Craig Santos Perez interviews Judith Angeles

Craig Santos Perez talks to Zion Imprints' Judith Angeles about her endeavors as a publisher, experience in writing communities, and how the intersections of the written and spoken word meet in her chapbook He Art.

CSP: This is your first self-published chapbook. Why did you decide to self-publish? What has been its rewards and challenges?

JA: I decided to self-publish because I believe in having the ultimate control over my well-being and my art. I trust in my writing that much. Poetry is my well-being.  I also am all about sovereignty and I am not willing to change to suit a certain canon or any of that other foolishness. I am not into “selling out” or remolding myself to suit a particular kind of not-me. I also decided to self-publish because I found it to be a selfless thing to do and because I am into the art of bookmaking and now digital bookmaking. I also aspire to be a publisher and to have a community based, co-op styled printing house for artists and writers to come in and be a part of a printing community that preserves its culture through storytelling and archives.

Read more at Craig Santos Perez's website.

Dispatch Desde Lake Forest, Ilinois

It didn't fully register when Rich Villar wrote his comment a few days ago:

"Serendipity is a wonderful thing."

But tonight I sat in my room (I'm at Ragdale for a fortnight), put on some headphones so as not to disturb the other residents, and listened to the whole thing:

ACENTOS'

inaugural podcast
!

But I want to ask Rich Villar a favor: please post the full names and brief bios of all the people who took part in that fluid discussion. I was sad I didn't hear the whole thing, but what I heard was great. I won't attempt to highlight it. Except to say yes: it is uncanny that while being completely unaware that this podcast project was in the works, Latino Poetry Review made its first tentative steps over at Blogtalkradio. Listening to ACENTOS' debut in this arena will serve as inspiration and incentive to slate another LPR audio segment: we create these creatures, we have to feed them. And thank you, Rich, for mentioning PALABRA PURA's effort in Chicago. We're already thinking about 2009.

Although I can only speak for myself, this podcast tonight, coupled with thoughts about the soon-to-be Acentos Literary Review; and reflecting upon the lively launch LPR has had, provoking a healthy dose of "inquiry and dialogue" thanks, in large part, to Huerta/Santos Perez/Selinger; and thinking about Gabe Gomez's and John Michael Martínez's soon-to-be Breach Press, which will showcase experimental verse; and thinking about poet/doctoral candidate John Chavez at the University of Nebraska, whose area of inquiry is Latino experimental verse; and thinking about the fact that The Wind Shifts tour is gearing up for its next installment at The Loft in Minneapolis on May 31st, where Urayoán Noel (a podcast participant tonight), will be reading, along with Emmy Pérez, Adela Najarro, and Carl Marcum; and thinking about how Letras Latinas will be underwriting Ura's appearance in DC in mid-June at a Spanish language series called "Para Eso La Palabra"---all of this, and other things I'm surely forgetting (what am I missing?) has me posing the question:

Is Latino poetry living a particular moment right now?

Craig Perez AKA Craig Santos Perez

Whenever I walk out of a theater after having seen a play, I often wonder why I don't go more often as I usually enjoy myself.

I could say the same about Jacket, John Tranter's ambitious online journal: I don't visit as often as I should, but when I do, I stay a while. A few months ago, I was browsing over there and noticed that someone named "Craig Perez" had reviewed Involuntary Lyrics by Aaron Shurin, the poet in San Francisco who teaches at USF and whose work I find challenging. The review began:

In Aaron Shurin’s Involuntary Lyrics, his first full-length poetry collection in about a decade, we enter a ‘composition of surfaces’ where the speaker tends the body and soul of experience in the visible dimensions of the poem. Shurin’s lyricism transforms music into a ‘current disturbing’ every textual moment of attention, taking hold of us at our deepest heartstrings.

Perez drew me in and I read on, and on, and before I knew it I was "exiting" the review as I would a "theater:" I had thoroughly enjoyed myself and resolved that I needed to get to Jacket more often. But perhaps more importantly, I thought: "I wonder if I could persuade this guy to write for Latino Poetry Review?

The reviews I tend to enjoy are those that give one the impression that the reviewer enjoyed writing it---whether it be witnessing William Logan display new ways of slicing someone up, watching Brian Henry do the same to Logan's criticism over at Verse, or a fresh voice like Craig Perez's engaging with experimental lyrics. The reviews of poetry that I enjoy use interesting nouns and verbs, all the while weaving in citations seamlessly. I e-mailed Craig and made my pitch.

I haven't encountered someone with such an intelligent enthusiasm for poetry in a long while. In a recent e-mail exchange, I mentioned him to D.A. Powell, for whom Perez was a Teaching Assistant at USF. He remarked: "Craig Perez!....I wish I could have cloned him."

Why am I mentioning him here, now? Well, not only has he graciously agreed to write for Latino Poetry Review (which I consider a coup), but he's recently reviewed two poets---each very different from the other, but both in The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry. One is a current Momotombo Press poet and the other is a future one. So, without further delay:

Craig Perez Santos on Scott Inguito.

Craig Perez Santos on Brenda Cárdenas.

*

I went over to Verse to see if I could locate that review Brian Henry wrote of William Logan a while back, but couldn't find it. Instead, I found a review posted in May of a poet I had the pleasure of meeting in Chicago at PALABRA PURA, which brings me to make this general petition as this blog evolves:

If anyone comes across an online review of a book or chapbook by a Latino or Latina poet, I'd really appreciate learning of it as I'd like to get into the habit of linking it here. In fact, I'll make this pitch with regularity. You can either e-mail me or post a message.

Here is a review of Ada Limón second book.