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)
Houston novelist wins Cisneros Award
By Steve Bennett via The Fine Print: A Book Blog with a Texas accentHouston novelist Tony Diaz, author of “The Aztec Love God” and included in the “Hecho en Tejas” anthology, was one of five recipients of the 2009 Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award given annually by Sandra Cisneros’ Macondo Foundation.
The other honorees are Dennis Mathis, Denise Chávez, Linda Rodriguez and Gayle Elliott.
Originally from Chicago, Diaz moved to Texas and earned a master’s degree in creative writing from the University of Houston Creative Program. In 1998, he founded Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting Latino literature and literacy. Visit the Web site for more information: www.nuestrapalabra.org.
The Macondo Foundation established the Elvira Cisneros award to honor the memory of Sandra Cisneros’ mother, Elvira Cordero Cisneros (1929-2007). Recipients are selected for exhibiting exceptional talent, a profound commitment to their chosen form of expression, and dedication to the work of nurturing the creativity of others. It is the foundation’s hope that recipients will make use of the award money to nurture their own creativity and wellbeing.
“We wanted to give it to someone who is too busy nurturing others to nurture herself. My mother was a deeply creative, but frustrated artist, and I don’t want to see others live their lives with regrets for what they didn’t do,” says Cisneros.
Along with the commitment and vision of Macondo’s founder, Sandra Cisneros, Macondo enjoys the ongoing support and participation of other internationally recognized writers, including Denise Chávez, John Phillip Santos, Luis Rodriguez, Dorothy Allison, Joy Harjo, Carmen Tafolla, and a large body of emerging writers who are also publishing books, touring in the U.S. and abroad, and working in their communities.
For more information about the Macondo Foundation check our Web site.
I’m Writing A Book For Carlos Santana
Lorna Dee Cervantes is putting it out there, and we’re listening. Carlos Santana, are you?:
I’m Writing A Book For Carlos Santana
On Yesterday’s Franklin Planner Page:
My New Goal:
Write the book for Carlos Santana.
I’m Writing A Book For Carlos Santana
Not just any book: The Book. Don’t ask me if, how, when or why. I don’t know. It’s today’s dream. A epiphany I had while gazing down on 24th Street Discolandia while applying for any writer job at all.
“I’m writing The Book for Carlos Santana.”
I’m just putting it out there, on the net and in the cosmos, into words which our ancestors knew were the bridge to reality, the rope holding up the ceiling of the world.
There. Don’t I sound like Carlos Santana?
Maybe I’ll just channel him. No. It wouldn’t be the same. And “ghost” is not the right word. Midwife the Spirit. That’s it.
Carlitos, you listening? Let me write it for you.
* Pssssst, spread it around. Habla la palabra!
Call For Entries: Borderlands Texas Poetry Review
Submit your work for publication in the upcoming issue. Since its debut in 1992, Borderlands continues to receive wide critical acclaim and garners a national readership.
Submission deadline for the Fall/Winter 2009 issue is June 15, 2009.
Visit Borderlands.org
[Daniel Olivas] reviews Stephen Gutierrez’s new collection, Live from Fresno y Los (Bear Star Press) in the El Paso Times:
Stephen D. Gutierrez’s new book of short fiction, “Live from Fresno y Los: Stories” (Bear Star Press, $16 paperback), bears witness to the excitement and pain, exhilaration and disappointments, of growing up Chicano in Fresno and Los Angeles during the 1970s.
He renders his world in honest, eloquent brush strokes, creating stories that are simultaneously grounded in a particular culture while remaining universal in their message. He does this without sacrificing his trademark sense of humor.
Read the entire review here. The Live from Fresno y Los may be ordered through your favorite bookstore, or online from Bear Star Press, or from Small Press Distribution. You should also take a peek at the other fine books published by Bear Star Press such as Death of a Mexican and Other Poems by Manuel Paul López. ~Daniel Olivas
Manuel Lozano’s “Ode to Adelita”
I see you standing there,
With your braids down past your shoulder,
Combative in the strange nightmare,
Holding the stance of some brave soldier.
Never knew the concept of unbreakable laws,
Your rebellious nature was your cause,
And that is just how our eyes first met.
Through the dust I saw a silhouette,
It’s curvature seemed quite explicit,
And if there’s one thing I won’t regret,
It’s facing a hail of bullets not to miss it.
`
The smoke cleared just a bit,
I was looking from underneath my sombrero,
That dangerous form perfectly fit
The wild dreamscapes of any pistolero.
The horizon curved at your hip,
I charged the bulls without a whip,
And every horn just went by grazing.
Through hell fire I went racing,
Then reached a lone standing adobe wall,
The gunslinger was forever bracing
To that fate that will entice us all.
`
My spirit revels in the whirlwind,
And the whirlwind picks up dust,
By far the best place I’ve ever been,
But never one that you can trust.
The dry clay flew in bits and chunks,
Streets were filled with monks and drunks,
And they fire well I must add.
This was the best nightmare I ever had,
For it involved some dangerous curves,
That soldadera was bold and bad,
Gun powder never really rattled her nerves.
`
The streets are dirt and loose gravel,
The village is deep in the desert’s heart,
I saw all sense of peace suddenly unravel
When they ripped the sacred land apart.
The peasants crossed their bandoleers,
The sky shed its many tears,
And we united against the corporation.
We defend the soul from the creature’s invasion,
And this is where I picked it up,
Adelita will never lose her concentration,
And she’s aiming at those who are corrupt.
`
That adobe wall is still growing smaller,
Our rifles blast through the arena,
The peso drowned along with the mighty dollar
In what is now the ruins of the cantina.
Reflex grows so quick to hustle,
She is fast at flexing that muscle,
And it triggers more uprising.
Her brown eyes are also quite enticing,
And that pin-point precision only allows you to hear it,
Adelita knows that nothing can be surprising
As we share in that revolutionary spirit.
Visit Lozano at www.myspace.com/anahuacbattledrums
Xican@ Poetry Daily 