"A Magazine of Chicano & Latino Literary Art"

I have forgotten how I first learned of PALABRA. But shortly after its first issue appeared in 2006, I met founding editor elena minor and have been a fan ever since.This is a quick post to plug #8. It’s a beaut. And it includes a short play by former Letras Latinas Residency Fellow Diana Marie Delgado...I’ve only just begun to dip into it and these few words are not in any way meant to be a “review” of the issue, but I do want to mention a pair of poems—the first two in the volume—that jumped off the page for me.

The first, "Dear Angel," is made of six short paragraphs, each separated by an  *. Check out the third one:

"I don’t speak English well and I don’t speak Spanish well and now I am illiterate. I will learn this lamp as I have learned your face—in grooves, shape, and graduation. They will say I am not a poet and I will know all the ways they’ve been scarred by the ring of their voices. I will sing, I will sing, I will sing—turned dumb, I will sing you dry."

The second, "La Mariscal," is made up of four unrhymed couplets (though “unrhymed” is something of a misnomer since the piece is rich with rhyme. Here’s a bit of the end:  

He wonders when she ate so many stars,

How they stay hidden in the sky of her. Her own blood drowns the city quiet.

Both are by the same poet and her bio reads as follows:

Natalie Scenters-Zapico is from the sister cities of El Paso, Texas and Cuidad Juárez, México. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Bellevue Literary Review, Cream City Review, The Believer, and more. She is managing editor of Blue Mesa Review.

Here’s the full roster of writers in the issue:

Sara Burnett

Luisa Caycedo-Kimura

Ana Delgadillo

Diana Marie Delgado

LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs

Elisa Grajeda-Urmston

Stephen D. Gutiérrez

Roberto Harrison

John Paul Jaramillo

Diana López

Michael A. Moreno

Caridad Moro

Christina Olivares

Deborah Paredez

Louis Reyna

Thelma T. Reyna

Natalie Scenters-Zapico

Tina Schumann

ire’ne lara silva with Moisés S.L. Lara

Caridad Svich

harold terezón

J. L. Torres

PALABRA

A MAGAZINE OF CHICANO &

LATINO LITERARY ART

ISSUE 8  2012