Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize (3) Gabe Gomez

Gabe's manuscript was selected by former Poet Laureate of Santa Fe, Valerie Martínez. One of the special things about this second edition of the prize was that the official announcement was made public at the Border Book Festival in in the spring 2006. Martínez graciously made the trip down to Mesilla, NM for the occasion. On our way to the festival I dialed Gabe's number; he answered; I passed the cell phone to the judge, and she relayed the good news.....

--FA

How, if at all, are the visual arts implicated in your work as a poet? Or, can you talk about the relationship between poetry (yours or the work of others) and the visual arts.

At this point, my work isn’t necessarily influenced by one single thing, much less other forms of art. The visual arts, however, will probably always have some tethers in my work. Rather than a finished art piece, I find that most of my connections to the visual arts are within a mechanical/spiritual process that begins before I "lay on the paint" so to speak.  To borrow a legal term, there is a period of discovery where I engage, albeit subconsciously, in collecting information—it’s a broad and undefined act, but an important part of my process. I locate myself within these ideas and pieces of the larger world; it’s a kind of measurement. In this, my composition, lines, breaks, phrasing, etc., are not unlike site-specific or performance art. The act of writing often informs the poems, so the idea and execution are often intertwined.  The page presents little if any boundaries, but enough of a limit to structure a poem.   

Please pick one of the three following topics/themes, and share what relationship it has with your work as a poet:  place, voice, community.

I have a vast definition of place; it’s similar to my overarching definitions of poetry, which is to say, ironically enough, that my interests have little to do “with” poetry. Still, my obsessions with sourcing ideas invariably lead to place or rather a “confluence of circumstances.” I remember hiking alone through the desert when I was a boy and wondering if I had been the first person to step through a particular pass in the landscape…whether or not you bring ideas to the place of your origin or the place informs the poem, it is a tremendous thing to capture…

What did winning the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize and, as a result, having your first book published mean to you? What effect did it have on your writing career?

 An unexpected gift to winning the prize has been the atmosphere it created for my work to evolve. The Outer Bands is a risky book—it is a restless and urgent document that captured a very specific period in my life. It taught me that art and the art community has a central place among tragedy. Ultimately, it has changed my own expectations of writing and my place within the conversation of contemporary poetry. It was a tremendous way to begin a literary career, as there was no compromise—but rather a refinement—to the vision and integrity of the work.

*

“The title poem of this collection is a 28-day record of days between Katrina and Rita, which draws from the news headlines, the language tossed around by politicians, and realistic images of the storm to provide a portrait of just how dislocating, how jarring, how out of time that period was.” 

— The Times-Picayune

The Outer Bands

(University of Notre Dame Press, 2007)

by Gabriel Gomez

available HERE

Latinos and Latinas at AWP (part 2)

"After Magical Realism: New Adventures in U.S. Latino Literature"

elena minor writes:

"The idea for the panel presentation titled “After Magical Realism: New Adventures in U. S. Latino Literature” came to me during last year’s AWP conference in New York. After attending several panel presentations by Chicano & Latino writers, I felt the time was right to open a discussion about the new directions in which U. S. Latino literature is moving.

One of the reasons I founded PALABRA A Magazine of Chicano & Latino Literary Art was to create a venue for writing by Latinos that didn’t fit the mold—imposed either internally or externally. I was beginning to see a glimmer of new “stuff”— different and cool—and thought to make a friendly place for work that veered, to varying degrees and in a variety of forms, from literary conventions.

What was beginning to appear now and then was writing [by Latinos] that didn’t conform to established expectations. It wasn’t realistic; it wasn’t magical realism; it wasn’t necessarily about belonging-otherness, coming of age or any variation on the immigration theme. And if it was, it waxed on in fresh and singular ways. Regardless, it was exciting, risky, wild. It blurred the lines yet still felt organic and crafted. It pushed at the edge and crossed into new and untried territory. Mostly it was [and is] the fresh breeze[s] that must flow through if the literature is going to thrive. Therein lies its importance.

The new stuff is alternately classified as avant-garde or hybrid or experimental or innovative or post postmodern. I simply call it all “unconventional” work, primarily because it’s as diverse in form, structure and treatment as there are writers who are working it: John-Michael Rivera, Gina Franco, Fred Arroyo, Salvador Plascencia, Gabe Gomez, to name a few. They’re writing in ways that bend genres with a distinct Latino ethos.

How well it/they will endure is yet to be determined in this day of texting and pix. Perhaps it’s simply transitional—a bridge to truly new and not yet created forms. I may be dead by then and won’t care. But I’m not now, so I do. And the discussion about this work is as important as the work itself. If you’re going to be at AWP, please join John-Michael Rivera, Gina Franco, Fred Arroyo, Paul Martinez Pompa and Aaron Michael Morales for their respective takes on all this stuff."

******

"Diverging Lines: Understanding the Evolution of Contemporary Latino Poetry"

Blas Falconer writes:

"Last year, I chaired a somewhat similar panel at the AWP Conference in New York. The panel considered the influences and experiences of Latina/o poets reared outside of Latino communities. Patti Hartman, the acquisitions editor at University of Arizona Press, attended and seemed open to the possibility of publishing an anthology inspired by the papers that we presented. To my delight, three outside reviewers expressed interest in the book proposal; however, all three recommended that I broaden the subject in some way. Two reviewers suggested that I change the scope of the project to include any poet—regardless of where he or she was reared—who seemed to reflect the dynamic body of Latino poetry today.*

Inspired by the recommendation of the reviewers, I put together this panel, hoping to generate a larger discussion on the subject. I chose the panelists because their work piques my interest, because they write in a very different style from my own, and because I am curious to learn about their influences within and outside of Latina/o poetry. The panelists will consider how their own work might challenge or complicate, build upon or diverge from, the aesthetics and themes often associated with Latina/o Literature. The ultimate goal, however, is to reflect diversity in the work of these—as well as the greater community of—contemporary Latina/o poets.**

_______

*Based on the advice of the third reviewer, Arizona has requested that I also include essays by fiction writers. Lorraine Lopez, fiction writer and professor at Vanderbilt University, has agreed to co-edit the book. The inclusion of these fiction writers will make the book more useful in contemporary Latino Literature classes. The downside, of course, is that there will be far less room for the many Latino poets writing such interesting poetry right now.

**I came to choose each poet in a unique way. For example, I heard Rodrigo Toscano’s work at an Acentos reading, where forty-some other Latina/o poets read. No one else sounded like him. It was thrilling. After Gina Franco and I read together in Chicago last year, she shared some of her new prose poems with me, and I thought that what she was doing was entirely new. When I read Peter Ramos’s book, I couldn’t help but think of Berryman’s Dream Songs and wondered what his other influences were. When I taught Rosa Alcalá’s poems to my undergraduate class, they couldn’t stop talking about them. They were taken by the lyricism and mystery of her work. Roberto Tejada, who is celebrated for his poetry, also happens to be an accomplished visual arts critic, photographer historian, and curator."

******

"Revising Modernisms: Innovative Latino Writing in the 21st Century"

"Breach: Emerging U.S. Latino and Latina Poetry"

Gabe Gomez writes:

"I’m involved in two panels Revising Modernisms: Innovative Latino Writing in the 21st Century and Breach: Emerging Latino and Latina Poetry. The “Revising Modernisms” panel explores the relationship between contemporary “experimental” US Latino/a poetry and Modernism, the role of the media in the construction of identity and spectacle, and how both literary and visual art may posit counter-narratives to media-appropriated representations. I’ll be discussing Breach Press, which is my new publishing venture with J. Michael Martinez, who organized this panel.

The “Breach” panel is straightforward reading by five poets (including me), and is our way of officially launching our press. I wanted to organize a reading that represented the vanguard of Latino/a poets, so I invited Roberto Tejada, Carmen Gimenez-Smith, Rosa Alcalá, and J. Michael Martinez to read. In my opinion, these writers are creating the most exciting work in contemporary Latino/a poetry; it’s a real honor to be reading with such a tremendous group of young writers. We’ve created a small chapbook for the occasion, which includes work from all the Breach panelists. We will distribute them throughout AWP. Ultimately, these two panels represent the kind of work and theory that we would hope to publish through our press. The panels represent a small sampling of the diverse styles and points of view that concern or address the topic of innovative Latino/a writing."