Lowriders and Riders in Santa Barbara and Poetry Haunting at Beyond Baroque y Mas

The Santa Barbara Public Library hosts lowriders and contributors to the Somos Xicanas Anthology. Reading is at 3:30, free event and reception. 

 

 

At the Band Shell in Santa Barbara, Thursday, September 18, bring your picnic. 

 

 

Hitched Moves to the East Side

Melinda Palacio

A hidden oasis in Alhambra

Terry Wolverton, Luivette Resto, Melinda Palacio, Lisa Cheby, and Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo

Last Sunday, Hitched, the reading series, started by Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo at Beyond Baroque in Venice five years ago, to Alhambra at Holy Grounds Coffee & Tea. 

A week ago, everything was going without a hitch until two of the featured readers, Sharon Venezio and Karineh Mahdessian took sick. Terry Wolverton filled in for Sharon and I filled in for Karineh. In the spirit of women helping women and International Women's Day, there was an all-female lineup. 

Terry Wolverton opened the set with her powerful poems.

Lisa Cheby read from her new chapbook, Love Letters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Lisa receives flowers.

Four years ago, I had the honor of reading in Hitched at Beyond Baroque with Alicia Partnoy, Ramon Garcia, Sholeh Wolpe  and Bilal Shaw. The space at Beyond Baroque is dark with all the doors and windows blacked out for an intimate theatre setting. Beyond Baroque is famous for being the place in L.A. where poets read. 

Bird fountain at Holy Grounds 

Holy Grounds is a light and airy oasis in the middle of East L.A.'s warehouse district. You really do feel like you're in church, listening to a poet read in front of a stage, surrounded by tall stained glass windows. 

Luivette Resto and Melinda Palacio

I was happy to heed the call of poetry and get "hitched" with Luivette Resto and fill in for Karineh who lost her voice and was under the weather. Luivette and I are often paired together at poetry events since we are both Tía Chucha Press poets. In fact, we have both represented Tia Chucha Press at several events and venues, including Beyond Baroque, the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, Chicago's Guild Literary Complex, and the Words and Music Festival. 

Perhaps, this was why I felt comfortable reading in my temporary salon chanclas. In the morning, my sister Emily had insisted we get pedicures. This was my first pedicure since I broke my leg in July, and I had forgotten what a great deal of time needed for toe nails to dry. I had planned on putting on my shoes before the reading, but I was at home with fellow female poets on International Women's Day.

Luivette's butterfly tattoo and my spa chanclas.

Luivette closes the show with her memorable poems.
(No RBF here; (you had to have been there))

Poet, Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo was invited to be a curator at Beyond Baroque by then board member and poet, Jerry Garcia, who was also in the audience. In an email, she explained why she moved the series to Alhambra.

         "I was excited for the opportunity because it's a prestigious poetry center with a long history grounded in the Venice beat scene, but running the reading series grew difficult over time because it's a history and community I don't feel particularly connected to. I grew up going to school at the San Gabriel Mission and spent my weekends running after ice cream trucks at my grandparents' house in Boyle Heights, so the east side of L.A. is where my heart is. On top of that, so many exciting things have been happening in the last few years around the east and northeast parts of L.A. that I enjoy and support like the La Palabra and Blue Bird reading series at Avenue 50 in Highland Park, Las Lunas Locas women's writing circle at Here & Now in El Sereno, and the ZzyZx WriterZ, and I just hope HITCHED can add to the scene."

Alhambra avenue is full of surprises. Someone mentioned one of the furniture stores turns into a nightlclub. You never know what you might find, but a respite of poetry and cafe de olla is perfect for a Sunday afternoon. 

Hitched is a quarterly series. The next reading will be June 21 at 4pm and features Rachelle Cruz with Micah Tasaka and Ben Loory with Tommy Moore.  

 

More Reports on the Writing Life

Melinda Palacio

November Morning at Santa Barbara Pier

Fall in Santa Barbara means you might want to keep a poncho nearby in case the temperature dips below seventy. It's warm enough for flip flops, but the touch of wind keeps your feet in long boots.  Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of visiting Magdalena Torres's Chicano Studies 121 class at Santa Barbara City College. This is one of my favorite places to present my work. Professora Torres creates a welcoming atmosphere and makes sure students have questions. What I didn't expect was how enthusiastic her students would be. She had also invited students from Sociology 109: Contemporary Social Problems, to attend. True, the students from Soc 109 get extra credit for attending my presentation, but the students mentioned how much they appreciated hearing literature and meeting an author. Torres encourages the sociology students, who seemed to be experiencing poetry and fiction for the first time, to attend other classes on Ethnic and Chicano Studies the City College. She's an avid believer in learning about social problems through literature.

Chicano Studies 121 at Santa Barbara City College

In my own classes through the MFA program at the University of Arkansas at Monticello, I make students read Chicano Literature. It's hard to believe that, in some cases, they are reading Chicano and Latino authors for the first time in their well-read life. In many ways, with the banning of our books and the elimination of Ethnic and Chicano Studies in Tucson, it's not surprising that a student wouldn't have the opportunity to read an author like Luis Urrea until adulthood or graduate school.

Speaking of Luis Alberto Urrea, I was very happy to receive my contributor's copy of the NEA's Big Read Audio Guide for Into the Beautiful North. Earlier this Summer at WWNO's studio in New Orleans, I recorded my interview about the book. The CD features Jo Reed, Cristina Arsuaga, Jeff Biggers, Melinda Palacio, Ilan Stavans, Helen Thorpe, and Luis Urrea.

The NEA's Big Read Audio Guide for Into the Beautiful North

Last month, I received a generous review from a blog, featuring the poetry scene in Boston. I had the chance of attending AWP in Boston earlier this year. Thanks to the chance encounter with the editor, How Fire Is a Story, Waiting was reviewed by Joanne DeSimone Reynolds. It's also thanks to AWP that I received a teaching position through UAM's new online MFA program.

Earlier today, I had a live google hangout with three of my students to discuss their fiction pieces. The video critique is not required and not all the students chose to participate, but the three that did enjoyed the experience and wished we had thought of the great idea earlier in the semester, instead of the last three weeks of the class. Indirectly, it was thanks to Jessica Ceballos for giving me the great idea. She had a google hangout for those who couldn't physically appear at La Palabra's Avenue 50 Studio's Bluebird Reading. This is where a social media app becomes an important literary and teaching tool.

Jessica Ceballos Scheming More Poetry Events

Also, thanks to Jessica Ceballos, I had the pleasure of reading at Beyond Baroque last Sunday, November 17 with Daniel Chacón, author of Hotel Juarez: Stories, Rooms and Loops. (I'll get to hear more from Hotel Juarez, next month in New Orleans, when Daniel Chacón reads with Jonathan Kline at Octavia Books, December 9 at 6pm). The crowd at Beyond Baroque was small, but Chacón and I agree, the energy was great. We had people attend from as far as Ventura. And thanks to the talented open mic readers, such as F.A. Salinas and Beverly Collins, the event was memorable and powerful.

Daniel Shakes Hands with Everyone at Beyond Baroque

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo's Road to Winning

Photo credit: Richard Priest II

The road to winning as a poet hasn't always been smooth for Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo. However, this month she won the 2013 California Writers Exchange, sponsored by the Poets & Writers, Inc. The prize was judged by Marilyn Chin and includes an all-expense paid trip to NYC to meet with top agents, editors, literary magazine editors, and authors. When I spoke by Skype to Xochitl-Julisa, she was already thinking of her wish list of people to meet, something Poets & Writers asked her to do.  She will spend a week in New York and at the top of her wish list is a meeting with Martín Espada.

Six years ago, the poet, 32, decided to get serious about her writing and start taking classes at PCC and in 2007 she enrolled in Antioch's MFA program and started working with Los Angeles Poet Laureate Eloise Klein Healy. "I wanted to do something I was passionate about," said Bermejo who also teaches high school in Arcadia. She is also the curator of the Poetry Series Hitched at Beyond Baroque and a founding editor of The SplinterGeneration.

Antioch's low-residency allowed her to work full-time and teach British Literature at Arroyo Pacific Academy. Bermejo explained why becoming a poet made teaching easier: "One of the reasons I had a hard time teaching in my early twenties was because I didn't think I had anything to teach people.

Bermejo continues to receive words of wisdom and advice from Eloise Klein Healy, who recently called Xochitl to congratulate her on her award. The news came shortly after Xochitl had called Eloise to congratulate her on her Poet Laureate of Los Angeles appointment.

"Eloise called me on the phone yesterday and gave me some advice. She said, 'don't waste your time doubting yourself and stay positive and enjoy the moment.' I was looking at the list of the runners up and they are all really great writers."

Xochitl tells La Bloga this wasn't the first time she had applied to the California Writers Exchange award; she also tried three years, during the last cycle the award was offered to California writers. However, this year she had support from the group, Women Who Submit. She was invited in June of 2011 by Alyss Dixson, who is also a member of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts. Women Who Submit hold submission parties in response to a case study by VIDA that showed women authors were under-represented in the nation's biggest literary journals; extra kudos for Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo for being a woman, a native of Los Angeles, and a Chicana.

The poet  also had an inkling she might place in the prestigious award because the poems she submitted were all written during a transformative Summer she spent volunteering for Tucson-based humanitarian aid organization, No More Deaths. "I never had poems that were so solidly connected," she said.

"I was shocked, there was lots of screams, profanity, and expletives when I heard the voicemail. I enter contests and it always feels like a complete shot in the dark and I never expect to win. I rushed to call my mom."

Xochitl's mom is very proud of her daughter and often calls her the Number One Princess. Imelda Bermejo will celebrate her daughter's feat with a repeat trip to Knott's Berry Farm. Xochitl shared a fun memory about how her mother took her to Knotts Berry Farm when she was in the fifth grade and had won her very first writing contest. In another touching moment, Mrs. Bermejo recently surprised her daughter by bringing a poem she had written at Nuvein Foundation's Día de Los Muertos cultural event in El Monte; Xochitl was invited to host the open mic by Christopher Luke Trevilla and Kimberly Cobian.

Congratulations, Xochitl-Julisa Bermjo! Read an excerpt of the award-winning submission here. 

Here's to more great surprises during the Sixth Sun. Happy Solstice. Felíz Navidad and all that jazz.

By Melinda Palacio, author of the novel Ocotillo Dreams and How Fire Is a Story, Waiting

If you are in New Orleans, Don't miss Lucrecia Guerrero and Melinda Palacio at the Maple Street Bookshop, December 29 at 3pm.

Melinda Palacio also reads from her first full-length poetry collection, How Fire Is a Story, Waiting, at the Maple Leaf Bar on Oak Street in New Orleans, this event is in part funded by a grant from Poets and Writers, Inc.