By Xánath Caraza
Los Norteños Writers, El Centro de la Raza, Seattle University (Department of Women and Gender Studies and Department of Modern Languages and Cultures), Hugo House, la Sala, José Carrillo, Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs, Catalina Cantú, Robert Francis Flor, Denise Perez Lally, Alex Bautista, Jim Cantú y todos, mil gracias for planning and sponsoring such a meaningful visit to incredible Seattle from December 10 to December 14, 2014.
Oh, yes, we had two wonderful poetry presentations, three poetry workshops, one writers workshop and one teacher training workshop. Seattle kept me happy busy, just as I love my visits.
Today, I have several guest writers. First is Kristen Millares from Seattle, who was kind enough to moderate our reading at Hugo House on December 12, and then I also have several poems from some adultos y some niños y niñas who were part of my workshops in Seattle.
Here is a piece from Kristen Millares, a few photos of the marvelous different events and poetry, la poesía written by all these norteños y norteñas y con esto me despido. Happy 2015 y viva la poesía!
LAS PALABRAS DE KRISTEN MILLARES
Few poets claim the stage like Xánath Caraza. Forget the modulated singsong of poetry voice. Caraza resounds. She sings. She breathes new life into her work with every performance. In short, she delivers.
I was honored to introduce Caraza’s reading at Seattle’s Richard Hugo House on December 12th along with Los Norteños poets Jose Carrillo and Catalina Cantú, who organized a series of readings and workshops to celebrate Caraza’s new book, Sílabas de Viento/Syllables of Wind, just released by Mammoth Publications, which also published her collection Conjuro in 2012.
But what does it mean to deliver a poem? Consider her poem “Yanga,” reproduced in part here with permission of the author.
Yanga, Yanga, Yanga,
Yanga, Yanga, Yanga,
Hoy, tu espíritu invoco
Aquí, en este lugar.
Yanga, Yanga, Yanga,
Hoy, tu espíritu invoco
Aquí, en este lugar.
Este, este es mi poema para Yanga,
Mandinga, malanga, bamba.
Rumba, mambo, samba,
Palabras llegadas de África.
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Mandinga, malanga, bamba.
Rumba, mambo, samba,
Palabras llegadas de África.
In a linguistic tradition practiced by poets like Nicolás Guillén, Caraza summons the contributions of African culture to her motherland with onomatopoetic repetitions that recall percussive chants. Sounds academic, right? It wasn’t.
While Caraza is a professor at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, her stage presence is bold and anchored the deep reverberations of her voice and created an atmosphere in which anything might happen – in which the fugitive slave leader Yanga might appear, if only in the imaginations of the audience.
The recordings from that powerful night are not yet online, but you can sample Caraza’s style by listening to her read “Ante el río,”selected by the Smithsonian to promote Day of the Dead in 2013. Published in Conjuro, I’ve reproduced “Ante el río” below with permission from Caraza. Learn more about her at http://xanathcaraza.webs.com.
Ante el río
Como llorona estoy ante el río
Lamentándome por ti
Niño perdido
¡Ay de mí! ¡Ay de mí! ¡Llorona!
Como lagarto estoy sobre las piedras
Esperándote
En el río
Ave negra que nace del agua
Que abre sus alas
Y deja su historia salpicada
En el cauce del río
Dejando surcos en su vuelo bajo
Con su vientre pegado al río
Trinar sobre mis oídos
Rumor del agua
Bugambilias anaranjadas, fucsias, rosadas y blancas
Que están en mis sueños y
Me llenan la garganta
¡Ay de mí! ¡Ay de mí! ¡Llorona!
Eres tú el brujo y hechicero
Que se mete en mis sueños
Con el agua te lavo
Y te canto ante al río
¡Ay de mí! ¡Ay de mí! Niño perdido
Como Llorona estoy
Ante el río
Llévate mi tristeza niño hermoso
Lava mis penas en el río
Before the River
As Llorona I am before the river
Moaning for you
Niño perdido
¡Ay de mí! ¡Ay de mí! ¡Llorona!
As an alligator I am on the river stones
Waiting for you
In the river
Black bird born of the water
Opens its wings
And leaves its history sprinkled
By the flow of the river
Leaves tracks in its low flight
With its underside close to the river
Singing above my ears
Murmuring of water
Orange, fuchsia, pink and white buganvilias
Are in my dreams and
Fill my throat
¡Ay de mí! ¡Ay de mí! ¡Llorona!
You are the wizard and sorcerer
Who enters into my dreams
With water I wash you
And I sing to you before the river
¡Ay de mí! ¡Ay de mí! Niño perdido
As Llorona I am
Before the river
Take my sadness with you beautiful niño
Wash my sorrows in the river
Kristen Millares Young is a writer and journalist whose work has been featured by the Guardian, the New York Times, KUOW 94.9-FM, City Arts Magazine, Pacifica Literary Review, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Miami Herald and TIME Magazine. Kristen was the researcher for the NYT 2013 Pulitzer Prize-winning story “Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek,” which also won a Peabody. Hailed by The Stranger as one of the “fresh new faces in Seattle fiction,” she was a 2014 Jack Straw Writing Fellow. She has been researching and writing her first novel for seven years. Kristen graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University and from the Master of Fine Arts program at the University of Washington, where she studied and taught creative writing. She is a co-founder and board member of InvestigateWest, a nonprofit journalism center in the northwest.
LA POESÍA DE LOS ADULTOS
Daisy Chain
By José Carrillo
I had a dream
the sky was filled with blue stems
showers of them on the ground
they turned to daisies.
My hair, as if ready to welcome them,
stretched all the way down
to greet them
I loved the rising flowers on me
I looked at them, smelled them
for a long time
soon they began to grow out of my body
until I became one with them.
To my surprise
I heard someone in the distance
shout my name: Margarita!
Also by José Carrillo, with Arturo Rodriguez en el tambor, here is his interpretation of my poem “Yanga”.
El Juego
By Denise Pérez Lally
Red Rover, Red Rover
The Queen asks, “Please come over.”
This diamond crown, so loved, so cherished, and worn with honor
…should not deceive you.
I ask myself, would you recognize me, sweating from waiting tables,
Or crawling on my hands
And knees cleaning their floors,
Or caring desperately for their children.
How did I get here? And to think those
Closest to me were left behind…
Red Rover, Red Rover.
My Primavera
By Denise Pérez Lally
Dolor, esperanza y sol
My country tis’ of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
My primavera,
Where is she?
Dear Mirella
By Xilen Ramírez
Too often,
mujeres Latinas,
mujeres de color,
are painted into de background.
I’m here to tell you that
we don’t have to stay there.
We can come out,
and we can paint
our own vision
of the world.
Movimiento
by Catalina M. Cantú
Day two of First Grade, I was shoved and called a nigger.
It was the first time; I heard the “n word”.
I felt their venom in my pores.
Teachers were mute.
Northwest postage stamp town of chalk people.
Where ever my family walked, they stopped us.
What are you?
Where are you from?
Papa, his wavy, ebony hair slicked back,
elegant in his suit, tie, and shinned shoes.
Met his ill dressed inquisitors with a stony gaze,
We are Americans, born in the U.S. of A.
Chalk people chortled and shook their pointed heads.
Their rancid racism reeked.
We escaped that time
And the next.
As a boy, Papa saw men lynched in Texas.
His pluck moved us further north
Not to a global city melting pot.
But, Surburbia with Barbie, Ken and their schools.
The Civil Rights movement tugged at my heart.
Where did I fit in the world?
Who were my people?
MECHA meeting brewed the tempest in my soul.
Doe-eyed whisper
Ravenous desire
Flor y canto.
Pungent rage
fueled by injustice howls
Justicia y libertad.
Sirens crush
Pavement kissed
Pinche vida.
Venceremos roar
Pomegranate gritos
Viva La Raza!
LA POESÍA DE LOS NIÑOS Y NIÑAS
¿Qué eres?
By Fernando B.
Yo hombre
Hombre soldado
Hombre fuerte
Hombre bueno
Hombre grande
Hombre de luz
Hombre de paz
Yo soy hombre
¿Qué eres tú?
Expresiones de Amor
By Jorge B.
Yo soy como el río
Fluye, fluye, fluye
Amar como el océano
Ama a las criaturas vivientes
Soy salvaje con pasión de amor
Amo a todos que me aman
Y tendrán lugar en mi corazón.
Libre
By Alex R.
Soy libre como una paloma
Soy libre como un árbol
Que está parado
Y que hay paz alrededor
Soy libre
Como el viento
Que sopla
Soy libre
Soy libre
Y libre estaré para siempre
No pierdes la fe
Siempre busca la libertad
Naturaleza
By Jasmine M.
El viento es suave
Miro los rayos de sol y de luna
Tengo fuerza de mujer que
Mira las flores blancas que
En el rayo de sol y luna brilla
Como una estrella y con la fuerza
De la mujer me siento libre
De mirar al cielo y decir, “Dios
Gracias por la naturaleza”
Hermosa Xihuatl
By Jennifer T.
Eres una hermosa xihuatl
Has tenido muchas serpientes en la vida
Eres madre y esposa
Eres una xihuatl valiente
Luchadora y poderosa
Bizia, zeurea
By Leire S.
Ez gaude ezer esaten
Ezta entzun beharrekoan
Persona horren bizia
Aurrean edo alboan
Izango duzu betiko
Beti beti zure ondoan
Ez zaitez inoiz beldurtu
Zu zeu ikusterakoan
*Nota de la poeta: No me gusta la poesía, pero sí la BERTXOLARITZA, que puede ser descrita como poesía vasca.
Traducción a español:
Vida, tuya
By Leire S.
No estamos diciendo nada
Ni tampoco tenemos que escuchar
La vida de esa persona
Al frente o al lado
La tendrás para siempre
Siempre, siempre a tu lado
No te asustes jamás
Al verte a ti mismo.
