"US Latino poets en español": a midway pause.

Xánath Caraza

Back in February I posted a comment in which I provided some context for the creation of the Spanish-language column, “US Latino poets en español,” which appears in the online poetry journal, Periódico de Poesía, founded and directed by Mexican poet, Pedro Serrano.

We have reached the half-way mark in terms of the first year of the column—that is: five of the ten projected columns have been posted. I say “we,” but that’s something of a misnomer: the lion’s share of the credit goes to Xánath Caraza, who has actually been producing the column.  Credit for the concept belongs to Serrano who, as I mentioned in my post on February 11, went out of his way to attend two flagship Letras Latinas events  in DC over a year ago: installment 2 of Latino/a Poetry Now at Georgetown University, and an event at the Folger Shakespeare Library.

It was at these two aforementioned events that the project was pitched (by Serrano) and later sealed. Letras Latinas’ role, in the first year of the column, has been mostly “co-curatorial.” So, for those of you who can read Spanish and would like a flavor of how five of our poets look and sound en español, here are some pics and links, in reverse order:

No. 60/June-July 2013: Emma Trelles

No. 59/May 2013: Maurice Kilwein Guevara

No. 58/ April, 2013:  Brenda Cárdenas

No 57/March 2013: Maria Melendez

No. 56/February 2013: Tino Villanueva

*

The remaining poets to be translated and profiled

in 2013, in no particular order, are:
Raina J. León

Victor Hernández Cruz

Rigoberto González

John Murillo

Lorna Dee Cervantes

"US Latino Poets en español": a new collaboration

Translating is learning about other paradigms and learning about ourselves

--Xánath Caraza

About a year after moving to the Washington, D.C. area, Dana Gioia introduced me to Pedro Serrano. It was at an event at the Aspen Institute on Dupont Circle.  Serrano had been included and was among the more visible promoters, in the U.S., of a bi-national initiative that resulted in twin dual-language anthologies of Mexican and American poetry, published by Sarabande Books: Connecting Lines: New Poetry from Mexico (2006) and Líneas conectadas: Nueva poesía de los Estados Unidos (2006). The NEA and the Mexican government partnered on this special project. I remember attending the DC launch of those attractive blue and red tomes and seeing and hearing (though not yet meeting) Serrano. The event was held at the Mexican Cultural Institute.

Fast forward to March of 2012: Serrano was gracious enough to attend the second installment of Latino/a Poetry Now, held at Georgetown University, where he has taught. At the reception after the reading, he made a pitch. He thought that the Spanish-language, poetry reading public needed to start reading and exploring the world of English-language, Latino poetry.  The idea was fairly straightforward: a regular “column” that would introduce a US Latino poet—in Spanish: maybe one or two translated poems, a brief prose headnote, and a bibliography. The venue would be Periódico de Poesía—an ambitious, online magazine that Serrano founded and directs.

Letras Latinas said Yes. 

After some thought, we were lucky enough to count on the crucial collaboration of Xánath Caraza to bring this idea to fruition. Indicative of Pedro’s continued support and interest in US Latino poetry, he attended Eduardo C. Corral’s reading at the Folger library last September. By then, Xánath and he were in touch—in short, the ball was rolling. We wanted to take our time had our sights set on an early 2013 launch. Periódico de Poesía comes out approximately ten times a year. Here is our projected first slate of 2013 poets, in no particular order:

Lorna Dee Cervantes

Brenda Cárdenas

Maria Melendez

Raina J. León

Emma Trelles

Victor Hernández Cruz

Maurice Kilwein Guevara

Rigoberto González

John Murillo

Tino Villanueva

We are inaugurating this project with Tino Villanueva—a sort of prelude to the homage we will be offering up next month at CON TINTA in Boston.

Without further delay

PERIODICO DE POESIA’s

first installment of

US Latino Poets en español