Pay For What You Get


SPD Shelves
Originally uploaded by geminipoet

Small Press Distribution’s Open House & Book Sale is the devil. You would think I could drop in, look around for a minute, make a mental note of some titles I can order later, and then be out. Yeah, right.

Ok, first stop is the Poetry Trading Post where you can get a free book for a poem. In exchange for my humble offering, SPD reciprocated with a copy of Cantos Al Sexto Sol: An Anthology of Aztlanahuac Writing. Score!

Off to the SPD shelves were I help New York Poeta and good friend Eliel Lucero navigate through the rows and rows of literary goodness.

So what did I find? Glad you asked.

• Primera Causa/First Cause by Tino Villanueva, translations by Lisa Horowitz
This will be my first introduction to Villanueva’s obra poética, Horowitz’s translations, and what looks like a fine chapbook production from Cross-Cultural Communications.

• Luna: Volume 4
Found in the 1/2 off section. My first Luna purchase with a list of contributors is off the chain and an equally impressive but sencillo layout.

• In the South Bronx of America by Mel Rosenthal with essays by Grace Paley, Martha Rosler, and Barry Phillips
When I saw this on the 1/2 off shelf, I almost jumped out of my skin. I’ve been scouring used bookstores for months looking for this book and to see it just waiting for me to pick it up. Word, palabra, and everything in between, yo.

Backstory: When I first started my writing project on the Bronx, I was searching the Web like a madman looking for images that did proper justice to the Bx. Specifically, I was searching for images of the cardboard images placed in the windows of abandoned tenements to cover up the urban decay as opposed to actually bringing in proper services. The only images I found that didn’t treat my childhood home like a leper colony or cruel social joke were the South Bronx photos of Mel Rosenthal. Since then, I’ve come back to Rosenthal’s online gallery over and over again to help me find a way to turn the story in those pictures into poetry.

So I took a break from reading my copy of In the Grove and plunged right into Rosenthal’s book and was happily impressed. Some few quick thoughts over at Good Reads but I hope to have a more detailed breakdown soon.

Speaking of impressed—I went back to finish In the Grove and am just floored by this collection. It is all kinds of beautiful in all kinds of ways. If you have a chance, get yourself a copy.

Palabra, word, and everything in between.

He sees angels in the architecture

In the Grove: An Homage to Andrés Montoya Guest Edited & with an introduction by Daniel ChacónScenes from the In the Grove #16 Release Party

Prelude: Getting my read on
In preparation for the reading, I read, for the 5th or 6th time, the ice worker sings and I also picked up How Much Earth: The Fresno Poets which clued me in on the breadth and scope of the personal histories of some of the amazing writers who call Fresno their poetic touchstone. One of the things on my mind as I was getting ready for this reading:

“If the land helps determine the poet, the poet in turn helps define the land.”
• David Kherdian

Word.

Scene 1: The Roadtrip
California is beautiful. This was my first time in the Central Valley and I’m glad to have been able to road trip it there. Experiencing the change in geography, weather, and mood slowly unfurl from the Bay Area to the San Joaquin Valley through the lens of the car window will be the fuel for many more poems to come. The conversation on the way down between Barb, Craig, Javier, and I will be the fuel for more broader discussions on American Poetics, believe that.

Scene 2: Not just a book release party
No, more of a celebration. A wake, as in to remind the living of what they have. You could feel the energy right away as old friends and new friends found each other over good drinks and food. The energy at the raffle table was amazing as some amazing literary gems were on display and every time you looked over, more was being added.

Puentistas of Fresno City CollegeScene 3: the ice worker lives
Daniel and Sasha were amazing hosts keeping the energy live and the poetry flowing from reader to reader. Props to James Espinoza for handling the raffling of prizes with wit and joy.

Too many highlights to name but the Puentistas of Fresno City College starting out with a group reading of “fresno nights” really set the table for how far reaching a poetic work can be; how it can span generations, place, and even death. As a writer I know these things and I strive for them but to see it in practice made me step back and think if I am doing enough and what more can I do to get to that place and how the ice worker can help me get there.

I mention the ice worker because I’ve never met Andrés Montoya and do not want to front as if I ever have. But I do know the ice worker, the speaker in so many of Andrés poems that is so angry he punches at every thing he loves, a witness to so much destruction, and a prophet to the new Aztlán he imagines for his people. The ice worker has been a steady teacher and voice in my head since I have taken on the project of bringing my City, its destruction, and rebirth into poetry form. Sometimes, I get it right. And, far too often, I am off the mark; but the mark is still there and the ice worker has shown me it can be done.

Scene 4: Andrés lives
Hearing the stories of Andrés Montoya from those who knew him and shared his life brought smiles and sadness in me. While the world lost a valuable voice and teacher, his family (in all its forms) lost a true brother. The sense of loss is immense and irreconcilable, but the sense of compassion and gratitude was nearly as large. The Montoya family shared all they had with the room and the readers and it was a pleasure to give some back.

Oscar Bermeo and Manuel Paul LopezScene 5: Comunidad
Great to hear the poems of friends, poets who I know from their work, poetic elders, artists, students, and the Montoya family. This was true community in action and about as perfect as it can get. The only downer was the fact that Rigoberto González was grounded in New York through no fault of his own.

Scene 6: The Set-List

• An Atheist Learns to Pray by Sheryl Luna from Pity the Drowned Horses
• Psalm for Anywhere Avenue
• I’m Jus Askin

Malaquias MontoyaScene 7: Mas Poesia and How to Criticize Our Own
Malaquias Montoya ended the night by introducing a piece of his art that was up for auction. The portrait, Don Alberto, was of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, which put Malaquias in between honoring a member of La Raza and citing the Gonzales’ part in the current administration’s abuse of Raza.

The solution? The inclusion of this quote in the portrait.

No olvides nunca que los menos fascistas de entre los fascistas también son fascistas.
• Roque Dalton

Scene 8: The After Effect
I’ve been reading my copy of In the Grove and can say it is one of the best journals I’ve ever read. It is an honor to be included with so many colleagues, friends, mentors, and Andrés Montoya himself. Congrats and thanks to Lee Herrick, Daniel Chacón, and all the staff at In the Grove for all their effort in this amazing issue. Please check out In the Grove for a list of contributors, sample poems, and ordering information.

Scene 9: The Mantra
Praise God, Andrés would say. Praise God.

Raffle Table Barbara Jane Reyes and Lee Herrick After Party Javier, Craig, Daniel, Oscar & Lee

More pictures from the release party at Flickr

NaPoWriMo #8

Palimpsest: the ice worker lives
[Poem comprised of lines from all the readers at the In the Grove Issue #16 release party]

the neighbors of noah are everywhere
pachuco children
pawn their hearts
wander the streets stricken
with solitude

aztlánian nights

the sentences have rippled too far
the mind underneath—beating
veil me

we can always replenish
never again
we will be cold

about brother
blood home from a war
my voice in dreams
converses with tangled roots and vines

i’ve come to thinking of the words
there is no more appropriate insult than
vindictive
even with the dead
who laugh with the last say

touch the single tree, the tendon
find a language
line up to receive an allotted portion of
bone, a thin impression of cloth

working to restore
still waters
shadows tempting you
perhaps this is foolish talk

worked in a factory for years
parted ways
ten years later, it still moves

one word
scream that word
whatever that word

darkness paints and blots
one learns
the rise and fall of night
blessed be the way

still an immediate presence
still having trouble writing that poem
pleased to make a beautiful thing
a fragile casket
hatched in a shallow dish

plucking the seeds
fruit
fermenting on the ground

call out the ice worker
and all of his songs
i’ll go now to the sun

hungry for the familiar
when in his dreams
his children take features
smell the greasy condemnation

demanding my attention
repent, the revolution
is at hand
i betrayed like judas
birthplace of my fathers
language—simple and undisturbed
olvidate

not enough whitman
i see you all here, I see whitman

see me victorious
my children, a cracked window

i am reminded of montoya
the steel scars
the shadows of warehouses

close your eyes for one minute
it’s not long
meat, forgotten
turning rancid
looking to mend the wound
suffering synonymous with joy

verse, outside of himself
love, i didn’t hear it the first time
again—love, again—love, again

what language do you give?
you know what he would say?

praise god

X-Post: New York Magazine’s 26 Canonical NYC Books 1968-2008


Sunset_Park_10
Originally uploaded by Pro-Zak

New York is a hypertextualized city. By 6 a.m., our commuters have smudged more words off their papers than most cities read all day. How to even begin identifying a canon? While reading, I plotted candidates along two mystical axes: one of all-around literary merit, and the other of “New Yorkitude”—the degree to which a book allows itself to obsess over the city. Robert Caro’s The Power Broker just about maxes out both axes; others perseverate so memorably on smaller aspects of city life that they had to be included. There were, of course, regrettable omissions: Jimmy Breslin is a quintessential New York writer whose main strength is not books; Puzo’s Godfather was better as a movie. Below you’ll find the books that we think best embody the city’s most sacred pastime: paying deep attention, then translating it all into words.

Response: Good to see some poetry mixed in there with Grace Paley getting a mention. I would have included Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café as a response to An Anthology of New York Poets since it celebrates the place, the local voices, and outside viewpoints of the City. But the point of a good “list” to have us challenge and add to the conversation. At least that’s how I look at it.

Some other highlights: The inclusion of Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx. This book is so good that I had to pass it on to my sister before I left New York. Now I’m thinking I should get myself another copy and try to write a more organized critical response to it.

2nd Response: In talking about The Bonfire of the Vanities— “And is a white guy who dresses entirely in white allowed to get away with this much racial ventriloquism?”
I haven’t read the book, but I would challenge Wolfe to say said things in the Bronx proper. Jus’ sayin’.

Inspiration: I’m also going to make an effort to look for Anne Winters’ The Displaced Capital the next time I’m in a used bookstore. The table of contents is giving me some good ideas for another round of City poems, which also gives me a chance to say that NaPoWriMo is going pretty well. I am a little behind on the game right now (6 poems over 8 days) but there is still a chance to catch up.