Review: A Crown for Gumecindo. Guest Interview: Thelma Reyna With Graciela Limón

Review: A Crown for Gumecindo.
Michael Sedano

Laurie Ann Guerrero. A Crown for Gumecindo. San Antonio: Aztlán Libre Press, 2015.
ISBN: 9780989778220 0989778223

There’s a special bond between a grandparent and a child that comes with an inverse joy. The elder gets to see the child grow into adulthood—there is no greater joy than seeing the child of one’s child born, grow from infancy to toddler to schoolkid, eventually into adulthood. The baby doesn’t see grampa as old but as grampa; wise, kind, indulgent, nurturing, “the best grandpa.” At some point in the grown nieta’s nieto's life, however, youth acknowledges with distress a parent’s age, the grandparent’s the more so.

Grandparents die, leaving a painful absence along with a lifetime of cherished memories. As fiercely as each loves the other, the finality of death and the progress of growth mean fading memory, replaced love, and renewed life’s cycle—the child becomes a parent, then a grandparent. Per omnia saecula saeculorum.

This collection battles that cyle. Letting go, refusing to let go, acknowledging absence. These strategies are the heart of Laurie Ann Guerrero’s fiercely contested battle with the painful fact of her grandfather’s death, memorialized in her breathtaking collection A Crown for Gumecindo.

Fifteen poems—the poet calls them ‘sonnets’—link to each other in  phrases that look back at the same time as they look onward, like memory and inheritance. The future builds on the past while the past maintains the integrity of its former existence. For Guerrero, concatenation refuses to relinquish her living grandfather even as each poem marks her passage away from his life leading into her journey of puro memory; that’s all that remains of his wisdom and that special relationship of a little girl to her grandfather. Puro memory and these fifteen poems.

If I were a poet, a collection like A Crown for Gumecindo is what I would want to bequeath my granddaughter to have from my time with her. Read this in memory of me.

Reviewing poetry is among the critic’s most difficult assignments when every piece in a collection has greatness. A Crown For Gumecindo, thus, is nearly impossible for a critic’s comprehension. One immediately sees that with the second and first poems, “Where the Dead Come to Speak” and “Love is Our Mother.” Because Guerrero repeats the final phrase of the first in the opening line of the next, no one poem genuinely stands alone as a singular expression. The fifteenth refers to the fourteenth refers to the thirteenth refers to the twelfth refers to the eleventh all the way to the first. And that first begins in ellipsis, an epigram by Valerie Martinez, “in this way / could she”.

A Crown for Gumecindo is a spellbinding collection that rises to moments of such sublimity that certain thoughts free the reader from page-bound thrall. In the second piece, for example, a reader comes to a screeching halt at the past-in-present expression, “he makes me choose / which of us will die by the hand of the other / and which of us will carry the dead home:” The poem is a way of casting off memory while enshrining its ongoing vitality.

In A Crown For Gumecindo are fifteen eulogies, each a reminder of Western traditions of saying good-bye. Saying good-bye is a kind of killing while safeguarding the dead for the living. For the artist, eulogy becomes a method of compartmentalizing, installing memory onto the page, prostheses for ineluctably absent love. There’s Catullus' farewell to his brother, ave atque vale, hail and farewell; Auden’s eulogy to Yeats, “Earth, receive an honoured guest: William Yeats is laid to rest”, Guerrero’s lament, “We can’t / run the numbers, argue, make your mother’s bread / if you are always going to be dead.”

Resignation; you are always going to be dead. But Gumecindo, and Laurie Ann as she was in sorrow, will always be here on these wondrously evocative pages. “I’ve buried everything I’ve ever loved: You are always going to be dead.” These are poems that demand you read them again and again.

But I have at least one complaint. I am old, and my eyes are always going to be less than what they were. Aztlán Libre Press has laid out the text with ample white space, centered on the page. The powerful illustrations, created by Maceo Montoya, inspired by each poem, have their own page, masterfully evoking the accompanying sonnet. It’s a wonderful book. With all that real estate, I wish the design had used a 14- or 18-point type! As this press increases its offerings—A Crown For Gumecindo is Aztlán Libre’s first hard cover volume—I trust the press will have a bit more consideration for its readers.

Make that two. English majors will suspend their aesthetic immersion to count lines and look for rhyme schemes and other prosody. “Sonnet” is the culprit here. Guerrero knows the rules and chooses to break them at will. At times she intersperses lines from her journal and other meditations—per the dust cover; one doesn't know that otherwise. These add dimension and depth to the poetry irrespective of form, and send a reader to Tim Z. Hernández’ “Foreword” where he notes “the sonnet is typically comprised of fourteen lines, lends itself as an ideal medium for the subject at hand. There is something mythical at work here. . . . fourteen has a mythological association with death and reincarnation . . . . a returning, if you will, where fourteen poems gain momentum toward one final, fifteenth poem”. I would have been pleased not to think of that formalism and simply allowed form as it occurs, and divagation from it, to carry me spellbound onto the next and the next and the next and into that cycle.

Something there is that loves a monarchy. That’s a metaphor I find disquieting, being the scion of orange pickers, campesinos, peons and Junipero Serra’s slaves. Yet, there’s a sense about the crowned that fits the motive of this collection: Gumecindo is dead. Long live Gumecindo.

Order copies from the publisher, or via your local independent bookseller.


The Intriguing Life of Ximena Godoy: Interview with Graciela Limón
By Thelma T. Reyna

You have a long, distinguished background in scholarly writing, earning a Ph.D. from UCLA and teaching at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles. You’re now focused on creative fiction. What was the major challenge you faced in transitioning from scholarly writing to fiction?

How to handle “freedom.” What I mean is, in writing critically, there are guidelines and rules that must be followed at all times, whereas in creative writing, inspiration is the guiding light. It was this freedom from form that I most felt as a challenge. Strange, isn’t it? In the beginning, I found myself always compelled to make certain that what I wrote was precise, completely researched instead of motivated by feeling or sentiment. In a word, I found that freedom daunting and a little intimidating. Later on, I loved it!

Both your academic and fictional writing spotlight your issues of interest: cultural identity, feminism, and social justice. How is tackling those issues via fiction different from addressing those topics academically?

Now that I write creatively, those issues you cite become humanized; they take on the form of personal stories, and they many times even become human beings. Now my issues leave behind numbers and facts to take on the identity of flawed, weak, but unforgettable people with names and faces.

Do your three dominant issues dovetail in today’s society, and, if so, how so? In your new novel?

I’ve written and published nine novels, and each time I’ve found it difficult not to bring forth the issues that most concern me, whether it be class struggles, women’s issues, cultural and trans-border experiences. And sincerely, I feel comfortable delving into these issues over and over again because I see their relevance to our society today. How do these concerns appear in my new novel, The Intriguing Life of Ximena Godoy? Here again I focus on the issue of the Latina, and how my protagonist breaks with the rules of convention and tradition that govern women in our culture. Oh, it doesn’t come free to her, as she pays a high price for her emancipation. However, Ximena Godoy makes her choices, and she is what she is.

Your new novel is set in the first half of the 1900’s in Mexico and the U.S. and details the traditional gender constraints faced by Ximena; her rebellion against this; and her choices as she navigates life on her own terms. How does she embody feminism in ways that resonate with today’s woman?

I believe that Ximena Godoy reflects many Latinas of our times in that she pursues her goals and ambitions while rejecting the rules set up for her by society. Does she do this to a flaw? Perhaps. The issue, however, is that she lives and loves on her terms, not by those established by a faceless society. It can be said, therefore, that although Ximena Godoy inhabited the first half of the 20th century, her life story resonates with the second part of the century, and indeed reaches powerfully into our current years.

Today’s younger women reportedly balk at calling themselves “feminists.” What’s different from the feminism of the “women’s liberation” pioneers 50+ years ago, and what women advocates value today? What’s the same?

Honestly, I have difficulty differentiating between the two terms: Women’s Lib and Today’s Advocates. However, I can cite one difference: I see today’s young Latinas as mostly well-educated and therefore more articulate, and they have a clearer vision. What I see as similar is that, essentially, we all are united by one force: To achieve what is good and best for women. I firmly believe that if as women we remember that we must respect what other women aspire to, how they express themselves, and how they go about achieving those goals, then this is to be Free. And to be Free is to be fulfilled and complete. Whatever label any woman chooses to adhere to, I’ll support her because I know that at heart, we’re on the same path.

"I find readers aren’t interested for the most part in our issues, unless we as authors concentrate on what I call the folkloric aspect of the Latino experience."

As a highly educated Latina author who has won prestigious literary honors—such as the Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award, the Luis Leal Literary Award/UC Santa Barbara, and the Gustavus Myers Book Award—how do you perceive the publishing landscape today for American Latino/a authors?

Thank you for your wonderful words. You honor me. Then to your question: In many ways, I see the

Graciela Limón

publishing landscape as much improved from, say, 20 years ago when few Latina/o authors were even published. That has changed somewhat in that now there is a distinct interest on the part of publishers to publish our work. On the other hand, I find – or think I find – a very thin interest in our writings on the part of the readership. I find readers aren’t interested for the most part in our (Latino) issues, unless we as authors concentrate on what I call the “folkloric” aspect of the Latino experience. Even worse, there seems to me to be a negative curiosity regarding the underbelly of our culture. What I mean by this is, that unless a book deals with stereotypes (gangsters, convicts, drug addicts, prostitutes, and other dark figures), the reader turns away from the page. Yes, the landscape has improved, but we have a long way yet to go.

Since your first book publications in 1993—In Search of Bernabé (1993) and The Memories of Ana Calderón (1994)—has the world of book publication changed in any way for Latino/a authors in the U.S.?

As I suggest above, the main difference in publication is the expanded number of titles by Latina/o authors now available by publishers. The improvement has thus been one of exposure and a widened landscape.

How has your writing evolved since 1994? Have your dominant themes or literary interests and goals changed, and, if so, how?

I see my writing as evolved (and evolving) in many aspects, mostly in character development. I’ve always been fearful of falling into the trap of perpetuating stereotypes because it’s so easy to do just that. I’ve tried very hard all along to smash the expected molds, both female and males. Naturally, being a woman, my focus has always been on my female characters, hoping not to “neglect” the males. It’s difficult not to fall into the stereotype trap here because our culture almost encourages it. It’s undeniable that among us live the Dominant Machos and the Submissive Females. However, I’ve tried to conquer that reality by working with it, yet not dehumanizing those characters, thus keeping them from being stereotypes. Oh, it’s a tightrope! It’s very difficult! However, this is where I believe my writing has evolved, and continues to evolve, hopefully for the better.

You studied, taught, and wrote about Latin American and Chicano literature throughout your academic career. What are the most prominent bonds among all these Hispanic literary traditions?

What a wonderful question! Latin American and Chicana/o literature are bonded one to the other by several unbreakable ties. Those literatures have in common, first of all language that acts as a nexus. Although that language (Spanish/Portuguese/African tongues) is modified and colored by different accents and expressions in Latin America, as well as enriched by an added layer of English for us authors on this side of the border – we have retained that linguistic tone and rhythm that sets our literature apart and binds us to one other. A second connection, just as important as language – in my opinion – is our mysticism, which is a hybrid of Catholicism and Pre-Columbian beliefs. What a rich spiritual mix underpins all that literature that has come about on both sides of the border! And yet another tie, probably the most important, and connected to that hybrid mysticism, is our mestizo background. The stupendous mix of races that defines our literatures cements both expressions.

"I really think that we, on this side of the border, tend to be more direct and frank; perhaps some of us might be considered more audacious and blunt."

Where do these literatures diverge in their focus and method?

I believe that our focus changes with respect to social issues. We Chicana/o authors are naturally drawn to concentrate on the challenges and issues that confront our society, which in turn are different from those that our Latin American colleagues face. I really think that we, on this side of the border, tend to be more direct and frank; perhaps some of us might be considered more audacious and blunt. And I believe this comes to us as a result of being brought up in the U.S., where we’re taught to be outspoken. Where a Latin American author circumvents or evades, a Chicana/o aims straight at the heart of the issue without mincing words.

What are some of the main challenges facing Latina/o authors going forward? Latinos are projected to become the largest “ethnic group” in the U.S. within a few decades. How might this affect the American literary landscape?

I believe that the main challenge facing U.S. Latina/o authors is to always keep in mind that our mission is to be the voice of our particular society. Where there’s injustice, privation, or any other roadblock, it’s up to us the authors to shine a light on those issues, with the intention of being part of the solution. We must remember that we are, and will always be, a part of that “ethnic group,” not mere bystanders, and that because we have been given the power of the word, it’s our responsibility to use it wisely and always for the advance of our group. It’s a tough calling, but it is what it is! Thank you, Thelma, for giving me the opportunity of responding to your insightful and stimulating questions.


Graciela Limón. The Intriguing Life of Ximena Godoy. Virginia Beach VA: Café Con Leche (Koehler), 2015.  ISBN:  978-1-63393-000-1  Ebook  978-1-63393-001-8


Thelma T. Reyna, Ph.D., is the national award-winning author of four books: a short story collection, two poetry chapbooks, and a full-length collection of poetry. A Poet Laureate, she is the also editor of the newly-released Altadena Poetry Review: Anthology 2015.









Hot Town, Summer In The City

Book Club News
Stanford Latina Latino Alumns Select A Pair of Véa's Novels For September Junta

Héctor Tobar and members of Southern California Stanford Latina Latino Alumni Book Club

The Southern California Stanford Latina Latino Alumni Book Club met in Monrovia recently, discussing Héctor Tobar's Deep Down Dark. The menu of cosimiento, known also as casuela and cocido de res, originated in the text, augmented with empanadas (pollo and res), and dulces Chilenas.

Often joined by the author, Tobar did not attend this spirited discussion. The Club hosted him for its discussion of The Barbarian Nurseries. A visitor from Antofagasta, a northern Chile mining town, added insight as well as the pastries and empanadas. The club welcomes visitors and Stanford alumni.

Next session is scheduled for Sunday, September 20. Two novels by Alfredo Véa are on the agenda: La Maravilla and  Gods Go Begging.

Click here for details.

Review: Empanada. Vegan Pop-up. Final On-line Floricanto in April 2013.

Review: Empanada: A Lesbiana Story en Probaditas.

Michael Sedano

Anel I. Flores. Empanada: A Lesbiana Story en Probaditas. San Francisco, CA: Kórima Press, 2012.
ISBN: 978-1-300-31441-7


Empanada: A Lesbiana Story In Probaditas is serious adult literature whose experiences, attitudes, and issues would provide your book club with a spirited discussion about directions in United States publishing, genre fiction, Chicana Chicano literature, and cultural change. Such issues should not obscure the fact that Empanada: A Lesbiana Story In Probaditas offers excellent reading.

A bookclub’s initial reaction might sound like “I didn’t know literature like this existed!” followed with explanations about metaphor and double entendre in words like papaya, tortillera, empanada, and probadita.

With “Lesbiana” in the title, for some readers, Empanada will stand within an as yet unconsidered literary space. As Mariana Romo-Carmona points out in her foreword, “A critical literary space for the work of lesbianas latinas had to be created and fought for—and I think now, more difficult still, it had to be imagined.”

And it had to be published. Which is the mission undertaken by San Francisco’s Kórima Press. The independent publisher describes itself as “Built on the Rarámuri tradition of sharing, Kórima Press is an independent publisher committed to Queer Ch/Xicana and Ch/Xicano literary art.” Kórima’s website lists six titles for from twelve to twenty-eight dollars.

All that aside, treat this book not as an artifact of the nation’s cultural growth but for what it is. Empanada: A Lesbiana Story In Probaditas is a work of interesting chicana lesbian fiction. A work motivated by the author’s spirt of liberation and identification as a lesbian, Anel I. Flores’ Empanada: A Lesbiana Story In Probaditas crafts a luscious erotic landscape not to be missed.

Composed out of forty-one probaditas--very short monologues and narratives, or “prose poems”—Empanada traces one woman’s life through childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, through sexual awakening, through body image guilt, into a settled life. The writer organizes these in three themes, Food, Religion, Sex.

Flores paces her character’s growth using flashback and reverie, told in a well-adjusted adult voice. All the crap the persona remembers from growing up and being treated like caca, these probaditas tell that she gets past the crap and moves on. Showing That, not How To; in this light, Empanada is not a story of liberation for someone seeking role models, but a tale told by a free woman in a clear voice marked by large measures of humor, horniness, and self-awareness.

In the opening probadita, Flores introduces her protagonist as an enthusiastic epicurean whose sense of pleasure includes chisme, food, and sex. She engages sexual banter with comfortable biculturalism and appears content in her world. Then in probadita after probadita, Flores takes stories back in time then onward again through various events, charging hard toward and around the topic Paloma most endears, sex.

We witness the growing girl at various times from mocosa absorbing kitchen cultura, to bearing up under weight of a familia’s scorn and disappointment. She’s a fat girl who dresses like a boy. She calls attention to herself. Paloma’s anger at her “big boned” body, and appearance, add torment to her emerging sexuality.

Some of Flores’ most sensual, sexually fraught writing, comes out of the food section, particularly the monologue on eating an empanada de calabaza.

“De Calabaza” is an erotic version of William Carlos Williams’ plums in the icebox poem. For Paloma, the crusty delectation gives off an alluring scent that draws her near but she shouldn’t. She imagines a lover’s feet intertwined with hers “like a pleated piecrust.” The sweet wet candied fruit makes her blush. Finally she gives in to her gluttony, she bites, she eats her grandmother’s empanada.

The momentary pleasure of the act also marks a resolution in Paloma’s long-standing fat girl problem. In “Carne in My Teeth,” Paloma confesses, “I blame my obesity on the fact that I can’t talk at the table. When a word is just about to squirt out I stuff food in my mouth and cork it shut.” By the time Paloma can articulate the complexities of “De Calabaza” she’s developed expressivity knowing that speech expiates guilt, her sense of lustful gluttony set aside because this is who she is:

Desnuda, despierta, mi postre is unwrapped. I seize her with my teeth, let my upper body fall over the counter, press my cheek against the small porcelain plate, push her through my lips, take bites of her cuerpo of cake, and taste her against the roof of my mouth.

Readers will find themselves looking through a lot of eyes throughout the stories. If you read an electronic edition of Empanada, do a search for “eyes” and you’ll find “eyes” is Flores’ most powerful word. She uses eyes to designate and load perceptions. The eyes of the beholder report one set of facts, the beliefs of the beheld lead to different conclusions, simultaneously. The technique allows Flores to capture uncomfortably perceptive moments when you’re seeing the same scene through multiple characters’ eyes at once, empathizing with Paloma but comprehending the responses seen in her family’s eyes:

At the table, mi papi’s eyes screen a double-feature-daydream of her, scratching at my back barely hours ago, while la Chavela Vargas sings, sobbing and screaming to her lover who left like the paloma, and her eyes se mueren sin mirar sus ojos, die without her eyes. Paloma Negra, why did you go from my clock radio’s Mexican oldies, and boleros viejos? I loved dad’s eyes, her nails under my skin and on my back, la Chavela Vargas, y Sunday dreaming.
Floating in flight from my father’s eyes and crisscrossing the table to my mother’s eyes, the granite fence that keeps Mexicans out of our country for irrational reasons or orders from irrational and ignorant authorities, the rifle and the brown river shot into her eyes, against solid concrete cheeks mapped with streets of her town and his pueblito. I used to love to look at my mother’s eyes until she drowned.

With Empanada: A Lesbiana Story In Probaditas, Anel I. Flores appears on the literary stage as a writer to be reckoned with. It’s too darn bad the publisher doesn’t allow the work to stand on its own as a piece of fiction.

Instead of just opening on page one, Kórima's placed Mariana Romo-Carmona’s eleven-page hyperbolic Foreward in the lead. Romo frames the book as a chingona rhetorical artifact of the movimiento for women’s lib, claiming, Empanada: A Lesbiana Story in Probaditas can truly be said to be the work of the first generation of writers for whom the reality of a critical reception for their work exists, and as such, it is their job to ignore that there were ever any boundaries on our creativity, and to take us beyond, way beyond the concept of boundaries.

The prefacist’s attitudes are needful and important, but oddly out of place after a reader's slogged through those eleven pages of academic-flavored prose, then feels the tone the author sets in her own one page introduction, waking to the smell of tortillas hechas de mano and the chatter of females en la cocina, where all our secrets are divulged and our dreams are told at the table.

I’m distressed the author and her editor fail to carry far enough their claim of writing “beyond the concept of boundaries”. The text kowtows to orthographic prescriptivism that interrupts continuity with italics imposed upon every putatively foreign word.

Who is this orthographic villain—the Author? Editor? Tradition? Who fails to understand multicultural gente who seek out work like Empanada: A Lesbiana Story en Probaditas don’t think, speak, or hear ordinary language in italics. Such typographic conventionality disrespects readers comfortably literate in the dialects of their community while producing minefields of italic interruptions like this:

As a little tejanita, when given the privilege to escape cleaning, and instead sleep past 8:00 am on Saturday morning, it was because mami and buela were blessing us with homemade tortillas. The soft smell was so comforting, I often daydreamed there was a tortilla right under my cheek, between my pillow and me. I dreamt of digging my nose into the warm tortilla’s powdery surface and then devouring her without any table manners or reservations. But when the tortilla didn’t appear, I joined them in the kitchen, both in their pastel colored batas from the night before, to eat a fresh tortilla steaming hot, right off the cast iron comal.

Boundary-breaking work should really break boundaries. That Flores and her editor fail in the most basic element of publishing marks the distance Kórima has yet to travel to escape conventionality and demonstrate their understanding that trying is not achieving.

Italics (and arrobas which thankfully are absent from Empanada's bag of tricks) alone aren't reason to reject a title, but they set up a litany of regret that so outstanding a set of stories must be vandalized by taggers spraying italics just because they can.



Mail Bag
Vegan Pop-Up in Oxnard

La Bloga friend Michele Serros sends news that should draw legions of hungry gente on May 25 to her neck of the woods, Oxnard.

Serros promises a pop-up menu, estilo vegan, in the historic Woolworth building. Serros' husband, Chef Antonio of Flacos restaurant, is cooking. The menu includes food to please the Gluten-free Chicano, so extra ¡bravo! to Chef Antonio.

Menu will include Flacos’ signature dishes like crispy “Soyquitos” with spicy avocado salsa, vegan tamales (both banana leaf and soy-gluten free), huaraches, spicy pozole, soft tacos (textured soy protein with traditional almond-based mole sauce served on handmade organic corn tortillas), homemade horchata (sweetened to perfection with brown rice milk) and refreshing agua fresca de fresa, squeezed from Oxnard-grown organic strawberries.

Seatings commence at 5p.m. in Fresh & Fabulous Cafe, 401 South “A” Street, Oxnard CA 93030.


Mail Bag
Aztlán Libre Press Honors Poet

San Antonio's Aztlán Libre Press brings ever more ambitious and significant work to market. For the independent publisher's sixth title, Aztlán Libre elects to honor the career of poet Reyes Cárdenas with a retrospective covering years 1970 through 2010.

La Bloga friend Juan Tejeda, who, with Anisa Onofre, run the press, advises the collection divides into 11 sections, six of which feature new, heretofore unpublished, poems.

The publisher offers 15% off copies ordered through April 30 via its website.

Aztlán Libre Press books are also available through Small Press Distribution at www.spdbooks.org


Final On-line Floricanto of Fourth Month Features Five Poets
Elena Díaz Bjorkquist,Victor Avila, Ramón Piñero, Maritza Rivera, Francisco X. Alarcón

Do You Want to See My Papers? by Elena Díaz Bjorkquist
Viva Chicano Park! by Victor Avila
Mis Lágrimas/My Tears by Ramón Piñero
Without Papers by Maritza Rivera
Jasmine In Qatari Prison/Jazmín En Prisión De Qatar by Francisco X. Alarcón

Do You Want to See My Papers?
by Elena Díaz Bjorkquist

Beaner!
Greaser!
Dirty Mexican!
I knew the look,
No need for words.

The man tightened his grip
On the baby,
Didn’t hold the door
Open for me.

Later we met again
In a narrow aisle.
He pushed his cart
Toward me,

Challenging with his eyes—
I should back up.
Instead, I continued forward,
Said, “We can make it work.”

No response.

We met halfway,
He didn’t give an inch.
Our carts squeezed past,
No room to spare.

His grand-baby reached out,
Placed his chubby white hand
On my brown one,
Smiled at me.

The man snatched his hand
Placed it back on the cart
Pushed the cart past me,
Didn’t say a word,

But I knew.

© 2013 Elena Díaz Bjorkquist



Viva Chicano Park!
by Victor Avila

Has it really been
43 years since
they turned this patch of dirt
into a canyon of beauty?

Here the multicolored hues
triumphantly ascend the concrete columns.
They speak of a struggle
and of a battle won.

It is Aztlan's new cathedral,
a church for our people
where Xochipilli in his revelry
delights in all he sees.

43 years and 43 years more.

Viva Barrio Logan!

Viva la Raza!

Viva Chicano Park!

© 2013 Victor Avila



Mis Lágrimas/My Tears
by Ramón Piñero

my children are dying
throughout the globe
some by their own hands
others helped along
by visible and
invisible demons

my babies are being
choked to death
by the poison in the
air and others by the poison
in their mothers' milk.

some are closing
their eyes and laying
still/yet others are walking
upright with no light
in their eyes
dead to sensation
dead to all
around them

my children are dying
all around me
they are dying in the desert
they are dying in the cities
they are dying in Americas'
Heartland
in the Steppes
and the camps
in Jordan
on 110th street
and around the
corner

my children
are dying at the
hands of those
who say they love them
at the hands of
those who
don't really care

they're dying with
their eyes open
glued to games that
offer instant gratification
their eyes open to suffering
and pain\unseeing
through the artificial
bling;
that symbol of riches
that decay with time
there is no reset button
no extra lives

my children are dying
while we argue over
where to place their bones
where to build their mausoleums
what fancy words
will be their epitaph

my children need to live
they need to dance atop the
rainbows\and sing aloud
so that no evil can touch them;
laugh so that the only sadness they know
is that the laugh needs to be louder
so that their Gods can no longer
plead ignorance/can no longer turn
a deaf ear to
those little
voices of angels
as they sing
for our redemption

© 2013 Ramón Piñero




Without Papers
by Maritza Rivera

The R-word, the S-word, N:
the alphabet is riddled
with such offensive letters.

© 2013 Maritza Rivera


JASMINE IN QATARI PRISON
for poet Mohammad ibn al-Ajami
by Francisco X. Alarcón

we are all Mohammad ibn al-Ajami! —
we sit in jail with him condemned
to a life in prison

for writing a poem
celebrating the Arab Spring,
“Tunisian Jasmine” —

“We are all Tunisia
in the face of repressive elite!...
The Arab governments

and those who rules them are,
without exception, thieves,
thieves!...”

what kind of lions are these
who feel so threatened
by spoken truths

so compelled to keep
within their jaws and paws
a jasmine shining in the dark

© Francisco X. Alarcón
February 5, 2013

The sentencing of Mohammad ibn al-Dheeb al-Ajami came nearly two years after he wrote a poem titled "Tunisian Jasmine," supporting the uprisings in the Arab world. "We are all Tunisia in the face of repressive elites!" al-Ajami wrote. "The Arab governments and who rules them are, without exception, thieves. Thieves!"
In February 2013, it was reported that al-Ajami's life sentence had been reduced to fifteen years. Defense attorneys seeking his immediate release said they were planning an appeal to Qatar's supreme court.

JAZMÍN EN PRISIÓN DE QATAR
al poeta Mohammad ibn al-Ajami
por Francisco X. Alarcón

¡todos somos Mohammad ibn al-Ajami! —
en la cárcel estamos con él condenados
a cadena perpetua

por escribir un poema
celebrando la Primavera Árabe
“Jasmin de Túnez” —

“Todos somos Túnez
frente a las élites represivas!...
Los gobiernos árabes

y todos los que los rigen son,
sin excepción, ladrones,
¡ladrones!...”

qué tipo de leones son estos
que se sienten tan amenazados
por verdades enunciadas

tan obligados a atrapar
en sus fauces y garras a un jasmín
dando luz en tanta oscuridad

© Francisco X. Alarcón
5 de febrero de 2013



Bios
Do You Want to See My Papers? by Elena Díaz Bjorkquist
Viva Chicano Park! by Victor Avila
Mis Lágrimas/My Tears by Ramón Piñero
Without Papers by Maritza Rivera
Jasmine In Qatari Prison/Jazmín En Prisión De Qatar by Francisco X. Alarcón

After an incident like the one in “Do You Want to See My Papers,” I have to wait and let the anger subside before I can write a poem about it. William Wordsworth once said, "Poetry is made up of emotion recollected in tranquility." I found early on in my writing that people are more apt to hear something not written in anger.

A writer, historian, and artist from Tucson, Elena writes about Morenci, Arizona where she was born. She is the author of two books, Suffer Smoke and Water from the Moon. She co-edited Sowing the Seeds, una cosecha de recuerdos and Our Spirit, Our Reality; our life experiences in stories and poems, anthologies written by her writers collective Sowing the Seeds.

As an Arizona Humanities Council (AHC) Scholar, Elena has performed as Teresa Urrea in a Chautauqua living history presentation and done presentations about Morenci, Arizona for twelve years. In 2012 she received the Arizona Commission on the Arts Bill Desmond Writing Award for excelling nonfiction writing and the Arizona Humanities Council Dan Schilling Public Humanities Scholar Award in recognition of her work to enhance public awareness and understanding of the role that the humanities play in transforming lives and strengthening communities. She was nominated for Tucson Poet Laureate in 2012. She is one of the moderators of the Facebook page Poets Responding to SB 1070.

Her website is at http://elenadiazbjorkquist.com/.

Victor Avila is an award-winning poet. Two of his poems where recently included in the anthology Occupy SF-Poems From the Movement. He has taught in California public schools for over 20 years.

Ramón Piñero. Ex Bay Area poet living in the buckle of the Bible Belt, aka Florida. Where good little boys and girls grow up to be republicans who vote against their own interest. Father of three and Grandfather to six of the coolest kids ever.
Nuff said...

Francisco X. Alarcón, award winning Chicano poet and educator, born in Los Angeles, in 1954, is the author of twelve volumes of poetry, including, From the Other Side of Night: Selected and New Poems (University of Arizona Press 2002), and Snake Poems: An Aztec Invocation (Chronicle Books 1992), Sonetos a la locura y otras penas / Sonnets to Madness and Other Misfortunes (Creative Arts Book Company 2001), De amor oscuro / Of Dark Love (Moving Parts Press 1991, and 2001).
His latest books are Ce•Uno•One: Poems for the New Sun/Poemas para el Nuevo Sol (Swan Scythe Press 2010), and for children, Animal Poems of the Iguazú/Animalario del Iguazú (Children’s Book Press 2008) which was selected as a Notable Book for a Global Society by the International Reading Association, and as an Américas Awards Commended Title by the Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs. His previous bilingual book titled Poems to Dream Together/Poiemas para sonar juntos (Lee & Low Books 2005) was awarded the 2006 Jane Addams Honor Book Award.
He teaches at the University of California, Davis, where he directs the Spanish for Native Speakers Porgram. He is the creator of the Facebook page POETS RESPONDING TO SB 1070 that you can visit at:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Poets-Responding-to-SB-1070/117494558268757?ref=ts

News n noticias n a letter to the Prez

San Anto news

The Opening Reception for the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies National Conference to be held in San Antonio (May 20-23) took place this week (March 20). The reception included a Poetry Reading featuring Benjamin Alire Saenz, Nepthalí De León, Inés Hernández Ávila, Evangelina Vigil-Piñón, Reyes Cárdenas, José Flores Peregrino, María Limón, Eduardo Garza and Laurie Ann Guerrero.


Aztlan Libre Press officially unveiled their sixth publication: Reyes Cárdenas - Chicano Poet, 1970-2010, a forty-year retrospective of Reyes' poetry, with L.A. David, VatoCózmico, artwork on the cover of Reyes' book. Any comments about this cover should be addressed to Aztlán Libre, please.

Highland Park, Califas

Melinda Palacio will be the featured reader at Avenue 50 Studio in Highland Park, Califas, tomorrow, Sunday, March 24 at 2pm. 

Modesto, Califas

Saturday, April 6, 2013, 10:30am until 4:30pm, 1550 Crows Landing Rd. Modesto, Calif.
2-mile march from South Modesto to West Modesto Honoring Cesar E. Chavez!

Fresno, Califas
Vigilia Para Nuestros Campesinos: Pasado y Presente/Vigil for Our Farm Workers: Past and Present. Friday, April 5, 2013, 6:00pm – 9:00pm

M.E.Ch.A. de Fresno City and Fresno State are hosting a vigil to focus on farm worker's rights and the history of the struggle of the campesinos. We will have many activities, from danzantes to folklorico to activities for children. We will also have some guest speakers talking about farm worker's experiences. This event is open to everyone!

M.E.Ch.A. de Fresno City y Fresno State será el anfitrión de una vigilia en la que se centrará en los derechos de los trabajadores agrícolas y la historia de la lucha de los campesinos. Tendremos muchas actividades abiertas a la comunidad, como danzantes, folklórico, y actividades para los niños. También tendremos algunos invitados que hablaran sobre las experiencias de los trabajadores de la granja. ¡Este evento está abierto a toda la comunidad!

Stopping Keystone XL Pipeline, for now
News from 350.org

What just happened in the Senate this week: The oil industry's Senators did not manage to pass legislation that would force President Obama to build Keystone XL.

Because people all across the country, jumped into action this week, the oil lobby backtracked and held a vote on a nonbinding resolution that says it would be nice to build the pipeline, but doesn't actually do much about it. For that vote, they got 62 Senators to vote with them. As usual, the ones who had taken the most money from the fossil fuel industry lined up to cast their votes—the cosponsors of the bill, on average, had taken $807,000 in dirty energy money.

Estudiantes de UNAM, México

Congress is going on break, and for the next two weeks, these 62 Senators will be back in their home states, doing things like meeting with constituents -- people like you.

Home states are where some of the most heroic work took place the last week -- like Minneapolis, where 150 activists showed up on very short notice at Sen. Klobuchar's office in a snowstorm to tell her to vote no on Keystone, and she did.

Here's how the Senators in Colorado voted 'yes' for the pipeline: Mark Udall - No; Michael Bennet - Yes.

There are two ways to react in a democracy. One is to walk away in disgust. The other is to stand up and say: No more! Capitol Hill is not the center of the world. Around the country this week our friends at Tar Sands Blockade have been actively targeting Keystone investors; faith groups have been hauled off to jail in front of the White House to protest the pipeline; and the divestment campaign has expanded off college campuses and into municipal and state governments. The movement can’t outspend the oil industry, but we can out-organize them. In fact, we have to.

350.org is building a global movement to solve the climate crisis.

Dear President Obama,

[To Nobel Peace Prize recipient Barack Obama about secret targeting of terrorist suspects for death-by-drone and his expanding executive power to kill anyone.]

"Do the United States and its people really want to tell those of us who live in the rest of the world that our lives are not of the same value as yours?
That President Obama can sign off on a decision to kill us with less worry about judicial scrutiny than if the target is an American?
Would your Supreme Court really want to tell humankind that we, like the slave Dred Scott in the nineteenth century, are not as human as you are?
I cannot believe it.
I used to say of apartheid that it dehumanized its perpetrators as much as, if not more than, its victims.
Your response as a society to Osama bin Laden and his followers threatens to undermine your moral standards and your humanity." - Desmond Tutu, South African Archbishop, Nobel Peace Prize winner
[Space is available here if Mr. Obama would like to respond.]

Es suficiente, hoy,
RudyG