Over Passover, along with Jessie Rose & Jenny Johnson, I had the pleasure of helping poet and anthropologist Nomi Stone lead a Seder with her class at Princeton University (currently finishing up an essay about both Stone and the Seder). It was the first Seder I've attended in a very long time, and a reminder that poetry has the power to evolve tradition in a way nothing else can...

With Jessi Rose, Nomi Stone and Jenny Johnson

For the Poetry Coalition's #WeComeFromEverything project, I contributed to Letras Latinas's Poetry & Migration feature, "It is not a Drowning," a short meditation dedicated to the incredible Emmy Pérez.

My long poem "What Hangs on the Side of the Mouth" was published in 3 parts: "Savage the rain falling..." in Thrush; "Your grandmother has never seen..." in Nightjar Review; & "Amaranthine & thinning the mist" in The Iowa Review.

I have two poems over at Hobart: "Signals" and "When We Grow Up Our Hearts Don't Have to Die." 

For The Kenyon Review, I covered:

•  AWP 17 & challenges of having meaningful conversations in public spaces
• "Ice girls" & the first ice hockey game I ever attended
• A belated valentine to difficult loves, strange nests of language & crises of faith
• When grief is what almost happens— and did.
• "Voyager I Am Singing the Fire" my fellow Jews, for all poets, for especially poets of the tundra, for all Diasporists, for those who'd risk everything for the fire.
• On April Fool's Day, the giraffes were in charge, and turned out be all poets. 
• For National Poetry Month, fellow poets Ricardo Maldonado, Virginia Konchan, Victoria Chang, Sam Sax and Becca Klaver joined me in sharing what editors have championed our work. 

I also had the pleasure of taking part of Poetry in Motion's The Poet Is in:

Thanks to MTA Arts & Design for taking these of photos from the event!

I have a few readings left for National Poetry Month which you can find here. 

In a new international study, life in the Arctic is at a perilous crossroads: "Some Arctic waters are already becoming dead zones bereft of oxygen. Lakes are collapsing as permafrost beneath them melts." While the president is going after NASA's climate researchers although they continue to publish and share their findings, the current U.S. administration has also taken words like ice and voice, and maligned them with xenophobic, hateful rhetoric. Guest editor Rosebud Ben-Oni and Glass Poetry Press invite poets to take back these words, to tell us of their sensory of snow, their winter year(s), the depths and lengths of the times they were, or had to remain, under sheets frozen and partially-obscured. Tell us what you managed to grow in your tundras, what you discovered in the days where little light reached, where light was (is) cut short. What voices you hear in the ice. How it feels to stand on ground that could so easily melt away. We invite you to interpret this any way you like.

Tundras is scheduled for publication in September, 2017.

(New song by Jung Joon Young :: Video featuring actors Joo Woojae & Han Eun Seo)

Headed for Washington D.C. this week. I'm on 2 panels at AWP, and signing copies of my book at the Latinx Caucus table; Carolina Ebeid & I switched dates, so I'm there on Friday & she on Thursday, both at noon.

Post-AWP, next Sunday on February 12th, I'll be back in NYC & writing short love poems for garden-goers at The New York Botanical Garden's Valentines & Verse Weekend from 1-5 PM. 

I also had some new poems come out since the beginning of this year: 

• A section from part of a longer series, "What Hangs on the Side of the Mouth," appears in Nightjar Review. 
• "Titans Don't Stay in their Graves" appears in HEArt Journal.
• Two poems over at The Spectacle: "We Move in Orbits So Distant from Each Other" and "When My Phone Doesn’t Ring It’s Everything"

My weekly essays for The Kenyon Review include:

• "Derechim: Writing on Traveler's Prayer" which is especially for anyone who's discouraged right now
• "On Carrying Each Other & Cosmic Debt" examines ideas of the self, prosperity and the father-daughter dynamics in Margaret Edson's Wit and Marianne Moore's "Silence;"
• "Breaking Down" is a very, very short meditation on sheep, slaughter and the state of our country.
• "Gam Zu L’tova (This Too Is for the Good)" which I (re)encounter an Anti-Semitic slur, but it's my niece's innocuous question on grammar that just might save our world.

Read some poems over at Studio A at WKCR 89.9 FM over at Columbia University & they archived it here.

I've also created a poetry-only Twitter account that focuses on highlighting new contemporary poetry. Follow at @ShesFullofStars

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A few days into 2017, I'm still working my way through a number of poetry collections that came out in 2016. (Coming soon on The Conversant: conversations with poets (Break the Habit, Trio House Press, 2016) & Vanessa Gabb (Images for Radical Politics, Rescue Press 2016). Stay tuned for that.) 

These past few months, I continued to write weekly for The Kenyon Review blog, including a two-part series on poet Carolina Ebeid's debut collection You Ask me To Talk About the Interior, out from Noemi Press. The first part "In Errata We Excavate Our Interiors" examines the idea of allegiances when one's identity is complex, and why the best poets think like scientists; the second "If in Poetry We Are What Would Replace Us" is a meditation on why real change is a very possible & palpable now within the realm of poets like Carolina.

Other essays I wrote for The Kenyon Review include "Call Her Esperanza: On Resistance & Writing" which explores resistance, happiness and the work of poet Loma; "Strangers Meant (to be) Un-stranged" which seeks to un-strange the stranger, why we should "go wrong", and the work of Vincent Toro; and "When It’s Not Our World Anymore What Will We Hear: On Empathy" which I wrote in the wake of the election, on losing my keys and nearly my empathy, on the evolutionary grace of orcas, and finding solace in my fellow poets. 

I had several poems come out which are available online:

• "Matarose Tags G-Dragon on the 7" in POETRY
• "All Palaces Are Temporary Palaces" in The Shallow Ends
• "All That Is and Is Not Nuclear Is Our Family" in The Journal
• "What Did I Do To Deserve This" in Grist
• Three poems in Prelude:
  • Forgetting Is the Ghost that Keeps You Alive
  • Karl's Boys
  • Luz

My poem "On Childbearing" also appeared in Prairie Schooner's Fall 2016 print issue.

The Shallow Ends nominated my poem "And All the Songs We Are Meant to Be" for a Pushcart Prize. Special thanks to Glass Poetry Press for including this poem on their 2016 Recommended Reading List, and to Luther Hughes for including my poem "All That Is and Is Not Nuclear Is Our Family" in his "10 Poems That Haunted the **** Outta Me in 2016."

2016 felt like two years shoved into one; here's some highlights of that year.

Have some readings set up for January, and then onto AWP in DC!

Borders and Identity: The Poetics of Place with Rosebud Ben-Oni

How do borders shape poetry and the poetic self? Can existing divisions generate new spaces for creativity? This workshop will explore the dynamics existing within and arising out of different kinds of borders not only geographical but also racial, ethnic, sexual, familial and linguistic. We will also examine how contemporary poets breathe new life into traditional forms such as the aubade and the ode through the use of borders to subvert existing dominant narratives and bear witness to current events. Students will write and share work, drawing inspiration from various poets such as Gwendolyn Brooks, Tara Betts, Eduardo C. Corral, Ocean Vuong and Cornelius Eady.

Wednesdays from October 12 - November 16, 2016, 6:00PM to 8:30PM

Register here.

Kaveh Abkar

The first, "Orchids We Have Been: On the Transformative Power of Longing", is the first of a two-part series on the work of Kaveh Akbar, one of my favorite contemporary poets. It explores orchids, devotion, longing and how such a world that quite suddenly, has always been, that world that is Kaveh and poetry and transformation itself. 

The second, "Even If Parts of You Go Missing Forever", considers the ideas of survival and happiness, and those times when the abyss is calling for you, but the unknown in you is stronger.

(The series also got a shout-out from Harriet over on The Poetry Foundation!)

I ended the week with "Is Grief a Waiting," which looked at grief as a collective consciousness, a bridge, a connection we sometimes miss We've all lost those we can't let go; maybe we don't have to.

It's been an incredible summer; last week, I read with CantoMundo poets Eddie Martinez, Sheila Maldonado and Celeste Mendoza (hosted by Deborah Paredez) for the Dodge Poetry Festival's Lunchtime in the Park series. Here's a couple of photos from the event:

Top row: CantoMundo Founders Deborah Paredez and Celeste Mendoza

Bottom row; CantoMundo Fellows Rosebud Ben-Oni, Eddie Martinez and Sheila Maldonado 

Post-Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival/ CantoMundo reading — with Eddie Martinez, Rosebud Ben-Oni, Sheila Maldonado, Paula Neves, Celeste Guzman Mendoza and Deborah Paredez at Fornos Restaurant, in Newark, NJ.

Also elated to announce I'll be teaching a poetry workshop at Poets House in the Fall! Details to follow...

How can poets experiment with traditional forms of poetry so that they speak of the world today? How can we use poetry to sing our own personal griefs and our loves, as well bear witness to those current events which affect us most? In this workshop, we will explore contemporary and innovative approaches to the ghazal, the elegy, the sestina and more. Students will write and share work, drawing inspiration through the work of poets like Patricia Smith, Larry Levis, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Yusef Komunyakaa, Jamila Woods and Aracelis Girmay.

Note: this is a workshop for all students. No previous experience with writing form poetry required.

For more info and registration, click here.

I had a wonderful time at our Queens Book Festival panel yesterday, moderated by Monica McClure and featuring Taye Diggs, Miko Branch, Sai Lai Abrams and yours truly.

Here are some pictures from the event:

Speaking at our panel with Miko Branch, Sai Lai Abrams and Taye Diggs

Monica McClure, Rosebud Ben-Oni, Miko Branch, Sai Lai Abrams and Taye Diggs

With poet Ekere Tallie at the 2016 Queens Books Festival

With poet Monica McClure at the 2016 Queens Books Festival

I have a few poems out in Waxwing: "From The Last Great Adventure Is You" and "If This Is the Age We End Discovery" and in Triquarterly: "Odisea".

I guest-edited a special issue for Queen Mobs Teahouse, New Planets :: New Worlds , featuring the work of poets David Campos, Tara Betts, Brian Michael Murphy, Hila Ratzabi, Vanessa Jimenez Gabb and more. Here's my editor's letter introducing the issue.

I'm still writing weekly for The Kenyon Review, and here are some of my favorite essays that I've written these last few months:

• "We Aren't Close to Anywhere: On Icelandic Horses"; I fell in love in a very big way with a headstrong, moody Icelandic horse named Odin. 
• "Other Inquisitions: Chasing the Northern Lights"; on chasing the Northern Lights and why poetry will never die.
• "A Real Kind of Sublime"; a mediation on jellyfish, burning coral and the thirst for all kinds of open water, no matter the consequences.
• "We Encounter Each Other So Rarely" ; on why prayers are, and are not, the answer to brutality, violence and doubt.
• "A Good Immunity is Everything": On tolerance, an unfortunate incident in Kowloon Park and why a good immunity is everything.
• "What A Wicked Game":  Dreaming of Icelandic horses in Hong Kong.
•  "It's All About the Music: A Tribute to Tim Duncan"; poets Marian Haddad and Malcolm Friend, as well as Michael K. "The DMG" Gomez join me.
• "Peace Is a Bus that Has No Destination"; I wrote this mostly on double decker buses and street cars of Hong Kong. Some thoughts on Charon and Pluto, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and why motion is its own faith.
• "Speak Us into Life: A Tribute to Elie Wiesel"; poets and writers Jared Harel, Shamar Hill, Lynn Melnick, Tema Smith, as well as artist Michael Hafftka, join me.

Just got back from a great time at Split This Rock 2016 Poetry Festival. I moderated and read in the panel reading Queer Pan-Latinidad: A LBGTQ Latina/o Poetry Reading with Nívea Castro, Denice Frohman, Rigoberto González, Darrel Alejandro Holnes and Ruben Quesada

And another reading for the Raising Lilly Ledbetter: Women Poets Occupy the Workspace anthology with Sandra Beasley, Jan Beatty, Martha Collins, Susan Eisenberg, Bonnie Morris, Marianne Szlyk, Cindy Williams Gutiérrez, Laura Madeline Wiseman and Carolyne Wright.

Currently finishing up my latest Kenyon Review posts on Icelandic horses and the Northern Lights after a life-changing trip to Iceland. Some of my favorite essays I've written these last few months for Kenyon include:

"The Weight that Will Make Us Planets" on all sorts of love, long-distances, orchid-speak and other translations and why we must experience different states to see what best to exist.

"When You Became the Ghost in Her" on illness, my husband who staked his life on me during the worst of it and that neurologist we always ended up seeing in the ER in the middle of the night, her tools-heavy pockets, her arms ready to catch me if I fell.

"In Nothing Too There Are Seasons" on hauntings, rebellions and strange seasons that might herald new strange worlds within us as poets and artists.

"The Eros of Bees" on eroticism of insects and all those times I wanted to be stung.

I also wrote essays on:

Temporary Passings/ Possessions: On Hitchcock's Vertigo and Carlotta Valdes in which I reexamined the stocktype "Hitchcock blonde," the "story" of Carlotta Valdes and the dangers rewriting historical pain (with some thoughts on Oscars 2016 and that horrifying children's book A Fine Dessert).

I wrote a series of lyrical essays in response to Yael Hedaya's debut collection of novellas:

• In "I Wanted to Ruin It for You: On Yael Hedaya's Housebroken," I wrote about the time I visit an alpaca farm in the Negev and an ex who left me in a Sbarro in Jerusalem with  a copy of the collection.
• "The Happiness Game: On Yael Hadaya's Housebroken" explored all the (happiness) games we play in relationships with each other and with the self.
• "Empathy & Female Anger: On Yael Hedaya’s Housebroken" was probably one of the most difficult essays I've ever written: it deals with rape, so-called "female" anger, empathy and two very different altercations I had, at two very different ages, with predatory men.

I wrote about my chronic insomnia and that time I tagged the name of God in Hebrew School in "Under the Eye of the Name: On Writing and Insomnia."

Lastly I wrote "CantoMundo: Graduation Day" as a love letter to CantoMundo, taken from a letter written during my final retreat in 2015.

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In February, I was Poet of the Week over at Brooklyn Poets (for whom I read in February), and shared my poem "Self-Portrait as Golem" and answered some interview questions.

I also have a new poem in berfrois "I Love You From Another Star."

I'm currently guest editing a special issue of Queen Mob's Teahouse on New Worlds :: New Planets, and it hopefully will go live very soon!

(Power) Ballads and Ceremonials: A Poetry and Pop Workshop with Rosebud Ben Oni

How can popular culture shape your poetry and create a unique voice? What does the intersection of media and art reveal about your multiple selves—explored through slang, dialect and code-switching—and personal truths such as political stance and gender identity? In this workshop, we will analyze the work of contemporary poets such as Tara Betts, Angel Nafis, Alex Dimitrov, Lucille Clifton, Lynn Melnick and Adam Fitzgerald, who utilize popular culture, in order to fuel creativity and spark discussion on how poetry informs and responds to social and political ideologies. During each session students will write and share work, drawing inspiration from various forms of media and text such as photography, film, dance, music videos and more.

DATE AND TIME: 

February 20, 2016 - 11:30AM to 2:00PM

February 27, 2016 - 11:30AM to 2:00PM

March 5, 2016 - 11:30AM to 2:00PM

March 12, 2016 - 11:30AM to 2:00PM

March 19, 2016 - 11:30AM to 2:00PM

March 26, 2016 - 11:30AM to 2:00PM

Click here to find out more information

Click here to register

EVENT SPONSORED BY: Poets House

EVENT TYPE: Workshops, Master Classes and Residencies

I have 3 new poems in The Volta on the first day of 2016!

My last 2015 essays for The Kenyon Review:

• The last installment of my 4-part series on "Notes on Love and Violence: Coda" examines gun culture and why dehumanizing children is the worst crime one can commit.

•  I wrote "On Failure and Redemption: Bernard Malamud’s Pictures of Fidelman" with Malamud's following words in mind: "art tends toward morality. It values life. Even when it doesn’t, it tends to." Given our present time, one could not hope more for this to be true.

• In "I Am George Washington Gómez: On Works of Significant Worth and Importance," I reflected on Americo Paredes's novel and why I'm so glad I read it before attending college.

I wrote about temporarily living in Rehavia, when I was wandering in Jew in Jerusalem in "The Silence of Syrian Rue"

Exploring that particularly strange sense of happiness of artists, I wrote about Amos Oz's My Michael and forgiveness in "Stranger in the Midrahov."

Artist Michael Hafftka's work has shaped me as a poem, especially his Zohar paintings, and I wrote about him and our friendship in "The Balance Hangs in a Place That Is Not."

I wrote about Elena Shvarts, a young Russian woman whom I lived with one summer and "passing" in Jerusalem in "Hello from the Other Side."

For Halloween, I wrote about 28 Days Later, and invited fellow poets and writers to tell us what terrifies them.

The year I discovered Gimpel the Fool was the same year strange things befell my childhood home; read about it here in "Dybbuk or Ibbur: Midnight Dances with Isaac Bashevis Singer."

Aviv Geffen's music shaped my young political conscience, and I wrote about him and my dream of a united, multicultural, multi-religious and above all tolerant Levant in "Uri Ur: On Aviv Geffen and Impossible Homelands."

What began it all? My three-part series on the High Holy Days: "On Books and Silence: Why I Cannot Pray on Rosh Hashanah"; "Not-Quite Goodbye (Aseret Yemei Yeshiva)" and "On the Wings of a Power Ballad: Yom Kippur and Atonement"

Still to come for December: an essay on Sholem Aleichem and more!

I'm now writing weekly over at The Kenyon Review! I began with a 3-part series of essays on the Jewish High Holy Days: 

• "On Books and Silence: Why I Cannot Pray on Rosh Hashanah"
• "Not-Quite Goodbye (Aseret Yemei Teshuva)"
• "On the Wings of a Power Ballad: Yom Kippur and Atonement"   

I contributed some words to the Poetry Foundation's Harriet blog on "What is Literary Activism?" curated by Amy King.

My latest project over at The Conversant was a "{Power} Ballads" roundtable featuring CantoMundo poets J. Michael Martinez, Juan Morales, Diego Baez, Darrel Alejandro Holnes and Octavio Quintanilla. We talk traditional ballads, but also Gwar, GN'R, Cyndi Lauper, Living Colour’s “Cult of Personality," and which of us did and did not call to ORDER NOW the greatest of "Monster Ballads."

My reading on Queer Latindad has been accepted for the 2016 Split This Rock Festival; joining me are poets Ruben Quesada, Darrel Alejandro Holnes, Denice Frohman and Nivea Castro. I'll also be reading for the "Raising Lilly Ledbetter: Women Poets Occupy the Workspace Reading."

I'm teaching an 8-week poetry workshop at Eckleburg Workshops starting October 4th. Learn more here.

I'm also a judge for Essay Press's Inaugural Chapbook Contest. Find out more here. 

How can popular culture shape your poetry and create a unique voice? This 6-week workshop will lead writers through a series of questions, prompts and exercises utilizing existing popular culture to help craft poems. Students will offer feedback on each other’s work. We will also analyze existing poems that utilize popular culture, in order to better fuel creativity and spark discussion on how poetry informs and responds to social and political ideologies. Sign up here.

New Interview up on The Nervous Breakdown

My poem "Despite Their Best Efforts" (first published in The American Poetry Review) also was reprinted on The Nervous Breakdown

I have a post up at The Kenyon Review in which CantoMundo poets Javier Zamora, Carolina Ebeid, Yesenia Montilla, Ruben Quesada, Amy Sayre, Jose Araguz and I share what contemporary Latina/o poets have influenced us. Thanks to Adam Clay, Natalie Shapero and the Kenyon Review! Please let us what Latina/o poets and authors have influenced you in the comments below.

I also served as Guest Editor for the Ostrich Review, and bring you the DAYS OF BEING WILD Special Issue. Here is my Editor's Letter on how I arrived at the idea. Check out new poetry by Anne Champion, Bakar Wilson, Chen Chen, Holy Burdorff, Jason Koo, John Deming, Juan Morales, Laura Glenn, Lupe Mendéz, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, Nicholas Wong, Roberto Montes, and Vincent Toro. This issue’s featured artist is Jee Hwang.

My poem "Guns on the Table" appears in Hyperallergic, thanks to poet and editor Joe Pan.

I have two new poems in diode: "If Stripe the Younger Sister" and "Mas Dolor"

Harvey L. Hix asked me from some words for his Progressive Poetics project which seeks to "create a dynamic, generative conversation about poetry, by putting each individual contributor into dialogue with her-­‐ or himself, with familiar declarations about poetry from Auden and Adorno." Here are mine.

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I'm mad excited to be reading for VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, Luna Luna Magazine and Oh, Bernice! at The New York City Poetry Festival this summer, and the festival needs our help!--> In order to keep the festival free and open to the public, the festival relies on donations from those who can afford to give. Please consider giving what you can!

On March 19th, I had the good fortune to read at the United Nations with Yusef Komunyakaa, Javier Zamora, Laren McClung, Sharon Dolin, Dara Barnat and other fantastic poets. Thanks to Darrel Alejandro Holnes for inviting all of us to be part of their Happiness anthology, which sold out at the reading.

The following day we took the train to Philly and I read with Ross Gay and Ailish Hooper at Hila Ratzabi's Red Sofa Salon. It was the first time I'd met Ross and heard him read, and he blew everyone away. 

Soon, I'll be headed to Minneapolis for #AWP15. I'm moderating the panel "Hybridity as Origin: Writing from Multiracial Experience." Panelists include Alyss Dixon, Marie Mockett, Aaron Samuels and Wendy Babiak. Facebook invite here.

I'm also a panelist, along with Carmen Giménez Smith, Juan Morales and Casandra Lopez, for a CantoMundo roundtable on "Latina/o Poets as Publisher." Deborah Paredez moderates.

I'll also be reading at Storyscape & Sakura Review's event. FB Invite here.

My poem "Somewhere Thuban is Fading" appears in the March issue of POETRY Magazine. I also read it for POETRY's "The AntiHero" podcast.

I also shared my current reading list with POETRY.

I recorded a poem and answered some questions for Letras Latinas, part of the Institute of Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame. 

And my MFA alma mater gave me a shout-out for my NYFA Award; thanks, University of Michigan.

A review of SOLECISM by Philip M. Arevalo in Voices de la Luna.

Over the course of a year, I curated 3 conversations on Poetics, Identity & Latindad featuring CantoMundo poets. Thanks to Andrew Fitch and Essay Press, it is now a collection, with an afterword by the CantoMundo founders and a brief intro by yours truly. Read it here.

There's a couple of spots left in my Poetry & Pop culture workshop. Sign up here.

My 4-week workshop on Writing Dynamic Female Characters starts up again on March 1. Sign up here.

Lastly, I'm guest editing  a special issue of the Ostrich Review dedicated to Wong Kar-Wai's film Days of Being Wild. Submissions close on February 15. See guidelines here.

Even more fitting is that poets Albert Abonado and Rachel McKibbens were among the winners. I met both of them when Rachel and I both read at Al's poetry series at The Yards in Rochester in 2012. Congrats to all the new Fellows!

Poetry & Pop: A Creative Writing Workshop

How can popular culture shape your poetry and create a unique voice? This 7-week workshop will lead writers through a series of questions, prompts and exercises utilizing existing popular culture to help craft poems. Students will offer feedback on each other’s work. We will also analyze existing poems that utilize popular culture, in order to better fuel creativity and spark discussion on how poetry informs and responds to social and political ideologies.

Runs Feb 10th – March 28th.

Sign up here.

New poems in Glittermob: "Stepping Away with Diego Baez" and in The Ostrich Review: "Ma Nishtana."

My poem "Tracking for Sign" appears in the ‪CantoMundo Longest Night‬ project over at the NACLA. Thanks to Colette Perold and The Loisaida Center for publishing CantoMundo poets from this event.

Structo magazine, out of the UK, interviewed me on writing alkali-ed seasons, working with artist Michael Hafftka and a past Bukharan love.

I'm teaching an online Poetry Workshop "Poetry & Pop: A Creative Writing Workshop" in Literary Kitchen . Runs Feb 10th – March 28th, 2015. Details here. 

2014 was an incredible year. Here are some of my favorite moments:

NYC, January 2014.

Queens, NY. February 2014.

Seattle, February 2014.

Seattle, February 2014.

Seattle, February 2014.

Seattle, February 2014.

Seattle, March 2014.

Washington DC, March 2014.

Salem, April 2014

UT-Austin, July 2014.

Governor's Island, July 2014.

NYU, August 2014.

UT-Brownsville, November 2014.

South Padre Island, November 2014.

NYC, December 2014.

South Padre Island, November 2014.

Toronto,  July 2014.

We are a Mexican Chinese Jewish family spread over the globe, and wouldn't have it any other way.

This Earth, Eternity. 

By Vanessa Willoughby

No miracles are required

To be black in America.

It takes one drop pumped through sprawling generations

A predisposition to nervous conditions

And a house that ripples with spirits.

Maybe a last name that never really belonged to you,

Or fit the grooves of your mouth,

Proof of a tangled narrative, a different country

Bound and gagged.

Grandparents who know that the word Negro

Fell out of fashion for the word Thug.

Mothers and fathers who warn of uniformed contract killers

Who act like proud poachers.

The white world demands the ease

Of an accepted revolution

Floating drugged out on the expectations of nothing, wrapped

In bed with their everyday monsters. Close your eyes

And pretend that your noose is a necklace.

The black body

Can be paid off with the wrong ballot or the right bullet

Saturated dreams that smell sickly like rotted meat, pain

Souring sweat.

The black body

Is still feared in the stillness of death.

They are afraid of their ghosts,

They believe they are harder to live with

Than the weight of mercy denied.

When you are black in America

There’s always the chance that the sirens will pass you

Like a runaway carnival, ruthless driver behind

The wheel flying past controlled consciousness.

The minute you can breathe again

Hands will encircle your neck

Anger appeased with the silence of your pulse. 

Vanessa Willoughby is a writer and editor. She is currently working on her first novel.

This is the last post in the 8-part series featuring poets and writers on theme of OUTRAGE. Here is my brief intro to the project.

A Letter For Waiting

By Christopher Carmona

I am waiting for Lawrence Ferlinghetti…to tell me what to write next…I am waiting in nothingness…for something to happen…but nothing ever happens here…I am waiting for the sparrow to turn red…and whisper that justice in Ferguson is real…I am waiting for tooth fairy to take my teeth and leave money under my pillow …but tooth fairy doesn’t want one tooth…it wants them all…I am waiting for 43 students to return from Guerrero…I am waiting for #Ayotzinapa to mean more than digital cries in tumblr-verse…I am waiting for brown rabbits to turn white so they won’t be asked for papers at checkpoint…I am waiting for tattooed bruises to disappear from women’s faces who only wear fear-scented perfume…I am waiting for the tree of liberty to be refreshed by blood of patriots…not its tired huddled masses…

I am waiting for scissors to cut more than paper…I am waiting for paper to be stronger than printed lies…I am waiting to tell myself that less rocks and more talk will change the world…I am waiting for another gunman and his student-riddled bullet ride…so we can talk about change…because we live in nothingness…where only talk is allowed…action is terroristic/ treasonous/ and serves only the 99%...I am waiting for bones to unbreak…for guns to unshoot…for death to give birth to life…and not the other way around…I am waiting for snails to run faster than cheetahs…I am waiting for songs to cure AIDS and paintings to rid us of poverty…not give us money…but enrich lives so that dollars don’t dance in heads like sugarplums on Christmas…I am waiting to give America an 8-pack of crayons with all the colors of the world because she only has white & black. I am waiting for people to see more black and white movies so they can finally appreciate the wonders of purple lilacs and yellow sunflowers…

I am waiting for poetry to be written on walls and art to be written down in books…I am waiting for a tomorrow that will start night and end day…I am waiting for white sheets with eyeholes to once again by visible to the world…I am waiting for the avante garde to list its assets on Craigslist…in the personals…LFSJ (looking for social justice) without LHB (light human bondage)…I am waiting for barrios to echo in the halls of Casa Blanca…I am waiting for brothers not to be shot down like paper targets in a shooting range… I am waiting for you choke hold that killed Eric Garner to apologize. I am waiting for someone to actually hear I can’t breathe and do something about it. I am waiting for the 6 bullets buried deep in Michael Brown to admit they knew they shouldn’t have been there. Did you see hands in air, bullets? Black man on knees? Or did you only see the demon named blackness in the mind of whiteness made to feel like little babies with guns? What about you gun that thought you were a Taser? Leaving poor Oscar Grant on a stop he will never exit. What about you hoodie? Were too menacing to walk down a white street in Florida armed with skittles and iced tea,  and Trayvon? I am waiting for an answer.

I am waiting for Anonymous to hack through the lies of racism and dump its emails on the internet…showing us that it only eats greed…drinks contempt and watches ignorance on Youtube like porn…I am waiting…I am waiting…I am waiting for brown kids with Spanish skin and whitewashed minds to paint their lives purple like that cow Socrates…I am waiting for poets to have a retirement plan that pays off before they are dead…I am waiting for Mark Strand to come back from the dead…like some zombie poet with only a hunger for flesh ideas...I am waiting for Robin Williams to unkill himself…and teach us about the importance of sucking the marrow out of life…I am waiting for Bill Cosby to unrape all those women…and just be funny again…I am waiting for Howl to be taught in kindergarten…I am waiting for the streets to keep burning so we can always see white cops in the dark…I am waiting for this poem to change the world…I am waiting for the impossible…and I know it…

Christopher Carmona is a Chican@ Beat poet from the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. The Texas Observer recognized him as being one of the top five writers in 2014. He has two books of poetry, beat and I Have Always Been Here. He edited The Beatest State In The Union: An Anthology of Beat Texas Writings with Chuck Taylor and Rob Johnson and is working on a book called Nuev@s Voces Poeticas: A Dialogue about New Chican@ Poetics with Isaac Chavarria, Gabriel Sanchez, & Rossy Lima Padilla to be published by Slough Press in 2015. Currently he is the Artistic Director of the Coalition of New Chican@ Artists.

This is the 7th post in the 8-part series featuring poets and writers on theme of OUTRAGE. Here is my brief intro to the project.

When Was the Last Time You Saw A Black Boy Smile?

By Jasminne Mendez

(In response to Pedro Pietri’s poem: When Was the Last Time You Saw Mami Smile?)

He ran from the crib to the cradle

Breathless

As his daddy smiled

So he smiled too

He read a book about a fish

One

Two

Three

A, B, C

Gasping for air

And the teacher smiled

So he smiled too

There was a momma

And a Nana

And a brother

And a sister

And cousins

And boyfriends

And Sister’s baby

And…

And a small house

With too few rooms

Bars and locks on the door

And no daddy anymore

But this little black boy

Found the strength

To inhale

Exhale

And smile

When he didn’t pass the test

And was expelled for attention deficit

His mama threw a fit

But there was nothing he’d regret

So he sighed with relief

And smiled

No money coming in

Every day he’d go out

Get ignored by most

Accosted by some

But never treated fairly

And he barely

Had any patience left

For smiling

He tried to get a job

Was told he looked like a slob

Cause his pants hung low

And he spoke too slow

So he left without a word

Huffing and puffing

Until he finally

Stopped smiling

Because his sister needed to get fed

And his mom was sick in bed

And the lights were out

And he wanted to shout

But couldn’t find the words

Because they stuck to his chest

And collapsed in his lungs

And he wanted them understand

But he was

Questioned by the cops

Cause he lingered too long

In one place

His face

Was a target

For hate

That choked his

Already airless airways

All because

He wouldn’t smile

Stopped in the street

Trying to defeat

His predestined fate

Couldn’t get it straight

When they asked him his name

So they took out a cane

And…

And look America…

I see him smiling now

And we should never make

Him feel bad again

We’ll always give you a chance

And a home

And food

And enough

Enough

Just

Enough

Because…

I can see you from my laptop

I can see you from my phone

I can see you on the news

Smiling

Smiling when they cuffed you

Smiling when they beat you

Smiling

Smiling

Smiling

even

when

you

couldn’t breathe

Jasminne Mendez is a performance poet, actress, teacher and published writer. She is a graduate of University of Houston where she received both her B.A. in English Literature and her M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction. She captivates audiences through the passion and energy of her words and voice and enjoys performing for both old and young audiences alive. Mendez has performed her poetry in venues all around Houston, including the MFAH, Rice and the Alley Theatre. She has shared the stage with respected writers and poets, notably, Sandra Cisneros and Taylor Mali. Mendez has been published both nationally and internationally and her first multi-genre memoir Island of Dreams was released in 2013 by Floricanto Press. She is currently at work on her second memoir Thick Skinned and hopes to publish it by the end of 2015. 

This is the 6th post in the 8-part series featuring poets and writers on theme of OUTRAGE. Here is my brief intro to the project.

By Wesley Rothman

Without the moon we find      our lightness      whiteness     

washed out brightness      coming down on us      a baton of

unconsciousness        unconscienceness      the breakage we

didn’t know we could bring      riot is not reaction      it is

burning down from within      how we burn an other’s body

down quietly          over time        keep the ember humming    

blowing        blowing        blow        until the tongue flares     

sizzled and singeing                 riot is the mind of whiteness     

looting stores propped in the chest         robbing water and

bread to break down      the head and will of an other      the

riot begins with silence      with an attack      a drone strike     

a sniper some mile off      every voice in the street    fist    cry     

every face in the eye           of a camera is not                a riot     

not a threat      a force to stop traffic    bring on the red lights     

shut down the headlights      eager to blind           bring down

the sky      the moon         bring down                   bring down   

Poet's note: Poems work like mirrors. But only if we come to them with willingness, desire to listen and witness. If we come to poetry open to what we will find, we may find the despicable parts of ourselves, of the world. We may find hope, or a way through, or a way to better love another person. We may find our outrage with the world. With ourselves. And we may find, in the same poem, a way to overturn ourselves and the murderous parts of the world. When we approach a poem, we approach ourselves. Thank the universe for #BlackPoetsSpeakOut, for the history of voices speaking out, for the voices in our communities and in our twitter feeds and in our poems. Thank the universe for the voices approaching the nation, approaching those of us who need a mirror. We need to listen and amplify.

Wesley Rothman's poems and criticism have appeared or are forthcoming in American Microreviews and Interviews, Crab Orchard Review,New England Review, Post Road, Poet Lore, and Prairie Schooner, among others. He works widely in publishing, and teaches writing and cultural literatures throughout Boston.

This is the 5th post in the 8-part series featuring poets and writers on theme of OUTRAGE. Here is my brief intro to the project.

FROM THE DEVIL'S SALT

By France-Luce Benson

Playwright's Note: The following is a monologue from my play “The Devil’s Salt”. From 1959-1986, during the Duvalier dictatorship, Haiti was terrorized by a brutal and corrupt civilian army known as the Ton Ton Macoutes. As America gradually becomes a “Police Nation”, and victims fall prey to men in blue who are apparently above the law – I can’t help but draw parallels. In the play, the character of Serge illustrates how quickly one can fall prey to corruption; and if we are not willing to take action immediately, things will only get worse.

SERGE: We arrested a man in Port au Prince, several weeks ago, held him there in prison, until a few days ago, when we-we… I do not even know what we were looking for, what they wanted from him. But he would not talk. He had no information. This was clear. They say he was planning a coup d’etat, but they had no evidence, en.  He was a very thin man, a small man, with gentle eyes, and a polite way of speaking. Even when they call him gaga, makak, piece of shit, devil - He never fight back. So a few days ago, I was asked to take him to a room. The stench was like the chicken coop after the rain. They tell me to close the door, then to tie his hands and his feet. One of the other officers had a bag, he turned it upside down and let the contents fall at his feet. At first, I did not realize what it was. But as I looked closer…  They were decomposed, green, some still with fresh blood. I could see-a hand, a foot, an ear. The officer took his machete and chopped them up into smaller pieces. My job was to force and hold his mouth open as they stuffed it. They continued until he begin to choke and vomit. Vomit and blood shot from his mouth, his nose. Finally they stopped. He was on the floor now, choking on human remains. And then the officer with the machete sliced his hand, spit, and casually walked out. The others followed. I had become sick, and I must have lost consciousness for a moment. When I opened my eyes again, everyone was gone, everyone but him.  I can still hear him now. His last breath, begging, crying to be set free. I could not stand to watch him suffer like that, to hear the breath pushing to get out. So I took my knife and stab him in the chest. Just to set him free. I say a prayer for his soul, and I leave. I say to myself, ce fini. When I return home, I will burn my uniform and I will never return to Port Au Prince. Fini! But now, now they want me to… There is a man here, un Agronome, by the name of Edner Vil. Un agronome, oui? A man of the earth! What could he possibly? I have orders to take care of him. Un agronom! I can not take another life, en. I can still hear him. I can still smell his blood. I can’t, but, but I was told that if I do not follow orders they will come here. They will hurt you, and the children. What must I do?  En? Tell me, what I must do!  Tell me!

France-Luce Benson’s plays have been produced by Crossroads Theatre Company, The Fire This Time Festival, New Perspectives Theatre, JACK, Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre, Harlem9, the Billie Holiday Theatre, and the Ensemble Studio Theatre where she is an honored Lifetime Member. She graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with an M.F.A. in Dramatic Writing, and has also studied at Columbia University/Harlem Arts Alliance, Circle Repertory Theatre School, and Florida International University. Her screenplay, Healing Roots, won the prestigious Alfred P. Sloan screenplay competition, and the Sloan Foundation in association with Ensemble Studio Theatre also awarded Ms. Benson a New Play Commission to write The Devil’s Salt, a full length play about Haitian activist Jean Dominique; which was featured at EST’s First Light Festival 2013.  She is a two time Schubert Fellow, as well as a three time scholarship recipient at the Upright Citizens Brigade. She is the writer and producer of the short,“Black Baby Agency”, which she developed with UCB.   Ms. Benson is also an Associate Professor at St. Johns University, a proud member of the Dramatist Guild of America, and New York Women in Film and Television.  Fati’s Last Dance was honored by the Kennedy Center (Lorraine Hansberry Award), and won the Mary Marlin Fisher Prize from Carnegie Mellon University. Most recently, she was named a Finalist for the Women’s Project Playwrights Lab. She is currently working on a new play tentatively titled “The Deportation Chronicles”, commissioned in association with ACLU, and based on the true stories of hundreds of American Immigrants unjustly detained and deported. 

This is the 4th post in the 8-part series featuring poets and writers on theme of OUTRAGE. Here is my brief intro to the project.

By Darrel Alejandro Holnes

1. Show love to a Black child, tell them that you think #BlackLivesMatter and mean it. 

2. Remember that justice is within reach for everyone, so even if you're not on a grand jury you can still distinguish right from wrong, speak your mind, your voice matters. 

3. Get and stay informed about state-sanctioned violence so future victims know to fight it because they are not the only ones who will hold the state accountable. Know your rights. 

4. Ask a Black elder what they'd never thought they'd live to see but did, then live to see a miracle.

5. Invest in yourself, take a class, learn something new, empower yourself to bring your dreams to life.

6. Celebrate that something has tried to kill you and failed. Those who are gone live on in each of us who move forward. We are all Trayvon Martin. We are all Mike Brown. We are all Eric Garner.

7. Remember dreaming is the root of all hope. You must dream of a better America for it to come true.

8. Find your courage. Know that to be afraid is to have already lost the battle for justice and for a better USA.

9. Remember you are a direct reflection of humanity and within your own actions is either love or fear. Vindicate the death of those killed by fear by choosing to act with love. 

10. Know that you are your own refuge; despite how others may occupy your life and your spaces, no one can occupy your happy place. Visit the place at least once a day through meditation, through prayer, through an activity that takes you there. 

11. Remember that dreams are the greatest act of resistance. 

12. Maya Angelou said "I am the hope and dream of a slave". If we were truly free would we still need to be hoping and dreaming of a world free of violence and institutionalized oppression? We must keep hope alive because we are still in desperate need of it. 

13. The world is limitless, dreaming is doing so get to work. The word is limitless, writing is prophetic, so get to work. Dream it, see it, be it.

Check out and support #BLACKPOETSSPEAKOUT

Darrel Alejandro Holnes is from Panama City and the former Canal Zone of Panamá. His poetry has been published in Poetry Magazine, The Best American Experimental Writing, Callaloo, The Caribbean Writer, The Potomac, MEADE, Lambda Literary, Assaracus, Weave Magazine, The Feminist Wire, The Paris American, Kweli, featured on The Best American Poetry blog, and elsewhere. He is the co-author of PRIME: Poetry & Conversations (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2014). He is a proud CantoMundo and Cave Canem fellow.

This is the 3rd post in the 8-part series featuring poets and writers on theme of OUTRAGE. Here is my brief intro to the project.

By Minal Hajratwala

Your rage is pomegranates spilling open on ice, is the flute’s thin silver seam, is a volcano spitting rivulets of fire to wash clean these corrupt lands.  Your rage is solidarity before after & during the hashtag. Your rage is the angel of karma before after & during the video. Your rage throbs tight in your chest against symbologies of sticks & stones & chokes that break ligament & bone. Your rage is the fulcrum of your desire, chimaerae busting out of cages, heart-sparks flying. Your rage gets shit done & it is no joke. Your rage is the luminous gold truth of sunrise, what you sit with long enough to dissolve your fear.  Your rage is a checkmate to your compromise. Your rage is heat from a magnifying glass, focused, bursting into flame.  Your rage is a cool blue spotlight circling the empty stage. Your rage is the dog who won’t lie down for the wrong master, fierce hen who won't be moved till her brood is hatched, moth who unbinds her cocoon & lifts her body toward light.  Your rage is a lesson & you learn it as you breathe. Your rage is this holy sword slicing through stone walls.  Your rage is a sentence that says what it must, full-stop. Your rage is our dream of a sweeter brighter world. Your rage is this oar treading the sea to steer this ship this gorgeous fucking hot mess goddamn revolution.

Author's note: The title is a line from “Cruelty” by Namdeo Dhasal, poet and founder of the Dalit Panther movement.

Minal Hajratwala is an award-winning author, poet, writing coach, and co-founder of The (Great) Indian Poetry Collective, devoted to publishing new poetic voices from global India. 

This is the 2nd post in the 8-part series featuring poets and writers on theme of OUTRAGE. Here is my brief intro to the project.

 By Bakar Wilson

How do I respond to the killing of young Black men? I respond with my own stories. I am a gay black man from the South. I was born and raised in West Tennessee. I never tell people this, but my maternal grandfather and Medgar Evers were fraternity brothers. They belonged to Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc. When my mother was a child, Medgar Evers would hide out at my grandparents’ house in Mississippi while the KKK looked for him, wanting to hurt or kill him. My mother remembers sitting on his lap as a small child; she was probably around 5 years old. The KKK would eventually kill him. Until the age of 15, I lived in a rural town an hour and a half away from Memphis, TN, home of Elvis Presley. People from around the world travel to see his house and visit his grave. When I was 15, we moved to Memphis, and I finished out high school there, and began plotting my escape from the South.

Unlike my mother and father, whose generation was integrating schools, I am a beneficiary of their bravery and resilience. From Kindergarten to 8th grade, I was one of two Black students in my class, and I was popular and smart. I graduated 3rd in my Junior High class, the other Black student also graduated in the top 10. So there we were, two brown skinned children representing our entire race in this predominantly White elementary and junior high school, in a mostly White town. We knew what we had to do, and there were issues. In 4th grade, I remember being called the “N word” during recess from a certain person. It hurt, and I told the P.E. teacher who I had a crush on at the time, but I did not even realize what being gay meant, and for some reason his name escapes me. Anyway, the student was punished; I went home and told my Mom, and she explained to me again how this world views us. And everything returned to “normal,” but from that moment on I realized how careful I have to be, how I must behave in a nonthreatening way and acquiesce to the white privilege that surrounds me. So, that is what I did under the fantasy that things will get better. I will not always be a target for hate like Medgar Evers, or Emmitt Till, or Martin Luther King, Jr. or Malcolm X.

Fast forward almost 30 years later and here we are. Here we are except things are different for me. I am 37 and have come to terms with my queerness thanks to years and years of therapy. I live in New York City. I am an adjunct English professor for CUNY and an accomplished poet, yet I am still a target even outside of the South, not from ignorant kids from the playground or the classroom, but from police. People who are sworn to “serve and protect.” My question is: Whom are they serving and what are they protecting? This is rhetorical of course because we all know the answer. They are serving those in power and protecting the system of oppression and privilege that has existed in this country since its birth. Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and the list goes on and on, all of these men’s fates are connected to the social pathology of racism and black fear that pervades this country in its culture and media.

AC360 on CNN presented a special report on children’s attitudes about race in 2010. Guess what, not only did White children realize the value of white skin, but so did Black children. When Black children were asked who the pretty child is, or who the good child is they pointed to pictures of White children. And this is not something that their parents are teaching them; we are teaching it to them as a culture. Children are not stupid or naïve; they are sponges able to absorb the information, signals, and messages sent around them and analyze them, and gather an understanding of what it means to them and how it will affect them. So while White children receive the message that they are valued and loved and protected, Black children are receiving the message that they are devalued, dangerous, and targets of abuse and murder. The root is racism.

When I hear that racism does not exist anymore because we have a Black president or that we live in a post-racial country, I want to throw up. This country is more racist than ever. The killing of young Black men by police officers is modern day lynching. During Jim Crow, lynching was not only legal, people used to sit outside and eat lunch or dinner while it all happened in front of them. They were able to hold down their food. There is no audience for what has been happening now, which is progress, I guess, but what the fuck? How do I respond to all of this? I respond with anger. I respond by telling my students that they have to get involved with the political process. They have to vote. All young people and people in general have to vote. I am sure people will read this and see me as some militant, angry Black man who hates White people and who hates the system. Well, I do hate the system, very much, and I am angry, but some of my best friends are White, and I love them and always will. I love them because they see what I see. They see their privilege; they see the injustice; they see the hypocrisy of the Declaration of Independence that this country holds as sacrosanct. And at the end of the day, they are wonderful, intelligent people who are humanists, not racists. How do I respond? I respond as a teacher to young minds. I respond as a poet. I respond as a human being.

Bakar Wilson is a fellow of Cave Canem, the prestigious organization nourishing vital new voices in African-American poetry.  He has performed his work at the Bowery Poetry Club, Poetry Project, The Studio Museum of Harlem, and The Asian-American Writer's Workshop among others.  His poetry has appeared in The Vanderbilt Review, Stretching Panties, The Brooklyn Rail, and Flicker and Spark: A Contemporary Queer Anthology.  A native of Tennessee, Bakar received his B.A. in English from Vanderbilt University and his M.A. in Creative Writing from The City College of New York. He is an Adjunct Professor of English at Borough of Manhattan Community College at CUNY.

This is the first post in the 8-part series featuring poets and writers on theme of OUTRAGE. Here is my brief intro to the project.

--Rosebud Ben-Oni, December 9, 2014

Currently visiting the students of the University of Texas at Brownsville, and loving it. Readings, workshops and hanging out with some amazing young artists...

New poems: "All The Wild Beasts I Have Been" appears in Matter: A Journal of Political Poetry and Commentary.

"If Delilah the Younger Sister" up at The Best American Poetry blog and answered some questions on Faith & Poetry from poet Lisa Marie Basile. 

My story "Anoche, Dearly Departed" appears in Kweli Journal.

I kicked off a roundtable concerning Topography & Landscape in Poetry with poets Erika Meitner, Eduardo Gabrieloff, Hila Ratzabi, Jason Schneiderman and Emily Jaeger appears in ZEEK Magazine, part of the Jewish Daily Forward. Stay tuned for discussions about mapping rituals, authenticity, shifting Jewish identity and humor.

My 4-week workshop on Writing Dynamic Female Characters starts up again on Nov 2. Sign up here.

My poem "She Calls Once That Is a Lie" appears in Nepantla. 

New interview in Eckleburg.

Sarah Maria Medina reviewed my book for As/Us Journal's "Decolonial Love" issue.

I've teamed up with Winter Tangerine Review  for an online feature that explores what home really is. We are drawn to the idea of origins- be it ethnic, religious, sexual, etc- existing in new geographies but longing for, challenging and speaking to homelands, however distant. We want to explore the complexity of voices inhabiting spaces which challenge stability and certainty. There are all sort of homelands, and they are all not necessarily physical. For more information and to submit, please check out the call here.

Reading at Chumley’s Stage

With Five Quarterly’s Vanessa Gabb and Brooklyn Poet’s Jason Koo

Hanging with Lynn and VIDA

With my pink backpack before the reading

(My lovely husband took all these photos)

I was featured on NPR's wonderful show for Quiddity International Literary Journal and Public-Radio Program, along with Akashic Books Senior Editor Ibrahim Ahmad.

Got a new poem in The Coachella Review. Thanks to Stacy Bierlein for hitting me up. 

Are you headed to The New York City Poetry Festival? I'll be reading for Five [Quarterly], which I guest-edited this spring, along with some fantastic poets. Vanessa Gabb hosts what Time Out New York called "a must-see" event.

Here’s my contribution:

1) What are you working on? I'm currently finishing up my second collection of poems and my first novel, both of which share a common thread of migrations as a way of life, rather than as a process to achieve a way of life. The natural world, dissidence, borders, exoduses and adaptation (rather than assimilation) are all on the radar. In the poetry collection, the shark becomes a sort of totem, a means to exit and return; much of the history of the world, I believe, is held in the shark. The novel focuses on a man from Fuzhou and an Israeli women, both at the end of their rope, whom find a second wind after meeting in New York City.

2) How does your work differ from others’ work in the same genre? I think because I come from a somewhat disaporic life, having lived in many landscapes, compounded with two very different backgrounds-- my father comes from a religious Jewish community and my mother is Mexican, and converted from Catholicism to Judaism-- that I bear a lot of voices. And these voices are not trying to find any common thread, or harmony. And I'm not going to write the "tortilla" poem to appear Mexican to a U.S. audience. This next collection is about all sorts of bloodsports, tracking for sign, anthropophagies. It's not about the sacred, but the sacred enemies, and consuming them into order to metamorphose into something spiritually ravenous. I mean I identify with Cain, so there you go.

3) Why do you write what you do? Because I read. Because I read and want to join something larger. Because as an outsider to the communities I inherited through blood, an outsider looking in, I can actually enter through word and create a new space within the borders. Because within the borders there are always possibilities. 

4) How does your writing process work? I'm always unpacking, in all senses of the word. It starts there, from some departure, and I try to map it back to the returning, if there is one. I write in the morning, the day, at night. At my desk, in bed (where I'm writing this now), at Cafe Lucid in Woodside as habit-- I walk some 25 blocks to get there because it was first cafe I went to after I returned to NYC from Jerusalem. The ideas come in pieces; sometimes they come out like one of Murakami's perfect ears. If not, there is revision until l feel it's right and can't subtract one more word. Working on one piece is rare. I'm always moving forward-- it's in my blood-- and I always come back to these words from the poet Edmond Jabes:

"Where are you?"

"In what I say."

"What is your truth?"

"What lacerates me."

"And your salvation?"

"Forgetting what I said."

The last line, of course, for Jabes and for myself is the golden promise that Jews have yet to reach, and as a poet, I hope I never reach it. All of those lines got me through a life in Jerusalem, a life I left. I left because of those first two lines. Because, Jewish or not, that is indeed where I am.

Next week, check out Wendy Babiak, Rae Bryant Amy Sayre and Robert Yune.

Wendy Babiak (Conspiracy of Leaves, Plain View Press), serves as co-editor for Poets for Living Waters and writes poetry and fiction with a focus on our relationships with each other and the natural world. A certified Permaculture designer, she hopes to help undermine the extractive economy by making it irrelevant.

Rae Bryant is  the author of the short story collection, The Indefinite State of Imaginary Morals (Patasola Press, 2011). Her stories, essays, and poetry have appeared in print and online at The Paris Review, The Missouri Review, McSweeney’s and Huffington Post.

Amy Sayre Baptista's writing has appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Ninth Letter, and other journals. She is a CantoMundo fellow and a Disquiet fellowship recipient. 

Robert Yune's fiction has appeared in Green Mountains Review, the Kenyon Review, and Los Angeles Review; his debut novel EIGHTY DAYS OF SUNLIGHT is forthcoming July 2014 from Thought Catalog Books.  In 2009, Yune received a fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and in 2012, he was a finalist for the Prairie Schooner Book Prize and the Flannery O'Connor Award.

Two of my poems have been reprinted in Driftless Review, an excerpt from "Shoal" and "The Real Frank Vega was Epic," an ode of sorts to actor Danny Trejo.

New poem in Storyscape: "When the Thorns Unfurl".

New essay, "Anthropophagi Mosiac,” up at The Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review.

My poems "Am Ha’aretz" and "Gods Our Ancestors Did Not Fear" appear as TheThe Poetry Blog's Poem(s) of the Week. Thanks to Lisa Marie Basile, a wonderful curator and poet, for having me.

And congrats to The San Antonio Spurs! Some say it's pure clinic ball, but that's just the game to me, as it should be. I've been a fan since the Admiral/TD Twin Towers era.

My lyrical essay in verse / ode to my mother, "Her Name is Esperanza", appears in The Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review. 

I have a “Portrait of A Feminista,” born out of #SecretLivesOfFeministas to address the absence of Latina voices in mainstream feminism. 

I was a Featured Poet on Entropy for National Poetry Month, and talked poetry and poets.

And thanks to Jeff Newberry and Brent House for reprinting my poem "Returning to Sal Si Puedes" in The Gulf Stream: Poems of the Gulf Coast. 

My poem "The Seasons of Sal Si Puedes" appears in DIALOGIST.

Brenda Riojas interviews me for the NPR Show Corazón Bilingüe on poetry, language and Jerusalem. 

My poem  "At Ten I had the Look of Locust" has been reprinted in Sundress Publications' anthology Not Somewhere Else But Here: A Contemporary Anthology of Women and Place.

Counted my blessings during AWP 2014, when I landed in Seattle only to end up in the ER. Shout out to the EMS team that got me to Highland Medical Center and to the affable and charming Dr. Tran who got me to my second reading in time!

Sunday, February 2, 2014:

In Celebration of The Year of The Horse reading - Join us as 7 writers-- Jared Harel, Diane Chang, Rosebud Ben-Oni, Audrey Dimola, Jen Fitzgerald, Becca Klaver and Stephen Krauska-- come to together to share their work and discuss what The Year of the Horse means to them. A Q&A will follow.

Thursday, February 27th, 2014

AWP Off-Site Event: Seattle's Book-It Repertory Theatre is going to stage my short story "As The Twig as Bent"  along with work from Arisa White, franchise j. harris and Millicent Accardi. Begins at 6 PM.

Thursday, February 27th, 2014

AWP Off-Site Event: I'll be reading at the Bayou Magazine Contributors Reading. The Bottle Neck Lounge. Begins at 7 PM.

Friday, February 28th, 2014

AWP Off-Site Event: I'll be reading at the QueerTopia 2 event. Barnes and Noble, 600 Pine Street. Begins at 7 PM.

AWP Off-Site Event: I'll be reading at StoryQuarterly, Mead, and Tran(s)tidies Reading. Velocity Dance Center, 1621 12th Ave. Seattle WA, 98122. 7:30 PM

Saturday March 1, 2014

AWP Panel on Building Platforms

Stories & Queer Reading Series

Couplet Readings Series

I have three new poems in The Boog Reader 7 which features some of my favorite poets like  Darrel Alejandro Holnes and Joseph O. Legaspi.

Cynthia Reeser reviews SOLECISM for Prick of the Spindle.

2013 was an incredible year.  My first book was published. I read and shared my work in festivals, workshops, synagogues and independent bookstores in the U.S., Canada and Hong Kong. I became a CantoMundo fellow. I got engaged. And just this month I learned that The American Poetry Review selected a poem of mine for their January 2014 issue.

Here's a handful of my favorite moments:

The artist is my uncle who gave me this painting for the cover of my book.

With Arisa White. March 2013.

Austin, TX. March 2013

Austin, TX. March 2013

Houston, March 2013.

With poet Stalina Villarreal

New York, NY. April 2013.

New York, NY. April 2013.

New York, NY. April 2013. Reading with Leah Umansky, Robert Ostrom, Helen Vitoria Karen Pittelman and Joseph O. Legaspi.

Brooklyn, NY. May 2013. Reading with Ekere Tallie, Metta Sama and James Yeh.

Brooklyn, NY. June 2013. Reading and discussion with Anne Hayes, Hila Ratzabi and R. Erica Doyle.

Brooklyn, NY. July 2013. Reading with poets John Deming, Melinda Wilson and Bakar Wilson.

New York, NY. September 2013. Panel discussion Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, Jennifer Crute, Robin Ford and Jessica Lynne.

Portland, OR. October 2013. With Tung-Hui Hu.

Astoria, NY. October 2013.

Astoria, NY. Reading with Bakar Wilson, Sheila Maldonado and Joanna Sit.

Brookyln, NY. December 2013. Reading with Urayoan Noel, Anthony Cody and Rio Cortez.

Hong Kong.

Two new poems in Lana Turner Journal 

A new poem in Bayou (dedicated to Metta Sama)

Jillian Mukavetz interviewed me for Women's Quarterly Conversation on SOLECISM, CantoMundo, and fellow writers on fire. 

Poet Hila Ratzabi interviewed me for The Hoot & Hare Review on spiritual homelessness, the geography of memory, and "the violence of naming."

Reading from SOLECISM at Shaarei Beth El Congregation in Toronto on November 30th and couldn't be more excited to meet this lovely congregation!

Sunday, October 6 • 2:00pm - 3:00pm: I'll be reading with poet Tung-Hui Hu; Holly Burdorff with be joining us.

Robert Yune and I discuss writing and industrial landscapes for The Conversant. Thanks to novelist Jessica Lott for a great prompt.

I moderated a panel for HER KIND based on our October theme, BANNED. 

My poem "A Poem for My Niece on No Particular Day" appears in print in GENERATIONS Literary Journal,  Issue 4.

New reviews of SOLECISM in Structo Magazine  and The Rumpus. 

In collaboration with Papercut Press's Nerd Grrrl series, HER KIND, part of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, presents a panel discussion on our upcoming October theme, BANNED. Join me and HER KIND contributors Robin Ford, Jessica Lynne, Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, Jennifer Cruté as they explore how censorship affects their own work, their their favorite "outlaws" in literary history and the passage of HB 2281 in Arizona, and the ensuing attacks, misinformation and unfounded criticism of ethnic studies. Contributors will also read from their work, and invite the audience into the discussion. 

SOLECISM is Junying Kirk's Book of the Month for August .

Lambda Literary interviews Arisa White and myself on all things HER KIND.

 So to Speak reprints my poem "If Esau the Younger Sister" online from their Fall 2013 Issue, plus a short essay.

Feeling: "The Way You Make Me Feel"     

My story "The Whims of Gulls" was reprinted in New Writing: An Anthology of Poetry, Fiction, Nonfiction, Drama: The Best of Americana by Press Americana.

My play "Don't Call it Returning" appears in the print issue of KNOCK #16, The Greed Issue. 

Read with Willie Perdomo, Valerie Martinez and CantoMundo fellows at the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center in Austin.

Author Junying Kirk interviews me here. 

Virginia Quarterly Review featured my poem "Song of Waxing Gibbous" in its Instapoetry feature.

Reviews of SOLECISM in HTML Giant, The Fourth River, Heavy Feather Review  and on Peter Tieryas Liu's The Whimsy of Creation.
 

Some press in The Manhattan Times for Up Theater's 4 Festival with some nice words about my play Quimera and the other plays.

Reviews of SOLECISM appear in Bookslut,  Poydras Review, and The Fox Chase Review .

"We Held Hurricane Season," part of my longer poem "Somewhere in the Darkness, We Broke Even", appears in Issue 5 of Barzakh.

Issue 2 of Camera Obscura  is now available online, and includes my story "A Way Out of the Colonia," which won The Editor's Prize. It was first available in print, 2010. 

My play Quimera on the Storm will run for 12 performances as part of a AEA showcase at UP Theater from June 4 to June 15. Details to follow. 

The Conversant interviews my HER KIND co-editor Arisa White and me on our editorial philosophy, being out of body and mercurial tricksterness. 

My essay "The Wild of Kept Things" appears on The Better Bombshell. 

And a pleasant surprise: my BookWoman reading was a Best Bet featured in the Austin American-Statesman.  

Had a great time at AWP, my first time ever. We killed it at the VIDA Prom. 

Tony Diaz for Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say interviews me on their KPFT-FM, Houston, radio show. Thanks to hosts Tony Diaz, Liana Lopez, and Bryan Parras for having me, and to John Pluecker for his fantastic support:

Poet Amy King interviews me in the East Village newspaper BOOG City.

My newest 7 Train story "Take All This Dead in Me and Make It Sing" appears in Sundog Lit. 

And It's official - I'm a 2013 CantoMundo Fellow. Still in joyful tears. 

My poems "On Living" and "The Appetites of Plastic Flowers" are now live on The Brooklyner; the latter first appeared in the wonderful Sundog Lit.

My poems "Questions for My Doctor" and "The Night Shark" appear in Sundog Lit Issue #2. 

What is the title of your book? SOLECISM--  which is, to say, a meditation in and concerning nonstandard or ungrammatical usage; many a breach of good manners or etiquette; errors, improprieties or inconsistencies.  

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? An exodus, cross-pollination and exorcism of borders I have crossed, ranging trom that between Mexico and the U.S. to East and West Jerusalem.

What genre does your book fall under? Poetry.

Where did the idea come from for the book? I am guilty of all the meanings of the word solecism, so I decided to explore that, rather correct it. The why and how and when I  error, fumble, miscommunicate. Each has its own world, opens new realms, challenges what people assume to be fixed and static-- traditions, borders, spacial identities, even histories. Ruins on the border of Mexico and Guatemala, for instance, are quite fertile.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript? I've been working on the manuscript itself for about 2 years, though some poems were drafted as far back as my freshman year of college. 

Who or what inspired you to write this book? My family. The stories they've carried down with them, the ones we've lived/are living together. The Torah. The intelligence and behavior of birds, especially crows and sparrows, their tenacity to survive. The sense of humor and curiosity of parrots. Corridos, narcorridos, Posada's broadsides with the calveras. The melancholy of Jerusalem. Migrations. 

Who will publish your book? Virtual Artists' Collective 

What other works would you compare this book to within your genre? The poet Marian Haddad, whose work I treasure, said the manuscript reminded her of Harryette Mullen. I'm not quite sure to whom to compare, but I can name the poets I've read throughout its completion: Guillaume Apollinaire, Arisa White, Nazim Hikmet, Metta Sama, Mahmoud Darwish, Yehuda Amichai, Tara Betts, Lee Herrick, the Israeli poet Rahel, Lorca, Coral Bracho, Amy King. All these poets have influenced my writing. The sprawling prose of Orhan Pamuk and Yaakov Shabtai too. 

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition? Since it's poetry, I'd love it if Salma Hayek or Javier Bardem read them aloud. They both have such great voices.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? The cover is a painting by my uncle Rogelio Cisneros. It’s a tribute to a wolf he found and raised himself; he never truly defeated the wildness in her, and that's something I've always admired, the ability to not tame but adapt to the various shades of her wildness. My uncle is married to my mother's sister Olivia, and they live in San Diego; one can see from their house the flickering lights of Tijuana. The neighbors were always on the verge of figuring out she was a wolf. After years of working on border patrol, my uncle retired and had decided to dedicate his time to painting. Then, my Aunt Olivia-- the life of the party, so to say-- became very ill and my uncle has had to take care of her full time. I am in awe of that love.   

Thanks again to Adriana for putting me on the tag line.  And here are my tags for next Wednesday:

Ren Powell, author of Mercy Island: New and Selected Poems

Jade Sylvan, author of Kissing Oscar Wilde

Arisa White, author of A Penny Saved

Lee Herrick, author of Gardening Secrets of the Dead

Stephen Delbos, author of Chetty's Lullaby

Ching-In Chen, author of The Heart's Traffic

Went to Hong Kong with my love for the first time ~ just my speed... 

My play Don't Call it Returning  appears in Knock Magazine online; it will be reprinted in Print Issue #16 in June 2013.

"To The Night Shark"  appears as TheThePoetry's Poem of the Week. 

"Un-Returning as Talisman: On Letting Go," my new essay on 7 Train Love for Sundog Lit Blog, is live now.  

My poem "Off the Q" appears in The Fox Chase Review. 

The  Tidal Basin Review nominated my poem "Coming of Age in Sal Si Puedes," published in the Summer 2012 Cultural Pride Issue, for a Pushcart.

My poem "Song of Waxing Gibbous" appears in print in Puerto del Sol.  

I'll be writing a series on 7 Train Love for Sundog Lit Blog. The first "Jubilant Moon Cloud Affirmations" is live now.  

Melinda Wilson interviews me about my forthcoming debut book of poetry SOLECISM for the Southeast Review. Check it out here.

My poem "Coming-of-Age in Sal Si Puedes" has been reprinted in The Feminist Wire. 

My play "Owless of Santa Clara" appears in the October 2012 of Scene 4 Magazine.   

My poem "For the Mixed Child with Pale Skin" appears in The Bakery. Thanks to editor Albert Abonado for including me.

My poems "Coming-of-Age in Sal Si Puedes," "Creation Story of Sal Si Puedes" and "The Reply of Sal Si Puedes" appear in Tidal Basin Review's Cultural Pride Issue. So honored to be a part of this.

And just added to the event, I will be reading from SOLECISM at "Escritores por Ciudad Juárez: un manifiesto y un recital" at 4 PM at McNally Jackson. Thanks to Madeline Millan and Pillar Blanco Ruiz for inviting me. 

My poems "Gangster as Narwhal" and "Pauraque" appear in the new issue of Poecology. Check out the whole issue here.

My poem "Returning to Sal Si Puedes" appears here in B O D Y. Thanks to editors Stephan Delbos and Christopher Crawford. 

I'll be reading in The Bakery's Deep Fried Reading Series in November in Rochester. Also, the very cool Albert Abonado is seeking submissions-- especially from women-- for The Bakery.   

 HARRIET, the blog of The Poetry Foundation, interviews my co-editor Arisa White, VIDA Founder Cate Marvin and me about HER KIND. Read all about here.

Speaking of VIDA, Riverhead Books is throwing a shindig/fundraiser at the Brooklyn Brewery. Come out to grab a drink, dance and mingle with us.  

An excerpt of my play "The Amaranthine Thread" appears here in Tribe Magazine.

My story "As the Twig is Bent" appears here in Ragazine. Special thanks to editor Metta Sama. 

Summer Reading: Tim Horvath's Understories, Arisa White's Hurrah's Nest, Hmong Writers' Circle's How Do I Begin, Joanna Sit's My Last Century and Cheryl Strayed's Wild.

I'm THRILLED  to announce my debut book of poems SOLECISM will be published by Virtual Artists Collective in early 2013. 

Equally thrilled to present HER KIND, which is part of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, which Arisa White and I serve as editors.

A friend sent me Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes' last message on Twitter: "There must be something beyond slaughter and barbarism to support the existence of mankind and we must all help search for it."

"Ants Eating a Bone," the first of my Fuzhou in Flushing stories, appears here in Escape into Life. 

My  poem "Over the River from Sal Si Puedes" originally appeared in CURA's Issue 4  online, and now is in the 2nd print issue alongside some fantastic work. All proceeds  go to Covenant House.

My cousin Michael K. Gomez won the SA Music Award for Best Drummer. Catch him this summer playing with the mad talented Carlton Zeus. 

FIT is sponsoring a production of my play Drawn from Water as part of Hispanic Heritage month in late September/ early October; there'll also be a talk back with the cast and myself. Stayed tuned for details. 

Midnight in Matamoros has now gone into development under the dramaturgy of Bob Teague, Artistic Director of Truant Arts. We've brought abroad Carlton Zeus, a Brownsville native and fresh new voice, to write original music for the play.

The play was conceived first in a poem I recently wrote, "At Ten I had the Look of Locust," which was recently published.