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)
My Dad, the illegal immigrant
Read Gustavo Arellano’s opinion piece in its entirety at the Los Angeles Times.
Arellano is a contributing editor to Opinion and author of the ¡Ask a Mexican! column in the OC Weekly. His new book, “Orange County: A Personal History,” comes out Tuesday.
Oral History
You’re dead but your voice spins
out from tape cassettes, reels me
back to my child-bed, storytelling
in the dark. While my teenagers bend
to kiss me good-night, I’m lullaby-
rocked by your rhythms,
like a mother’s heartbeat, familiar,
comforting old friends, stories
with names wearing high collars
like Nepomuceno and Anacleta
who walk in genteel shoes on the dirt
streets of tongue-twister towns
Cuauhtemoc and Cusihuirachic.
You’re dead but you walk
and talk in my dreams
night after night we’re together
you’re savoring the taste of your stories
your face lively with life
not the gray, boney silhouette
breathing loudly in that pale
hospital room where I’d whisper
stop stop
No. You’re my grand wolf again
Lobo, as you dubbed yourself
when you claimed four of us
as your lobitos, little wolves
who even now curl round the memory
of you and rest peacefully
in your warmth.
Pat Mora
This poem is from Mora’s My Own True Name: New and Selected Poems for Young Adults (2000), Piñata Books.
Blue Mesa Review: Fiction Contest
Blue Mesa Review announces their 2009 Fiction Contest
ENTRY DEADLINE: POSTMARKED BY MARCH 1, 2009
The magazine was founded in 1981 by the University of New Mexico’s Rudolfo Anaya, Gene Frumkin, David Johnson, Patricia Clark Smith, and Lee Bartlett as a way to bring national recognition to writers from the American Southwest. A quarter of a century later, Blue Mesa Review remains committed to publishing regional writers alongside nationally recognized artists and exceptionally talented newcomers. Authors previously featured in Blue Mesa Review include: Joy Harjo, Robert Creeley, Sherman Alexie, Leslie Marmon Silko, Paula Gunn Allen, Michael Palmer, Floyd Skloot, Denise Chávez, and Alberto Ríos. Distinguished by the multi-ethnic and diverse cultural heritage of its contributors, Blue Mesa Review strives to combine personal vision and aesthetics with a high degree of intellectual curiosity.
Where the Ox Does Not Plow: A Mexican American Ballad
Thanks to La Bloga for listing this link to a Rigoberto González review of Manuel Peña’s new autobiography:
Peña’s memoir is an insightful study of one man’s journey toward political and social consciousness, and of his discovery that value is not in wages and class comforts, but in self-respect and the appreciation for his imperfect family and community. Education, he tells us, is not limited to the confines of the classroom.
Gary Soto
Saturday At The Canal
I was hoping to be happy by seventeen.
School was a sharp check mark in the roll book,
An obnoxious tuba playing at noon because our team
Was going to win at night. The teachers were
Too close to dying to understand. The hallways
Stank of poor grades and unwashed hair. Thus,
A friend and I sat watching the water on Saturday,
Neither of us talking much, just warming ourselves
By hurling large rocks at the dusty ground
And feeling awful because San Francisco was a postcard
On a bedroom wall. We wanted to go there,
Hitchhike under the last migrating birds
And be with people who knew more than three chords
On a guitar. We didn’t drink or smoke,
But our hair was shoulder length, wild when
The wind picked up and the shadows of
This loneliness gripped loose dirt. By bus or car,
By the sway of train over a long bridge,
We wanted to get out. The years froze
As we sat on the bank. Our eyes followed the water,
White-tipped but dark underneath, racing out of town.
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