Gracias to Richard Yañez for passing this on from the San Antonio Current: I thought I’d link the brief interview here since there has been some lively web discussion on poetry book prizes and first books: Naca’s wonderful manuscript, Bird Eating Bird, was chosen by Yusef Komunyakaa in the National Poetry Series book competition and is forthcoming in 2009 with HarperCollins.
Three of Kristin Naca's poems appear in the pages of OCHO #15, which I guest edited a while back, which also features the work of 14 other fine Latino and Latina poets. The price is a reasonable $8.00 now. When I set out to guest edit OCHO, I chose poets who, at the time, had not yet published a first full-length collection. To refresh our memory, those poets were:
Lisa Alvarado
Oscar Bermeo
Xochiquetzal Candelaria
Diana Marie Delgado
Jose B. Gonzalez
Octavio R. Gonzalez
Raina J. León
elena minor
John Murillo
Kristin Naca
Emily Pérez
Ruben Quesada
Peter Ramos
Carmen Gimenez Smith
Rich Villar
And so: it is heartening to look over this list today because: since the publication of OCHO #15, Lisa Alvarado and Peter Ramos have published their first full-length books: Raw Silk Suture (Floricanto) and Please Do Not Feed the Ghost (BlazeVOX), respectively!
And: Raina J. León has a first full-length book, A Canticle of Idols (WordTech), forthcoming shortly---a collection that was among the final three manuscripts that Valerie Martínez deliberated over, long and hard, before settling on The Outer Bands by Gabriel Gomez for the second edition of the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize.
And who was the third by, you might ask?
The third was by Salvadoran-born, Los Angeles-based poet William Archila. His first full-length book, The Art of Exile, is forthcoming, soon, in the Canto Cosas series at Bilingual Press---with a wonderful introduction by none other than...Yusef Komunyakaa.
Showing posts with label Peter Ramos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Peter Ramos. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Friday, October 19, 2007
Peter Ramos @ PALABRA PURA
As is sometimes the case, hearing a poet read in person can enhance one's appreciation of the poet's work. I told Peter after the reading--and I meant it as a compliment--that his style, as well as the sound of his voice, reminded me of Robert Hass, who may very well be the contemporary poet I've heard read the most, because of Hass' and my Bay Area connection.
*
Our pre-reading dinner counted on two last minute guests: Kristin Dykstra, who is a poet, translator, and co-editor of the annual journal, Mandorla. She is also an assistant professor at Illinois State University in Normal. She brought with her a doctoral student in the English Department there, Nicolas Mansito, a young engaging Cuban-American writer. There were around nine of us, including the Chilean-born writer and professor at DePaul, Bernardo Navia, the local feature who read an interesting version of a Pablo Neruda poem with a decidedly Chicago bent. In addition to the usual Palabra Pura steering committee, we were joined by Peter Ramos' brother Stephen, who flew in from Boston for the occasion. Stephen is a graduate student in Urban Planning at Harvard, and spent a number of years living and working in León, Nicaragua and Madrid, Spain after college. In short, the pre-reading "salon" (as Lisa Alvarado has come to coin these) continues to be one of the signature aspects of the Palabra Pura experience for the poets who come to read. I was told that Paul Martinez Pompa was able to join the dinner last month when Urayoán Noel was in town.
*
Peter brought several copies of his award-winning, Short Waves. He sold a few and Letras Latinas purchased a few, as well, to give away. One landed in the hands of Cornelius Eady last night. Peter graciously gave me permission to reproduce one or two here, which I intend to do shortly with the goal of spurring interest in this gem of a chapbook. Among my favorites was the title poem itself, "Short Wave," which takes on the motif of the father, the grandfather and the role alcohol can play in a family's history. Here is a stanza:
Imagine the stirring, the soft violence
in the neck when my father woke
hearing that awkward song blossom. How could he
know his own voice, waiting as he did
to cross water, to live in a new land, hoping
the words would fit in his mouth?
Peter shared with the audience that his father came to the United States from Venezuela and he ended the evening with the last poem in the chapbook:
IMMIGRANT
It's your father calling, who provoked
on account of his broken dialect
so much reserved suspician,
the old voice from a long distance
gentle, no less compelling
the accent lingering. Even this late
he calls--and likes to--like he still
kisses you, still offers the finest cuts
of meat in the dream.
And yet I do not want to give the impression that the poems all center around what many might term a "Latino" theme like immigration. Nothing could be further from truth. The collection was the winner of the 2002 White Eagle Coffee Store Press Chapbook Contest. The Judge, Kathleen Lynch, eloquently states what she found so engaging about this sequence of poems:
"Peter Ramos conducts a kind of brilliant looking-back, at once both fierce and tender...Several of the poems have the charged quality of still-lifes suddenly zapped back to life, to action...Ramos shows intelligent restraint when handling nostalgic material, rendering these poems larger than just his life, which enables them to touch, inform and enter ours. Yet this restraint in way inhibits the passion of this visually and aurally pleasing work..."
I'll begin to wind this down by sharing a very brief poem Peter didn't read but which caught my eye since I spent the month of September in the land of 10,000 lakes:
CROSSING MINNESOTA AT NIGHT
Moon corn
beneath white planets,
the barns
humming in milkblue light.
*
And finally: taking my cue from Eduardo C. Corral, who has conducted the occasional "give-away" at his place, I'd like to offer here a signed edition of Short Waves to the first person to write and ask for it. You'll have to remember to include a snail mail address.
*
Our pre-reading dinner counted on two last minute guests: Kristin Dykstra, who is a poet, translator, and co-editor of the annual journal, Mandorla. She is also an assistant professor at Illinois State University in Normal. She brought with her a doctoral student in the English Department there, Nicolas Mansito, a young engaging Cuban-American writer. There were around nine of us, including the Chilean-born writer and professor at DePaul, Bernardo Navia, the local feature who read an interesting version of a Pablo Neruda poem with a decidedly Chicago bent. In addition to the usual Palabra Pura steering committee, we were joined by Peter Ramos' brother Stephen, who flew in from Boston for the occasion. Stephen is a graduate student in Urban Planning at Harvard, and spent a number of years living and working in León, Nicaragua and Madrid, Spain after college. In short, the pre-reading "salon" (as Lisa Alvarado has come to coin these) continues to be one of the signature aspects of the Palabra Pura experience for the poets who come to read. I was told that Paul Martinez Pompa was able to join the dinner last month when Urayoán Noel was in town.
*
Peter brought several copies of his award-winning, Short Waves. He sold a few and Letras Latinas purchased a few, as well, to give away. One landed in the hands of Cornelius Eady last night. Peter graciously gave me permission to reproduce one or two here, which I intend to do shortly with the goal of spurring interest in this gem of a chapbook. Among my favorites was the title poem itself, "Short Wave," which takes on the motif of the father, the grandfather and the role alcohol can play in a family's history. Here is a stanza:
Imagine the stirring, the soft violence
in the neck when my father woke
hearing that awkward song blossom. How could he
know his own voice, waiting as he did
to cross water, to live in a new land, hoping
the words would fit in his mouth?
Peter shared with the audience that his father came to the United States from Venezuela and he ended the evening with the last poem in the chapbook:
IMMIGRANT
It's your father calling, who provoked
on account of his broken dialect
so much reserved suspician,
the old voice from a long distance
gentle, no less compelling
the accent lingering. Even this late
he calls--and likes to--like he still
kisses you, still offers the finest cuts
of meat in the dream.
And yet I do not want to give the impression that the poems all center around what many might term a "Latino" theme like immigration. Nothing could be further from truth. The collection was the winner of the 2002 White Eagle Coffee Store Press Chapbook Contest. The Judge, Kathleen Lynch, eloquently states what she found so engaging about this sequence of poems:
"Peter Ramos conducts a kind of brilliant looking-back, at once both fierce and tender...Several of the poems have the charged quality of still-lifes suddenly zapped back to life, to action...Ramos shows intelligent restraint when handling nostalgic material, rendering these poems larger than just his life, which enables them to touch, inform and enter ours. Yet this restraint in way inhibits the passion of this visually and aurally pleasing work..."
I'll begin to wind this down by sharing a very brief poem Peter didn't read but which caught my eye since I spent the month of September in the land of 10,000 lakes:
CROSSING MINNESOTA AT NIGHT
Moon corn
beneath white planets,
the barns
humming in milkblue light.
*
And finally: taking my cue from Eduardo C. Corral, who has conducted the occasional "give-away" at his place, I'd like to offer here a signed edition of Short Waves to the first person to write and ask for it. You'll have to remember to include a snail mail address.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
PALABRA PURA welcomes Peter Ramos
In the end, things worked out: the visiting poet who was originally slated to read in October's PALABRA PURA had to back out, and so we had to get creative and persuasive--fast.
Thank you, Peter:
On October 17th, poet Peter Ramos will be the visiting feature at PALABRA PURA. He will be joined by the local feature, Chilean-born Bernardo Navia.
I haven't had the pleasure of meeting Peter, and have spoken on the phone with him less than half a dozen times. But already we are, I think, kindred spirits.
A few years back, I informally started an occasional list-serve, which Gabriel Gomez eventually took over and transformed into his anthology project, JUNTA. My goal was to get certain poets talking to each other, people like Scott Inguito on the west coast, for example; Rosa Alcalá down in El Paso; Edwin Torres, Rodrigo Toscano and Urayoán Noel in New York; Roberto Tejada in San Diego; Monica de la Torre in Brooklyn, I think, etc. At some point, I don't remember how, Peter Ramos became part of the mix: I remember that he had studied with Rosa and Roberto up in Buffalo.
Anyway, I remember Peter contributing some very insightful comments to the list-serve and he eventually sent me Short Waves (White Eagle Coffee House Press, 2003) and Watching Late-Night Hitchcock & Other Poems (Handwritten Press, 2003), which included a beautiful translucent broadside of the poem, "The Put-Together Wedding Cake." I also remember reading his wonderful essay in Mandorla (more on this journal in a future post), titled, "Beyond the Deep Image: James Wright's Vallejo and the Ethics of Translation." It became very clear to me, at that point, that he was the real deal: a poet-critic.It was for this reason that I asked Peter if we would consider joining the Advisory Board of Latino Poetry Review. He said Yes (he's being joined, so far, by Rosa Alcalá, Orlando Menes, and Emmy Pérez).
I won't say much more than that, at this point, except to invite you to read an interesting interview with Peter in another touchstone of a publication: MiPoesias.
So, if you're anywhere near Chicago one week from today, come hear Peter Ramos.
I plan on being there and finally meeting him.
Thank you, Peter:
On October 17th, poet Peter Ramos will be the visiting feature at PALABRA PURA. He will be joined by the local feature, Chilean-born Bernardo Navia.
I haven't had the pleasure of meeting Peter, and have spoken on the phone with him less than half a dozen times. But already we are, I think, kindred spirits.
A few years back, I informally started an occasional list-serve, which Gabriel Gomez eventually took over and transformed into his anthology project, JUNTA. My goal was to get certain poets talking to each other, people like Scott Inguito on the west coast, for example; Rosa Alcalá down in El Paso; Edwin Torres, Rodrigo Toscano and Urayoán Noel in New York; Roberto Tejada in San Diego; Monica de la Torre in Brooklyn, I think, etc. At some point, I don't remember how, Peter Ramos became part of the mix: I remember that he had studied with Rosa and Roberto up in Buffalo.
Anyway, I remember Peter contributing some very insightful comments to the list-serve and he eventually sent me Short Waves (White Eagle Coffee House Press, 2003) and Watching Late-Night Hitchcock & Other Poems (Handwritten Press, 2003), which included a beautiful translucent broadside of the poem, "The Put-Together Wedding Cake." I also remember reading his wonderful essay in Mandorla (more on this journal in a future post), titled, "Beyond the Deep Image: James Wright's Vallejo and the Ethics of Translation." It became very clear to me, at that point, that he was the real deal: a poet-critic.It was for this reason that I asked Peter if we would consider joining the Advisory Board of Latino Poetry Review. He said Yes (he's being joined, so far, by Rosa Alcalá, Orlando Menes, and Emmy Pérez).
I won't say much more than that, at this point, except to invite you to read an interesting interview with Peter in another touchstone of a publication: MiPoesias.
So, if you're anywhere near Chicago one week from today, come hear Peter Ramos.
I plan on being there and finally meeting him.
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