Rigoberto González : Harriet the Blog : The Poetry Foundation

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Herrera%20Cover.jpg
I’m in San Francisco for the National Book Critics Circle board meeting, and the award finalists for the six categories will be announced tonight at City Lights Bookstore (I’ll post the poetry finalists as soon as the party’s over), so it seemed appropriate that I highlight a title from City Lights Press.
Additionally, the media has been inundated with snapshots and portraits (flattering and unflattering) of the potential presidential candidates, all of whom have been fielding questions and criticisms regarding certain charged topics such as the economy, the war, and, yet again, “illegal immigration.” How fitting that this book by Chicano poet Juan Felipe Herrera take its position, politically and poetically, fiercely and unapologetically, with its collection of “undocuments.”

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01.11.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (4)

Rigoberto González

Wednesday Shout Out

“The eye will feed itself a myth,” writes James Hoch in this unsettling yet gorgeous second collection of poems that explores the darker stories of art, literature, and the grating newspaper headlines that stop the reader’s breath. And then there is the underbelly of the more familiar happenings, like planting a tree outside a hospital, crossing a nondescript bridge by car, and attending the high school prom:

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01.09.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (1)

Rigoberto González

La Boully

I’ve been making extensive cross-country flights this past month, from NYC to Seattle, from NYC to San Francisco (twice), and from NYC to Ontario, California on my way to the U.S.-México border, and each time I carried a book on board to keep me grounded (pun intended) during these lengthy, gravity-defying plane rides. Well, on one occasion, I had a copy of Jenny Boully’s new book of essays under my arm and as I made my way down the aisle a woman sitting in an exit row leaned over and asked, “Is that a poetry book?”

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01.06.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (4)

Rigoberto González

Writer at Work

I’m trying to get my blog momentum back, but it’s not going to be easy: I’m currently in residence at Vermont College of Fine Arts up in snowy Montpelier. Yesterday it was ten degrees below zero, this morning it felt warmer: three below. And while I was up here I finished editing my forthcoming book of stories, Men without Bliss, and reading nominated books for the National Book Critics Circle (finalists for the award will be announced next week in San Francisco!), and of course, my teaching duties: poetry workshop, poetry lecture, poetry chit-chat.

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01.04.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (2)

Rigoberto González

Wednesday Shout Out

Happy New Year!
During this holiday season of merriment and celebration, as those of us who are more fortunate do our gift-giving and eating and partying, indeed feed our bodies with spiritual and social nourishment, I look to the artists for perspective. I was pleased to discover A New Hunger. The polyglot poet Laure-Anne Bosselaar closes her third full-length book of poems with the following piece, which I have formally adopted as my bedtime prayer:

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01.02.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (1)

Rigoberto González

Information: 20 Years of Joda

As a few of us choose go on break from HARRIET (I’m off to the homeland to see my carnal, Texaco Alex), I’d like to end the year with this shout out because Montoya dedicated it “To Rigoberto De Michoacán.”
It’s “joda,” with a strong J, as in “joder,” as in“chingar,” as in “twenty years of struggle,” as in “twenty years of fighting back.” This collection, commemorating two decades worth of work by Chicano poet José Montoya, one of the writers who pioneered the use of Caló and code-switching in American poetry, was published in 1992 by Chusma House Publications. It includes a portfolio with representations of Pachucas y Pachucos, Cholas y Cholos, Chicanas y Chicanos and other images reflecting a vato’s worldview. “I chose to include ’em,” Montoya explains in his preface, “because they were done in el mismo espíritu that the poems were written in.” One of his watercolors graces the cover.

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12.20.07 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (3)

Rigoberto González

Wednesday Shout Out

Sometimes simplicity’s the thing, though that doesn’t mean the ideas or motivations behind the poem are simple. I came across this beautiful debut on one of my visits back to Arizona State (Josh Rathkamp’s yet another graduate of that writing program—go Sun Devils!), and I was pleased to discover this distinct voice that has much to say about young relationships, first heartbreaks and early encounters with the untamable, unpredictable world of adulthood.

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12.19.07 PERMALINK | NO COMMENTS

Rigoberto González

Girlstory!

Last Friday I had the privilege of sitting as one of the guest judges at the final round of the All Girl Poetry Slam. Sponsored by Girlstory, a multi-cultural, multi-generational women’s writing collective (and an organization created out a residency at another important arts organization, Community Word Project), this venue is all about fostering girl power, and the December 14 event determined the poetry slam team on its way to the Brave New Voices Poetry Slam this summer in Washington D.C.

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12.17.07 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (3)

Rigoberto González

And Songsongsonglessness

Here’s an unusual little book from my shelf. I say unusual because it’s the winner of the Bordighera Poetry Prize for a book whose author is of Italian descent. The prize includes an honorarium, publication, and the promise that the winning manuscript will be published in a bilingual edition, face to face with its Italian translation. It certainly is an honorable gesture, this effort to preserve the legacy of the Italian language, but also to recognize that Italian American literature is part of Italy’s cultural lineage.

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12.14.07 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (2)

Rigoberto González

Wednesday Shout Out

Sarah Browning is the founder of D.C. Poets Against the War and the director of Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness. Her activist furor is a birthright, having been born into an activist family—a sensibility she is passing on to the next generation through her example as an artist, an organizer and an important citizen poet voice speaking out on the injustices being committed by our current government’s misadministration.