Magú Memorial. On-Line Floricanto September Songs

Memorial Gathering for Magu 


For details see Magu's Magulandia home page. From that site:



Memorial services for Gilbert Sanchez Lujan aka Magu will be held on September 11th, 2011 at the East LA Civic Center, located at 3rd Street and Mednik Avenue, just south of the 60 Freeway in East Los Angeles, CA. Click the link for a map of or directions to the location:
http://g.co/maps/583g

Arrive at noon for a 1pm start time for the services.
More details will be announced soon.







QEPD, Magu.

Amelia M.L. Montes Joins La Bloga


Welcome New Bloguera Amelia M.L. Montes. Fond farewell to Olga Garcia. La Bloga looks forward to Olga's occasional return as a guest columnist. Amelia's first regular bloguera post was Sunday, September 4. 


Amelia M.L. Montes and Tatiana de la Tierra will alternate Sunday columns.

Amelia María de la Luz Montes, (Amelia M.L. Montes) Associate Professor of English and Ethnic Studies, is currently the Director of The Institute for Ethnic Studies at The University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Professor Montes’s most recent publication, the Penguin Classics edition of Ruiz de Burton’s novel, Who Would Have Thought It? was listed on the Latino Books Month List for May 2010 from the Association of American Publishers. She is editor of the anthology, Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton: Critical and Pedagogical Perspectives. A chapter from her creative book-in-progress, The Diabetes Chronicles was recently published in the anthology, An Angle of Vision: Women Writers on Their Poor and Working-Class Roots (University of Michigan Press).

La Bloga On-Line Floricanto September Songs as the days dwindle down...

Matt Sedillo, Margarita Hortelano, John Martinez,Carlos Parada Ayala, Sabrina Vourvoulias

A marvelous floricanto comes our way today via Francisco Alarcón and the moderators at the Facebook group Poets Responding to SB 1070. It's touching the outpouring of sadness of Magu's death, seen today in John Martinez' eulogy. QEPD also to Saúl Solórzano, eulogized in Carlos Parada Ayala's poem. Margarita Hortelano's piece appears in smaller type to preserve its pyramidal structure. Ojalá the blogger software allows the view. (If you have a large monitor you can often magnify letters by holding down two keys, Command + on Mac, Control + on Windows.)




1. "Long Dark Night" by Matt Sedillo

2. "Descendent of Aztecs" by Margarita Hortelano

3. "Yes We Should Paint We Should Paint" by John Martinez

4. "La luz de la tormenta" (A Saúl Solórzano) por Carlos Parada Ayala

5. "Broken Ground" by Sabrina Vourvoulias

Long Dark Night

by Matt Sedillo

Long Dark Night

This country was intentional

The first of its kind

A get rich quick scheme

And for those in its path

A long dark night

Fell the trees

Fell the natives

They raise no flags

So they own no land

Kill them as you must

This country is no place

For peaceful tribes 

Show this world

These United States

They aint playin

And they are no place

For free men

Sew men to the soil

Breed them like cattle

Strip them

Of language

Culture

Religion

Promise them

A place in your Gods heaven

Should they serve you well

Through long hard days

Through blood soaked fields

This country was built by slaves

Build ports to ship out cotton

Build ports to drag men

Women and children

Off coffin ships

Through Ellis Island

Lock them into

Burroughs

Ghettos

Tenements

Sweat shops

Shit and piss

Pack them in

Dust bowls

Coal mines

Triangle factories

Dynamite railroad lines

Hand them a paycheck

Wish them luck

And marvel at their

Ability to even exist

This country

Chews up and shits

The blood sweat and dreams

Of immigrants

This beast was born

Before any pilgrim

Touched shore

From the dawn of private property

To the code of Hammurabi

From the Magna Carta

To kissing the rings

Of your holy father

In that long dark night

Called human history

This country

May just yet be reborn

In a civil war

That never truly ended

That has extended

Its hostilities

To new victims

Of borders that moved across them

Victims of a nation

Made manifest

That imprisons men for working

Tears mothers from children

Destroys families

For the high crime of existing

In the permenant shadow

Of that deep dark night

That has always relied

On the blind eye

Of the house slave

The malinche

The pay raise

Of there is not enough room

On this boat

So don't rock

The status quo

Of we have it good

Dont we have it good

Doesnt that

Feel good

Rest well

In that American dream

This country

Is asleep

This country was intentional

The first of its kind

An American original

Born in a long dark night

Descendent of Aztecs

by Margarita Hortelano

People call me brown, Mexican, Latino;

there are so many definitions to describe my race.

“Yes”! Absolutely true, but people look at my skin, they do not see

     under it. I am the daughter of the sun; I incline my face in reverence to him.

The Gods of my people created the moon. I still hear the voices of Aztecs in the stone 

mountains. I am Mexica in blood and soul. I feel proud of my origins. My race is the

bronze, the dark gold. All my people have the color of the earth after the rain, sparkling

rain that Tlaloc put down in my country.

My father was born in Cuauhnahuac,

the place of eternal spring, a place where trees whisper about

their eternal youthful secrets. Cuauhnahuac means surrounded by trees.

There was the summer home of Aztec emperors, and the cradle of the most

beautiful Indian women. My father’s skin is dark brown a legacy of Moctezuma. He

represents Huitzilopochtli (The Soul of the Warrior). I learned from this warrior to love

my land, and to feel proud of the color of my skin; skin that shines at the sunset, and

disappears in the middle of the night.

My mother was born in Chihuahua,

El Estado Grande, the biggest state of Mexico,

the Heart of the Sierra Madre Occidental. She is Tarahumara,

Raramuri, cultivators of corn and beans, runners of the country. She belongs

to the copper canyons, a place where the rivers merged to form the Rio Fuerte that

streams furiously in the rain season to Sea Cortez. Her ancestors built adobe houses in

the high mountains. In those mountains mom gave birth to kids that flied like birds

leaving the nest forever;

they came across the light beyond the horizon.

Quetzalcoatl managed their flight in route to faraway lands.

Chihuahua is place of silvery curtains and green valleys

full of sun, where wildlife grows up. The trains

cross all the sierras; they are silent witnesses

of all that magnificent beauty.

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

It is in Chihuahua where my eyes saw for the first time the sun rays, in a remote and

silent place where people live in peace with God and nature. My siblings were born

there too. We were explorers in our own land; like our ancestors we fished,

hunted, and we slept under the stars. We followed the way of caves

and rivers where the symbols of our people are hidden from view

up in the mountains. In the nights without moon

these places are led by their spirits

who lie down among the stars.

I am a spirit of my past in renaissance.

I am a descendent of Aztecs; my blood is brown not just my skin.

You can call me Brown, Hispanic or Mexican;

I feel proud to belong to the Plumaged Serpent and to sacred lands.

YES WE SHOULD PAINT WE SHOULD PAINT

by John Martinez

The sun burns round

Like a paper machete

A tortilla on fire

Pinned to a washed

Slanted baby-blue sky

And if you peer deep

If you follow its real

acid burning arm to the south down the 99

Towards Selma towards Delano

Past the torture rows of grapes past

the spiral desert earth

That is Fresno County

You’d be following

Magu’s gaze

That concentrated seer of all things

You’d be looking

In the direction

Of his home his soul dome but first

a wall must be painted

Yes, we should paint

Magu would say

Cuz the Chicano proposal

Writers needed him

To say Yes we should paint

So they could reel in the dream

And the young Indio Chicanos,

With their cuff scrubbed Dickies

And white oversized undershirts

From the Westside Projects

From the Eastside Projects

From the proud Butler Street Homes

Needed him to say Yes we should paint

So they could come out and notice

The sky tagged to their glyphs and signs

And the after school Program

For inner City Youth

Mecha Central Alfonso Hernandez

With a UFW button next to his heart

Needed him to say

Yes we should paint

So the people would have the color

They always had, but this time drying permanent

Under the sun

LA LUZ DE LA TORMENTA

por Carlos Parada Ayala

(A Saúl Solórzano)

Era feroz la tormenta

en que caímos atrapados

como gaviotas extraviadas

en el mar de la historia.

¡Cómo crujían los maderos!

Y he ahí tu voz sencilla

de timonel y mástil desafiando

los golpes bajos de la oleada.

He ahí tu voz de luz brillando

en sueños de velas níveas

con viento en popa.

¡Y cómo seguiste soñando!

Mucho más allá de aquellos

navegantes que confundieron

los sueños con la muerte,

y a pesar de los mil y un naufragios,

¡cómo seguiste soñando!

Y es que siempre hay

una luz en la tormenta

que alumbra el corazón.

Tú lo supiste desde que en

los cuatro puntos cardinales

se escuchó tu voz surgiendo

en una encrucijada entre dos mares,

ahí donde se explayan para dar a luz

las piernas míticas de la madre eterna

de los navegantes que no mueren.

Ahí, en ese punto universal

donde la sangre se reúne

con la quintaesencia del futuro,

ahí surgió tu voz de vencedor

de huracanes furibundos.

Esa es la luz de la tormenta

que ilumina la ruta de los

mártires del púlpito

y los derroteros que deambulan

los poetas clandestinos.

Un navío es tu corazón

en donde se albergan

los náufragos del tiempo

en este viaje cósmico

a tu constelación por siempre

palpitante en la luz de la balanza.

Saúl Solórzano was the President of the Central American Resources Center in Washington, DC, and a champion of the rights of immigrants in the U.S., particularly the most vulnerable ones, those the press insists on calling “illegals”.  Saúl was born in El Salvador on October 14, 1961 and died August 17, 2011 of cardiac arrest.  He was 49 years old.

©Carlos Parada Ayala

Broken Ground

by Sabrina Vourvoulias

In past years

the matter was where,

not if, to prepare the ground

for roots. Close to home

or fuller to sun, either

way, we knew the offer

was bounty and we partook.

I still recall those treasures:

tiny green cabochons of tomatillo;

golden oil swimming with flecks

of herb and petal; heirlooms,

red-brown and mashed to pulp.

All in glass -- preserved

like memory.

These mornings I look

out the window, coffee in hand,

and quail at what I see growing.

Nothing nourishing.

Hard, toothy leaves. Indigestible

fruit. Poison berries that scribe

the soul with dark words and darker law.

The volunteers that once seeded

themselves -- an angel’s sowing, no

human hand involved -- are gone.

There is no space left

for them.

In my kitchen, San Judas Tadeo

and Santa Rita, purveyors

of the impossible, look on me

with the pity and exasperation

of the long sainted.

How do you intend to fill

your belly? they ask.

Hung in a place of honor

la Morenita keeps silent.

She knows all about

the meaning of land

and hopes gone to seed.

This morning, my daily cup

of desolation already served

and steaming, I try to remember

the shape of what once was.

I used to map my garden:

chiles and calabazas here; pungent

marigold between. Epazote and miltomate

or jitomate -- depending on which side

of my mother’s family named them --

anywhere. Plant and plan

for the future.

But everything has changed.

Me. This land. The country.

We’ve been reclaimed, gone feral.

Our fears are so rampant we’ve assigned

them numbers -- 1070, 56, 87, 2479.

From my kitchen window, I spy a lone fawn.

He hides in the poke and nettle

and noses around for sweet-tart apples

fallen early from centenarian trees.

Or maybe it’s the mulberries that call him

so close I can count the spots

speckling his coat.

Not far from him, a family of geese

stretch their black necks to track

the rooting. They’re curious but not unsettled.

More distant but still clear to my eyes,

turkey buzzards take the sun

and a summer-lean rabbit freezes

near a tree downed by ice --

her fur hard to pick out from bark.

It is oddly consoling, this wild

and mismatched community

I’m given to notice.

There is always something to harvest,

la Morenita seems to say

as I turn my eyes back to her abode,

my reality. Even in maleza …

I put down my cafecito, my mouth full

of bitter with sweet, and go outside

to collect what I recognize.

Some hopes. A dream. Seeds.

There may no longer be a garden

but there’s this –– us,

and the waiting ground within.

 BIOS

1. "Long Dark Night" by Matt Sedillo

2. "Descendent of Aztecs" by Margarita Hortelano

3. "Yes We Should Paint We Should Paint" by John Martinez

4. "La luz de la tormenta" (A Saúl Solórzano) por Carlos Parada Ayala

5. "Broken Ground" by Sabrina Vourvoulias

Matt Sedillo

Two time national slam poet, Grandslam Champion Damn Slam Los Angeles CA 2011, published author as featured on KPFK and in the Los Angeles Times. Contact at Mattsedillo1981@gmail.com

Margarita Hortelano

Margarita Hortelano or Veronica Abe the name how people know me in my country. I was born in a little town in Chihuahua, Mexico, in a place called Ejido El Largo. I immigrated to the United States in July of 2000 with my husband and kids. I felt dizzy to think about my life in this country, a place where I did not know anybody and nobody knew me. With the struggle of the language I started to learn in ESL classes, English as a Second Language, but my unsatisfied dreams made me look for something else. In 2007, I started college at San Juan College in Farmington NM. At first I started math classes thinking that there I would not have to speak. Math and English in one class was tricky for me. So I took refuge in my writing, trying to write in English and Spanish at the same time. I have been writing entire nights trying to translate my words, here is this Descendent of Aztecs-with all my heart!

John Martinez  

John Martinez studied Creative Writing at Fresno State University. He has published poetry in El Tecolote, Red Trapeze and the LA Weekly. He has performed (as a musician/political activist) with Teatro De La Tierra, Los Perros Del Pueblo and TROKA, a Poetry Ensemble. He has also toured with several Cumbia bands throughout the Central Valley and Los Angeles and is finishing (finally) his first Novel, Cumbia Days, which is expected out in 2012. He has worked for the last 17 years as an Administrator for a Los Angeles Law Firm and makes his home in Upland, California with his beautiful wife, Rosa America y Familia.

CARLOS PARADA AYALA

A recipient of Washington, DC’s, Commission on the Arts Larry Neal Poetry Award in 2005, Carlos Parada Ayala co-edited the anthology  Al pie de la Casa Blanca:  Poetas hispanos de Washington, DC published by the North American Academy of the Spanish Language in New York in July 2010.  Co-edited with Argentinean poet Luis Alberto Ambroggio, the US Library of Congress selected this anthology to celebrate 400 years of Hispanic poetry in the United States in September of 2010.   Parada Ayala graduated from Amherst College, Massachusetts, with a degree in Spanish, Latin American and Brazilian literature.  He is a member of the Salvadoran poetry collective Late Night Hour, and is a founding member of ParaEsoLaPalabra, a collective of writers, artists and activists whose goal was to promote the arts, music and literature in the Spanish speaking communities of the Washington, DC metropolitan area.   

Ganador del premio de poesía Larry Neal de la Comisión de las Artes de Washington, DC, Carlos Parada Ayala es co-editor de  la antología Al pie de la Casa Blanca:  Poetas hispanos de Washington, DC publicada por la Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española (Nueva York,  julio de 2010).  Esta obra, co-editada con el poeta argentino Luis Alberto Ambroggio, fue seleccionada en septiembre de 2010 por la Biblioteca del Congreso de Estados Unidos para celebrar 400 años de poesía hispana en Estados Unidos.  Parada Ayala tiene una licenciatura en literatura española, latinoamericana, y brasileña de Amherst College, Massachusetts.  Es miembro del grupo de poetas salvadoreños Alta hora de la noche y es uno de los fundadores de ParaEsoLaPalabra, un colectivo de escritores, artistas y activistas cuyo objetivo fue promover las artes, la música y la literatura en las comunidades de habla hispana de la zona metropolitana de Washington, DC.

 Sabrina Vourvoulias

Sabrina Vourvoulias is a Latina writer, blogger (www.followingthelede.blogspot.com) and newspaper editor. Read her poetry online at Scheherezade's Bequest at Cabinet des Fees, in past Floricantos here at La Bloga, and upcoming in Bull Spec; read her fiction online in Crossed Genres issue 24 and upcoming in GUD magazine. Join her in advocating against the omnibus of proposed "Illegal Alien Issues"  bills (House Bills 858, 798, 799, 439, 809, 355, 810, 738, 856, 857, 474, 801, 865, 41 and Senate Bill 9) being debated this week in the State Government Committee (chaired by Daryl D. Metcalfe)  in the Pennsylvania State Legislature.

Sisyphus Explains

A poem for Labor Day by Daniel A. Olivas

They laugh
or cry
at my “plight”
that I need not
describe.

But, in truth,
this is great pleasure
for me, nothing less.

I am known for
my grand cunning.
And this hill,
this stone,
this eternal
toil are all part
of my plan.

Tartarus is hilly
and charming, far
from my petty
concerns in Corinth.
So I am free to ponder
life’s great mysteries
as I repeat my simple
and predictable
employment.

Do not cry for me,
Glaucus, Ornytion,
Thersander and Almus.
Treat each other well,
my sons, and
know that I am
at peace,
that I am well.

[This poem was first published in The Poetry Victims (2005) and is featured in the unpublished poetry collection, Crossing the Border.]

Saludos and Introductions by Amelia M.L. Montes

Saludos everyone--so glad to be here with La Bloga familia and with you! I am a born and raised Califas, Los Angeles Chicana lesbiana. Born to immigrant parents meant many trips during my childhood crossing borders to visit familia en Jalisco, Michoacan, Guanajuato, y Coahuila. En Califas, my parents created a very Mexican household (which included a "speak Spanish only" rule inside la casa). Leaving my house to walk to school every day was like leaving Mexico to go to the U.S. Perhaps this is why as an undergraduate at Loyola Marymount University I double-majored in English and Spanish literatures-- always making connections among cultures, languages, and many histories. And I loved writing about these complexities at an early age.

Since then I have taught in many schools in the L.A. area and in Colorado and now Nebraska (yes, Nebraska!). I am an Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing at The University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the current Director of the Institute for Ethnic Studies. Check out my website (click here)!

For you-- I'm interested in writing about Chican@ and U.S. Latin@ authors, film-makers, and the craft of writing: fiction and non-fiction. I also intersperse the discussion of creative writing with what could be considered "academic" writing. For example, right now I'm obsessed with a book regarding Diabetes by anthropologist and Chicano/Latino studies professor Michael Montoya. His book, Making the Mexican Diabetic: Race, Science, and the Genetics of Inequality is giving me so many new ideas regarding my creative multi-genre book on Diabetes. Montoya's journey into the maze of the genome diabetes project is an excellent response to the myth that diabetes is simply "in our (Mexican) blood."

"Genes do not cause chronic disease," Montoya writes. "Genes in certain bodies under certain conditions contribute to disease susceptibility" (187). "[C]ertain conditions" can mean that some of our familia are living in socially constructed areas where access to exercise is impossible and/or where the created economy makes hamburgers, french fries, and coke much more affordable than buying organic spinach, broccoli, grain-fed "no hormones" chicken and taking the time to cook these items. This is one reason the rate of individuals being diagnosed with diabetes is alarming. The CDC (Centers for Disease Control) predicts that by 2050 the number of Americans with diabetes will triple to 48.3 million).

Oh yes--I write about Diabetes: creatively. I am currently almost finished (really almost done!!) with a multi-genre creative memoir called, _The Diabetes Chronicles_. Its main theme is "inheritance" -- inheritance within the diabetic cellular, genetic, historical, societal, and cultural parameters. I'm interested in what we all do with what we have inherited and in this case the inheritance of diabetes. Why such interest in Diabetes besides the fact that this is so widespread within our Chican@ and Latin@ communities? I am an "out of the closet" diabetic (type 2) and really want to share and talk about this chronic disease that is affecting all of us. I'm offering my type 2 diabetes journey in hopes that I can recruit you to "come out" or to help others.

Another Chicana who is writing about Diabetes is poet, Ir'ene Lara Silva, whose book of poetry "furia" was profiled by another of La Bloga's writers, Olga Garcia Echeverria (October 17). Ire'ne has been in contact with me regarding her poems on Diabetes. More on this in two weeks!

So there is much to talk about! I look forward to being with you. A shout out "Orale y gracias" to tatiana de la tierra for inviting me to La Bloga y tambien to Michael Sedano for your guidance in getting settled into La Bloga. Abrazos a tod@s!

The Grandest Gardener of Texcoco – part two

On June 25 of this year I posted half of the first chapter of a novella MS I call "The Enigma of the Grandest Gardener of Texcoco." It's an historical fantasy set against the background of what is known of the history, culture and peoples of the Valley of Anahuac, fifty years before el pinche Columbus started the illegal European immigration. It's got nagual animal-spirits, gardeners who use enchantment, a tragic princess and, yes, Tezcatlipoca--one of Ernesto Hogan's favorites. Monsters and mayhem, demons and deities, and even a strange bit of romance.

That posting received a flurry (to me) of publishing possibilities, one of which is still in the works. To whet whatever appetites are out there for this story, I thought I'd share the rest of the first chapter. It introduces the unnamed female co-protagonist who aids Gardener Menq in his quest. You'll learn her name only when the story gets published, one way or another. Let me know here if your appetite does get whetted. Or not. And if you never read the first installment, click here. – Rudy Ch. Garcia

The Enigma of the Grandest Gardener of Texcoco (cont.)

The Princess had been born into a life most people would have died for. She'd never wanted for any luxury, much less necessity; servants and sycophants had surrounded her from birth, showering her with attention and extravagant gifts.

"None of them are here with me now," she said, shifting herself on the floor of her darkened confinement, wondering how soon her captors would return.

In the room adjoining her first nursery, a queen's ransom of jewels, feathers and gold had piled up, later expanding to more rooms filled with tribute from the ever-widening Aztec conquests.

"I remember frolicking with my nagual bear cub in the warm furs and brilliant-feathered ornaments and clothing," she said, not forgetting the dismay of nursemaids and waitpersons charged with caring for her and her belongings. Within a handful of years, glittering yellow teocuitlatl nuggets and sparkling fire opals or treasured turquoise would lose their infantile allure. But the Princess had always most loved the exotic animals and plants from all the three continents. "Strange--I don't miss them as much now as I once did," she murmured, a half-lie to hold onto her sanity.

She'd been destined to miss nothing in life. Born under the sign One Flower typically meant that such a person was destined to love life, and their time on Earth would intertwine with that of Xochiquetzal, goddess of love.

The Princess had lacked almost nothing, save meaningful time with her parents--and the loving care that came with that--the Emperor and Empress themselves busy running the expanding Empire. Early on, she came to comprehend this, this vacuum unsated by objects or servants, no matter their value or devotion.

She'd attemped to alleviate her longing for companionship with sheets cut from amate, on which she painted scenarios or fashioned elaborately costumed figures, or flowers and wildlife. But the largest, most colorful were of a family of four, her spirit-bear included. She'd labored at her art like a shunned, foster child, with no sibling at her side to ever hold her hand.

Her everpresent tutors from the Arts of the Regal Court had instructed her in the skills and knowledge a future queen needed to rule, to survive the burden of royalty. And she was more than bright enough to nudge them into instructing her in studies like zooology and medicine, normally reserved for males and not taught in her females-only calmecac. Her intellectual and artistic talents, admitted by every teacher, grew as rich as her treasure rooms.

Unfortunately, of all the blessings in her life, her physical features proved most onerous. Wherever she went in the palaces or realm, sincere-to-fawning comments engulfed her. Had she believed them, then there never had been a female child to compare. Poets vied to describe her fairness; painters competed to portray her exquisitive features. Pages and parchments about her wondrous eyes, spellbinding smile and later, her goddess-like physique, made her parents prideful, the envy of royalty, but not sufficient to draw her closer to them.

Now recalling a stanza from one idolizing poem, into the hollowness she yelled,

"But whose joy

serves raven-haired beauty,

growing empty

in the darkest sleep?"

Her question echoed, unrequited. She ran her fingers through her hair, combing what had once shone like threads of obsidian.

Near the end of her time on Earth, her allurement had naturally attracted the most wondrous hero of the Valley. And then, unnaturally, the most despicable of gods. Which had landed her here. Alone.

"Better I had been born a bear, or at least homely." Her remark made her regret again having to part ways with her nagual-spirit bear, when her death had broken their bond. In sillier moments, she'd pretended she was playing with her little black brother.

Here and now, the maiden Princess sat, waiting, struggling to defer her apprehension with daydreams. Not of how it had been, but how it might have been.

#

"The verdant splendor I created in my mind these past thirty years can reach fruition"--he chuckled at his pun--"only with the acreage, terraces and irrigation systems of the royalty, like here in Prince Nezahualcoyotl's gardens." That he could never be the lord of a large estate bothered Menq not one gnat's worth. He simply wanted to be the best at nurturing one of the Middle Continent's finest gardens, and to reach that, he'd adhered to the Elders' Precepts of duty, temperance and self-discipline. Following that regimen had brought him this far, in his own inimitable fashion.

"Just so long as I can become a--," he whispered, absentmindedly brushing aside what they hadn't shorn off of his neck-length hair. With its abbreviated bangs, his usual hairstyle typified those who hadn't secured a profession. Despite being an experienced gardener, he'd worn his that way to symbolize he hadn't attained his life-long goal.

He watched other gardeners peering toward the massive, carved double doors that captured everyone's attention whenever another candidate entered. Directly above the second-story roof there, with its raised walls protected by inconspicuous cotton awnings, the Prince himself might stand to contemplate his gardens or the heavenly bodies. Only the highest nobility and most valiant warriors earned the right to erect two-story buildings. At the moment, Menq could hear buffered sounds of excited discussion emanating from uptop. Rooroot's perked ears and quizzical look indicated it might be more than parlor chatter.

Higher up, to the southeast, the volcano Popocatépetl's gray-pink plumes rose, a lover's sorrow beckoning the gods, hence its name, Smoking Mountain. Two or three times a day he rained flaming rock and volcanic soot on nearby mountain villages. Popo, he was endearingly called, by the many tribes who commiserated with the legendary prince's loss of his beloved Iztaccíhuatl. On especially active days like today some called it Chain-Smoking Mountain.

As if awakened, Popo released a medium tremor loosening crumbles from the walls, until it passed and people shrugged it off. Life in the Valley. Though lately, much more eventful.

"At least Popo has his Sleeping Woman . . . at his side for eternity," Menq said, referring to Popo's legendary love Iztaccíhuatl, the more expansive, snow-covered peaks to the left of Popo.

Menq grimaced, averted his gaze downward and brushed at a moyote buzzing his face. Apparently the last Grand Gardener hadn't planted sufficient moyote-luring bushes around Tezcozinco's immense perimeter. Menq would remedy that, first thing, if he secured the position.

Actually, almost nothing he'd seen on his way in merited criticism. How could it be otherwise? The Gardens belonged to the greatest man of the mid-continent, respected as the intellectual center of the all-conquering Triple Alliance. These Gardens would forever be the Valley's most magnificent. Menq leaned against the wall and shut his eyes to again savor his bliss when traversing the flourishing paradise this morning.

Dawn had just broken when the queue of applicants entered Tezcozinco Gardens. Sunshine flooded and unveiled the Valley with a view that heated everyone's anticipation into excitement.

Situated near the base of Mt. Tlaloc, Tezcozinco yet overlooked the capitol Texcoco and, further below, the largest of the Five Lakes. The summit garden's hundreds of acres poured westward, landscaped with nitlapan terraces flowing north to south, surfeiting the mind and senses with their jade-to-viridian greenery punctuated by clusters of massive coniferous ahuehetl cypress, cedar or spruce, some reaching two hundred feet, as if supplicating rain from the god Tlaloc. Shorter though no less impressive carved stone stelae of the gods guarded three streams meandering toward the Lake, accented with white churning cascades fed by stone aqueducts that channeled cool sweet alcecec from high, melting snows. A gigantic tapestry woven of thousands of plant species.

As they descended the five hundred stone steps, past heavily scented manicured beds of gilted marigolds and capuli bushes scantily adorned with red berries, the candidates noticed few xitómatl, ahuácatl or other cultivated crops stocked the oasis, but they did pass fabulous horticultural beds of medicinal, spiritual and other practical plants, annuals, evergreens, grassses, perennials, shrubbery and vines of every variety. It required more a thousand workers and slaves to maintain the verdigris retreat with its multiple nurseries where the Prince himself was known to study his revered plants.

The zenzontle, the bird that mockingly serenaded visitors with its four hundred voices, the migratory atototls dipping slender legs into the garden's pristine marshes and ponds, and of course the "most precious" rainbow-rich quetzaltotolin bird, as well as innumerable other avians, inundated visitors with musical greetings. An integrated zoological park where many non-threatening species freely roamed.

"All this could be--." Menq had tempered his enthusiasm by letting his eyes and mind fill like a child in a chocólatl shop; he was in a horticulturist's Tollan, and would've believed he'd died and gone there.

The final stepping-stones--chiseled of plum-streaked porphyry quartz--guided them through the bottom, stark passageway carved through solid rock, a landscape version of life's last stage when only glorious achievements ameliorated one's passage into the underworld. The god Tezcatlipoca's sudden tremors while walking in the tunnel had reminded everyone of the devastating earthquakes seventy years ago, and rattled more than their strides.

#

Now, as his old acquaintance Reaper Icacam scampered by, Menq felt guilty about instinctively shading his face with his hand. His friend wore maxtlatl clothing tied around his waist to skirt his hips, and a smile that brightened more than it delivered, like a saguaro's topmost flowers attempting to distract a harvester from the stems' prickly spines. The Reaper's carrot-top hairstyle protruded in any crowd. Upon noticing Menq, Icacam halted to retrace his steps.

"Menq, what luck! I got a good one for you." He spoke to insure everyone on the bench heard. "It'd even make Tezcat howl. You remember I got a measly job transplanting some Bimini reeds, on that peninsula across the Inland Sea? Well, turned out the oracles foretold barbarians will invade from across the Great Ilhuicaatl, and they wanted the plants protected. A useless assignment if I ever heard one, since everybody knows there's nothing on the other side of that ocean. It's so big anyway, why would anybody be dumb enough to cross it?" The Reaper checked the others' faces and continued despite finding few who acknowledged his exhortations.

Icacam had always been a talker, a wannabe comedian incessantly seeking audiences. Probably came from his day-sign being so close to the Trickster God's. It bothered Menq, too, that he had used the profane version Tezcat, instead of the god's full name. Had the usage been spreading recently?

"Anyway, let me know if you need any of those plants to set up a fountain of youth. I got enough to fill one of Tezcat's teopans, minus all the horrid altars and mesmerized worshippers. Of course, the stuff does invigorate the body and immunize against diseases. Turns you into the worst, robust-est womanizer, though most of the complaints I get are from the males, if you can believe that! But, don't like the name myself--'fountain of youth.' Sounds like it'd give you eternal life. Ha! Imagine what'd happen if the invaders landed here. I can hear them now: Where's the fountain of youth?' Answer: in everybody's backyard. They'd never believe it. Ha, ha!"

After Icacam left, satisfied his not-so-hilarious telling had lifted everyone's spirits, Menq wondered, "At what point might abusing the god Tezcatlipoca's name bring repercussions?" Menq recalled the earth tremors the past week and decided that when he was done here, he'd better take this to the attention of one of his contacts on the Council. It would be his minor contribution to keeping the balance of the Close and the Near. "Gotta remember Tezcat. Gotta remember Tezcat," he repeated softly, to make sure he wouldn't forget.

[end of chapter one]

Of course, if you know of an editor or publisher or agent looking for a unique 20k-word cross-over story, let her or him or me know. There is an editor who has exclusive review of it at the moment, so if you want to see more, cross your dedos because this is the last Internet posting of any more of the tale.

es todo, hoy,

Rudy Ch. Garcia

Q & A with David Bueno-Hill: An Author's Tough Love

With a changing publishing world, David Bueno-Hill was among the first wave of authors to take advantage of new technology. La Bloga's Melinda Palacio interviewed David Bueno-Hill about his decision to cut out the middle man and share his work with his students and readers.

David Bueno-Hill, author and teacher

When did you start publishing your books in e-format?

Almost two years now, I really had to think about that one. It's something you just do one day and then forget about it. If people are buying cool, if not, you haven't lost anything by putting an e-book out there. I get small 15-30 dollar deposits every month from Kindle sales and I'm happy with that. I don't have to ship or print books, and the money is directly deposited in my bank account, how cool is that?

Does someone help you with the e-formatting or do you do it yourself?

I do it all myself. Amazon's directions are pretty straightforward. You just upload your word file and your cover file. If it's too big or too blurry or whatever, you'll get a message back and you just fix it. If you're savvy enough to buy a book on Amazon, you can put an e-book on Amazon.

What is the toughest part of this process?

You do need ISBN numbers, that's the worst. Dealing with the Bowker's website is not fun. You can pay 125 for one ISBN or 250 for 10. So, what do you do? Is anyone gonna write 10 books. But if you write 3 it's totally worth it. Oh, yeah and the actual writing. As an artist it's difficult to create an entity and then put it out there for the world to look at. The internet is so infinite, you ask yourself, will anyone even look at this little monster that I've made or will it just sit lonely in a cave somewhere? So the toughest part is that darn ISBN number and dealing with the emotions of hitting that finish button and hoping someone buys your book and doesn't regret it later. Seeing a negative review on Amazon is funny, but a part of you also dies while you're laughing.

Do you self-publish your books in paper and what is the toughest part of this process?

You know, I do self-publish but I hate to admit it. I created a whole cool name for my company and everything to fool myself into thinking I wasn't self-publishing. The fact is that I am the writer, editor, marketing exec, financier, publisher, website designer, and president of Broken Wing Press. Visit us at www.painispoetry.com(that was the marketing exec. writing that). There is no tough part about self-publishing. I love writing. I don't want to write what I'm told to write. I was in a gang when I was younger, but I didn't like following orders. If I was in a publishing gang, and I had to do what some O.G.C.E.O. told me to do, then that would be tough. But running the show, writing what I want to write, when and how I want to write it isn't tough at all. I do what I love and I've received recognition for it from the International Latino Book Awards and from the many other Latino writers that I've met. So I'm self-made, what's tough about that?

Why did you decide to self-publish?

My writing is hard to digest. My art imitates my life: violence, drug use, alcoholism, and sex are infused into my work. Major publishers don't want to touch it, especially coming from a Latino. They want heart-warming stories of immigration, and beautiful Mexican girls marrying handsome white guys. Publishers don't want to hear about how some kid that used to sell drugs and beat people up for fun is now teaching English. Besides, I gave it a good year of sending out the manuscript to first book, I Wasn't Born a Teacher. I had a stack of rejection letters and a stack of nothing, most companies didn't even bother to respond. I was slush and I knew it. I also knew that there was an audience for my work. I knew that I was born to write. I knew that with a lot of time and a little money this thing was doable. I never gave up on myself. That's what self-publishing is, believeing in yourself.

Are you naturally tech savvy or did you have to take classes in web design, etc? How long have you been using a computer?

I guess humility won't suit me now, so I'll just say yes, I'm tech savvy. I never took a web design class. The web trapped me, I had to fight my way out. Since I first logged onto AOL ten years ago I've been trying to figure this thing out. How does it work, what do you do with it, how do you reach people, and when I was done chatting and meeting girls online, done with porn, done with everything lame that the internet is about I started trying to figure out how to make money with it. I ebayed for a long time, but when I was done with my books I discovered Amazon. I was the yearbook adviser for my school's yearbook and that forced me to learn about page layout, and cover design, The yearbook comapany's rep came out and showed me a few things, but I took off with it. This year I redesigned the cover of I Wasn't Born a Teacher re-released is as a 2nd editon. I received an Honorable Mention at the 2011 Latino Book Awards for Best Cover Design.

What's your favorite gadget or tool?

I love using a reciprocating saw, with the right blade those things can cut through trees, metal pipes, 2x4s, anything. I'll stop by the side of the road and throw a desk in the back of my mini-van just so I can saw it up and throw it in my fireplace later. Sorry, I grew up helping my Abuelito around the house, so when you ask about tools I still think of tools, lol. On the net, I just love the evolution of Word. I first began writing using a word processor in college. Remember those things. I thought I was all cool with my little digital typewriter. Now I'm stuck to my laptop. I have my current project right on my desktop and I write, write, and write. You can't put out an e-book if you haven't written a book.

Are you happy with your sales and business on e-books?

I'm not on any best seller list, but yes I'm happy. I sell more e-books on amazon's kindle than actual paper books. I'm working on expanding right now. I actually don't even have my 3rd book on as an e-book yet, but it's been in print for over a year. By the end of the year I'll have a Teacher's Edition for my YA series, Mr. Clean and the Barrio, Mr. Clean's Familia, and soon to be released Mr. Clean's Last Stand. You will also be able to get the complete Mr. Clean Trilogy as one book. So, even though I'm happy right now, I'm still hungry. I want Mr. Clean to be read in classrooms across the world. With Amazon, I can do it. Teacher's will be able to download a digital copy/e-book teacher's edition loaded with worksheets and chapter questions to use in their classrooms for around 10 bucks. The paper copy will have to cost twice as much due to shipping, and printing costs.

What are the most satisfying aspects of being a writer?

You know, I almost quit. The small press that signed me went bankrupt before they printed a single novel. I had gone to every major literary festival in L.A. and I still had a garage full of boxes of books. I felt like a failure. I entered Mr. Clean and the Barrio into the International Latino Book Awards in the Young Adult-English category in 2009. I said to myself that I was done if I didn't get recognized. I had tried self-publishing, I had been signed by a small company that busted, no large comapnies wanted to touch me. If I was going to continue writing and making money at it I needed to get my name out there. I know that my subject matter isn't going to win a pulitzer. Latino Urban Fiction isn't taken seriously. They want books about girls visiting Puerto Rico and rediscovering their roots, or watered down barrio stories...boring. When I saw my name on the winner's list, when I got that Honorable Mention I was reinvigorated. I said who is Oscar Hijuelos and how did he beat me. Then I discovered he was a pulitzer prize winning writer who just happened to write a YA book that year. 2nd place went to a book about a girl who discovered her culture in Puerto Rico. And then there was the Honorable Mention - Mr. Clean and the Barrio, a book about a Mexican-American gangmember who betrayed his barrio in order to pursure his dreams. That is the most satisfying part of being a writer, especially a self-published writer. Seeing your name on a list with people who have editors, and publishers, and agents, and thinking damn, they had all those people helping them, but I did this by myself.

Last question, could you tell me about your day job?

During the day I'm an ESL teacher for LAUSD. When I get home I'm a husband and a father. Late at night, when noone's awake, and I'm alone basking in the dull glow of a menacing 17" monitor, I'm a writer.

Chicanonautica: Poesía Beyond Bilingüe

by Ernest Hogan

Okay, I admit it. I’m not quite bilingual. I was born way the hell back in the Atomic Age when there were all kinds of quaint superstitions going around. Wise folk advised my mother not to let me be left-handed as nature intended (so I have horrible handwriting). The Los Angeles County School District was determined to get rid of Spanish contamination, to enable us to get along better in American society -- besides, in the future, everybody was going speak English, anyway.

The funny thing was, I wasn’t aware that there were two separate languages. Words were words, if they were useful, who cares where they came from? However, there were a lot of words that other kids at school -- and even teachers! -- didn’t know, and they were considered smarter for not knowing them.

By the time I decided to reconnect with español, it was like reattaching a severed limb -- it would work, but never perfectly. So I lurch along, a Chicano Frankenstein monster, hablando muy güaqui. Maybe, if I try hard enough, I can be cool like the Frankenstein cars of Cuba.

Bilingual poetry books helped with this reattachment. Even though I’m more of a clumsy slapstick comedian with a surrealistic streak than a poet, I enjoy the poetry and the bilingualism.

And I love when it goes beyond the two languages on facing pages, and the words from different worlds mix it up on the same page.

Charlie Vázquez, author of the visionary distopia Contraband, delivers both kinds of bilingüalismo in his Meditations/Meditaciones - Bronx/Salsa. His memories of growing up in the Bronx get you hearing the music and tasting the spices. He also gets un poco sci-fi (ay, como in español? ci-fi?) with “Crotana Star Wars Ice World,” connecting with pop culture, and “Puerto Rican Earthling” in which Latino history becomes a war of the worlds. He does some of the tradition translation across the pages thing, too. It’s a fine addition to any poesía bilingüe collection.

After connecting with Emanuel Xavier via Facebook (que moderno!), he sent me an anthology he edited: Me No Habla with Acento: Contemporary Latino Poetry. As suggested with the title, the languages mix it up in the hands of more poets that I can mention here, in a lively selection of flashes of the Latino Experience. It starts with Gonzalo Casals forward, “Hyper-Hybridized Cumbiaelectronica Bachata-Hop Beats” and keeps bopping. Ci-fi emerges in Paul S. Flores’ “Santa Rosa” with the delightful recurring phrase “Chicano hormiga supernova.” And Claridad De La Luz (AKA “La Bruja”) provides an excellent addition to taurine literature with her “Matador.” Looks like Latino poetry is as sabroso as ever, rocking and rolling into a dazzling future.

These books are full of the rythms, colors, sounds, smells, and tastes -- the sensory input, if I can be geekoso -- and attitude, that make urban environments proper places for human life, and take us back to the place where languages have no borders, and words run wild through the streets. They make this Chicano Frankenstein monster feel at home. Maybe I can get that reattached limb working properly.

Ernest Hogan has been playing mad scientist. Ebooks are coming to life in his laboratory. Check with Mondo Ernesto for updates.