Category Archives: #NationalPoetryMonth

I don’t want to talk about it just tell them
That you came from nowhere
I came from nowhere
And we crossed the border from nowhere
And now you and me and everybody else here is
On a bus to nowhere you got it?

Pero por eso nos venimos para salir de la nada

When the bus stops there will be more nothing
We’re here hermana

— from “Borderbus”

Today’s read: Notes on the Assemblage by Juan Felipe Herrera – City Lights Books – 2015

I asked my dad a few times why my parents immigrated to New York. I am familiar with the facts of where my story started and how I arrived. I even have found out some chisme regarding a family member kidnapping me as an infant to have me stay in Ecuador. But I have always wanted to know more.

I have asked friends and other family members and the stories usually return to the most practical: economics.

Right now, during the pandemic, I think of empty streets and wonder: Who benefits and who suffers? Who can take advantage of this time to recenter? Who is still in displacement? Who can move towards knowing where their story starts?

We’re everyone. We have ideas and vaginas,
history and clothes and a mother. Portrait-ready
American Blues. Palm trees and back issues
of Jet, pink lotion, gin on ice, zebras, fig lipstick.
One day we learned to migrate. One day we studied
Mamma making her face. Bright new brown, scent of Nana
and cinnamon. Shadows of husbands and vineyards,
records curated to our allure, incense, unconcern.

from “We Don’t Know When We Were Opened (Or, The Origin of the Universe)”

Today’s read: There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé by Morgan Parker – Tin House Books – 2017

This may be the most political collection I have read this whole month. I welcome it because the politic is totally entrenched in the speaker’s experience which is black, woman, hip-hop, blatant, rhythmic, abounding.

I appreciate the fact that this collection is not written for me. Poetry as code sets me up as an audience member that can only view from a predetermined distance, a vantage point that I can engage the work as work. This field of engagement took me out of the anxiety of the pandemic because I was not trying to attach my meaning to these poems. These poems were dangerous, overwhelming, and stressful all on their own. Unique as the voice that also finds the resolve, humor, and music to navigate through that politic.

There’s a pot of air on the stove.
You drove seventy miles. paid for that glass
and I can’t remember the last good meal I had,
but bring it up here. I’ll help you. I’m not angry.

from “Starvation”

Today’s read: Cruelty: Poems by Ai – Houghton Mifflin – 1973

I consider myself lucky that I have known hunger. It was not long but it was a whole afternoon. A Thursday that my dad was getting paid. This means it was either the 2nd or the 4th Thursday of the month. We did things to make things last like cut the juice in half with water and sugar or only eat one slice bread sandwiches with just margarine. Lots of margarine.

That Thursday, we were out of everything. No juice, sugar, bread. There may have been margarine. We also had some rice. It was raw and I had no idea how to cook it. So I just ate it. As is.

My dad would be home any minute but that was about three hours ago and school lunch was six hours ago.

The raw rice tasted chalky and nothing like arroz. I tried a couple more bites but it didn’t get any closer to what I needed to feel full or to get my mind off the clock. So I stopped.

My dad got home some time later with two full bags of groceries and I have no idea what I ate next.

I am grateful to know that feeling. It’s what happens all the time. Just like this poem, I ain’t mad about it.

I just know what’s it like when the check doesn’t hit. I also have a kid inside me that is willing to do something for himself about it.

This collection is taking the shape of my hear and exile. There is no nuance, but rather an erasure of my being and art.

from “In the Kingdom”

Today’s read: The Planet Of the Dead by René Vaz – Nomadic Press – 2017

At our school, we often tell students that anger is ok. It’s as ok as your happiness. As comfortable as you are with with one is how familiar you should be with the other.

This message contradicts so much of US culture. Send good vibes! Stay positive! Never give up!

There is little place for disgust, shock, angst, fear. US culture wants these to be transitional emotions to return you back to a state of euphoria. Even during a pandemic, US culture is trying to speed up the clock to get things back to normal. Though US culture doesn’t recognize that the “old normal” for many is full of the exile and erasure Vaz speaks of.

Through this whole collection, Vaz welcomes and celebrates rage and anger. They are not fleeting emotions. They are real emotions and even realer weapons against US culture.

There is only one way to transform the “kingdom of sorrow” and it is only with real violence to make real change.

listen listen hush
cease the call of names
give the dead back their beauty
let their eyes return like agates

let their noise in this room be poems
be topaz
be blue iris
a cup of hibiscus tea

and from this moment
lift your head for signs of life
and from this moment
lest us sing let us sing
let us begin again.

from “Hush the Call of Names”

Today’s read: Arrival: Poems by Cheryl Boyce-Taylor – Triquarterly Books, Northwestern University Press – 2017

It’s hard not to be morbid during the time of pandemic. It’s also not horrible to think of death. United States culture vilifies death. A few weeks back the 45th President claimed he had not tested for COVID. I knew that was another lie piled on a stack of lies.
You know who fears death? Rich white guys. The fear of the world moving on without them is their dread.

Meanwhile, death happens all the time and you would hope this culture switches from recording numbers to documenting stories. No more call of names but to share impact.