Review: Achy Obejas.
The Tower of the Antilles. Akashic Books, 2017.ISBN: 9781617755392
e-ISBN: 9781617755538
Michael Sedano
I’d move Achy Obejas’ book of short fiction,
The Tower of the Antilles, to the top of my want-to-read list, if I hadn’t just read this intriguing gem of a collection from Akashic Press. Obejas’ deft hand and free-wheeling imagination craft ten stories to be read, then read again out of delight, perplexity, surprise, admiration.
As the title suggests, and Obejas’ prior works attest, Cuba occupies a central place in the stories and hearts of their characters. This is, after all, immigrant literature of the Cuban diaspora, with a generous sampling of eroticism.
Obejas’ characters don’t have a political axe to grind. Inured to hardship, leaving is a constant motive for people who are staying. The ones there find contentment in the way things are. Owing to the author’s U.S. origin, a majority of the characters are over here already. Some go back to visit, to connect with familia, uncover old resentments, party then hook up with a stranger.
Some of Obejas’ more singularly imaginative characters include a nightclub sex worker, a fellow whose imagination takes wing in a pile of flotsam, a book collector whose damaged roomie pilfers first editions. More quotidian characters populate accounts like an immigrant living in Chicago with her Cuban ex-lover, a traveler who returns to Cuba and gets hit hard by culture shock and Mayra’s laughing eyes, a brain tumor death sentence sends a woman to the Maldives to spend her final hours lying in bioluminescent water.
Readers will laugh at phonetic humor in “The Sound Catalog,” a character’s confusion over the expression, “Whenever you hear a bell ring, an angel gets its wings.” To the Cuban ex-lover’s ear, the words come out, “Whenever you hear a bell ring, anger turns on a swing.” This, and "Superman," are the comic relief stories in a collection that leans toward the dark.
Interestingly, “The Sound Catalog” is one of the rare stories where characters have names. Most characters are “the man,” “the woman,” “we,” “I.” Absenting names is a way of giving these experiences an interchangeability, what happened to one person in a story could belong to a character a few stories later, or parallel any immigrant's exigencies. Kimberly, the title character of the second story, is horribly unique.
There’s a signal example of parallelism in the piles of flotsam characters in the book’s opening and closing stories assemble. “The Collector” builds an assemblage of rafts and floating craft that brought people from the island to the Florida shore. “The Tower of the Antilles” could be an imaginary assemblage of collected vessels, existing in the mind of a woman in a coma, or being tortured. That’s one of the stories that will make you read it again, then turn back to “The Collector” and look back and forth for explanations.
Order
The Tower of the Antilles from your local independent bookseller,
or publisher-direct here.Peace Corps Award to Ron AriasThe Wetback and Other Stories by Ron Arias is a 2016 Peace Corps Award winner in the organization's annual recognition program for alumni of the Peace Corps. The announcement will be made at the National Peace Corps Association Conference this August. The prize includes a certificate and honorarium.
La Bloga has been fortunate to track the life of this memorable collection of Chicano short stories, Ron Arias' The Wetback And Other Stories. We were guests at the launch party and covered that in a Michael Sedano fotoése last October, and witnessed Writer-Director A.P. Gonzales complete a fruitful fund-raising effort for a film of the title story.
Click here for information on Gonzales' project.
Arias calls the honor "super cool." Instead of losing himself to euphoria brought from winning an important literary prize, Arias keeps his eye firmly on the writing, not the bling. "I checked my competition," he says, "and the list of nominations shows some fine, professional writers, some with big fiction-sellers. I hope this kind of recognition gets more eyeballs on my stories, helps me pull more readers into the minds and situations of my characters. Maybe some of the pieces will blast their way into all kinds of hearts, from young and curious to old and hardened."
La Bloga On-line Floricanto: For FathersOdilia Galván Rodríguez, Lara Gularte, Edward Vidaurre, Ramón Piñero, Jackie Lopez Lopez, Sonia Gutiérrez, Martina Gallegos, Sharon Elliott, Diane Funston“Pieces of Dad’s Story” By Odilia Galván Rodríguez
“What Matters in the Morning” By Lara Gularte
“Two Fathers” By Edward Vidaurre
“Happy Father’s Day” by Ramón Piñero
“My Father” By Jackie Lopez Lopez
“From the Shovel to the Guitar” / “De la pala a la guitarra” By Sonia Gutiérrez
“Riqueza no es todo” Por Martina Gallegos
“My Father Was a Fisherman” By Sharon Elliott
“Father’s Day, or, Dreams and Lies” By Diane Funston
Pieces of Dad’s Story By Odilia Galván Rodríguezwhen you were told
leave or be taken out
at the threat
of a police baton
after you came home
a decorated soldier
from the Korean War
called a conflict
and you couldn’t find
a place to live
No Mexicans Allowed
in White neighborhoods
you protested
this was some years after
you loved
a woman you met
when she
was but a girl of 11
and said
she’s going to be my wife
one day
the same day
you walked away
from Brownsville at 13
an orphan
you met a trailero
called Gavilan
whom you’d seen before
(in a border bar
where every night
since your mother died
when you were 5
you and your brother
would pick up
your father
who’d get dead drunk
and drag him home
from there)
Gavilan stopped for you
on the road
listened to your story
took you
to Rancho La Yegua Alazana
where his mother
would raise you up
with two other orphan
grandsons of hers
until you would lie
about your age
enlist in the army
you were the son
of a beautiful woman
who played and taught
piano and school
she left you too early
then seven years later
your father
was found face up
in the Rio Bravo
you became a runaway
then a soldier
then a trainman
then a father
then a husband
then an ironman
un hombre de acero
you were haunted
by death and killing
you loved your four
children mothered
by a fierce woman
who had problems
you couldn’t solve
no matter how much
you loved her
you were thrown
far from them
but never forgot
you were a father
What Matters in the MorningBy Lara Gulartewhen light fills my window,
and overflows the sun across my bed,
I watch the mountains move closer,
coming home with the daylight.
A monarch flutters into the garden,
rests on a hollyhock,
peacefully opens its wings.
I see something shimmer
between the corn rows.
It’s my father in old shoes and coveralls
hoeing, tracking weeds along snail roads,
standing up straight, head bent and focused
on the endless furrows of his eighty six years.
The sun shines greenly on his hands
as he listens to roots inch deeper into earth,
watches baby spiders hatch, flex their legs.
When he sees me at the window
I hold my hand up to wave,
he holds his,
we are palm to palm.
First published in The Gavea-Browne Book of Portuguese American Poetry.
Two FathersBy Edward Vidaurre Last I spoke with you, you were in between a breath and death
Last I saw you, you denied being my father out of fear of loving me
Last I spoke with you, you forgot to say, I love you Mijo
Last I saw you, you waved goodbye as I drove away, rumbo a Tejas
First time I saw you, you were at our neighbor’s house party drinking beer
First time I saw you, I ran into you at the corner store, comprando gaseosas
First time you spoke, you asked my primo if I was Gloria’s son
First time you spoke, you said hello and we were still healing
The day you died, I stared into the sun, destroyed
The day you died, you did it alone, entirely without me
The day you died, I cried and cried and cried and cried, I cried
The day you died, I cried, smiled, laughed, remembered, appreciated
Happy Father’s DayBy Ramón Piñero He was
in and out
more times
out than in
he was happier
drinking
than not
drinking
slapping
her left and
right,
flinging her
across the
bed. Landing
more than once
on the boy.
He never
saw the progeny
of his children.
those bright-eyed
children of his
children.
the boy would
go round to
see if he could
score
a pair of shoes
it's the first day of
school. the
boy tired
of stuffing
his shoes
with the
daily news.
the boy learned
from that man
learned to drink
to be irresponsible
to beat the women
who loved him.
to become the
man he was taught
to be.
the boy and
the girls
learned much
from this waste
of skin.
thankfully
they have
driven that
demon to where
he belongs
away from their
hearts and away
from their souls.
© Ramon Pinero All Rights Reserved
My FatherBy Jackie Lopez LopezWhen I left home, my father said don’t you cry.
I gave him an apple for my rehearsal dinner.
My father spoke perfect English and Spanish.
He gave me my Puerto Rican eyes and my Spanish sir name and the alphabet soup.
My dark skin scared his family but made him want to send me to Germany for drum lessons.
He gave me an invisible thread of patrimony.
I never left him, although, I swam naked in the sun.
He was from the Bronx and thrifty and had shiny white skin.
He owned a building, and he saw spirits in the basement.
I was 3 when he came home drunk and hit me with a rum bottle.
My father loved me irrefutably and was never cross with me.
My father was a shaman fighting demons on the street.
He was the hero of the angels.
And, the fear of the merciless.
He saved the world on a daily basis.
I took his blood and turned it into a pen.
When I left my father, he said I would fall asleep on welfare.
I never cooked without a food stamp in my mouth.
I was wicked poor.
I was the envy of the third world children though.
And, shame paid for my room and board.
Worse things beyond poverty were to happen to me.
I was 7.
When I was 11, my father died from heartbreak on the streets.
He couldn’t live without me.
Recently, my father spoke to me in a fierce dream
and told me to go plant a flower.
Now, I fight demons on the street, am the hero of angels, and am feared by the merciless.
The world saves me on a daily basis.
When I leave home, I will not cry.
I love you, father.
I understand.
All Rights Reserved.
From the Shovel to the GuitarBy Sonia GutiérrezMy father never sat behind
The comfort of a desk,
Surrounded by imperfectly
Positioned books
And photographs,
To write poetry.
Instead, at fifty-three, my father
Understood the language
Of the unruly earth.
He tilled hectares handed down
To him—keeper of the earth.
At sixty, his fists
Loosened the grip
Of the master’s shovel.
His clumsy fingers
Looked at each other
And did what they had always
Wanted to do—
Tame the guitar’s strings,
But silver and nylon strings tamed him.
My father never sat behind
The comfort of a desk,
Surrounded by imperfectly
Positioned books
And photographs,
To write poetry.
But now, at sixty-four
My father
Sing strums songs
Of our tomorrows.
De la pala a la guitarraPor Sonia GutiérrezMi padre nunca se sentó
Detrás de la comodidad de un escritorio,
Rodeado de libros
Y fotografías
Imperfectamente posicionadas,
Para escribir poesía.
En vez, a los cincuenta y tres, mi padre
Entendió el lenguaje
De la tierra revoltosa.
Araba tierras hectáreas heredadas
A él—cuidador de la tierra.
A los sesenta, sus puños
Soltaron el apretón
De la pala del patrón.
Sus dedos toscos
Se observaron uno al otro,
Y hicieron lo que siempre
Quisieron hacer—
Domar las cuerdas de la guitarra,
Pero las cuerdas de nylon y plata lo domaron a él.
Mi padre nunca se sentó
Detrás de la comodidad de un escritorio,
Rodeado de libros
Y fotografías
Imperfectamente posicionadas,
Para escribir poesía.
Pero ahora, a los sesenta y cuatro
Mi padre
Canta rasguea las canciones
De nuestros mañanas.
Riqueza no es todoPor Martina Gallegos Fuiste humilde de riquezas pero rico de corazón;
tus chistes decena reunían nuestra familia.
Fuiste humilde de recursos pero no de tus cuentos
que nos tiraban de risa al piso.
La Tierra a veces no daba mucho
pero nunca llegaste a casa con las manos vacías.
No tenías dinero para comprarnos alimentos
pero del campo siempre nos dabas de comer.
No tuvimos juguetes nuevos
pero los que nos hacías eran hechos con amor.
No tuviste mucha escuela;
sin embargo, nuestros libros fueron tu biblioteca.
Todo lo que yo recuerdo de la primaria
lo aprendí porque tú me lo enseñaste.
Me hablabas de política
pero esa yo no la entendía.
Leías nuestros libros con mucho placer
y te gustaba más leer las poesías.
My Father Was a Fisherman By Sharon ElliottMy father was a fisherman
he could gut a rainbow trout
from stem to stern
fry it in butter
in a cast iron skillet
make you forget the bones
I do not call his name
My father was a carpenter
crafted tongue-in-groove decks from Douglas Fir
intricate boxes
bookshelves
playpens
and broken spirits
I do not call his name
My father was a lawyer
believed in truth
justice
the American way
could not leap anything
in a single bound
I do not call his name
My father was a dancer
taught me the foxtrot to Benny Goodman
my little feet standing on his shoes
sang me lullabyes
in sweet Spanish syllables
played no instrument but the radio
I do not call his name
My father was a war hero
returned smashed
grief stricken
terrified
his love of the sea intact
love for children impossible
I do not call his name
My father broke
his own heart
on the back of a
small being
who only wanted
to be cared for
Those more powerful and wise
have schooled me
I wish him well in the other world
that he created
I hope he learns his lessons
there will be no reentry
I do not call his name
Copyright © 2015 Sharon Elliott. All Rights Reserved.
Father’s Day, or, Dreams and LiesBy Diane FunstonI dreamed you back for years,
behind my rapid eye movements,
we walked hand in hand.
In my childhood,
behind stage four sleep,
you told me family stories,
held me when I hurt,
taught me how to ride a bike,
drive a car,
to fall in love with men like you,
subconsciously perfect.
In daydreams,
I rehearsed what I'd say
when you claimed me
from my lost and found life.
I believed you had answers
to questions I asked for years.
Then, I met you in the flesh---
and I abruptly awakened;
learning the difference
between dreams and lies.
Poets of July's La Bloga On-line Floricanto: For FathersOdilia Galván Rodríguez, Lara Gularte, Edward Vidaurre, Ramón Piñero, Jackie Lopez Lopez, Sonia Gutiérrez, Martina Gallegos, Sharon Elliott, Diane Funston“Pieces of Dad’s Story” By Odilia Galván Rodríguez
“What Matters in the Morning” By Lara Gularte
“Two Fathers” By Edward Vidaurre
“Happy Father’s Day” by Ramón Piñero
“My Father” By Jackie Lopez Lopez
“From the Shovel to the Guitar” / “De la pala a la guitarra” By Sonia Gutiérrez
“Riqueza no es todo” Por Martina Gallegos
“My Father Was a Fisherman” By Sharon Elliott
“Father’s Day, or, Dreams and Lies” By Diane Funston
Odilia Galván Rodríguez
Odilia Galván Rodríguez, poet, writer, editor, educator, and activist, is the author of six volumes of poetry, her latest, The Nature of Things, a collaboration with Texas photographer, Richard Loya, by Merced College Press 2016. Also, along with the late Francisco X. Alarcón, she edited the award-winning anthology, Poetry of Resistance: Voices for Social Justice, University of Arizona Press, 2016. This poetry of witness anthology, the first of its kind, because it came about because of the on-line organizing work of Alarcón, Galván Rodriguez, and other poet-activists which began as a response to the proposal of SB 1070, the racial profiling law which was eventually passed by the Arizona State Legislature in 2010, and later that year, HB 2281which bans ethnic studies. With the advent of the Facebook page Poets Responding (to SB 1070) thousands of poems were submitted witnessing racism, xenophobia, and other social justice issues which culminated in the anthology.
Galván Rodríguez has worked as an editor for various print media such as Matrix Women's News Magazine, Community Mural's Magazine, and Tricontinental Magazine in Havana, Cuba. She is currently, the editor of Cloud Women’s Quarterly Journal online; facilitates creative writing workshops nationally, and is director of Poets Responding to SB 1070, and Love and Prayers for Fukushima, both Facebook pages dedicated to bringing attention to social justice issues that affect the lives and wellbeing of many people and encouraging people to take action. Her poetry has appeared in numerous anthologies, and literary journals on and offline.
As an activist, she worked for the United Farm Workers of America AFL-CIO, The East Bay Institute for Urban Arts, has served on numerous boards and commissions, and is currently active in Women’s organizations whose mission it is to educate around environmental justice issues and disseminate an indigenous world view regarding the earth and people’s custodial relationship to it. Odilia Galván Rodríguez has a long and rich history of working for social justice in solidarity with activists from all ethnic groups.
Lara Gularte
Lara Gularte was featured with an interview and 18 poems in the Autumn 2014 issue of The Bitter Oleander. Her poetic work depicting her Azorean heritage is included in a book of essays called "Imaginários Luso-Americanos e Açorianos" by Vamberto Freitas. Her work can be found in The Gávea-Brown Book of Portuguese-American Poetry. Her poems have appeared in such journals as The Bitter Oleander, California Quarterly, The Clackamas Review, Evansville Review, Permafrost, The Monserrat Review, The Water-Stone Review, The Fourth River, The Santa Clara Review, and she has been published by many national and regional anthologies. Her manuscript “Kissing the Bee,” will be published by The Bitter Oleander Press in 2017. She is an assistant editor for Narrative Magazine.
Edward Vidaurre
Edward Vidaurre is the author of Chicano Blood Transfusion (FlowerSong Books), Insomnia (El Zarape Press), Beautiful Scars: Elegiac Beat Poems (El Zarape Press), and I Took My Barrio on a Road Trip (Slough Press). His new collection, Jazzhouse, is forthcoming from Prickly Pear Press. His work appears in Bordersenses, RiverSedge, Brooklyn & Boyle, La Bloga, Voices de la Luna, and Poets Responding to SB1070, among many other venues. He is the founder of Pasta, Poetry, and Vino, an ongoing poetry reading series in the lower Rio Grande Valley.
Ramon Piñero is just another guy in Florida trying to keep his head above
water while this country is circles the drain. Rapidly!
Jackie Lopez
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Jackie Lopez is an activist poet from San Diego, California and was internationally published when she was 23 years old by Panhandler Productions. She has read for Janice Jordan, The Taco Shop Poets, border activists, Centro Cultural de la Raza, The World Beat Center, N.O. W., and many other venues for over 23 years. She was founding member of the legendary Cabin Twenty writing collective. She is a UCSD graduate, and graduate school for her consisted of time in The New School for Social Research in New York and at SDSU in San Diego where she studied world history and creative writing respectively. Her journey has been one of a persistent search of truth and the key to social change. She has served as an educator since she was 17 years old and has read poetry in San Diego City Schools for numerous years. Her poems always end in faith that the light shall always overcome the darkness. She has recently written a collection of love poems and mystic poems as well. She has been published in “La Bloga” fourteen times, “The Hummingbird Review,” “The Border Crossed Us: An Anthology to End Apartheid,” “Rise,” and numerous other literary anthologies and journals. “La Bloga” selected one of her poems for the “Best of 2015 La Bloga Edition.” You can contact her via email or facebook. Her email: peacemarisolbeautiful@yahoo.com and her facebook: Jackie Lopez Lopez in San Diego. She shares her poetry for free on facebook.
Sonia Gutiérrez
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Sonia Gutiérrez’s teaches English composition and critical thinking and writing. Her bilingual poems have appeared in the San Diego Poetry Annual, Konch Magazine, and Poetry of Resistance: Voices for Social Change, and forthcoming in Tidepools: A Journal of Ideas. Her fiction has appeared in the London Journal of Fiction, Huizache, and AlternaCtive PublicaCtions. Sonia’s bilingual poetry collection, Spider Woman / La Mujer Araña, is her debut publication. She is a contributing editor for The Writer’s Response (Cengage Learning, 2016). Her poetry collection Legacy / Herencia is seeking publication. Currently, she is moderating Facebook’s Poets Responding, working on her manuscript, Sana sana colita de rana, and completing her novel, Kissing Dreams from a Distance. Her libro artesano for children, El Lugar de los Alebrijes / The Place of Alebrijes (Nódulo Ediciones and *Asterisco Editora de Poesía) is forthcoming. Her poems, “From the Shovel to the Guitar” / “De la pala a la guitarra” appear in Legacy / Herencia, a bilingual poetry collection.
Sharon Elliott
Sharon Elliott has been a writer and poet activist over several decades beginning in the anti-war and civil rights movements in the 1960s and 70s, and four years in the Peace Corps in Nicaragua and Ecuador, especially in multicultural women’s issues. She is a Moderator of Poets Responding to SB1070, and has featured in poetry readings in the San Francisco Bay area. Her work has been published in several anthologies and her poem “Border Crossing” appears in the anthology entitled Poetry of Resistance: Voices for Social Justice, Francisco X. Alarcón and Odilia Galván Rodriguez, eds. She has read it in Los Angeles at AWP and La Pachanga 2016 book launch, in San Francisco and at the Féis Seattle Céiliedh in Port Townsend, WA. Her book, Jaguar Unfinished, was published by Prickly Pear Press, 2012.
Diane Funston
Diane Funston lives in Marysville, California with her soul-mate husband Roger and three boisterous dogs. She spends a good deal of time in Sacramento in poetry and visual art groups. She has been published in various journals in CA and on the East Coast. Diane is the founder of a weekly poetry group that has been meeting in her former home of Tehachapi for over ten years. She holds a degree in Literature and Writing from CSU San Marcos.
