Book Fair, Fundraiser, Floricanto

Writing American Identity at LA Times Book Fair

Michael Sedano

The Los Angeles Times Book Festival has taken root on the grounds of the University of Southern California. I took the train the whole way. The Gold Line to the Red Line to the Green Line, and exit across the street from the main gate and nearby Green Room.

The campus' level landscape encourages browsers to leisurely promenades from east to west then south to north. Tented booths line every walkway and pack into the campus' numerous shady pocket parks. The gorgeous southern California Spring weather made such strolls de rigueur, especially with so many booths to see.

For the most part booth staff sit and watch the crowds pass. The most aggressive marketing effort I saw was a  sandwich board exhibitor trudging through mildly interested pedestrians. I doubt there's a rule prohibiting exhibitors employ the greet and meet strategy of commercial trade shows.

A trade show costs a lot of money whose pay-back is tough to calculate. In addition to the price of booths, the enterprise has to foot the bills for staff, transportation, meals and other expenses. Much of this becomes unrecovered overhead, the price of "showing the flag" at a prestigious event.

The "greet and meet" approach assigns staff to stand and catch the eye of passersby, offer a friendly greeting, then invite the person into the booth for a conversation, or stop at the table long enough to answer a question and take a bookmark. This method offers a better bang for the buck compared to mutely watching crowds approach, slow, pause, move along. Over the course of an hour observer-operators seeking to sell books at the fair let hundreds of opportunities swerve off down the line.

 

I hadn't been inside Town & Gown since 1973, when the Festival de Flor y Canto filled the room with Chicana Chicano literature and free lunches. Today, the Times and USC use the space as the Green Room for the writers and we affiliated tipas tipos.

My host for the afternoon is Melinda Palacio. She's to be on the afternoon's stellar panel, Writing American Identity moderated by Hèctor Tobar. The panel joins Reyna Grande, Melinda Palacio, Luis J. Rodriguez, and David Treuer together to relate their current book to the critic's probes.

Luis Rodriguez, Hector Tobar, Melinda Palacio, Alex Espinoza share the excitement of the hour before the panel.



Time passes quickly in the air-conditioned bustle of Town & Gown. The Gluten-free Chicano finds some hummus and celery to go with the Starbuck's coffee. It's a spectacular vista of Doheny Library, Tommy Trojan, and the downtown skyline on the walk to Mark Taper Hall. Back when I was a TA here at USC, my office was in the basement, but then it was called Founder's Hall.

There's a good-sized line outside, folks waiting for the doors to open. I get into the lecture hall early enough to choose a good location and test the ambient light for held held photography. Before the house fills, Daniel Olivas wishes Melinda Palacio a rewarding panel.



The panel draws a full house and excited chatter. Artist José Lozano and poet Gloria Alvarez find seats behind me. I nod to a fellow I met at Alurista's UCLA signing of Floricanto en Aztlán. 

Moderator Hèctor Tobar is a book critic for the Times and a powerful novelist. He's also an accomplished oral reader, a skill he displays by reading a passage he's selected in each writer's book, then tossing them an invitation to talk about their work.

David Treuer recounts his interview methodology for his nonfiction book, "Rez Life: An Indian's Journey Through Reservation Life."



Reyna Grande's detailed and engaging remarks reflect rigors and benefits of touring her memoir "The Distance Between Us".



Luis Rodriguez blends roles of writer, consejero, elder with practiced spontaneity. He weaves in and out of his boostore enterprise, Tia Chucha's, as well as his current book, It Calls You Back.




Melinda Palacio practices effective use of speaking aids, holding up her poetry collection, How Fire is a Story Waiting, When the audience gets outside to signing area 5, they'll spot the familiar cover.

Melinda, who grew up in HP--Huntington Park--pointed out that she, Reyna, and Luis were South Central gente.




After the panel, individual audience members chatted up the writers.




Fundraiser for Rarámuri Tarahumara

Cultural Arts Tours & Workshops put together one of the best organized fundraisers in memory. That was the consensus among those I overhead, among the hundred-plus guests who turned out for a night of plática, ceremony, poetry, song, and boleros by Xavier Montes and Trio de Colores,  

La Bloga friend, and principal in Cultural Arts Tours & Workshops, Vanessa Acosta, identifies Dennis Garcia, Chumash Elder singing birds songs and sharing a Red Tail Hawk story with our guests with Rudy Ortega, Tomair (Capatian) of the Tataviam - San Fernadeno Mission Band Indian, sageing and blessing our event and food.

Manuel and Lupe Morales landscaped their ample backyard into an ideal setting for a maze of chairs and tables. Guests found available seating, introduced one another, then discovered their dinner served in an instant! This element of the amazing organization had people smiling all around. A buffet line would have been a killer on the extensive program.

Olivia Chumacero offers an emigrant's lament on conditions in her Rarámuri tierra. She sings a grandmother song then reads one of her own poems.

Javier Avila speaks at length about his work with the gente of Cañon de Cobre. A Jesuit Priest and Human Rights warrior, Avila's animated information-packed discourse offered some lighter moments when artist writer J. Michael Walker endeavored a translation.

Avila devotes the larger portion of his talk introducing Tarahumara culture, delving briefly into ugliness alluded by Chumacero.

As with any evening fête, the ceremonial elements drew out their moments. By the time poet Naomi Quiñonez was welcomed to the stage, the restless audience induced her to read only briefly.

With poetry completed, it was dance time. Being I get up with la chickenada, I said my farewells and missed the rest of tonight's festivities. Just before I left, artist Mario Trillo handed me a traguito of sotol, so I have a good idea what I was going to miss. Así es.

Penultimate La Bloga On-line Floricanto in March 2013
Viva Flores, Mario Angel Escobar, Em Jollie, Jesus Cortez/Stay True, Tony Díaz

"El Paso Lover" by Viva Flores
"Tribute to Sal Castro (1933-2013) / Tributo a Sal Castro (1933-2013)" by Mario Angel Escobar
“Three P.M., April 15, 2013: Pipestone, MN/Boston, MA” by Em Jollie
“The Promised Land” by Jesus Cortez/Stay True
“Work” by Tony Díaz


El Paso Lover
by Viva Flores

“La Frontera” he says aloud with tilted chin
cigarette dangling out of his upturned mouth.

I lay languidly in dampened sheets as he searches the cityscape downtown,
rasps a match and begins to smoke frantically.
“This place is crazy” he says with uninhibited wonder,
“I can’t wait to leave.”
Then turns his head
expecting me
to
agree.

There are dogs barking faintly somewhere down the street.

I think back to when you mentioned
your childhood and the
westerns you’d watch on TV,
there were saloons , right?
and
gunslingers who never gave up
and
women,
women with long hair and
bit parts that looked,
that looked
just like me?

I want to say this and so many things.

When you return to your University and write about
the desolate border,
and
describe the harrowing conditions you were forced to live under
I doubt you’ll detail
how your desolate
hunger
existed years before
that night we exchanged
badly scribbled phone numbers.
How it burned
anxiously in the mind of a little boy
lonely who watched too many westerns
on TV , grown into
a man
desperately grasping for
lost identities
like hoping to find a pair of leatherette shoes
that match from a discard pile.

You come to the border,
stay awhile,
only to
later regale friends and memoirs with your
rugged phase.

You forget my face,
melding me into just another seamless memory
of the naked Mexican women once strewn
on your bed.

Do your lovers in Chicago or New York fuck less
hungrily than I do,
to you?

He writes about heads chopped in Juarez and sometimes the nobility of the
Mexican milieu,
dropped head in reverence for the countless women buried,
blind to how he buries
burrows and uses this place
to hide secrets in its women,
too.

Every city has its saloons.

All of this I want to say.

Downtown apartments lead to
drunken rooms
in Anywhere, USA,
and lonely little boys can move anyplace
only to remain
afraid.

We don’t need another gunslingin’ hero to
come and save the day,
in
“La Frontera”.

Viva Flores 2013



TRIBUTE TO SAL CASTRO (1933-2013)
by Mario Angel Escobar

A body is dead
but the spirit of a teacher
still lives in the gentle
landscape of dreams.

The cry of his activism,
vibrant red in the horizon,
is an encouraging hug
that pushes us to continue
to demand justice in
the educational system.

His legacy today,
tomorrow and forever
will be a battle cry:

Sal Castro!
Sal Castro!
Sal Castro!

Presente!
Presente!
Presente!

TRIBUTO A SAL CASTRO (1933-2013)
por Mario Angel Escobar

Ha muerto un cuerpo
pero sigue vivo un maestro
en el tierno paisaje de los sueños.

El grito de su activismo
que el horizonte guarda,
es un alentador abrazo
que nos empuja a seguir
exigiendo justicia.

Ahora él es, una leve mirada
llena de gritos que entra
por el alma y se convierte
en grito de lucha:

¡Sal Castro!
¡Sal Castro!
¡Sal Castro!

¡Presente!
¡Presente!
¡Presente!

by Mario A. Escobar
Edited by Francisco X. Alarcón



Three P.M., April 15, 2013: Pipestone, MN / Boston, MA
by Em Jollie

Here we kneel, for a few hallowed moments,
on the small island of dry rock
showing from beneath Minnesota snow.
Red Pipestone seems to glow and sing
with the waterfall. Ancestors crowd
along the stream as our foreheads touch
down on frigid Earth just long enough
for us to Bless and be Blessed.

There they kneel, for long frightening moments,
and fall and tear and run -- some towards the blast,
others away. Several never to run again. Red
shines on the sidewalks, say the news channels,
repeating, recreating the carnage. Amidst stories
of those who rushed in to assist, donate blood,
help in any way possible.

What can I say from this Sacred place of Ancient
Ceremony? That it has been mined for centuries
in order to carve holy Chanupas, Talmaqns,
making grace from something hard? That our human
history is full of senseless killing, that it still happens
all over the world today, but that there always have been
and always will be those who are called to Pray?

No words that can undo the damage, make sense
of the grief, just that those Prayers
come alive, and grow, and grow,
carried in hopeful hearts until
the healing is done,
and Peace is all we know.



The Promised Land
by Jesus Cortez

Yes, America, as we left
Our small town with hunger pangs,
All we could think of were food stamps
All we could think of was welfare.

Yes, America, as we travelled
Through unknown lands,
Within our own country,
We dreamed of the Projects.

Yes, America, as we attempted
To cross your border,
All we could dream of
Was never leaving again.

Yes, America, as your border patrol
Shot at us at the border,
All we could dream of was
Being Patriotic and dying for you.

Yes, America, as they tried
To kill our soul in your schools,
All I could think of was going to
College for free.

Yes, America, as your police
Kicked our legs open,
Violated our bodies,
We wished to be accepted.

We dreamed of this Promised Land
Where we could die.

We dreamed of this Promised Land
Where we are judged.

We dreamed of this Promised Land
Where freedom is a farce.

This promise…
This land…
This dream…

This land for the few,
This hate for the many

Who were never promised anything.

By: Jesus Cortez



WORK
by Tony Díaz, El Librotraficante

My parents picked crops.
I pick my destiny.

My mother and father worked jobs no one else wanted.
I create works no one else imagined.

Mis padres believed in the American Dream.
I am blessed to shape it.

Copyright 2013 Tony Diaz
All rights reserved
Previously published at www.thehuffingtonpost.com, 4/12/2013

Bios
"El Paso Lover" by Viva Flores
"Tribute to Sal Castro (1933-2013) / Tributo a Sal Castro (1933-2013)" by Mario Angel Escobar
“Three P.M., April 15, 2013: Pipestone, MN/Boston, MA” by Em Jollie
“The Promised Land” by Jesus Cortez/Stay True
“Work” by Tony Díaz

Viva Flores is a poet and performer living and working out of El Paso, TX. has written and produced a one-woman show, “Mujer Corazon” in 2007, as well as a play, “Moños de Batalla, a Revolutionary Fairy Tale” in 2009. Performance highlights include reciting poetry at the Border Book Festival in 2008 at the NALAC Conference 2008, The Chicano Moratorium March in Los Angeles 2010, alongside Jimmy Santiago Baca at NMSU in 2010, and being invited as a special guest for Lalo Delgado’s Annual Birthday Celebration by the Metro College in Denver 2010. Viva was also featured at Café Cultura in Denver, 2010, Barbed Wire Open Mic, El Paso 2011 and Flowers of Fire, 2011 in Los Angeles, and most recently at Resistencia Bookstore 2012, Austin, TX. She was also a featured performer at “El Mundo Zurdo, An International Conference on the Life and Work of Gloria Anzaldua, UTSA 2010, and performed for Tony Diaz’s famed “Librotraficantes” movement, 2012. Published poetry includes Mujeres de Maiz Anthology Editions Cantando al Amanecer 2007 and La Sagrada 2009, the upcoming Anthologies Mussa 2013 and From Turtle Island to Abya Yala, Malinalli Press, 2012, and the Rio Grande Review online edition 2013. Her first book of poetry, Capitana is due out in 2013, edited by Juan Pablo Plata.
Viva spent several years performing as the dubious Chicana poet “La RaNa”.

Mario A. Escobar (January 19, 1978-) is a US-Salvadoran writer and poet born in 1978. Although he considers himself first and foremost a poet, he is known as the founder and editor of Izote Press, the first Central American publisher in the United States. Escobar was born in La Union (El Salvador) on January 19, 1978. Escobar has stated that his exposure to “poetic sounds” began during his childhood and that his foundation in poetry stemmed from what he witness during the Salvadoran Civil War. Escobar began his writing career by the age of 13 as a poet. He cites Roque Dalton, Tato Laviera and Jaime Sabines as some of his early poetic influences. Escobar’s work has been feature in UCLA’s publication Underground Undergrads which recognizes the poet as an activist for the undocumented Student Movement. In 2004, Escobar was placed under arrest and was scheduled to be deported. In 2006, Escobar won his case for political asylum making him one of the last Salvadorans to win a political case fourteen years after the Salvadoran Peace Accords were signed in 1992. Escobar currently lives in Alhambra. Escobar has been featured in documentaries like Mimoun en Mario, studenten met een missie and in The healing Club. Some of Escobar’s works include Al corre de la horas (Editorial Patria Perdida, 1999) Gritos Interiores (Cuzcatlan Press, 2005), La Nueva Tendencia (Cuzcatlan Press, 2005), Paciente 1980 (Orbis Press, 2012).

em jollie currently resides in the woodland hills of western mass on the vermont border. she loves the natural world & all our relations. she plays wooden flutes, and is learning ukelele. visual art is another medium she enjoys. em identifies as a full blood breed (mi'kmaq anishinaabe acadian-french german). questions, comments, greetings welcome: emjollie@gmail.com


Jesus Cortez grew up in Anaheim as an undocumented immigrant to a single mother. His love for poetry comes from the love for stories his mother told him growing up. He hopes that his poetry creates a sense of awareness about the struggles, the pain, but also the resistance that exists in the undocumented community.

Women Writers At Work. Global Modernities Conference. Poetry Reader Contest. On-line Floricanto

Women Writers At Work Panel Discussion Fills  Eastside Café

Michael Sedano


El Sereno's Eastside Café is one of those spots whose four walls define a space but more importantly, contains a spirit and energy that fills one's heart and makes one long for silly things like winning the lotto and lugging in a wheelbarrow of cash, dumping it on the floor, and seeing what the gente can do with unlimited funding that matches their unlimited ganas.

Saturday, April 6, brought me to Eastside Café for a thoroughly engaging afternoon with a panel of accomplished writers and a full house of eager ears. Most listened through their fingers, taking notes on  consejos and anecdotes shared from the writers up front.

Organized in collaboration with Mujeres de Maíz, whose 2013 theme is "Identity Blinging," by Alejandra Sánchez for her Graduate Field Study at Antioch University Los Angeles, the discussion provided one of the capstones for a series of four workshops, platicas and readings curated by Sánchez and poets Olga García Echeverría and Iris de Anda.

Produced under the banner of "Weaving Words, Creating Worlds: Healing and Empowerment as Women Storytellers," the series clearly serves a strong writing community in this area of El Lay.

Sánchez prepared an extensive set of prompts that, initially, caught the panelists biting their tongues. Perhaps communication apprehension, or maybe the moderator did not provide advance copies to the panelists, but after a few moments of discomfited silence--who'll go first?--Fe Montes jumped in and got the panel moving in the right direction. 

Subjects covered the usual for a writers panel: how do you: promote yourself as a writer; promote your  your art; find publishing opportunity; find money; decide to self-publish; enter contests? 

Alejandra Sánchez moderated the discussion.

The prompts and questions worked. Saturday's audience sizzled with inspiration and the imperative to pursue the dream. 

Sensing and sensitive to a generation gap, I asked Alejandra Sánchez about that "identity blinging" phrase. She replies, "my take on Identity Blinging is this: 'blinging' is like showing your shine. Bling is a word for jewels, diamonds, sparkle. When one "blings" their identity they show their identity, shine themselves brightly, stand strong in their power and beauty.

Felicia "Fe" Montes 

Strength. Power. Beauty. Indeed, the women shone brilliantly, stood tall, and exhibited the strength that comes of determination to pursue the writing dream.

Here are women. Here are writers. Here is the ongoing fulfillment of Mujeres de Maíz' mission statement: Our mission is to unite and empower women of all ages, colors, and sexualities by creating safe community spaces that provide art education, mentorship, art exhibition, and publishing opportunities.

Bloguera Olga García Echeverría

The powerful message that no one makes a living from writing but that is no reason not to engage a passion for literary expression, energized the panelists. García, for example, told how she quit her job in California, pulled up stakes and headed to El Paso to join the University of Texas campus' frontera writing program. 

García related the importance of asking about honoraria when organizations ask her to read or conduct writing workshops. She and the others often work for free, but must use their time judiciously and not hesitate to ask if there's compensation.

An alternative to a cash payout is getting a table. When doing a free reading, that table can pull in a couple hundred dollars.

Jenny Factor

Jenny Factor offered the afternoon's most practical advice. While employed full-time in the dot com industry, Factor told the assembly she'd save a few dollars out of every paycheck, knowing that one day she would use the savings to support herself as she pursued her writing.

On the subject of entering contests--pay to play--Factor advocates prioritizing contests. Her "A" list included only her career-making opportunities: win one of these and the prize is a publication and notice from the big houses. 

The "B" list is contests whose winning would bring acclaim, perhaps a few dollars, but to advance one's career requires winning a handful of "B" levels.

"C" list contests are the attractive-sounding, obscure, small prize--or none--offerings that one could use to practice entering contests.

Factor observed she budgets a certain amount of cash each year for contests (and magazine subscriptions) and when she reaches her limit, ceases her participation.

center, Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo

Similarly superbly-organized, Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo talked about a reading series she organizes out of Venice's Beyond Baroque Literary | Arts Center in Venice, California, and how she manages a career teaching high school and her artistic career.

Serendipity comes into play. Bermejo recounted how she was semi-coerced into producing her first chapbook. She'd been invited to read at an important festival--by mistake. When Bermejo pointed that out, the organizers invited her anyway. Bermejo produced the chapbook in order to have something to show at the reading, giving her writing career an immediate boost.

Bermejo is not the only teacher on the panel. García, Montes, and Andrea García Mauk also work as school teachers, while Factor is on the Antioch faculty.

Andrea García Mauk

Andrea García Mauk offered the entrepreneuse side of writing. A graduate of film school, Mauk knows the challenges of getting projects funded. To resolve the issue, Mauk launched her own company, Dancing Horse Media Group.

Mauk and Dancing Horse Media are nearing completion of their initial print output, a multimedia cookbook featuring healthy, gluten-free recipes. 

Dancing Horse had a call for submissions in 2012. In a small world coincidence, Mauk told how an entry that arrived late was just the missing piece she wanted and accepted it for publication. Its writer is Sánchez.

Wrapping up the afternoon, Sánchez asked the panel to share a book title and encouraging anecdotes about serendipitous results and other inspirations learned from hard knocks that every published writer can recount. Sánchez observes, "it's important to end a platica with creative writers in a way that can be a springboard for more creativity and inspiration."

Alejandra Sánchez will round out the event with a summary article and the book titles the panelists recommended. In addition, a Mujeres de Maíz videographer documented the full session. La Bloga will provide a follow-up when Sánchez' website goes live.

Cal State LA Hosts Conference on Global Modernities

Must bust in early May / Orders from the DA / Look out kid, you've done it again.

La Bloga friend Roberto Cantú isn't singing Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues," but in early May, Cantú and his colleagues in the Gigi Gaucher-Morales Memorial Conference Series, the College of Arts and Letters, the College of Natural and Social Sciences, the Department of Chicano Studies, the Department of English, the Barry Munitz Fund, and the Emeriti Association, again sponsor their annual Spring event on May 3-4, 2013, Conference on Global Modernities.

Except for CSULA's hefty parking fees and dining, the Conference is public and free.

The event continues a conversation started at the 2011 edition of the Modernity, Critique, and Humanism conference. This year's focus falls on global demography, biodiversity, political and social movements in different parts of the world.

True to Cantú's dedication to scholarship, Conference on Global Modernities invites scholarly inspection of (a) practices of interaction in civic, communitarian, national, and global communication; (b) pedagogical forms of instruction that are emergent and innovative in the research and study of globalization; (c) challenges to our consumption habits by new research on endangered ecosystems and on the planet’s failing biodiversity; (d) theoretical innovations in the fields of literature and the arts, criticism, social theory, demographics, and philosophical and critical thought.

CSULA is not in Westwood but on the Eastside of town, where CSULA is the default election for students who cannot afford to go away to college. Home to a large population of "non-traditional" students like re-entry women, returning war Veterans, working full-time and going to school part-time gente, CSULA overlooks East Los from its hillside in El Sereno.

Find details on the Conference on Global Modernities website.

Mail Bag. 

Musical Evening Fundraiser for Tarahumara

The musical program by harpist extraordinaire Xavier Montes and Trio de Colores is a darn good reason to attend this worthwhile event. The guest list already confirming their attendance--a montón of notable artists and writers--will be another highlight of what promises to be a delightful evening of chatter, chow, and cancíones.

I'll see you there.

Mail Bag, from Tim Z. Hernandez

Tell Us Their Names - The "Deportees"

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita,

Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria;

You won't have your names when you ride the big airplane,

All they will call you will be "deportees"

I don't know if their names were Juan, Rosaltia, Jésus and Maria, the deportees, but Tim Z. Hernandez' next novel will tell their stories and their names.

Indebted to the dead farmworkers for the novel, Hernandez has launched a project to erect a headstone bearing the names of the anonymous victims Unitedstatesian musical genius Woody Guthrie sings about in his song "Plane Wreck at Los Gatos."

The fundraiser for the headstone goes down in Fresno Califas. Click here for the venue's webpage.

Guthrie's son, Arlo, sings the song in this YouTube:

Mail Bag. From Gemini Ink and Carmen Tafolla:

La Voz de San Antonio 

In the belief that poetry comes alive when spoken out loud, Carmen Tafolla invites members of the community to participate in La Voz de San Antonio...

Are you between ­ five and ninety-­five? Do you have a favorite poem of your own or a poem by a poet you love? It could be a poem your grandmother taught you in Spanish when you were five, something you recited in school 30 years ago, or something you wrote just last year. Come out and show the world your VOZ -- La Voz de San Antonio.

Abrazos,

Carment Tafolla

San Antonio Poet Laureate

To find out more, and to register online, click here for Gemini Ink's website.

On-line Floricanto: Second of Five for April Twenty-thirteen
Elena Díaz Bjorkquist, Tom Sheldon, Barrio Poet, Anne Karpiak, Elizabeth Cazessús


"We Stopped Talking" by Elena Díaz Bjorkquist
"Storytelling" by Tom Sheldon
"Oda para mi Madre" by Barrio Poet
"Shake the Web" by Anne Karpiak
“Caligrafía del milagro" por Elizabeth Cazessús


We Stopped Talking
by Elena Díaz Bjorkquist ©2013

She commandeered our group,
White woman on a mission
Shooting questions at us
About our projects.

We, a Pueblo Indian
A Chicana, and a Yaqui answered
Politely, kept our cool,
Dismissed her rudeness.

Just before time to report,
I asked about her project,
A movie about Tucson's
All Soul's Procession

She told us about people
Carrying giant puppets,
Painting their faces as skeletons,
Wearing costumes.

“More people are painting
Their faces the past few years.
It’s become
a new thing.”

I shook my head, "It's centuries
Old, came from Mexico."
"No,” she said, it's recent
Only in Tucson."

The others agreed with me.
I told her the procession
Was modeled after El Dia
De Los Muertos.

“No, it’s not,
Definitely not!”
“It’s a Tucson thing,
only in Tucson.”

She wouldn’t listen
So we stopped talking.

She reported for us
“Our group fell apart,” she said.
“These people
Refused to talk.”

The facilitator asked why.
“She wouldn’t listen to us,” I said.
“She was disrespectful,
So we stopped talking.”

Silence hung over the room
Like a heavy curtain,
A room full of Chicanos,
Native Americans, Asians.

No one talked
But we all knew.

When Folklore Field School
Was over, the facilitator asked
Our group to stay.
Only she stayed.

Next morning, she went
To each of us, apologized,
Said, “I don’t know what got in me,
Must have been my pain meds.”



Storytelling
by Tom Sheldon

The story circles
Searching for a center
A verbal shield
a mask a nimbus
Disclosing beyond appearances
Telling of a sacred mystery
Animals and warring twins
Sweeping Bajadass
And starry skies
con ursa major
Of shared beginnings
and told stories
Cool and delicate as snow melt
Legacies in a fragile web
Carried on voices
So that our children’s children
Become who they are intended to be



Oda para mi Madre
by Barrio Poet

I learned Spanish
reading your brown and white
paperback novels
with plump breasted
women
and square jawed romanticos

chaparrita con ojos verdes,
santaneca, güanaca,
madre eterna

your songs trailed through
the screen door
with the smell of roasted
chiles, disappearing
with the flight of pigeons
to rooftops with tiny rocks

Your voice, booming
still echoes
when I close my eyes
at mid afternoon as I try
to capture your sonnets
through memories of my juventud

your voice
a lullaby
a sigh
a jolt to the heart

for it stops at times

until you pray for me
clutching your rosario
y rezando un Padre Nuestro



SKAKE THE WEB
by Anne Karpiak

She opened the book..
they said it was medicine...
lines pulled from the earth...
each one patterning tomorrows yesterday..
I am acceptance...she felt...I am love...
another line whispered....
she left her offerings...
thank yous in the winds....
making medicine with medicine..the stickman said..
watching the spider weave it's web...
hatched weblings....scattering in every direction...
absorbed into the earth.....shaking the web...



CALIGRAFÍA DEL MILAGRO
por Elizabeth Cazessús

La ciudad se abre por la ventana y son tus gestos
Un corolario al sentimiento que desaparece en la lejania
El bullicio instrumentado: zumbido de autos y pregones
imitan garabatos que quedan en los márgenes de la odre.

Destila tu voz la revelación del sueño gota por gota
A la luz del poema que partió tu cuerpo con su rayo
Ese milagro nacido del río contenido de la pasión
Para cantarle al mes de abril su desesperada elegía.


Bios

"We Stopped Talking" by Elena Díaz Bjorkquist

"Storytelling" by Tom Sheldon

"Oda para mi Madre" by Barrio Poet

"Shake the Web" by Anne Karpiak

“Caligrafía del milagro" por Elizabeth Cazessús

Elena Díaz Björkquist. “I have enjoyed being a moderator on Poets Responding to SB 1070 since it’s creation by Francisco and Odilia. It’s a pleasure opening poems and reading so many wonderful works, but always difficult to select the ones for La Boga’s Floricanto. I like being a friend and mentor to many great poets on Facebook. Reading poetry is an inspiration for writing my own poetry.”

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. Elena is co-editor of 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. She received the 2012 Arizona Commission on the Arts Bill Desmond Writing Award for excelling nonfiction writing and the 2012 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.

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

Tom Sheldon. I was born and raised in New Mexico and come from a large Hispanic family. Since a very young I have always loved and appreciated the gift of creating in various forms. I am inspired by all mediums and particularly love nature, animals, and organic based topics. Southwestern themes and landscapes are among my favorites and the wonder and beauty of the Southwest continually inspires my artwork.
I am a self taught artist and have enjoyed a modicum of success, primarily in drawing and drafting. I have always utilized photography as a tool for composition and as an aid in drawing and painting, though recently I have begun to use photography as a medium in itself as well as a tool.
My work has been shown in local galleries, as well as the Museum of Natural History in Albuquerque. I have illustrated for Hawk Watch International (HWI) and have won art competitions at the State Fair level. I teach students on occasion as well.
In addition to drawing and painting, I write poetry, some of which has been featured in La Bloga,
Monique’s Passions e-magazine, Poets Supporting SB1070, Writers in the Storm, and Dreams and Divinities.

Born in East L.A., CA in 1973, Edward Vidaurre writes poetry about his upbringing and experiences of living in the barrio. Raised in Boyle Heights in the projects of Aliso Village, his poetry takes you through his memory of La Lucha. Known to his friends as Barrio Poet, Vidaurre says:” Sometimes the barrio claims us, holds us by our feet like roots in its field of chalk outlines closed off by the screaming yellow tape being pulled from its soul.”

Vidaurre is the founder of Pasta, Poetry & Vino and Barrio Poet Productions. He has been nominated for a pushcart prize for his poem, "Lorca in the Barrio" and also is co-editing an anthology called "Twenty" for Newtown, CT through El Zarape Press with Daniel Garcia Ordaz and Katie Hoerth.

Anne Karpiak is a Poet and Native Flute Player who lives in Buffalo, New York. Her photography, poetry and story have been featured in Yellow Medicine Review.  One of her poems can be found in Kim Shucks, Rabbit and Rose. Look for her poetry to be posted in April's poetry section of Indian Country Today for poetry month.