D3fmgxfzuxge2.cloudfront.net



Latinx Poets:Speaking from El CorazonPeople know when you're speaking from el corazón. You have that pain. Take that pain and do something with it. That's very powerful. Sandra Cisneros Bienvenidos and Opening Remarks:Welcome to Latinx Poets: Speaking from El Corazon. We, las Poetas on this panel will share our experiences how we are navigating as Latinx poets through the field of publishing. We want to share our background, our struggles, our publications and most of all the avisos we wished someone had shared with us, when we were beginning our journeys as poetas. For me as a moderator, this panel would not be here if it wasn’t for Sandra Cisneros. This is a full circle moment for me, as a writer and a poet, because my journey began here in San Antonio, where also Sandra Cisneros lived, in the mid-nineties when I was a student at the University of Texas in San Antonio. When I was first starting out as a poeta, I went with some of my writing student colleagues to see and hear Sandra Cisneros read her work. What I remember most, was not only meeting Sandra after her reading but was the kindness and the inspirational prowess glowing from this poetic powerhouse. Jump cut twenty-five years later, doing research for this panel, I read Sandra’s memoir A House of My Own: Stories of My Life. This panel would not be here if it wasn’t for Sandra Cisneros. Her words gave us the name of our panel and her palabras y avisos make up the large part of what we are going to discuss here today. Because of Cisernos’s inspiration, I can tell you that this panel came about because as poetas Latinx we define success differently that poets from other lands, lenguas y culturas. We are often overlooked, underrepresented or as Sandra Cisneros once said: “We are the illegal aliens of the literary world.” Thanks to Cisneros, Julia Alverez, Ada Limon, Erika Sanchez, Jose Hernandez Diaz, Analicia Sotelo, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, and Elizabeth Acevedo and the poets on this panel our culture, our voz and our experiences on and off the page are just starting to be read, valued and heard. You will notice I will stop and name some books and titles from poets and writers from our Latinx community. Because this is what we need to do as a community, support and invest in each other’s words and works. Buy each other’s books, post and encourage everyone to buy and invest in each other’s libros and collections. This is how this panel is going to work: I am going to bring up a topic and the panelists will voice their insights on each of the themes below. At the end we will have a question and answer session:Artistic & Professional Stewardship panelEvent Organizer & Moderator:Adrian Ernesto Cepeda?is an LA poet and author of Flashes & Verses… Becoming Attractions from Unsolicited Press, Between the Spine?is a collection of love poems from Picture Show Press, and La Belle Ajar his collection of Sylvia Plath inspired cento poems will be published by CLASH Books in 2020.Event Participants:Ariel Francisco is the author of A Sinking Ship is Still a Ship (Burrow Press, 2020) and All My Heroes Are Broke (C&R Press, 2017). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Academy of American Poets, The American Poetry Review, The Florida Review, The New Yorker and elsewhere. Performance Today recently commissioned Ariel to pen poems for the five boroughs of New York City. Leza Cantoral is the author of Trash Panda & Cartoons in the Suicide Forest. She is the Editor in Chief of CLASH Books, the host of the lit podcast Get Lit With Leza, & the founder of Trash Panda Poetry Magazine and co-founder of Black Telephone Magazine with Lindsay Lerman. Her poetry & nonfiction essays have appeared in A Shadow Map: An Anthology of Survivors of Sexual Assault (Civil Coping Mechanisms), Luna Luna Magazine, Entropy, Quail Bell Magazine, Philosophical Idiot, Verse World Playlist, & Breadcrumbs Magazine.Monique Quintana is the author of the novella, Cenote City, released last spring from Clash Books.? She is a Senior Editor at Luna Luna Magazine, Fiction Editor at Five 2 One Magazine and a pop culture contributor at Clash Books. She has been nominated for Best of the Net, Best Microfiction 2020 and the Pushcart Prize. Her prose has appeared in Queen Mob's Tea House, Winter Tangerine, Bordersenses and the Acentos Review, among other publications.?Chris Campanioni is the author of six books, including A and B and Also Nothing (Otis Books, 2020) and the Internet is for real (C&R Press, 2019), and is the recipient of an Academy of American Poets College prize and an International Latino Book Award. His work has been translated into Spanish and Portuguese, recently appearing in Nat. Brut, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Poetry International, Ambit, and RHINO. He edits PANK and Tupelo Quarterly and teaches Latinx literature and creative writing at Pace University and Baruch ics We Will Discuss in Our Panel:Opening RemarksIntroducing the PanelNaranjas: Our ‘Oranges’ storiesWhat was your introduction to poesia in your life?How has your relationship with poetry evolved?Poets on the panel read from their own work Our Lengua in Italics: 'Hispanic' is English for a person of Latino origin who wants to be accepted by the white status quo. 'Latino' is the word we have always used for ourselves. —S.C.“The language of our antepasados, those who came before us, connects us to our center, to who we are, and directs us to our life work. Some of us have been lost, cut off from this essential wisdom and power. Sometimes our parents or abuelitos were so harmed by a society that treated them ill for speaking their native language, they thought they could save us from that heat by teaching us to speak only English. Those of us, then, live like captives, lost from our culture, ungrounded, forever wandering like ghosts with a thorn in our corazon.” —S.C.How do we speak on the page?The Personal is Universal: Writing allows us to transform what has happened to us and to fight back against what's hurting us. While not everyone is an author, everyone is a writer and I think that the process of writing is deeply spiritual and liberatory. —S.C.Take the pain and do something with itLatina NarrativesOur Voice is PoliticalWe need to write because so many of our stories are not being heard. The stories no one wants to talk about. I think liberation must come from within. —S.C.Maybe all pain in the world requires poets. —S.C.Our Differences Unite Us: I am a woman, and I am a Latina. Those are the things that make my writing distinctive. Those are the things that give my writing power. —S.C.Write About What Makes You DifferentLatinx, Latinos: Nombrando our comunidadThere are some writers in our community who criticize calling ourselves Latinx?One Mexican-American Stanford University student argued: ““Changing our language is the opposite of empowering.” Do you agree?Why Latinx?I’ve been often asked, why Latinx? I believe este designación is a new inclusive gender neutral way of identifying someone of our origin Latino Americano. I love the X. I prefer it. The X is more gender inclusivo. It also unites us in a way that says this is us. We are here. The X exudes power and says don’t fuck with us. We Latinx will inspire you with our lengua, our cultura and our vida celebrando our libertad creativa and our podersa self-expresión.Turn up the Volume of your PerseveranceI sometimes wonder why words once taken for granted suddenly take on new meanings. —S.C.Advice from our PanelBest advice you ever received in school? From another writer or mentor?Best advice I ever received: “Use a pen to put poetry to paper” from my mentor poet Dr. Kirstin OgdenWorst: what I read about the author of Invisible Man who is not H.G. WellsThe process of Publication Best way to start?How do you know your manuscript is ready?Where to Submit?Small vs. Big PressesTo Blurb or Not to BlurbThe editor/publisher/writer relationshipAs a Latinx poet/writer, when were in the revising/publication stage, did you find this to be a collaborative process?Monqiue, you had a unique process working with Leza, CLASH Books, can you talk about this process?What are the advantages of working with a Latinx editor/publisher?Did you find any disadvantages of working with a non-Latinx publisher/editor? Process: How has your process evolved from before and after your book was published? Has it changed? What kind of support did you have before, during and after your book was published?How do you use social media?Leza when asked what she looks for as an editor: “I am looking for authors who have strong social media platforms because that shit matters. We are a small press and we do our best, but you need to be willing to hustle.”Ending with Inspiration: A Poetic Call to Arms This is what I want. To believe one can write to change the world. —S.C.“When Their Eyes are Scanning Us”Question and Answer SessionSpeaking from El CorazonLatinx Poets on this PanelLeza Cantoral: “Poetry is so important, always. The soul hungers for poetry I think a lot of people do not realize how much they need poetry in their lives. Poetry expresses the things that seem impossible to express through any other medium. To me, that is its true power, and why it will always be necessary in society. It brings people together.”Monique Quintana: “I’ve always been interested in the lyricism of the sentence. I believe most of my imagery comes about because I think a particular word sounds good. For example, in one of my pieces, I was writing about a palm tree, which is not the most interesting image. I wanted to texturize the tree. I recalled that rats and mice often live in palm trees, but when I wrote “rat”, I wasn’t very interested. So then I decided to use “white flies” because I thought it sounded more interesting and more beautiful. So the image was really a byproduct of my impulse to sound.”Chris Campanioni: “I am a voracious writer who deals in excess. I’m a glutton. So, implementing music, poetry, those weird film “exhibits,” letters, screenplay, and moving from Spanish to English without distinction is the manifestation, I suppose, of that lust for language.”Ariel Francisco: “Being a poet informs everything I experience and consume. It means everything to me now; I can’t imagine myself without it to be honest. Or at least I don’t care to. Poetry is wild.”Adrian Ernesto Cepeda: “The power of poetry makes us feel less alone.?It creates community and encourages poets of all binaries, creeds, nationalities to craft their own creations on the page.?Poetry is in the?lengua,?the tongue,?it is the individual voices and the unique language that brings the power of verse to life.”Chris on Hybrid Writing: “In another sense, as a first-generation Cuban- and Polish-American, I’ve always written in response to my neo-mestizo experience, in and out of my art, and hybrid writing has become an endeavoring toward tracking these poetics in real-time, and positioning the results toward and against the academy. My conception of hybrid critical/creative writing is as a growing, living document and testament to the avant-garde among and between our marginalized communities which have, historically, been left out of the avant-garde conversation. Hybrid forms have allowed me to synthesize those many different, often intersecting modes of writing but also their objectives, into a single work. I think more and more writers are working toward a poetics of hybridity in search of that kind of totality and at the same time, uncertainty. Like: a gathering of the point and the whole, which of course should be read two ways.”Ariel on Poetry Translation: “A couple of people mentioned I should look into translating poetry, Campbell McGrath being one of them. I started in 2014 with my dad’s poems, since I could just call him or text him if I had any questions. It was surprisingly difficult at first. I grew up in a bilingual home, took Spanish in high school for the easy A, and tested out of it in undergrad with the CLEP exam, so I always felt pretty good about my Spanish. But translation showed me how wrong I was, how so many of the nuances of the written language were lost to me. (I mostly only spoke Spanish, rarely read it, and only wrote it for exams. I was really only practiced in speaking it.) It’s been really rewarding, though, especially after five years now of practicing it. I think translating a poem is doing an extremely close reading, as close as possible. I think it’s the closest way to read a poem.”Monique on writing: “I think my writing rituals are a byproduct of the forms I write in, or maybe it’s vice versa. ?I love writing flash fiction. It’ll always be my favorite form. I really believe in it. I like to see what I can write in a short amount of time, and I like to see what I can do in a small space. I think of the early drafts as fragments that I can construct and deconstruct later on, when I feel ready to commit to it and honor what’s there.”Leza on writing in multiple genres: “Writing stories was like going into a trance. Some were very spontaneous, others more plot driven. Those stories were like exorcisms. Some were chakra meditations. I was exploring fairy tales & body trauma through a surrealist lense. The path to poetry went full circle. Going from fiction to poetry was a relief. It was a release of all the things one must be specific about. I could be delightfully vague again & focus on language. But these poems are different than the ones I used to write. There was a sense of fun with these that I never had before. Poetry had always been about true expression, lyricism & sincerity before. These new ones were tongue in cheek, purposely shallow, intentionally vague, passive aggressively bitter. I let myself be immature. I let myself be petty. I let myself talk like I really talk sometimes.”Monique on how writing is empowering: “I write because I feel compelled to do it. If I go too long without writing, I get anxious and I have a hard time sleeping. I was an extremely shy child, and I always felt more confident when I wrote things down. I always seem to articulate myself better that way. I always feel more powerful when I write as opposed to speaking.”Ending with Inspiration:I started this panel off quoting Sandra Cisneros who once said, “There are many Latino writers as talented as I am, but because we are published through small presses, our books don't count. We are still the illegal aliens of the literary world.” As you have heard during all we shared during this panel, for us Latinx, it’s hard/duro y dificil. It was hard and still is hard for us. Even though we sitting here, all of us at this panel, doesn’t mean we haven’t fought for everything we’ve earned, and we are still fighting. The fighting doesn’t stop once your poem, your chapbook or your collection/book is published. You will have to scrap for the three R’s: readings, reviews and respect. One thing I will tell you, although you will be fighting, never take for granted those who support, believe and champion your work. Treasure everyone who has bought, read and loves your única voice and words. Even though we are on a battlefield we can’t lose perspective on those who have supported us and have always been there for us. It’s a lonely battle, believe me I know, don’t always keep your guard up, be thankful for those who surround and endorse us. We are nothing without them. This doesn’t mean you don’t keep making the climb to the next plateau. Although it may feel like it, remember we are never alone, in our journey. You will always have this comunidad around you. Sandra Cisneros said it best: “To find yourself, lose yourself in the service of others.” I think the reason why I’ve achieved success is because I’ve made art on behalf of those I love and in service to them. And not because I wanted to make any money or win any awards. I think that’s a rule, a spiritual rule, that I’ve learned in my life. That whatever we do with love, on behalf of those that we love, with no personal agenda, it’s always going to come out beautiful.” Remember, it takes a belief that you can succeed and as long as you believe in yourself, champion your friends, family, your lengua, your cultura, your community of writers and you will experience the éxito of success. Just remember what Benicio Del Toro said: “Turn down the volume of your Expectations and Turn up the volume of your Perseverance.”Heed this aviso and not only will preserver you will also succeed. Here is a piece I wrote for every Latinx poet/writer/artist in this room: When Their Eyes Are Scanning MeStrangers often try sizing up my sound, trying to figure out what accent I speak, where I am from? Often, they ask: Are you…Mexican? Dominican? Their uneducated guesses always depend on the region they reside. While some of our shade are insulted when strangers or renewed acquaintances guess wrong. Although I understand their simmering frustrations, I just grin and say, Soy Americano, but my parents hail from Bogota. They usually respond with an Ahhhhh! And then often inquire whether asking: if they know, so and so? This is when I nod in the negative and they often walk away. Still, this interaction is not just unique to me, myself and others of my colorful kind. Although, despite our different naciones, we all speak the same tongue. We should not let borders y países divide us like spaces on the board game like Risk. Although we speak in different dialects, nosotros hablamos with the same voz. We, mis amigas y amigos, are all invisibly tan. Often, we are too light to be consider blanco and not dark enough to be included in the colorful shade of black. We are the forgotten ones, until we are mistaken to be illegal, dealers of drugs and bangers of gangs. We are also the ones followed in el supermercado, las tiendas, almacenes and stores. We are visible only when they remember criminals and the only crime is the alarming color of our unpardonable pores.We need to stop blaming one another and instead recite poemas, tell more of our stories in novellas, TV and peliculas. We need to be seen on television and movie screens. To show we are the makers and creators, universally picture yourself like everyone else, we love sharing our duende daydreams. We used to be the ones always lit differently burning shadows in the background. It’s time for our estrallas to star, to tela-envision we do not just babysit, clean, fix or depot your home. No longer only the washer of dishes, boys busing, greaser cooks only to serve and to bake. We are done melting in the pot. We are ready to be served. Somos flores not just gardeners of the land, in this tierra we harness, watch us grow. We are the sue?o dream ready with our paintbrush, pen, microphone… now with our cultura cameras, we will use these arms to focus arise and create. One of the amazing and magical things that all the Latinx poets on this panel and the ones we all read who inspire all of us, have in common, is that poetry and the art of the written word gives us hope. La poesia is alive and can take us to a place of amor, esperanza y belief that a poetry might be able to one day change our world. We need to harness this feeling and try to support every Latinx poet that you love in our communidad. We need to keep the spirit of la poesia alive, por siempre. Viva La Poesia!Adrian Ernesto Cepeda? 2020All Rights Reserved Question and Answer Session:At the end we welcome everyone in the audience to participate in answering questions. We ask that you use the microphone provided so all in the room and the poets in panel can hear your questionsLatinx Poets Recommended Reading ListElizabeth Acevedo: Poet X (2018, Quill Tree Books)Francisco X. Alarcón: Snake Poems: An Aztec Invocation (2019, University of Arizona) Delmira Agustini: Selected Poems (2008, Southern Illinois Univ.)Julia Alverez: Homecoming (1996, Plume)Diannely Antigua: Ugly Music (2019, Yes Yes Books)Gloria E. Anzaldúa: Borderlands (2012, Aunt Lute Books)Jimmy Santiago Baca: Healing Earthquakes (2001, Grove)Ernesto González Barnert: Playlist (2019, Floricanto) Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo: POSADA: Offerings of Witness And Refuge (2016, Sundress)Rosebud Ben Oni: turn Around BRXGHT XYXS (2019, Get Fresh)Richard Blanco: How to Love a Country (2019, Beacon Press)Sara Borjas: Heart Like A Window, Mouth Like A Cliff (2019, Noemi)Ingrid Calderon-Collins: Let the Buzzards Eat Me Whole (2020, ANC)Ana Castillo: My Father Was a Toltec: and Selected Poems (2004, Anchor)Jesús Castillo: Remains (2016, McSweeney’s)Marcello Hernandez Castillo: Children of the Land (2020, Harper)Sandra Cisneros; My Wicked, Wicked Ways (2015, Vintage)Karla Cordero: How To Pull Apart The Earth (2018, Not a Cult)Eduardo C. Corral: Guillotine (2020, Graywolf) Cynthia Cruz: How the End Begins (2016, Four Way Books)Jose Hernandez Diaz: The Fire Eater (2020, Texas Review)Natalie Diaz: Postcolonial Love Poem (2020, Graywolf)Martin Espada: Vivas to Those Who Have Failed (2016, W.W.Norton)Richard Garcia: The Chair (2014, BOA Editions)Suzi F Garcia: Dear Dorothy: A Home Grown Fairytale (2020, Skull+Wind)Carmen Giménez Smith: Be Recorder (2019, Gray Wolf)Aracelis Girmay: The Black Maria (2016, Boa Editions, Ltd.)Carlos Andrés Gómez: Hijito (2019, Platypus Press)Ysabel Y. Gonzalez: Wild Invocations (2020, Get Fresh)Cynthia Guardado: Endeavor (2017, World Stage)Juan Felipe Herrera: Notes on the Assemblage (2015, City Lights) Julia de Burgos: Song of the Simple Truth (1997, Curbstone)Ada Limón: The Carrying (2018, Milkweed Ed.)Casandra López: Brother Bullet (2019, University of Arizona)Gabriela Mistral: Selected Poems (2011, Univ. of New Mexico)Jeni De La O: Lady Parts (2019, Grey Borders)Melissa Lozada-Oliva: Peluda (2017, Button Poetry)Gris Mu?oz: Coatlicue Girl (2019, FlowerSong Books)José Olivarez: Citizen Illegal (2018, Hay Market)Emily Perez: House of Sugar, House of Stone (2016, Center for Literary)Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes: The Inheritance of Haunting (2018, University of Notre Dame)Alberto Rios: The Theater of Night: (2007, Copper Canyon)Joesph Rios: Shadowboxing (2017, Omnidawn)Raquel Salas Rivera: While They Sleep: Under the Bed is Another Country (2019, Birds LLC)Esteban Rodriguez: Dusk & Dust (2019, Hub City)Excilia Salda?a: In the Vortex of the Cyclone (2002, Univ of Press Florida)Yesika Salgado: Corazón (2018, not a cult)Erika L. Sánchez: Lessons on Expulsion (2017, Graywolf)Severo Sarduy, Beach Birds (2011, Otis Books)Steven Sanchez: Phantom Tongue (2020, Sundress)Analicia Sotelo: Virgin (2018, Milkweed Ed.)Alfonsina Storni: My Heart Flooded with Water (2009, Latin American Literary Review)Anna Suarez: Papi Doesn't Love Me No More (2019, CLASH Books)Vincent Toro: Stereo. Island. Mosaic. (2016, Ahsahta)Angela Narciso Torres Blood Orange (2013, Aquarius)Luis Alberto Urrea: Tijuana Book of the Dead (2015, Soft Skull)Vanessa Angélica Villarreal: Beast Meridian (2017, Noemi)Alma Luz Villanueva: Desire (1998, Bilingual)Natalie Scenters-Zapico: Lima :: Limón (2019, Copper Canyon) ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download