by Ernest Hogan

I recently received a note about the Rudolfo Anaya documentary that was released in 2014.  I watched the film and I highly recommend it.

Only twenty-seven minutes long, it is a concise summary of Anaya's life, writing career and writing philosophy.  The photography is excellent. Since much of the footage includes the beautiful New Mexican landscape, the images are striking; the visuals expertly match the "magic" of the words spoken by Anaya and others.  Included in the film are La Bloga friends and guest contributors María Teresa Márquez and Roberto Cantú.

The film also features readings by Anaya from several of his works including The Silence of the Llano and Bless Me, Ultima. 

The film is perfect for the classroom where the lessons are about Anaya, Latino or Chicano Literature, writing, the writing life, or probably another dozen or so subjects.

Rudolfo Anaya continues to amaze with his prolific output.  His devotion to the preservation and documentation of New Mexican life and traditions is well-known.  The Anaya legend will live forever -- this film is a perfect way to celebrate the legend.


[from the film's producer]

New Mexico's storytellers reflect the vast spectacle of its landscape, history and cultures.  Rudolfo Anaya, one of its most beloved sons, has created an exemplary body of literary work -- novels, short stories and children's books -- exploring Hispanic life in the Southwest.  Influenced by a crossroads of cultures -- Native American, Spanish, Mexican and Anglo -- his fiction is infused with spirituality and has universal appeal.  

Anaya was the first Hispanic American writer to achieve major publishing success with his landmark novel, Bless Me, Ultima, in print since 1972.  The Nation magazine called it "a timeless work about youth and the rites of passage."  The Los Angeles Times praised the author as "an extraordinary storyteller."

A passionate advocate for the appreciation of New Mexico's Hispano traditions, Anaya has become a beloved part of the cultural landscape -- a familiar and welcoming to his audience as the Southwest's endless blue skies, adobe buildings or watermelon-colored sunsets.

Still writing at 77, his eloquence, wisdom and charisma are unmistakable and make him a beguiling subject for this documentary film.  Rudolfo Anaya:  The Magic of Words is a vital reference to the authentic culture of Hispanic New Mexico.  And while the wellspring of Anaya's stories is New Mexico, his insight is invaluable to understand the quest by all Hispanic American for cultural identity, recognition and respect.

To order a copy of the film:

Dave Ellis
Ellis Film
P.O. Box 9051
Santa Fe, NM  87504

ellisfilm@aol.com
(818) 216-6554

$25.00 plus $3.00 shipping

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9th to 10th October 2015
Cleveland, Ohio
Website: http://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crossingover/
Contact person: Antonio Medina-Rivera

Cultural Borders, Political Borders. Educational Borders, Religious Borders, International Borders, Intranational Borders, Linguistic Borders, Ideological Borders, Age Borders,Tribal Borders, Social Class/Caste Borders, Neighborhood Borders.

Luis Alberto Urrea is the scheduled keynote speaker.

Organized by: Cleveland State University
Deadline for abstracts/proposals: 15th May 2015

Check the event website for more details.


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New From San Antonio Poet Laureate Laurie Ann Guerrero




 [from the press release]

San Antonio, TX: Aztlan Libre Press announces the publication of San Antonio Poet Laureate Laurie Ann Guerrero’s new book, A Crown for Gumecindo. Published in a special hardbound edition, A Crown for Gumecindo is a heroic crown of sonnets dedicated and addressed to the author’s grandfather, Gumecindo Martínez Guerrero, who passed away in 2013. The sonnets chronicle Guerrero’s first year of grief following the loss of her beloved grandfather, the family patriarch.

 Through 15 linked sonnets, journal entries and meditations, Guerrero reexamines the lessons she learned from her grandfather, both intentionally and unintentionally, and in the process, carefully dissects the complex inheritance of their multigenerational, multilingual, and multifaceted male-female relationship. Guerrero draws upon various histories – personal, social, literary – in order to expose the uncertainties encountered in a time of mourning.

Award-winning visual artist, poet and professor Maceo Montoya from California contributes 15
paintings to the book. Inspired by Guerrero’s sonnets, Montoya’s paintings offer readers a layered experience of the tender and often shocking revelations of grief.

Tim Z. Hernández, author of Natural Takeover of Small Things, who writes the Foreword to this
book, states that: “A Crown for Gumecindo will hold its rightful place among the list of pivotal tomes that readers and writers alike will find themselves returning to time and again: a classic.”

Laurie Ann Guerrero was born and raised in the Southside of San Antonio, Texas and was named
Poet Laureate of the City of San Antonio in 2014 by former mayor, Julián Castro. Her first full-length collection, A Tongue in the Mouth of the Dying, was selected by Francisco X. Alarcón as winner of the 2012 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize and published by the University of Notre Dame Press in 2013. Guerrero holds a B.A. in English Language & Literature from Smith College and an MFA in Poetry from Drew University. She is the inaugural Poet-in-Residence at Palo Alto College in San Antonio and continues to live and write in her hometown.

A national book launch will be held on Wednesday, May 6, 2015 from 6:30-9pm at the Southwest School of Art Coates Chapel (300 Augusta, 78205). The event is free and open to the public and will include an author reading, multi-media presentation and book signing, music by DJ Despeinada, free food and a cash bar.

For information, call 210.710.8537 or e-mail editors@aztlanlibrepress.com

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QEPD

Bonifacio "Bonney" López -- an old friend of my parents and a former board member of radio station KUVO (Denver); author of The Life and Loves of Bonney Lopez. Rest in Peace.


Today (May 1) I team up with Mario Acevedo for the REFORMA mini-conference in the Denver Public Library -- we are supposed to talk about Northside Noir. Maybe I'll see you there.


Later.

Rush Hour Four: Poets in Union Station East
Michael Sedano



Los Angeles afternoon rush hour begins peaking around 4:00 when a quarter-mile jaunt turns into a forty-five minute ordeal on heated highways, or fifteen hectic minutes on rude surface streets. Public transit riders skip the hassles and pour into Union Station to hop a train or bus and enjoy a hands-free outbound commute. Today they get a second Rush Hour, a poetry reading for listeners on-the-go and a real tough audience.

Celebrating National Poetry Month, the Poetry Society of America with Poetry in Motion/LA, and most importantly hosted by Metro Art's staffers Amalia Merino and Heidi Zeller, sited the event for highest possible visibility in Union Station's sleek east terminal.

Subway passengers ascend the escalator into the hall. Waves of moving crowds pour in from arriving buses. Thanks to the rotunda's echo effect, people hear before they see the poet standing at the microphone in the middle of the concourse.

Most people hitch a step, glance over and nod approval or surprise with the spectacle. A few commuters irritatedly wheel briefcases through poetry-captivated slowpokes and those who join deliberately to stand and enjoy the unique setting and the Rush Hour four. A poet gets a few seconds of prime time attention in which to say enough that onrushing pedestrians catch something before passing out of range.

Robin Coste Lewis reads into a public address system that ensures hearing the poets for a few fleeting phrases by commuters thronging into the tunnel toward trains.

Four poets stand at a lectern under magnificent rotunda and mural overhead, microphone connected to quality loudspeakers on stanchions. The artists' voices project into public space, reaching out to find a note of recognition wherever it will; from the couple with a baby in a stroller, the purposeless ambler, workshirts with names embroidered on them, to the hurried severe black suits who have no time to stop and stare.

Every few minutes, buses unload road-weary riders. Trains unleash waves of people who pour out from below on their way to somewhere else. And there's a poetry reading going on for this ever-changing audience. Maybe they get thirty seconds.

2015 Los Angeles Poet Laureate Luis J. Rodriguez greets 2012 LA Poet Laureate Eloise Klein Healy.

Eloise Klein Healy

Robin Coste Lewis

Kate Gale

Rodriguez reads at an apogee of his oral art, a stunning performance blending memoir, history, cultura in a style he fits to time and place. Rodriguez chooses loud, expansive poems about living, and life in L.A.  He reads for the gente in front of him, but more so Rodriguez projects deep into the tunnel, his poems following people as they walk away, listening through the din of the echoing passage to his urgent expressions. 

Luis J. Rodriguez

Luis J. Rodriguez at lectern during Rush Hour in Union Station

Special On-line Floricanto para La Madre Tierra: Excerpt from Spirits of the Chaparral by Amanda Yeats Garcia


My pursuit of a perfect photograph of public speakers rewards me with often being in places where poetry is spoken, getting to hear poems performed by the poets. There's added stimulus of listening for a gesture, seeking a moment's eye contact, anticipating a dynamic posture to photograph, knowing to see it is to miss it.

Like others in the audience, I get to listen to the words and structure of spoken art, get into the poet's flow and allow the art to take over, immersing into the puro uniqueness that inheres in time and place.  The lens is restrictive, technology requiring its mechanical and reflexive control. A speaker's portrait comes at a phrase with open mouth or tender whispering lips, eyes open, a person feeling words come out as dynamic gesture. Anticipation means releasing the shutter just before the moment.

Guess right and the image expresses distinctive blendings of poet poem time and place. Most are a miss. Technology reprieves the bad guess through the nearly infinite resources of digital. Whereas film limited one to 5 or 6 exposures to get one, today's media allow fifty or a hundred frames to find a keeper.

It was while waiting one of those moments and listening to Amanda Yates Garcia read about California's chaparral, I was struck by her love and deep understanding of the rough scrub, "sagebrush," covering Southern California's disappearing raw tierra, dry washes, arroyos, foothills and canyons. A single hearing wasn't enough. Here was a poem to match our mountains.

Recognizing sublime moments of spoken art like Garcia's reading occur irreproducibly and only at the one time and place, I know there's no pausing and rewinding. It is what it is, whatever I missed, I've missed forever.

There's no going back to Poesia Para La Gente's garden floricanto in Highland Park's Milagro Allegro Community Garden. La Bloga offers the next best thing, a one-woman On-line Floricanto for la madre tierra on the eve of Mother's Day. Amanda Yates Garcia shares an excerpt from her work-in-progress.

Introduction
Spirits of the Chaparral is part of a book of essays, prose and poems dedicated to the magical essence of the city of Los Angeles. I've been been working on this book for several years and expect to finish it in 2015.

The book includes pieces like Incantations for Navigating the Cardinal Directions for Los Angeles, Spell To Be A Writer, Spell To Mend A Broken Heart, and a Table of Correspondences for the elemental spirits of the city.

Excerpt from "Spirits of the Chaparral"
By Amanda Yates Garcia 


“I call in the spirit of Mojave sage!” An intense aromatic field permeates the air, a wash of cleansing turpentine. Sage secretes terpenes in its blood, chemical warfare against hungry deer and other pests. But rather than kill its enemies, sage turns the chaparral into a temple. Sage is the beloved pope of the Southwest, surrounded by an army of celebrants: hummingbirds, bumble bees, native wasps all will fight fiercely in its defense. But they are no match for us descendants of warrior tribes: Trojans, Conquistadors, Marines. We snatch the sacred herbs from their plinths and use them to fragrance our yoga studios.



We’ve built our banks and tech firms upon the ruins of temples and shrines, the once vast and mighty civilizations of plant life. But know this: the plants still exist here as ghosts. As presences. For 15 millennia, humans and plants in Southern California lived in the same reality. Until a new crop of humans arrived by boat, from beyond the realm of death. The plants knew us as visitors from the future. Yarrow foretold that they were the harbingers of death. These new humans, she claimed, had traded belonging for power, for the opportunity to create and destroy. We had become great and horrible angels. Spirit beings from the other side. And as with so many angels, we were jealous. Always needing to be the ones who’re loved best.



But behold! Like Yarrow, we too can see the future. Peer forward to what lies beyond our own graves, where we will see the angels of our own creation. See the machines we now feed with the fruits of our own frenzied labor. Machines who will one day use our bones as fertilizer. Who will mulch us. Who will prune us like topiary bushes into fantastical creatures. Who will, as our own prophets warn us, turn us into slaves, into batteries, just as we make the corn submit its ethanol. And then we will become the garden from which our own machines are exiled. And just like us, they will always long to return.



Amanda Yates Garcia is a multi-media artist, writer and Oracle of Los Angeles.
She has been published in a variety of publications in the United States and abroad such as the literary journal Black Clock, Entropy, and Cinema Publication (Synema Publikationen, Austria).

Her artwork has been featured at venues such as Brewery Projects, REDCAT, Highways Performance Space, Public Fiction, Side Street Projects, the Ben Maltz gallery, the Laband gallery, Human Resources.














Floricanto on Spring Street
Michael Sedano

Here I am, a sixty-nine year old smiling public man taking the hand of a young man named Paul. We grab palms, turn it around with a wrist twist, then he slides to a knuckle clasp and some moves my hand doesn’t know. He offers a fist that I bump with mine, and off goes Get Lit’s Manager of Education to notch up the excitement outside the lobby doors. When, a few seconds later, another Get Lit staffer proffers a horizontal fist I react with a simple fistbump, but not so fast we both know how far out of it I am. Far out. I realize I don’t know how to shake hands with these kids.

What we share in common is wanting to be part of today’s floricanto, a poetry slam contest showcasing Los Angeles high school students as spoken word artists. Classic Slam comes as an important element of Get Lit’s mission to increase teen literacy through classic and spoken word poetry. “Words Ignite,” goes Get Lit’s motto. I’m fired up.

Preparations whirl around Lindsay Halladay

I can’t tell the contestants from the cheering section, all dress in everyday casual clothes. Tiny 9th graders file past followed by nearly-grown women and men in kids' clothing. They have permission slips, for photography and riding the bus. A wristband is lunch.

It's a school day. Schools and coaches have moved mountains getting these students to an experience of a lifetime. There are children representing schools like Morningside, Alhambra, San Gabriel, LACES, Social Justice. They get a front-row seat to a magical experience that starts with reading a book.

LATC's larger theaters--two 300- and one 500-seat amphitheater--fill with six or seven teams. Large contingents indicate a measure of student body support and administrative effectiveness. They also are the experienced teams with better chances of training a winner in tomorrow evening’s Finals. The bigger the room, the likelier a finalist will come from there. Or so I hear, from background conversations. I look at the master list and stride out for my choice.

Theater 4, a 99-seat flat rehearsal space, matches teams including rookie competitor Social Justice Leadership Academy. Today is the school’s first Classic Slam, so I choose theirs as my first, too. Someone from this room will advance to the semi-finals later today. Then, it’s equal opportunity to earn a spot in the finals. It’ll be kid, content, delivery, style, memorization, and time, scored on a scale of one to ten, toss the high and low.

Halladay churns the crowd holding a hand mic regularly refocusing the house on the rules and etiquette. The powerful sound system blasts clear, clean sound. A DJ fills in audio space left by the high energy emcee. Halladay echoes what Luis J. Rodriguez tells his audience in Union Station the other day. Applause is the only coin poets get from a reading so go ahead and appreciate.

Snap your fingers, Halladay demonstrates, show some love. During the readings, supporters will urge on poets with the sound of hundreds of spontaneously snapping fingers. This is the kind of magic that enthralls kids with literature, oracy, poetry.

Contestants couple a classic poem to a response poem written by the performer. The audience expects important classic themes, listening with interest while demanding unique entertainment.


One contestant couples Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnet 43, “How do I love thee?,” with his own rolling monologue on love, loving, lovers. Ethos and cleverness earn him lots of fingersnaps and engaged interaction. He works the house like a seasoned performer; in physical control, using the full stage, holding listeners in comfortable rapport.
A following performer offers stolid contrast, gradually working from unimposing conversational mien into a powerfully self-assured feminist declaration that has women cheering loudly in solidarity and all stomping their feet. Her comrades surround her in hugs of joy when she steps off stage.
The final performer I see takes the stage with a determined spark in her eye and attitude. The Classic poem, about bilingualism, defines the logic of this reading but artistically pales contrasted to the poet’s own voice.

 I hope the contestant's essential simplicity is enough to move this message into the semi-final stage. Her apostrophe to a domineering father set against an agon of cultural fusion booms with quiet power. This demonstration of identity—the dancer becomes the dance--deeply moves judges and listeners.


For these kids, the nation's future leaders, keys to opportunity come from literacy and oracy, the confidence and poise that Classic Slam gives everyone. Seeing it, being there, generates strong commitment to having more in the future. Participants win by doing it. Next year, people in today's audience will find their way to the front, find herself in the spotlights of one of those big stages, looking into the darkness in the presence of 500 people snapping their fingers at something she just said.

Being able to read critically and choose a piece for an audience of peers offers personal satisfaction every kid deserves. Being able to express oneself in exuberant style and delivery, igniting emotion in good listeners by what you say and how you say it, that's the best reward of all! Poetry is power.

I hearken back to Aristotle’s belief that everyone should be able to defend themselves with swords. Equally unthinkable, he taught, was being unable to defend youself with your mouth. Get Lit Classic Slam is a poet’s sword, gente. I hope more schools seek it out.

 Learn more about Get Lit at the organization's website.



On-line Floricanto for 5/2015
Sono Arima, Israel Francisco Haros Lopez, Frank de Jesus Acosta, Jose Carillo, Xico Gonzales, Betty Sanchez, Mario Escobar


"American Pie" by Sono Arima
"Echo" by Israel Francisco Haros Lopez
"Dream of Veneration" by Frank de Jesus Acosta
"Matter/Material " by Jose Carillo
"La Marcha" por Xico Gonzales
"Remedios Caseros" por Betty Sanchez
"Black Spring" By Mario Escobar


AMERICAN PIE
by Sono Arima

the pie is in the sky
flying really high
looping and soaring
ripping and roaring

a rich flavored conglomerate
that's chock full of nuts

so come to the table
its a free for all
be you short or be you tall
round or thin
straight or bent
rich or poor...
did I say poor?

it's first come that is first served
so hurry it up
just pick the right door
the one up front
with gold filagree
might not be one meant for thee

around the corner and down the street
through the back alley there's one to be
pass the mops and kitchen sinks
just sit at the table and grab a chair

plates are warm and the pie's right there
help yourself but do not take too much
because all that's left are the crumbs to munch


 Sono  Arima is a poetess, novelist, and a painter. The majority of her awakened time is spent in the pursuit of exploring and perfecting her creative energies. Most of her poems comes to her in the wee hours of the mornings between the ethereal edges between sleep and the awakened state. She is concern with the human footprint upon the earth and humaneness. A transplant from Los Angeles, California and Homer, Alaska, Sono now resides in Passaic, New Jersey along with her two kittens whom she adores. You can visit her at www.sonoarima@wordpress.com




ECHO
by Israel Francisco Haros Lopez

Border politic amnesia
shedding its skin underneath social media lies
The serpent and the eagle are drowning in pools ofoil black and red blood digitized
and deleted but the facebookgeneration re-members for a second
to share. like. post. tag. re-share.
they might actually be re-called.




Israel Haros is currently working on 1000 border sketch poems as part of an artist residency. He has been accepted into the Immigration/Migration themed residency at Santa Fe Art Institute. He is a published author and has 6 published Adult Chicano Coloring Books. He is also currently working on 1000 sketches in a month as part of an inner artistic movement. He can be found using facebook as his office and also on his wordpress "waterhummingbirdhouse" Chicano from Boyle Heights with an B.A. in English From UC Berkeley and an MFA from California College of The Arts.




DREAM OF VENERATION 
by Frank de Jesus Acosta

In this dream of veneration
I am moved by warm sounds
Winged beings of many colors

Span a cobalt canvas of time

A feathered tapestry of yesterdays
Etching glimpses of tomorrows

Eagle, quetzal, condor cry melodic

Gliding in a circle dance of prayer

Flesh returns to earthen brown
Crimson blood, emerald waters
Pacha mama’s womb of creation

Cradling sibling continents of tribes

In this dream of veneration
A harmonic song of many voices
Prophesy a painful journey of hope

Nations rising in sovereignty of love



Frank de Jesus Acosta is principal of Acosta & Associates, a California-based consulting group that specializes in professional support services to public and private social change ventures in the areas of children, youth and family services, violence prevention, community development, and cultural fluency. In 2007, he authored, The History of Barrios Unidos, Cultura Es Cura, Healing Community Violence, published by Arte Publico Press, University of Houston. Acosta is a graduate of University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). His professional experience includes serving in executive leadership positions with The California Wellness Foundation, the Coalition for Humane Immigration Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), Downtown Immigrant Advocates (DIA), the Center for Community Change, and the UCLA Community Programs Office. He is presently focused on completing the writing and publishing a two book series for Arte Publico Press focused on best practices to improve the well-being of Latino young men and boys. Acosta most recently co-authored a published “Brown Paper” with Jerry Tello of the National Latino Fatherhood and Family Institute (NLFFI) entitled, “Lifting Latinos Up by Their Rootstraps: Moving Beyond Trauma Through a Healing-Informed Framework for Latino Boys and Men.” Acosta provides writing and strategic professional support in research, planning, and development to foundations and community-focused institutions on select initiatives focused on advancing social justice, equity, and pluralism. He is also finalizing writing and editing a book of inter-cultural poetry and spiritual reflections.





MATTER/MATERIAL 
by Jose Carrillo

matter doesn't matter
it comes
it grows
gets finished
it dies.
the human spirit matters:
the human spirit is constant
it goes on
sometimes with a murmur
sometimes with a cry
but it never dies;
Love is the energy
force of the eternal spirit
it is transmitted through
acts of
kindness
and
art.

Material 
por Jose Carrillo

lo material no importa
viene
crece
se acaba
se muere
el espíritu humano importa
el espíritu humano es constante
corre siempre
a veces con un murmuro
y a otras veces con un grito
pero nunca muere.
Amor es la energía
la fuerza del espíritu eterno
que se transmite por
gestos de
bondad
y
arte.

José was born in Durango Mexico in 1932; grew up in California, earned a BA in Theater at San Francisco State College. He has enjoyed a lifetime of working in community theatre, playing jazz music on saxophone, flute and clarinet, writing poetry. He is a member of Seattle Norteños Writers as an events producer and performance poet. Photo is by Gene Frogge, Seattle, a candid taken during a Peace Show reading, Richard Hugo House, 2005.





LA MARCHA
por Xico González C/S

Caminamos siguiendo al águila
That Huitzilopochtli
sent us as a sign - a black Aztec eagle-
that rises to the sky-
al cielo- donde hay esperanzas
y sueños de libertad

“¿Qué queremos?
¡Justicia!
¿Cuándo?
¡Ahora!”

Campesinos on the move
coming up north
migrating back to reclaim their land
esta es tu tierra - tienes derechos...
los rancheros son chuecos
pero la marcha los va a enderezar

“¿Qué si? ¿Qué no?
¿Qué como chingados no?”

Gritos y cantos fill the air…

“¡Se ve! ¡Se siente!
¡Los campesinos están presente!”

Todos son Tlatoanis
Hablando, cantando, gritando y marchando con dignidad

“¡La unión hace la fuerza!”

Cuando lleguen a Sacras
Gaba sordo ears will open y oiran!

Generaciones…
vieja y nueva
mano en mano - paso a paso
cambiando rumbos
de malos a buenos
y soñando un futuro mejor…

“¡Sí se puede!
¡Sí se puede!"

Ya con esta me despido
pero no me olvido
de mi gente en la labor
Que con pasos muy unidos
Marcharon con la Unión
De Merced a Sacramento
Y no miento
¡No señor!
Sé que ganaremos
Sé que venceremos

porque…

“¡El pueblo unido!
¡Jamás será vencido!”

“¡El pueblo unido!
¡jamás será vencido!”



I wrote this poem on August 19, 2002 to commemorate a UFW Marcha from Merced to Sacramento.
Here is what the UFW wrote about this action:
"Summer, Fall 2002--The UFW organizes massive public support, including a much-publicized 150-mile march from Merced to Sacramento, to convince then Gov. Gray Davis to sign the UFW-sponsored binding mediation law, the first time the Agricultural Labor Relations Act has been amended since its passage in 1975."




REMEDIOS CASEROS
por Betty Sanchez

Durante mi infancia
Y adolescencia
Padecí inapetencia
Y por consiguiente
Mi  apariencia era
Frágil y debilucha
Y en consecuencia
Fui victima
de una miríada
De remedios caseros

Ser delgada era sinónimo
De enfermedad
De seguro tiene anemia
O parásitos
Comentaban las vecinas
En la línea de la tortillería
Déle hígado encebollado
Y capsulas de aceite
De bacalao
Y ya verá como en un dos
Por tres se pone gordita
Su chiquilla
Alguna comadre bienintencionada
Opinaba que la cura infalible
Para la desnutrición
Era tomarse un par
De blanquillos crudos
Con delaware (refresco de uva)
O una tasita de cerveza
En ayunas

Mi madre presionada
Por la opinión publica
Se sentía obligada
A seguir tales consejos
Sin importar si eran
Verídicos o inventados

Al cabo del tiempo
Y a fuerza de ser victima
De suplicio mental
Documenté en una libreta
Las torturas

A las que fui sometida
Con el fin de exponer
A mis agresores
En el momento preciso

He aquí
Algunas de mis notas

Malestar estomacal
Agua con carbonato
E infusión de hierbabuena

Dolor de cabeza
Una corona
De ramas de ruda

Ojos lagañosos
Unas gotas de leche de pecho

Piquete de insecto
Fomentos de árnica

Para lo rosado
Maicena

Dolencia dental
Un clavo de olor
Y gárgaras de sal

Espinillas
Un poco de pasta colgate
En el área afectada

Tos y mocos
Té de gordolobo
Y rodajas de cebolla
En el pecho
Me avergüenza
Pensar en las veces
Que fui a la escuela
Oliendo a ceviche

Resfriado
Una olla
De agua hirviendo
Con hojas de eucalipto
Y trapos en el pecho
Previamente calentados
Con la plancha

Retorcijones
No había ninguna duda
De seguro estaba empachada
Lo único efectivo
Eras unos jalones de cuero
En la espalda
Que me hacían
Pedirle al santo niño de atocha
Que me tuviera compasión
Y me recogiera en su seno

Dolores musculares
Ventosas de alcanfor
¿Pueden imaginar peor agonía?

Fiebre
Granos de café
En la planta del pie
Con una cáscara de plátano
Envueltos
En  calcetines de lana

Piojos
No hay mejor remedio
Que el DDT
Así como lo oye
Querido lector
dicloro-difenil-tricloroetano
Un potente pesticida
Para eliminar plagas
Y nubes de insectos
Y cuya vida media
Es de 20 años
Era aplicado a mi sensible
Cuero cabelludo
Hoy que reflexiono en ello
Puedo explicar el porque
He actuado
Incoherentemente
Toda mi vida

Infección  de oído
Un cono de papel
Y fuego
Para sacar el aire

Semblante caído
Señal de hechizo
Un collar de ajos
Y una limpia
Con huevos de rancho
Alejaba los malos espíritus

No podía faltar
el cúralo todo
vicks vaporub
El merthiolate
Que tenia un aplicador
Semejante a un matamoscas
Y la vitacilina
Era tan popular
Que me aprendi
El comercial
Ya lo sabe
En la casa y la oficina
Tenga usted vitacilina
Es muy buena
En rasponcitos
Quemaduras y barritos
Ah que buena medicina

Cicatrices
Hojas de malva machacadas
En el molcajete
Sábila o babas de nopal

Si todo lo demás fallaba
Un sana sana colita de rana
Si no sanas hoy sanarás mañana
Era el consuelo a mis males

Mi padre que poseía
Sentido común
Me llevo a un especialista
Que recetó
Ampolletas de beyodecta
Para aumentar
Los glóbulos rojos
Y comidas pequeñas
Cada tres horas
Para estimular el apetito

FIN DEL ABUSO

En mi edad adulta
Me confieso culpable
De haber aplicado
A mis hijos
Los mismos martirios
Por aquello de que
En cierta manera
Hubieran tenido razón
Mi madre
Abuela
Madrinas
Y vecinas.


Betty Sánchez, poeta mexicana, miembro activo de Los Escritores del Nuevo Sol.  Ha particado en varios recitales tales como Noche de Voces Xicanas, Honrando a Facundo Cabral, Colectivo Verso Activo, Poesía Revuelta y Floricantos.

Sus poemas se han publicado en Voces del Nuevo Sol, Mujeres de Maiz y La Bloga.



BLACK SPRING
por Mario Escobar 

Esto no es una metáfora
escucha como se quiebra
el hueso dorsal
del negro Baltimore
Esto no es una metáfora 

escucha como se apagan
los pulmones 

del negro New York
Esto no es una metáfora
Llega el grito con su voz de piedra,
desatando campanas y lágrimas,
implorando: ¡Ya basta!

Esto no es una metáfora
la sangre asciende al corazón
por el dolor inquietante de rostros
desquebrajados 

que los siglos 

ya conocen.

Esto no es una metáfora 

el miedo ha dicho basta

de sus pasos inseguros

y una primavera negra 

despierta

mientras en Washington DC
Loretta Lynch
se une a la gente tuerta


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. Escobar is a faculty member in the Department of Foreign Languages at LA Mission College. Some of Escobar’s works include Al correr de la horas (Editorial Patria Perdida, 1999) Gritos Interiores (Cuzcatlan Press, 2005), La Nueva Tendencia (Cuzcatlan Press, 2005), Paciente 1980 (Orbis Press, 2012). His bilingual poetry appears in Theatre Under My Skin: Contemporary Salvadoran Poetry by Kalina Press.




2016 Américo Paredes Conference Call for Proposals

La Bloga-Tuesday omitted last week this link to the detailed call for panels, proposals. Roberto Cantu organizes the West Coast's most compelling C/S academic conferences. In hopes scholars will find investigatory riches in the subject of Américo Paredes' work and tradition, here's the missing link:
http://americoatcalstatela.blogspot.com/



To Read in Venice

La Bloga friend Yago S. Cura sends along the poster and invitation to a reading Hinchas de Poesia is sponsoring in conjunction with Gus Harper gallery. Yago writes:

Four writers will be taking the stage to read their work: Romus Simpson, Claudia D. Hernandez, Ruben Cruz, and Angel Garcia.

This is the second reading in a series. Also, on Friday, May 15th we will be screening, "Crying Earth, Rise Up" followed by a Q&A by the director, Suree Towfighnia.

•             Age Range: 3 - 7 years
•             Paperback: 32 pages
•             Publisher: Cinco Puntos Press (August 4, 2015)
•             Language: English
•             ISBN-10: 1935955837
•             ISBN-13:978-1935955832

Celebrating DÍA with poet Jorge Argueta 

and the Art of Maurice Sendak

  

Upcoming Cuba Events at the Bildner Center

• ISBN-13: 9780823434428
• Publisher: Holiday House, Inc.
• Publication date: 7/30/2015
• Edition description: Bilingual
• Pages: 32

Celebrating DÍA with poet Jorge Argueta 

and the Art of Maurice Sendak

  

Upcoming Cuba Events at the Bildner Center

Taking time to smell what could be the last of my roses. Stage 3 Drought Emergency Declared May 5 in Santa Barbara.

Jazz icons

The Jazz and Mud Fest

More rain and mud the first Saturday of Jazz Fest.

After the rain, one goose is undeterred.

Desert hail stops traffic on I-10

The California/Arizona Border

Wild Flowers in I-10 median in Texas

My dry backyard in Santa Barbara.

A frequent visitor to my garden.

Some of my plants will survive the drought.

Before: son and his wife

Nahua movement glyph to watch over him

azteca cradle illustration

Imbedded raw turquoise ojo; half set, unstained walnut

brecas on cedar siderails

on ipe wood footboard

After: she could probably do another 50

Melinda Palacio

Santa Barbara Poet Laureate Sojourner Kincaid Rolle

Earlier this National Poetry Month, the city of Santa Barbara named its sixth Poet Laureate, Sojourner Kincaid Rolle. A historic and long overdue nomination, it was such a joy for all who know of her hard work as a poet and community activist to see her crowned the city's official Poet Laureate on April 7. When Santa Barbara Mayor Helene Schneider called Sojourner to tell her the good news, Sojourner assumed that the mayor wanted to discuss a ballot initiative. Sojourner says it took her several hours to recover from the rush of adrenaline upon hearing the great news. I've known Sojourner for almost 15 years and she had always been labeled unofficially, "The People's Poet." As her friend and poetry colleague (we are both members of the Sunday Poets), I was especially proud to hear of her appointment.

Sojourner helping student poets sell their handmade poetry books.

 Since the tender age of five, when she moved to North Carolina to live with her grandmother, her grandmother thrusted her onto the public stage by teaching her to memorize several poems and one day encouraging her to enter a talent show by reciting a poem. From that day, other students asked Sojourner to visit their class and recite her poem. Thus her career, as guest artist began at age 5 in North Carolina, after Sojourner spent an entire day visiting all the classrooms in a North Carolina school house for grades K-12 reciting her impressive performance. Now Sojourner recites and reads her own poems. As a poet-in-the-school, visiting poet and guest speaker, Sojourner teaches young students how to write poems and read them out loud. She says she espouses the "stand and deliver" technique and gives young students the opportunity to write poems and deliver them in public. She also teaches poetry workshops for adults and has taught several college level courses in the Department of Black Studies at UC Santa Barbara, and is affiliated with the Center for Black Studies Research UCSB, which published her most recent poetry collection, Black Street.

Sunday Poets at the Book Den in Santa Barbara

Sojourner's energy and dedication to the community over the past 30 years is boundless. She is a poet, author of seven books, playwright, environmental educator, and activist. She is instrumental in the yearly tributes to Dr. Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, and Langston Hughes, to name a few. Her recent books are Black Street and the Mellow Yellow Global Umbrella, an electronic and audio book showcasing poems for young people. Over the next two years, Sojourner Kincaid Rolle joins past esteemed poets laureate Barry Spacks, David Starkey, Perie Longo, Paul Willis, and Chryss Yost.

Sojourner Kincaid Rolle, Melinda Palacio, Susan Chiavelli and Emma Trelles After reading with Sunday Poets at the Book Den in Santa Barbara April 19

Sojourner Kincaid Rolle

UPCOMING Events for SK Rolle
Saturday, April 25 Sojourner Kincaid Rolle joins the Santa Barbara Poetry Series, Saturday at 7 p.m. at Kerrwood Hall at Westmont College. The program includes Caitlyn Curran, Christine Penko, SK Rolle, together with the Westmont Chamber Singers under the direction of Grey Brothers.

Connect with SK Rolle on Facebook

Learn more about Santa Barbara's New Poet Laureate:
NPR interview
http://blogs.kcrw.com/whichwayla/2015/04/santa-barbaras-new-poet-laureate-shares-her-words

Funkzone Podcast.http://www.funkzonepodcast.com/?p=279

and the tvhttps://vimeo.com/125071087