Poetry Connection: The Santa Barbara Writers Conference from Attendee to Poet Laureate of Santa Barbara

   Melinda Palacio, Santa Barbara Poet Laureate 2023-2025

 

Melinda Palacio photo by Nell Campbell

If you’re familiar with my story, you know that I credit much of my poetry success to the Santa Barbara Writers Conference. I have been attending the conference for over 25 years, half of the conference’s lifetime. One of the first things I did when I moved to Santa Barbara was attend the writers conference. It holds a special place in my heart. I didn’t know that after winning a prize in poetry all those years ago, I would become the 10^th Poet Laureate of Santa Barbara. I have Perie Longo to thank for my poetry success in Santa Barbara.

Perie Longo began teaching poetry at conference in 1984. Her morning poetry workshop was so popular that, by the third day, they had to move her from one of the small hotel rooms at the old Miramar to the basement, where they could accommodate more than 30 people. Perie is Santa Barbara’s second Poet Laureate and she is entwined with our city and writers conference. It’s wonderful to see that some things do not change, such as Perie’s poetry workshops during a week of transformation for folks who are in love with words. Perie teaches five poetry workshops at next week’s conference, Monday and Tuesday morning from 9-11:30 am and Wednesday through Friday afternoon from 1-3:30pm. I can’t emphasize enough how useful Perie’s poetry workshops are for both poets and prose writers. I started off attending the conference as a prose writer and fell in love with poetry at Perie’s workshop. Poetry is the secret to all good writing. If you take the poetry workshops, you might become a Poet Laureate. There will be eight Santa Barbara Poets Laureate in attendance and we will start the conference with a poetry panel, Sunday at 4pm and daily evening readings. There’s also the opportunity to take workshops from some of the other laureates and to meet them at the conference.

One of the newer events is the open mic component of the conference. Perie says that the open mic has been one of her favorite additions to the Santa Barbara Writers Conference because it draws people and encourages them to read their own poetry just for the joy without any critique or commentary, as is expected in a workshop. The fun thing about the two lunchtime open mics on Wednesday and Thursday of the weeklong conference is that anyone attending can read a poem. If you’re not devoting a day or a week to the poetry workshops but want to share a poem, the open mic is your chance to share your poetry with a joyous and supportive audience. “All writers are poets at heart,” said Longo. “It’s fun to hear writers reading their poetry for the joy of it and getting together for the love of sharing words.”

The Santa Barbara Writers Conference. Come for the poetry, fiction, screenwriting, memoir or any genre and stay for the lifelong friends you will make. You will also be able to find me at registration on the first day, June 21 and co-leading a marketing seminar with Lida Sideris Monday afternoon and on two panels.

Summertime Blues at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference

 Melinda Palacio

 

After more than two years of rebuilding life after the pandemic lockdown, it seems as if covid is not done with us. The virus still lingers and thanks to vaccines and hygiene protocols, the corona virus presents itself as a mild cold at best in most cases. As Poet Laureate, I have had a year of public engagement and have been lucky not to have another bout of covid. Local events didn’t seem as risky for me. Although no event or venue is safe from Covid, I was nervous about going to Disneyland last month and being exposed to people from around the globe. 

 

I imagined the happiest place on earth to also be the most welcoming germ exchange. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see hand sanitizer dispensers throughout the park and handwashing encouraged. I didn’t notice anybody coughing. I had taken the precaution of adding zinc to my regiment of vitamins and supplements. I also didn’t want to jeopardize my upcoming schedule at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference (SBWC), which started the next day. At the SBWC, I had a full week from helping with registration and agents’ day, teaching a marketing workshop with Lida Sideris to appearing on two panels. 

 

The week was off to a wonderful start, greeting old friends, conference regulars and new attendees. The first panel of the conference was an all Poet Laureate Panel that Perie Longo moderated. In my duties as Poet Laureate, I often encounter people who do not realize that Santa Barbara has had ten poets laureate. We’ve lost our first Poet Laureate, Barry Spacks and our most recognized laureate, Sojourner Kincaid Rolle. 

 

I hope that the panel was as interesting for folks attending the conference as it was for me. I certainly learned much about our past poets. It’s wonderful to see how we each have brought something different to the honorary position. I learned something new about each of our laureates, but have to say I was super impressed with David Starkey who has retired as a poetry professor at Santa Barbara City College and continues to write poetry and academic books, plays in band, hosts a local television show, writes for the Independent; and he has written his first novel, Poor Ghost, a fictional account of a band that crashes their plane in the backyard of a character who lives in Goleta. The clever novel mines Starkey’s own poetry for song titles and motifs, leaving the reader with the feeling of having followed the band’s music for years. I can almost hear their songs. The novel represents Starkey’s pandemic lockdown project. It also helps that he is an accomplished musician. If you’re looking for a book to take to the beach or if you enjoyed Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid, try Poor Ghost by David Starkey.

 

Unfortunately, my SBWC activities were cut short due to Covid reaching my household. Although, I personally never got Covid and kept testing negative, I was exposed to the virus and out of an acute precaution stayed away from the remainder of the conference, Tuesday-Friday. I was sad to miss connecting with so many people, especially after receiving messages from friends who I only know from the conference who were looking for me at the cocktail party and the panels I was scheduled on.  I hope to see some familiar faces at the Goleta Valley Library August 4 at 2pm. I am looking forward to meeting our new youth Poet Laureate, Jasmine Guerrero Sevilla; join us at the Goleta Valley library next month. 

 

If you are in New Orleans this weekend, I will be at the Music & Poetry Summer Fest at the Domino, Sunday July 7, 12-5pm, 3044 St. Claude Ave, New Orleans. 

*An earlier version of this column appeared in the Santa Barbara Independent

Coming Full Circle in Twenty Years of Poetry

Melinda Palacio, Santa Barbara Poet Laureate

This column was first published in the Santa Barbara Independent.

Photo by Michael Sedano

  

The Santa Barbara Writers Conference began last Sunday. The conference has been an important part of my life for the past twenty years. I’ve participated as a volunteer, panelist and workshop leader at the conference. I wrote the poem that launched my writing career those two decades ago, “How Fire Is a Story, Waiting.” That poem that won first place at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference in 2003 became the title poem of my first full length poetry book in 2012, published by Tía Chucha Press. 

 

The poem is about a memory I have of my grandmother playing with the stovetop’s fire. As a child, I watched her cook and she would tell me stories about her life and our family. One day, she showed me how she could catch the fire in her hand without burning herself. I was mesmerized, and smart enough to realize I shouldn’t try her trick. I had already gotten into trouble for playing with matches and showing my young neighbor how to light a match on the side of the matchbox. To this day, my grandmother’s words, falling into the fire, continue to be a source of inspiration. 

 

I remember the day I workshopped the poem in Perie Longo’s class. After the workshop, she asked for a copy of the poem. I thought she was going to mark it up and give me suggestions for improving the poem. I had no idea she would nominate me to win the poetry contest at the weeklong conference. However, I do remember the confidence I received as an added bonus. The win encouraged me to try other genres, short stories and fiction. 

 

Two years later, at the conference, in 2005, I won honorable mention in fiction. But it wasn’t until 2011 that Arizona State University published my novel, Ocotillo Dreams, about the 1997 immigration sweeps in Arizona. Part of the publishing game is showing some sort of track record. In my queries for Ocotillo Dreams, I was able to say I had won first place in poetry at the SBWC and honorable mention in fiction. Every award and publication showed publishers I was serious about my writing career. 

 

I didn’t have the kind of overnight success that draws people to desire a literary career. My poems and book manuscripts have been rejected hundreds of times. It wasn’t until five years after the breakthrough poetry win that my first chapbook, Folsom Lockdown, won a publishing prize. The Fire poem didn’t make it into its own full-length book until nine years later when Tía Chucha Press published How Fire Is a Story, Waiting in 2012. 

 

Fast forward to two weeks ago at La Plaza de Cultura y Artes in Los Angeles, I participated in a poetry panel for Tia Chucha Press, the imprint started by former Los Angeles Poet Laureate and author of Always Running, Luis J. Rodriguez. I read from the one copy I have of How Fire Is a Story, Waiting. The book is officially out of print. The good news is Tía Chucha Press is reprinting the book. The title poem is also a song now. I never thought I would add songwriter to my writing resumé but over the pandemic, I became obsessed with learning the guitar and ukulele. Songwriting was a natural next step. I’ve enjoyed incorporating music in some of my poetry readings. In addition to writing new poems, finishing a second novel, my latest project is writing companion songs for some of my poems. I was surprised when I thumbed through my journal, looking for poem ideas and discovered I had a song. After writing the song, I wrote a companion poem for the song. 

Poetry and Songs at the Botanic Garden

 

This week, after a four-year hiatus, the Santa Barbara Writers Conference returns for its 50^th anniversary. I will join the faculty and volunteers and I will be a special guest in Perie Longo’s class and celebrate my 20^th anniversary as a returning poet and now Poet Laureate of Santa Barbara. 

 

 

 

How Fire Is A Story, Waiting

Melinda Palacio    

 

 

My grandmother caught the flame in her thick hands.

Curled fingers made nimble by kaleidoscope embers.

Fire burns hot and cold if you know where to touch it, she said.

 

I watched the red glow spit and wiggle as it

snaked down the thin timber, a striptease, 

born out of the festive sound of a half-filled matchbox.

 

Through orange windows framed by obsidian eyes, I saw the child she once was. 

A little girl who raised herself because her mother had a coughing disease.

Blood on her mother’s handkerchief didn’t stop her from dreaming.

Maria Victoria was going to be a singer with her deep, cinnamon stick voice. 

 

She watched novelas in the kitchen while waiting for dough to rise.

Her body, heavy with worry for two families and three lifetimes.  She tucked

Mariachi dreams under her girdle. Lullabies escaped on mornings 

warmed by her song falling into gas burners turned on high.

 

The flame on a stove was never the same.  It had a bad hangover,

didn’t remember the many matches lit when its starter broke down.

 

My grandmother rolled paper into a funnel, 

stole fire from the pilot to light the stubborn burner on the right.  

Crimson burned blue on the white paper, its folded edges 

curled black like a lace ruffle on a skirt.

 

The finicky flame can’t comment on its magic.

The thousands of tortillas and pancakes cooked over the years.

How I burned myself roasting a hot dog campfire style.

How a melted pencil smudged under my sister’s eyelid makes her beautiful.

 

My grandmother noticed the time, almost noon.

She needed to make three dozen tortillas to feed her family of thirteen.

The show over, she blew the match into a swirl of gray squiggles,

snuffed before it had a chance to burn hot on her finger.

 

Funny, how fire is a story, waiting.

 

 

Are You Afraid of Six Days of Writing at the Beach?

Melinda Palacio

The Santa Barbara Writers Conference

Santa Barbara

By popular demand, Lida Sideris and I are joining forces to address all your writing needs and fears at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference. Last year, we taught to an overflowing crowd. It's no surprise that writers have all kinds of fears from fear of failure to fear of success to fear that someone will actually read words that they have written. I'm very excited to bring back this popular workshop. Every year I look forward to the Santa Barbara Writers Conference. Being an expert in overcoming a variety of fears, including fear of heights and fear of singing in public, I am here to help writers overcome their fear. My teaching partner, Lida, is one of the most pleasant people you'll ever meet, a ray of sunshine you'll be happy to learn from her. Everyone has about a month to clear their calendar and take time to write your book and get it done. Join us for six days of writing in the New York Time's number 3 top destination of 2019: Santa Barbara. As founder Barnaby Conrad used to say, you will not leave the conference as the same person. Transform, write, and Enjoy. June 16-21, 2019.

Santa Barbara Writers Conference

Mike Takeuchi and Jim Alexander looking at all of the exciting workshops offered at the  SBWC

Is this Your Year to Join the Santa Barbara Writers Conference?

Melinda Palacio

Melinda Palacio and conference director Grace Rachow circa 2003

Today is the first day in June and that means it's time for the Santa Barbara Writers Conference. This year mark's the SBWC's 46th anniversary. I've been attending the conference in some form, either as participant or volunteer (this year as a workshop leader), for the past sixteen years. Where I once was a frightened newbie, intimidated by all the writers and instructors, I am now an old-timer who has learned all about the business of being a published author.

My first year, I sat in on Barnaby Conrad's class. Barnaby, along with Mary Conrad, founded the conference. He was an excellent teacher who talked about the most important ingredients of being a writer: writing and transformation. He made sure everyone remembered that writers write; it's as simple as that. He also told everyone that he guaranteed they would not leave the same after a week at the conference. The latter required a leap of faith, but it was true: a week at the conference changed me and gave me the confidence I needed to declare myself a writer and go on to become an award-winning, published author, poet, speaker and teacher.

SBWC founders Barnaby and Mary Conrad

When I arrived at the conference, I had an idea for a novel, but no clue as to how to go about writing an entire book. I wrote short lifestyle pieces for newspapers and magazines, not books. I can laugh now at how long it took me to figure out how to navigate a conference that offered so much in one week. There are classes on every genre every day, evening and day speakers, special workshops, and after-hours workshops, known as pirate workshops. One year a woman showed up in full pirate regalia, she was sure changed and perhaps a little embarrassed when she found out there would be no swashbuckling or speech beginning with ARG.

By my third year, I figured out how to absorb all of the offerings at the conference. I became a volunteer. I loved returning to the community each summer. I won first prize in poetry and an honorable mention in fiction and have been on the new book panel. I've published a novel, Ocotillo Dreams, about immigration in Arizona, a chapbook Folsom Lockdown, and two poetry collections: How Fire Is a Story, Waiting and Bird Forgiveness, my new poetry which will be available next week. This year, I will present my new book at the conference and participate in a mixed-genre panel, as well as co-teach a workshop with Lida Sideris, Writing Through the Fear, a subject I'm quite knowledgeable in since I started off as a fearful writer.

Thank you Santa Barbara Writers Conference for a rich career in writing, inspiring aspiring writers to persist with their dreams. There's still time to sign up for the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, make an appointment with an agent or editor, or choose a day to attend. Barnaby Conrad, Ray Bradbury, and some of the regulars who started the conference may no longer be with us, but their generous spirits continue to grace the conference. Take a week off, hone your craft and be forever changed for the best. This year's conference is June 17-22.

The cover of my new poetry book, Bird Forgiveness, has original artwork by Sylvia Santamaria.

Antonio López: a New Voice in Poetry and Winner at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference

Melinda Palacio

Antonio López, winner of the Poetry Prize at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference 2017

Last week, was the 45th gathering of the Santa Barbara Writers Conference. Once in a while a student comes along whose talent shines through. Back in the nineties, it was Michele Serros, who wore a simple name tag that said, 'Girl Writer.' This year, I am pleased to introduce Antonio López. Remember the name, he will be rocking your book shelves in the very near future. He won First Prize in Poetry at the conference. Honorable Mentions for the 2017 Poetry Prize include Steve Braff and Claire Hsu Accomando I mentioned to Antonio that the last time a Chicano or Latinx or Person of Color won First Prize in Poetry was myself in 2003. La Bloga is pleased to offer this thoughtful interview with rising literary star, Antonio López. As you'll read from the interview, the 23-year-old poet has a promising career in both literary arts and law. 

East Beach across the street from the Santa Barbara Writers Conference

Melinda Palacio

1. When did you start writing poetry? 

Antonio López

1. I started writing poetry in high school. I started when I wrote a short story for my girlfriend at the time (lasted like 3 months but it was one of the catalysts). It opened up the prospect of "Huh, I'm kinda good at this, and I enjoy getting caught up in my mind, making a story and so forth." In class, we were reading The Scarlet Letter, so a lot of my lines were overwrought, the images were over the top, and probably mixed with each other in confusing ways. But after submitting one story, my teacher, Ms. Gertmenian got back to me and said her work reminded her of Garcia Marquez. One Hundred Years of Solitude was the probably the first Latino author I remember reading.

But as I wrote more stories, I realized I loved, even obsessed, over certain lines and details. I'd be walking the street, using cumbias and rap and sonideros to help induce the image out the mind's womb. After writing my first personal statements for college, then outpoured the stories of all the things I saw grow up--the guns that sounded like fireworks, the slang that I suddenly stopped at my high school prep, the chisme and dirty jokes 8th grade boys say to each other like prayers. the struggle for self-worth at an almost-white school. I encountered my culture on the page, and it lit my world.

PALACIO

2. You are a student at Duke, off to Law School ? Will poetry continue to be a part of your life? Who are some of your influences? 

LÓPEZ

2. I actually graduated from Duke in 2016, and am now a rising 2nd year MFA student at Rutgers University at Newark, NJ. Law school is an idea that at first, I was toying with, but recently I was accepted into a prep program called the UCLA Law Fellows, an initiative, now in its 20th year, that creates a pipeline for minority students to pursue the profession. Their classes on precedents, their inspiring speakers (many of them alumni of the program), and their scholarship to take an LSAT class in the fall, have made me realized how much support God has laid to follow my dreams. Namely, to represent undocumented migrants while also writing their stories (whether nonfiction or fictionalized). 

As influences, I read Anzaldua my freshman year in college, and I thought both her theoretical understanding of what I was living (the psychic borderlands) along with her bilingual poetry, were just stunning. I also loved watching, and re-watching, the old school Def Poetry Jam where Mos Def would be the emcee. There, I learned of poets like Saul Williams, Louis Reyes Rivera, Victor Hernandez Cruz. From early on, Spoken Word was a genre that drew me. Its energy, its political posture, the way language can pack un golpe, and if you're lucky, un putazo. 

But these usherings of musc came from specific people. Growing up, I burned CD's with my cousin Miguel Angel, and he'd introduce me to Nas, Common, KRS-One, Rakim, as well as some contemporary rappers. When I was 15 or so, a woman at the Boys and Girls Club put on me onto Gil Scott Heron and the Last Poets. Education scholar Jason Mendez gave a presentation that interspersed Pedro Pietri's "Puerto Rican Obituary" with Wu Tan Clan's "I Can't Sleep." I swallowed these beats like water. My mentor in college, Nathaniel Mackey, further added to my list Juan Felipe Herrera and Lorna Dee Cervantes. It's an ongoing list of mentor and predecessor. These muses, or maybe better put, duendistas, all walk with me as I put word to page.

PALACIO

3. I see you are attending several conferences this summer, including the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, where you impressed a whole conference with your poetry, where are you off to next? I think you mentioned Squaw Valley? Is the SBWC your first conference or have you been to others? If so which ones and how were they different? 

Congratulations on winning first place in poetry. (I wasn't there for the ceremony, were there runners up, honorable mentions?) 

LOPEZ

3. a. I am indeed in Squaw Valley right now. Strictly within writing, I've also attended the Yale Writers' Conference, Santa Barbara of course, and AWP this year. I believe our beloved friend, Claire, received the honorable mention for the Santa Barbara competition. 

PALACIO

3.b What are some of the other poetry awards you have received and when? Did you receive a full scholarship for Squaw Valley?

LOPEZ

b. Here at Squaw, I'm grateful to have received the Lucille Clifton Memorial Scholarship, which covers tuition and housing. Other awards I've won is AWP's Open Mic & Old School Poetry Slam Competition this past February. I was also a finalist for the 9^th Annual Nazim Hikmet Poetry Competition (also this year). And in 2016, I was the inaugural winner for the William Rosati Creative Writing Award at Duke University.

PALACIO

4. At Duke, you study with Aracelis Girmay? Can you describe the mentorship and which courses you've taken with her? Is this for your MFA at Rutgers? You mentioned, I think, also going to Law School?

LOPEZ

4. At Duke, I studied with the likes of Nate Mackey and Peter Moore. But poetry is a fairly recent endeavor as a career path. Before that, I heavily studied Cultural Studies with Wahneema Lubiano, Antonio Viego, Walter Mignolo, William Darity, and in the field of African-American Studies, the late, brilliant Raymond Gavins. At Rutgers, I'm blessed to have the mentorship of Rigoberto Gonzalez and Brenda Shaughnessy. I've taken workshops with both, where they've always provided a critical, but nurturing space for all us poets. I should also say that while a Fiction professor, Alice Dark is a person who has moved (both in the physical and sentimental sense) me to expand my craft. I am working on a memoir, Bajo Otra Luna, and it'd be a disservice to her work if I din't mention that the first few chapters came from her "Writers at Newark" class.

PALACIO

5. Do you also study history. From the few poems I've read you seem well versed in Aztec culture and Meso American history. Can you talk about your use of juxtaposing the ancient cultura with current times and how you started putting the two together in your poems? Did you also minor in Spanish or have you formally studied Spanish? It's impressive how seamlessly your poems switch between Spanish and English. 

LOPEZ

5.  History was my first love. I remember taking World History in high school, and learning about different civilizations and wars felt empowering in Menlo School, a place where I was often the only Latino in my classrooms. In college, the very first class I took was one on the US-Mexico Border with Sarah Deutsch. In my spare time, I watched and re-watched PBS' Chicano: A History of the Mexican Civil Rights Movement. There, I learned of the '68 Walkouts (which made me realize that what we were doing for the Day Without an Immigrant Protests were the same), the Moratorium, Sal Castro, Reis Lopez Tijerina, but most importantly, Corky Gonzalez's "Yo Soy Joaquin." This encouraged my continual private interest in studying Aztec mythology. 

History (and study) is a huge marker for me. As an undergrad, I became obsessed with radical left philosophy (anarchism), then moved to studying political dissidents (Angela Davis, George Jackson, Leonard Peltier), and now I've settled into a religious mythology phase (Sufist poetry, Aztec myths, the Naat devotional songs to the prophet Muhammad (PBUH), the South Asian qawwali form [songs to God] and studying the Qur'an. I think reciting the Qur'an has affected and heavily influenced my penchant for the anaphora.  

PALACIO

5. b. Maybe you have other poems that reveal different identities. I only heard two of your poems. Can you talk a little more about how you identify yourself and what is the cultural background of your family/parents, is it different from yours? 

LOPEZ

b. We need more myths, because that's how we remember we come from greatness. That we too speak of rivers, called chinampas, called El Rio Bravo, etc. Incorporating ancient culture gives the present moment (whether it be immigration, deportations, poverty, discrimination) more perspective. It makes us richer, more powerful. If we just caught up in the present, then we lose sight of our longevity as a people. As the EZLN (Ejercito Zapatista Liberacion Nacional) said, as their opening words to the NAFTA-sparked uprising of 1994, "We are the product of 500 years of struggle."

With regards to my use of billingualism, that's just how we as Latinxs live. In poems like "Moscatero" for instance, you'll hear Mexican slang because it is an absolute necessity to tell this literary world, "This are the people I live, love, dream, and fight about, and in their own words."  Of course, in a largely monolingual canon, I have to always negotiate this code-switching, which is a different act from translation. The latter says I'm ostensibly of another place, whereas this Spanglish is, as Anzaldua said, "a forked tongue...ni de aqui ni de alla." This is a different world, yet one uttered, sung, lamented, and praised by millions of people in this country, every second, every day., every latido, every suspiro. Behind restaurant kitchens, atop broken shingles, inside maquilladoras, inside misas. I've had several folks say, "I don't understand what the speaker's saying," as if that were negative connotations. I want to tell them, "You know how many of my generation and background wish they can talk back to their bosses, who wished they could fight for their rights? Will all due respect, your discomfort pales (often literal on a racial level) with their experience." I want my readers to struggle, to sweat, because that's exactly their , and our, way(s) of living. 

Last little note, when I hear the word frijoles, plumes of smoke in the cocina just burst in my mind. So many recuerdos and fights and flavors and "te sirvo mas mi'jo," and queso cotija falling on my plate like the first snow el barrio's ever seen, and so forth. But if I said beans, it sounds dull, stripped of its sharp. I hear Bush's Best commercials and tacky Westerns of dirt-lathered Anglos roasting a can over a bonfire. These aren't my memories. My mother, my grandmother, my father, even my little brother, all say frijoles, and so that's how it'll exist on the page.

PALACIO

6. Where are you originally from? Did you experience any type of culture shock going to college in the East coast? 

LOPEZ

6. I was born and raised in East Palo Alto, once an inner city in the middle of the SF Bay Area, but has in recent years been heavily gentrified by Facebook, and now, Amazon. Culture shock did hit me at the Duke's campus itself, but Durham itself was and is experiencing a huge influx of Latino migrants (almost 300% in the last decade), so I felt I had my people nearby. But again, within the Gothic Wonderland, I hadn't ever seen so much wealth in my life. I experienced this weird twilight zone of PoC mobility, where I had a food points account larger than what my parents made over a month.

Being in Newark, New Jersey, for my MFA has forced me to expand my sense of Latinidad. As a Mexican, I hold the hegemony of being immediately associated with Latino in US public discourse, along with the stereotypical foods, mannerisms, sayings that go with it. Here though, I regularly meet and chat with Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Ecuadorians, Trinidadians, Brazilians, and folks with multiple origins of descent. I truly believe it's enriched my music on the page, the way I hear Boricua cut through words, like if they're in a hurry, a mini-seminar on elision when I hear them drop the 's' in Moises, to give just one example. 

PALACIO

7. Are there any other poets, storytellers in your family?

LOPEZ

7. You know, so much of being called a poet has a class element to it, where you have the luxury of saying, out of the top priorities of one's vocation, "I am a poet." So while I don't have any "writers" in my immediate family-- I do have a couple primas who write for themselves (Shout out to Berenice Silva and Mari Mendez). Because of the demand of full time, they largely don't have a space to carve out their voice textually. 

That said though, my family has some phenomenal storytellers. I always tell people, you can gather volumes of rich commentary just hearing a dinner table. When after the chiquillos are asleep, and papa gets out of a nightshift, and he and his hermana share their lamentos del dia. I consider my tia Carmelita to be an amazing orator, her voice brimming with humor and grace. And to me, that's what inspired my honors thesis at my undergraduate years, titled ethnopoetics, a term inspired by Anzauldua and Chela Sandoval's Methodology of the Oppressed, which attempts to describe our naturally poetic ability to navigate struggle. To me, that's the heart of all Latinidades, and by extension, marginalities. 

8. You don't have a book of poems out yet, but it sounds like you are well on your way to putting a book together. Tell us some of the places that have published your work. Do you only write poetry or are you published in other genres? 

LOPEZ

8. Correct, I don't technically have a book, but stay tuned I suppose insha'Allah (ojala). So far, I've been published in Teenink, Acentos Review (Shout out to Raina Leon), Hispanecdotes, PEN/America, Sinking City Press, and this summer, I'll have pieces in Gramma Press, Eclectica, Permafrost, By & By, and Track//Four.  

But I've published other genres outside of poetry. My very first publication in Teenink talked about the hard-hitting jump from an inner city K-8 to being a token at predominately white, affluent college prep. I've published a number of nonfiction pieces at Duke's newspaper, The Chronicle, while a student. All these articles centered on identity politics as a 1st generation Mexican-American, responding to issues of social justice, including the noose incident, and covering the successful boycott of our own Latino Student Recruitment Weekend in order to pressure administration to fund a Latinx Center, now called La Casa. Most recently, I published a piece in PEN/America on what it's like to be a Latino Muslim. And right now, I am working on a memoir, Bajo Otra Luna. 

PALACIO

9. We spoke briefly of identity and names. Did you have a stronger sense of self after writing and discovering poetry? 

LOPEZ

9. Absolutely! Mil veces si. As a Muslim, I understand God has given me this language to touch others. There's a lovely verse in the Qur'an in surat Al-Nisa (The Women), which goes, " ...Allah knows what is in their hearts, so turn away from them but admonish them and speak to them a far-reaching word."  (4:63) The root word of far-reaching, baligh, can also translate to eloquence, that which can penetrate deeply. To me, this elucidates the power of poetry, and expression generally, to touch others, to the effect of steering them in a better direction. 

In poetry, I can put together La Virgen Guadalupe and Khadijah, I can denounce the racist legislation of Texas' Senate Bill 4, I can praise raspado vendors who post their Venmo accounts on splintered carts, I can laugh in a poem, this public document, at las jorobitas of passing abuelas. To me, poetry is just testimony in its highest form, songs of gratitude for being alive and brown. 

PALACIO

10. Gacias, Antonio. Thank you for taking time out of your retreat at the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley this week to talk with La Bloga. Your generous responses are much appreciated. I look forward to bragging and bloging about your future books. I can say I knew you when. Is there anything else you'd like to share with La Bloga? 

LOPEZ

10. Just extreme appreciation for the opportunity to express my love for this weird thing we do called writing, especially to say these words at my hometurf of fellows Chicanxs and Latinxs. 

I am huge believer for paying it forward, so if there's anyone aspiring writers reading this, don't hesitate hitting me up, or asking me any, any questions--on identity, writing, family, etc. As cliche as it seems, we're here to help each other. Otherwise, how do we expect outside communities to coalition with us?

Here's is Antonio López's prize-winning poem. This post will also end with Antonio reading his poem at the conference's awards banquet.

Antonio flanked by SBWC Poetry Workshop Leaders
Laure-Anne Bosselaar, Antonio López, Perie Longo
photo by Marla Miller, SBWC Marketing the Muse Workshop

The murder of a teenage Muslim girl beaten and killed by a bat-wielding motorist near a Virginia mosque was likely a "road rage incident", not a hate crime, US police said, prompting outrage from many who say the teen was targeted because of her religion. Darwin Martinez Torres, 22, has been arrested and charged with Nabra Hassanen's murder in an incident police say began as a road dispute with a male teenager who was among Hassanen's group. – Al Jazeera, June 20, 2017

Which Cobija Feels Most Comfy?: A Letter to Sister Nabra

by Antonio López

As-Salaamu Alaykum Sister.

All is know

is that my brother

killed you

with a baseball bat. The same palo

slammed against birthday piñatas,

chased you out of a Fairfax highway.

Paper maché tapestries that bursted

with dulce and confetti stuffing,

now weaves into a hijab.

The slurs crosshaired.

All I know

is that my             brother                         grabbed your bo-

grabbed             your             bod-            bo-

the papers said “dump,”

like your body was kitchen sink sewage,

the weight of chicken bones

and peeled carrots.

They said “road rage”—

your death as no more taxing

than a busted taillight

like when they said

Deah, Yusor, and Razan

were a “parking dispute.”

Ay hermanita,

I’ve spent the past four days

whispering your name

with hands             cut by the blades

of grass that pillowed your hair

with hands             willowed in dua,

but my palmlines fled

to trace their ancestry elsewhere,

across the Atlantic, to the Birth of a Nation’s

Nation, where the ghoulish white hood

of a van drove into Finsbury park

shouting “All Muslims!

I want to kill             all Muslims!”

And for the first time,

I saw             an Islamic extremist—

Imam Mohamed Mahmoud

protects the suspect from the mob,

and issues the anti-Western fatwa

“We pushed people away,…

until he was safely taken

by police….”

Anti-Western,

because John Wayne

and all those aging saloonistas

who hawk a one-lunged Malboro

would’ve shot the sucker in a tacky catchline

that would’ve earned 24% on Rotten Tomatoes.’

Imam Mahmoud!

Imam Mahmoud who professed to Sky News

“I am no hero,”

but then who is ours?

Ya Allah, I beamed for a DC comic adhan

to call for a sunnah superhero.

But there’s no star-spangled shield

to guard your glasses and Jannah-gated smile

because Captain America wasn’t made for you.

No Wonder Woman to sway her jiggling thighs,

half-naked feminism, to deflect blind-eyed

bat swings with an 8 karat belt buckle,

20% off a Macy’s rack.

Sister Nabra, let me make wudu

for you, and pluck from your hair,

the highway-thickets

of sound bites.

Sister, let me still pay

for next year’s prom dress—

a mermaid lavender,

so after iftar, I’ll sip chai

and hear the fiqh disputes

of uncles slamming

their hairy-knuckled

gavels,

“Istirgfilillah, there’ll be boys, drinking,”

your father will interrupt,

“and me.”

Let me stand

over the Mexican minarets

of Univisión and Telemundo

and la pinta and the bus stop

and la clínica, and the good bench at recess

and tell el pueblo, mi pueblo

to enshroud you in our finest cobijas—

those linens not even hawked at flea markets

and quietly clean tu cuerpo,

over my grandmother’s pila

and wipe away the darkened bloodstains

with our finest jabón

over el agua nacida de la barranca,

the river mountaintops to see the heights

my people could’ve soared for you.

Let my apolog—

take a lifetime,

take my lifeline—

hang on the word,             ‘y?’

Why             must this land learn Arabic names

at the eight o’ clock news?

Why             must sister Aydin write a Facebook post

warning her muslimina girls to travel

in groups, even in broad daylight?

Why couldn’t you just finish Ramadan first?!

Why?

Why?            

            Why?

Why.

Dear. Sister. Nabra,

All I know

is that every Muslim in America,

before Monday’s fajr, became an atheist

to American Progress.

Antonio López can be reached through email, Facebook, and Twitter @barrioscribe.