AKRILICA's TITULADA: an interview with elena minor

In October of 2006 I found myself in Los Angeles at the home of an old high school teacher I’d kept in touch with over the years. I was in town to do a reading at Tía Chucha’s Centro Cultural and Bookstore. I’d recently entered into contact with someone I’d yet to meet but whose work as an editor/publisher I was a big fan of. I’m speaking of PALABRA’s elena minor. She graciously offered to pick me up and drive me to the reading. It was a fortuitous meeting. Afterwards we went out to dinner, and were joined by poets William Archila and Lori Bedikian. It was a night of new connections, new relationships. Shortly thereafter, Letras Latinas Blog published an interview with her.

Fast forward eight years: elena minor’s TITULADA has been released. Letras Latinas is proud to have had a hand in ushering this vital work into world: TITULADA is the second installment of Noemi Press’ AKRILICA series, a co-publishing venture with Letras Latinas. 

Recently, fellow Macondista and CantoMundista and recent Premio Aztlán Winner, ire’ne lara silva, conducted an interview with elena. And what an interview! Enjoy:

--FA

ire’ne lara silva  interviews  elena minor

ils:  I have to confess—I’m not always the best reader of experimental poetry as some of it leaves me cold—but there’s something very physical, very embodied about your language, its inventiveness and its interactions with blank space. It moves across the page with a control edged with recklessness. The words and thoughts leap and twist, run and flip, kick and two-step. I hear it in different registers—shouting, whispering, songlike and precise, barely audible and loud to the point of approaching incomprehension. How do you approach language and meaning in your work? What do you think spurs the leap in understanding between the poet and the reader in experimental work?

em: I don’t think of my work as ‘experimental’. The word implies a theoretical framework that is not my starting point. That said, though, I do consider my work “exploratory” because that’s what I do with language - explore its possibilities – mostly in a never-ending attempt to explain the why of the world to myself. I start wherever and however the feeling, notion, idea starts and let that carry the weight of words, form and sound. I love sound in poetry, especially rhythm and cadence. Sometimes I let them carry the poem to the point where they are as much the sense as the form of the poem. I also don’t always know the ‘meaning’ of my work. I just know there’s something I need to say, and I let that drive what I put on paper. It’s not always necessary to ‘get’ a poem on the first read. If it takes a poet weeks, months, even years, to write a poem, why should it take only a few minutes to understand it in its fullness? Not getting it right away is a reason to go back and reread it. It sometimes takes me years before I get the full sense of a given poem. Often it comes when I’m no longer trying to understand it – when I just let the collection of words, sounds and symbols overtake me.

ils: Could you share with us a bit of your path as a poet? Which poets and experiences influenced and influence you?

em: There’s no real path. I simply started writing in my early teens when I discovered I enjoyed it. I got a couple of pieces published in my high school literary magazine, but I didn’t think of myself as a writer for many, many years. Other endeavors – more action than thought - always seemed more important. Thinking of myself as a writer was a long time coming. I finally reached a point where I realized it was now or never – let’s see what you got, esa. So I got serious about it. I threw away everything I’d written until then and started all over again. My first publications were fiction work, though. The poetry was still too inchoate to send out for publication. Then at some point poetry became dominant in my writing. Still, it took about eight years to get to TITULADA.

There are poets whose work I like or admire but no one person or singular event have influenced my work – at least not consciously. I often smile, though, when my work is compared to that of a poet whose work I’ve never read. Certainly, though, my work is not apart from the world I live in, and my cultural roots are in activism. I am one and many – who I come from and who will follow. And there are wrongs in the world and they must be dealt with. I’m also a believer in organic writing. Put on paper what wells up from the gut. Your tripas don’t lie.

ils: I’m very curious about the title, TITULADA, and the title poem. I see “TITULADA” and think ‘title,’ ‘entitled,’ ‘to be titled,’ or ‘titled’ as in ‘educated’ or ‘degree’d’…The poem speaks of lights and sounds, the poem is a vivid spill of beauty, perhaps disembodied, perhaps speaking to the nature of poetry, “The light [she said], the light is never a fixed color or/ consistency or tenor. Sometimes it rises to fold leaping and other times it claws like/ deep cobalt blue. But always [she posed], always the velocity of splendor explodes/ across an unquenchable spectrum, and the possibilities of infinite color reign through.”

What is disembodied becomes em-bodied— “…some sounds are simply meant to be born. As the chanting/ begins itself she rewinds herself, beguiled by the rhythm—syncopation of an old rattle/beating new time. The body curves languidly into its dance as around her the ancients/happen in place and choose partners” –which feels as if is about a space that is claimed because of the way it is described and by being described it is also being invented. And so, it left me feeling that titulada invoked the idea of Speaker as Creator, of a feminine God creating not a man, but a woman to give titles/names to the world.

em: Yes, it’s all of those and more – a sense of discovery and affirmative presence in the universe from before time until after time. It’s also about the ‘called’, with undertones of beckoning, anointed, essential. The title actually came late in the development of the poem, but when it came time to title the book, sin pensar it seemed the right choice.

ils: TITULADA constantly surprised me because while it speaks of the border and southwest/barrio/Chican@-associated imagery, it always does so in startlingly different ways than readers would ever anticipate. Specifically, in poems like “STILTS IN CHICANOLANDIA,” “WATER DOWN,” or “LOW AND SLOW TO TASTE”. How do you see your role as a poet and as a Chicana/Latina to the border and to the literature of the border?

em: I haven’t spent much time in geographic border areas - a week in Caléxico/Mexicali, a few trips through Tijuana, a memorable, invigorating week of política in El Paso/Juárez way back when. My own extended family regularly crossed Southwest borders before they finally settled in the U. S. But borders are everywhere, externally and internally imposed, and I find the idea of borders stimulating literary fodder. When does a border define what is ‘inside’ versus what’s ‘outside’ and how does that play out in how we take action? Sometimes I think we bring our borders with us, whatever and wherever they are. But also, ‘border states’ in all their meanings are sources of innovation and creativity. Things happen at borders that don’t happen anywhere else. Or maybe it’s simply because I hear so much ‘I can’t’ that I’m driven to ‘I can’. Cross every border I can. My ‘yes’ to every ‘no’.

ils: There’s an apocalyptic tendency in the book—this desire to start with the end of the world, the world ‘erased’ and then to bring it into being. From “APELLIDO”: “…to ruin with lost grains and gutted ancestry. There/ will arrive no last recovery, only a solo act of última[te] memoria[l], strong willed/morsel of solace that scratches sand from bone, then moves on to pitiful dénoument.” Certainly “LOOSED ENDS” and “ON THIS DAY” also share that tendency. Where does that impulse come from? In some ways, it feels as if it’s what fuels the book.

em: I’m fascinated with astronomy - the vastness of the universe, how much we don’t know about it and our place in the never-ending. It’s a place & time of endless ending and beginning. I’m constantly trying to wrap my head around the mere idea of the universe and what it means in the here and now. We are who we’ve been. Or are we who we will be?

ils: TITULADA includes poems wholly in English, poems wholly in Spanish, and poems that negotiate both. For those poems that are wholly one or the other, your voice comes through as so incredibly distinct. What does it mean for you to write in one language as opposed to the other? What parts of your memory/identity/aesthetic come into play. (I love love love the poem “SE ME ESCAPÓ”!)

em: I wish I had a succinct answer to those questions. Everything comes from both languages – and others (Italian, French, Portuguese, Latin and even a smattering of Russian). I use words in whatever language they arrive. Some thoughts, feelings, notions seem more right in a language other than English – or even Spanish. It’s not a conscious thing.

ils: You’ve been the editor/founder of PALABRA: A Magazine of Chicano & Latino Literary Art since it began publication in 2006. What inspired you to start a Latino/Chicano-focused magazine and what has kept you going since then? What do you see as the role of publications like PALABRA in our communities?

em: I started PALABRA because I didn’t see anyone publishing Latin@ literature that wasn’t geared to an Anglo audience or that was little more than an apologia. What I wanted PALABRA to do was break through others’ and our own expectations of how Latin@ lit should speak [up]. I wanted work that was organic, fresh, original and unbound. I’m not sure I’ve succeeded but at least now there exist several publications that specifically seek out work by Latin@s and other peoples of color. But it’s still only a handful. There should be many more – dozens - and there should be a diversity of aesthetic, style, approach and genre. We should have litmags devoted to narrative poetry, prose poetry, experimental/innovative poetry, metric poetry, short fiction, short short fiction, memoir, hybrid, cross genre, literary sci-fi, etc. More is better. The more we publish our own literature, the more our own communities will see it as a given – the natural expression of who we are. It will out. I know that for some writers acceptance/validation of our literature by the larger [Anglo] literary community is paramount, but if that’s the primary goal then how does that influence our work? We need to go beyond the narrow parameters they have set for us.

ils: What are you working on now? As a writer? As an editor?

em: I’m not doing much as an editor at the moment. Taking a hiatus to focus on my own work. For the last year or two or three I’ve been working on an oddball collection of short prose and a cross genre book of desperation writing that sorely need my attention before they die of neglect. A second volume of poetry is probably a ways away.

*

 elena minor is the author of TITULADA (Noemi Press, 2014).  Her poetry and prose have been published in more than two dozen literary journals, including Jacket2, MAKE, Hot Metal Bridge, RHINO, Puerto del Sol, Switchback, Mandorla and Shadowbox. She is a past first prize recipient of the Chicano/Latino Literary Prize and founding editor of PALABRA. She also teaches creative writing to high school students. A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, she currently resides in Los Angeles.

ire’ne lara silva lives in Austin, TX, and is the author of furia (poetry, Mouthfeel Press, 2010) which received an Honorable Mention for the 2011 International Latino Book Award and flesh to bone (short stories, Aunt Lute Books, 2013) which won the 2014 Premio Aztlan, placed 2nd  for the 2014 NACCS Tejas Foco Award for Fiction, and has been shortlisted for Foreward Review’s Book of the Year Award in Multicultural Fiction. ire’ne was the Fiction Finalist for AROHO’s 2013 Gift of Freedom Award, the 2008 recipient of the Gloria Anzaldua Milagro Award, a Macondo Workshop member, and a CantoMundo Inaugural Fellow. She and Moises S. L. Lara are currently co-coordinators for the Flor De Nopal Literary Festival.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: elena minor's TITULADA

A few days ago, I posted a picture of TITULADA by elena minor on Facebook. Let’s make it official: Letras Latinas is proud to announce its publication. Here is how we describe the series on our webpage:

AKRILICA is a co-publishing venture with Noemi Press which seeks to showcase new innovative Latino writing. The series name recalls the groundbreaking, bilingual poetry book from the eighties by distinguished Chicano writer Juan Felipe Herrera.

Pre-release postcard at AWP: elena minor's TITULADA

When Letras Latinas approached Noemi Press about starting what would become The AKRILICA series, one of the writers we had in mind was elena minor.

It's possible that her name is more associated with PALABRA: A Magazine of Chicano & Latino Literary Art than with her own creative work.

We intend for that to change with the imminent launch--March 24 to be precise--of TITULADA, elena's first full-length book of poetry. 

While we' d hoped to have the book ready for this year's AWP, for now we'll content ourselves with this beautifully designed postcard with a cool blurb by Roberto Tejada. 

Come by the Noemi Press table (L 10) or the Letras Latinas table (N 23) to get one. And think about picking up volume 1 of the AKRILICA series, Boxing the Compass by Sandy Florian.

In the meantime, come hear elena read her work this coming Friday at The Event 2: An AWP Off-Site Reading and Party.

"A Magazine of Chicano & Latino Literary Art"

I have forgotten how I first learned of PALABRA. But shortly after its first issue appeared in 2006, I met founding editor elena minor and have been a fan ever since.This is a quick post to plug #8. It’s a beaut. And it includes a short play by former Letras Latinas Residency Fellow Diana Marie Delgado...I’ve only just begun to dip into it and these few words are not in any way meant to be a “review” of the issue, but I do want to mention a pair of poems—the first two in the volume—that jumped off the page for me.

The first, "Dear Angel," is made of six short paragraphs, each separated by an  *. Check out the third one:

"I don’t speak English well and I don’t speak Spanish well and now I am illiterate. I will learn this lamp as I have learned your face—in grooves, shape, and graduation. They will say I am not a poet and I will know all the ways they’ve been scarred by the ring of their voices. I will sing, I will sing, I will sing—turned dumb, I will sing you dry."

The second, "La Mariscal," is made up of four unrhymed couplets (though “unrhymed” is something of a misnomer since the piece is rich with rhyme. Here’s a bit of the end:  

He wonders when she ate so many stars,

How they stay hidden in the sky of her. Her own blood drowns the city quiet.

Both are by the same poet and her bio reads as follows:

Natalie Scenters-Zapico is from the sister cities of El Paso, Texas and Cuidad Juárez, México. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Bellevue Literary Review, Cream City Review, The Believer, and more. She is managing editor of Blue Mesa Review.

Here’s the full roster of writers in the issue:

Sara Burnett

Luisa Caycedo-Kimura

Ana Delgadillo

Diana Marie Delgado

LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs

Elisa Grajeda-Urmston

Stephen D. Gutiérrez

Roberto Harrison

John Paul Jaramillo

Diana López

Michael A. Moreno

Caridad Moro

Christina Olivares

Deborah Paredez

Louis Reyna

Thelma T. Reyna

Natalie Scenters-Zapico

Tina Schumann

ire’ne lara silva with Moisés S.L. Lara

Caridad Svich

harold terezón

J. L. Torres

PALABRA

A MAGAZINE OF CHICANO &

LATINO LITERARY ART

ISSUE 8  2012

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."

Founding Editor & Publisher: elena minor

A Magazine

of Chicano

& Latino

Literary Art

www.palabralitmag.com

NEWS RELEASE
For immediate release January 14, 2008
Contact: elena minor 1. 800. 282. 5608 palabralit@earthlink.net


PALABRA ISSUE 3 RELEASED

Just released and ready for the reading, the new issue of PALABRA A Magazine of Chicano & Latino Literary Art is filled with a diverse assortment of fiction, poetry and drama that is wistful, intense, contemplative, searing, fresh-eyed, muscular, surprising and funny.

The latest issue (No. 3) features new poetry by

Margarita Engle
Carolina Monsiváis
María Luis Arroyo
Alfar
Damacio García
Marielena O. Gómez

Also included are a novel excerpt by Richard Yañez,
a new play by Caridad Svich
and short fiction from Marisela Norte, Louis Reyna, Nick Padron and Daniel Chacón.

With the release of its third issue, PALABRA continues its quest to showcase an eclectic array of new and established Chicano and Latino literary voices speaking in a wide range of styles—writing as distinct and varied as the experiences that created them.

PALABRA is available through its website: www.palabralitmag.com and at:

Imix Bookstore - Los Angeles, CA - www.imixbooks.com
Tianguis - Chicago, IL - www.tianguis.biz
Trópico de Nopal Gallery - Los Angeles, CA www.tropicodenopal.com
REDCAT - Los Angeles, CA - www.redcat.org

PALABRA will have a table at the book fair at AWP/NYC:
come by and say hello and get your copies of 1 2 & 3.

*
I've said it before, I'll say it again: elena minor is the real deal. Both in correspondence, and in person, her passion, insight and wit---where Chican@/Latin@ letters are concerned---are easily palpable.

What follows is an interview conducted through e-mail correspondence during the months of November and December of 2006, shortly after PALABRA was born. I post again for those who may have missed it.

FA: Francisco Aragón
em: elena minor

FA: Thank you, Elena, for agreeing to this e-interview. Naturally, part of this interview will be about your recently inaugurated PALABRA. But before I get to that, I'd like readers to know something about you. Could you tell us about your literary trajectory? How long have you been writing? What genre(s)? Publication history?

em: Francisco, thank you for the opportunity to put the word out about Palabra (no pun intended). It's an undertaking that I've had in mind for several years and which finally has come to fruition. But first, let me respond to your questions about how I got to writing. I actually started writing in high school but published only three times before I finally decided to get down to the matter of writing seriously—about ten or so years ago. Mostly I write poetry, short fiction, drama (even screenplays when I need a break or just need to write myself out of a block). The genre I go with for any given piece simply depends on how an idea or notion comes to me. Sometimes it opens like a play, other times it swirls in like a story or beats out like a poem. Sometimes it feels like a combination of two or all three. That's when the fun begins and I go with whatever it feels like just to see what happens. My work has been published both online and in print in Poetry Midwest, Segue, Prism Review, Vox, BorderSenses, The Big Ugly Review, edifice WRECKED, Quercus Review, 26, Banyan Review and Facets. I also have work forthcoming in the first print issue of Diner. And I've even won a few awards in all three genres, including the Chicano/Latino Literary Prize (drama).

FA: A couple of follow-up questions/themes occur to me. You say you began writing seriously ten years ago. Can you comment on what role your MFA training at Antioch College had on your development? As you may or may not be aware, the "MFA debate" is especially lively right now in the wake of John Barr’s article in Poetry magazine, where he paints a rather unflattering portrait of those writers who pursue an MFA. The President of the AWP responded with a fairly passionate defense on behalf of the variety of MFA students that exist and how it’s unfair to paint them all with the same brushs. How do you see yourself in this debate as someone who pursued a low-residency degree? And my second question has to do with the fact that you cultivate more than one genre. Was that a conscious decision on your part? Do you feel especially close to one genre with the other two being secondary? Please comment.

em: At Antioch I found the freedom to explore and experiment with language and meaning rather than simply trying to hone conventional narrative skills. I found that I really enjoyed doing that. I still do. It suits my temperament. I'm grateful that no one tried to steer me into formulas. Although I tend to agree with John Barr's comments, I also think there will always exist in MFA programs those few souls who can create nothing but new and authentic language. I greatly enjoy reading a well-told story or a well-crafted poem and some of my favorite writers do just that, but as a writer I bore easily and get greater satisfaction from taking literary risks—even when I fail. The great benefit of doing a low residency program is that although you have an online community with which you communicate daily (or at least weekly), the "group think" dynamic of workshop is reduced to a minimum, such that you as a writer have more freedom to go where your writing will take you—yet you can still get feedback. But I also came to an MFA program when I already had a fair sense of confidence in my writing and what I wanted from an MFA program, so I was able to evaluate the feedback I received and use what made sense. I think people who don't have a sense of their writing will struggle in a low residency program.

As for why I write in more than one genre, I think it has more to do with my boredom quotient, which has a low threshold. Repetition bores me, but equally important, I find that switching genres once in a while helps me discover something new, and those discoveries strengthen my work overall—keep it from getting stale. I don't generally set out to write a poem or a short story. Rather, ideas and notions seem to self-select their own form. For the most part they come to me already cast as poems or short stories or plays, or some variation thereof. And I'm always closest to the genre in which I'm writing, and while I'm in it feel that it's my strongest and preferred modality. I don't genre jump on a daily or even weekly basis, though. I generally will go months in one or another. Lately I've begun a series of pieces that combine elements of several genres—hybrids, if you will. I don't even know how to classify them—and often people don't know how to read them.

FA: Apologies Elena, for the delay in getting the next question to you. My job here can be overwhelming sometimes. I currently, believe it or not, increasingly find myself filling out book orders for Momotombo Press. In other words, I’m being contacted by both libraries and university bookstores, who are purchasing copies of Momotombo Press because they are being adopted in classrooms. For example, Paul Martínez Pompa’s Pepper Spray is being taught next semester at Ohio State University and University of Illinois at Urbana. And I’m anticipating orders from New Mexico State University and University of Texas Pan American. I mention all this as a way of introducing my next question: As a working writer who does not hold an academic teaching job, and who has now taken on the task of editing a literary journal, how do you fit in your own writing? How do you juggle these activities?

em: You mean not everyone has three jobs? (That's meant to be a joke.) It's mostly a matter of organization and will power. I don't believe in waiting for the muse to perch on my shoulder or divine inspiration to shower down on me. I learned early on as a writer to be disciplined about writing: do it every day, at the same time, and in the same place—even if all I manage to crank out is a few lines or one paragraph or edit one word or punctuation mark. Still, for those months that Palabra is in actual production, my own writing slows to a trickle. And although I don't hold an academic teaching appointment, I do work in higher ed and am lucky enough to have a supportive work environment—one that allows me some flexibility, so I manage to get enough writing time in. I also teach creative writing to high school students once a week. Now there's a "higher ed" experience. More like professional development, as it were. Keeps me honest as a writer—keeps me from getting complacent and stale.

There is a tradeoff, though. Non-literary social activities tend to take a back seat. That's actually a dangerous place to be because your world tends to grow smaller when, as a writer and as a person, it should always be getting larger. Time spent doing one thing means time not spent doing something else. Still and all, "we pays our money and takes our chances". I took on Palabra knowing it would take a lot of work and I'm glad I'm doing it. I especially enjoy it when someone sends work that just resonates in my gut. And I love it when I find fresh new writers or work that is literarily challenging. Makes it all so worth the effort. But I will admit I'm anxious to focus on my own work again. I've had words and characters and images buzzing around in my head waiting for me to let them out so they can dance. I think it's a mambo this time.

FA: Let’s talk about the genesis of Palabra. One of the things I found so refreshing about our initial correspondence was that you seemed to want to seek out writing that pushed the envelope of "latinidad." This was welcome because there was a journal out of Brooklyn a few years ago (which I think folded shortly after 9/11) which, on the one hand, called itself, The US Latino Review, and then on the other stated quite clearly that it wanted to privilege writers who wrote about specific issues: economic, political, and social. My feeling was: if you want to publish specific kinds of writing, fine; but I found it problematic that such a limited editorial endeavor called itself something as broad and multi-faceted as The US Latino Review. Whereas your project seems to want to go in the opposite direction. Could you share with readers the particular context which spurred you to take on Palabra?

em: There is really no single reason why I decided to launch Palabra. Rather, it's a series of interconnected observations coupled with my own sense of responsibility and service to my community. As I looked around the U. S. literary landscape, I found that although there are hundreds of literary journals and webzines and dozens of small presses, only a handful of them regularly publish work by Chicanos and Latinos and, more often than not, they publish writers whose literary reputations are already established. Generally, editors and readers have had implanted in their [sub]consciousness an idea of what Chicano and Latino literature should look like and what it should say, if they're even familiar with it to begin with. If work submitted doesn't conform to those notions, it gets rejected—sometimes even if it's written by established writers. (Some journals even go so far as to state that they will accept work only in English.) Equally important, among those hundreds of literary journals, there exist few Chicano & Latino publications and, among those, I found none dedicated to developing new forms and streams to add to the canon of Chicano & Latino literature.

I also think that sometimes we're our own worst enemy in that regard. We self-censor our own work in order to get it to fit an established paradigm. It becomes a vicious circle—we use the same patterns over and over and the work as a whole becomes static, stale. My idea was to create a venue or forum, if you will, in which Chicanos and Latinos could explore and experiment with literature—try new stuff, go in new directions—and get that work published, even if it wasn't polished. I didn't want one of those [academic] literary journals that prize craft over content. I wanted something that embodied heart and risk and in which polished work would sit next to fifth draft work. I wanted a journal that was eclectic on several levels, even at the risk of being criticized for being "uneven" or "unfocused." Being seemingly uneven or unfocused gives it room to grow—gives it somewhere to go, other than down. And perfection has always bored me. Think about it: what do you do and where do you go after perfection?

But also, there was nothing more than the basic observation that there simply aren't enough Chicano and Latino literary journals out there, and there should be. Not only should there be more, but they should each reflect a different editorial bent. There's room for all—we don't have to fit all our huevos into one canasta (yes, that's a play on words). I'm just trying to make the Palabra basket a very large one, literarily speaking, of course.

FA: Your comment about the work not necessarily having to be "polished" and how the journal can house works that are at different stages of completion is quite refreshing. It goes against the idea that a poem should only be published when it is absolutely finished and ready—whatever that means. It reminds me of a comment Victor Hernández Cruz once made during an interview I conducted with him nearly twenty years ago! I was asking him about revision, and he frankly admitted that he didn’t really do that much. I think he said that a poem of his might go through three or four drafts tops. Anyway, the comment by Victor was something like, "This isn't eye surgery…if I don’t get the poem right this time, I'll try again, and hopefully do better the next time." Elena, now that the first issue of the magazine is out, can you talk a bit about the future of Palabra: how many issues do you hope to put out per year? And what are your plans, if any, for a website? And finally, have you thought about the life-span of Palabra? How many issues do you want to edit?

em: My plans are to publish Palabra twice a year – spring and fall (or as close to that as I can get). And there is a website in development. Getting it up and operational has proved to be more problematic than getting out the first issue. As for how long it will run? Generally speaking, literary magazines don't have long life spans, especially if they're not institutionalized at a college or university. I'm not sure for how long I intend it to run—probably until it no longer serves its purpose. Hopefully it will have a life after me. My thinking is to remain as its editor until its "aesthetic" has been established and people know what to expect—or not—from Palabra. I hope to grow it enough to be able to bring in associate editors and others who are interested in publishing a literary magazine—use Palabra as a training ground in that regard. Even further into the future, though, I'd like to pass Palabra onto someone or ones who can be true to its spirit but give it their own stamp. Then I'll move on to something else—possibly into publishing chapbooks or full length books—maybe even a line of ancillary literary publications. ¿Quién sabe? It depends, to a degree, on what comes with the future.

To order a copy of PALABRA and/or learn more, write to elena at: palabralit@earthlink.net

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elena minor is the founding editor of Palabra: A Magazine of Chicano & Latino Literary Art. Her poetry, fiction and commentary have been published or are forthcoming in Poetry Midwest, Diner, 26, Vox, Segue, Prism Review, BorderSenses, The Big Ugly Review, Quercus Review, edifice WRECKED, Banyan Review, Facets, Chicanovista and Frontera. She is a past first prize recipient of the Chicano/Latino Literary Prize (drama) from UC Irivine and has, as well, won awards for her fiction and her poetry. She was commissioned to write a play by the Mark Taper Forum’s Other Voices Project. She has also placed as a finalist in several national fiction competitions. Most recently, she was awarded second place in poetry in the Sacramento Public Library’s Focus on Writers contest.

She was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and became an activist in college. She helped organize Chicano student organizations and advocated to establish ethnic studies programs and increase the number of minority students in college. After college that activism expanded into full-blown community organization during the Chicano Movement of the 60s and 70s. Most of her advocacy work concerned education, police brutality, health care, civil rights and voter registration and Chicana/Latina issues and empowerment. It was during those years that her writing was first published—a short and passionate commentary titled “The Chicana Experience.” Her experiences as an activist not only helped shape her values about service to the community but also the course of her life. They led her into urban planning, local government, higher education and, lastly, to arts administration and writing, which she has been doing for the last fifteen years. She earned an MFA in creative writing from Antioch University in Los Angeles.