Guest Review: Carmen and Grace by Melissa Coss Aquino

Beam me over to Octavia's Bookshelf, Scottie. 
Scottie? Scottie?

It was just one of those times when I could not be in two places at once, and I could not, camera in hand, be at Melissa Coss Aquino's reading in Pasadena on Sunday, October 8. 

To my good fortune, Gerda Govine Ituarte and Thelma T. Reyna attended. They recounted for me a wondrous reading by an author generous with her time and back story to the novel, Carmen and Grace. The two poets expressed enthusiasm, not only for the novel, but how Octavia's Bookshelf (link) brings literary events to Pasadena's fast-growing East Washington Blvd neighborhood.

If you're coming, to Pasadena, be sure to head toward Altadena on Hill Street and find a warm, indie bookseller's welcome. "We are an independent bookstore in Pasadena. Readers of all ages and backgrounds will have a wonderful time exploring our store of books written by BIPOC writers."

Govine and Reyna's enthusiasm for the event finds a clear echo in today's Guest Review by Angelique Imani Rodriguez. See Angelique's bio following her review.

Book Review: Carmen and Grace
By Angelique Imani Rodriguez

I had to put this book down as I read it. A few times. 

I am talking about Dr. Melissa Coss Aquino’s debut novel, “Carmen and Grace,” released in April 2023. Melissa Coss Aquino, a Puerto Rican writer hailing from the Bronx and an Associate Professor at Bronx Community College, CUNY, has written a book that speaks to the very core of me. 

Carmen and Grace follows the intertwined lives of Carmen and Grace, cousins whose bond is forged through shared adversity and later cemented by the influence of Doña Durka, an enigmatic benefactor with a dual life as the leader of an underground drug empire.

The plot, centered around the sudden death of Doña Durka, is thick with tension and suspense. As Grace aims to step into the shoes of her mentor, Carmen contemplates leaving the only life she has ever known and one of the last true links to her blood family. 

Alternating between the perspectives of Carmen and Grace adds a layer of complexity that often floored me with how voice and intention can be so vivid in the way each character tells their story. The author’s navigation of time and perspective added to the overall depth of the novel, peels back of the layers of Carmen and Grace’s lives and worlds, and the evolution of their relationship. 

What strikes me most, though, about this book is the author’s ability to create characters who feel incredibly real and genuine to me. As a reader who grew up in the same neighborhoods of those in the book, I feel a clear connection to the energy of these characters, their speech, their spirit, the way they function in the world. 

I knew girls like these girls, I walked the same streets, and I talked with the same cadence. I loved these women, celebrated in their spiritual moments with them, was frustrated with them and sad for them. These were my primas, play cousins, sisters, even. To write characters who feel like home is a feat not many can accomplish. Dr. Melissa Coss Aquino makes it look effortless. 

In the novel, Carmen and Grace are more than just protagonists; they are vessels for exploring the complexities of friendship, community, and the families we create for ourselves, all told in voices that I am wholly familiar with and completely akin to. The author’s Puerto Rican heritage is also evident in these nuances. As a Puerto Rican woman who came of age in the times referenced in the book, how could I not see myself in the hearts of these young women, their emotionality and vibrant relationships? How could I not connect with the ways that Bronx Puerto Rican culture was described and honored and made its very own character as it is in my own life and experience? 

Dr. Melissa Coss Aquino's Carmen and Grace is a triumph, a debut novel, a feminist text, and a narrative that explores the consequences of choices made, the impact on relationships, and the fragility of the world they inhabit.  Carmen and Grace is a Nuyorican classic. I eagerly anticipate Dr. Coss Aquino’s future works and recommend Carmen and Grace to anyone seeking a story that explores what it means to choose your family, what it means to grow into your own power, and what it means to break free from the destinies you were told you were bound to.

Now, about those moments when I had to put the book down. 

It wasn't due to any lack of enjoyment; quite the opposite. Carmen and Grace compelled me to pause, to savor the emotional depth, and to reflect on the profound themes the novel explores. Carmen and Grace has earned a spot on my coveted list of books I'll never lend out, a testament to its lasting impact on me as a reader.

Meet Angelique Imani Rodriguez: 

Angelique Imani Rodriguez is a Bronx born and bred Boricua writer, bibliophile, and editor. A graduate of the CUNY BA program with a BA in Multi-Ethnic Literature and Multi-Ethnic Women & Gender Studies, Angelique is a three-time alum of the VONA (Voices of Our Nations Arts) Foundation’s workshops, a two-time alum of the Writing Our Lives workshops and the creator of the Boricongo Book Gang, a growing and on-going book list of works written by writers of color. Angelique's non-fiction work has been published in the James Franco Review and in Choice Words: Writers on Abortion, edited by Annie Finch. Angelique was also the first fiction editor of the Raising Mothers online literary journal. Her flash fiction appears in the inaugural issue of Malposition Magazine. She is currently editing Fried Eggs & Rice: An Anthology by Writers of Color on Food and is completing her first manuscript, Where We’re From, a collection of flash fiction detailing stories about residents of Ventana Court, a West Bronx tenement building. You can find more on www.penhittingpaper.com 

Elizabeth Marino - Poetry and the Poet Survives

 Elizabeth Marino

Poets may be distilled into any number of classes. Writers fall into broad groups of performance-first versus text-first. They may describe themselves as "town" -- poets of the people who embrace populist causes. Or they may define themselves as "gown" -- writers who challenge the theoretical status quo and collect diplomas at every turn. There are writers who never publish and only perform, and writers who only publish and never perform.

But in the simplest terms there are only two basic classes of writer that transcend all these other categorizations: those who write because that's "just what they do", and those who capture the language they seek through strategy. Elizabeth Marino resides easily in the latter and more savvy category. 

As an Oxford alumna, Marino has the academic credentials to command respect anywhere she goes. But it's not unusual to find Marino on Chicago's performance poetry circuit on any given night, where she's recognized and appreciated by audiences from Wicker Park to downtown. She's published in a good number of poetry journals, but she's also a theatrical director and actor. 

She is attuned to her neighborhood and community; she's been a life-long resident of Chicago, and shows much pride in her Puerto Rican heritage. Yet these definitions do not limit her concerns for universal issues. Any discussion with Marino on women's issues, for example, will immediately reveal her solid and well-grounded grasp of the world. 

Elizabeth Marino sets an example. She removes the superficiality that poets sometimes use to distinguish each other. Instead her focus comes down to one essential point: Is the poetry considered or not? By "considered", I mean that all the aspects of any given word are given full consideration for their worth in sound, context, meaning, and any number of other ways that a word is significant in a poem. 

This is deliberate and often unglamorous work. It can profit from spontaneous flights of the imagination. Many writers say this "the muse" talking when they get those few words going in their heads that drive a poem forward. However, waiting for an unpredictable muse to spark some inspiration won't necessarily get the job done. If you're writing for a stage production or a journal, you have deadlines that can't be put off. For this real writing, you need real tactics, real strategies. 

Marino's poetry demonstrates her studied approaches both in sound and text. Listen, read, and consider for yourself all the ways her language signifies.

- KEH, April 2002   Read and listen to poems. copyright © 1999-2002, e-poets network partners

I have known Elizabeth Marino for decades and she is both Poet/Soldier for the people, and a writer of deep feeling, conveying emotion and conviction like an arrow to the heart. She understands the pride and the passion involved making art despite body blows, both figurative and literal. 

I had Elizabeth as a guest at my 60th birthday dinner in Chicago, and as we were joking and swapping stories, I looked over at her, and thought, Camarada, estamos todavía aquí.

Despite the vagaries of life and its struggles, she writes and write prolifically.  Her chapbook, Ceremonies, was released by dancing girl press in 2014. This collection was based on work begun at a residency at Los Dos Brujas Writers Workshops, on the Ghost Ranch, near Albuquerque NM, where she studied with Juan Felipe Herrera. She received a conference scholarship and a CAAP grant.

Her prior chapbook, Debris: Poems and Memoir, is still available through Puddin'head press. 

When asked about herself, she sent me this: She is glad to look back on 21 years in the university teaching profession, and is grateful for the folks in her life who lift her up, make her laugh, and keep things lively in Chicago.

• Debris 24
THROUGH MY BEST FRIEND'S WINDOW
Borrowed blankets and pillows.
The neglected notebook.
Another squad car passed.

Two houses.   Across town, my house: 
courtyard and kitchen gutted by fire;
bedroom untouched.
White sheets — so cool, so smooth.

I steal back.  Spreading apart
my sheets, making room
his shoulders
musk of smoke rose.

• Debris 28
TO THE VISITOR
He trots past my new place
hesitates, then approaches
sniffing the softly drifted snow
on my front stoop.  Yes, I am a bitch.
But the season’s all wrong
to be in heat.

He paces
remembering the faint white scars
traced with his tongue.
We were both scavengers then;
I had not quite learned to hunt,
he liked the low-life smells.

And now, behind my own door
I’m up to my ears in blood.
My first real prey
throbs in my mouth.

Come friend.
Circle my home three times.
Tilt back your shaggy head.
Let us howl in rounds


ASYLUM     
                                                                         
Another sleepless night,
and my remote
take me to Charlie and  his blue
plastic boat, shared at St. Vincent
Orphan Asylum in Chicago.
His hair was wondrously full
and he made my belly laugh
as we waited and drifted.

The dormitory cribs were
far different from the blue vinyl
mats on the concrete floor
of the women’s wing of the
shelter.  Each places of shelter
and transit, an end time
at any time.

And I see these pictures
of the children stacked up like
cord wood, relatively safe
in their Texas detention camps,
compared to the Pakistani children
stacked up like cord wood
in ox carts, after a drone attack.

 It is difficult to shut off
these images on the screen
of the mind’s eye.  The browser sticks,
and keeps refreshing itself.

 In the morning
I must go out the door
and decide to be alive.

LaBloga, Best of 2014
The Muse of Peace Anthology (Gambia 2014)



FURROW
              MAY 23, 2016
Many fields lie fallow, waiting. 
The hand lingers over 
the pulse from the rounded belly. 
Even when the potential is gone 
the mystery remains. 

Imaging seeks and finds 
one intact ovary. The other 
hides behind fists of gristle and blood. 
No perfect child will unfurl tiny fingers here. 
This mystery is beyond the scope
of court ruling or clerical bias. 

It goes to the heart of who we are, beyond
good outcomes and sentimental simplifications. 
The hand lingers over 
the pulse from the rounded belly. 
Belly and hand are mine. Many fields 
lie fallow, waiting. 
I am legion. 

LaBloga 2017



Body Language                                                                              1

After Buñuel & Dali’s Un Chien Andalou
In his dreams 
               she would and safety beside him,
would ignore the dash of 
               passing strangers in darkened storefronts.
In his dreams they would 
     go back to her place, turn a single lock 
          enter the plush darkness of her 
               apartment, and he’d easily 
                    draw her to him
without her turning quickly 
     to light a small lamp, to glance 
          over and through the clear vinyl shower curtain 
     and draw the deadbolt, pull the latch and 
          slip closed the chain, giving a slight push 
                    for good measure.
In his dreams on this warm night 
          they’d wander out onto her back porch 
                    her face washed in silver by the full moon.
And when he’d stroke her right cheek 
          she wouldn’t flinch, and when he nuzzled 
                    the nape of her neck, all that he’d feel 
          would be the soft syllable 
                    “OH” 
          without the slight stiffening and soft 
                    “Shit” and sigh.
In his dreams 
          he could o)er her
night’s endless possibilities 
          and she would stroke him
till her heart was more than full.

From Debris chapbook



AS REV. PINKNEY DREAMS                                                             

Sleep falls hard under woolen blankets.

The day not cradled by a temporary small steel cot.

So much to set down, people to write.

The Creator finally is turned to in weariness.

Your breath? Oh yes, you feel it now.


There is that still black before the dream.

Colors so vivid, Lake Erie at dawn.

Brightly reflective. Crystal clear.


As your right hand falls from the side of your bunk

your fingers dip into the rising water.

Published in the People’s Tribune 12/2016, online edition

To start our interview, here's Elizabeth on Elizabeth:

I am a Chicago-based poet, educator and activist. I am a member of the local
Revolutionary Poets Brigade, and have work in the new anthology, Smash Capitalism Vol. II, as well as Rise: Anthology of Power and Unity. LaBloga has published a number of my poems, and selected "Asylum" for its Best of 2014 issue, in cooperation with Poets Responding. My work hasl appeared internationally and locally in print anthologies, journals and online. My two chapbooks Debris:Poems & Memoir (Chicago:Puddin’head Press) and Ceremonies (Chicago:dancing girl press) are still in print.

I earned an MA in English from the Writers Program at University of Illinois at Chicago, a BA in English and Humanities from Barat College, with undergraduate coursework at the University of Oxford.


Trends in poetry have come and gone and I wonder what makes a good poem for you? Who are people you like to read and why?

As an MA student at University of Illinois at Chicago, our workshops taught form poetry and open forms, and our literature courses surveyed the canon and a few contemporary writers. My own poetry did not speak through form, but observed and elevated common speech. Teaching Robert Frost opened my eyes to an extension of this. Frost had the power to move disaffected university sophomores. A friend in Hanoi, Dang Than, does wonderful work with game theory in his fiction and prose. Perhaps it is time to dust off my form notes and poetry dictionary. I also keep returning to Denise Levertov and her essay  on the line, as well as writing amidst political chaos. Poets who pay attention to language and meaning that comes across with earned sentiment I come back to re-read. I respect poets with a musical ear. I like to reread a poem and be surprised. 

Poets with a strong clear voice, with passion -- Audre Lorde, Joy Harjo, Juan Felipe Hernandez, the late Francisco X. Alcaron, Lola Ridge. This started with reading Nikki Giovanni's My House in high school.  I am on a lifelong project to educate myself on Latinx writers. For some reason, I am now reading Sylvia Plath, and Martin Espada -- they feed me.

What is it in poetry that sustains you spiritually?

I remember studying about Holy Spirit as a breath that flows through our very human bodies. I loved that image and the physical suggestion. The language and rhythms and images that you can keep in your head and turn to whenever, because poetry is one of the few arts you carry within you.

What do you have to say about the buzz that poetry is irrelevant?

Compared with? If it is relevant to you, read and write it. Language and meaning and craft will never be irrelevant. Like an almost dead language spoken by few -- use it! Poetry can be delivered by new technology, but few substitute the glib and hackneyed or unworked as legitimate poetry. That is easy entertainment or a first draft.

What are the issues that have affected you personally and what implications do you feel its had on your work?

I wrote a lot about domestic work, because - one - I was doing it in order to live and two - all that domestic work especially that kind seems invisible, even now. What about you and the life situations that you've experienced?

Recently, I was homeless for three and a half years.That experience was so profound, that it affected my human relationships more than any specific poem. I would like to explore more how this affects a circle of friends in the scope of a novel. I have also survived four serious assaults, two with guns. As a child, I had four households by the age of six -- violence and displacement are themes, along with holding onto mental health.

And given that, how would you describe your work as poet/activist. Talk about Revolutionary Poets Brigade and what you were doing?

I am a core member in the RPB - Chicago. It is an intellectual and creative home base. We are affiliated with the San Francisco original. My poems have appeared in their international anthology and in the People's Tribune, which has shared members. We study together and have actions to help make a more liveable planet. I curated a Grito de Mujer reading. I did social justice poetry before; RPB gives me a home base.

You've been a figure in the poetry scene in Chicago for many years. What are some perspectives you'd like to share on the slam/performance genre, poetry that is more text and print oriented. How to do see the "principals" in many institutions - Anglo/male/upper class effecting access to publication, control through the canon,  employment in the field?

First, I chose to work primarily as a print poet, with some performance work. I trained also as an actor, so I have some skills there. I don't really understand how rap works, so I don't work with it. I like to do less transient work. Even with social justice poem, it has to work for me as a poem, not only a rant.

Second,  I try to block out the ageism, classism, mysogyny, sexism, priviledging of sexual orientation and color bias. All of this gets in the way of my work and its publication.(as well as my life!) If I am to challenge any of this effectively, I have to hear myself think, without the clutter. I need to look for structures of oppression, not just slights. I have to keep myself healthy. Others might try to push me away and down the stairs, to clear way for my "betters." I don't have to jump.

I tried to make the most of opportunities offered. Did I lose out sometimes? You bet. I studied at one source of Anglo privilege, University of Oxford. It was a great introduction. If I had been a straight white upper middle class male, that year would have been a great entré to many teaching and writing positions. Instead, it just made this brown English major harder to dismiss.

Where would you like to see yourself and your work in ten years?

I once said in a more temperate climate -- but who knows these days. At least one full-length book of poems, maybe a non-fiction/ book on homelessness, and continue to work towards more control of my craft.

What's some thing not in the official bio?

My name at birth was Micaela Teresa Mastierra. When I got my first AFTRA union card, this was my stage name, to honor my ancestors.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS -- ELIZABETH MARINO

·         CHAPBOOKS

Ceremonies.  Chicago: dancing girl press, 2014.

Debris: Poems and Memoir. Arlington Hts.: Moon Journal Press, November 2005, rpt. 2011 by

            Puddin’head Press. Strong review on national blogs, “Voices in Wartime” (Andrew 

            Himes) and Femficatio (online journal, London).  Also favorably reviewed in    

            Willow Review and ChicagoPoetry.com.  

Selected Characters. Edited chapbook of poetry by Kathleen Kirk. Moon Journal Press, 2005. 

·         ANTHOLOGIES

The 2016 Hestler Street Anthology. Crisis Chronical Press: Cleveland, 2016. Ed. John Buroughs. Included "Moving Skylines."

RISE: An Anthology of Unity and Power. Vagabond Press. Venice CA, 2017."Litany for Peace."

The Significant Anthology (India) Ed. Ampat Koshy and Reena Presad.

The Muse for World Peace: An anthology of Contemporary Poets Propagating World Peace. Ed. Mutiu Olawuyi, comopiled by Gabriel Timileyin Olajuwon. (Gambia)

Overthrowing Capitalism vol. II .Revolutionary Poets Brigade: San Francisco, 2016

Chosen Few - Readings from Chicago's Gallery Cabaret. Ed. Janet Kayper, Austin, 2015.

Just the Way You Are - online jazz poetry project (Santa Fe). Ed. Lisa Alverado.  I focused on Nicole Mitchell.

Between the Heart and the Land/Entre el corázon y la tierra: Latina Poets in the Midwest.

     Chicago: MARCH/Abrazo Press, 2001.

Breaking Mirrors/Raw Images. Chicago. 4:30 Poets

·         ALTERNATIVE MEDIA

·         LaBloga reposted "Furrow" from Poets Responding to SB1070.(national). "Asylum" appeared in LaBloga’s Best of 2014 issue.

·         Poets Responding to SB 1070. Published three poems on site. Poem for Japan piece reprinted on   LaBloga, national Latinx arts blogsite.

·         “Book of Voices.” Critical essay and portfolio. Chicago: e-poets network (2002). Kurt Heinz maintains the site. <voices.e-poets.net>

Caravel webzine republished "Utility," a poem written for The People's Tribune, which also published "Rev. Pinkney's Dream."

LITTLE MAGAZINES

After Hours Magazine (Chicago); Moon Journal (Arlington Heights); Strong Coffee

(Chicago); Nit & Wit (Chicago); Lucky Star (Oak Park); Right Brain Review (NEIU); Illinois

English Bulletin (Sp. Issue – Springfield, IL), Envisage (Oxford, U.K.).

ESSAYS/COLUMNS/INTERVIEWS

Chicago Journal (stringer), Calumet Park Star columnist, S.H.E. (essays) 

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

Featuring

Alicia Lueras Maldonado

Richard Wolfson

Amelia Leyva Shepard

John Barney

Vanessa Brown

Damian Davies

Marcial Delgado

Courtney Butler

Mark Wright

Melissa Rios

Ana Romero-Sanchez

Azul Cortes

Lita Sandoval

Jennifer Simpson

Adelina M Cruz

Tlacaelel Fuentes

Jessica Helen Lopez

Glenn Buddha Benavidez

Rene Mullen

Valerie Rangel

Mercedes Holtry

Charles Montoya

María José Ramos Villagra

A benefit to support sanctuary in New Mexico - the New Mexico Faith Coalition for Immigrant Justice. Proceeds will go directly to create SANCTUARIES for families in need of a place to stay.

This means funds will be used for food, clothes, legal assistance/media, and other necessary resources.

 A fundraiser will be held on

Saturday August 26 7-9 pm @

Duel Brewing ABQ.

606 Central SW, Albuquerque, NM

HELP FAMILIES FACING THE THREAT OF DEPORTATION OR THE HARDSHIP OF DETENTION.

Email  - Lisa at alvarado2004@yahoo.com

Guest Columnist: Lisa Alvarado interviews Luz Maria Umpierre.

Lisa Alvarado - Interview with Luz Maria Umpierre

Luz Maria Umpierre has wrought a legacy, a challenge, a history, a love letter, a sinuous and sentient record of personal identity, revealing the crosshatched scars and singing victories of a warrior, the yielding body and the body politic in

"I'm still standing- 30 Years of Poetry -available through her website http://luzmaumpierre.com

"Luz Maria Umpierre is, quite simply, one of my heroes in a postmodern world that insists on rid­ding us of icons and pedestals in an attempt to level all people and institu­tions. Paradoxically, some institutions seem to merit such debasement when they never miss an opportunity to hound the historically marginal­ized and alternative voices out of the academy." Dr.Eric Pennington (Seton Hall)

She is an established scholar in the fields of Puerto Rican, Caribbean, Latina/o Studies, Poetry, and Gender Studies, with multiple publications in leading journals, including Hispania, Latin American Theatre Review, Revista do Estudios Hispánicos, Bilingual Review, Chasqui, Explicación do Textos Literarios, Chicana/Latina Studies and The Americas Review. Co-founder of the journal, Third Woman. Also published in internet journals, including La Acera, Diálogo Digital, Cruce and La Bloga.

Author of two books of literary criticism, ten collections of bilingual poetry, numerous book chapters and over 50 articles of literary criticism on Latin American scholars and writers from several generations, including a seminal article on writers and migration published in MELUS in 2002 and currently included in an anthology of essays in honor of Isabel Allende.

Her collected works and personal papers currently housed at De Paul University, Latina rare book collection housed at Bryn Mawr College.

She is recognized internationally as an authority on the interdisciplinary study of Literature, the Social Sciences, History and Language, especially regarding race, culture, gender identity and ethnicity. Complete list of publications available on request.

What do you believe is the purpose of poetry?
The purpose of poetry is to liberate the spirit, our soul, so that it has a concrete expression that is palpable. And as Julia Alvarez said in one of my favorite poems of all times, to be able to say "Whoever reads this poem, touches a woman." I am hoping that I am quoting her correctly because my copy of her book is at my rare book collection at Bryn Mawr. I can and will accept to be corrected in my quote but not in my idea. LOL

What do you consider to be "Latino/a" themes?
All themes are Latina themes. It is the vision or the approach we take as Latinas what gives them a sabor or authenticity that is ours. For example, many years ago I took Vanguardista poetry which was highly non-politicized and turned it into political poetry. From there, for example, emerged my Poemas Concretistas.

To say that there are Latina themes is to reduce us. Granted there are subject matters such as identity that we explore more than other groups of writers but I would not say that there are Latina themes and non Latina themes. All themes are human themes and that is overall the most important theme to me.

Describe the intersection of sexual identity and culture as it lives in your writing?
I learned from Audre Lorde years and years ago that I cannot be asked to divide my Self into separate pieces of identity and ignore some in favor of others. That to me would be mutilation. I refuse to mutilate my rich identity for the sake of pleasing the eye of a beholder or for an aesthetics of a political correctdness of beauty. Thus all aspects of my identity and culture live in harmony in my works.

What would you say to critics of your lesbian-identified work?
That they get a life and start living in the 21st. century. I never forced them to leave their heterosexist and nationalist macho agenda views through meanness, non inclusion or actual shuning. On the contrary, I questioned them publicly and made my dissenting opinions known to them. I did not go back stabbing them, making calls to bad mouth them into being denied jobs, I did not refuse to teach them in my classes. To the contrary, I included them because I wanted to have an open dialogue about difference. But "I'm Still Standing" as the only dancer on that inclusion floor because some of these people are so petty that they refuse to engage me in public and face to face or, as Lorraine Sutton marvelously said in one of her poems: "to cunt-front" me.

How has academia enhanced/impinged upon your creative process?
They have always wanted to deny me a claim to my poetry as an academic achievement. However, I have not allowed them to infringe on my freedom to write. I have used my academic struggles precisely to question antics and tactics in academia and make fun, mock and criticize their elitism and snobbery.

Who are some authors who move you and why?
 Adrienne Rich, her book The Dream of A Common Language has been my Bible since the 1980s. Nemir Matos Cintron has poems in her collections A través del aire y del fuego pero no del cristal and in Aliens in NYC that have made me cry time and time again because of her portrayal of genuine human identity angst. Lorde also moved me with some of her poems on women. Marge Piercy's book The Moon is Always Female has some of my favorite poems of all times because of her delving into what constitutes to be a strong woman. Julia de Burgos, of course she is part of our collective unconscious as Puerto Ricans. The theme of the river in her poetry and the sea attracts me.

What are some thoughts you would share with newer poetas/poetisas/Nuyorican poets?
To remember that many people paved a path for them and they should be honored, not bullied, harassed, shunned and most importantly, not disrespected.

I think Puerto Rican poets of the younger generation have no respect towards their elders, their sages, those who broke a path for them now to enjoy. They are not like other Latina groups. I am marveled by the respect of Mexican Americans towards their wiser older Latinas/Latinos something that is totally lacking among young poets be they Puerto Rican or Nuyorican.

I would like to let them know that one day they will inevitably be older and if they do not change their ways and attitudes, they too will be the subject of disrespect.

What sustains your creative and spiritual longevity?
The power to love, to find love, to see everything with fresh eyes, to be able to marvel at beauty and to be passionate about living. But also, as the poem says: "To be of use."

Spotlight on Luivette Resto by Melinda Palacio

Luivette Resto

I have yet to meet Luivette Resto in person. We spoke on the telephone and I instantly knew her unique and lively name matched her persona and poetry. She seems very humble, but anyone with endorsements from Martin Espada, Helena Viramontes, and Luis J. Rodriguez deserves much attention and recognition. However, in her new role, as hostess for La Palabra at Avenue 50 Studio in Highland Park, Resto puts the spotlight on other poets. “I’m not really good with compliments,” she said, “I love to read to become a better reader. I’m totally appreciative of compliments. It’s a new concept for me to get recognized.”

As a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts, Resto worked closely with Martin Espada. After reading his work, she knew she wanted to learn more from the award-winning poet and lawyer. “When I read his book, I fell in love with his poetry. I had an appreciation for his images and works. I love that he is funny with a serious and hardcore theme.” Like Espada, Resto is also a Puerto Rican poet. She was born in Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico, and was raised in the Bronx. She is the first in her family to get a college degree. She learned from El Maestro how to write sociopolitical poems and infuse her poetry with humor. In 2008, Tia Chucha Press published her first collection, Unfinished Portrait. The book was also a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize, an award Espada won in 2008 for his book Alabanza: New and Selected Poems 1982-2002. Of Unfinished Portrait, Martin Espada writes:

“The poetry of Luivette Resto is a revelation: brave, honest, angry, intimate, political, irreverent. The poems burn with a clarity born of experience, vivid and tactile as a Taíno tattoo on the shoulder. The poet insists on her unique humanity and her Puerto Rican identity in the same breath, the girl from the Bronx with a Cornell education, demolishing the ignorance of professors who condemn bilingualism or intellectuals who want to learn new Spanish commands for the housekeeper. Resto translates untranslated lives, which she recognizes as the stuff of poetry: the immigrant, the farmworker, the dancer, the unborn child. But these are more than barrio broadsides. Here we find sonnets and odes in praise of enchiladas and cuchifritos, the echoes of poetic ancestors from Pablo Neruda to Julia de Burgos. This is a memorable and timely debut. Welcome, Poet.”


Resto has completed a second book of poetry, Ascension. She’s also an instructor at Citrus College. However, for Resto, her most important job is not poet, but mother to her three children, ages 2, 4, and 6. Having a more than full schedule means she has trouble finding time to write, but she fits it in, publishes her work, and makes time for the occasional speaking engagement.

“My full-time job is being a mom. I’m not a poet, I’m Mommy. My kids keep me realistic.”

I had to ask Luivette about her name because it sounds fashionable and fun. Her grandmother, an executive school board secretary in Puerto Rico named her. Had she been born a boy, she would’ve been named Omar. Her grandmother combined her father’s name, Luis, with her mother’s middle name, Ivette, to come up with Luivette, a fitting name for a memorable poet.

I’ll have the chance to meet Luivette Resto at Avenue 50 Studio when I join the poets prison panel next Sunday. Poetry Behind the Fence: Poets Prison Panel, Sunday January 23 at 3pm, Avenue 50 Studio, 131 North Avenue 50, Highland Park, CA 90012, 323-258-1435. The poetry panel features Robert Juarez, Rolando Ortiz, Hugo Machuca, Melinda Palacio, and Luis J. Rodriguez.

Luivette shares her poem, "Ascension," first published in Poetry Superhighway and the title poem from her second poetry collection.

Ascension

by Luivette Resto

We lay on the hood of your ‘96 Tercel
watching the planes land underneath
an unusually clear L.A. sky,

imagining heading off to lands
where money is abundant
like sand and possibilities.

And when “Love Song” by The Cure played on the radio,
you dragged the tops of your fingernails
up and down my forearm,

as we shared the same early memories of
smoking bidis for the first time
in your step-mom’s basement,
watching 1970s porn like it was a documentary,
reciting each other’s fortunes from our Chinese takeout.

Logic dictated that you wouldn’t like me,
allow me to touch the scar on your right eyebrow
and ask for its story.
But you did.

You confessed to enjoying the silence of
libraries, funeral homes, churches.
Became an atheist when your parents divorced,

left you wondering if you would ever be a good father.

Feeling the coldness of metal on my back

I inched closer to your side of the car,
listened to the unevenness of your breath
between the sounds of jet engines.

Sandra Posadas, Vida Bella y La Voz Puertorriquena

Gente: I met Sandra many years ago, when we were both doing very different things....While our paths diverged, it looks like we both found our way to making art. Here's at look at a local women in the arts and an up and coming Latino theater group in Chicago.

Sandra Posadas is a second generation Puerto Rican woman born and bred in Humboldt Park, Chicago, Illinois. She is a teacher, published artist/illustrator, actress; cast member of the Vida Bella Ensemble, artisan; creator of Coqueta Creations by PiXie- a jewelry line for women. Sandra has been a Bilingual educator within the Chicago Public Schools for 12 years and was recently nominated for the Illinois Golden Apple Award. She's also an educator of teachers, and has presented her progressive early childhood approach to curriculum development and implementation at a variety of teacher conferences throughout Chicago. Sandra successfully co-wrote her first production, "Brown Girls Singing" which was successfully staged at University of Chicago and Jane Addams' Hull House.

Sandra performs her poetry at various Chicago venues and has presented her art work at various local venues including the University of Illinois @ Chicago Symposium for Women of Color in 2008. She holds a B.A. from Roosevelt University and is currently a working on her M.A. in Bilingual/ Bicultural Education at DePaul University. Sandra believes strongly in that art can educate. Through her poetry, canvasses, and performances. She believes in using art as knowledge and transformation so that all participants and spectators examine themselves in relation to their place in society. Through different modalities that she uses, whether visual, interactive, or the performing arts, the audience can explore, reflect, analyze and transform the reality in which they are living.

The Brown Girls’ Chronicles: Puerto Rican Women and Resilience
Written & directed by Yolanda Nieves, executive producer Mike Oquendo

Vida Bella Ensemble is thrilled to announce its upcoming performance of The Brown Girls' Chronicles: Puerto Rican Women and Resilience was SOLD OUT. Written and directed by author/playwright Yolanda Nieves, “The Brown Girls' Chronicles” are the stories of second generation Chicago Puerto Rican women who in their daily lives embody the struggle for independence of mind, soul, heart and body. The three-night run of “The Brown Girls’ Chronicles” will took place at the Chicago Center for the Performing Arts. The production will be mounted again, in Fall 2009. Check the group's myspace page for more info.

Following audience acclaim and a previous sold-out run in March, the May performances mark the second sold-out run of The Brown Girls’ Chronicles: Puerto Rican Women and Resilience. “I stand in awe of the support…” shares director Yolanda Nieves, “This play is a testament to the intelligence, beauty and resilience of who Latinas are.” The May performances took place May 28-30, 2009 at 8:00 p.m. in the 140-seat West Town Studio Theater at the Chicago Center for the Performing Arts, 777 N. Green Street in Chicago.

# # #

About Vida Bella Ensemble: Vida Bella Ensemble is an all Latin, all-female Chicago-based collective of inter-generational artists committed to communicating the stories of the trials and triumphs of the urban woman. In collaborative partnership the stories of such experiences are told through the performance of poetry, dialogue, monologue, song and movement. For more information about Vida Bella Ensemble visit www.myspace.com/browngirlschronicles or email browngirlschronicles@gmail.com.

About Director Yolanda Nieves: Award winning Chicago poet, author and playwright Yolanda Nieves uses the power of verse and the written word to teach and inspire. An accomplished writer, her work has been extensively published by college/university and independent presses and journals around the country. Her newest book, “Dove Over Clouds” (Plainview Press, 2007) has again garnered her acclaim for the themes revolving around the issues of race, gender, class and colonialism as it relates to the Puerto Rican/Afro-Puerto Rican Diaspora. Her work captures the spirit of hope, shaped by her Puerto Rican heritage, growing up in Chicago’s Humboldt Park and by the direct impact of women impressed upon her. Performing her poetry and plays in Chicago and all over the world, her performances have received great acclaim in England, Puerto Rico and Mexico.

She’s the founder and artistic creator of Vida Bella Ensemble performance troupe. Her collection of artistic work gives audiences the clarity of the experiences of women, mothers and immigrants. Full of passion and candor, she inspires audiences to expand their understanding of their own lives and the inspiration for them to tell their own stories. Yolanda resides in Chicago’s Humboldt Park and teaches at Wilbur Wright Community College.

About Executive Producer Mike Oquendo: Mike Oquendo combines his love of live arts and his production experience to produce over 70 shows a year in both the Chicagoland area and throughout the country. Creator of the "Mikey O Comedy Show,” Mike is a prominent force in independent productions. His shows and events have been featured on local TV, radio and print media including coverage by Telemundo, WGN-TV, People en Español, TimeOut Chicago, Chicago Reader and Metromix.

Two notable accomplishments include sitting on the Board of Governors for the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences which produced the first Latin Grammy's in 2001, and being a concept contributor on three HBO Latino specials in 2006. Mike was a production consultant for the Adler Planetarium’s "Luna Cabana Series" and the International Latino Film Festival, positions he held for 6 years respectively. Mike is particularly proud of continually raising funds for non-profit organizations that provide services and programs to Latino and non-Latino communities.


Lisa Alvarado

Guest columnist: Lydia Gil

Puerto Rican writer Marta Aponte Alsina visited Colorado State University in Fort Collins September 23, to talk about Puerto Rican literature, the writing process, and her latest novel, Sexto Sueño (published last November in Madrid by Veintisieteletras).

Sexto sueño features a trippy juxtaposition of historical figures with little-known connections to the island: first is Sammy Davis, Jr., whose mother was Puerto Rican and who used to say: "My mother was born in San Juan. So I'm Puerto Rican, Jewish, colored and married to a white woman. When I move into a neighborhood, people start running four ways at the same time." Then comes Nathan Leopold, of Leopold & Loeb fame, the wealthy, University of Chicago child-prodigy, who in 1924 murdered 14-year old Bobby Franks, just to prove he and his friend/lover could in fact commit "the perfect murder". It turns out that after receiving 2 life sentences and spending 3 decades in prison, Leopold was exiled to a territory of the US, located far away from the continental US... You guessed it! In Puerto Rico he studied birds, taught mathematics at the UPR, and worked as an x-ray technician in a hospital. He willed his body to the UPR for medical research, which sets the novel in motion.

The story is told by Dr. Violeta Cruz, an anatomist in her 70s, who dissects bodies at work and composes boleros in her spare time. The character is based on a real person, a Puerto Rican woman said to be equally at ease in front of a corpse or a guitar, and who is an espiritista to boot! And if this crew were not enough to guarantee the reader's attention, there's also the character of the Egyptian mummy (one of three mysteriously residing on the UPR campus) whom the writer names Irenaki.

Aponte Alsina, who started her talk by unearthing connections between the sugar cane industry in Ft. Collins and the island, said her novel emerged precisely from connections made possible by colonialism. She says such connections allow her to "claim Harlem" as her own and, along the way, "return the gaze to the other who's so accustomed to observing us." A fine concept!

When asked about the process of writing, she candidly confessed to having written a first draft, "a horrific copy of the worst of García Márquez, full of magical realism," which she abandoned shortly after meeting the real Dr. Violeta Cruz and recognizing her as the perfect narrator for her story.

Aponte Alsina published her first book at age 49, "because I did not want to publish it at 50," and reports having taken over six years to work on this novel. "For the next one, I'll work a little faster," she said. "I don't have much time left." Nonsense, I say. This woman is all energy, imagination, wisdom and courage; just the right ingredients to break out of the mold of recent Puerto Rican literature.

Lydia Gil (Puerto Rico) teaches Spanish and Latin American literature at the University of Denver. She reports on cultural and literary news for the Hispanic News Services of EFE, and is the author of Mimí's Parranda/La parranda de Mimí, a bilingual children's book
(Arte Público 2007).