Oracy In Plague-time: Zoom.

Reading Your Stuff Aloud  
Zooming Into Poetry Readings In Plague-time: Silver Concho Poetry Series
Michael Sedano

They’re here to stay, poetry readings via Zoom. And for artists reading your own stuff aloud, that means change, adaptation, opportunity. This is evident as you start attending readings, like the recent Silver Concho Poetry Series sponsored by Press 53 and hosted by editors Pamela Uschuk and Bill Root.

Technology offers major change in the way audiences experience the poet. What hasn’t changed are why you read to people: to sell them some books. One  poet in the lineup sold out the publisher’s inventory and now Press 53's ordered a second run.

It’s not what you say, it’s also how you say it.
That’s what sold those books for Richard Vargas: superb poetry read effectively. Vargas’ poetic voice speaks with wisdom, incisive humor, restrained bitterness, and the hottest irony around. That the artist reads his stuff better than the others in the set today makes a difference.

When a critic says stuff like “he’s better than the others,” that should raise another performer’s next two questions, “what about me?” and “what’s so good about him?”

What About Me?
Every reading happens in three planes: the reading you thought you would give, the reading you actually deliver, and the revisions that hit you after you clicked ‘mute’ and it’s too late to say it like that. Not so. There will be a next one.

Readers have a wonderful technology-driven opportunity to self-confront. Look at that person on screen. What objectives did he or she achieve? Speech 1A, Purpose: inform entertain persuade instruct. Voice & Articulation: can I understand the sounds as words I know? Do I get directness, eye contact, personalization from that face? Do I want to hear more? That person on screen, that's you.

Vocal variety. The downfall of every bad-to-average reading you’ve ever attended is called “The Voice.” Good poets find such ponderous weight in every dad-gummed word that their reading comes at you relentlessly like a robot pounding on a tambora. Is that what you do to your work on screen?

There’s the opposite effect, when reading voice and transitional conversational voice sound identical, as if the poem is a desultory interruption in the conversation. Conversation is a key.

How do I lose my “the voice”? “I’m not an actor, I’m not getting in front of my camera and emoting!” 
One way of changing your vocalic style is imagine yourself seated with a friend and you’re sharing a line or two. Another friend pokes her head in the door, you catch her attention without stopping, she enters and you include her in your reading. Now more people enter and take seats and you expand your presentation to bring them all into the spell of words. My friend and mentor at USC, Milton Dickens, called this “the enlarged conversation."

Another of my mentors, Aristotle, and a montón of rhetoricians through the ages, advocates finding a model to emulate. Vargas’ transitions offer models of economy and pertinence. For example, the Marilyn poem he links events of the past few days to the memoir. When a transition provides immediacy like this, audience draws closer to the poet and the poem expands in meaningfulness. Captured imaginations say, “I want to read that one again.”

Vargas’ directness comes without notice, even in the absence of direct eye contact, it's in his eyes, you can see them. Richard's not reading, he’s reciting from memory. Or, perhaps the poet is a technology whiz. His glasses reflect a text page, not the Zoom matrix. So long as Zoom audio is running, a reader can open a window to the poem and read off the screen with the appearance of constant, person-to-person eye contact.

Richard Vargas doesn't start out strong. He doesn’t get “up to speed” in comfort level until the third poem, Marilyn. But his programming makes up for it. He starts with his best short poem, one dripping irony and the persona’s mystification. This reading segues into a masterful aesthetic construction, Guernica, revisited, whose power and passion would draw an impassioned reading from any other reader, too.

What did I like about my presentation? What behaviors do I plan to repeat?
Ask anyone and get a litany of complaints, “I left out..., I didn’t do..., I was nervous…” That’s not what you asked. What did you like about your presentation? Back to Speech 1A. Did your introduction make a point? Did you pause effectively after the title and the final line? Be honest and straightforward and list your skills.

Now, what are only one or two elements I will do differently? Compare parallel elements with how the model performer does it. Copy and try it on.

"I know I can do better." Then do. Rehearse three times, each time raise those issues: what did I do well, what are one or two behaviors I want to do again, less of, more of. Keep it fresh, no more rehearsal.

The power of the pause. It’s subtle but effective. Vargas announces the title, half a pause, another half, begin. The final line, “There. Is. No. Art. Here.” Silence. Eye contact. Hold that silence--even a beat longer, Richard. Avert your glance to release the mood, transition into the next title.

Transitions help audiences listen. “My next one…” is not a transition. “Let me see where it is…” is a transition, the bad kind. Transitions summarize what went before, summarize its import in a word or two, announce something else. Chatty transitions work well when the poet is chatty, not nervous. Vargas, for the most part, lets his work speak for itself, preferring fewer words of transition but direct to his purpose.

How do you look on teevee? How do you sound? How do you want to?
That person on screen is really what you look like, and sound like. Technology makes it so you can alter elements, like did you know you can superimpose cartoons over your face?

Not that anyone wants to you to dress like a turnip when you read to them—kids might, and this “filtering” is something you can learn about Zoom technology. Start by shedding any learned helplessness about technology and gain facility with pushing buttons. Learn to test the connection, so when it’s your turn, you start. “Am I on? Test test, 123?” First impressions are lasting impressions.

Learn Chat. You could put your poem in a side window for your audience to read along. Reading and listening enhances the heck out of your pieces while covering up some delivery issues. 

Learn to do cool stuff with the computer and Zoom. What can you do with backgrounds? Lighting? Filters? This is on-the-job training for today’s artist. Click this link to read a primer on Zoom technology, from a recent La Bloga-Tuesday. 

Produce a Considered Reading: Not Acting.
Movement and body gestures lose import when you’re planted in front of the camera. Simultaneously, the camera makes vocal variety and eye contact ever more vital to an effective reading.

If selling books is goal one, sharing poetry is your means to that end. Merely reading words is not reading poetry. Review your reading, start-to-finish. Did you hear poetry, or words?

While every person experiences a reading differently, every reader at the Silver Concho will benefit from attention to vocal variety, eye contact, pausing, and transitions. The process of delivering a considered reading begins at composition, those subvocal readings to make words fit, edit, read it again in your imagination and the crowd goes wild. Read it aloud that way.

Effective vocal variety begins with marking up your manuscript, highlighting words and phrases that matter more than others. Find expressions in the lines where you can alter delivery--speed up, slow down, make a face, make a voice, sing, isolate with pace and pause. Make the sounds fit the lines like a facemask and gloves. Visualize the image under the words, hear the sounds, feel the mood, and your voice shares the moment.

Analyze and apply.
I did not hear enough analysis in the Silver Concho program. These artists assembled a head-spinning virtuoso collection of poetry to read to you. My ears struggle to discern what’s important, the words and phrasing come out with a sameness of voice, tone, pacing. Now and again, a poet produces a satisfyingly aural moment. Audiences love that and forgive lots of drudge for those golden moments.

That's little different from most readings, maybe your last reading, too? Identify those moments in advance, rehearse and install them into the performance.

Poets work hours to hone an expression into the right words in the right place, then read them with all the words sounding like all the other words, in relentlessly patterned meter dominating how the words mean. 

Enjambment is your friend, poets. Readers who pay obeisance to the visual line create a heavily accented, ponderous reading. Lines that sound like any other line and words having identical value to any other word fails the poetry on that page. Oral presentation is not words on paper.

Suppose you sold a few books. Your reading satisfied that many people who had spare money. How many more books would you sell with a reading that more fully shares all the truth and beauty and hard work you invested into those pages? I advise writers to respect their art. Do the work.

Here’s a link the full Silver Concho reading on Face, the first of three. I hope future readings will begin to employ the Chat feature. Listen to the author and while your ears work, share the work with your eyes. Seeing with hearing with reading multiplies the impact of words, the poetry emerges off the page. 

Read and listen, y sabes que? Buy the book, because there are more poems like this (link).

does your arm tire
as you swing your
baton into the thud
of my flesh and bone
and you hear me
moan in pain
when you crack
my ribs and jab
my soft belly
do you feel like a
job well done when
you pin me on the
ground and harness
my wrists like a
rodeo cowboy
hogties cattle
no matter that
we are both looked
down upon by those
on their balconies
of glass and steel
who laugh and joke
as they spread caviar
on fancy crackers
that will never pass
our lips
while you choke me
knock me down
look at how they
raise their flutes
of exquisite champagne
sparkling in the sun
blinding you with
cold brilliance
and empty nods
of approval

Richard Vargas, pub. in Guernica, revisited (link to publisher). 2014

==
Silver Concho Poetry Series Reading presented by Press 53

Howie Faerstein is the author of two books of poems in the Silver Concho Poetry Series: Googootz and Dream of the Rain in Brooklyn. Howie is a Poetry Editor at Cutthroat, a Journal of the Arts and lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Anita Endrezze’s poetry [Read by Pamela Uschuk] collection, Enigma, appeared in the Silver Concho Poetry Series in 2019. She is the author of eight books of poems and is of Yaqui, Pima and Maya and European heritage. She lives on the coast of Washington state.

Richard Vargas received the 2011 Taos Summer Writers’ Conference’s Hispanic Writer Award and was on the faculty of the 2012 10th National Latino Writers Conference. His book of poetry Guernica, revisited appeared in 2014. He resides in Madison, Wisconsin.

Hedy Habra is a Lebanese American poet and essayist, born in Egypt. She has authored three poetry collections, most recently, The Taste of the Earth, winner of the 2020 Silver Nautilus Book Award; Under Brushstrokes, finalist for the USA Best Book Award and the International Book Award for Poetry; and Tea in Heliopolis, winner the USA Best Book Award and was finalist for the International Book Award for Poetry. She lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Maj Raigain [QEPD read by William Pitt Root], beloved bodhisattva and poet, passed into another dimension in 2018, but not before his final collection of poems, appeared in the Silver Concho Poetry Series: Clouds Pile Up in the North: New & Selected Poems. He is sorely missed by the poetry community he nurtured at Kent State University and beyond.

About the Silver Concho Poetry Series
Believing that small presses publish some of the most vital poetry in America today, we support Press 53 in its ongoing pursuit of furthering the cause of American literature. Our aim is to select each year the two highest quality poetry manuscripts written either in new voices or in voices inexplicably forgotten or ignored. Open to all forms and styles, we do favor compelling poetry with a distinct edge.


—William Pitt Root and Pamela Uschuk, Silver Concho Poetry Series Editors

Passing the Buck: Dog Days of August 2020

Melinda Palacio

Hola Bloga. Life threw me the proverbial monkey wrench. I will be tardy with my post. See you in two weeks. Gracias. Stay safe, social distance, wash your hands, wear a mask, be kind, choose love. 

The Couch

                                                                                 

     My mother recalled how everyone, even the grandkids, called her mother, my grandmother, Eusebia Villalobos Gonzalez, Mama. Eusebia didn’t want the kids calling her abuelita. She said it made her feel old, so the abuelita tag never took. When I took my grandson to the park, and he called out Grandpa, I instinctively said, "Anthony, call me Danny, not Grandpa. It makes me feel old." So even now, though he is in his twenties, he still calls me Danny. Is culture really that strong?

     So, for my grandmother, it was either "Mama" or "Grandma", in English, even though she spoke only Spanish, but made herself understood if she had to struggle with English.

     One time she wanted to take the bus from her home in Santa Monica to the Million Dollar theater in downtown Los Angeles, about a fifteen-mile ride up Pico boulevard through a lot of different neighborhoods. From the bus, riders had to transfer to the electric street car, at the Rimpau station. Few Mexican women travelled alone on public transportation in those days. She convinced a couple of her more daring neighbors into going with her.

     As they stepped into the bus, the driver asked her where she was headed. She answered “Los Angeles,” the way it is supposed to be pronounced. The next question was a little more complicated. “You want a transfer and a one or two-way ticket?”

     Her mind reeled as she tried to find the words, so she finally said, her Spanish accent heavy, “Gone y c’mon,” like one word.

     The driver had no idea what that meant.

     She repeated the words, louder, confidently, “Gone y c’mon.”

     Luckily the driver was patient. He thought about the words, “Gone,” as in “go” and “c’mon,’ as in “come back” or “return.” Then he said, “Ah, a roundtrip ticket.”

     The women happily boarded the bus, found their seats, transferred onto the electric car and enjoyed the performance at the theater, usually two Mexican ranchera movies and a live mariachi at intermission.

     For my grandmother, who came from a rancho in Jalisco, during the height of the Mexican Revolution, with a husband and five children in tow, all under the age of ten, the youngest, Juanito, who drowned in a swollen canal in Riverside, this was hardly a challenge. She was a Villalobos.

     Recently, a young woman, a long-lost relative researching her own Villalobos roots, contacted me to confirm our mutual family relationship. An intrepid researcher, using both the ancestry website and DNA testing, she told me historians trace Eusebia’s family roots to the founding of Aguascalientes and Los Altos de Jalisco as far back as 1730 to Cristobal Villalobos, Valladolid, Spain., and, possibly, in Mexico to Juan Lopez de Jimena, a conquistador who arrived to the new world from Cuba under Cortes’ command, and another vein to Petronilla Arias y Moctezuma, possibly the great granddaughter of the emperor Moctezuma II. I guess the heritage amounted to more than the money or land, for the Villalobos were dirt poor.

     Born in Las Palmas, a ranchito in the province of Jalostotitlan, Eusebia possessed confidence many of her friends envied. Even if she didn’t understand the essence of her rich heritage, something inside gave her the confidence to overcome obstacles that would have stopped many people cold, giving credence to the study of many scientists in the field of neuropsychology that our behavior has more to do with culture than biology, nurture over nature.

     When my mother talked about her parents’ marriage, she remembered little communication between them. They talked very little. She said, "Their relationship seemed strained, at times."

     My mother thought my grandmother never forgave my grandfather for stealing her from her family, and, some say, she spent her life making sure he didn’t forget.

     According to my aunt, Josie, the day my grandfather kidnapped my grandmother, she had been washing clothes in a stream with her sisters, her boyfriend in a tree overhead watching. My grandfather rode in on a horse accompanied by friends on horseback. He swooped her up onto the saddle and rode off, just like that, a rich boy having his way with a poor girl. She was barely fifteen.

     I always wondered why my grandmother’s father, Pablo Villalobos, never came to demand her return, to which my uncle Jesus (Chuy), my mother’s oldest brother once told me, “Viejo, Mama was from a very poor family. They barely had enough food to eat. My daddy,” he was talking about my grandfather, Nicolas, “came from a wealthy family. They sent him to Jalos to become a lawyer, but he didn’t like school. Mama’s family was relieved he kidnapped her. They knew she wouldn’t starve, and there was one less mouth to feed in her family.”

     Of course, my next question was, “Then why would a boy from a prominent family marry a poor peasant girl?” 

     In Mexico, class mattered. Men and women didn’t marry outside their class. Though my grandmother’s family was poor, financially, they were rich, culturally, and didn't see themselves as peasants, nor did the people in ranchos view them that way.

       Still, there was another explanation. It was my aunt Josie who told me, “Mama had light skin. My daddy had dark skin. His family figured if they married, the children would be light. You see. They wanted grandchildren with lighter skin. That was important to them back then.”

     Once in the North, Eusebia and Nicolas’ bought a home on 22^nd Street in Santa Monica, about 1923, for $300. It was the only house my mother and her siblings ever knew. Nicolas and Eusebia were one of the few Mexican couples in the Santa Monica barrio to buy their home. Many of his neighbors believed one day the gringos would send them all back to Mexico, and take away anything they owned, even a house. Nicolas and Eusebia knew, early on, they would not return to Mexico. To rent was to throw away money.

     My mother said, "My dad always talked about Mexico, but never about going back to live."

     Nicolas died 1940 of emphysema. He worked many years in a Santa Monica brickyard located at Cloverfield and Colorado Avenues, off Olympic boulevard, a few miles from the Pacific Ocean. Years of breathing in the fine particles killed him, a slow, painful death, tossing up little pieces of lung until there was nothing left.

     As we talked, my mother’s childhood memories came to her in no particular order. A word or a name reminded her of a different incident, time, or place, like the time she finally got to sleep in a room, all to herself, without her older sisters crowding her into a corner of the bed.

     For two nights, she got a bed to herself, except she had to share the room with her father, the night before his burial.

     They kept his body in the house for a three-day prayer vigil. The final night, after friends and relatives came to view the body, the family rolled the casket into one of the bedrooms. Nobody wanted to sleep in the room, so my mother volunteered.  She crawled into bed, her father's corpse in the casket along the wall. “My dad and I were pals," she remembered. “He was a good man.  Why wouldn't I sleep in the same room with him? He had always made me feel safe. Why would I be afraid of him?" 

     After my grandfather died, my grandmother took charge of the family, the children young adults by that time and working. My mom was about fourteen. She remembered how my grandmother saved money, it seemed, every cent, except for expenses. My mom told me the same thing her siblings had said. My grandmother's mantra: "If you earn a nickel save half of it." After what she considered an appropriate time, my grandmother tossed aside the black dress and wore whatever colored dress she desired. She wasn't going to fall into anybody's cultural vision on how a widow should look or act.

     She was the head of the household. All the children worked and contributed to the family. Everybody knew about the Great Depression and how many people lost their savings. For many years my grandmother chose to hide the family savings some place inside their home, rather than a bank.

     What my mother remembered vividly was the living room, the furniture, especially the new, colorful couch her brother Joe had bought, set atop a large area rug. Not many homes in the neighborhood were so finely decorated.

     I had heard families in those years could not afford couches or simply didn't see the need for them, or for rugs. My mother chuckled and raised her eyebrows to suggest that her family had style, and even though they did not yet have an indoor bathroom (few Mexican families in Santa Monica did), they did have a couch. My uncle was already working on giving his family one of the first indoor bathrooms in the barrio.

     My grandmother took pride in her furnishings and made sure everything was dusted and in its place. My Uncle Joe wanted to be very American. He listened to classical music and jazz. He bought Eusebia whatever new electric contraption came on the market. He wanted her to have the best, like the day a man came knocking at the door selling an electric powered vacuum cleaner.

     To demonstrate the machine's suction, the salesman reached into a bag and pulled out a handful of dirt. Confused, the family watched him. When they saw he was about to throw the dirt on to the rug, they reached to grab his arm. Before they could stop him, the dirt had splattered onto the rug. Horrified, they watched, as if by magic, the vacuum cleaner sucked the rug clean.

     Just as he was about to throw dirt on the couch, my mom said she jumped between the man and the couch, yelling, "No! No! Not on the couch."

     For the Villalobos-Gonzalez family did the couch represent more than an object of comfort? Maybe it had something to do with a mythological past none of them ever knew.

Kumpangi, Lost & Found.

In the Time of Spirits: Thrice Found Wedding Ring
Michael Sedano

I have been depressed in recent years over losing my wedding ring. I retrace my steps a thousand times, visualizing the last time I had it seven years ago. Where is it now?  

I dream my wedding ring of silver and gold lies under tons of landfill, that ten thousand years from now, an archaelogical dig finds it, reads the hallmark, "Sterling Brooks 18K". 

Before the Ring.

She didn't want an engagement ring--whirlwind courtship--but a wedding band was de rigueur. We shopped rings, two lovebirds. With Barbara's J.W. Robinson employee discount, we wanted to fall in love with a commercial ring, but like the ticky-tacky song they all looked just the same. We'd have to compromise and settle for what the trays held.

Michael Sedano 1968 at International Peace Shrine above Gaviota.
Foto: Barbara Sedano.

Barbara learned of a new jeweler who'd just set up shop in Montecito. He made rings. 

George Brooks' shop occupied a spot in a millionaire's neighborhood. That boded ill for economy-minded lovebirds, ni modo. We would look inside having driven so far. The stuff in Brooks' windows wasn't jewelry but sculpture in precious metals and jewels. My expectations sank as I walked into the barren shop.

I drew what I considered a female and male version of a serpentine design. Brooks looked at the gold dots on mine and told me they'll fall off. They did. Sergio Flores fixed them when he resized the ring.

My ring, I paid $60. Barbara's, $40. I think George Brooks charged us for materials only. 

Kumpangi

Hwaak-ni, Republic of Korea, sprang up as an organized settlement when the U.S. Army installed the world's highest HAWK missile site on a near-by mountain peak. Down in the valley, the valley's so low, the Army installed the Admin Area, a base camp housing 75 soldiers. The Admin Area had jobs that attracted people to the rugged remoteness. Encontre muy buen trabajo, y tambien con el GI, the slickie boys would sing if they'd been Chicanos.

Mae Bong mountain upper left, partial view of Admin Area B 7/5

Houseboys came to this place at the end of the road to work and to steal anything not locked up. Five dollars a month from five GIs, earns $300 a year. They wash, iron, and polish, keep the barrack swept, and hate GIs. A damned good job in a country with a $90 per capita income. 

"Me House Man, no House Boy!" When I lost my ring, I figured good will and human kindness would have nothing to do with finding my wedding band before it left the Ville.

I looked up that per capita income before I left the States for Korea. That's why I figured a $25 reward would be compelling. My only hope of finding the ring 6000 miles from George Brooks' studio, lay in offering half a year's salary. 

Miss Park, the Mess Hall lady, spoke enough English to understand. She wrote the placard, scandalized that I knew there was no chance of recovery, except at a price. What a price, taksan too muchie. She discouraged offering anything, people are nice. She wrote the words in Korean for me and refused a fee. $25.00 reward. Lost Kumpangi.


Familia Legend of Great-Grampa's Gold Ring

I came in from digging the soil to shower and realized my left hand was bare. I'd left the ring out there. I couldn't find it. 

For a week, I sit cross-legged on the earth, planting suspended, hand-sifting every square foot of the seedbed, over and over. Grab two handsful of dirt. Open the hand and let the soil sift through anxious fingers, sensing stones and pebbles immediately recognizing them as not the ring. Like winnowing chaff, toss handsful of earth into the air where it turns to dust and choking powder and no ring. Fashion a wire mesh screen and rack, sift the entire plot, one shovelful at a time. No ring.

Abandoning hope, my vision fashions a history of repeated tellings of the story of great-grampa's ring, out there in the back. The garden passes through generations of Sedano descendants, the story of the silver and gold ring handed down from generation to generation until years later, a little girl is digging the earth and uncovers the ring. She pulls it from the earth, holds it triumphantly, the instant compressing all those generations of stories retold into this circle of sky. She knows how the story of grampa's lost ring ends.

Landfill Miracle of the Spirits in Plague-time.

The depression hits at unpredictable times. My left thumb reaches over to the fourth finger, rubs the bare skin below the knuckle frustrated it remembers what the ring used to feel like on the empty skin.

Where did the ring go? Did I drop it inside a paper cup of birthday party candies, worthless crap someone automatically tossed? Did the ring lie at the bottom of the trash bin until the truck took its contents to the landfill? Now, do tons of landfill cover my ring? 

I convince myself, my wedding ring now lies buried deep in the guts of urban trash, a fleck of golden detritus calling with despair matching my own. Never, never, never, never, never.

There's medical literature that argues no one dies and returns, they have "near death experience." Bunkum. I was on the Other Side and returned with ancestors' directive to Burn Sage. I do. I hear those ancestor voices, I know my familia occupies this space with me.

It is not my NDE that brings Spirits into my room, most Raza I know have a clear sense of spirit matters, la llorona, el cucui, angelito negro/blanco, family leyenda. We don't have to die and come back to know they're involved.

This time, my mother found my ring for me. 

I should have seen it coming. My Mom found me in deep despair over our national failure, but always lurking at the pits of emotion, the lost wedding ring. 

A wedding ring contains potent values, but not what the Monsignor pronounced about the endlessness of a cycle. That ring, sterling, Brooks, 18K, holds in its circumference joyous memory that I lived, that a vital Barbara lived, she who laughed and made jokes and didn't have any money to buy my ring so I paid George Brooks and he gave us a pair of small manila envelopes. 

We slid the rings onto our palms, shiny and ready for August 31. Brooks 18K hers read. Sterling Brooks 18K mine read. We looked forward to filling the ring with this lifetime of memories. And we did, we have, we are. That I alone remember now is how it is. So it goes.

Mom alerted me to good things happening a few weeks ago. She guided my hand underneath a chest into a remote corner at the furthest reach of my ringless fingers. I found a silver ring with a stone my mom fashioned in lapidary night school. I took that as a sign I would never have my ring, my mother offering, here is a replacement mi'jo. I heard her say that.

Mom's jasper cabochon snuggles comfortably in the crook of the little finger when the ring works its way around to rest there. Thank you, Mom. I will live wearing this silver band now. This is how it is.

Sunday afternoon, I feel my mother behind and next to me while I rummage through storage containers in the attic. Some of this is her stuff. I find the stylus from a blood glucose test kit, an emergency spare set aside has found its way into this grocery bag. 

I extract a dusty, blue vinyl zippered case. Inside I see four strands of beads and art deco hook earrings. I remember the day Mom's great-granddaughter visited, rejected the beads as not what the girl coveted. She wanted Mom's something exquisite made from silver and gold and pearls, not these Lapis, Amethyst, Red Garnet, and Green Jade strung beads. That day hurt my Mother profoundly, such bitter disappointment, seeing that child grown.

I zip closed the purse and take a handful of textile, some kind of purse. Empty. I pull it out and look into the worn grocery bag. 

My heart does not skip a beat. I am surprised but accept what I see. I am not exultantly shouting hosanna! and I realize my restraint. In the dim dusty recess, between nondescript bundles of stuff my Mom left behind, sits my silver and gold ring. My ring has come from the landfill to sit quietly triumphant, glowing out a satisfied quehubole in 18K gold and sterling silver made by George Brooks in 1968, lost in 1969, lost again in 2005, lost a third time around 2015.

My Mom never made a big deal about stuff, she took everything with equanimity, and I'm following her lead, she doesn't have to remind me.  Matter-of-factly, I slip on the ring and from now on, that's how it is.

Thanks for the ring. Mom.

My left thumb reaches for the fourth finger, finds the hard edge of the ring under the knuckle, back where it belongs. Lost. Found. Trust in the Spirits.

On August 31 Barbara and I observe the 52d anniversary of her putting that ring on my finger. It was supposed to be for the rest of my life. Thanks, Mom, that's the way it's going to be again.

Burn Sage.

The Silver & Gold Ring in 2020.

GOTV. Wear a mask. Social isolate like it means your life.

==
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TOMÁS RIVERA BOOK PRIZE FINALISTS ANNOUNCED BY LARB BOOKS

TOMÁS RIVERA BOOK PRIZE FINALISTS ANNOUNCED BY LARB BOOKS

Guest Blogger, Alex Espinoza

LOS ANGELES, CA - Tom Lutz, publisher of LARB Books, has announced the finalists of the inaugural Tomás Rivera Book Prize: Maceo Montoya, Toni Margarita Plummer, and J. L. Torres.

The Tomás Rivera Book Prize is a unique partnership between the Los Angeles Review of Books and the University of California, Riverside, committed to the discovery and fostering of extraordinary writing by an author whose work examines the long and varied contributions of Chicanx/Latinx in the United States. 

Known for his seminal collection of stories, …y no se lo tragó la tierra/ …and the Earth Did Not Devour Him, Rivera was the first Latino chancellor of the UC system and a champion of higher education and social justice. The Tomás Rivera Book Prize honors his legacy and his belief in the power of education, activism, and stories to change lives.

The award attracted applications from writers from California, Texas, the East Coast, and the Midwest.

“The selection committee was impressed by the quality of the manuscripts and the range of voices,” said Alex Espinoza, the current Tomás Rivera Endowed Chair of Creative Writing at UC Riverside and author of The Five Acts of Diego León, the first title published by LARB’s Libros series. “The three finalists selected exhibit the freshest and most innovative voices in Chicanx and Latinx prose in the country.”

Award finalist Maceo Montoya is a California-based author, artist, and educator who has published The Scoundrel and the Optimist (Bilingual Review, 2010); The Deportation of Wopper Barraza (University of New Mexico Press, 2014); Letters to the Poet from His Brother (Copilot Press, 2014), a hybrid book combining images, prose poems, and essays; You Must Fight Them: A Novella and Stories (University of New Mexico Press, 2015), which was a finalist for Foreword Review’s INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award; and Chicano Movement for Beginners, which he both wrote and illustrated. He is currently an associate professor of Chicanx culture and literature at UC Davis.

  Toni Margarita Plummer, a finalist from Hudson Valley, is the author of the story collection The Bolero of Andi Rowe and won Honorable Mention for the 2019 Reynolds Price Prize in Fiction given by the Center for Women Writers. A Macondo Fellow and graduate of the Master of Professional Writing Program at USC, she is a contributor to the anthologies East of East: The Making of Greater El Monte and Latina Outsiders Remaking Latina Identity. She is a member of Latinx in Publishing and currently mentors a writer in its inaugural Writers Mentorship Program.

  Finalist J. L. Torres is the author of The Family Terrorist and Other Stories; a novel, The Accidental Native; and the collection of poetry, Boricua Passport. He has published stories and poems in numerous journals and magazines, including the North American Review, Denver Quarterly, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Eckleburg Review, Puerto del Sol, Las Americas Review, and the anthology Growing Up Latino. Born in Puerto Rico, raised in the South Bronx, he lives in Plattsburgh, New York, where he teaches American literature, US ethnic literatures, and creative writing at the SUNY campus there. Besides the PhD, he holds an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University.

The winner of the Prize will be announced on October 1, 2020, and will receive a $1,000 prize; publication of the manuscript by LARB Libros, a series by LARB Books dedicated to highlighting emerging Latinx talent; and 10 copies of the book. Additionally, the winner will have a book signing at UC Riverside during Writers Week in 2021. The award's final judge will be Luis Alberto Urrea, Mexican-American novelist, poet, and essayist.

Contact: Jessica Kubinec, jessica@lareviewofbooks.org

FINALISTAS DEL PREMIO DEL LIBRO TOMÁS RIVERA ANUNCIADOS

POR LARB BOOKS

Bloguero invitado, Alex Espinoza

LOS ANGELES, CA - Tom Lutz, editor de LARB Books, anunció a los Finalistas del Premio inaugural Del Libro Tomás Rivera: Maceo Montoya, Toni Plummer y J.L. Torres.

El Premio del Libro Tomás Rivera es una asociación única entre Los Angeles Review of Books y la Universidad de California, Riverside, comprometida con el descubrimiento y el fomento de la escritura extraordinaria por un autor primerizo o de carrera temprana cuyo trabajo examina el largo y variado contribuciones de Chicanx / Latinx en los Estados Unidos

Conocido por su colección seminal de historias “...y la Tierra no lo Devoró,” Rivera fue el primer Canciller Latino del Sistema de la UC y un defensor de la educación superior y la justicia social. El Premio del Libro Rivera honra su legado y su creencia en el poder de la educación, el activismo y las historias para cambiar vidas.

El premio atrajo solicitudes de escritores de California, Texas, la costa este y el medio oeste.

"El comité de selección quedó impresionado por la calidad de los manuscritos y el rango de voces", dijo Alex Espinoza, Jefe del Comité y autor de The Five Acts of Diego Leon, el primer título publicado por la serie Libros de LARB. "Los tres finalistas la exposición seleccionada muestra las voces más frescas e innovadoras en prosa chicana / o y latina / o en el país ".

 El finalista del premio Maceo Montoya es un autor, artista y educador con sede en California que ha publicado The Scoundrel and the Optimist (Bilingual Review, 2010), The Deportation of Wopper Barraza (University of New Mexico Press, 2014), Letters to the Poet from Su hermano (Copilot Press, 2014), un libro híbrido que combina imágenes, poemas en prosa y ensayos, You Fight Them: A Novella and Stories (University of New Mexico Press, 2015), que fue finalista del libro INDIEFAB de Foreword Review. Premio del Año y Movimiento Chicano para Principiantes, que escribió e ilustró. Actualmente es profesor asociado de cultura y literatura Chicanx en UC Davis.

 Toni Margarita Plummer, finalista de Hudson Valley, es la autora de la colección de cuentos The Bolero of Andi Rowe y ganó la Mención de Honor por el Premio Reynolds Price en Ficción 2019 otorgado por el Center for Women Writers. Becaria Macondo y graduada del Master of Professional Writing Program en USC, es colaboradora de las antologías East of East: The Making of Greater El Monte y Latina Outsiders Remaking Latina Identity. Es miembro de Latinx in Publishing y actualmente es mentora de una escritora en su Programa de Mentoría de Escritores inaugural.

 El finalista J.L. Torres es el autor de The Family Terrorist and Other Stories; una novela, The Accidental Native; y la colección de poesía, Pasaporte Boricua. Ha publicado historias y poemas en numerosas revistas y periódicos, incluidos The North American Review, Denver Quarterly, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Eckleburg Review, Puerto del Sol, Las Americas Review y la antología Growing Up Latino. Nacido en Puerto Rico, criado en el sur del Bronx, vive en Plattsburgh, Nueva York, donde enseña literatura estadounidense, literatura étnica estadounidense y escritura creativa en el campus de SUNY. Además del doctorado, tiene un M.F.A. en escritura creativa de la Universidad de Columbia.

El ganador del premio se anunciará en 1 de octubre de 2020 y recibirá un premio de $ 1,000, la publicación del manuscrito por LARB Libros, una serie de LARB Books dedicada a resaltar el talento latinox emergente y diez copias del libro. Además, el ganador tendrá una firma de libros en UC Riverside durante la Semana de los Escritores en 2021. El juez final del premio será Luis Alberto Urrea, novelista, poeta y ensayista mexicano-estadounidense.

Información de contacto: Jessica Kubinec, jessica@lareviewofbooks.org