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Earthlings are going to the Moon again, and it’s not just white
male AngloAmericanos this time. And my feelings are . . . weird.
I was a fan of the Space Program ever since I went crying to my parents “there’s no cartoons on TV, just a big chile in the sky,” and my dad explained to me that it was John Glenn going into space, for real.
My little mind was blown. Reality and what was and wasn’t possible transmogrified for me. I was launched on the bizarre trajectory that I’m hurtling along today.
Just before Covid, Diego F. Jauregui, a 12F Fellow of the Smithsonian’s National Air Space Museum Space History Department, interviewed me. I guess it was to make up for a shortage of Chicano astronauts.
I never became an astronaut and don’t consider myself a poet, though Guillermo Gomez-Pena called me “ a Chicano SCI-Fi poet” and I admit that does describe me well though I don’t set out to commit acts of poetry on purpose—it seems to be in my DNA.
The crew of the Artemis II mission doesn't have any Chicanos, or Latinos, or even Hispanics, though they did take 58 tortillas, because they don’t make crumbs like bread. It has a Black pilot, a woman, and a Canadian who, though not Indigenous, has connections with the Anishinaabe and Manitoba nations.
Back on Earth, Chicano have been writing poetry about space and the future.
More recently, Juan Manuel Pérez–another Xicanxfuturism Codex I contributor–has come out with a Bury My Heart Under the Martian Sky. Being the author of a series of stories about a Tejano mariachi on a colonized Mars (one of which will be in Xicanxfuturism Codex II coming soon, stay tuned . . .), I felt I had to look into it. Besides, it has a great cover by Kolega Soberanis.
I was impressed. These poems show that the days when I was afraid
that there was some kind of conspiracy against nonwhite/nonAnglos getting out into space are over. They give a vision of a future from a Chicano viewpoint, with roots in PreColombian mythology, showing a relationship to the Earth and the universe that provides a needed alternative to the capitalist/colonialist propaganda that has dominated science fiction and the popular imagination well into this current century.
[Insert mariachi grito here]
Chicanos are creating new futurisms with the infusion of and creation of a New Chicano Dream.
I have a feeling Coyolxauhqui the Mexica and Ixchel Mayan goddesses of the Moon are smiling.
Ernest Hogan is doing his duties as the Father of Chicano Science Fiction while working on making his Paco Cohen, Mariachi of Mars stories into a novel, and waiting for Xicanxfuturism Codex II to come out as deranged leaders promise to destroy civilizations overnight.
Review: Richard Vargas. The Screw City Poems. Colchester, IL: Roadside Press, 2025 (link)
Michael Sedano
There’s this thing about poetry books, or my poetry books at any rate. They grow in number; I buy, I’m given, I find stuff I like, and then acquire more. Bookshelves bow under weight of disorderly storage and barely controlled acquisition. Boxes of books hide in attic spaces.
Michael Sedano with a selection of books by Richard Vargas
Now and again, perhaps in search of something else, serendipity, or some unarticulated need—I pull a poetry book from its hiding place. I flip through the dog-ears, read, and wonder. Where a paper clip has embossed its form into the paper leaving reddish-brown rust I study the page for echoes. What is it about this poem that earns it that rust mark? “Ah, yes.”
And then the fire.
All those dog-eared, paperclipped, pencil marked, notes to- think-about-later, pages, resting in treasured books , and books sitting on the to-be-read stack, all of those words, ash.
It would be easy to grow all mawkish over my lost and only remembered volumes, except I know life, and libraries, begin anew.
One day, one volume at a time. It gets better.
It got better for me in a hurry when Richard Vargas mailed me a copy of his newest book, The Screw City Poems, a compendium of work spanning the poet’s career since 2005 and including work in progress.
I remember these poems. It’s as if all my poetry books have risen from the ashes of the Eaton Fire.
One of the better features of the collection is its twenty-seven selections from the out-of-print classic, McLife, whose title poems established the young Vargas as a powerful voice for anonymous working stiffs in lousy jobs.
With such a rich body of work to choose from, it's not entirely disappointing that Vargas didn’t include this that or another title, especially two from Guernica, revisited, “When You Beat Me, for Occupy,” and “Why I Feed the Birds.” Thanks to Jesus Treviño’s Latinopia, we can enjoy Richard Vargas reading those two wonderful poems.
I cannot hope to recreate my incinerated library nor recover anything material that was lost. That what memory’s for. With The Screw City Poems, Richard Vargas has ignited my memory--in the best way—of all of those books of his that burned. I’m glad to hold this slim volume in my hands with its selection of work from those books of mine that vanished in smoke. I read and dog-ear as if these poems are mine for the very first time and go, “Ah, yes…”
It's a pleasure welcoming La Bloga-Tuesday's Guest Reviewer today, Dr. Thelma T. Reyna. It's a double pleasure, in fact, with Thelma Reyna one of the featured artists reading at the quondam Casa Sedano Backyard Floricanto, convened with wondrous welcome in Thelma's backyard. That makes it a triple pleasure, que no?
Back in Memory, a living room floricanto or a backyard floricanto brought gente together to share a reading and good platica, along with a few tacos. The GOPlague put the kibosh to that. Now that the worst appears to be a bad memory, gathering and sharing food buffet style returns to possibility.
Reyna's yard hosts numerous poetry events during any given year. It offers an ideal setting for book-touring Richard Vargas and friends to kick back, do some reading, eat tacos and munchies, and be alive and in the moment. If there's a raison d'etre for a backyard floricanto, there it is: be alive and in the moment.
Three Spotlight Poets included Richard Vargas, Thelma T. Reyna, and Melinda Palacio. Joining the spotlighted writers are Open Mic readers, including Carla Sameth, Gregory Foster, Toti O'Brien, Hazel Clayton, Monteque Pope Le Beau, John Martinez, and a special song from artist Margaret Garcia.
Jesus Treviño brought Latinopia's (link) video camera to the reading. As soon as Latinopia's documentaries come to light, La Bloga will share links.
During the time Michael Sedano was moving into a new home and planning to welcome Richard Vargas' book tour to the new Casa Sedano, Dr. Reyna was writing her review of Vargas' Leaving a Tip at the Blue Moon Motel (link to publisher). The best of all possible worlds harmonized when Richard invited Melinda and Thelma to share the spotlight at the backyard floricanto that eventually found its locus at Casa Reyna.
Richard Vargas:
Poet of the Working Class…and More
BOOK REVIEW:
LEAVING A TIP AT THE BLUE MOON MOTEL
Casa Urraca Press, 2023
by Thelma T. Reyna
Richard Vargas describes his fifth poetry collection, Leaving a Tip at the Blue Moon Motel, as his intent to “give voice to the working class, the people whose sweat provides the grease that makes the wheels of the economy turn.”* As a self-described rooter for the underdog, Vargas is a natural champion of this broad swath of humanity. That he fulfills his goal convincingly is therefore no surprise.
In the first quarter of his book, Vargas presents stalwarts we have known all our lives: the people who birthed and raised us, who kept America on its feet during the pandemic, who keep America moving, keep it safe and clean.
We peer into the thoughts or days of the fast food artist, burnt-out nurses, motel housekeepers, UPS drivers, store clerks, and the mass of underpaid, undervalued employees battered by crushing demands of the moneyed elite and corporate greed. It is fitting that Vargas’ last piece in this book, “Pay Dazed,” (p. 63) is a lengthy, factual narrative of his years as a call center temp worker, where extant elements of corporate hubris and inhumanity coalesced to cement Vargas’ vision of this shameful sphere.
But the prime beauty of Vargas’ book is its transcendence of this weighty issue. From this micro view of how we humans treat the most economically disadvantaged of our brethren, Vargas swings his focus to how we navigate what he terms “the broken glass/ a shattered world drops/ around our bare feet.” (“Current Affair,” p. 30) Ultimately, it’s this larger view of our world that elicits Vargas’ best writing, imagery that soars in poignancy and hard truths.
Focused basically on compassion, Vargas follows his worker poems with six pandemic-themed works that spotlight the isolation of “the great dying / and our painful rebirth.” (“Time Out,” p. 29) He writes in his opening poem: “i can do this/ the trick is to not let/ being alone turn into lonely.” (“Isolation,” p. 22)
Vargas calmly captures the horror of the Covid death toll in “60,000 dead” (p. 27), in which he likens the body count to the audience “at the L.A. Coliseum/ cheering for our team/ giving high fives all around” (p. 27), “going into the stadium/ with a raucous and lively crowd/ none of us walking out alive.” (p. 28) He ends a series of probing questions with: “did you lament a fate/ empty and dark?” (p. 29)
The next 17 poems showcase Vargas’ lighter side and extend erotic aspects of his poetry, flashes of which were evident in his opening poems (pages 1, 2, 11, 17, 22). Vargas includes two humorous poems about a married couple at the movies, dates which had unforeseen intimacy effects back home. (pp. 34, 37).
There’s also a long-running love affair (p. 30), a Trumpster girlfriend (p. 31), a baggie of poop from the Pope (p. 39), a discussion with Vargas’ editor/publisher about a graphically sexual poem (p. 40), and—the gem in this section!—a touchingly beautiful poem about the menudo Vargas ate with his father: “i never cared for the oregano/ but a squeeze of lemon/ a spoonful of chopped onion/ and a warm tortilla rolled up/ in my small fist…./ planted the seed/ for this poem to bloom.” (“Menudo,” p. 42).
An experienced poet, Vargas ended his book on an extra-powerful note. His last three poems are showcases of his lyricism, imagery, and nuance juxtaposed with painful truths. Coming on the heels of the poems cited above, the contrast in anguish and depth of emotional investment stands stark. In “the time traveler’s advice” (p. 53), Vargas “visits” himself at different earlier ages, beginning with 60, then continuing to 50, 40, 30, 21, and 10, all key periods in his life, which he describes calmly sometimes, heart-wrenchingly at others. For example, at age 30, he lies weeping on the floor, on his birthday, devastated that he has outlived his father by a year now: “i always thought/ I’d know why my father OD’d at age twenty-nine…./ the answer was supposed/ to be there waiting for me.” (p. 55) The sorrow in these poems comes from regrets and unresolved hurt.
In his penultimate poem, “three words” (p. 57), Vargas tackles the age-old quandary lovers often face: when to say “I love you” and when to believe it’s true. The poet’s response is achingly clear, spoken with a conviction born of deprivation. He states: “I want to tell her about/ growing up in a home/ where these words were/ rarely uttered…./ I want to tell her of/
hunger and how the/ human spirit withers/ like dried unpicked fruit/ for the lack of the sound/ of these three words.” (p. 57) The poet’s argument is mighty.
Finally, “13 Angels Rising” (p. 60) is a true account of 13 missing women’s remains discovered in New Mexico in 2009. This mystical poem is fittingly the last poem in Vargas’ book, bestowing upon his work a finishing stroke of power. Vargas imagines these dead women rising and walking again, “where dreams of violence fade away/ the way a bruise heals when/ kissed by a seraph’s lips/ families, babies, and friends rejoice/ embrace their return from/ the eternal night/ the cruel night….” The resuscitated women with “once-battered/ shoulder blades/ healed and whole” will “walk unafraid/ among the demons we/ all have within/ and show us/ how like a pebble dropped in water/ …our inhumanity/ ripples outward/ touching one/ and all.” (p. 61) Indeed, this view of human interconnectedness, for ill or good, reverberates more than once in Vargas’ book and engenders some of his best writing.
Overall, Richard Vargas’ long career as poet, editor, publisher, faculty member, and eclectic member of the working class, has enabled Leaving a Tip at the Blue Moon Motel—enabled its creation, positive reception, and, very likely, its literary success. All well-earned.
Spotlight Poet: Thelma T. Reyna.
Poet Laureate Emerita of Altadena
Spotlight Poet: Melinda Palacio.
Poet Laureate of the City of Santa Barbara, 2023-2025
Open Mic Artists
Margaret Garcia, Painter, Muralist, Fused Glass Artist, sings "Gracias a la Vida"
Carla Sameth, Co-Poet Laureate of Altadena, California 2022-2024
A friend asked me which book was my favorite of 2022. I usually have a hard time naming just one book or one thing in any category. Ask me my favorite color and I draw a blank. I wear every color. There was a time, back in my college days, when I only wore colors that pertained to the season of autumn because someone told me those were my colors and most days my body was covered in Emerald Green or brown. I fill silly for having limited my choices. Or ask me my favorite food and the pattern is the same. There was a time when I limited my meals to vegetables, now I eat all sorts of foods. I still don't have a favorite. Last year's standout was Richard Vargas's How a Civilization Begins. It may not be the only book I enjoyed but it was the first that popped into my mind.
So many things about this book were appealing from the cover, the photo of a broken eggshell to the waxy mat finish and how the weight of the book felt in my hands. The book by Mouthfeel Press with a forward by Margaret Randall showed much care for the precious cargo between the pages. The civilization Vargas describes is the one that holds his life. From the kid who grew up in South Central Los Angeles to the man who served his country and became a poet who calls for unity, as seen in the poem, i am waiting for a peace. Next time pie day or March 14 comes along, I will ask Richard if I can share this poem for it also waits for a "piece of pie/with silky-smooth filling/that melts in my mouth. The playful poem has a wonderful way of imagining peace through a piece of pie or a poem shared by all.
Richard Vargas is the hero the uncelebrated. His true fans take comfort in the fact that he has not sold out. For all his education, he continues to celebrate the quiet life. However, cliché the brooding poet with a difficult father, he is the voice of America, of the Chicano who struggles to remember sparse and rarely used Spanish to comfort a young asylum seeker dumped by the border patrol in "labor of love." The book's forward by Margaret Randall asks if this book will place Vargas at the 'very pinnacle of poetry speaking out of and for contemporary life?' While becoming a household name might be a fair aspiration, for now, Richard Vargas does not need accolades to write poems that gut the reader with the longing the comfort of a man who can create an entire world with "just two lovers/in the dark/holding on/not going/anywhere/lying in our/wet spot/waiting for/the world/to end."
We did it and it worked for years. Then it couldn't, doing it was dangerous. Still might be, but with considerations, so we've done it again. And we'll be doing it again later this month
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
Floricanto, that's what it, is. It is the United States National LivingRoom/BackYard Floricanto Movement, and it's your turn to host them at your chante. Join the Movement!
A few years ago, my wife and I frequented galleries and poetry readings like it was going out of style. We were the ones going out of style. Early signs of dementia began slowing us down and then, eventually, inevitably, we could no longer do the arte circuit. So it goes.
CasaSedano, already the scene of Barbara's magnificent seasonal parties, and where many a Mental Menudo with Magu went down, saw few hurdles to launching the LivingRoom/BackYard Floricanto Movement.
Join the LivingRoom/BackYard Floricanto Movement! The easiest element, the Plan, makes hosting Floricanto events a breeze.
The LivingRoom/BackYard Floricanto Plan: invite good people, have a reading and discussion, and have fun. You don't even have to feed people, but come on. Clean up the yard and house. Make sure you have seating. Invite to your seating capacity.
We had a good run of readings. Authors making LA stops on book tours accepted CasaSedano's invitation to the informal gathering. At times, the Stanford Chicana Chicano Book Club met with the author, other times, the junta was a just for itself.
Then the GOPlague hit and our living room shut down.
Two years ago, Sergio Troncoso closed our unbroken string of annual+ LivingRoom/BackYard Floricantos. Sergio will the second guest at the 2022 resumption of CasaSedano floricantos.
Richard has a special place in my memories and not-memories.
In 2012, Jesus Treviño and I joined the book smuggling Librotraficantes on a journey (link) from El Paso to Alburque to Tucson. When we arrived at the National Hispanic Cultural Center, local artists had filled the main auditorium and Richard Vargas emceed a fabulous floricanto! I photographed the readings from the back of the house with a long lens.
Richard Vargas at the Librotraficante reading NHCC Alburquerque March 2012
Comes 2014, I'd put Jessica Ceballos in contact with Richard Vargas, and Jessica scheduled a Sunday Palabra reading, or was it a Blue Bird?, at Avenue50 Studio, featuring Richard. I planned to get some portraits up close.
I got myself hospitalized just in time for the reading. I hear Richard dedicated a reading to me. Having enjoyed an NDE (science calls dying and coming back a "near death experience") so recently, hearing some poet dedicated one to me made a big difference to my attitude.
Launching the CasaSedano LivingRoom/BackYard 2022 Edition with Richard Vargas is perfection. All those connections coming together gave the event a special feeling for me.
This morning they came for my rights Took them under cover of midnight & black robes Proclaiming a law over my bones Ignoring my body once again Beat the breath from my skin Judging my choice for sin Ripping justice from within Puppet politicians policing with tricks This matrix is fixed Making me sick Making me woke Cause the system lost control They want to patrol our womb Creation is the Goddess choice If I want to give life or live my true voice There is no wrong way to love Radical self awareness Radical self care Radical bliss Our ancestors gave us gifts Gave us allies Gave us movements This morning they came for my rights And I won’t let them in We won’t let them win My body, my blood, my choice My body, my blood, my choice My body, my blood, my choice
Iris De Anda a Guanaca Tapatia poet, speaker & musician who has been featured with KPFK & KPFA Pacifica Radio, organized with Academy of American Poets, performed at Los Angeles Latino Book Festival, Feria del Libro Tijuana, Casa de las Americas in Havana, Cuba and is named one of Today's Revolutionary Women of Color. Author of Codeswitch: Fires from Mi Corazon & Roots of Redemption: You have No Right to Remain Silent.
Review: Edward Vidaurre. Pandemia & Other Poems.San Antonio: Aztlán Libre Press, 2020. Isbn 978–0 –9897782-5-1 (link in title)
Michael Sedano
I lack the stamina and skill that reviewing poetry demands, on a regular basis. In worthwhile poetry collections, a reviewer wants to talk about poem after poem, idea after idea. You want readers to expect particular value in the collection by illustrating the best exemplars of idea, voice, character, prosody; elements that give a collection compelling urgency that says “buy this book,” “follow this poet,” “check out this publisher.”
What to do when each poem seems to be the best poem in the book? This is the kind of collection that a reader thinks the best poem is the poem you're reading now.
Complicating a critic’s perplexities, publishers are finding budgets to publish a lot of poetry books. The reading and reviewing possibilities loom exhaustingly, and that’s good news. It's a “poetry explosion” multiplying the annual number of new poems and poetry books beyond anyone’s capacity to acquire, read, and share the best with friends.
This means lots of voices can get lost in the wilderness, orphan books needing readers, readers needing poetry, novels, short stories, Chicana Chicano Literature. Y más. In 2021, La Bloga-Tuesday resolves to share more raza poetry reviews. This is one way some books won't get lost, que no?
Looking back at missed opportunities, La Bloga-Tuesday should have picked up 2017’s When Love Was Reels, José B. Gonzáles' mirthful set of ekphrastic movie homages. There was Adrián Arancibia's 2018, Poems of Exhaustion, an intimate portrait of a poet finding early midlife perspective.
Only last year, 2020, La Bloga-Tuesday found Edward Vidaurre’s Pandemia & Other Poems. With 2021 less than 20 days old, it’s not too late to recommend both Vidaurre’s Pandemia poems, and also the publisher, Aztlán Libre, and a burgeoning publishing enterprise Vidaurre has kicked off with a spectacular catalog from Flower Song Press.
Pandemia & Other Poems, from Aztlán Libre, brings readers four-in-one collections of mostly one-page work. The first Part shares the book's most self-consciously plague-time poems. Several of the poems here use space and layout to enhance their impact before the lines take on a conventionally fluid appearance that is kinder to reader eyes. Tabs creating long empty spaces in a poetry line do little to nothing to enhance effectiveness. Unless you have five darn good reasons, just use the next available space, "Sleepless In Pandemia."
Theme counters easily spot poems laced with forms of pain, emotional and corporeal. There’s death, a requiem. The most powerful death reference hits a reader in the ethnic gut because the poet pulls it out of nowhere, the ethnicity. Órale, that's what makes it Chicano.
JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL BIOLOGY TEACHER
Was cool
as fuck.
One day he rolled in the television to watch the spaceship carrying a
teacher. Said, “that could have been me but I wasn’t chosen." Then we
all watched the spaceship go up and explode. He sat silenced, looked
at me and I kind of gave him that look back, now you know what it’s
like to come to school as a survivor.
Lucky
as fuck.
JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL BIOLOGY TEACHER adds interest and humor for readers in the way the poem twists poetic time to create new life. The following stanza, the poet wonders about the now-old teacher, where is the fellow today?
Here, Vidaurre puts a shine on the poem. Paying an unspoken debt to that man, the poet former student, brings the remembered teacher to life, gives the teacher a quaint imaginary old age.
If a poet fiddles with the pages of a book, does my biology teacher
Have a tv tray next to him with a small tray, a scalpel, scissors and a
probe and opens up tiny frogs during tv commercials?
Somewhere an old man smiles. My old 8th grade science teacher, I see him.
JUNIOR HIGH is the middle poem in the first Part of this four-part collection, page 10. The book has 76 pages, and it’s good to the last breath.
Love, pain—they might be the same thing in Vidaurre’s poetry—a little sex, fill the other Parts of Pandemia. Aside from that Spanish-sounding title, readers won’t find conventional Chicanx Identity poetry in this collection of Chicano poetry. Vidaurre doesn’t pound his chest shouting “mi raza primero.”
The poet’s ethos breathes his ethnicity, but he drops a name here, a geography there, to give markers that locate raza identity. Identification is in his Soul. The poet’s tongue, it’s almost puro inglés. Pandemia & Other Poems, like almost all Chicano literature, addresses an English-speaking readership. Not a surprise, Chicano Literature is a genre of English-language American Literature.
Don’t ask, “what makes it Chicanx Chican@ Chicana/o Chicano Chicana Poetry?”
It’s unfair to burden a single book with encompassing an entire genre and go looking for ethnic justification in that particular work.
What you read from this publisher, Aztlán Libre Press, is Chicano Poetry. That doesn’t matter if all you’re seeking is good poetry for our time. Pandemia & Other Poems is good poetry. And, if anything says “Our Time,” Pandemia screams it out loud.
Pandemia & Other Poems has distribution to the trade via spdbooks.org Your local independent bookseller can stock Aztlán Libre Press titles or place an order for you. You can peruse the San Anto firm's catalog and place your order at aztlanlibrepress.com (link)
With so many choices for fun or relaxing activities during a hot weekday, where the weather in New Orleans threatens to reach a hundred degrees, it's best to do a little homework if you want to guarantee an audience of more than the friends you can count on one hand. Octavia Books, a beautiful, local independent bookstore did their homework, and so did I. Octavia sent weekly announcements to their readers in advance of the book launch and I made sure to give me publisher contacts for local newspaper and radio media for possible publicity before the reading. I was lucky to get a color announcement and write up in the Times-Picayune Nuestro Pueblo column and I had two radio interviews with local station, WWNO and WRBH, the radio for the blind. The result was a standing room only crowd with lots of my different groups coming together Bird Forgiveness book launch. There were Wonder Woman, Poets, Yoga folks, WNBA (Women's National Book Association) members, and lovers of the word, books, and Octavia Books. Bookstore owners Tom Lowenburg and Judith Lafitte have created a gorgeous haven of a bookstore and their events are always filled with plenty of comfortable chairs and wine. During Mardi Gras, I participated in the All Wonder Woman Walking Krewe. I've met some fabulous women in the group including friend, Marti, who is also in the WNBA, and Kay who works for the Baton Rouge newspaper, The Advocate. It's fun how some of my friends belong to overlapping organizations. Thank you to everyone who helped make the New Orleans launch a success. Thanks, again, to Octavia Books.
My yoga teacher at Wild Lotus brought some fellow students and a friend whom she knew would enjoy my book. It turns out the friend is a regular book browser at Octavia Books; New Orleans is a small town in a big city. At the Wild Lotus Yoga studio, it happens to be Poetry Month. On Wednesday, I was a little late getting to class and I waited until the opening mediation was finished and I was pleasantly surprised to hear my yoga teacher read my poem, The Praying Tree. If I had been on time, she would have asked me to read it, as she did a few weeks ago, but it was really nice hearing her read my poem and interpret it and offer it as a mediation for the day.
Partial View of Trinity's Organ Pipe.
I was thrilled to have a full house, even world renowned musician and organist at Trinity Episcopal church, Albinas Prizgintas came. One of my favorite activities in New Orleans is listening to the organ pipe concert and walking the labyrinth set up on the altar of the church. If you appreciate music, there's nothing more thrilling than hearing Bach or the Rolling Stones vibrate from the organ pipe throughout the massive church and through one's own body. Albinas plays an eclectic mix of classical, rock, and spiritual songs. Sometimes, I walk the labyrinth, but most of the time, I enjoy a quiet seated meditation. My yoga teacher plays a lot of rock n roll during her class. I've come to appreciate rock n roll as a spiritual practice. Next Tuesday, I will add my poetry to the music of the labyrinth at Trinity Episcopal Church. I don't know how it will all come together, but when Albinas asked if I might read a few poems interspersed between the organ for the labyrinth, I said, 'Yes'.
Labyrinth at Trinity Episcopal
On Tuesday, there will be an additional stop to the Bird Forgiveness Tour at Trinity Artist Series,
Trinity Episcopal Church at 6pm, 1329 Jackson Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70130.
Next week, the Bird Forgiveness Tour takes me to Cajun-Creole Country, where Louisiana Poet Laureate Emeritus, Darrell Bourque will introduce me (I'm honored to say the least). If you're anywhere near Lafayette next Friday, please come to the Teche Center for the Arts, 210 E. Bridge Street, Breaux Bridge, August 3, 6pm.
At the end of August, I have the pleasure of returning to the La Palabra poetry series at Avenue 50 Studio, August 26 at 2pm, 131 N. Avenue 50, Highland Park, CA.
There are few opportunities for
do-overs in life; make-overs are aplenty. But how often can you reach back
forty years and sculpt some improvements? Gary Soto's new book of poems, TheElements of San Joaquin: Revised and Expanded, is an exception. The book was
first published in 1976 by Pitt Press and some of the poems were first
published in 1972. Chronicle Books reissued a new and selected edition this
year with a thoughtful introduction by Soto. Although the concept of revising a
collection of new and selected poems is nothing new, many poets at the height
of their careers publish such a collection. However, in Soto's case the
revisiting of his earliest poems, along with the addition of new ones feels
unprecedented, as if he is offering the reader a new and improved version of
his younger self. He is at peace with the child he was with roots in Taxco who
grew up in the San Joaquin Valley in a family of farmworkers, warehouse men,
janitors, egg candlers, and in the case of his grandfather, a security guard
for the Sun Maid Raisin factory.
Here a man in his sixties revisits his
childhood and the early poetics that put him on the map as a pioneer in Chicano
poetry. He wrote those early poems using the backs of album covers as his
portable desk while listening to those records sounding the likes of Dylan, the Rolling Stones, and Santana. Careful brushstrokes, some so minute only a trained eye would recognize the changes, to addition of new and recovered old poems refresh the original book that describes both the hardships and joys of growing up in the central valley.
The
poet has an impeccable memory for capturing the music and sounds of his
childhood. He carries a heavy sense of nostalgia with such grace, you'll want
to return to these poems again and again. Soto is of the same generation as my
parents. Reading his work gives me insight into their world even though they
had very different lives and grew up very different places, such as Del Rio,
Texas and Panama. The language of the poems remains rich and timeless in
phrases such as the days shut like a
suitcase, plastic bags that ghost in
the wind, and tomatoes hanging/Like
small red globes. An entire cosmos is found in his poem "Summer"
where the moon pulled its own weight /And
the black sky cleared itself like a sneeze.
If
you've lost or loaned your original copy of The Elements of San Joaquin, stop
what you're doing and order the 2018 Chronicle Books edition.
Antonio López, winner of the Poetry Prize at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference 2017
Last week, was the 45th gathering of the Santa
Barbara Writers Conference. Once in a while a student comes along whose talent
shines through. Back in the nineties, it was Michele Serros, who wore a simple
name tag that said, 'Girl Writer.' This year, I am pleased to introduce Antonio
López. Remember the name, he will be rocking your book shelves in the very near
future. He won First Prize in Poetry at the conference. Honorable Mentions for
the 2017 Poetry Prize include Steve Braff and Claire Hsu Accomando I mentioned
to Antonio that the last time a Chicano or Latinx or Person of Color won First Prize
in Poetry was myself in 2003. La Bloga is pleased to offer this thoughtful
interview with rising literary star, Antonio López. As you'll read from the interview, the 23-year-old poet has a promising career in both literary arts and law.
East Beach across the street from the Santa Barbara Writers Conference
Melinda
Palacio
1.
When did you start writing poetry?
Antonio
López
1. I started writing poetry in high school. I started when I wrote
a short story for my girlfriend at the time (lasted like 3 months but it was
one of the catalysts). It opened up the prospect of "Huh, I'm kinda good
at this, and I enjoy getting caught up in my mind, making a story and so
forth." In class, we were reading The
Scarlet Letter, so a lot of my lines were overwrought, the images were over
the top, and probably mixed with each other in confusing ways. But after
submitting one story, my teacher, Ms. Gertmenian got back to me and said her
work reminded her of Garcia Marquez. One
Hundred Years of Solitude was the probably the first Latino author I
remember reading.
But as I wrote more stories, I realized I loved, even obsessed,
over certain lines and details. I'd be walking the street, using cumbias and
rap and sonideros to help induce the image out the mind's womb. After writing
my first personal statements for college, then outpoured the stories of all the
things I saw grow up--the guns that sounded like fireworks, the slang that I
suddenly stopped at my high school prep, the chisme and dirty jokes 8th grade
boys say to each other like prayers. the struggle for self-worth at an
almost-white school. I encountered my culture on the page, and it lit my world.
PALACIO
2.
You are a student at Duke, off to Law School ? Will poetry continue to be a
part of your life? Who are some of your influences?
LÓPEZ
2. I actually graduated from Duke in 2016, and am now a rising 2nd
year MFA student at Rutgers University at Newark, NJ. Law school is an idea
that at first, I was toying with, but recently I was accepted into a prep
program called the UCLA Law Fellows, an initiative, now in its 20th year, that
creates a pipeline for minority students to pursue the profession. Their
classes on precedents, their inspiring speakers (many of them alumni of the
program), and their scholarship to take an LSAT class in the fall, have made me
realized how much support God has laid to follow my dreams. Namely, to
represent undocumented migrants while also writing their stories (whether
nonfiction or fictionalized).
As influences, I read Anzaldua my freshman year in college, and I
thought both her theoretical understanding of what I was living (the psychic
borderlands) along with her bilingual poetry, were just stunning. I also loved
watching, and re-watching, the old school Def Poetry Jam where Mos Def would be
the emcee. There, I learned of poets like Saul Williams, Louis Reyes Rivera,
Victor Hernandez Cruz. From early on, Spoken Word was a genre that drew me. Its
energy, its political posture, the way language can pack un golpe, and if
you're lucky, un putazo.
But these usherings of musc came from specific people. Growing up,
I burned CD's with my cousin Miguel Angel, and he'd introduce me to Nas,
Common, KRS-One, Rakim, as well as some contemporary rappers. When I was 15 or
so, a woman at the Boys and Girls Club put on me onto Gil Scott Heron and the
Last Poets. Education scholar Jason Mendez gave a presentation that
interspersed Pedro Pietri's "Puerto Rican Obituary" with Wu Tan
Clan's "I Can't Sleep." I swallowed these beats like water. My mentor
in college, Nathaniel Mackey, further added to my list Juan Felipe Herrera and
Lorna Dee Cervantes. It's an ongoing list of mentor and predecessor. These
muses, or maybe better put, duendistas, all walk with me as I put word to page.
PALACIO
3.
I see you are attending several conferences this summer, including the Santa
Barbara Writers Conference, where you impressed a whole conference with your
poetry, where are you off to next? I think you mentioned Squaw Valley? Is the
SBWC your first conference or have you been to others? If so which ones and how
were they different?
Congratulations
on winning first place in poetry. (I wasn't there for the ceremony, were there
runners up, honorable mentions?)
LOPEZ
3. a. I am indeed in Squaw Valley right now. Strictly within
writing, I've also attended the Yale Writers' Conference, Santa Barbara of
course, and AWP this year. I believe our beloved friend, Claire, received the
honorable mention for the Santa Barbara competition.
PALACIO
3.b
What are some of the other poetry awards you have received and when? Did you
receive a full scholarship for Squaw Valley?
LOPEZ
b. Here at Squaw, I'm grateful to have received the Lucille
Clifton Memorial Scholarship, which covers tuition and housing. Other awards
I've won is AWP's Open Mic & Old School Poetry Slam Competition this
past February. I was also a finalist for the 9th Annual
Nazim Hikmet Poetry Competition (also this year). And in 2016, I was the
inaugural winner for the William Rosati Creative Writing Award at Duke University.
PALACIO
4.
At Duke, you study with Aracelis Girmay? Can you describe the mentorship and
which courses you've taken with her? Is this for your MFA at Rutgers? You
mentioned, I think, also going to Law School?
LOPEZ
4. At Duke, I studied with the likes of Nate
Mackey and Peter Moore. But poetry is a fairly recent endeavor as a career
path. Before that, I heavily studied Cultural Studies with Wahneema Lubiano,
Antonio Viego, Walter Mignolo, William Darity, and in the field of
African-American Studies, the late, brilliant Raymond Gavins. At Rutgers, I'm
blessed to have the mentorship of Rigoberto Gonzalez and Brenda Shaughnessy.
I've taken workshops with both, where they've always provided a critical, but
nurturing space for all us poets. I should also say that while a Fiction
professor, Alice Dark is a person who has moved (both in the physical and
sentimental sense) me to expand my craft. I am working on a memoir,Bajo Otra Luna, and it'd be a disservice to her work if I din't mention that the first
few chapters came from her "Writers at Newark" class.
PALACIO
5.
Do you also study history. From the few poems I've read you seem well versed in
Aztec culture and Meso American history. Can you talk about your use of
juxtaposing the ancient cultura with current times and how you started putting
the two together in your poems? Did you also minor in Spanish or have you
formally studied Spanish? It's impressive how seamlessly your poems switch
between Spanish and English.
LOPEZ
5. History was my first love. I remember taking World
History in high school, and learning about different civilizations and wars
felt empowering in Menlo School, a place where I was often the only Latino in
my classrooms. In college, the very first class I took was one on the US-Mexico
Border with Sarah Deutsch. In my spare time, I watched and re-watched PBS'
Chicano: A History of the Mexican Civil Rights Movement. There, I learned of
the '68 Walkouts (which made me realize that what we were doing for the Day
Without an Immigrant Protests were the same), the Moratorium, Sal Castro, Reis
Lopez Tijerina, but most importantly, Corky Gonzalez's "Yo Soy
Joaquin." This encouraged my continual private interest in studying Aztec
mythology.
History (and study) is a huge marker for me. As an undergrad, I
became obsessed with radical left philosophy (anarchism), then moved to
studying political dissidents (Angela Davis, George Jackson, Leonard Peltier),
and now I've settled into a religious mythology phase (Sufist poetry,
Aztec myths, the Naat devotional songs to the prophet Muhammad (PBUH), the
South Asian qawwali form [songs to God] and studying the Qur'an. I think
reciting the Qur'an has affected and heavily influenced my penchant for the
anaphora.
PALACIO
5.
b. Maybe you have other poems that reveal different identities. I only heard
two of your poems. Can you talk a little more about how you identify yourself
and what is the cultural background of your family/parents, is it different
from yours?
LOPEZ
b. We need more myths, because that's how we remember we come from
greatness. That we too speak of rivers, called chinampas, called El Rio Bravo,
etc. Incorporating ancient culture gives the present moment (whether it be
immigration, deportations, poverty, discrimination) more perspective. It makes
us richer, more powerful. If we just caught up in the present, then we lose
sight of our longevity as a people. As the EZLN (Ejercito Zapatista Liberacion
Nacional) said, as their opening words to the NAFTA-sparked uprising of 1994,
"We are the product of 500 years of struggle."
With regards to my use of billingualism, that's just how we as
Latinxs live. In poems like "Moscatero" for instance, you'll hear
Mexican slang because it is an absolute necessity to tell this literary world,
"This are the people I live, love, dream, and fight about, and in their own words." Of
course, in a largely monolingual canon, I have to always negotiate this
code-switching, which is a different act from translation. The latter says I'm
ostensibly of another place, whereas this Spanglish is, as Anzaldua said,
"a forked tongue...ni de aqui ni de alla." This is a different world,
yet one uttered, sung, lamented, and praised by millions of people in this
country, every second, every day., every latido, every suspiro. Behind
restaurant kitchens, atop broken shingles, inside maquilladoras, inside misas.
I've had several folks say, "I don't understand what the speaker's
saying," as if that were negative connotations. I want to tell them,
"You know how many of my generation and background wish they can talk back
to their bosses, who wished they could fight for their rights? Will all due
respect, your discomfort pales (often literal on a racial level) with their
experience." I want my readers to struggle, to sweat, because that's
exactly their , and our, way(s) of living.
Last little note, when I hear the word frijoles, plumes of smoke
in the cocina just burst in my mind. So many recuerdos and fights and flavors
and "te sirvo mas mi'jo," and queso cotija falling on my plate like
the first snow el barrio's ever seen, and so forth. But if I said beans, it
sounds dull, stripped of its sharp. I hear Bush's Best commercials and tacky
Westerns of dirt-lathered Anglos roasting a can over a bonfire. These aren't my
memories. My mother, my grandmother, my father, even my little brother, all say
frijoles, and so that's how it'll exist on the page.
PALACIO
6.
Where are you originally from? Did you experience any type of culture shock
going to college in the East coast?
LOPEZ
6. I was born and raised in East Palo Alto, once an inner city in
the middle of the SF Bay Area, but has in recent years been heavily gentrified
by Facebook, and now, Amazon. Culture shock did hit me at the Duke's campus
itself, but Durham itself was and is experiencing a huge influx of Latino
migrants (almost 300% in the last decade), so I felt I had my people nearby.
But again, within the Gothic Wonderland, I hadn't ever seen so much wealth in
my life. I experienced this weird twilight zone of PoC mobility, where I had a
food points account larger than what my parents made over a month.
Being in Newark, New Jersey, for my MFA has forced me to expand my
sense of Latinidad. As a Mexican, I hold the hegemony of being immediately
associated with Latino in US public discourse, along with the stereotypical
foods, mannerisms, sayings that go with it. Here though, I regularly meet and
chat with Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Ecuadorians, Trinidadians, Brazilians, and
folks with multiple origins of descent. I truly believe it's enriched my music
on the page, the way I hear Boricua cut through words, like if they're in a
hurry, a mini-seminar on elision when I hear them drop the 's' in Moises, to
give just one example.
PALACIO
7.
Are there any other poets, storytellers in your family?
LOPEZ
7. You know, so much of being called a poet has a class element to
it, where you have the luxury of saying, out of the top priorities of one's
vocation, "I am a poet." So while I don't have any
"writers" in my immediate family-- I do have a couple primas who
write for themselves (Shout out to Berenice Silva and Mari Mendez). Because of
the demand of full time, they largely don't have a space to carve out their
voice textually.
That said though, my family has some phenomenal storytellers. I
always tell people, you can gather volumes of rich commentary just hearing a
dinner table. When after the chiquillos are asleep, and papa gets out of a
nightshift, and he and his hermana share their lamentos del dia. I consider my
tia Carmelita to be an amazing orator, her voice brimming with humor and grace.
And to me, that's what inspired my honors thesis at my undergraduate years,
titled ethnopoetics, a term
inspired by Anzauldua and Chela Sandoval's Methodology of the Oppressed, which attempts to describe our
naturally poetic ability to navigate struggle. To me, that's the heart of all
Latinidades, and by extension, marginalities.
8.
You don't have a book of poems out yet, but it sounds like you are well on your
way to putting a book together. Tell us some of the places that have published
your work. Do you only write poetry or are you published in other genres?
LOPEZ
8. Correct, I don't technically have a book, but stay tuned I
suppose insha'Allah (ojala). So far, I've been published in Teenink, Acentos
Review (Shout out to Raina Leon), Hispanecdotes, PEN/America, Sinking City
Press, and this summer, I'll have pieces in Gramma Press, Eclectica,
Permafrost, By & By, and Track//Four.
But I've published other genres outside of poetry. My very first
publication in Teenink talked about the hard-hitting jump from an inner city
K-8 to being a token at predominately white, affluent college prep. I've
published a number of nonfiction pieces at Duke's newspaper, The Chronicle, while a student. All
these articles centered on identity politics as a 1st generation
Mexican-American, responding to issues of social justice, including the noose
incident, and covering the successful boycott of our own Latino Student
Recruitment Weekend in order to pressure administration to fund a Latinx Center,
now called La Casa. Most recently, I published a piece in PEN/America on what
it's like to be a Latino Muslim. And right now, I am working on a memoir, Bajo Otra Luna.
PALACIO
9.
We spoke briefly of identity and names. Did you have a stronger sense of self
after writing and discovering poetry?
LOPEZ
9. Absolutely! Mil veces si. As a Muslim, I understand God has
given me this language to touch others. There's a lovely verse in the Qur'an in
surat Al-Nisa (The Women), which goes, " ...Allah knows what is in their
hearts, so turn away from them but admonish them and speak to them a
far-reaching word." (4:63) The root word of far-reaching, baligh,
can also translate to eloquence, that which can penetrate deeply. To me, this
elucidates the power of poetry, and expression generally, to touch others, to
the effect of steering them in a better direction.
In poetry, I can put together La Virgen Guadalupe and Khadijah, I
can denounce the racist legislation of Texas' Senate Bill 4, I can praise
raspado vendors who post their Venmo accounts on splintered carts, I can laugh
in a poem, this public document, at las jorobitas of passing abuelas. To me,
poetry is just testimony in its highest form, songs of gratitude for being
alive and brown.
PALACIO
10.
Gacias, Antonio. Thank you for taking time out of your retreat at the Community
of Writers at Squaw Valley this week to talk with La Bloga. Your generous
responses are much appreciated. I look forward to bragging and bloging about
your future books. I can say I knew you when. Is there anything else you'd like
to share with La Bloga?
LOPEZ
10. Just extreme appreciation for the opportunity to express my
love for this weird thing we do called writing, especially to say these words
at my hometurf of fellows Chicanxs and Latinxs.
I am huge believer for paying it forward, so if there's anyone
aspiring writers reading this, don't hesitate hitting me up, or asking me any,
any questions--on identity, writing, family, etc. As cliche as it seems, we're
here to help each other. Otherwise, how do we expect outside communities to
coalition with us?
Here's is
Antonio López's prize-winning poem. This post will also end with Antonio
reading his poem at the conference's awards banquet.
Antonio flanked by SBWC Poetry Workshop Leaders
Laure-Anne Bosselaar, Antonio López, Perie Longo
photo by Marla Miller, SBWC Marketing the Muse Workshop
The murder of a teenage Muslim girlbeaten and killed by
a bat-wielding motorist near a Virginia mosque was likely a "road rage
incident", not a hate crime, US police said, prompting outrage from many
who say the teen was targeted because of her religion. Darwin Martinez
Torres, 22, has been arrested and charged with Nabra Hassanen's murder in an
incident police say began as a road dispute with a male teenager who was among
Hassanen's group. – Al Jazeera, June
20, 2017
Which Cobija Feels Most Comfy?: A
Letter to Sister Nabra
by Antonio López
As-Salaamu Alaykum Sister.
All is know
is that my brother
killed you
with a baseball bat. The same palo
slammed against birthday piñatas,
chased you out of a Fairfax highway.
Paper maché tapestries that bursted
with dulce and confetti stuffing,
now weaves into a hijab.
The slurs crosshaired.
All I know
is that my brother
grabbed
your bo-
grabbed your
bod-bo-
the papers said “dump,”
like your body was kitchen sink sewage,
the weight of chicken bones
and peeled carrots.
They said “road rage”—
your death as no more taxing
than a busted taillight
like when they said
Deah, Yusor, and Razan
were a “parking dispute.”
Ay hermanita,
I’ve spent the past four days
whispering your name
with hands cut
by the blades
of grass that pillowed your hair
with hands willowed
in dua,
but my palmlines fled
to trace their ancestry elsewhere,
across the Atlantic, to the Birth of a
Nation’s
Nation, where the ghoulish white hood
of a van drove into Finsbury park
shouting “All Muslims!
I want to kill all
Muslims!”
And for the first time,
I saw an
Islamic extremist—
Imam Mohamed Mahmoud
protects the suspect from the mob,
and issues the anti-Western fatwa
“We pushed people away,…
until he was safely taken
by police….”
Anti-Western,
because John Wayne
and all those aging saloonistas
who hawk a one-lunged Malboro
would’ve shot the sucker in a tacky
catchline
that would’ve earned 24% on Rotten
Tomatoes.’
Imam Mahmoud!
Imam Mahmoud who professed to Sky News
“I am no hero,”
but then who is ours?
Ya Allah, I beamed for a DC comic adhan
to call for a sunnah superhero.
But there’s no star-spangled shield
to guard your glasses and Jannah-gated
smile
because Captain America wasn’t made for
you.
No Wonder Woman to sway her jiggling
thighs,
half-naked feminism, to deflect blind-eyed
bat swings with an 8 karat belt buckle,
20% off a Macy’s rack.
Sister Nabra, let me make wudu
for you, and pluck from your hair,
the highway-thickets
of sound bites.
Sister, let me still pay
for next year’s prom dress—
a mermaid lavender,
so after iftar, I’ll sip chai
and hear the fiqh disputes
of uncles slamming
their hairy-knuckled
gavels,
“Istirgfilillah, there’ll be boys,
drinking,”
your father will interrupt,
“and me.”
Let me stand
over the Mexican minarets
of Univisión and Telemundo
and la pinta and the bus stop
and la clínica, and the good bench at
recess
and tell el pueblo, mi pueblo
to enshroud you in our finest cobijas—
those linens not even hawked at flea
markets
and quietly clean tu cuerpo,
over my grandmother’s pila
and wipe away the darkened bloodstains
with our finest jabón
over el agua nacida de la barranca,
the river mountaintops to see the
heights
my people could’ve soared for you.
Let my apolog—
take a lifetime,
take my lifeline—
hang on the word, ‘y?’
Why must
this land learn Arabic names
at the eight o’ clock news?
Why must
sister Aydin write a Facebook post
warning her muslimina girls to travel
in groups, even in broad daylight?
Why couldn’t you just finish Ramadan
first?!
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why.
Dear. Sister. Nabra,
All I know
is that every Muslim in America,
before Monday’s fajr, became an atheist
to American Progress.
Antonio López can be reached through email, Facebook, and Twitter @barrioscribe.
