In Memoriam, Oscar Hijuelos. On-line Floricanto With Luivette Resto

Michael Sedano

This week's La Bloga-Tuesday stops to honor the memory of Oscar Hijuelos. As La Bloga recognizes the loss of an established literary voice--Hijuelos is a Pulitzer Prize winner--we are incredibly happy to present one of our brightest emerging literary voices, Luivette Resto. Luivette selects five poems from her 2013 collection, Ascension, which we feature in this week's On-line Floricanto.

Late-breaking News
In Memoriam: Oscar Hijuelos

La Bloga friend Tom Miller shares his sorrow at news of Oscar Hijuelos' death at age 62 on Saturday the twelfth of October. QEPD.

Miller thought back to an exchange with Hijuelos regarding Miller's book about Cuba, Trading with the Enemy, in which Miller tries to find locals who knew the Castillo brothers in Santiago de Cuba. Los Castillo were fictional, like Hijuelos' Pulitzer Prize-winning Mambo Kings title characters.

Oscar Hijuelos wrote Miller when Hijuelos' Beautiful Maria of My Soul came out and Miller had  shared some notes after reading an advanced readers copy. Hijuelos' email reply gives a sense of the late author's literary personality. [Miller adds clarifying notes in square brackets.]

Subject: RE: BMOMS
Date: Thu, 3 Jun 2010 14:26:22 -0400

Hey Tom --

Thank you so much -- yeah, it's a crazy little librito [refers to Beautiful Maria of My Soul] -- but you should read the finished version -- which by the way has the correction about Obispo [a Havana street whose location he misplaced] in it -- I did catch it-- but then that ARC was really just a first draft that I'd done my best to get into shape because of a schedule thing -- put in about another six weeks of work into it -- reflected in various changes and expansions, like the ending, though with a few little things taken out that I now regret-- like dropping the names of certain plants -- like yarez-- which I'd come across in some old Cuban tome-- which the copy editors threw a fit over because they couldn't find it on the internet ( as if anyone would have cared) -- and I regret that, pressured for time, I went along with them.

By the way, I did this reading at Union Square B&N the other night, with a friend of mine providing music-- it kind of worked pretty well -- but it so happens that I mentioned your book, Trading with the Enemy-- in the context of how charmed I was by the fact that you were carrying MKs with you while traveling through Cuba and that you had met a few folks somewhere (in Santiago?) who claimed to have once heard the MKs -- it happens that I've had similar experiences along the lines of "And whatever happened to those guys?" as if they really existed (perhaps they did.)
In any event, the fact that some folks really believe that the MKs had been around, sort of led me, in a very roundabout way, to the notion that a real Maria has existed all along-- and so there it is.

Again, I thank you for your kind words-- and, by the way, I'd love to get back down to Cuba sometime --

Take care
Con un abrazo--
Oscar

Qepd, Oscar Hijuelos

Pasadena's 15th annual Latino Heritage March and Jamaica will be the area's largest celebration, after the annual Rose Parade and a football game. Not even the silly "Doo-Dah" parade comes close. But read the newspapers or watch teevee news, people would think the doo-doo and the desfile de las rosas were the city's only major parades.

For a decade and a half, La Pintoresca Park and branch library in the city's northwest has filled with the excitement of drill teams, marching bands, gritos and games. For the 15th year now, the event returns, free and open to everyone who loves a parade. And a jamaica.

And this year, a literary event.

Kicking off at 12:30 is Rick Najera, who signs his new book until 1:25. Thereafter, two panels of raza writers entertain and inform inside the charming La Pintoresca Library.


1:30-2:10, PANEL 1, TELLING OUR STORIES IN POETRY & PROSE
Michael Sedano (moderator and panelist) introduces panelists Andrea Mauk, Randy Ertll, Ricardo Acuña.

2:15-3:00, PANEL 2, OUR INSPIRATIONS & PURPOSES
Thelma T. Reyna (moderator and panelist) introduces panelists Alex Moreno Areyan, Luis Torres, Gerda Govine Ituarte.

3:00-3:30, BOOK SIGNINGS & "MEET & GREET" MIXER WITH AUTHORS AND AUDIENCE.



LOCATION OF SITE:
On the 210 Freeway that passes through Pasadena, take the Fair Oaks exit, North.
North, or toward the mountains, drive up 1.5 miles to Washington Blvd.
You'll see the park and La Pintoresca Library on the northeast corner.
Street parking provides the only challenge to attenders.

Calaveritas Literarias Contest for DDLM

Día de los Muertos celebrations in the United States parallel those of Mexico in many dimensions. One missing element from US-based DDLM observations is the poetic tradition of light verse calaveritas literarias. Often quatrains--but no formal requirement--the calavera takes a satiric poke at the living in the context of eulogy, or simply expresses actitud about death, dying, and burial.

Mural, Boyle Heights, circa 1978.©msedano

La Bloga's Contest: Send up to three calavera poems in English, Spanish, or mezcla to win inclusion in the October 29, On-line Floricanto, and perhaps one of the prizes TBA.

Place your calaveras literarias in the body of an email (no files, please) and be sure to include your name and mail address in event your work wins one of the fabulous TBA prizes. Click here for the address, which is calaveras@readraza.com.



On-line Floricanto for Mid-October: Luivette Resto

Luivette Resto's 2013 collection, Ascension, from Tia Chucha Press, is distributed by Northwestern University Press. Order publisher direct by clicking here. At $15.00, Ascension makes a fabulous gift.


Luivette Resto was born in Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico but proudly raised in the Bronx.

Her first book of poetry Unfinished Portrait was published in 2008 by Tia Chucha Press and later named a finalist for the 2009 Paterson Poetry Prize.

She is also a contributing poetry editor for Kweli Journal, a CantoMundo fellow, and the hostess of a monthly poetry reading series called La Palabra located at Avenue 50 Studio in Los Angeles.

Her new book Ascension was published in April 2013 courtesy of Tia Chucha Press.








Leave It To the Weathermen
to make predictions of tomorrow
with talks of jet streams and
minus ten wind chill factors
bringing me back to our first nor’easter
stranded on the right shoulder of I95,
your index finger calmly swirling her initials
on the passenger’s side window.

Leave me with the memory of
an aurora borealis sending yellow
and green ribbons across the Manitoba sky
when I recognized who I needed to be
and who you never were.




Surrender
You were sexier than
a trumpet solo
in a salsa song.
Why would anyone
say no.

Pink Balloons
With only a bounty of pink and purple,
existing against his collage of darkness,
she plucked from her helium bouquet
a solitary soft pink balloon,
as the Atlantic Ocean applauded
the random act of kindness
witnessed on its boardwalk,
once saturated with $5 women,
peddlers, and morally questionable
business men.

Sea gulls wondered
if the boy will remember the lace
at the bottom of the girl’s dress or
the black bow buckle of her patent leather shoes,
will she remember the coldness of his fingertips or
the silhouette of his sullen face
as the sun set on both of them.

Constellations
Adding dizzying color
like a kaleidoscope
to his inertia,
he gravitated towards her.
As she asked to be part
of his constellation of paramours
and unfinished paintings.

Liberating one another
like a Cardenal poem.

Yes
Is it true that my womb
will never feel the soft pushes of an infant’s feet?

Is it true my femininity has been severed
for population control?

Is it true the pill my comadre took this morning
will cause cysts to grow in her ovaries like magnolias in May?

Is it true that Atabey weeps in a petroglyph
like la Virgen
like a mother on wedding days
like a child’s first seconds in this world.

Escalante's ganas pasan a otros. 1 Poem Festival.

Following up on last Saturday's La Bloga post, comes this from the Los Angeles Times, Wed., 3/31/10:

OBITUARY by Elaine Woo

"Jaime Escalante, the charismatic former East Los Angeles high school teacher who taught the nation that inner-city students could master subjects as demanding as calculus, died Tuesday. He was 79.

"The subject of the 1988 film Stand and Deliver, Escalante died at his son's home in Roseville, Calif., said actor Edward James Olmos, who portrayed the teacher in the film. Escalante had bladder cancer."

To read the entire L.A. Times article, go here.

You can leave a testimonial or message for the family here.

A Memorial is scheduled for Sat. April 17th. Time and location TBD. Info should be available soon here.

To hear a very well-done audio biography of Escalante from NPR's All Things Considered, go here and click on the Olmos/Escalante photo.

For those interested in Escalante's major article on his teaching philosophy and methodology, go here.

As described in last week's post, there are at least three books you can check on Jaime Escalante and his students' achievements. No matter which button you click, video you watch or how you learn more, if you are ever lacking some inspiration--and I don't mean only about teaching--hearing, reading or thinking about his work will serve you well. Especially if a little ganas would make all the difference.

-------------------

As Ramos detailed yesterday about the AWP Conference and Dan Olivas will tomorrow about Con Tinta, Denver's Chicano lit scene will be unusually cookin' this coming week.

Here's the poster from ONE POEM FESTIVAL taking place in Denver one week from tomorrow, featuring nearly 30 notable Latino/a poets.

Hosted by Momotombo Press and Palabra Literary Magazine, it will be held Fri., 4/9/10, from 6:30–9:00pm at the Dikeou Collection, 1615 California St. in downtown Denver. Bloguero Manuel Ramos will be one of many noted poetas. Should be lágrimas and gritos dónde quiera!

Es todo, hoy,
RudyG

RAULSALINAS DIES

From Our Friends at The Border Book Festival

Dear BBF Friends,

Raul Salinas, known as raulsalinas, that great human being, transformed by life and fire, has died. Raul was a featured poet at the Border Book Festival in 2000. It was a memorable performance as Raul danced, sang and gyrated through the power of his words his English, Spanish and Xicanindio.

His life was hard, yes, as he was incarcerated for many years in U.S. prisons, but those who knew and loved him saw his transformation into a light indescribable--beatific, really. We celebrate his great beauty and his gifts of spirit and words.

We will display his portrait taken by Daniel Zolinsky starting this Saturday, February 16 at 7:00 p.m. at a reception at the Cultural Center de Mesilla for The Love of Arts Month. The evening will feature the portraits of 14 BBF Artists taken by Zolinsky.

In addition, we will offer a program of poetry by Multilingual poets of the Ages with readings in English, French, Spanish, Urdu and Bengali by featured readers: Dr. Richard Rundell, Dr. Jan Hampton, Jorge Robles, Denise Chavez, Sudeshna Sengupta and Ayesha Farfaraz. Musicians Bugs Salcido on guitar and Debarshi Roy on sitar will also join us.

Please join us as Raul has made his way to the Ancestors.

This message comes to us from our friends in San Antonio:

"Words, sounds, speech, men, memory, thought, fears and emotions, - time - all related...all made from one..all made in one" - John Coltrane

Elder statesmen, Xicanindio leader, poet of the people, giver of hope to the oppressed and incarcerated, Raul Salinas passed away last night in Austin, Tejaztlan.

Raul will be greatly missed. His work, poetry, and philosophy will live on in the good works of poets, artists, musicians and cultural centros throughout America. His spirit we lead us all and help us to survive and thrive in difficult times.

His words/poems should serve as maps for us all in our quest to keep culture, heritage and tradition alive in our barrios, cul de sacs, suburbs, ranchos...wherever you/we live.

Thank you, Raul. You have blessed us all.

Manuel Diosdado Castillo, Jr.
San Anto Cultural Arts

A BIO OF RAUL SALINAS

Raúl Roy “Tapon” Salinas was born in San Antonio, Texas on March 17, 1934. He was raised in Austin, Texas from 1936 to 1956, when he moved to Los Angeles. In 1957 he was sentenced to prison in Soleded State Prison in California. Over the span of the next 15 years, Salinas spent 11 years behind the walls of state and federal penitentiaries. It was during his incarceration in some of the nation’s most brutal prison systems, that Salinas’ social and political consciousness were intensified, and so it is with keen insight into the subhuman conditions of prisons and an inhuman world that the pinto aesthetics that inform his poetry were formulated.

His prison years were prolific ones, including creative, political, and legal writings, as well as an abundance of correspondence. In 1963, while in Huntsville, he began writing a jazz column entitled “The Quarter Note” which ran consistently for 1-1/2 years. In Leavenworth he played a key role in founding and producing two important prison journals, Aztlán de Leavenworth and New Era Prison Magazine, through which his poetry first circulated and gained recognition within and outside of the walls. As a spokesperson, ideologue, educator, and jailhouse lawyer of the Prisoner Rights Movement, Salinas also became an internationalist who saw the necessity of making alliances with others. This vision continues to inform his political and poetic practice. Initially published in the inaugural issue of Aztlán de Leavernworth, “Trip through a Mind Jail” (1970) became the title piece for a book of poetry published by Editorial Pocho-Che in 1980.

With the assistance of several professors and students at the University of Washington - Seattle, Salinas gained early release from Marion Federal Penitentiary in 1972. As a student at the University of Washington, Salinas was involved with community empowerment projects and began making alliances with Native American groups in the Northwest, a relationship that was to intensify over the next 15 years. Although Salinas writes of his experiences as a participant in the Native American Movement, it is a dimension of his life that has received scant attention. In the 22 years since his release from Marion, Salinas’ involvement with various political movements has earned him an international reputation as an eloquent spokesperson for justice. Along the way he has continued to refine and produce his unique blend of poetry and politics.

Salinas’ literary reputation in Austin earned him recognition as the poet laureate of the East Side and the title of “maestro” from emerging poets who seek his advice and a mentor. While his literary work is probably most widely known for his street aesthetics and sensibility, which document the interactions, hardships, and intra- and intercultural strife of barrio life and prison in vernacular, bilingual language, few people have examined the influence of Jazz in his obra that make him part of the Beat Generation of poets, musicians, and songwriters. His poetry collections included dedications, references, and responses to Alan Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski, Charlie Parker, Herschel Evans, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, for example. Academics have primarily classified Salinas as an important formative poet of the Chicano Movement; yet, while he may have received initial wide-scale recognition during the era, it would be unfair to limit a reading of his style, content, and literary influence to the Movement.

There were many dimensions to Salinas’ literary and political life. Though, at times, some are perplexed at the multiple foci of Salinas’ life, the different strands of his life perhaps best exemplify what it means to be mestizo, in a society whose official national culture suppresses difference: his life’s work is testimony to the uneasy, sometimes violent,sometimes blessed synthesis of Indigenous, Mexican, African, and Euro-American cultures. Salinas currently resides in Austin, Texas, were he is the proprietor of Resistencia Bookstore and Red Salmon Press, located in South Austin. Arte Público Press reissued Salinas’ classic poetry collection, Un Trip through the Mind Jail y otras Excursiones (1999), as part of its Pioneers of Modern U.S. Hispanic Literature Series. He is also the author of another collection of poetry, East of the Freeway: Reflections de Mi Pueblo (1994).

Salinas resided in Austin, Texas, were he was the proprietor of Resistencia Bookstore and Red Salmon Press, located in South Austin. Arte Público Press reissued Salinas’ classic poetry collection, Un Trip through the Mind Jail y otras Excursiones (1999), as part of its Pioneers of Modern U.S. Hispanic Literature Series. He is also the author of another collection of poetry, East of the Freeway: Reflections de Mi Pueblo (1994).


En paz descanse. May he rest in peace.

Lisa Alvarado