Luzclara Camus Living in Times of Plenitude

tatiana de la tierra

In Chile, Luzclara lives in a round wooden temple that overlooks the Maipo River and faces the Andes mountains. Buddhist flags, statues of goddesses, and an organic garden planted in the shape of a spiral lead the way to Luz del Maipo, the temple that she calls home. This is where she meditates, does yoga, prepares for ceremony, and rides on horseback into the mountains to a special retreat. But shamanic leader Luzclara Camus is a globetrotter who hasn’t been home much lately. She’s been in Poland, Spain, Portugal, and France recently, facilitating ceremonies of the sacred feminine. Her next stop is California, with weekend workshops planned in the Los Angeles area (June 17-19) and in Mount Shasta (June 24-26).

A Priestess of the Goddess, Luzclara is on a mission to bring women together in old-fashioned ways. Imagine a circle of women chanting and drumming around a fire under the full moon. “It’s time for women to come together again,” she says. “This is a moment of a great awakening to the feminine, and we are responding en masse. We’ve been living in a patriarchal system for thousands of years, where we had to develop our masculine side in order to survive. We had to learn to compete, for instance, and we had to forget our feminine essence.”

I met Luzclara in a medicine journey in Chile a few years ago. That same night, after I’d met her, she came to me in a dream as a condor. Over the next few days, I participated in fire circles, sweat lodge, sound healing, and a labyrinth ceremony that she led. I learned of her ways of viewing sexuality, menstruation, manifestation, healing, Pachamama, plant medicine, menopause, and magic. I also found out that the grand Condor is her totem, and that, before going to sleep, she gives her light body permission to travel. Luzclara has unforgettable presence and I’m looking forward to her landing at Los Angeles International Airport in a few days.

Responding to an email interview while taking a break in Saint-Tropez in the French Riviera, Luzclara explains that ancient ones said that the way energy enters the planet changes every two thousand years. Masculine energy entered Earth from the Himalayas, and now feminine energy is entering from the Andes mountain range. “Feminine energy is not just for women,” she says. “It’s for everyone, and it’s time for the feminine qualities to develop once again.”

A native of Chile, Luzclara was mentored by an indigenous Mapuche Machi (shaman), Antonia Lincolaf, after the Machi came to her in a dream in 1981. Machi Antonia taught her how to hold ceremonies and how to heal with herbs, flutes, and sound. She initiated Luzclara with the kultrún, a feminine ceremonial drum in the shape of a bowl with symbols that represent the universe that holds medicine in its womb. Luzclara has initiated hundreds of women kultrún carriers since. “Sound heals by harmonizing our bodies, as the musical vibration penetrates deeply into each organ, into each cell,” she says. She does an adaptation of the Machitún, a healing ceremony done by the Machis, where people receive healing within a circle of drums, rattles, dancing, and intentional chanting.

She is also schooled in Chinese and Tibetan spiritual practices and has learned and shared ceremonies with indigenous groups from North America, Peru, and the Amazon. “My relations and contacts with native tribes in North and South America gave me the memory of how to be one with the Earth, how to feel the spirit in the elements, and how to see Her as a living being and respect Her as my Mother,” she says.

“Right now, European and American multinational corporations are pillaging our lands in Chile,” says Luzclara. Monsanto has claimed ownership of the country’s native seeds, and AES Gener has bought the rights to waters of the Maipo River, with a hydroelectric project that is sure to damage the environment, diminish water supply in Santiago, and enrich the company. Additionally, corporations are vying to build reservoirs in Patagonia. As a Guardian of the Earth, Luzclara has participated in her community’s protests against these assaults on the land.


“I am committed to caring for Pachamama and to teaching others how to connect with Her,” she says. Luzclara is a co-founder of the Guardians of the Earth Women’s Shamanic School in Chile, which began this year. (The school has two sessions every year; one in English, and another in Spanish.) She also takes on apprentices for one-on-one training in Luz del Maipo. “My most important work is empowering women, assisting them in the discovery of their sacred feminine and their roots with the Earth.” Her teaching methods include working in sacred circles and doing ceremony with the moon, solstices, and equinoxes.

“My relationship with Mother Earth has been a love affair. I have so much love and gratitude for her,” she writes. A central part of her message of embracing the feminine is in embracing Mother Earth herself. “To align with the Earth, we need to align with ourselves first and see Her as the living being that she is. We need to walk upon Her with love and respect, and to care for Her waters and Her nature. We need to quit exploiting Her for profit. We need to curb our consumption. And we need to be grateful and conscious of Her generosity.”

In Luzclara’s world, all women are goddesses and all people can become one with Pachamama. She views the female experience as a visionary by turning “menopause” on its head by naming it “plenitude.” The idea of useless shriveled up hags gets replaced with plenitude, “a grand initiation for women, a time for a woman to birth herself and claim her power. It is a time of plenitude and the beginning of a marvelous phase of life.” She explains that during plenitude, blood rises to the upper chakras. The third eye chakra, which corresponds to vision, and the crown chakra, which is the connection to the divine, are engaged. This, in a nutshell, is what it means to be a “wise woman”--a woman who actively “sees” and who is consciously connected to her internal goddess. From everything I know about her, I’d say Luzclara, who’s going to be celebrating her 70th birthday in August, is a wise woman embodied.

Following is information about upcoming events by Luzclara Camus. Individual appointments are also available.

LOS ANGELES AREA EVENTS, June 17-19, to be held at 3732 Sapphire Drive, Encino, CA. See http://innerflowerchild.com/. RSVP 818-905-7789 or susan.bernardo@gmail.com
Friday, June 17, 5:00-11:00 PM. Sound healing ceremony and potluck. All are welcome. $25; kids attend for free.
Saturday June 18, 2:00-8:00 PM, Opening to the True Power of Your Feminine Nature: Learn to deepen your connection to your own healing power and the healing of Earth. Includes rites of initiation, Machitún transformational healing, cleansing with feathers and smoke. $115
Sunday June 19, 11:00-6:00 PM, Woman’s Wisdom, Power and Mysteries, Riding the Serpent Through the Years of Plenitude: Learn to harness the transformational fire energy of menopause to seed your wisdom years with wonder and power. Includes lunch with foods that support all phases of this potentially powerful and transformative time in our lives. $145


MOUNT SHASTA RETREAT: June 24-26. In Spanish. Songs, dances, healing rites, sound healing, fire ceremony, and sweat lodge. Participants should bring sleeping bags and camping equipment. Facilitated by Leticia Elicea at Portal de Luz.$175 for weekend, including meals. Contact Leticia Elicea 408.261.3272, instituto@isehn.org

Peregrinación a Machu Picchu. Un peregrinaje de mujeres por el Valle Sagrado visitando Machu-Picchu y otros lugares de poder. Inscripción: soco@cascada.net o luzclara777@yahoo.com

Contact Luzclara directly for information about the Guardians of the Earth Shamanic School for Women or private apprenticeships. luzclara777@yahoo.com

Visioning Beneath the Almond Trees

by tatiana de la tierra

The shamans shuttled us to a grove of almond trees for a 4-day, 4-night silent vision quest. They placed us each beneath an almond tree, far apart from each other. Here, we would commune with nature, sleep upon the earth, pray and meditate. We were instructed to put an altar at the eastern entrance of our space and to hang our tobacco prayer ties around the four corners. A tiny ceramic replica of Venus del Valdivia accompanied us, along with a cornhusk-rolled tobacco, which we had swept four times through the fire at the base camp. The fire, which would be tended to at all hours, would reflect our states of being and would alert the fire keepers if anything came up.

We were to live off of two apples, one pear, one avocado, one corn on the cob, a miniature chocolate bar, a handful of almonds and a gallon of water. We would pee on the ground and, with the little plastic shovel provided, we would dig a hole in the earth for bowel movements. Two in the group of ten women were menstruating; they were to bequeath their bloods upon Mother Earth. We were told to wear skirts for ceremony and not to read any books.

I wondered how many rules I’d break, and if I could make it through even one night.

As the sun set behind the mountain, I scrambled to get my space in order. A bright pink piece of plastic was the “floor” of my “house”, which consisted of a twin air mattress, a sleeping bag and travel pillow, a duffle bag for nightclothes and another for day clothes. I also had two mochilas, one for health and beauty aids/writing tools and the other for my altar. Though we had only minutes to prepare, I skillfully crammed quite a lot of stuff to bring with me, leaving nothing to chance.

It was around 8 pm after I’d finished setting up and changing into flannel pajamas. With just a bit of daylight left, I set out to make the hole for going to the bathroom. It was to be deep enough to last all four days. I walked all over, crunching dry leaves and twigs in my path, searching for just the right place to squat. A place with a view, yet out of sight, and without spiky bushes and vines in the vicinity. There were many options, but all my attempts were futile. Dry, hard and rocky, the earth was impenetrable with a little plastic shovel. If only I had a pick and a sledgehammer, maybe I could swing it. Instead of one deep hole, I made several shallow ones. Yet I wondered if the other women were able to dig deep into the earth, and if I was just a lazy, inefficient, shit-hole digger.

Vision Quest Realization #1: I don’t know how to dig holes and am pretty clueless about appropriate tools for this or other means.

When I got back “home” it was too dark to set up the altar, which was next on my to-do list. That’s when it hit me that there was Nothing to Do. Except lie down and look up at the sky, through the lattice of treetops. Which is what I did. A lot. For hours and hours, wide awake. And there I discovered an entirely fascinating, seductive, magical, unending world. The world of night, of mysterious creaking sounds, fireflies, twinkling stars, planets, and that thing called the moon, which was plumping up dramatically and journeying across the sky. I believe it’s called enchantment. I was under the spell of the Night.

Vision Quest Realization #2: Nothing to Do leads to Everything Else.

Disoriented at daybreak, I had no idea where I was, or what I was doing with all those leaves in the landscape of the sky, until I remembered that I was in an almond grove somewhere in Chile on a silent vision quest. I had to get up to go to the bathroom.

Getting up—exactly how was I going to do that? This was the deep and recurring philosophical question of every day and night. Would I roll off the air mattress to one side and spring up from my knees? Not a chance. Pull myself up entirely using my core stomach muscles? Yeah, right. Hold on to the tree for support while I inched up? Impossible. Roll flat on my face and hustle on upward? Good luck with that. Getting up off the ground—that was an event, every time. I thought about it a lot, attempted it a few times, and after a while, just did it Somehow.

Vision Quest Realization #3: You better do some serious Pilates, girl.

I went looking for my bathroom holes but never found them, and had to dig new ones.

It’s a good thing I had all the time in the world to set up my altar, because it took a ton of time. Compass in hand, I was committed to putting the altar exactly at the eastern corner. Yet it also had to go with the setup of the tree, the rocks, and the “house”. It took three tries until I finally settled on the right spot. Not being able to “feed” the altar with candles and sage (we were asked not to light any fires since the area was so dry), I offered rocks, flowers, water, and a played a little harmonica, rang bells, and rattled. But were my sacred musical sounds violating the code of Silence?

Vision Quest Realization #4: Silence is a state of being, not an act.

Throughout the day, I sought shelter from the sun and the heat. Hoping to make my supply of food last, I sought fruit from the trees. Restless and unable to sit on the floor for long periods of time, I wanted to stretch my back and move around. And so it was that I would be the only one to walk freely up and down and around, eating blackberries, plums and grapes, resting on the tops of huge boulders, and chilling out in a tiny patch of jungle that I found on a path off to the side.

Vision Quest Realization #5: In nature, all things are possible.

My surroundings came to life the more I walked around. At first, I saw blobs of brown earth, mustard yellow leaves, dry and blackened tree branches. Everything seemed about the same. Later on, I could distinguish between one tree and the next. I found berries where, before, there were none. I noted the red plums that I had passed by every day without realizing it. I could see almonds, rocks, plants, spiders, lizards, ants, and, at times, little bits of trash on the floor. Rocks began to speak to me. Then, walking around went from being an act of fleeing from something (the heat, etc.) to an exercise in observation and discovery.

Vision Quest Realization #6: The more I consciously open my eyes, the more I see.

The heat, my lifelong nemesis, invited me to be in my natural skin, practically in the nude. Which was perfect except for one thing: carnivorous yellowjacket wasps.

Vision Quest Realization #7: When in nature, nature rules.

In the heat, and in silence, I was delighted to discover the Wind, which speaks lightly with rustling leaves or loudly like the roaring ocean. The wind that blows through my hair and shakes everything up, that scatters pollen and seeds and knocks yellowjackets about. The wind that refreshes and enlivens.

Vision Quest Realization #8: The Wind!

Nights with my altar, smoking a cigar for my ancestors, I connect with my personal path. This is where I keep things to myself, where my past comes to me as my visions for the future unfold. It gets so cold late at night that I put on the pure wool and cashmere layers to safeguard me while I dream.

Vision Quest Realization #9: Sacred tobacco clears the path and lures the images of my dreams.


Out in the almond grove, I wrote little songs to the earth, moon, sun, birds, to silence and to ayahuasca. The cycle of each day and night, natural as eternity, became magical as hell. I became a sky gazer, a moon worshipper, a sun watcher. A child of the stars.

Vision Quest Realization #10: Me loves being alive on earth.


************ ************* *****************

SHE: BIKE/SPOKE/LOVE. SHE: BIKE/SPOKE/LOVE.
Texas writer, performance artist and urban bicyclist Tammy Gomez is fundraising for the production of her bicycle theater play, SHE: BIKE/SPOKE/LOVE in Austin, Texas in 2012. A story about young people in an ethnic community who care about the future of the planet and the greening of the barrios, the play features spoken word with choreographed bicycling, a turntablist, and video projections. For more information about her project, or to make a donation, see http://xxcommunicator.blogspot.com/.

Thania's Chilean travelogue & a Denver journalism forum

(See Thania's previous posting here.)

Finishing off the summer in Santiago - Travelogue

After a few days of walking around Santiago’s plazas, streets, visiting old friends, eating sopaipillas, empanadas, and dancing, I’m exhausted, but with a big smile on my face. This second visit to the country of Nobel poets Gabriela Mistral and Pablo Neruda was full of non-touristy stops.

This time I didn’t go to La Chascona (“the uncombed”), one of Neruda’s houses in Santiago, in honor of Matilde Urrutia, his lover until 1955 and later his third wife. But I had the opportunity to talk with a novel poet of Pablo Neruda’s foundation, Ignacio Elizalde, one of only ten poets chosen this year to be part of a poetry workshop sponsored by the foundation. He is a young poet who along with the other nine is taking advantage of this workshop to polish his craft. I met him the last time I was in Chile, back when he was already writing poetry and participating in recitals all around Santiago, so it was uplifting to find he is still writing and that his country values his talent.

I also attended a high school poetry workshop led by poet Agustín Hidalgo Johnson, who in 2007 was awarded an honorable mention for his participation in Chile’s national, concurso de creación literaria joven Roberto Bolaño (contest of young literary creation). I instantly become excited when I see teenagers reciting their poetry; they are making the world a better place, one verse at a time.

This time around I didn’t take any tours. I simply walked the streets every day to hear the Chilean accent, to admire the ancient architecture that melds with new apartment complexes and see on the horizon the enormous Andes completely covered with snow. Neither did I eat at fancy restaurants, which promised a taste of Chile’s cuisine; I bought delicious sweet treats or sopaipillas from street vendors, whose hands looked clean enough. It was exciting to be back and recognize idioms and streets, to know shortcuts and how to handle Chilean currency with mastery.

One thing I did repeat--in honor of my good friend Daniel Astorga, who now lives in the USA--was to go to bars and clubs. Each city has its particular party scene, and Santiago is no exception. Bellavista for example is a long street full of bars and clubs. Some have outside tables and offer drink specials, such as pisco sour, a cocktail made of lemon, egg whites, simple syrup and regional bitters or beer Escudo--both of them, emblematic Chilean drinks. Since the bars and clubs in Bellavista are next to each other, it's customary to simply go from bar to bar, or club to club, taking advantage of the specials or the wide variety of music. There you can catch up with new trends and idioms, which are always changing.

As I mentioned in my first travelogue, I was aware that during my second stay in Chile I wasn’t going to be as anxious and full of questions as on the first. I knew Santiago had a lot to offer me, but I wasn’t sure if it was going to live up to my expectations. What I didn’t mention was that I was scared of this becoming a reality.

I love this country and my first journey is an integral part of this love. In a way I feel like Isabel Allende in My invented country: a memoir: I “invented” my own Chile. My memoir can’t compare to Allende’s beautiful book, but I believe I understand how she created her own country, nostalgically pieced together from memories and old pictures.

Chile didn’t disappoint me this time, and not being anxious nor having as many questions, I comfortably submerged myself in its culture. I learned much more about the country because I didn’t approach people with an uncontrollable sense of awe and thirst; they were more willing to converse and talk as if they were talking to any of their friends because they knew they didn’t have to slow down or speak in a neutral accent to make sure the “foreigner” understood what they were saying.

I still cherish my first visit to Chile, and on this visit I discovered that my memories of this country won't be destroyed by a second or even a third visit. I was afraid of losing the dreamy, nostalgic tones of first experience, but being here has reminded me why I fell in love with this country and why I want to keep returning. I guess I just simply added another chapter to my Chilean memoir. Let’s hope it's not the last.

Thank you, La Bloga, for hosting my travelogues.

Saludos,
Thania Munoz

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Journalism Town Hall in Denver

For too long, local citizens have been left out of the debate over the future of journalism. As Big Media get bigger, newsrooms are closing down and more and more journalists are losing their jobs. No one knows this better than people in Colorado. It’s time for us to stand up for the news we need.

Next week we will host a free community forum in Denver to bring together concerned citizens, journalists, lawmakers and community leaders to discuss the future of journalism.

Forum: Saving the News: Denver and the Future of Journalism Date: Sept.16, 2009, 6:30 - 9:30pm Location: Colorado History Museum, 1300 Broadway, Denver

The forum will be an interactive event, designed to amplify your voice and give you the chance to debate key issues in Denver’s media. Join community leaders and journalists like John Temple, Polly Baca, David Sirota, Wick Rowland, Laura Frank and others for this important community forum.

Our media have always been shaped by policy decisions made in Washington, D.C., and policy will help decide what's next for journalism. That means that each of us has a role to play in the fight to save journalism.

Now is the time for Colorado citizens to have their say.

For more information, to help spread the word, join our Facebook event page and download posters, visit www.SavetheNews.org/Denver.

Thania's Chile travelogue & a reading by Rubén Martinez

by Thania Muñoz

(Today's installment by Thania replaces Dan Olivas's usual Mon. post. He needed to attend to family. See Thania's first installment about her visit to South America here.)

Santiago de Chile is very cold. It has rained a few times and the city has been dealing not only with the regular winter season flu, but also the infamous “swine flu” or whatever name they have given to it now. Officials have advised people to be careful, to take care of themselves and avoid crowded places.

Not a lot people have followed this advice; everyone is out and about, downtown stores are crowded and bars and restaurants haven’t lost that much business. I’ve been taking care of myself. I avoid crowded places, but I still walk the streets of Santiago every day.

It’s funny. Santiago hasn’t changed a bit. I honestly thought I wasn’t going to be able to recognize places and people, but it hasn’t been that way; my friends say that I haven’t change a bit, either. I guess the three years since my last visit is not as long ago as I thought.

I arrived on a rainy morning at “my family’s” house. They received me with warm sopaipillas, a traditional Chilean snack or appetizer that is fried and made out of flour, lard, pumpkin and salt. It's traditional for Chileans to eat them during the winter season, especially when it rains, because they are warm and delicious. It compares to having a cup of hot cocoa and cookies for us back in the states.

Almost every day late in the afternoon we gather in the kitchen, waiting for the pastry to be taken out of the oil. Street vendors also sell them outside metro stops or at street corners, but as in most cases, homemade ones are exceptionally good. As I caught up with my family that morning, I had a few sopaipillas and a cup of warm tea.

The first time I went to Chile I lived with the Arteaga family for six months and after all the good times we spent together I now consider them my family. Back then they used to rent out rooms of their house to students from places like England, Haiti, Germany, Perú, Brazil and Chile.

Living with the Arteaga family is one of my most cherished memories. They taught me all there is to know about Chilean culture. The Arteaga sons were one of my many idioms--bad words included--instructors. I still remember how I used to write down words I heard in school and read the whole list to them when I got home. After a few laughs, they’d explained them to me with detail and examples. I’m a quick learner when it comes to idioms. Some easy ones include “flaite” or “cuico,” and some of the hard ones, “agarrar pa'l leseo,” “barsa,” “fome.” Any guesses?

The Arteaga family is originally from southern Chile, from a town called Los Angeles (yes, as in California), and during the summer I went on vacation with them to meet the rest of the family. Mr. Arteaga’s family has a “fundo” there, a house in the country or a rancho, with a brick oven, next to a river. I went during the summer so during the day everyone would go swimming or sunbathing at the river.

At night we sang, played the guitar and some of the older ladies even gave “cueca” lessons, Chile’s national dance. During this trip I ate and drank traditional Chilean food: warm “humitas” (similar to Mexican tamales) that are usually eaten with chopped tomatoes and sugar on top; drinks such as a homemade white wine mixed with blended strawberries, and “chicha,” a fermented drink made of grapes or other fruits.

When I started this post I didn’t intend to write about food, but being here has brought back all those wonderful memories. As of now, I’m almost done eating a cheese empanada, and later I’m going to Paseo Ahumada, a lively and crowded pedestrian street downtown to buy some sweetened warm peanuts. Enrique Lihn, a Chilean poet, has a wonderful book of poetry named after this street:

Que los que se paren,
en Ahumada con la Alameda,
escuchen si corre un poco de aire,
el relincho del caballo de Bernardo O’Higgins.
(Paseo Ahumada, 1983)

I’ll stop at this point and maybe hear the horse’s neigh.

Thania Muñoz
de Santiago

p.d.: Dieting is forbidden in Chile, I swear.

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An Evening of Stories and Songs by Rubén Martínez,
Featuring Joe Garcia, with Ruben Gonzalez and John Schayer.

An evening of spoken word and music (with a band!)—material from my book-in-progress on the Desert West and Borderlands.

Thursday, July 30, 7:00 pm
CENTRAL LIBRARY • Mark Taper Auditorium
Fifth & Flower Streets, Downtown L.A.
PARKING: 524 S. Flower St. Garage

Visions in the Desert: Searching for Home in the West
Writer Ruben Martinez, accompanied by his longtime musical partner, explores some of the oldest American symbols and the newest motley cast of characters to confront them.

(Please note, reservations strongly recommended!)

Peace,
Rubén Martínez

Thania in Santiago, Chile - travelogue

Under the influence of books
- guest posting from our world traveler Thania Muñoz, of La Semana Negra fame.

The first time I set foot in Chile was three years ago. I made the decision to study abroad in my third year of college when I was starting my Spanish major. I was part of the California State University one-year student exchange program.

I still remember how interesting and exciting my first Spanish literature classes in college were. I wanted to be reading and re-reading all the time. Even though I have been close to literature most of my life, I felt as if I was behind, that I needed to read so much more, and I did. I read books that weren’t in the classes’ syllabi, searching for new, young authors and writing summaries of each book I read.

One of my professors noticed my interest and lent me Isabel Allende’s My invented country: a memoir. This book is a wonderful memoir about the author’s native country Chile. After reading this book I decided that I needed to go to Chile and see with my own eyes what she had described. My first trips to Latin America, imaginary of course, had started through books, but now I was ready to start my first REAL trip.

Excitedly, I approached the international office of my university. They had millions of places to choose from like China, Hawaii, England, México, but none in my native country, like Querétaro, Hidalgo, Guadalajara, excited me. I wanted to go to Chile; I wanted to go to that faraway country shaped like a skinny, bitten chile. I confess: it wasn’t only Allende’s book that made me want to go to the southern cone--as we call the southern part of the continent--it was also that it was very far away; I wanted to be there in South America where most of my favorite books had been written.

After visiting the international office a few times, I found out Chile’s student exchange program was a whole year long, not one semester or summer session, as I had originally planned for. I didn’t feel ready to be away for such a long time, in a strange city, in a foreign country. For a week I debated the idea of being away from my family, friends, professors and my warm life in sunny California. But I was twenty-two, almost done with college, working part-time at a retail store and hanging out at local coffee shops. I didn’t have much to lose. Even before telling my parents, I started filling out the paperwork at the international office.

I wish to keep to myself all the family drama that started because of this decision. Oh, ok, I’ll share the obvious: yes, my father was scared. He didn’t believe a “young” girl could be safe in a foreign country. My mother cursed books (sometimes she stills does). She couldn’t believe I had made a decision, based on a book by some “lady,” as she commonly referred to Isabel Allende.

Nonetheless, I wanted to go and nothing scared me: not long essays that I had to write to prove I was capable of studying away in prestigious, not the all-Spanish-speaking university (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile), not the selecting committee interview, nor embassy, financial aid workshops, angry parents and voltage converters. After being selected by the international office as one of the deserving participants of Chile’s student exchange program, I cried. My dream was, little by little, becoming a reality.

I still remember the chills I felt when I stepped out of the Santiago’s airport three years ago. When I arrived early June, coming from a Californian summer to a South American winter, it was a drastic change. The first weeks were full of long and cold walks around the city. I got lost every time I stepped out of the house, but I asked for directions, even though most of time they weren’t good directions. I enjoyed getting lost or sitting on a bench staring at a map, completely overwhelmed by the city's complexity, but happy I could walk anywhere, take a very clean, reliable underground metro or a yellow bus driven by a fast and impatient driver.

The classes I took at “la Católica,” as the university is commonly called, were completely different from my literature classes in California. I took all Chilean-related literature classes, history, politics and culture. I read everything I got my hands on and enjoyed every minute I spent at school. I won’t lie, I also enjoyed going out with friends to bars and having a “piscola” (a mixed drink: Chile’s aguardiente called pisco mixed with coke or sprite).

I met wonderful people. Classmates not only helped me in school, but took me out to traditional Chilean places in Santiago; talked to me about their country’s poetry for hours (as if their life depend it on it), taught me Chilean idioms, invited me to their home to have “once” (a light meal in the afternoon: tea or coffee and bread, “marraqueta”, with cheese or jelly) or to a party that lasted until seven in the morning.

Was Chile all Isabel Allende had led me to believe? Was I happy I had traveled to a far away place led by a book? Answer to the first question: No. To the second: Yes. Allende’s book was a memoir; it was written from the heart, it was her own Chile and her “invented” country. The one I got to know was a lot different, and I loved it. I enjoyed every step I took in that noisy South American city, every bite of its delicious cuisine, every poem I read in class, or outside, every conversation, every Chilean landmark I set foot on and more.

I was happy, and still am, that my real travels were initiated by descriptions in a book by some “lady”, as my mom will say. It was a wonderful year abroad; an exciting time away from California’s coffee shops and retail stores. That is why I did it again.

I’m in South America right now, collecting new memories. Now, will the second time around be as exciting as the first time? Probably not, but I know Santiago de Chile all too well, and I’m sure it still holds some secrets it can’t wait to tell me.

Saludos y abrazos desde bien lejos!
Thania Munoz

¡Viva la República!

Martín Espada's Republic of Poetry reminds me of Oscar de la Hoya's boxing. Beautiful to behold, it's unerring in its aim. Pared down to the essential--it's body blows to the chest, to the gut, head blows that annihilate the opponent and leave the viewer stunned, reeling, gasping for air.

Democracy subverted in Chile and by implication, everywhere, reverberates on every page. The Republic of Poetry is not an elegy, it's an upper cut to complacency, a left hook to amnesia. Wake up, remember what was, see what's happening right in front of you.

The comparison of Espada to Neruda, to Whitman are many, but to me, what comes to mind is poet warrior, able to fight and raise an army with the power of his words. But in case you're not convinced, here is some additional praise for this remarkable book.

“What a tender, marvelous collection. First, that broken, glorious journey into the redemptive heart of my Chile, and then, as if that had not been enough, the many gates of epiphanies and sorrows being opened again and again, over and over.” —Ariel Dorfman

“Martín Espada is a poet of annunciation and denunciation, a bridge between Whitman and Neruda, a conscientious objector in the war of silence.” —Ilan Stavans

“Martín Espada’s big-hearted poems reconfirm ‘The Republic of Poetry’ that (dares) to insist upon its dreams of justice and mercy even during the age of perpetual war.” —Sam Hamill

“Martín Espada is indeed a worthy prophet for a better world.” —Rigoberto González

This is tight, muscular writing. Espada make his point with an economy of language, concealing a dense terrain of imagery and meaning. In this universe, the dead are not ghosts, but fully fleshed--staving off the soldiers, marching in the battlefield, struggling in the streets, and inspiring new generations. Read these and you'll see what I mean.

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The Soldiers in the Garden

Isla Negra, Chile, September 1973

After the coup,
the soldiers appeared
in Neruda’s garden one night,
raising lanterns to interrogate the trees,
cursing at the rocks that tripped them.
From the bedroom window
they could have been
the conquistadores of drowned galleons,
back from the sea to finish
plundering the coast.

The poet was dying:
cancer flashed through his body
and left him rolling in the bed to kill the flames.
Still, when the lieutenant stormed upstairs,
Neruda faced him and said:
There is only one danger for you here: poetry.
The lieutenant brought his helmet to his chest,
apologized to señor Neruda
and squeezed himself back down the stairs.
The lanterns dissolved one by one from the trees.

For thirty years
we have been searching
for another incantation
to make the soldiers
vanish from the garden.

The soldier leaves, not because the poet is super human, but because he's supremely human. Poetry taps into a power that no bullet can halt nor cancer eat away. Armies of everyday people have been set loose with words like Neruda's. Then and now, the men in power with bloody hands know it's dangerous, know it's subversive. But in the end, it remains unstoppable.

Black Islands
for Darío

At Isla Negra,
between Neruda’s tomb
and the anchor in the garden,
a man with stonecutter’s hands
lifted up his boy of five
so the boy’s eyes could search mine.
The boy’s eyes were black olives.
Son, the father said, this is a poet,
like Pablo Neruda.
The boy’s eyes were black glass.
My son is called Darío,
for the poet of Nicaragua,
the father said.
The boy’s eyes were black stones.
The boy said nothing,
searching my face for poetry,
searching my eyes for his own eyes.
The boy’s eyes were black islands.

What possibility dwells in those black eyes? What page of history will be written for him to read, and what page will he write himself? Knowing that Espada is a father, I can only imagine how many times he's asked himself those questions in the still hours of the night, watching his own child sleep. Toward the end of The Republic of Poetry, Espada meditates on the "smaller" world of family and relationships, personal joy and private grief. Every fighter has his scars, and every poet, his pleasures.

Now, stop reading this, it won't get the job done. Go. Get the book. Read that instead. It's time to wake up.

Republic of Poetry
W. W. Norton

• ISBN-10: 0393062562
• ISBN-13: 978-0393062564

READINGS:

Admission is free but reservations are required.

March 15: Reading, 6 PM
Poetry Off the Shelf
sponsored by the Poetry Foundation
Newberry Library
60 W. Walton Street
Chicago, IL
Contact: Steve Young
(312) 787-7070

March 16: Reading, 8 PM
English Language and Literature Conference
St. Francis University
500 Wilcox Street
Moser Performing Arts Center Auditorium
Joliet, IL
Contact: Marcia Marzec
(800) 735-7500

March 17: Plenary, 9 AM

English Language and Literature Conference
St. Francis University
500 Wilcox Street
Moser Performing Arts Center Auditorium
Joliet, IL
Contact: Marcia Marzec
(800) 735-7500

written by: Lisa Alvarado

Words That Raise the Dead: Interview with Martin Espada

La Bloga is pleased to offer you our discussion with Martín Espada, whom Sandra Cisneros called "the Pablo Neruda of North American authors."

In his eighth collection of poems, Martín Espada celebrates the power of poetry itself. The Republic of Poetry is a place of odes and elegies, collective memory and hidden history, miraculous happenings and redemptive justice. Here poets return from the dead, visit in dreams, even rent a helicopter to drop poems on bookmarks. (from the publisher)

Espada was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1957. He has published thirteen books in all as a poet, essayist, editor and translator. His eighth collection of poems, The Republic of Poetry, was published by Norton in October, 2006. Of this new collection, Samuel Hazo writes: "Espada unites in these poems the fierce allegiances of Latin American poetry to freedom and glory with the democratic tradition of Whitman, and the result is a poetry of fire and passionate intelligence."

His last book, Alabanza: New and Selected Poems, 1982-2002 (Norton, 2003), received the Paterson Award for Sustained Literary Achievement and was named an American Library Association Notable Book of the Year. An earlier collection, Imagine the Angels of Bread (Norton, 1996), won an American Book Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Other books of poetry include A Mayan Astronomer in Hell’s Kitchen (Norton, 2000), City of Coughing and Dead Radiators (Norton, 1993), and Rebellion is the Circle of a Lover’s Hands (Curbstone, 1990).

He has received numerous awards and fellowships, including the Robert Creeley Award, the Antonia Pantoja Award, an Independent Publisher Book Award, a Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award, the Charity Randall Citation, the Paterson Poetry Prize, the PEN/Revson Fellowship and two NEA Fellowships. He recently received a 2006 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship.

His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, Harper’s, The Nation, and The Best American Poetry. He has also published a collection of essays, Zapata’s Disciple (South End, 1998); edited two anthologies, Poetry Like Bread: Poets of the Political Imagination from Curbstone Press (Curbstone, 1994) and El Coro: A Chorus of Latino and Latina Poetry (University of Massachusetts, 1997); and released an audiobook of poetry on CD, called Now the Dead will Dance the Mambo (Leapfrog, 2004).

Much of his poetry arises from his Puerto Rican heritage and his work experiences, ranging from bouncer to tenant lawyer. Espada is a professor in the Department of English at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, where he teaches creative writing and the work of Pablo Neruda.


In next week's column, I'll review The Republic of Poetry and let you in on exactly why the work of Martín Espada is an object lesson in writing.

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Mainstream American history is, more often than not, a kind of forced amnesia. Do you agree/disagree? What to you think the role of the poet is regarding this? Can you talk about the significance of the title, The Republic of Poetry, in this vein?

The American history taught and published in this country all too often resembles a consensus on what to forget. This is especially true when it comes to Latinos, Latin America, and their history. I believe that a poet can be a historian when the need is there.

There is a tradition of poet as historian in Latin America. Pablo Neruda’s Canto General is a history of Latin America in verse, magnificent and sweeping in scale. Ernesto Cardenal wrote epic poems about the history of Nicaragua, the Somoza dynasty and the rise of Sandino, the invasion of William Walker. This is not the official history. This is hidden history, history from below, a poet’s history. Likewise, in The Republic of Poetry I write about the coup in Chile, struggle for democracy in that country, and the dynamic presence of poetry in the transition of democracy. The Republic of Poetry is, on the most literal level, a reference to Chile, but the Republic of Poetry is everywhere people write and speak and sing their hidden or forgotten history.

What, in your opinion, is the importance of revisiting the Chilean overthrow, particularly, given current U.S. foreign policy?

Most people in the U.S. never knew what happened in Chile. Others knew and forgot. It’s been more than thirty years, since September 11th, 1973, “the first 9/11.” We never hear about Nixon, Kissinger, and the CIA as co-conspirators in the overthrow of a democratically elected president—Salvador Allende—in Chile. We never hear about their complicity in the murder of more than 3000 people, the torture and imprisonment of thousands more. Kissinger is still hailed as a hero by the fawning media in this country. Meanwhile, no one mentions Victor Jara, the great singer and songwriter executed by the Chilean military in the days following the coup.

There are, of course, parallels with current U.S. foreign policy. As U.S. citizens, too many of us are detached and distant from the suffering our government causes half a world away, and we pay for it with our tax dollars. There are other parallels as well. The current debate over the practice of torture and arbitrary imprisonment in the name of security, illusory as it is, has eerie echoes of the Chilean coup and the Pinochet dictatorship. Today we stand by and allow our civil liberties to be eroded and delude ourselves with a mantra: It can’t happen here. Keep in mind that Chile had a long tradition of democracy before the coup. It couldn’t happen there, either. We have much to learn from Chile in its transition from dictatorship to democracy, their arc of creation, destruction and redemption.

You held many different jobs along the way. How do you think that's influenced how you look at the world, as well as the role of the poet/writer. In the same vein, do you think there is a working class aesthetic? If so, how would you define it and describe its importance?

It’s true I’ve held many jobs along the way. I was a bouncer in a bar; I was a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman; I was a janitor at Sears; I was a gas-station attendant; I was a pizza cook and dishwasher. I even worked in a primate lab, taking care of baby monkeys. I’m the only poet you’ll ever meet who has been bitten by a monkey. These work experiences have had a profound impact on my poetry, both in terms of subject matter and perspective. For many years, I was a poet-spy. I was invisible, like many working class people. People would say or do absolutely anything right in front of me, since I wasn’t really there. And I would write it all down.

I would say that there is definitely a working-class aesthetic. (To see what I mean, check out the anthology called American Working Class Literature, edited by Coles and Zandy for Oxford University Press.) As the term implies, working-class poets write about work and they write about class, as physical, emotional and intellectual landscapes. There is protest, but there is also pride in the job well-done; there is humiliation, but there is also dignity; there is anger, but there is also humor, all from the perspective of those who create and produce, but who do not control the system of creation and production. They speak from experience, and speak for the experiences of others who have been silenced or who silence themselves. Working-class poets make the invisible visible. A century ago there were Wobbly bards, poets and songwriters like Joe Hill and Ralph Chaplin; in the 1970s we saw the emergence of Chicano bards writing from the farmworker experience, such as Gary Soto and Tino Villanueva; now the bards will come from the immigrants and their children who increasingly make up new working class in this country today.

A poet labors over a message until it feels just right, then sends the words out to be read, understood, misunderstood, distorted, cavorted with. Who's responsible for how a poem means, the reader or the writer? A related question: To whom does a poem belong, the reader or the writer?

I would say that the writer is primarily responsible for “how a poem means.” As a poet, I have a responsibility to communicate. As I’ve said elsewhere, how could I know what I know and not tell what I know? Personally, I strive for clarity and concreteness, though I don’t feel the need to sacrifice complexity in the process. I rely on the image, the five senses on paper, to drive the narrative. I believe, as Julio Marzan has said, that the poem must be portable. It must be able to travel without the poet. I can’t be there to read the poem aloud to everyone, to explain it, to answer questions about it. The poem must be able to stand on its own, independently, and that’s my job.

Having said that, I would also say that once the poem leaves me and takes flight, it belongs to the reader. I want my poems to be useful. I’m gratified when my poems go where I can’t go, to weddings or funerals, to prison, to other countries in other languages. (I’ve been translated into Turkish!) Sometimes readers let me know, in dramatic ways, that the poems belong to them. I met a young journalist at a reading in New York who had a quote from “Imagine the Angels of Bread” tattooed on his leg.

It's obvious that Neruda's work is bedrock for you. Who are other writers that have significantly influenced you?

Neruda is part of a great tradition going back to Whitman. I’m part of that tradition too. Whitman has significantly influenced me, as have others in Whitman’s lineage: Hughes, Sandburg, Masters, Ginsberg, Cardenal. I should also cite the Puerto Rican poet Clemente Soto Velez. He spent six years in prison for his role in the Puerto Rican independence movement, and later mentored generations of writers and artists in the community, myself included. My wife and I named our son after him.

How has being a father and husband influenced your life as a poet and vice versa?

Being a father and husband have certainly influenced my life as a poet, as any important and intimate relationships would. Being a husband and father gives me a far greater stake in a more just world, and this is reflected in my work.

I’ve written many poems about them. There is a poem about my son’s birth, and another about my wife’s stroke. For them this is a mixed blessing, as anyone who has been the subject of such a poem can attest. My life as a poet, doing readings and workshops on the road, also takes me away from my family. The unfortunate truth is that people pay me to go away.

What's something you'd like your readership to know about you that isn't in the official bio?

I am the inventor of the all-pork diet.


(photo credit: Paul Shoul)

READINGS:

Admission is free but reservations are required.

March 15: Reading, 6 PM
Poetry Off the Shelf
sponsored by the Poetry Foundation
Newberry Library
60 W. Walton Street
Chicago, IL
Contact: Steve Young
(312) 787-7070

March 16: Reading, 8 PM
English Language and Literature Conference
St. Francis University
500 Wilcox Street
Moser Performing Arts Center Auditorium
Joliet, IL
Contact: Marcia Marzec
(800) 735-7500

March 17: Plenary, 9 AM

English Language and Literature Conference
St. Francis University
500 Wilcox Street
Moser Performing Arts Center Auditorium
Joliet, IL
Contact: Marcia Marzec
(800) 735-7500

interview: Lisa Alvarado