Central Americans Unicorns in Space

Revisiting my blog I found this draft of a post from a year ago that I never published. I will post it now even though I could and should continue writing about it. I’ve always written slowly and hate to post anything that isn’t polished but that is probably why I don’t publish often enough. So here is this unfinished draft in the hopes of documenting moments like these and pushing myself to write more.

Back in November (2010) I participated in a reading of Central American poets in Leisy Abrego’s U.S. Central American Studies class at UCLA. Professor Abrego is the first tenure track professor in Chicano/a studies at UCLA with an emphasis in Central American Studies, and has always been for me a big inspiration. There are many of us who go to college and would love to take a class that focuses on the history and experience of our own culture. At least one class, which is of course not enough to cover our culture, history, literature and legacies…especially in such metropolitan cities with huge populations of Central Americans…

One of the many ways she marked the occasion of her first semester at UCLA was to invite as many of us as were willing and able to read together and present in her class. Some of us have been friends for more than ten years, and a few of those present were writers who had heard of this group of poets and found a way to connect with one of us.
It is rare these days that we read together, maybe once a year if at all. (Maybe it was always rare, but there was a time somewhere between 2000-2004 that it seemed like more). Sometimes the work we have done together in the past may seem mythological because it isn’t easy to track us down, but the fact that we used to gather as a group to write and talk and put on events, still to many people, especially those hungry for our version of diasporic Central American-ness feels powerful, impactful and dare I say inspiring… I always have the sense that reading together with any number of the poets I have known from this loose collective contextualizes each other in a way that reading alone does not. Many of us touch on themes of home, migration, identity, dictatorship, civil war, displacement and loss, but also we write love poems that challenge gender roles and play with sexuality, or a  snapshot of city life or about the hybrid existence of being from both here and there- we then are, momentarily, in this someplace new that is not new, at home, recognizing the possibilities,  providing a broader picture, revealing our complexity, and adding voices to a chorus of individuals with chris-crossing existences. These voices add nuance to the one dimensional or barely visible images you rarely see, even if you are paying attention. When we are together in this context the laughter and longing seem that much sweeter and fuller, as it was this day.
The poets present were myself (Maya Chinchilla), Rossana Perez, Leyda Garcia, Gustavo Guerra-Vasquez, Arely Zimmerman and Oriel Siu. Professor Abrego also read a poem after much urging from her class and read a beautiful about the transition from living in one bedroom apartment with her husband and two sons, always living in close proximity to her family and noisy neighbors with questionable activities, to owning a home and her discomfort at the new experience as a new professor mingling with different levels of privilege at wine and cheese events.
This poem marks the moment of an immigrant child, 1.5 generation Salvadoran woman feeling the conflict between success, upward mobility, while remembering her roots and all the struggles she and her family made to get her to this place. It was maybe uncharacteristically “real” for what is expected of a professor with a background in sociology facilitating her first class. That is why it was so powerful to hear from this hardworking, soft spoken overachieving professional. This is one of the markers I think, of this group. None in the group would only identify as poet or artist, except maybe me and I still tack on graduate student, filmmaker and educator.
After the reading, the poets met to “convivir un buen rato” and Arely or maybe Oriel asked the group what would it take to support your writing. What do you need? The answer was a resounding need for space, that is no less urgent a need than ten years ago: a gathering place and time. To be encouraged. To be valued for this work. Somehow we know in the back of our minds how valuable the space to create is as all the community and family work each one of us does, but unfortunately gets pushed back down the list of priorities when making rent and picking up a child at school comes first.

I often dream about ways to cultivate and support these voices and create the space and time to build on what was, what is…. Until then I give thanks for another brief moment in time to play with other Central American Unicorns who are willing to jump right in and pick up where we left off.

Performance Poetry Finals

Witness the bravery, honesty, humor, passion, artistry, and one sick beat.

Join us
on Tuesday, December 14th from 6 ~ 8pm.

Featuring the poetic genius of:
Maya Chinchilla
Merritt Lander
Kate Menzies
Adrienne Oliver
Eboni Dunbar
Lyall Harris
Madeleine Clifford
Molly Daniels

Under the graceful tutelage of Marc Bamuthi Joseph.

The Kaleidoscope Reading Series (my next reading)

Come see me read. I’m thinking of reading some new work. I’m not doing many readings these days as I’m finishing up my M(u)FA so get it while it’s hot!

Come out for September’s star-studded Kaleidoscope Reading!
Featuring Barbara Jane Reyes and Naomi Quiñonez, with Raphael Cohen, *Maya Chinchilla* and Alex Fernandez. Don’t miss it!

Thursday, September 30th at The Kaleidoscope Free Speech Zone, 3109 24th Street at Folsom. Doors at 7:30, show at 8. Admission free.

Naomi Helena Quiñonez is the author of Hummingbird Dream/Sueño de Colibri, The Smoking Mirror and The Exiled Moon and co-edited Invocation L.A: Urban Multicultural Poetry an anthology which won the American Book Award

Barbara Jane Reyes is the author of Diwata, Gravities of Center and Poeta en San Francisco and is co-editor of Doveglion Press.

Raphael Cohen, author of  Scrutinizing Lines, is the founder of  Play In The Margins Press, an independent publishing and event production initiative.

Maya Chinchilla is a founding member of Las Manas, director of MADE IN BRAZIL: Dreams at Work and Reading Between the Rhymes and is currently working on a book of poetic non-fiction.

Alex Fernandez is sassy. Alex writes to put feelings back into calloused hands and hearts.  Alex is VONA alumnus. Alex is second generation Pinoy/American from San Leandro (it hugs Oakland!) by way of Guam.

see you there!

Bloody Piñatas

If I could sum up what I would like my writing to be  it would be this:

Empathic Civilization

I think I got more than my share of empathy. Want some?

Showing Up

-after VONA For Suheir Hammad and the Magic Room Poets

I gave green light kisses on her eyelashes

to confirm that we were

birthed from memory.

romantic she told me when I wasn’t next to her que:

“tu me haces mucha falta.”

instead of swooning

I translate literally

“I find you missing.”

Worried I am her lack I say

“why don’t you go save the stars?”

Running so I don’t have to face what’s in between.

Sick from the potential I lost her

stuck in the fun house mirror of my dysfunctional misery.

I missed her.

too.

caught between the shoulds. If then. have should.

means harder.

My heart valves flicker, lungs reach

capacity praying for more chest space.

the fight means releasing.

Imperfect beautiful should

confront the magic instead of wanting to flee.

Writer meets air. showing up. fist open.

essential intention. not your savior.

destroying the foundation cause

it’s beneath you. shades people carry as sym

bolic offering.

mind

lost.

again.

not speaking cause of a message too fly to catch.

a contract to cut the junk food lines.

leave laziness behind

even when she gets fast on you.

We here

forming a ritual that helps bring out the truth.

defense shield behind. strength and wisdom

to gather more strength and wisdom.

Redemption transforms I hear.

the honesty in the poet circle is what informs the heart broken.

If I could see her again I would say

thank you for permission.

seeing the god in me when I most wanted to disappear

for tools that work outside this room.

especially for holding silence.

for releasing sweaty palms pushing.

no control over uncomfortable  story.

I am working on betrayed definitions.

a narrowing. a moment that happened before.

staying away from short term symptom relief.

Asking the same questions hoping for no answers. the story remains

a glimmer. that way you learn

and for the sake of all we’ll retire the use of ancestors as a crutch

quit enabling their dysfunction in the afterlife.

bridging slow with tools from the magic room.
A poet in recovery.

Poetry Has a Posse- after VONA

Had an amazing time at the first week of VONA in the advanced poetry workshop with Suheir Hammad. Hmm. Amazing isn't really the right word and of course poetry is about carefully choosing the right words, marking moments in time (saving the timeless?) and working the phrases to find freshness. Every word has weight and meaning even if they are supporting the push towards the next carefully chosen words.

I have to admit that sometimes my words aren't always so carefully chosen. Sometimes I rely too heavily on the inspiration in the moment, the  pressure to mark time, my intuitive rhythms and the relief of writing something new to share right away. I want so desperately to hold on to those instances even if they aren't the best words for the job. The trained eye can see this but my defenses kick in and want to fight those trained eyes because most of them don't seem to care about my growth or my unique voice. They just want to show off what their experience tells them about my choice of words, slashing phrases without regard to their energy.

I am mistrustful of poets and writers (especially in power positions) who don't show emotion about how serious these exchanges of energies are. If you don't take my work seriously no matter your tastes, or the judgement you have of my work or lack of understanding of my cultural context I will most likely build a wall to protect myself. And there have been many walls built in anticipation of this experience. I thought maybe this was a toughening necessary for those of us that put our work up for critique but it hasn't made me a better writer. It has built some walls into my work.

I see your defenses too. The way you'll confess how you prefer one type of poetry over another, how you are not a performer or your poetry's not for the page or how poetry's not really your thing or how you just write for yourself. Dear you. All cop outs. Tell yourself what you need to if you want to stay where you are but know I am aware of all of these because I am guilty of a few. Right here right now I give you permission to do what it is you have been meaning to do but then of course you're accountable to keep at it. None of this well I've always been an underachiever b.s. either. I don't believe the stories you have been telling yourself. I know it's painful to move in a different direction but it hurts even more when you are stuck. I'm telling this to myself just as much as I am to you.

And so it is I give thanks to Suheir and the poets of the Magic Poet Room for giving me permission to let down my defenses and build a tool box including a few numbers to call when I need a poetic sponsor. For the Compassion (with a big C) and for the realness. I know I need to do the work. It is not about wishing it came easier anymore.

This past two weeks I have been tearing down walls, practicing weightlessness, realizing work is not a punishment (even when I feed off of the pain), and grateful for the time to reflect.

Now I'm in search of new forms that reflect my literary legacy and to freshen up what's tired. On a new journey joining those who support- draw focus to -not berate or enable. Re-committing myself to my poetic recovery releasing my past hurt to the wind. En todas mis idiomas y traducciones. This is the work.

One poem at a time.

Before We Were Named

I will not be playing myself at all in this one! And I’m glad, cause I need a break from being me to regroup after a ridiculous semester:

Friends and Colleagues!
Hope to see you at this brand spanking new production next week!

This is not your typical theater – it’s a hands on show that invites the audience to interact directly with the performers and sets. The show references historic World’s Fairs and marketplaces to explore the creation of polarities between the global north and south, and as a forum through which cultural mythologies and ethnographic fantasies are birthed and mediated. And the show also promises to be playful, sexy and bold and features a very talented lineup of drag stars, dancers, theater makers, circus performers and musical virtuosos.

There is limited audience capacity each night because we want the audience to experience the show and subject matter in an intimate setting. So get your tickets now if you haven’t!

Advance tickets at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/111351

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QCC and The National Queer Arts Festival Present

Before We Were Named:
A marvel of queer theater and interactive performance chronicling our spectacular existence via histories of violence, displacement, migration, revolt and spirit.

Conceptualized and Produced by Nico Dacumos and Cherry Galette

Featuring wondrous anomalies, expositions, curios and exhibitions by:

Maya Chinchilla
Irina Contreras
Nico Dacumos
Aimee Espiritu
Cherry Galette
Juba Kalamka
Gaston Mazo
Carlos Oxford AKA Karlangas
SoliRose

With Folk Thought facilitated by Daniel Alexander Jones on 6/15

June 15 & June 16, 2010, 8:00PM
The Lab
2948 16th St. @ Capp
San Francisco, CA
$12 – $20 sliding scale
Advance tickets at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/111351

Enter scenes inspired by world’s fairs of years past and marketplaces at the edge of a distopian future. Move freely through a collaborative theater environment to interact with queer origin stories, myths, and fables told through music, dance, film, experimental performance and ritual.

Come witness new work from some of the Bay Area’s most innovative and notorious QTPOC artists and troublemakers centering migration, the birth of cultural mythologies, the queer body in diaspora and the many ways we’ve been named, celebrated, remembered, demonized and memorialized.

Protest Purikura: the fight for justice and glitter

Check out Rio’s page here for our adventures in hybrid protest purikura: the fight for justice and glitter. A much-needed creative release of steam. (I think I just mixed metaphors or sayings…I blame my father and his play with language

You know, I will never understand why no one has any problem studying brown people as exotic animals through Anthropology and Archeology….and Ethnic Studies is under attack…What are you afraid of? Knowing one’s own history is necessary. Colonized peoples speaking for themselves is invaluable. Oh history. Oh the untold versions of the story. Oh pseudo post racial society. Oh “color blindness” as excuse to ignore what makes you uncomfortable about the complex world we live in. Like Angry Asian Man says here “Ethnic Studies are American Studies.”

Queer Latinidad Tonight!

I’m performing at Queer Latinidad event tonight at UC Davis!

I hear the students are ready to get some love and healing after a really rough time.
There has been continued harassment and homophobic vandalism around these types of events targeting the work these fierce students do to create safe spaces at Davis so send your supporters  and send good vibes!

“Confrontando Nuestro Dolor y Reclamando Nuestros Espacios en la Comunidad”

Queer Latinidad is a program during La Raza Cultural Days
and aims to celebrate, honor and increase visibility of the
intersections within the Chicana/o Latina/o Community
and Queer Community.

Thursday April 29, 2010
7 pm-10pm
ARC Ballroom
UC Davis
Performances will include:
- Monologues by La Familia de UC Davis
- Maya Chinchilla performing an excerpt from “Love is for Suckers in the Borderlands”
- “JotActivista: Mano Que Apunta a La Tierra” by Xuanito Espinoza-Cuellar

For more information, please contact Carla Lopez at cclopez@ucdavis.edu