Apr 28
Poetry, Uncategorized, Writing a journey, jim lord, national poetry month, Poetry, poetry out of nothing challenge, yay poems! Comments Off
A Journey
What a journey
I have had
Across the state and back
In search of crab cakes
And an “A”
Across the state and back
Fun with my daughter
Wife and friends
Drive, eat, repeat
Traveling the state
In search of crabcakes
Was not an easy feat
The book is done
And I am spent
Crabcakes
Never again, will I eat
Apr 15
Poetry, Reading, Writing Alberto Ríos, Chicanos, living in the borderlands, Michele Serros, Poetry, sometimes I think there is no language more beautiful than Spanish Comments Off
Today I’m breaking with my theme, but only just: this week has been about Spanish-speaking poets from Nicaragua to Spain. Today, it’s about Chicano poets who grew up living split lives.
The two poets I want to focus on are Alberto Ríos and Michele Serros. He’s from Arizona, she’s from California. Both grew up in a between place, a borderlands. Gloria Anzaldúa has a fantastic book, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, that explores this idea, and as she writes:
…the Borderlands are physically present wherever two or more cultures edge each other, where people of different races occupy the same territory, where under, lower, middle and upper classes touch, where the space between two people shrinks with intimacy.
The Chicano experience varies widely: Ríos was punished by his teachers for speaking Spanish at school. Serros was harangued for her inability to speak Spanish. Both carry their “shifting and multiple” (to borrow a phrase from Anzaldúa) identities into much of their poetry. I love both poets equally not only for what they say but how they say it. I am smitten with Ríos for his song-like qualities, Serros for her frank sense of humor.
An excerpt from “Day of the Refugios,” which comes from one of my most favorite books of poetry, The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body:
I come from a family of people with names,
Real names, not-afraid names, with colors
Like the fireworks: Refugio,
Margarito, Matilde, Alvaro, Consuelo,
Humberto, Olga, Celina, Gilberto.
This is an excerpt from “Mi Problema,” a poem in Serros’ book Chicana Falsa and other stories of death, identity, and Oxnard:
My skin is brown
just like theirs,
but now I’m unworthy of the color
’cause I don’t speak Spanish
the way I should.
Then they laugh and talk about
mi problema
in the language I stumble over.
A white person gets encouragement,
praise,
for weak attempts at a second language.
“Maybe he wants to be brown
like us.”
and that is good.
April may (I love that this sentence requires a phrase that puts April and May next to one another) be half over, but don’t forget to stop over at Poets.org or the Poetry Foundation or, for that matter, your local library’s web site to see what National Poetry Month events may be coming your way.
Apr 06
Poetry, Reading, Writing Gregory Orr, how the ink gets in your veins, national poetry month, Poetry, the poet as witness Comments Off
Don’t judge a book by its cover, or so goes the cliche. But, I judge every book by its cover. And sometimes I fall in love with books based on their covers alone. Sometimes, my love is rewarded with insides that are just as wonderful as the outsides. Sometimes that pretty face lets me down. Gregory Orr’s book Concerning the Book that is the Body of the Beloved could never let me down.
I fell in love with the cover while shopping online a few months ago, and finally I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I ordered a copy for my very own self. And every time I pick it up and read a few lines it tells me once more why I write poetry. A few of my favorite lines:
But maybe the wind is supposed
To blow right through you;
Maybe you’re a tree in winter
And your poem translates
That cold wind into a song.
I love the fervor of his writing. His conviction that the poet has a calling, a duty in this world. That we create beautiful pairings of words because we must. So I take up my pen and my notebook and head into the world each day, and there’s a reason for it.
Learn more about Gregory Orr at Poets.org. And if you want to read the book I mentioned, Barnes and Noble is one place to find it.
Also, if you want even more poetry in your life, don’t forget to sign up for the “Poem a Day” email list at Poets.org. It’s pretty wonderful to find a new poem in your inbox everyday.
Sep 16
Uncategorized Poetry, words words words, writing exercisery, you imagined Comments Off
And I can feel the caffeine coursing through my veins. It was ill-advised to suck down that soda so late at night, and now the false energy has my hair standing on end, my eyes unable to focus on the task at hand. And I’m wishing that every fall of foot on the stairs was yours, that each jangle of metal was the sound of you, twirling your keys, over and over. But it’s not, and so I turn back to these pages and force my eyes to track from side to side, taking in but not absorbing. [end writing exercise]
Last but not least, a self-portrait in words (see it on my Flickr page, formatted with line breaks, etc.:
Brown hair that started graying something like 10 years ago, cheekbones and eyes my favorite features, a nose that comes in second. The round cheeks and softened chin the product of poor eating habits and genetics. A part that readily falls in the middle of my head, the frizzy fly-aways from attempts at life as a professional. Eyebrows that would love nothing more than to spend all time together, and the hairline my father gifted me. And when I look at my profile in the mirror I see my grandmother, the arch grand dame. But this face, this whole face, is my mother’s, and it is now as it was 23 years ago, a little more weather-beaten, a little more worried, but still the same.
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