Celebrating the Acentos Review with Eliel Lucero

This Sunday marks the one-year anniversary of the Acentos Review, an online journal publishing poetry, fiction, memoir, interviews, translations, and artwork by emerging and established Latino/a writers and artists. To mark this occasion, the Acentos Foundation will be hosting a free reading at New York's Bowery Poetry Club with contributors, organizers and supporters at hand to celebrate the moment. To give LETRAS LATINAS readers some more insight on the Acentos Review, I recently e-interviewed Co-Editor Eliel Lucero:

CAN YOU TALK A BIT ABOUT THE IMPETUS FOR THE ACENTOS REVIEW AND HOW YOU CAME TO BE ONE OF THE FOUNDING EDITORS?
Well the initial idea for an Acentos Review came in a meeting where all sorts of Acentos expansions were being discussed. I thought we should have a review but I didn't know that would involve me as an editor.

It seems like it was just an idea until Raina León, my co-editor, handled all the web stuff then we put out a call for submissions. Soon after, we began to be emailed from everywhere. It was an idea that manifested a lot quicker than I saw coming. That's the way I like it too.

WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR GREATEST SURPRISE AS EDITOR?
As an editor what surprised me the most was the response. As we finished the first edition, I remember knowing that Raina would put it all up online, then the proofs online, and then the site went live. People began to email, text, and call me to congratulate me.

I guess until that point I was just working on a project with my friends. It was made real.

IS THERE A SPECIFIC AESTHETIC THAT CALLS TO YOU AS AN EDITOR?
I was faced with this question about a month ago, during a Q & A at the Hudson Valley Writer's Center. I am still a young editor, but what I realized when this question was asked, was that I don't have a specific aesthetic that calls to me. I work better from the other extreme–I know what I don't like very well. When I'm reading submissions and someone uses Spanish gratuitously a yellow card gets pulled from my shirt pocket and I give it a second look to see if I can look past the transgression. Some poems make it, some get a red card soon after, and get pulled off the field.

I think that I'm still building my aesthetic as an editor, which in big part has led to me questioning my aesthetic as a poet. I really look forward to the next year with the review. I'm learning more and more with every submission that I read; the good, bad and dirty.

WHAT'S THE BIGGEST MISCONCEPTION REGARDING LATINO POETRY TODAY?
As misconceptions go, I mentioned one before: Latino poetry doesn't need gratuitous Spanish words interspersed amongst the other words, the use of Spanish articles especially.

Another misconception is the identity poem. Although identity poems are important for the development of every poet, Latino poems are not limited to poems about being Latino/a, just poems written by individuals who consider themselves Latino/a.

YOU ARE NOT ONLY AN EDITOR OF THE REVIEW BUT ALSO A POET, STUDENT, TEACHER AND DJ. HOW DO ALL THOSE ROLES CONTRIBUTE TO YOUR OWN ART AND THE SELECTION PROCESS FOR THE REVIEW?
The editor hat I wear is exclusive. I try to put the other arts behind me a bit. I know what rhythm I like but I remind myself constantly that I don't want poems that sound like me, but poems that I want to sound like. Little pieces or tautology like that help me separate the arts.

The biggest thing is that as an editor I'm the critic, the enemy, not the artist. I'm not the artist until I'm putting it all together. But when reading submissions, I'm the villain that writes rejection letters after submission.

But I guess my roll as an educator does come out a bit. The voice that internally asks poets, "Did you really write that? Are you serious with that? Is that what you mean to say in these few lines?"

Sometimes reading submissions is a emotional exercise.

WILL YOU BE DJING THE ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION? WHAT'S THE MUSIC GONNA BE LIKE?
I wont be out in full DJ form, with turntables and such, because the time doesn't permit for such things, but DJ Feliz Cumbé (my alter ego) will make a special playlist. It'll have equal part roots, and some new school tunes that Latinos and everyone else should be listening to. It'll definitely include some Novalima, and Cultura Profetica. Palos, Digital Cumbia, Tribal Guaracha, and so many other forms of Musica Latina.

Music is poetry, the lyrics and the writing of every note. So as a DJ I guess I'm also a poetry editor, and my set is the review. I guess I was a bit wrong in the the last question. DJing definitely helps my selection, because I'm doing the same thing in a different venue.

Acentos Review's First Anniversary Reading and Celebration
Sunday, August 2nd, 6pm
FREE!

The Acentos Review Celebrates it first year with a reading with some of our favorite contributors. Please join us for this wonderful and FREE celebration.

Featured Readers include: Bonafide Rojas, Rodrigo Toscano, Edwin Wilson Rivera, Sheila Maldonado, Jose Gonzalez, Li Yun Alvarado, Pedro Marrero Jr., Shokry Eldaly II, Marie Elizabeth Mali, Liza Ann, David Ayllon, Mundo Rivera, Christina Olivares and Jennifer Prado.

The Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery (Between Houston and Bleecker)
F train to 2nd Ave, 6 train to Bleecker

San Antonio: July 26 - August 1, 2009

MACONDO FOUNDATION

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CASA/HEARTH/DIASORA
Instructors:
Ruth Behar & Marjorie Agosín

Margo Chavez-Charles
Vincent Toro
Toni Plummer
Linda Rodriguez
Celeste Guzman Mendoza
Levi Romero
Rachel Jennings
Richard Blanco

WRITING AND EDITING
Instructors:
John Olivares Espinoza & Fan Wu

Elaine Beale
Jenn De Leon
Charles Rice-Gonzalez
Reggie Scott Young
Ellen Pacey Wadey
John Pluecker
Ching-In Chen

LAS DOS NORMAS
Instructors:
Norma Cantú & Norma Alarcón

Stephanie Elizondo Griest
Lilliana Valenzuela
Jessica Lopez
Sehba Sarwar
Deborah Miranda

CHUPAROSAS

Jimmy Mendiola
René Colato Laínez
Francisco Aragón
Amada Irma Pérez
Beatriz Terrazas
Tony Díaz
Trey Moore

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SEMINARS

Brain Fitness Workshop for Writers
Presenters:
Dr. Aaron Root & Reza Versace

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Recession and Depression

Presenter:
D. Thomas Stone

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Power in Writing Children's Books in Community

Presenters:
Amada Irma Pérez & René Colato Laínez

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How Writing Short Can Help Your Longer Works

Presenters:
Belinda Acosta & Beatriz Terrazas

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CAFÉ NOSTALGIA
July 29, 2009, 7 PM

Emmcee:
Josslyn Luckett

Writers:
Vincent Toro
Rachel Jennings
Celeste Guzman Mendoza
Sehbar Sarwar
Reggie Scott Young
Jennifer De Leon
Linda Rodriguez
Marjorie Agosín

Music:
Viva Tango

@
Thiry Auditorium, OLLU
San Antonio, TX

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CAFÉ NOSTALGIA
July 30, 2009, 7PM

Emmcee:
Josslyn Luckett

Writers:
Fan Wu
Rene Colato Lainez
Margo Chavez-Charles
Ching-In Chen
Stephanie Elizondo Griest
Charles Rice-Gonzalez
Pat Little Dog

Music:
Mariachi

@
Thiry Auditorium, OLLU
San Antonio, TX

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CAFÉ NOSTALGIA
July 31, 2009, 7PM

Emmcee: Josslyn Luckett

Writers:
Elaine Beale
Deborah A. Miranda
Francisco Aragón
John Olivares Espinoza
Jessica Helen Lopez
Ruth Behar
Sandra Cisneros

Music:
Orquesta Tropical

@
CASA NAVARRO
228 S. Laredo St.
San Antonio, TX

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MACONDO FOUNDATION

GEMS THAT CROSS MY DESK: Manuel Luis Martinez's new website

Manuel Luis Martinez's new website was forwarded to me today. On was a link to an interview with him that appeared in Acentos Review:

Migration, Democracy, and a Few Words

About Writing in the Obama Era:
An Interview with Manuel Luis Martinez

by Patrick Rosal

“But still the crossroads does have a certain dangerous potency; dangerous because a man might perish there wrestling with multi-headed spirits, but also he might be lucky and return to his people with the boon of prophetic voices.” —Chinua Achebe

Manuel Luis Martinez has lived perpetually on various crossroads. Having grown up in San Antonio, where Mexico is as much a part of the United States as the States is a part of Mexico, Martinez went on to become a Stanford-educated critic and a novelist. I had a chance to ask him about both his scholarship and his fiction, published and forthcoming, as well as the role of the writer given the impending historical presidential administration.

Patrick Rosal: A couple years ago, I heard you give a dope-ass lecture on Jack Kerouac. Say a little bit about geographic and class mobility. What does a migrant perspective bring to those American ideas?

Manuel Luis Martinez: First, thanks for the kind words on the lecture. I started thinking about the importance of mobility in the American imagination, right around the time that I read Kerouac's On the Road and Ernesto Galarza's Barrio Boy. Everyone's heard of Kerouac, not so much Galarza, and reading these two books back to back, made me realize that the theme of the American Road, what I called "movement discourse," was incomplete without taking the migrant experience into account. Kerouac and his boys wanted to explore their individualism via the prerogative of "mobility." But what they never quite got was that this was a privilege of whiteness and of class.

Now, I never argued that this made them hypocrites, but … [they have] a romanticized vision of "movement" as ultimately liberating. Taking off on that journey across the American landscape brings Kerouac all sorts of "eyeball kicks," where he can observe the black jazz musicians in San Francisco and Denver, where he can tag along with the "Mexican Girl" and work as a migrant laborer for a couple of weeks, without ever understanding how his philosophy of libertarian individualism allows all sorts of systemic oppression. The people he observes aren't able to get out on the road. They are marked by skin color, class status, nationality, citizenship status, etc., and they can't leave it behind the way an educated, middleclass, white Kerouac can do.

…[R]eading the migrant writers, such as Tomás Rivera, Ernesto Galarza, and Américo Paredes (to name just three), opens up our understanding of America in the postwar period. These writers are also on the road, but not for individualist self-expression; they're on the road because they have to survive. They'd much prefer to create stable communities, to live where they can raise a family, connect with each other in meaningful ways. In essence, they want to be citizens. But their "mobility" is a forced thing, which ironically keeps them stuck in the same class and political positions. Mobility, when it comes to the migrant, is a curse of fixedness.

A New Rhyme: Valadez/Melendez, or Maria to the rescue...

First things first: Letras Latinas and The Guild Complex trusts and prays that Javier Huerta and his loved ones are okay and that the nature of his personal emergency, which prevents him from reading in PALABRA PURA this evening, is not of a serious a nature. We will miss hearing him perform his fine work. But more importantly, again, we hope things in his orbit are back on the mend.

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As luck would have it, poet and Momotombo Press acquisitions and managing editor Maria Melendez is currently on a plane heading to Chicago: she has graciously agreed to pinch hit at PALABRA PURA tonight. The evening, therefore, still promises to be a vital and interesting contrast of styles.

Maria was going to be present at the reading tonight anyway, along with fifteen very special guests: 15 school teachers from around the United States who are currently taking part in a four-week seminar on the teaching of poetry in schools at DePaul University, which is being led by Eric Murphy Selinger.

Tomorrow morning, Maria Melendez will be leading a three-hour session on the teaching of Latino poetry to k-12 students. This is what is bringing her to Windy City, and what is keeping me here an extra day. Among the texts the seminar participants have been reading are: The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry; Maria Melendez's How Long She'll Last In This World; "Gringo with Baedeker, Cortez in Kevlar" by Eric Selinger; the correspondence between Javier Huerta and Eric Selinger that was generated as a result of Selinger's aforementioned essay/review. In her presentation tomorrow, Melendez will also be using some of the poetry of Luis Valadez. I will be present, as well, and I am very much looking forward to meeting these generous individuals who want to make space for Latino poetry in at least 15 non-college classrooms around the U.S.

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Here is Maria Melendez being interviewed by Steven Cordova as part of Letras Latinas' Oral History Project. Note: scroll down to the 11th interview.

another kind of Poetics

Progress of a Poet: Oscar Bermeo

In Anywhere Avenue, it was "Sonnet for the Lexington Avenue Express--Mt. Eden Stop" with its use of form to inform---in the speaker's case, the exhilaration of riding public transportation without paying a dime. In Palimpsest, "Fire Escape" is a long piece that relied on a particular brand of repetition that's pulled off admirably and which I'd read in a literary journal. There were others I enjoyed, to be sure, but these are the pieces that immediately come to mind.

I'm speaking, of course, of Oscar Bermeo's collections. He seems to be putting them out at regular intervals and I've come to look forward to them. I was delighted to find Heaven Below in my mailbox at work a few days ago. Before I say something about about a couple of the poems further below, I want to say something about what I'm coming view as a particular gesture of generosity in putting these out in this fashion: I especially enjoy and appreciate Bermeo's attention to particular details, from the copyright page which states:

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. To a view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/license/by-nc-na/3.0/us/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

To the dedication on the same page, which reads:

For Jack Agüeros, the poet activist who taught me to write sonnets and psalms.

To the inside cover at the back, where he's been including, in addition to the habitual acknowledgments and expressions of gratitude.... another section he calls "Influences." It reads:

"Influences

A partial list of literary influences that have helped me in this project:
*187 Reasons Mexicanos Can't Cross the Border: Undocuments 1971-2007 by Juan Felipe Herrera (City Lights Publishers, 2007)
*The Cricket Sings: Poems and Songs for Children by Federico García Lorca (New Directions, 1980)
*Dérive by Bruno Mori (poems) and Matthew Kinney (paintings) (Meritage Press, 2006)
*Easter Sunday by Barbara Jane Reyes (Ypolita Press, 2008)
*Lord, Is This a Psalm? by Jack Agüeros (Hanging Loose Press, 1996)
*Nathaniel Mackey (poems) and Hafez Modirzadeh (music), performance at the de Young Museum Poetry Series, Koret Auditorium, September 7, 2007
*The Splinter Factory by Jeffrey McDaniel (Manic D Press, 2002)
*Why Buildings Fall Down: How Structures Fail by Matthys Levy and Mario Salvadori (W.W. Norton & Company, 1994)

I hadn't given these sections much thought until recently. In an interview I read many many years ago, Thom Gunn asserts, matter-of-factly, that he considered himself a "derivative poet." He meant it as a positive---that he was part of a tradition and didn't write in a vacuum, and he wasn't shy about stating which poets he strove to emulate and was inspired by. Bermeo recently mentioned on his blog that one of the items of feedback he got at the recent VONA conference was that he

need [ed] to get past [his] attribution poem phase. [He's] imitated and borrowed from a variety of authors but [he] need[s] to risk more and trust in [his] voice.

I might have said: keep doing what you're doing because you're doing it well, AND consider venturing beyond what might be considered a comfort zone. And yet when I read that list of influences above, I read a serious and dedicated artist who is wonderfully promiscuous.

Don't stop. Don't subtract. Add to. Expand.

Which is a good way to transition into two terrific poems that illustrate, I think, what I mean by Bermeo's promiscuity. First off, one of the things I love about these collections is how they mix their genres: verse and prose, prose and verse. "Ash Wednesday," a prose poem is an absolute gem. It starts:

as you enter paradise as you enter with smoke as you enter with accelerant as you enter with perfume with gasoline with flint with spice your mouth full your mouth full of ritual....

and continues on, bereft of any punctuation whatsoever, ending:

this willingness to accept this smoke this prayer this test this fate this lift this dust this

I was reading this and no: I wasn't thinking or hearing Eliot. I was thinking and remembering:

and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes

But I wasn't reading James Joyce I was reading Oscar Bermeo but also hearing Joyce and hearing Bermeo and enjoying it very very much very. Having said that, it's crucial to underscore that what seduces me about "Ash Wednesday" isn't the mere fact of this punctuation-less, stream-of-consciousness technique, but rather Bermeo's careful and effective deployment of it. The words are carefully placed so that the reader is invited to collaborate: through the poet's very deliberate use of word and phrase repetition, readers are playfully challenged to provide their own pauses and stops---in short, to join forces with the poet to help create the poem's own organic rhythm and grammar. It's this process of physical collaboration (speeding up, slowing down) that produces the poem's aesthetic pleasure. Indeed: as I progressed, it felt like I was uttering a prayer.

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"Orchard Beach: Section Four" (After Robert Francis' "Silent Poem") has not, as of yet, prompted me to go seek out Francis' poem. I love the poem without knowing its inspiration. I love its particular "meter:" its use of two-syllable words in "lines" that alternate between four words/two words/four words/two words. Sometimes they're verbs; sometimes their nouns. What they share in common is that they are all (with the exception of "orchard," which frames the piece) compound words, words made up of two words. (I thought of Heaney; I thought of Pound's ideogram....) And I was thinking about the song "Under the Boardwalk" as I read:

boardwalk beercans boombox bodyrock
...
suresurf shorebreak gonebreath nosleep
...
handhold armknot legtwine hiplock

It's Bermeo trying this or that poem on for size, but bringing his baggage---and I mean baggage in a good way--- to the piece, transforming it, making the work his own.

Letras Latinas Young Writers Initiative: Rex Ovalle

Rex Ovalle was one of the first Cristo Rey students to benefit from the Letras Latinas Young Writers Initiative---a partnership with the Young Writers Workshop, a wonderful program founded and directed by Alison Joseph. LETRAS LATINAS BLOG recently caught up with Rex and conducted the following e-interview with him:

I understand you’ve just returned from another session at the Young Writers Workshop, founded by Alison Joseph, and conducted by the MFA students at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Could you share with readers of LETRAS LATINAS BLOG your history with this particular workshop, and what role it has played in your development as a writer. When did you first attend?

The Workshop was my first exposure to the writing world. In high school you only read the classics and what is considered the canon, so when I was shown the contemporary world of creative writing I became excited. The concept of the MFA was what fascinated me. So whenever I could I would try to have extensive conversations with the MFA students. Those conversations helped me really figure out who I was as a writer. The first workshop, in 2007, I have to admit though was more about being surrounded by other literary teens.

Could you talk a bit about the challenges you faced as a writer before you began attending the Young Writers Workshop. In other words, what kind of encouragement, if any, did you get in elementary school and high school? Did you have any teachers who encouraged your writing and if so, could you say something about them.

My family was arguably the biggest hurdle I had to face. They were not at all very supportive at first. My parents would encourage me to go to these programs, but my writing was just a hobby to them. After I came back from Iowa, however, my agenda had switched dramatically. All I ever wanted to do was write after that. Writing was simply invested in my soul. So I returned to SIU two years after with the intent of learning as much as I could possibly take in from the MFA students and Alison. I would have to admit that my mentor from Iowa, and my junior year English and poetry teacher, were the most encouraging and influential. I most certainly learned the most from them. Michelle Taransky whose book is about to be released, may have been the single most important person as far as my writing goes. She is the person who introduced me to form and the careful calculations behind the craft of poetry.

How has your life as a writer been since entering college? I understand you are a student at Middlebury College: how has that been? Have you managed to connect with other students and/or campus groups who are also interested in creative writing.

Middlebury is a great place to be a writer. It has a strong tradition and community as far as writing goes. Some of my closest friends at Middlebury are writers who take their writing as serious as I do. The creativity just flows between us. I hope to be starting a project on campus soon with my friends, but we’ll see what happens.


Could you share LETRAS LATINAS BLOG which writers you have particularly enjoyed these last few years. Are there particular books that have nourished you as a writer these last few years? Which ones?

My favorite novel will always be The Picture of Dorian Gray. My favorite piece of nonfiction is between Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris and Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion. My favorite collection of poetry is without a doubt, The Dream Songs by John Berryman. John Berryman for me is as good as it has gotten as far as poetry goes.

Last question. Can you talk about how your background and the neighborhood (s) you grew up in have influenced your writing Were you born and raise in Chicago?

Being of Mexican decent has really let me or at least has caused me to explore some topics with confidence. At the current moment I am obsessed with Aztec mythology and how it contrasts with Classical Mythology. Being a first generation American at times almost feels like the two cultures are constantly at battle. The land we used to be part of versus the land we are currently part of. I do feel that unintentionally I bring this conflict up in my writing. Part of me embraces the writing of this conflict the other part shuns it in fear of cliché.


In his own words:

Rex Ovalle grew up on the southwest side of Chicago in Little Village, a majority Mexican-American Community. His childhood was spent mostly inside due to his parents’ fear of the gang trends growing and occurring during the earlier 90’s. The time inside was spent reading and attempting to tackle pieces like Moby Dick. The transition from grammar school to high school spurred him to start scribbling in his notebooks. During junior year at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School Rex took a semester-long course in modernist poetry. The structure of the class was partially workshop-style. The first workshop and the first truly motivational teacher gave him the confidence to apply and attend Southern Illinois University’s Young Writer’s Workshop and the Iowa Young Writer’s Studio. The summer of the 2007 would be where he would learn one of the writing world’s secrets: “It’s less about talent and more about craft; perfecting that very craft.” Rex is currently attending Middlebury College in Vermont and is working to earn his BA in English and Classical Studies. He considers himself an academic and poet obsessed with the literary community's history and timeline.

Innovative Programming: The Writer's Center

The Writer's Center Announces Fellowships for Emerging Writers

The Writer’s Center, metropolitan DC’s community gathering place for writers and readers, is currently accepting submissions for several competitive Emerging Writer Fellowships. Emerging Writer Fellows will be selected from applicants who have published up to 2 book-length works of prose and up to 3 book-length works of poetry. We welcome submissions from writers of any genre, background, or experience.

Emerging Writer Fellows will be featured at The Writer’s Center as part of their Emerging Writers Reading Series. The readings, held on Friday evenings, bring together writers in different genres with a backdrop of live music. The Writer’s Center book store will sell titles by the Emerging Writers throughout the season in which they appear in an effort to promote them and their work to a wide audience.

Selected Fellows are invited to lead a special Saturday workshop at The Writer’s Center, with compensation commensurate with standard Writer’s Center provisions.

Fellows receive an all-inclusive honorarium to help offset their travel costs in the amount of $250 or $500, depending on their place of departure.

Fellows for Fall 2009 include novelist Alexander Chee (Edinburgh), novelist Lisa Selin Davis (Belly), poet Suzanne Frischkorn (Lit Windowpane), poet Aaron Smith (Blue on Blue Ground), Canadian fiction writer Neal Smith (Bang Crunch), poet Srikanth Reddy (Facts for Visitors), and poet Nancy Krygowski (Velocity).

Their events will be held in September, October, and December. See our events calendar for more information.

To be considered, please send a letter of interest, a resume or CV that details publication history and familiarity facilitating group discussions, and a copy of your most recent book. Self-published or vanity press titles will not be accepted. A committee comprised of The Writer’s Center board members, staff, and members will evaluate submissions on behalf of our community of writers.

The deadline to submit is August 15, 2009.

Applicants are encouraged to call Charles Jensen, Director, for more information at 301-654-8664.


The Writer’s Center, established in 1976, is one of the nation’s oldest and largest literary centers. We provide over 60 free public events and more than 200 writing workshops each year, sell one of the largest selections of literary magazines in our on-site bookstore, and publish Poet Lore, America’s oldest continually published poetry journal.

GEMS THAT CROSS MY DESK: Rubberroom by Yago Cura

Heaven Below by Oscar Bermeo was sitting in my mailbox at work yesterday. I took it home only to bring it back: this morning I read it in one sitting while waiting for the subway, letting Metro train after Metro train leave without me at the Courthouse stop in Arlington, VA. When I finally stepped on board to head into the District, I resolved to make good on something I've been meaning to do for some time now: post here, now and then, some commentary about stuff that crosses my desk which I think is worthy of mention. Heaven Below falls into this category and I'll get to it very soon (and thank to Oscar for sending it and prompting me, indirectly, to get this other strand of LETRAS LATINAS BLOG up and running):

I want to comment on a chapbook I received sometime ago by Yago Cura. I was aware of his work because he'd submitted a manuscript to the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize. His was among the manuscripts that were forwarded to Martín Espada for final consideration.

Cura's chapbook, Rubberroom, is a poetic sequence made up of acts, each act with different scenes. Here's what Cura writes, as a kind of preface:

The premise of "Rubberroom" rests on the idea that teaching is a function of acting. In other words, teaching is performative because every classroom is a controlled audience. Every time a teacher stands in front of a classroom, they are playing a role. I am not the person in real life that I am in front of my students, however my persona of teacher contains strains of the real me. Another idea very dear to this work is that teacher's colleges inundate teachers with useless theories and practicum. Schools and institutes that prepare teachers to helm classrooms in the inner-city do not fully acknowledge the social and psychological turmoil new teachers undoubtedly encounter the minute they are thrown into the maelstrom of their first classroom. This work serves as testament to the countless errors and missteps first-year teachers commit, but also has the confidence to embrace those mistakes because teaching is nothing if it is not a trial-and-error endeavor. The "Rubberroom" is formally dedicated to all teachers that trudge through that first year in the inner-city classroom all over the world and to Paolo Freire who is credited with stating that, "I cannont be a teacher without expressing who I am." Hopefully, after reading "Rubberroom" you will get an idea of not only who I am but how I am.

Among the things I appreciated about the sequence was how unflinching it was in presenting a world I'm completely unfamiliar with. In other words, we've all read (or read about) those nonfiction books, or newspaper articles that aim to present what I'm going to call "the inner-city classroom," but I'd never read poems about it from the perspective this perspective in quite this way. Here's a sample:

ACT TWO, SCENE ONE: ANGER THEATER

Yes, I hurled a chair
at the smartass
blackboard;

it might have ricocheted
and nicked a student, or two.

T-Bone's in the room, tells me,

Get a hold of your fool!

Splash cold water on your neck!

And that's just what I did
except, I did also get some things
off my chest in dialect Dynamite.

And came back, tore up
the bathroom pass, exclaimed,

No More Bathroom Pass, Ever!

All the while, my charges giggling
guffawing, snickering hyena-type
and falling to stitches.

Not because my production of
"Mister Lost His Shit"
tickled them so

Not because tirades
are a function of interior sloppy

But because monologues
presume audience innocence
and my little shits
were as guilty as me.

***

Things I especially liked:

Get a hold of your fool!

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off my chest in dialect Dynamite

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guffawing, snickering hyena-type
and falling to stitches

and the way "stitches" rhymes with

"Mister Lost His Shit"

*

are a function of interior sloppy

*

Rubberroom, in addition to unfolding its plot skillfully, is filled with fresh takes (on language) like these.

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Here's what we learn about the author, as of 2006, at the end:

"Yago Cura was a NYC Teaching Fellow in the Kingsbridge/Bedford Park section of the Bronx. He teaches 11th grade English Language Arts at Discovery High School, one of the small high schools inside the Walton Educational Campus. During the 2004-2005 academic year, Discovery's principal, Scott Goldner, played an integral role in salvaging Yago's fledgling career as an inner-city high school teacher.

Yago would like to thank Aviva Dalin (for her guidance), Joe Pandolfo (for his sense that a wrong was being committed) and all the people that supported him during his stint in teachers'-jail. Yago's work also appears in Lungfull!, Exquisite Corpse, COMBO, and Skanky Possum. In edition, Yago co-edits the literary journal, Hinchas de Poesia with, Lauren Ireland and Will Esposito"

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I don't know how many copies of Rubberroom Hinchas de Poesia produced, but I consider my two chapbooks collector's items, and I'm delighted to have them.

Yago Cura blogs HERE