Your daily dose of Chicano poetry
"I write poems on walls that crumble and fall
I talk to shadows that sleep and go away crying.”
Luis Omar Salinas (1937–2008)
Chulas Fronteras: Flaco Jimenez, Santiago Jimenez Sr. video clip
From the documentary Chulas Fronteras, a film by Les Blank, and Chris Strachwitz.
Daniel Romo’s “En(d)list”
by Daniel Romo
En(d)list
“My father’s in the army. He wants me to join. But I can’t work for that corporation.” Lloyd Dobbler- Say Anything
Manny’s on leave from the Army
Says he’s gonna’ see the world
Germany, France, West Virginia
Says it’s easy and makes ya’ buff
Says he’s got Thursdays off
and he’s havin’ fun
Says he no longer has to worry
about drive-bys in the night
and eses on the corner that fight
Says he’s done writin’ essays in class
worrying about whether or not he’ll pass
cause he’s gonna’ be sergeant first-class
Says he’s tired of terrible teachers
who were first class dicks
stupid pricks
couldn’t think of anything else to pursue
Says no one can tell him what to do
and, and,
and FUCK UNIFORMS
he looks better in green than his whole platoon
He is free to be
‘cause Manny’s in the Army now.
Daniel Romo teaches high school Creative Writing, and lives in Long Beach, CA. He has been most recently published in “Poetry Superhighway,” “Camroc Press Review,” and “Chickasaw Plum.” He is currently seeking admittance into a rather swell low residency MFA program. Daniel strives to be witty and relevant in his poetry, and thinks gray sky the utmost inspiration.
‘Un Trip through the Mind Jail’ still howling poetry
…found this over at Calaca Press
‘Un Trip through the Mind Jail’ still howling poetry
By Gregg Barrios
San Antonio Express-News Book Editor – 04/14/2001
Los Many Mundos of raulrsalinas (CD)
Calaca Press/Red Salmon Press, $14
The republication of Raul Salinas’ “Un Trip through the Mind Jail” is welcome news.
I first read the title poem nearly 30 years ago during the nascent days of el movimiento Chicano. That poem – an evocative and lyrical paean in search of lost time and place – still rings true:
“Neighborhood of my youth / demolished, erased forever / from the universe. You live on / captive, in the lonely / cellblocks of my mind.”
I am perfectly aware that Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales’ “I Am Joaquin” is still considered the “epic” poem of el movimiento, yet today its strident tone and didactic bombast seem dated. This is not the case with Salinas’ poem. It is regarded by a growing number as our “Howl,” our “Song of Myself,” in a word, our “Trip.”
Amazingly, the education and spiritual liberation of Salinas occurred while he was incarcerated.
(He wrote “Trip” in 1969 in Leavenworth.) Pero esta colección es mucho más. It is also the history of la causa: from the birth of La Raza and the farmworkers struggle to the disproportionate number of young Latinos sent to Vietnam or to prison.
But there also are other things on his mind.
In “Lightning Steed Immaculate,” he champions Chicano novelist John Rechy (“Proud Mustang, you are free”) against a conniption J. Frank Dobie threw after the Texas Institute of Arts and Letters honored Rechy’s seminal novel, “City of Night.”
His jazzy rhymes also lament the deaths of Black Panther George Jackson (“News From San Quentin”) and Texas singer Janis Joplin (“No Tears for Pearl”): “Port Arthur’s puritans embarrassed / by the rhythm of the / siren’s song.”
In “Unity Vision,” Salinas forges the killing of Dallas teen-ager Santos Rodriguez by police with Pedro Bissonette’s similar fate at Wounded Knee into a spirited call for unity and justice for indigenous people.
On a personal level, he explores the generational gulf between his mother and himself. In “Trip,” his mother whispers the stoic mantra: “Sea por Dios” (God’s will) as her son is imprisoned. In “Austin, Tejas: Revisited,” a personal favorite, the mother and child – now turned man – reunion occurs after prison: “and all that you can say is / que te ofende mi greñota larga./ We bee’s talkin’ ’bout change, Mother!”
Salinas dedicates this collection to her: “Amá, whether you read / this or not; / Here’s hoping it makes up / for / the graduation picture (cap/gown/diploma) / that never graced / your class-confusing / cuarto de sala.”
The language of his poetry moves with ease from English, to prison argot, to Spanglish, to Spanish, and back. However, the rich nuances and word play that are integral to Salinas’ sensibility may elude the monolingual reader.
This handsome edition – edited by UTSA professor Louis Mendoza, and supplemented with drawings, photographs and essays – would have been better served by the inclusion of a glossary or better yet a bilingual edition.
In the spoken word CD of his recent work, he opens (naturally) with his mother chiding him as he heads for Chiapas, Mexico, to open a dialogue with the Zapatistas. Tell them, she says, that you come from a fine family – not the corrupt Salinas dynasty of Mexico. An added pleasure is how his voice imbues each poem with greater accessibility, this is especially evident in “Reel Absurdity,” his ode for Norma Jean, aka Marilyn Monroe.
In Chicano caló (patois): Salinas is a cool vato, un poeta de aquellas.
To Live in the Borderlands Means You…
Reprinted from Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. Copyright I987 by Gloria Anzaldua
To live in the Borderlands means you
are neither hispana india negra espanola ni gabacha, eres mestiza, mulata, half-breed caught in the crossfire between camps while carrying all five races on your back not knowing which side to turn to, run from;
To live in the Borderlands means knowing that the india in you, betrayed for Soo years, is no longer speaking to you, that mexicanas call you rajetas, that denying the Anglo inside you is as bad as having denied the Indian or Black;
Cuando vives en la frontera
people walk through you, the wind steals your voice, you’re a burra, buey, scapegoat, forerunner of a new race, half and half-both woman and man, neithera new gender;
To live in the Borderlands means to put chile in the borscht, eat whole wheat tortillas, speak Tex-Mex with a Brooklyn accent; be stopped by la migra at the border checkpoints;
Living in the Borderlands means you fight hard to resist the gold elixir beckoning from the bottle, the pull of the gun barrel, the rope crushing the hollow of your throat;
In the Borderlands you are the battleground where enemies are kin to each other; you are at home, a stranger, the border disputes have been settled the volley of shots have shattered the truce you are wounded, lost in action dead, fighting back;
To live in the Borderlands means the mill with the razor white teeth wants to shred off your olive-red skin, crush out the kernel, your heart pound you pinch you roll you out smelling like white bread but dead;
To survive the Borderlands you must live sin fronteras be a crossroads.
Reprinted from Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. Copyright I987 by Gloria Anzaldua
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