Author Archives: Oscar Bermeo

Pigeon Song
After Penina Taesali

[Poem was here.]

At an Ecuadorian Funeral

[Poem was here.]

Barry Bonds trial, courtroom blog Day 11

8:32 a.m.: People lining up for court, but if they’re here to see Bonds they’ll probably be disappointed

9:15 a.m.: Defense rests without calling any witnesses

9:22 a.m.: Trial adjourned for the day, closing arguments set for Thursday
The trial is done for today, and the lawyers will return in the morning for closing arguments. They will submit proposed jury instructions at some point today.

Federal prosecutors plan to argue for about an hour and a half, and defense lawyers plan to argue for about three hours. As a result, the jury will likely begin to deliberate by the end of the day Thursday, or Friday morning at the latest.

Excerpted from the San Jose Mercury News.

Barry Bonds on the Witness Stand

[Poem was here.]

Instructions for Walking Through Anywhere Avenue

[Poem was here.]

The genesis of this poem is a pretty straight-forward but engaging writing exercise I picked up over the summer during a writers-in-translation training.

JUST SAYING
Read William Carlos Williams’ “This Is Just to Say” out loud, write a poem in the same style, then share the poem to someone you know, then ask them to write you a response back in the style of Williams’ most trusted reader—his wife, Flossie.

Here is the first part, my riff off of WCW’s famous poem.

In Today’s News

An 18 yr old Latino
was shot
dead in
the streets.

No one
else was
hurt in the
altercation.

Police reports
indicate the
man was
most likely armed.