot site exemplified the spirit as a barber college allowed the event to take over its parking lot on a busy Saturday afternoon, prime time.
 |
| President of the Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles, Eric Bjorgum |
Los Angeles is beginning to claim status as the mural capital of the world, owing not only to the hundreds of walls bearing Chicana Chicano as well as other liberationist ethnic murals, but also through efforts of Eric Bjorgum's organization, the Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles.
Mobilizing the political savvy and fundraising prowess of attorneys and art historians, particularly Isabel Rojas-Williams (see this La Bloga column) the Conservancy led the effort to convince the Los Angeles City Council to abandon its mindless laws prohibiting murals.
Mobilizing the political savvy and fundraising prowess of attorneys and art historians, particularly Isabel Rojas-Williams (see this La Bloga column) the Conservancy led the effort to convince the Los Angeles City Council to abandon its mindless laws prohibiting murals.
 |
| Historian Charlie Fisher |
Fisher explained how the muralists had done it with good smarts. They signed a contract with the original building owner, who so strongly supported his community and the mural that he installed lighting to illuminate the work through the night. Thus, although the building changed hands multiple times, the mural held its wall. It was in the contract.
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| Manny Lopez |
Radio broadcaster Manny Lopez was one of the people who pitched in at the early part of the Chicano literary movimiento. Manny used to go to meetings with his brother Rafas, a founder of Con Safos Magazine. C/S is an avatar of raza writing, thought, and arte that was the first publisher of poet raúlrsalinas when he was still in the joint, and featured a wildly popular cartoon series, Porfi and Arnie, by Sergio Hernandez.
Lopez, now headquartered in Barstow, DJs and manages AM1230 and FM channels 94.3, 95.9, and 102.5. Lopez and his stations provide the soundtrack for drivers between LA and Las Vegas, including Art Laboe. If the Wolfman were still around, Manny probably would arrange that, too.
Lopez, now headquartered in Barstow, DJs and manages AM1230 and FM channels 94.3, 95.9, and 102.5. Lopez and his stations provide the soundtrack for drivers between LA and Las Vegas, including Art Laboe. If the Wolfman were still around, Manny probably would arrange that, too.
The Poets
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| Dennis Cruz |
The Poet Laureate of Los Angeles, Luis J. Rodriguez arrived after a bit of a delay. There was an event on Figueroa Street and traffic was a jumbled mess in the area. Rodriguez arrived along with his friend John Densmore. Rodriguez read from his sonnet project, telling the audience he enjoys the formalism of the Shakespearean sonnet.
Densmore read a poem by his former musical partner, Jim Morrison. Densmore and Morrison were members of The Doors.
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| Luis J. Rodriguez |
After Densmore's reading, he and Rodriguez conferred and choose a poem that Rodriguez read to Densmore's drum accompaniment. The reading with rhythm was a highlight of the day and a tough act to follow.
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| John Densmore, Luis J. Rodriguez |
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| Densmore and Rodriguez confer on a co-performance |
It fell upon Zero, an accomplished spoken word artist, to wrap up the day's literary work. An indigenist themed writer, Zero shared work from his mixtape CD, Tonal y Nahuatl.
Zero took over the stage with confidence and power. His fluid presentation and powerful presence offered a wondrous mirror of cultural confluence, growth and cultural sequence. It is the capstone of a day celebrating a mural named Mexico-Tenochtitlan: A Sequence of Time and Culture. The day began with prehispanic music and dance, progressed to movimiento poetry, Chicano sonnets, and concluding with twenty-first century spoken word.
QED: sequence of time and culture.
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| Zero (el Vuh). Click here to listen to selections by Zero. |
Be sure to have a meal (tasty ceviche, red menudo on Saturday and Sunday) at La Estrella, itself a wonderfully muralled structure, across the street from the mural.
La Bloga On-line Floricanto for Fukushima
Sonia Gutiérrez, Iris De Anda, Sharon Elliott, Meg Withers, Alfonso Martínez Pretel, Xánath Caraza, Frank Acosta, Teresa Mei Chuc, Silvia Santos, Kai Coggin
Through efforts led by Odilia Galván Rodríguez and the Moderators of the Facebook poetry community, Poets Responding to SB 1070: Poetry of Rebellion, La Bloga proudly yet sorrowfully shares a fourth On-line Floricanto remembering the gente of Fukushima, Japan and victims of TEPCO's incompetence in the face of natural disaster. Click here for the first in 2011, and second in 2014, and third in 2015 La Bloga On-line Floricanto for the people of Fukushima. Click here for a review of Cecile Pineda's Devil's Tango: How I Learned the Fukushima Step by Step.
When life gives you Fukushima and other nuclear disasters, read and write poetry. It's better than screaming.
The Colors of Death By Sonia Gutiérrez
Querida Pachamama By Iris De Anda
Remembering Fukushima, Nagasaki and Hiroshima By Sharon Elliott
Now I know why they offered to work at Fukushima By Meg Withers
Tankas to Mother Earth By Alfonso Martínez Pretel
Abismo Por Xánath Caraza
Mother Earth is Crying By Frank Acosta
Love After Fukushima By Teresa Mei Chuc
Fukushima. Por Silvia Santos
Washed-Up Dinosaurs By Kai Coggin
The Colors of Death
By Sonia Gutiérrez
Ask Fukushima
if she drank
clean water this morning.
If she closes her eyes,
she was too embarrassed
to confess
radioactive water seeped
into groundwater
and seaweed water
all year long.
Ask Fukushima
if those tumors,
oozing blood
were removed
from the gaping mouths
of fish and if their eyes
saw their own fins
disintegrate.
Ask Fukushima
if she smelled
the bloated bellies
of salmon
along the warm
ocean shores.
With dry eyes
and chapped lips,
she will answer,
“The hands that protected us
from the power plant’s
demise all year long
did not come this morning
and will not
come tomorrow.”
Ask Fukushima,
“What is the color of death?”
She will answer,
“Death is the color of Chernobyl . . . Cadarache,
and of our abandonment
in broad daylight.”
Querida Pachamama
By Iris De Anda
Querida Pachamama,
This is it. Road is coming to an end. Let us go out like fire flies. Luminous road, volcanic ash, this walk we are taking together. Remember, mountain ranges and desert sky nestled in my eyes. A sigh of deep relief knowing you will be here long after I leave. A perfect geometric spiral of us laid across your Maiz crops. Seeds of wonder planted by ancestors. Prickly cactus embraces change. We roam together querida from sunrise to sunset. Morning dew full of esperanzas. Hummingbird stillness spreads in afternoon quiet. Shh. Listen to your hum. Om. Namaste. As above so below dear earth mother. Ignite us with movement so that we may save your last rainforest. There is no room for extinction and if there is let it be those who poison your path. Let us undo the clash and find peace in the becoming. Yo soy tu Rainbow Warrior & I will die trying to save you.
De todo Corazon,
Tu hija rebelde
Remembering Fukushima, Nagasaki and Hiroshima
By Sharon Elliott
“Human memory has a tendency to slip, and critical judgment to fade, with the years and with changes in life-style and circumstance.”
~ Yosuke Yamahata, who photographed Nagasaki a day after the atomic bomb was dropped
serene brutality of the sea
conjured
by mad dogs
and bent men
throwing juju at the cold moon
folly of arrogance
speaks
with chaotic urgency
a storm created in her name
by misuse and ignorance
casts towering waves on the sand
ravenous
at the edges of perception
radioactive
mothers
gather young ones
with seaweed hair
in arms too weak to hold them
sing their own hearts
into vapor
aching moans scratch
at brains attempting
to make sense
of broken morning
fingernails crack
torn away from the beds
weary from holding on
small watchers
befriend snakes
poisonous frogs
too feeble to move
may this fate never
come to them again
three times is
three too many
moratorium
must be enforced
by those responsible
those who know
and do nothing
those who cast a blind eye
this very moment
arguing economics
the door is open
can’t be closed
or locked
rusting hinges
can only be partially cleaned
so they don’t squeak
quite so much
Now I Know Why They Offered to Work at Fukushima*
By Meg Withers
"The work's not hard, if you don't think about the radiation."
- Minoru Ikeda, 63, retired postal worker who joined the cleanup effort at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in 2013.
I have tried to
write stained
water flowing into
the world
about sea otters
anemones and perch, and
their silent graceful sluice
from one underwater to another.
I cannot contend
with bleakness
when news focuses
a harsh lens on a beach
strewn with blue fin whales:
our relatives
our precursors
whole families of fishes.
I have tried and there
are no words
this plight we have
descended
upon ourselves.
An absence of dolphins
in their sleek pods
gill, fin, sentience
gracious source
the death of us all.
*The title comes from the deaths of Japanese workers and other citizens at Fukushima, who chose to go back into the deadly environment to help assuage the guilt over having sent such a deadly, irrevocable force into the world’s largest and most precious natural resource.
Tankas To Mother Earth
By Alfonso Martínez Pretel
Mother Earth, your soul,
deep inside the blue planet,
suffers for so long
because her human creatures
forget the most primal love.
They call it progress,
but you know that sometimes greed
becomes pollution
for your air, land and rivers
for your watery sea dress.
Why this harassment
to the origins of all?
if a pure nature
must be the prolific womb
for the new generations.
Why this egoism
make you breathe the harmful smoke
for your hair of clouds?
You have got to pour grey tears
along your own fertile feet.
But you forgive them
with the look of a sunrise,
the voice of a brook
and the caress of seasons.
Oh, Mother, you must be God.
Madre Tierra, tu alma,
profundamente dentro del planeta azul,
sufre durante mucho tiempo
porque sus criaturas humanas
olvidan el amor más primigenio.
Lo llaman progreso,
pero sabes que algunas veces la codicia
se convierte en contaminación
para tu aire, tierra y ríos,
para tu acuoso vestido marino.
¿Por qué este hostigamiento
a los orígenes de todo?,
si la naturaleza pura
debe ser la prolífica matriz
para las nuevas generaciones.
¿Por qué este egoísmo
te hace respirar el humo nocivo
para tu pelo de nubes?
Tienes que verter lágrimas grises
a lo largo de tus propios pies fértiles.
Pero los perdonas
con la mirada de un amanecer,
la voz de un arroyo
y la caricia de las estaciones.
Oh, Madre, tú debes ser Dios.
Abismo
Por Xánath Caraza
Acuático envenenamiento
en densas aguas
profundas corrientes
el abismo se expande
Agua de Fukushima
caótica fuerza
a tu paso la huella
del sangrado mortal
Letales ríos submarinos
costas americanas
emanan hirvientes
fluidos radioactivos
Mother Earth is Crying
By Frank Acosta
Mother Earth is crying
A wounded, ailing corpus
Commodified in avarice
As if creation has no soul
With arrogant contempt
Toxic greed poisons waters
Exhales vile to the four winds
In culpable immunity, mammon
Rips, defiles, scorches, her face
Impales her earthen womb
Children of the earth
Hear our mother’s wails of pain
In storms and violent torrent
Fertile fields turned wasteland
Foretell respect we have forgotten
Rise in a protective circle
Or sit idle in complicity
Loose the arrogance of dominion
Over earth and creation
Ways of ecology honor truth
Nature abides kindred spirits
Let us connected with one another
Bound in mutual stewardship
There is ample sacred harvest
To feed our global village
We are called in covenant
Of love, respect, compassion
Children, elders, ancestors, unborn
One sentient circle of being
Tlamish Tonatiuh, one sun upon us all
Love After Fukushima
By Teresa Mei Chuc
I want the
courage of
the elderly who
volunteered
in the clean-up
at the
Daiichi plant
To be filled
with a desire
to live
and know that death
is a reality of
isotopes rearranging
in the body
Five years later
cesium-137
cesium-134
are still leaking
into the Pacific
Bluefin tuna
a neon green
I think I am
growing two
hearts
They beat one
after the other
in a constant
drumming with
no silence in
between.
“Love After Fukushima” was published in the San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly
Fukushima.
Por Silvia Santos
El mar
se lo lleva todo;
galopa, ganando espacio tierra adentro,
y barre, rompe, enmudece
los gritos de auxilio.
El bramido del mar
y objetos resquebrajados
es registrado en videos.
Ahora podemos ser espectadores
en tiempo real…
Pero mi mente
no entiende.
Azorada, contemplo,
leo las estadísticas
sobre la magnitud del daño,
miro el desastre
¿Y qué puedo hacer?
Fukushima Daiichi
tan lejos parece;
pero el mar es el mar
y sus corrientes muchas.
Llegará el eco
hasta las playas lejanas
con el rumor de olas fluorescentes Fukushima.
Fukushima,
tan lejos,
tan cerca,
Fukushima
Fukushima Daiichi.
Washed-Up Dinosaurs
By Kai Coggin
Sea Monsters
have been found on the shores of California beaches.
Two, in the last week.
Catalina Island, Los Angeles coast,
the first sea monster was 18 feet long,
an oar-fish, or sea serpent, that surfaced from
the dark, unknown depths of our ocean.
One of the ill-famed, mariner-eating monsters,
this lochness lookalike, this giant underwater dragon,
viking swallower, ship capsizer of ancient days,
died in such a humble and uneventful way,
washed up only 15 feet from the Catalina Island shore,
where a young marine biologist snorkeled in the afternoon sun.
She saw the flash of a silver tail shining underwater,
and dragged the half-floating sea serpent
to the sands where her friends and other beach goers stood amazed at her catch.
Sixteen people had to carry its majestic shimmering silver
body out of the gently crashing blue water,
posing for a photo-op with this beast of Nordic lore.
Its cold silver dollar eyes and ravaged silk mouth did not smile.
There is an old Japanese legend that says
that oar-fish beach themselves as an omen to
a Great Earthquake.
A reporter said that dozens of oar-fish
were found beached days before the devastating
2011 Fukushima 7.1 earthquake in Japan.
Is this sea serpent a harbinger of impending doom?
The smiling sixteen people in the Catalina Island photo,
with the silvery banner of ocean’s untimely demise spread across their chests,
don’t seem to think so.
Two days later,
another rare, great beast of the ocean
was found stranded on the shores of tourist-soaked
Venice Beach, California...
of all places.
An Alaskan saber-toothed whale,
all 15-feet and 2,000 blubbery pounds of her,
washed up on shore barely alive,
surrounded by a swarm of onlookers,
some who tried to push her back into the water to save her,
and some who did nothing but took out their cell-phones
and snapped selfies for Instagram and Facebook
with the dying whale in the background,
her muted, humble whale-song the soundtrack to barbarism.
The female saber-toothed whale
does not grow the giant saber-tooth;
only the male is strapped with this magical unicorn horn
protruding down like a sword out of the side of his mouth.
The female is a calm giant,
a frigid ocean deep swimmer who prefers the waters of the Arctic
to the warm California coast.
What brings her to Venice Beach?
There was undigested plastic and spooled nylon strands in her belly.
“Not enough to cause her death,” the scientists say.
Exactly how much plastic IS okay
to have permanently undigested in your belly?
Fuckers.
Washed up dinosaurs of the ocean’s dark and deep womb,
stranded sea monsters, falsely-accused viking hunters,
flailing on the shallow sands of an unfamiliar coast,
Humanity’s coast, where the bustling consumer landscape meets the water,
and destruction is the only language that nature understands.
What are these royal beasts trying to say to us that we are just not hearing?
I have my ear to a distant whale-song
and a sea serpent’s quiet hum of liquid movement.
I have my ear to the heart of something bigger than me
that I can so easily become swallowed in... willingly.
I have my ear to a nautilus’ emptied shell
to hear the Divine Secrets of the Ocean,
the indecipherable and infinite wishing of waves.
I am listening.
Meet the Poets
The Colors of Death By Sonia Gutiérrez
Querida Pachamama By Iris De Anda
Remembering Fukushima, Nagasaki and Hiroshima By Sharon Elliott
Now I know why they offered to work at Fukushima By Meg Withers
Tankas to Mother Earth By Alfonso Martínez Pretel
Abismo Por Xánath Caraza
Mother Earth is Crying By Frank Acosta
Love After Fukushima By Teresa Mei Chuc
Fukushima. Por Silvia Santos
Washed-Up Dinosaurs By Kai Coggin
Her poems have appeared in the San Diego Poetry Annual, La Jornada Semanal, Konch Magazine, and Poetry of Resistance: Voices for Social Justice, among other publications. Her poem, “The Garden of Dreams” is forthcoming in El Tecolote Anthology. La Bloga’s “On-line Floricanto” is home to her Poets Responding to SB 1070 bilingual poems, including “Best Poems 2011” and “Best Poems 2012.” Her vignettes have appeared in AlternaCtive PublicaCtions, Huizache, and Sunshine Noir II.
Sonia’s bilingual poetry collection, Spider Woman / La Mujer Araña (Olmeca Press, 2013), is her debut publication. She is a contributing editor for the The Writer’s Response (Cengage Learning, 2016). Her manuscripts, Kissing Dreams from a Distance, a novel, and Legacy / Herencia, her second poetry collection, are seeking publication. Since 2014, Sonia has been a moderator for Facebook’s Poets Responding to SB 1070, founded by her Chicano role models, Francisco X. Alarcón.
Her book, Jaguar Unfinished, was published in 2012. She has featured in poetry readings in the San Francisco Bay area and was an awardee of the Best Poem of 2012, The Day of Little Comfort, http://labloga.blogspot.com/2013/01/best-poems-of-2012.html
Meg Withers teaches at Merced College. The author of Must Be Present to Win (Ghost Road Press), A Communion of Saints (Tinfish Press), and Shadowed: Unheard Voices (The Press at Fresno State), as poetry editor, she is dedicated to the creation of an egalitarian society.
http://xanathcaraza.webs.com/
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| Arturo Pizá Malvido © 2014. |
Del Estado, la Compañía de Teatro del Estado y El Coro Magisterial Polifónico de la ciudad, como solista.
Estudia la carrera de Licenciado en Teatro de la Universidad Veracruzana.
Como actriz participó en unipersonales, diversos videos independientes y programas del ILCE. Se dedicó a la promoción y difusión de Son Jarocho con el grupo Híkuri, con el cual fue invitada por Universidad de Santa Barbara (UCSB) y SONando Santa Barbara, a impartir Master Class, talleres y presentaciones en escuelas de la región de Santa Bárbara y en foros de Los Angeles, CA. Grabaron los CD's "Híkuri en Vivo Santa Barbara" y "Ya no vale la Razón" grabado por Greg Landau. Participó en el CD "Entre mujeres" Womens Making Music Across Borders”, en diversas recopilaciones: Encuentros de jaraneros, Cuadernos de México, de Winter &Winter; Son Jarocho, Guía histórico-musical C.D. de Rafael Figueroa Hernández, entre otros.
Desarrolla igualmente su trabajo como atrezzista, artesana, joyera, compositora de Sones, ilustradora, cantante de otros géneros musicales, considerando la necesidad de un discurso multidisciplinario para enriquecer su visión del entorno.
Actualmente participa en diversos foros y encuentros de Narradores Orales con la pieza teatral “La cuentera y el Fandango”, con la cual acerca a diversos públicos la imaginería e historia del son Jarocho.
Participa en el XXIII Encuentro Internacional de Mujeres Poetas en el País de las Nubes, efectuado en noviembre del año 2015 en el estado de Oaxaca.
Kai Coggin is a poet and author living on the side of a small mountain in Hot Springs National Park, AR. She holds a BA in Poetry and Creative Writing from Texas A & M University. Kai writes poems on love, spiritual striving, injustice, metaphysics and beauty. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Blue Heron Review, Lavender Review, Broad!, The Tattooed Buddha, Split This Rock, Yellow Chair Review, Drunk Monkeys, Snapdragon, ANIMA, Elephant Journal, and many other literary journals and anthologies.
Kai is the author of PERISCOPE HEART (Swimming with Elephants Publications, 2014) and her forthcoming collection, WINGSPAN (Golden Dragonfly Press, 2016). Her poetry has recently been nominated for The Pushcart Prize and Bettering American Poetry 2015. She is also a Teaching Artist with the Arkansas Arts Council, specializing in bringing poetry and creative writing to youth. www.kaicoggin.com
Mil Gracias, Em Sedano for another thoughtful essay, event photos and poetry display: engaging and educational, como siempre.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much to everyone who put this page together. This is quite a stirring collection of poems and images. I needed this kind of a read today.
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