Letras Latinas is pleased to announce.....

--> Carl Marcum

Carl Marcum wins Letras Latinas/Red Hen Poetry Prize

Letras Latinas, the literary initiative at the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies, and Red Hen Press, the Los Angeles area literary press, are pleased to announce Carl Marcum as the winner of the Letras Latinas/Red Hen Poetry Prize—an initiative which supports the publication of a second or third book by a Latinx poet residing in the United States. His full-length manuscript was selected by noted poet, memoirist, editor and publisher Carmen Giménez Smith.

"Reading A Camera Obscura is like having your head in the clouds, like understanding the source of stars, a book ‘so vast it stays captured’ in your imagination. And this is precisely what Carl Marcum pulls off in this stunning work," Giménez Smith shared.

Carl Marcum was born in Nogales, Arizona to a Mexican mother and Anglo Father. He received his MFA from the University of Arizona and published his first collection, Cue Lazarus, with the University of Arizona Press as part of their Camino del Sol series. He has been a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, and a recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Illinois Arts Council, and the Ragdale Foundation. His poems have been featured in the anthologies The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry, Camino del Sol: Fifteen Years of Latina and Latino Writing and Latino/a Rising: An Anthology of  Latin@ Science Fiction and Fantasy. He taught Creative Writing for many years at DePaul University in Chicago and now lives in Pittsburgh where he manages an Engineering and Environmental Consulting Firm in the Marcellus Shale.

“I am very pleased to have A Camera Obscura selected. I am doubly thrilled that my work was selected by Carmen Giménez Smith, a poet I admire and respect. There are so few awards for second and third books, and I am very happy that this initiative seeks to award Latinx poets who have already published a debut collection. In my experience, the second collection is more difficult to write, and more rewarding to complete. Estoy muy honrado de ser seleccionado para este premio. Mil gracias,” Marcum said, shortly after receiving the news that his manuscript had been designated the winner.

The Letras Latinas/Red Hen Poetry Prize, which is deliberate in how it paces the publication of its winners, has two books in the pipeline now. Joe Jiménez’s manuscript, Allegory, Rattlesnake, was selected by Rigoberto González in 2016 is slated for publication next year (2019). Carl Marcum’s collection is slotted for 2021. The next submission deadline is January 15, 2020. The final judge is yet to be designated.

The Letras Latinas/Red Hen series to date is as follows:

Speaking Wiri Wiri (2013)

by Dan Vera

—selected by Orlando Ricardo Menes

The Gravedigger’s Archaeology (2015)

by William Archila

—selected by Orlando Ricardo Menes*

Beasts Behave in Foreign Land  (2017)

by Ruth Irupé Sanabria

—selected by Lorna Dee Cervantes

Rattlesnake Allegory (2019)—forthcoming

by Joe Jiménez

—selected by Rigoberto González

A Camera Obscura (2021)—forthcoming

by Carl Marcum

—selected by Carmen Giménez Smith

Letras Latinas, the literary initiative at the Institute for Latino Studies (ILS), strives to enhance the visibility, appreciation and study of Latinx literature both on and off the campus of the University of Notre Dame—with an emphasis on programs that support newer voices, foster a sense of community among writers, and place Latinx writers in community spaces. Letras Latinas is a founding member of the Poetry Coalition, a group of organizations working together to promote the value poets bring to our culture and the important contribution poetry makes in the lives of people of all ages and backgrounds.

Red Hen Press, based in Pasadena, CA, is committed to publishing works of literary excellence, supporting diversity, and promoting literacy in local schools. They seek a community of readers and writers who are actively engaged in the essential human practice known as literature.

*in order to establish the desired pace of publication, the inaugural judge was asked to select two manuscripts from the first pool of entries

Letras Latinas/Red Hen Poetry Prize: The Runners-Up

Lorna Dee Cervantes, the judge of the 2014 Letras Latinas / Red Hen Poetry Prize, which supports the publication of a second or third book by a Latino/a poet residing in the United States, had this to say about the manuscripts she designated as runners-up. She selected four:

1. First Runners-Up (a tie):

THE FABLE OF THE PADDLE SACK CHILD

by Mia Leonin

A compelling integral whole, this book tells the tale of Micaela’s mother from the hand of a child and shimmers like a single multifaceted crystal while comprised of individual poems and prose poems, seamlessly faceted and set semi-precious stones of poems, each one polished to its own perfection. Nothing is extra or out of place in this chiseled and inventive collection. This is a unique and distinct manuscript from a distinct and unique voice.

A CAMERA OBSCURA

by Carl Marcum

Heady and full like a hearty glass of Petit Sirrah, this intelligent collection of poems displays the best of “American” fusion. Both aged and fresh, these poems blanket the tongue with their flush of lush language. “High” and “low” culture blend with the Native Spanish of the Southwest in this poetry of sanguine saquaros set in the windows of Chicago high-rises and the spoils from academic Ivory Towers of “robots” “less than human, more than semiotic ghost” — all woven together into A CAMERA OBSCURA which holds: “every heavenly hypothesis.”

Third Runner-up:

PLANNED AND SUDDEN JOURNEYS

by Gina Valdés

This book spells, holds you as you come to Earth pulled by the intimate geography of language and the love of place wherever it is homed, be it this imaginary border or that. Here, “Chaplin and Cantinflas/ waddle up a hill, roll down,” and “English Surely Latinized” takes over in the hidden history and talk-story of those who cross for a living — “only the heart/ of all things throbbing.”

Fourth Runner-up:

A PLACE THAT NO LONGER EXISTS

by Juan J. Morales

These poems, as in the poem, “A Kind of Chemistry,” “extract a kind of chemistry that unifies it all.” From Pizarro “ready to maneuver Manco like brittle bones/ spat to the ground” to the “Underdogs” “smelling failure” and “thinking instead/ of this hiss of anti-war, shock and awe,” these poems ask if the “occupation…is anything like the Incan revolt that failed.” “How can I not believe what they believe?”

*

We will be announcing the winner tomorrow night. Our gratitude to all who submitted a manuscript.

Re-visiting Minneapolis: (after Macondo)

Shannon McCarville, the volunteer and events coordiantor at The Loft, sent me a CD with photos she took on May 31, at the second installment of

"The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry ON TOUR."

As a way of continuing to document and archive this Letras Latinas / Guild Complex initiative (with partial funding from The NALAC Fund for the Arts), I've made a selection of the photos below---perhaps in anticipation of our next stop: Richard Hugo House on September 25. The University of Arizona Press has recently updated the tour's web page to include biographical sketches of the Wind Shift poets slated to read in Seattle. Have a peek to see who they are. Thank you, Shannon, for sharing these photos:

Carl Marcum

Carl Marcum

Emmy Pérez

Emmy Pérez

Urayoán Noel

Urayoán Noel

poets take questions
@ Q & A

Carl Marcum, Francisco Aragón, Venessa Fuentes,
Urayoán Noel, Emmy Pérez

***

San Antonio has been a mainstay this summer: I had the immense fortune of participating in NALAC's 8th Annual Leadership Institute---a week-long training session for arts administrators working out of a Latino context. The highlights were many, including inspiring talks by Tomás Ybarra Frausto. The entire faculty, really, were extraordinary. But perhaps most meaningful was being in a room with people from all over the country who were also making a go at being cultural workers. The sense among us was, simply: we're not alone in the work we're trying to do. The comraderie by week's end was palpable.

Then it was off to Chicago to launch the tri-collaboration between The Guild Complex, the Cave Canem Foundation, and Letras Latinas.

And then back to San Antonio for Macondo.

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Finally, stay tuned: LETRAS LATINAS BLOG will be issuing a press release in about ten days to announce the winner of the third edition of the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize. The poet has been notified, but we are awaiting the final judge's award citation in order to include it in the announcement.