"Why do branch libraries matter?" --Maria Luisa Arroyo

“Why do branch libraries matter? Some may argue that, with the rise in technology and the use of cell phones and home computers as a means to get news and books, branch libraries are losing their relevance. Besides, who uses the library anyway nowadays? It just has old books, right?

Neither cell phones nor home computers, though, can teach young children how to hold a book upright, how to turn pages, nor choose for them age-appropriate books to read. Neither cell phones nor home computers can teach any child how to read aloud or check for understanding while reading, a tool that many teachers use and many parents, including myself, have learned how to do. Neither cell phones nor home computers can teach school-aged children the basic skill of finding a book in a library – a skill still needed to navigate bookstores and college libraries, even those with state-of-the-art technology. And finally, neither cell phones nor home computers can replace the joy of reading aloud together en familia as adults and children alike interrupt each other with excitement and recognition as they connect with what they’re reading.”

—Maria Luisa Arroyo

author of Gathering Words / Recogiendo Palabras

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Maria Luisa Arroyo read in PALABRA PURA, where I had the pleasure of hearing her read her wonderful work. Here is her website.

LETRAS LATINAS

As mentioned a few days ago in Letras Latinas Blog, Francisco Aragón and I met exactly a year ago at the inaugural CantoMundo gathering. At the time I had just graduated with a BA in Humanities and was set to attend the MFA program at Fresno State. But instead I spent the following year peeling vegetables at a restaurant and writing as much as the alphabet.

A year later I find myself a student at the University of Notre Dame’s MFA program and also a welcomed hand at Letras Latinas, the Institute for Latino Studies’ literary program. As I become a regular contributor to Letras Latinas Blog I’d like to start by confessing to its readers that I’m completely humbled by this opportunity. As I look back at my development as a writer—going from writing poems about my experience laboring in a kitchen to my newfound position—I am becoming cognizant of the incredible personal growth these two years will bring for me; while at the same time maintaining the humility that comes from knowing my limitations as a young writer.

As I spend the next two years growing as a writer and collaborating with the Letras Latinas community I hope to contribute in some small way to making this blog a place of booming conversation: The intention is to make Letras Latinas Blog a place of consistent and comprehensive content and in the process to add a pitch or two to the chorus of voices that is raising the volume and making Latino letters, particularly emerging voices, resound louder than ever.

---Lauro Vasquez

Up Jump The Boogie in HuffPo

"[T]he poetry scene in America is the largest, most diverse, and most vibrant it has ever been, and it's time for poetry-lovers associated with online media to strike a solid blow against the seedy, nigh-incoherent malcontentism of certain contemporary poetry critics. The robust state of poetry in America is evidenced, in part, by this non-exhaustive, unranked list of superlative books from the past 15 years, all of which are must-reads for those looking to push back against the gloom-and-doom of poetry's ambient naysayers:"

----Huffington Post, August 25, 2011

NUMBER 8:

"Up Jump the Boogie (2010), John Murillo. Murillo's urban narratives are spellbinding and deceptively simple; the rhythm and pace of these poems captures the experiences of the author in a voice and with a grace every listener can appreciate and admire. These are not necessarily stories we haven't heard before, but that's part of their irresistible charm: one senses, with Up Jump the Boogie, that stories which have long needed telling, and continue to need telling, have in Murillo found the right person to do just that."

Here is the full list and commentaries.

Here is what Oscar Bermeo posted back in 2009 to announce this collection.

Check out John Murillo's website.

On a personal note, this: One of the highlights of my reading at ACENTOS: Bronx Poetry Showcase in March of 2007 was meeting John Murillo (and his mother, who was also in attendence!). I hadn't read any of his work yet, but I had read the great interview with Martín Espada that he conducted, and which was published in the Bloomsbury Review right around that time. When I was given the opportunity to guest edit an issue of Didi Menéndez's OCHO # 15, I remember I opted to gather a sampling of Latino/a poets who had not yet published a full-length book, and who hadn't been in The Wind Shifts, nor Momotombo Press, nor the Canto Cosas series at Bilingual Press. John graciously sent some work, and I've been a fan ever since. One of the other things I love about his book was John's decision to publish it with Cypher Books, a publishing venture that embodies what I love about small press publishing. And the book has done wonderfully on various fronts.

Next Extinct Mammal by Ruben Quesada

In February of 2006, I had the honor of reading at Writer's Week at UC Riverside, an institution, when I think about it, has produced more than its fair share of distinguished Latino/a writers. It was during my visit, for example, that I got to meet, for the first time, Alex Espinoza and Michael Jaime-Becerra. It was also during that visit that I met, and spent some time with, Ruben Quesada:

from the back cover:

What Ruben Quesada calls “the next extinct mammal in America” might well be the animal who mourns loss or, more to the point, the poet—incurable romantic who dares ask, “Where has it all gone, the roll-away television, the lost morning?” And so this beautiful first book of poems, an ode to nostalgia, a lyrical account of things that shouldn’t be left behind: youth and childhood adventures, family and homeland, people now dead, conversations—“every sentence, every whisper”—now silent. In the age of forgetting “there is nothing left but your heartbeat in your ears.” But in the beating heart, Quesada finds a rhythm to launch memory into glorious, persevering song.

—Rigoberto González

Like Whitman, Quesada is a poet of motion—journeying to the center of the US, where the traditions and innovations of first-generation Americans traverse the meditative starbursts of hills; ford rivers; cross prairies; and seek out “alpenglow of tomorrow and tomorrow.” From Costa Rica to Los Angeles and across the continent, Quesada’s poems chronicle one family’s history: from the courtship of his parents to their separation, from his childhood struggles to awakening desire from his mother’s lottery winnings to his own personal losses, Ruben Quesada carries us toward “that seam in space” where dream and experience intersect. This isn’t the story of what it means to come to this country. It’s the story of what it means to belong here.

—D.A. Powell

Quesada writes the city, the flesh and cosmos—if they can be aligned in that manner with a knife, that is, with the impeccable clarity and edge. The eye here, at times, notices relationship with the optics of Sarte’s mid-twentieth-century anti-hero, Antoine Roquentin, a writer alone in the streets charting meaninglessness in a decaying metropolis. Yet, for Quesada, things and their substance are not fixed; they seem to smother as part of a “fractured flowering,” or eros, death, and spiraling “flecks” and “blurred prints” of love and being. This is, perhaps, the poetry of the new decade. There is no other as naked, bold and powerful as Quesada. A magnificent, riveting, tour de force.

—Juan Felipe Herrera

“[Y]our half-opened mouth / welcomed me / even years after your death.” That is: the poet mines a photograph for “memories which stray to the heart” for what indeed feels like a “fractured flowering” throughout this collection: a working mother’s “face breaks into blossom” at seeing her children at the end of a long day; a speaker remembers a married lover (“Memories are Made Like This”); or from a hospital room a speaker in the US recalls “Tia Teticia’s porch in Costa Rica.” Ruben Quesada’s subjects, in other words, are ample and rich—his poems crafted with poignancy and grace.”

—Francisco Aragón

Order your copy HERE

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In the works: an interview with Ruben Quesada

conducted by Lauro Vasquez

Jacob Saenz: Interview with the Letras Latinas Residency Fellow

Chicago-based poet Jacob Saenz, the fourth recipient of the Letras Latinas Residency Fellowship--a joint project with the Anderson Center--recently returned from his month-long stay in Red Wing, MN. He graciously agreed to answer a few questions for Letras Latinas Blog.

Did you have any particular expectations going into this residency and if so, how did they play out?

Since I have never participated in a residency before, I wasn't sure what to expect. I simply had expectations of writing, reading and rewriting every day.  While I did write and read, it wasn't necessarily an every day happening.  The writing and rewriting came in phases and on those days the words didn't come, I fought against it, sometimes forcing myself to write. However, as the month went on, I learned to accept those days as part of the process.  While it would've been great to produce every day, I also did not want to burn out early into my residency.  The residency met and even exceeded my expections but in a different, wonderful manner than I had envisioned.

What were your creative/writing aims for this one-month writing time and how did it go?

Considering the purpose of the fellowship, my aim was to simply build on a chapbook manuscript I had in tow; build upon it the beginnings of a full-length manuscript.  I brought many unfinished drafts of poems that I wanted to edit and be done with.  I would edit these older poems early on in my residency and add them to the manuscript pile. Near the end of my residency, I went up into the tower at the Anderson Center and laid out all the poems I felt were ready to go into a book. I began envisioning sections of the book and which poems belong where.  It's a process that I still am working but I feel that much closer to the end. I feel that in the coming weeks I will have the organization process done and will be ready to enter some contests in the fall.

In addition to working on older poems, I also wanted to write new ones while there.  I was really inspired by the beauty of the Anderson Center and the land that surrounds it.  Many of the poems I wrote while there are full of the bluffs, the birds, the lush greens of Red Wing.  It was refreshing to be writing about trees, grass and rivers than the urban landscape that often appear in my poetry.  Initially, I was unsure these new poems were ready to be included in the book or would even fit in it. However, I was fortunate it enough to have Robert Hedin look at some of my new work.  After he gave some helpful advice, I feel more confident that at least some of these new poems are ready to be a part of the book.

Also, I must confess, I wrote a fair amount of "broetry" while there. What is "broetry"? I'm not entirely sure.  It's a term I heard tossed around recently and it stuck in my head.  My concept of it is poetry with a heavy dose of the word "bro" in it.  I had planned to write a few "broems" for some guys I play basketball with in Chicago. While I did that, I also wrote "broems" to other male friends of mine.  I view them more as notes to friends with a "broetic" bent to them. I'm not quite sure what will become of them; I wrote them in a half-silly, half-sincere manner so I don't want to completely abandon them. I know they won't fit into my current manuscript but perhaps, in the future, they will appear in some book form.

Aside from time to write, one of the reasons to do an artists' residency is to meet and interact with other artists, including from other disciplines. Would you mind telling us a bit about some of the other artists you shared time with.

I feel very fortunate to have had the housemates I had. They all made my time at the Anderson Center more enriching and rewarding. There were a total of 7 artists whom I met while at the Anderson Center, though not everyone stayed the entire month. We all bonded very quickly and were interested in each other's work as well as personal lives.  In fact, there were a couple of nights where we all shared work with each other, no matter how rough or unfinished it was.  There was genuine concern and appreciation for all the work we were doing.

The poet Sarah Fox and I had many conversations about our work and ongoing projects. She was there working on a current manuscript project called Mother Substance, which seeks to document the experiences of women exposed in utero to the synthetic estrogen Diethylstilbestrol (DES).  It was fascinating to learn about the history of this synthetic drug and its tragic consequences.  In addition to our conversations, we exchanged index cards on a daily basis, where one of us wrote on one side of the card with the other replying to it on the back. It was an interesting process and one I benefitted from, as I found the things I wrote on the card (sometimes in a hastily manner) would appear in poems I produced later. 

There were two visual artists there: Martina Stock, a painter from Austria, and Tom Virgin, a printmaker from Miami.  They both are very talented artists and always had their studio doors open for visitations.  In addition to being a painter, Martina is also a harpist who had a concert lined up in Austria when her residency was done. She showed us a video of her practicing with her partner--it was quite lovely to hear her play.  Meanwhile, Tom seemed to be working on many projects all at once.  He was busy working on a chapbook with a poet from Miami as well broadsides for another project based in Miami. In addition, he utilized the glass-blowing studio on-site and worked on a glass-book project, which turned out beautifully.  In the future, I feel there is a good chance for us to collaborate on a broadside or a similar project.

There were also two musicians at the Center, a married couple: Michael Tsalka, a concert pianist, and Angelica Minero Escobar, a musicologist and mezzo-soprano.  They are very lovely and warm people who showed great interest in all the resident's work. In fact, it was Michael who brought up the idea that we share work with one another, which consisted of readings, a concert as well as visits to the artists studios.  There were times when I would read and write outside of the gallery in which Michael practiced. It was quite lovely and refreshing to hear him play. In addition to being a great singer, Angelica also makes delicious green enchiladas, which she made twice while we were there.

In the last two weeks, two fiction writers joined us as Sarah and Martina left: Chris Keimig and Nick Healy.  Both were working on novels while there. We spent a couple of nights in the sun room drinking beers and smoking cheap cigars. On the last Friday night of our residency, we went into town and checked out a few of the local bars. They're great guys and very talented writers.

All in all, I couldn't have asked for better artists to share my time with at the Anderson Center.

Now that you have a one-month writing residency under your belt, what advice would you give a fellow writer who was about to experience one for the first time?

Be prepared for days when the words don't come and learn to accept them.  During those times, get out of the house and tour the grounds, go for a bike ride, let the sun wash over you. I found that the times I struggled to write, getting out of my writing space and taking in the surrounding scenery really helped the process.  It reenergized my mind and made the writing flow much more easier the next day.

I also would like to share what Robert Hedin told me when I was there.  One morning, after a day of not really writing, I told him how I was struggling and how I felt bad about it, considering the gift that allowed me to be there. He told me he once had a residency that was also a month long. During that time, he only wrote four poems but he said it was the best residency of his life. Once he said, I approached my process in a different manner and relieved myself of the pressure I was feeling. I would say don't burn out early on in your residency.  Let the words come as they may and the times they don't, relieve yourself of your writing and enjoy the land that surrounds you.

Benjamin Alire Sáenz expressing his support for the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize Initiative

Ben standing before one his own works of visual art

The painting in the background: also by Ben

Benjamin Alire Sáenz holding "Untitled" by Malaquias Montoya;

and standing before a painting by José Antonio Burciaga

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Our numbers are steadily growing. Please consider joining us:

The Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize Initiative

Word for Word Poetry Blog

“We’ve tapped some very special guest bloggers to help us celebrate this summer’s Word for Word Poetry Series at Bryant Park. They’ll attend each Poetry event, and provide a first-hand account of the poets’ readings….”

—Paul Romero

 Double post:

Mary Austin Speaker on Word for Word Poetry, June 7, 2011

and

Justin Petropoulos on Word for Word Poetry, June 14

featuring the poets of CantoMundo

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Single post:

Mary Austin Speaker on Word for Word Poetry, June 28, 2011

Kadijah Queen on Emma Trelles @ PNI

"POST NO ILLS, a web-based and print annual publication, aims to provide a participatory venue for balanced arts criticism and commentary along with interdisciplinary exchange between artists and arts administrators."

MASTHEAD

Editor

Kyle G. Dargan

Editorial Assistant

Allison Curseen

Editorial Intern

Reginald Dwayne Betts

Advisory & Contributing Editors

Thomas Sayers Ellis

R. Scott Heath

G.C. Waldrep

Tiphanie Yanique

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Kadijah Queen

REVIEWS

Emma Trelles

I first met ire'ne lara silva in the context of the Macondo Writers' Workshop a few years ago. More recently, her presence at the second CantoMundo gathering reminded me of what I'll deem a spirit both generous and fierce at once. At the opening circle, she made an interesting comment about how anger, at times, can be useful. At the Fellows reading she performed a powerful piece about family relations who've had to battle diabetes---the image that drove the piece (losing limbs, or pieces of limbs to this illness) was haunting. Anyway, she and fellow CantoMundista Juan J. Morales are starting a CantoMundo newsletter. And she has started a blog. Here book, Furia, was nicely profiled at La Bloga a while back, as well.

Robert Vasquez on Philip Levine

“My One Great Teacher”

Of the numerous poets and writers I’ve had the privilege to call my teachers (including Simone Di Piero, Peter Everwine, Ken Fields, Terry Hummer, Cynthia Huntington, Denise Levertov, Jim McMichael, and Michael Ryan on a long-term basis and Joseph Brodsky, Thom Gunn, Galway Kinnell, Carolyn Kizer, Robert Pinsky, and Derek Walcott on a short-term basis—all talented teachers), my one great teacher was Philip Levine. 

Phil’s greatness stems partly from his incredibly demanding criticism in a poetry writing workshop; he understood that because poetry matters, poets should put tremendous demands on their work.  He emphasized to his student poets that they should never settle for what they can do; rather, he spurred generations of ambitious bards to strive for what is always beyond their reach.  And his laser-like criticism was often delivered with the kind of memorable humor that could sting the thin-skinned among us—but the effect was well-intended:  We never forgot what point he was making, for he knew that we learned from our peers’ less than ideal creations.  But if Phil liked something in a poem, he was also quick to praise; if one earned praise from Phil, one walked on clouds for weeks.  His criticism and his irreverent nature spurred me to study with him for five semesters over a number of years (the last time I took his poetry workshop I had already used up all of my repeatable units for his course:  the time I spent in his classroom was my reward).  He was just a blast to be around.

I was also one of several poets of color who considered Phil to be one of their primary mentors:  Leonard Adame, Lawson Inada, Victor Martínez, Andrés Montoya, Luis Omar Salinas, Gary Soto, Ernesto Trejo, and Shirley Williams were among Phil’s undergraduate students at Fresno State.  When I consider Phil’s gift as a teacher—to say nothing of his amazing poetry—and the fact that he spent most of his teaching career at Fresno State (what some consider an Ag Tech at best), I realize just how fortunate we were to study with Phil:  Most people would have to attend a prestigious, world-class university to study with such a teacher.  I know that Phil once applied for a teaching position at a nearby UC campus early in his teaching career, but they decided not to hire him because he didn’t have a Ph.D.—Phil has an M.F.A. from Iowa—that UC campus’ decision was a blessing for students of color at Fresno State.

Robert Vasquez was the inaugural final judge of the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize. To learn more about him and his work, visit: California Poet.

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Philip Levine Recalls Life at the Factory (News Hour Poetry Series)

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Lines for Hard Times

Philip Levine reads his defiantly hopeful “They Feed They Lion” and “What Work Is” with commentary by Edward Hirsch.

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“What Work Is” (text, and audio of the poet reading):

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“They Feed They Lion” (text, and audio of the poet reading):

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Poetry Foundation biographical sketch of Philip Levine

Letras Latinas welcomes Lauro Vazquez

At the inaugural CantoMundo gathering at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuqurque, NM, I had the pleasure meeting Lauro Vazquez:

 CantoMundo Fellows reading, 2010

Little did I know that one year later I'd be welcoming him to the Notre Dame family as an incoming M.F.A. candidate in poetry. It's also with great pleasure that I welcome Lauro to Letras Latinas. He has graciously agreed to answer a few questions.

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As you know, we had the pleasure of meeting at the inaugural CantoMundo gathering in the summer of 2010. At the time, you were slated to enroll in an M.F.A. program in California. Why have you decided to pursue an M.F.A. and what do you hope to gain, as a writer, from this experience?


Yes, I was going to enroll at Fresno State right after I had graduated from Dominican University in San Rafael, California where I did my undergraduate studies. At the time, I was unsure if I wanted to follow the MFA path. I wasn’t unsure about my identity as a poet but about what I wanted to do as a recent graduate.

 As an undergrad I had worked at my university’s kitchen and this experience profoundly shaped my ideas on art and poetry: A poet needs no official training or recognition to validate his or her identity as a poet. In fact, I believe that such training can sometimes be stifling to a poet’s creative process. I started to write poems because I wanted to make my co-workers visible to the rest of the college community. I needed no approval from anyone; if it humanized the kitchen then it was poetry.

A poet, however, is not a community of his or her own; she needs the space and right guidance to develop her craft, to grow. For me this is an opportunity to belong to a community of writers and to have the privilege of the time to write. Writing, for me, is ultimately a weapon for social change and thus my interest is in how best to intersect my social consciousness with aesthetic consciousness of the language; to better understand and go beyond the limitations of writing for change.    

Could you share with the readers of Letras Latinas Blog how you came to poetry—the circumstances and experiences that led to that moment when you said to yourself: this is what I want to do?


I came to the U.S. as an undocumented immigrant from Mexico at age nine, and never imagined or even considered the possibility of higher education, or of becoming a poet. My junior year in high school I was fortunate to stumble upon Luis Rodríguez’s poem “My Name’s Not Rodríguez.” And for the first time in the U.S. I felt a sort of recognition (being undocumented not only translates to being subjected to poverty but also to the violence of anonymity). That poem was for me like a mirror. I felt for the first time a sense of identity and validation. It was then that I fell in love with words and history, and that I realized that where there is artistic creativity there is human dignity; that the ability to create art is an assertion of the self where such an assertion is not permitted.

Are there particular projects you hope to work on during your two years as an M.F.A. student, both as a writer of poetry and a reader of poetry? If so, could you talk about them here?

               

Yes, of course I’d like to work on my own poetry. There are a few projects that have been simmering in my blood and head. Most of all I’d like to hammer out a complete manuscript, something that feels like a roller coaster ride, that reads and feels like a Mexican mural; that awakens and incites a reader’s imagination. I’d also like to read more prose, I don’t often read or write prose.

As writers we are part of a privileged and specialized class. As much as we like to think we are writing for the “common people” we are, more often than not, writing for and being read by other writers. Writing for change is a delicate balancing act: on the one hand a writer cannot be too hard on him or herself. Writing is an act of solidarity which has consequences that cannot always be measured.

On the other hand, however, if a writer goes beyond his commitment to putting pen to paper—if, for example, a poet is convinced that poetry is not made of words alone but also political actions, he or she is often rewarded with censorship or exile from the realm of poesy.

The ability to be a revolutionary and at the same time a working and successful member of society is not only a poetic undertaking but also the most meaningful and challenging project for me. 

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Stay tuned as Lauro becomes a regular contributor to Letras Latinas Blog, and helps us carry out Letras Latinas' mission.

Lauro Vazquez 
(M.F.A. class of 2013
University of Notre Dame)


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Read some of Lauro's poems

Audio of CantoMundo Fellows Reading: 2011

It was a real pleasure co-hosting this event with Amalia Ortiz and presenting the diverse work of all our fellow poetas to a packed house at the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center in Austin. Looking forward to hearing the next part of the clip with the rest of the fellows.

--Oscar Bermeo

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