Verse Wisconsin—Interview with Martín Espada by Wendy VardamanMore of Espada's interview alongside new poetry, reviews, and a new poem by Lorine Niedecker can be found at Verse Wisconsin's Summer 2010 Issue.
Espada: The first reading I did was in 1979. Actually, it was not a reading of my work, but that of Nazim Hikmet, the great Turkish poet, at an event for Turkish solidarity, which then, as now, was needed. I got an appetite for reading and performing in public. I remember also, in the early 1980s, getting involved with the Central American solidarity movement, a natural outgrowth of the education I was getting on Latin America. I did a reading of Ernesto Cardenal’s poems as part of a Central American solidarity event. From there, it was an easy progression to reading my own work.
The first reading I did of my own was at the Club de Wash, at the same bar where I was working as the bouncer. Naturally, since I was the bouncer, I immediately got all the attention I wanted, and didn’t have any problem getting people to listen to me. I cut my teeth reading in places like that and the Cardinal Bar, places where you had to learn certain tricks to make yourself heard.
Verse Wisconsin: More of a slam setting, almost?
Espada: Yeah, although here I would add that a slam setting implies competition. I wasn’t there to be judged or rated. I was there because I had this compulsion to write poetry, to be heard and to find an audience, which all poets want, whether they admit it or not. That first reading did involve a certain amount of bellowing. The skills I learned reading in bars are still valuable, more than thirty years later.
Oscar Bermeo: What was the impetus for starting a new press?
Anisa Onofre: My compañero, Juan Tejeda, and I began talking about starting a press when we met a few years ago. I was doing a lot of writing, and he kept encouraging me to publish it. The original idea was to create a press, publish my book, and then offer an annual Premio prize for new Chicano writers. I hesitated because I didn’t want to create a press just to initially publish myself.
OB: Your first title is by prestigious Xicano poet alurista. How did you come to choose alurista as Aztlan Libre's inaugural author?
AO: So, the idea to start the press was always there. Then in 2009 Juan and I came across alurista’s MySpace page. Alurista was Juan’s poetry professor at UT-Austin years ago and Juan decided to contact him to see how he was doing. He sent a message through alurista’s MySpace, and alurista’s son Zamná responded with a telephone number. Juan called alurista who was living in Tijuana at the time. It was somewhere in that conversation alurista mentioned he had a new manuscript and was going to send it to us. We took this as a sign to start moving on the press (please see introduction to Tunaluna as a reference to this question).
OB: How does the work you are doing with Aztlan Libre connect with your work with Gemini Ink's Writers in Communities (WIC) program?
AO: On a technical level, my work with WIC also came in at the perfect time. When I started at Gemini Ink last July, one of the first things Executive | Artistic Director Rosemary Catacalos did was hire someone to train me in InDesign because part of the WIC job is to create the books that come out of the writing workshops. So having this knowledge really helped us to create Tunaluna.
On another level, I think Aztlan Libre Press’ philosophy is a lot like Gemini Ink’s philosophy, which is that we encourage people to write their stories, and for Aztlan Libre Press—particularly raza. We want our people to see their stories as important, valuable, and necessary, as well as to see them documented and reflected positively through these publications.
OB: What future titles/authors can we expect from Aztlan Libre in the future?
AO: Tunaluna is the first book in our Veteran@s Series. We’re also making plans for a Nuevas Voces Series, and an Aztlan Libre Press Premio en la Literatura Xicana, as well as a children’s coloring book. At the moment, we’re gathering the submissions we’ve received for a chapbook, Nahualliandoing Dos—a collection of poetry written in English, Spanish, and Nahuatl.
OB: In the era of SB 1070, the state of Texas' attempt to rewrite classroom texts, and the myth of a "post-racial" United States, what do you hope will be the impact of a multilingual press?
AO: The goal of our small press is to contribute to the development, promotion, publication, and free expression of Xican@ literature and art as part of the larger diaspora of American and World Literature and art, and to be part of the communication and dialogue that contributes to a better understanding among people of different cultures. This provides a positive impact on our children by providing reflections of the Chicano experience—an area that most media depicts in a negative light.
We hope to bring about awareness that literature in the schools generally does not reflect our history, language, culture, and literature, and that independent presses such as ours are important sources for this information. Multilingual presses offer an alternative to the school system, but we do not want to absolve the schools from providing a culturally relevant curriculum to its students, especially in a state like Texas where over half of the public school age children are Chicano/Latino.
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| TUNALUNA by alurista Aztlan Libre Press, 2010 Cover art by Judithe Hernández |
Introduction
I first met alurista in 1975 at the University of Texas in Austin. He was a Visiting Lecturer there for a couple of years teaching courses and already a legendary loco en la Literatura Xicana. I was a junior at the university and was involved en el Movimiento Chicano with various organizations at the school and in the community including MAYO and the Raza Unida Party and I had already begun writing when I enrolled in one of his Chicano Poetry classes. This course proved to be a turning point that greatly influenced the direction of my life and my life’s work. It was through alurista and this class of estudiantes and emerging escritores y poetas que se me prendió el foco. Everything came together, full circle, so to say, much like it has come together again today, and it was the new beginning of my American Indian spirituality and Xicano cultural identity. It was the new beginning of my work with poesía, música, danza, education, Chicano arts organizations and arts administration. It was the beginning of my work with Literatura Xicana and publications and independent Chicano publishing. In a very real sense, it was the beginning of Aztlan Libre Press, 35 years later, mas o menos, with the publication of this book, Tunaluna, our first and alurista’s tenth.
But it all began in alurista’s Chicano Poetry class at U.T. Austin where we met once a week, first on campus, then off campus, then at alurista’s home, or one of the other writer’s homes. We read our poetry, short stories, locuras, discussed, critiqued, talked politics, got organized, made música, marchamos, leímos en la universidad, la comunidad, and at the end of this course we published Trece Aliens, a compilation of writings and drawings from twelve students and alurista. I only have one copy in my files, copyrighted 1976 by the authors. An 8” X 11” spiral bound, xeroxed copied, black on white bond paper with black on blue slightly thicker cover stock and a Cecilio García-Camarillo black ink drawing on the cover entitled “Un bato con las manos abiertas” whose two outspread hands are drawn with the letters that spell “silencio” and whose black-hatted face is composed of words that read “para mi raza tortillas cósmicas” with a cucaracho coming out of the bottom of the drawing. I think we added that cucaracho to Cecilio’s drawing. Con permiso, carnal. It was my first publication. I remember collating the pages by hand assembly-style, and at the end of the short introduction to Trece Aliens alurista wrote: “la temática de la obra es el resultado de diálogos abiertos en los cuales exploramos la alienación humana – particularmente xicana – y sus causas. la dedicamos a todos los ‘aliens’ como nosotros, con esperanzas de que el dia llegue cuando las fronteras no existan.”
Thus began a journey that would immerse me in the Chicano Cultural Renaissance and working with many projects and organizations including the Conjunto Aztlan, LUChA (League of United Chicano Artists), the Festival Estudiantil Chicano de Arte y Literatura, Capitán-General Andrés Segura and Xinachtli, the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, Palo Alto College, and others.
All along this journey I have been involved with writing and publishing in one way or another. In 2008, my compañera, Anisa Onofre, who is also a poet/writer and currently the Director of the Writers in Communities Program at Gemini Ink here in San Antonio, and I decided to fulfill a dream and create an independent Chicano publishing company dedicated to the promotion of Xican@ Literature and Art. In 2009 Aztlan Libre Press began to become a reality. In the spirit of Cecilio Garcia-Camarillo and Caracol, plans are underway to publish Nahualliandoing Dos, a chapbook of collected poemas and writings in three languages, Nahuatl, Español and English, and a coloring book for children in three languages with the symbols of the 20 days in the Aztec calendar. Tunaluna is the first in the Veteran@s Series, and we're making plans for a Nuevas Voces Series and an Aztlan Libre Press Premio en la Literatura Xicana, among other projects. It’s a labor of love, pero como preguntó la camarada, “is there any other kind?”
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| MIGRANT SOULS Arturo Islas Avon Books, 1991 |
Arturo Islas: An Appreciation on the Occasion of the 20th Anniversary of Migrant Souls
Arturo Islas died one day after Valentine’s Day in 1991, almost a year after the release of his second novel Migrant Souls. News of his death was a particularly disappointing moment for me because I had resolved to attend Stanford University’s graduate program just to work with him. I was only a junior at the University of California, Riverside, but I already had aspirations to become a writer. I had been reading Chicano literature voraciously, and one of the books that had moved me had been The Rain God (1984). The sequel to the Angel family saga, had just been released to wide acclaim and I spent the next twelve months fantasizing about telling Islas all about me. You see, the other thing I knew about him was that he was gay. A gay Chicano writer. Who knew there were two of us?
Complete guest post at Pluma Fronteriza.
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.
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| TIDAL BASIN REVIEW SUMMER 2010 Cover Art, Rachel Eliza Griffiths |
