Poetry & Plática From Immigrant Hearts: Redux in Burbank

The Buena Vista Branch Library occupies a beauteous parkland near beautiful downtown Burbank. The library's spacious community room hosts the four-poet panel, "Writing from Our Immigrant Hearts." Tonight's discussion and reading has come to Burbank as part of the library's One Book, One County program.

Discussion leader, Dr. Thelma T. Reyna tells me, in advance of the program, tonight's audience is an unknown. Discussions with the library didn't get into the "who comes to these events", so the poets will be flexible and respond to conditions.

Discussion host Dr. Thelma T. Reyna

Responsible to their art and the panel, all have arrived early. This gives opportunity to go through the agenda and any last-minute adaptations.

There are quite a number of Burbankers floating into the room to share the poets' stories. None a typical or stereotypical immigrant, each will relate to listeners the poet's origin story, why their destiny carries them to the west coast of the United States from birthplaces in Italy, Spain, and Vietnam.

Kyle Moreno, Reader Engagement Librarian welcomes his guests. He's proud of the excellent facility. The amplification system has powerful loudspeakers and the panel and Q&A will share two microphones. The technology works as intended.

Thelma Reyna manages the panel around a pair of questions:

•Tell us about your homeland,  culture,  and circumstances surrounding your decision to emigrate to the US.

•Describe your overall experiences as an American,  hopes, dreams, and goals.

The questions kick off a discussion of biographical facts seasoned with personal disclosure that compares the poets' "here" with their "there" lives and longings, dreams and careers.

Immigrants, indeed. Foreigners, not at all. 

Toti O'Brien



Toti O'Brien

SHADOWS OF FIRE 

Venus rose from the sea, they said. Of course, naked. 

Long, curled hair, echoing the rippling of waves. 

Perhaps, she had a mermaid tail (mythologies melt). 

Like the Lady of Guadalupe, she stood on a crescent 

(hers was abalone). Like that Mary, she niched in a 

sort of vulva lined with mother of pearl, and was 

haloed by cool layers of blue. 

 

Athena rose dressed from the head (the brain) of her 

father, Jupiter, king of gods. Dressed means with spear, 

shield, armor—and clothes, underneath. Shoes were 

on her feet. She looks marble in sculptures, but she 

was splattered in blood, at least from the ax blow 

that split open her father’s skull. She did not wash. 

No need. She was bound to war. 

 

When she stepped out of the mess of gray matter, 

she marched on. She didn’t turn back, oblivious 

already of the place she had come from. Soon 

she was on horseback, and they called her Joan 

the Maid. She donned a red tunic under the chain 

mail, waved a red flag, her mount was harnessed 

red—all preluding to her firing farewell. 

 

She was seen afterwards, still in scarlet tunic, 

playing Malinche. She spoke many tongues, and 

too well. She went on, always marching westward

like a sun vainly looking for its resting place, 

fated to constantly resurrect. They say she never 

met her half-sister, the azure goddess, 

or the pious mother of Christ. 

 

She was not invited to family parties. Fairies missed 

her baptism. No aunt demonstrated how to make 

apple pie. She knew not the flavor of milk. At night, 

she drank straight from the bottle as she leaned against 

the iron rail of some bridge, listening to the roar of 

water smashing on stone, catching (out of the corner 

of her wide open eye) a meteor falling. 

Toti O'Brien 

BAILARINA 

They kept her for long hours

standing on a small chair 

so her eyes would be level 

with theirs, pupil into pupil. 

They asked her all the questions 

for which she had no replies

secrets you never told her. 

“No,” she murmured, “no,” 

meekly enduring the torture. 

But later she had her fill. 

Briskly, she grabbed her skirt 

at the edges, both sides. She 

held it up and started her mad 

zapateo. The skirt swell

became large like a tent 

under which four campesinos

could hide from the farmer,

though it was never worn 

in a field. Four boys on the run 

could abide, quietly breathing 

the damp warmth of no secrets. 

Skirt of heaven and hell.

Matrix of all secrets.

Toti O'Brien

UNTITLED, 2 

So they asked Joan of Arc

why always your thighs? 

They allow, she replied 

the longest consecutive lines. 

There would be my back

it is true. But the story, then

should be written by somebody 

else. My thighs are at hand.

Why the inside? The surface 

is softer, a bit easier to carve. 

And they open and close 

like a notebook. 

 

Teresa Mei Chuc

Teresa Mei Chuc

Deep in a forest
in the Northernmost
part of Vietnam,
in a Vietcong 
reeducation camp,
my father watched
to see if the
chili peppers
would spin
in the clear water.
If the peppers
were still,
then the water
was not poisonous.
Father said
the best way
to get water
was to cut
a bamboo tree
or a banana
tree
with a knife.
The water
in the heart
is pure.

Teresa Mei Chuc
Praying at the Cemetery on Con Son Island
Endless gravestones 
unnamed 
a yellow star on each stone
lights the night 
I try not to breathe in spirits 
but I breathe in 
the smoke of incense. 
A bat flutters by
A green grasshopper lands by my foot
Someone is saying hello
Perhaps it is a girl who died in a Tiger Cage
There are not enough
incense sticks for all
of the graves on Con Son Island.

Alicia Viguer-Espert

Alicia Viguer-Espert

Al Viejo Algarrobo

          que llamábamos “el árbol curvado.”   

Como entonces,

entra en mis ojos, luz,

alúmbrame el sendero de regreso a mi hogar, 

señálame el viejo algarrobo con tus dedos luminosos,

el vasto universo de su fronda,

los matices de sus nacientes hojas ebrias de clorofila, 

y las oscuras veteranas ya endurecidas.

Enséñame el camino labrado 

con rojo violento de amapolas y cantos de ruiseñores, 

como entonces.

Para encontrarte, árbol curvado, 

enfocaré mi mirada melancólica 

en el místico entorno de estos campos abandonados.           

Sé que mañana 

cuando el anciano guitarrista del viento taña 

el instrumento musical de tus ramas 

oleré tu fragancia de especies, la dulce nana del monte de mi infancia.

Luz, vuelve a mis ojos desde la distancia del tiempo, 

únete a mí, desnuda las sombras,

que el aroma de mi viejo algarrobo me guiará al centro de mi hogar, 

como entonces.

Alicia Viguer-Espert

To The Old Carob Tree

   we climbed as children

Like then,

enter my eyes, oh light!

illuminate the path to return home,

point at the old carob tree with your luminous fingers,

the vast universe of its foliage,

the shades of its ancient leaves drunk with chlorophyl

and the darker veteran ones already harden.

Show me the road embroidered

with violent reds from poppies, nightingales’ songs,

like then.

To find you, carob tree

I’ll focus my melancholic gaze

on the mystic milieu of these abandoned fields. 

I know that tomorrow

when the ancient guitar player of the wind strings

the musical instrument of your branches,

I will inhale your spicy fragrance, the sweet lullaby of my childhood mountains. 

Light, return to my eyes from distance and time,

join me, undress the shadows,

let the aroma from my old carob tree guide me to my home’s center,

like then.

Alicia Viguer-Espert

Nocturnal Fear

I listen to the smooth rowing of his breath

From one shore to the other side of dreams,

Consciousness, a gently rhythm of sloshing 

Water fills the bedroom like music.

I panic when it deviates its course

The length of a median size rock. 

I fear the boat not reaching its destination,

Getting stucked in the middle of the river, 

Currents frozen, wind paralyzed in midair, 

A suspended cloud adrift from her sisters, 

Gone, dissolved into nothingness. 

He’s not aware, of course, of my anxiety,

My watchful eye scanning the surrounding

Darkness, my attuned ear bent like a leaf

In the direction of his green center.

I cross my hand over his heart, 

Let it rest until I feel a movement, 

The soft vibration of the soul

Inhabiting his chest. 

 

The poets read selections of their work, giving the audience a wondrous listening experience to the sounds of bilingual writers expressing thoughts and experiences particular to the writer but understanding and shared, in ways, with the audience.

A lively Q&A follows the readings, then an outstanding element of tonight's audience takes place.

When a writer has occasion to read to audiences, the writer's goals include selling books. If at a bookstore or festival, an effective presentation helps the bookstore's sales. The Burbank library set up a table display of tonight's artists' chapbooks. It is encouraging that people attended tonight not only to listen but to buy books.

Number of books schlepped back home is not an exact index of a succesful reading but it's a sign of an effective presentation of self and writing when buyers line up three deep for a chance at the table.