Rigoberto González : Harriet the Blog : The Poetry Foundation

Author Archive

This small but noble venture begins in 1991 in Connecticut, with hand-printed limited-edition broadsides of original works by writers established and emerging. Two years later it goes on hiatus as the press relocates and regroups, reappearing last year in New York City. This time around, the press produces attractive little chapbooks under its three imprints: Fabula Rasa (with a focus on folklore), Funny Bones (works of light verse and humor), and Body Language, a series highlighting works that engage issues of gender and sexuality. Title one of this third imprint is the poetry chapbook written by Achy Obejas.

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02.08.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (1)

Rigoberto González

Wednesday Shout Out

Rick Barot is one of the most elegant, graceful poets I have come across. And I have anticipated the release of his new book after having taught The Darker Fall many times over the years since its first release in 2002. I have always admired his attention to rhythm, to the line, and to the precision of his language. Barot’s carefully chiseled stanzas give the distinct impression that he’s sculpting, or carving out of wood a marvelous artifact, not wooden at all, but startling and expressive. Perhaps this is why a number of the poems in this new collection are in dialogue with artistic media: literature, film, painting, and even performance art.

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02.06.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (1)

Rigoberto González

Post AWP Bliss

Well, I survived my ninth AWP conference. I’ll say what every New Yorker (including me) said about the conference being held in our city this year: it wasn’t fair. We didn’t get to feel as if we were leaving our duties and obligations behind since we simply skipped over from our respective Big Apple dwellings. But to even out the score, I heard many out-of-towners share this sentiment: that they didn’t feel they came to New York; they came to AWP.

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02.04.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (9)

Rigoberto González

Wednesday Shout Out

My fifth month of weekly shout outs comes to a close today (only one more month before I too sign off the PF blog—how I’ll miss thee, Harriet!), so I decided to do something different: instead of reaching over to my personal poetry bookshelf or to the review copies pile, I skipped over to my local neighborhood bookstore to browse the literature stacks and I came across the following volume by a name not unfamiliar to me—I hear he’s one of the illustrious poet graduates from Queens College. My interest was further piqued by the subtitle: “Letters to the Islamic Republic.” As I leafed through the collection, the critical tone against an oppressive religious government and its constant assaults on freedom of expression emanated loud and clear. Ah, politics and poetry: my favorite artistic combination. I offer two pieces, the second an excerpt from a longer poem:

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01.30.08 PERMALINK | NO COMMENTS

Rigoberto González

In Praise of Cavafy

As a young gay man growing up closeted in a Mexican household, I had to find my queer role models in books. In high school I heard that Federico García Lorca was gay, and that so was Tennessee Williams, and Truman Capote, and Walt Whitman. Though their works weren’t necessarily queer—I really had to read into them sometimes—knowing that the literature was the artistry of a gay man was enough. I had yet to discover John Rechy, Francisco X. Alarcón, and Arturo Islas (my gay Chicano role models, none of them taught at my high school) but I did come across during my senior year, the verse by the Greek poet Cavafy (1863-1933).

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01.28.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (5)

Rigoberto González

AWP Countdown

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Say what you will about this conference, it’s the one I look forward to every year. And I hope to see you there. I’m on two panels this time around, and I’ll spare you the details. I’d rather promote other happenings, like the annual Con Tinta Pachanga, one of the many off-site events made possible because the Chicano/Latino writers wanted to have a community space of their own during this reunion-at-large of writers. All are welcome.

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01.24.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (8)

Rigoberto González

Wednesday Shout Out

Winner of the American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize, Gregory Pardlo’s Totem, is (as its title declares) a literary version of an emblem representing, in this case, the ancestry that inspires the poet’s verse. But the ancestry in question extends beyond the homes of the poet’s childhood and moves into the intellectual and spiritual communities of his adult education and curiosity. Reflection and observation merge frequently, set in motion by the most incidental of activities that become significant suddenly.

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01.23.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (1)

Rigoberto González

Poeta en Nueva York

There’s been plenty of talk and balk on Harriet regarding translations, and as a translator and teacher of literary translation, as someone who’s first language is not English, I’ve decided to finally speak up but through the introduction of one of the best translation projects I have come across to date: Pablo Medina and Mark Statman’s collaborative English version of Federico García Lorca’s conflicted love letter to our beloved New York City.

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01.22.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (6)

Rigoberto González

Wednesday Shout Out

When I came across this book of poems, I was struck by its use of the surreal: “The password is still bird, folded wings unfurling against the damp sides of your mouth.” Jenny Browne crafts her language into imagery that gestures toward optical illusion, where the vehicle and the tenor can switch places without warning. Look closely and it’s exactly what it seems, and what it doesn’t seem. And in this book of curious metaphors, everything is subject to transformation: a troubled marriage, a bout of insomnia, the man who gives bad directions in downtown San Antonio.

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01.16.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (1)

Rigoberto González

NBCC Award Finalists

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Just returned from the party at City Lights Bookstore. You can check out the finalists for the other categories at the National Book Critics Circle blog Critical Mass, but since I’m on both the NBCC board and on Harriet, I thought I’d post the poetry finalists here.