La mirada de Monce

              Photograph taken at the Festival
              de Arte y Literatura (February 26, 2011)

Upcoming Readings

The Vagina Monologues Festival
When: February 18 & 19
Where: California State University San Marcos

Festival de Arte y Cultura

" Tejiendo puentes y esperanzas"
When: Satuday, February 26, 2011
Where: Vista Townsite Community Center
Time: 12:00 - 10:00 pm

Black History Month
When: Monday, February 28, 2011
Where: Palomar College
Time: 11:00 am - 2:00 pm

Manuel Libres Librodo's Rosalinda 1 and Rosalinda 8 (Lambunao, Iloilo, Philippines)

Rosalinda 1

Rosalinda 8

To see more of Manuel Libres Librodo Jr.'s work,
visit him at THroUgH mY EYES...

Rosendo Tanori: Painter, Muralist, Sculptor (Sonora, México)

La Piedad Moderna/The Modern Pieta

Mural at San Luis Río Colorado (México)

La serpiente que desciende: Escultura Sonora en movimiento/The Descending Serpent: Sonora Sculpture in Movement

Grandmaster Rosendo Tanori at Work!

 


To see more of Rosendo Tanori's sculptures, visit ELMUSEOVIRTUAL.COM.


Find Rosendo Tanori via facebook.

VIII Festival de Literatura de Noroeste: Trasladando Fronteras (Tijuana, Baja California)

"Literatura chicana y spoken word" en el Vestíbulo de El Cubo
Tomás H. Lucero, Daniel Charles, Alfonso García Cortez (Moderador), Sonia Gutiérrez y Francisco Bustos

Upcoming Readings—Baja California, California (Las Califas), and Arizona

Festival de Literatura del Noroeste. Trasladando Fronteras "Literatura chicana and spoken word"

When: Friday, November 12
Where: El CECUT: Vestíbulo de El Cubo—Tijuana, México
Time: 4:00 pm

To read the four-day program, visit Festival de Literatura del Noroeste

Will be sharing the ground with Irene Castruita and Francisco Bustos


Photograph from 30 y tantos, Mujer y Tijuana

Poetic Justice

When: November 18, 2010
Where: California State University San Marcos
             The Clarke Grand Salon
Time: 7:00 pm

Poetic Justice Upcoming Performer—Philip Jerge:
"I'm just a spaced out, slowed down Southern Californian."

Coming to CSUSM—Jim Moreno, and Benny Herro

Photograph from the Barton Family Website

CALL FOR POETS, PERFORMERS, ARTISTS
Floricanto/In Xochitl-In Cuicatl, Tucson, Arizona – Saturday, December 4, 2010

Theme: Resistance/Creation in a Climate of Hate and Censorship

Where: El Rio Community Center
Time: 12:00 pm - 7:00 pm

Image from in xóchitl in cuicatl: Flower and Song

Jhonnatan Curiel's poem, "El levantón"/"The Lift," (Tijuana, México)

El levantón

El día que suceda el levantón
voy a estar arriba de mi hamaca emocional
estaré tranquilo con todos y con todo
no voy a resistirme a sus armas
no voy a perturbar a mi conciencia tranquila

El día que suceda el levantón
cuando me violenten les devolveré una sonrisa
y sabré que jamás odié ni me dejé comprar
y por eso
me sentiré dichoso

El día que suceda el levantón
estaré listo pues todo lo que pude hacer lo hice
amé con oleadas pasión
sufrí como las ramas en el árbol seco
aprendí a dar pasos en la sangre

El día que suceda el levantón
tomaré un profundo y blanco respiro
y sabré que me dirijo hacia una muerte segura
yo mismo subiré a la cajuela
yo mismo me pondré la capucha

El día que suceda el levantón
cerraré los ojos como jamás los he cerrado
cerraré todo el cuerpo como un párpado
dejaré que me cubran las sombras

tendré miedo pero hasta el último de mis momentos sabré
que todo lo que tengo es lo que soy
y todo lo que soy me basta
para dejar de existir


The Lift

The day of the lift
I will be on my emotional hammock
I’ll be gentle with everybody and everything
I will not resist their weapons
I will not trouble my contented conscience

The day of the lift
when violence turns upon me I will return a smile
and will know that I never hated and did not sell myself
and for that
I’ll feel privileged

The day of the lift
I will be ready—for everything I could do—I did
I loved with waves of passion
suffered like branches on a dry tree
learned to take steps on blood

The day of the lift
I will take a deep white breath
and will know a definite death awaits me
I myself will get into the trunk
I myself will put the hood on

The day of the lift
I will close my eyes like I have never done
I will close my body like an eyelid
I will allow shadows to overtake my body
I’ll be afraid but until the last moments will know
that everything I have is what I am
and everything I am will be enough
to cease existing

Translated by Sonia Gutiérrez
 
Karen Márquez and Poet Jhonnatan Curiel

"El levantón" Colectivo Intransigente Performance

To see more of Jhonnatan's work, visit POIESIS and Ojopoema: Blog dedicado para la creación arbitraria de Ojopoemas    

To see more of Jhonnatan's writing Tijuana collective, Colectivo Intransigente, find them on facebook.


Colectivo Intransigente's e-mail: colectivointransigente@gmail.com

Carlos Gómez's Sonia's Power



La Bloga's On-Line Floricanto

from Facebook's Poets Responding to SB 1070 

La Bloga: Chicana, Chicano, Latina, Latino, & More.

Literature, Writers, Children's Literature, News, Views

& Reviews publishes "Memografía"/"Memography"

on September 28 and "Fishing Bait" on August 24.

Visit La Bloga!



Floricanto Adelanto at Corazón del Pueblo (Poetry Reading at Boyle Heights, CA)

Organizers: Abel Salas and Francisco X. Alarcón

Em Sedano, Abel Salas, and Francisco X. Alarcón

Em Sedano from La Bloga and Sonia Gutiérrez

John Martínez from Aztlán Media Kollective

Fe Montes

 

Sammy Carrera

Festival de Flor y Canto by Michael Sedano and "Fishing Bait" from Poets Responding to SB 1070

Festival de Flor y Canto Yesterday • Today • Tomorrow

© Magu 2009

This week La Bloga features Michael Sedano’s invitation to the Festival de Flor y Canto. Yesterday • Today • Tomorrow / September 15,16,17. La Bloga also presents six poets: Matt Sedillo, Devreaux Baker, Avotcja, Guadalupe Rodriguez Jr., Sonia Gutiérrez and Amy Ballard Rich, from Poets Responding to SB 1070, founded by poet, educator and children’s book author—Francisco X. Alarcón—and Moderators, who include Alma Luz Villanueva, Odilia Galván Rodríguez, Hedy Trevino, Scott Maurer, Abel Salas, and Andrea Hernandez Holm.

Through the Lense of Pocho1 Fotography C/S

Bern, Switzerland

Rome, Italy

Visit Pocho-one Fotography.

Meu amigo—o cão

Poets' Duel at the Centro Cultural Tijuana (CECUT)

Organizer: Mara Maciel
Tijuana Poets' Duel: Colectivo Intransigente
Tijuana and San Diego Poets’ Duel : Sonia Gutiérrez, Victor Soto, Lucy Villa and Tomás H. Lucero
Special Guests: José Eugenio Sánchez and Luis Cortés Bargalló

from Café pa todos
"Tijuana y San Diego en duelo poético"

from El Mexicano: Gran Diario Regional
"Enfrentarán sus poesías"

Ben Arnold's Poetry Circus

“A death defying return to San Diego by poetry impresario Ben Arnold with three rings of spoken word by Jim D. Babwe, Filly 7 and Sonia Gutiérrez."
—Brandon Cesmat, Award Winning Poet for Light in All Directions

Date: June 20, 2010
Time: 3:00-5:00 pm
Where: Hill Street Cafe at 524 S. Coast Highway in Oceanside, California

Felicia "Fe" Montes's "Ranchola Blues" — (Los Ángeles, Chihuahua)

Fe Montes and D'Lo












To see more of Fe's work, visit
FELICIA MONTES: Xicana Multimedia Artist/Educator/Organizer

My Roots (Michoacán)

Juan and Santiago Jaimes,
The Jaimes Brothers
(Great Grandfather)

The legendary Fortino Jaimes,
Santiago's son, my maternal
grandfather, was assasinated
while sleeping under a
tree.

My mother's mother, Aurora Ramírez
de Jaimes, mi abuelita, never held me
in her arms, yet she remains my pillar
of strength.

My tío José Eliseo Gutiérrez,
my father's brother, always sang and
played guitar at family reunions.

My tía Alicia Gutiérrez, my father's
sister, has a mighty singing voice.
In her youth, she had a mano a mano
with the famous Lucha Villa.

Tío Raúl and tía Elvira Gutiérrez,
father's brother and sister.

My father, Francisco Gutiérrez and my mother,
María Estela Jaimes (María Estela Jaimes de
Gutiérrez; Estela Gutiérrez for short).

"Arizona Dream Shoes" for Poets Responding to SB 1070

I. No Man’s Land

I saw a tennis shoe lying on the
side of the road to América,

Half sunk in the heaviest of desert sands—
shipwrecked, pillaged by the winds
and blazing sun.

II. Childhood Lessons
At age two, she knows what illegal aliens
sound like—she’s been listening since birth.
An illegal alien lullabies her to sleep: “Duérmase
mi niña. Duérmase me ya porque
su mamá se va a trabajar.”

At age twelve, she’s learning what illegal aliens
look like—she’s been trained since birth.
She overhears the neighbors: “Look at their shoes.
Illegal aliens wear non-brand tennis shoes.”

(Not like Americans. Real Americans
can afford Western gods—real American
products—the battlefield and victory
looming at their feet, Nikes manufactured
by Koreans, Taiwanese, Chinese
and Viêtnamese.)

III. The Art Project

For $215 dollars, she sells you a pair
of Brinco Crosstrainers, so you can display a pair
in your living room? So your neighbor
can see them—like the white progressive
couple serving a Wetback Salad
at their wedding.

If you want to cross the comal of death,
she hands you a pair of tennis shoes for free,
equipped with a map and pain
killers … to begin the trek of
senseless deaths with
a thousand crosses,
mounds of rocks to
pave the road like
a North Star.

IV. The Wanderer

He walks in heat like a blazing
match with a gallon of
water to quench the dry
lolling tongue.

A pair of old socks and
tennis shoes melt on his
feet like gum on a
pulsating asphalt.


V. Arizona Dream Shoes

I will hand you a pair of Arizona Dream
Tennis Shoes blessed by God,
the Presidents, and the Virgin
Mary herself. These tennis shoes
will make your feet tireless
like our ancestors, treading these borderless lands,
now painted and encaged
by law-abiding US citizens.

(May 8, 2010)

“UR 1070” for Poets Responding to SB 1070

You tell me you are not a racist.
You are an Arizonian in your own right—
in your white flawless rights
in your white lawless plights against
the native skin you single out, marring your high-class
etiquette—your Forefathers’ land, your America,
the land of the free, where vigilantes
in invisible white hoods
terrorize me in Georgia, in
Texas, and in California.

Look at me. No, really, look
at me—directly into my eyes.
But without the sunglasses, without the gun,
without the handcuffs, without the whip, without the
wooden or metal baton, without the water hose,
without the DDT, without napalm.

And when you look at me, notice
that you see me through borrowed memories
of our ancestors, haunting your present twisted
state of mind—suffering
from that pathology called
race that in your eyes makes me
look perfectly inhuman.

You are the germinated grandchild of Slavery . . .
of the Trail of Tears . . . of the Chinese Exclusion Act . . . of
Operation Wetback . . . of Viêt Nam. . . of Japanese Interment
Camps, Proposition 187 . . . Operation
Gatekeeper . . .Weapons of Mass Destruction . . .
the Patriot Act . . . of SB 1070.

You want to believe in your own
fantasy—your own twisted logical
fallacy—you are América, “The Beautiful.”
¡Y sin acento!

You always write words that make
you look as the victimized—always the
victim—in a muddled pond of
racist rhetoric: “White revolution
is the only solution.”

But who is really stealing your
job? Your money? Who is really shattering your
American Dreamland?

You are 1070—a legacy of hate. You
relish and smirk when you see your
labor: when the handcuffs click
and the jailhouse locks,
when you single out and say, “Hey you!
Over there!” and label and then tag colored people.
Selective seeing and hearing
has made of you a simpleton
who wears blinds and carries
a magnifying glass like
Georges Cuvier.

“Round them cowboy!”
childhood play’s not over for
you. Your cowboy and Indian
patterns never left you! You are the good guy,
the self-righteous ambassador and protector of Arizona—
of your country—my world, from
sea to shining sea. I am the son,
the daughter, the father, the mother,
the grandmother, the sister, the teacher,
the carpenter, the gardener,
the architect, your potential
son-in-law or daughter. I am as free
as the air that you breathe.

You—again—have
reduced me to a thing—incapable
of feeling emotion like a shipped and caged
African slave—unconnected to this
country that serves you
on a silver platter, so you can see
those shiny white teeth reflected
in silverware before you
take a bite in your sweat-picked
tomatoes and lettuce, USDA Grade A
meat from those “illegal aliens,” mis paisanos,
working in Colorado and then you think:
life is good. Then you toast and sip your California
wine.

Yes, of course Arizona I’m
beginning to see your master
plan brewing. No illegal immigrants (other
than white-complected ones,
preferably of European decent),
no ethnic studies, no accents.
POOF! Como los judíos.

(April 29, 2010)
http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/legtext/49leg/2r/summary/h.hb2281_03-18-10_houseengrossed.doc.htm

"Green Dollar Dream"

The man held onto the roof of La Consentida, uncle David’s RV, as if his life depended on it—and it did.

Tired from spending the weekend in Rosarito, uncle David flew north on I-15 with a full tank of gas. This time he made no pit stops. He was going 85 listening to the usual, the crooning of The King of Mexican country, Vicente Fernández. Ever since the day Padre Homero had blessed the family RV in front of St. Rose Church for a twenty dollar donation, La Consentida had never given tío any problems.

On the RV’s top, the man’s muscles had become taut from the burning sensation making it impossible to fidget because he had told them to remain clasped, at all costs. If they disobeyed and listened to the cramps, at any sudden stop, his body would shoot like a human rocket and plaster itself on a real American freeway. His face stooped low to avoid the wind from whipping at his face and drying out his eyes. The memory of his wife and children’s smiles fleeted at the thought of his body hitting the black asphalt—his family would never find out if . . .

When La Consentida arrived in Vista, as usual, the family unpacked the camping gear and looked forward to a hot shower and Mexican chocolate. And then, as if he were drunk, the man stumbled down the ladder. The family could see his body and feet were limp from the metal rungs pressing against his body.

Bewildered, uncle David stood at the incredible sight and the thought of an immigration officer back in Tijuas catching a paisano on his registered owned vehicle. Who would believe his story—of a man holding onto his Consentida—for an opportunity to join the masses, working for green dollar dreams?

The man with a sun-beaten face with hollow-dark eyes bemoaned, “Señor—”

Not giving the man enough time to speak, uncle David reached for his pockets and found foreign coins, a few dollars, and spare change. Avoiding eye contact with the stranger, uncle dropped the American money into his hand. With a deep-cutting tone, uncle David interjected, “Tenga. Por favor, váyase.”[1]

The man silenced his plea and disappeared on W. Indian Rock St.

[1] “Take it. Please, go.”