Author Archive
Rigoberto González
Aurora de Albornoz (1926-1990)
A celebrated scholar of Spanish and Latin American literature, Aurora de Albornoz also published eleven books of poetry during her lifetime. She’s an innovative poet who incorporated prose poems, collage, and other modernistic techniques into her verse. Her writing is situated within the poetry about the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) and “la Generación de los ’50,” one of many important periods in which the national literature flourished during Franco’s dictatorship (1939-1975). Her body of work is an important contribution to world letters because, among other achievements, it gives voice to the experience of los exiliados, or Spanish exiles—one of the prominent women poets in a group dominated by men.
Rigoberto González
The Shrubberies
Ronald Johnson (1935-1998) died at the age of 62 in his home state of Kansas (after an extended stay in San Francisco), leaving behind a notable legacy of verse that has influenced a number of young writers experimenting with language and form. Besides eight poetry books (many of them shamefully out of print) he also produced five cookbooks on American regional cooking since he maintained a second career as a chef and caterer. The Shrubberies was published posthumously in 2001 with Flood Editions, “pruned” from a 229-page, 300-poem manuscript by Johnson’s literary executor, Peter O’Leary.
Rigoberto González
Wednesday Shout Out
Last week I attended a New York City book party in celebration of the release of Stephen Cramer’s second book of poems. It took place in the quirky Telephone Bar & Grill on 2nd Avenue, just south of St. Mark’s. Those familiar film crew trailers were parked along the avenue and East Village dwellers simply went about their evening as the business of leisure & literature proceeded unencumbered. I mention this because in Cramer’s new book there are plenty of odes & homages to those New York moments that make of this city, among many other things, a center for inspiration & creativity.
Rigoberto González
Perchance to Poetry Prof
I’ve been a bit swamped at the end of the semester with a number of academic obligations that it’s been tough to keep up with this one, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. A few years ago I made up my mind that I was going to be what some so pejoratively referred to as “an academic poet.”
Rigoberto González
Wednesday Shout Out
Javier O. Huerta’s debut, Some Clarifications y otros poemas received the Chicano/ Latino Literary Prize from the University of California at Irvine. I’m not sure it could have been a contender in any other competition (except possibly for the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize) because half the poems in this collection are in Spanish or use Spanish in key moments within the poem in ways that not even the context can illuminate the meaning for non-Spanish speakers. It’s a book without apologies in terms of audience: You have to know Spanish and be familiar with elements of the Chicano/Mexicano culture, no matter who you are, to fully appreciate the book. The following prose poem is a more accessible piece for non-Spanish speakers:
Rigoberto González
Poet Memoirists
I never took a creative nonfiction writing class, yet I wrote a memoir and now teach creative nonfiction (or, more specifically, memoir writing) at Queens College and for the Vermont College of Fine Arts. It’s actually my favorite writing genre to teach because the stories I come across are rarely disappointing—people are passionate about their pasts, and they have somehow come to terms with this avenue for expression. It’s not poetry with its demand for compression, it’s not fiction with its propensity for fabrication, it is memoir—flawed memory and the interpretation of truth.
Rigoberto González
Wednesday Shout Out
Jean Valentine’s Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems 1965-2003 received the National Book Award in 2004. Eight previous collections have been just as well received and widely recognized for the intensity of their spirit—a Jean Valentine poem faces the broken world without fear and not without hope. So it is with much enthusiasm that I shine the spotlight on the most recent book by one of the most beloved poets of our times:
Rigoberto González
Stigmata Errata Etcetera
In his introduction to this book by Bill Knott, which includes 16 collages (apart from the one gracing the cover) by poet/artist Star Black, Mark Doty writes: “Knott builds out of fragments; he erases himself. How appropriate that these poems should be accompanied by a suite of collages, in which bits and pieces both make a new whole and remain, distinctly bits and pieces. Star Black’s evocative work here draws upon the vocabulary of surrealism, but like Knott himself she turns those strange juxtapositions and eruptions of dreaming to her own uses.”
Rigoberto González
To Inspire Action
Here’s a quirky and interesting movement taking flight in the Northwest—Seattle, to be exact, one of the most literary cities I have ever lived in and continue to visit (I’ll be there for the duration of Chompipe Days—that’s Turkey Days for y’all pilgrims).
Rigoberto González
Wednesday Shout Out
Whiting Award winner Paul Guest’s second volume of poetry is the recipient of the 4th annual Prairie Schooner Book Prize. And Notes for My Body Double is a book full of gems within gems—lines and images that make each poem glitter and sparkle, even when the sentiment pushing the language forward is sullen or dark.
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Thom Donovan
Bhanu Kapil
Fred Moten
Craig Santos Perez
Sina Queyras
Sotère Torregian
STAFF WRITERS
Cathy Halley
Michael Marcinkowski
Travis Nichols
Fred Sasaki
Don Share
RECENT COMMENTS
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Michael R. wrote:
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Very cool. I had not heard of Piet Hein, and will look him up. A ... MORE »
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Definitely very cool, Craig. Very much liked kari edwards' book and will put this on ... MORE »
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@Sina:
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Beyond Careerism? (Redistributing Poetic... (31)
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To Sonnet, to Son-net, Tuscon Net (55)
All sides now: a correspondence with Lisa... (4)
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IN THIS ISSUE: March 2010
A selection of new work from Dorothea Grossman; new poems by Lavinia Greenlaw, David Yezzi, A.E. Stallings, Gerald Stern, and Dan Gerber; translations of Carlo Betocchi, and Mahmoud Darwish; an Editorial on Ruth Lilly; an exchange between Ilya Kaminsky and Adam Kirsch; an essay by Chen Li; and a review by Daisy Fried.
CHICAGO EVENTS
Poetry Off the Shelf: David Baker
Fri, March 26th, 6:00 PM
Open Books
213 West Institute Place
Free admission
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