Twenty-five Cent Stories

I’m happy to post that I will be a poet-in-residence at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in conjunction with its “Bittersweet Harvest: The Bracero Program” exhibition in Washington D.C. from December 5 through 6. I’ll be doing four readings under the program “The Poetics of Labor: A Reading Series for Bittersweet Harvest” (poet Naomi Ayala will be reading, too!).

Saturday, December 5: 11:00am and 2:15pm, in the exhibition 2nd floor west

Sunday, December 6: 12:00pm and 3:00pm, in the exhibition 2nd floor west

 Special thanks to the co-sponsor, Francisco Aragon and Letras Latinos, as well as the coordinator, Magdalena Mieri!

I haven’t been to D.C. since spring of 2001. I’m excited to go again and not worry about the terror tourists may have felt the first few years after 9/11. My only concern is weather. How privileged!

Emmy Pérez wins 2009 Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral Foundation Award

The Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral (ACDM) Foundation is pleased to announce the winner of the 2009 ACDM Award: poet Emmy Pérez (McAllen, TX).  This year’s award totals, $8,912.
 
Emmy Pérez is the author of a poetry collection, Solstice (Swan Scythe Press, 2003). She holds degrees from Columbia University and the University of Southern California.  Her work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, North American Review, Notre Dame Review, New York Quarterly, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Indiana Review, Crab Orchard Review, and the anthologies The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry and The Weight of Addition: an anthology of Texas Poetry. She is a contributing editor for The Writer’s Chronicle, Latino Poetry Review, and Texas Books in Review.  Currently, she is an Assistant Professor and teaches in the MFA program at the University of Texas-Pan American in the Rio Grande Valley.
 
The Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral Foundation was created in 2000 to honor the memory of Sandra Cisneros’ father, an upholsterer. “My father lived his life as an example of generosity and honest labor,” Cisneros has written; “Even as he warned us to save our centavitos, he was always giving away his own.  A meticulous craftsman, he would sooner rip the seams of a cushion apart and do it over than put his name on an item that wasn’t up to his high standards.  I especially wanted to honor his memory by an award showcasing writers who are equally proud of their own craft.”
 
The Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral Foundation invites a panel of nominators to recommend writers from across the writing disciplines who were born in Texas or who currently reside in Texas. Recipients are selected for exhibiting both exceptional talent and a profound commitment to their chosen form of expression.
 
The 2009 judges were writers Andrei Codrescu, Fae Myenne Ng and John O. Espinoza. Past judges have been journalists, memoirists, anthropologists, poets, historians, essayists, and novelists–including Edwidge Danticat, Linda Hogan, Dr. Antonia Castaneda, John Phillip Santos, Dagoberto Gilb, Dr. Arturo Madrid, Dr. Norma Elia Cantú, Dr. Carmen Tafolla, and Rubén Martínez.
 
[The Foundation does not accept individual solicitations, nominations, or funding requests.]

I haphazardly stumbled upon this op-ed piece by novelist and UC Riverside creative writing professor Susan Straight about what her decision may be on the eve of a strike at the UC campus. It’s a testimony about teachers and how the teaching of writing has an impact on the underserved. The teaching of writing, she says, is not as frivolous as the other practical trades.

I’m happy that Susan still remembers me all these years, as she points me out in the article. She also gives a nod to her other students and Chicano Chapbook poets–Rigoberto Gonzalez and Michael Jayme-Becerra.

I am proud to be part of LitQuake X next week! I will be part of the Lit Crawl phase 2 on Saturday, Oct 17, from 7:15pm-8:15pm.

LOCATION:Sub/Mission Art Space, 2183 Mission

Emerging & Established Latino Writers

Some have been writing for decades and some for just a few years . . . but all have something to say! Join poets, playwrights, and short story writers at the Sub-Mission Gallery.

Daisy Zamora,  Alejandro Murguía, Jose Vadi, Octavio Solis, John Olivares Espinoza

Dear Friends and Poets,

Here is the latest from WordTemple and beyond:

Location, Location, Location.  A reminder that the Fall ‘09 season of the WordTemple Poetry Series will be held at the Sonoma County Museum, 425-7th Street, in Santa Rosa.  The Museum is located directly across the street from the Santa Rosa Plaza parking garage.  Although the Museum initially said all readings would take place in the main gallery, they had to change their plans this week due to exhibit needs; all readings will take place in the newly painted reading room downstairs. 

Still Free.  All WordTemple events are free, free, free.  There is no change here.  What has changed is that you will see a receptacle provided by the Museum for “Donations.”  This has nothing to do with WordTemple but is a way you can donate directly to the Museum for providing space and staff if you would like.

Copperfield’s.  Many people have asked why WordTemple is not being held at Copperfield’s this season.   The only reason is that there was a serious scheduling problem, the first in four years.  In order to have the readings there, I would have had to ask several poets to cancel their readings; I just couldn’t do this.  Everyone has been looking forward to reading at WordTemple for a long time, some traveling from New York and Michigan.  Copperfield’s is still our good friend and has offered to advertise WordTemple events this season even though the events aren’t being held in their store.  I hope you will continue to support this lovely, community-minded, independent bookstore in Montgomery Village.  We definitely don’t want them to go away.

OPENING READING OF THE SEASON:  FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11th at 7 p.m.

GEORGE STENGER will be the opening poet of the night.  Stenger, a Santa Rosa poet, has had poems published in the anthology Present at the Creation and in Intersection, the journal for the Guild of Psychological Studies.

JOHN OLIVARES ESPINOZA  Espinoza’s first book of poetry, The Date Fruit Elegies, was the inaugural publication of Bilingual Press’s new series, Canto Cosas. The book was a 2009 nominee for the Northern California Book Award in Poetry. Espinoza is the son of Mexican parents who settled in the densely working-class parts of Southern California where he and his brothers worked as landscapers with his father in the resort towns. Espinoza holds degrees in creative writing from UC Riverside (B.A.) and Arizona State University (M.F.A.).

RUSTY MORRISON  Morrison’s the true keeps calm biding its story won the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets, the Northern California Book Award, and the Ahsahta Press Sawtooth Prize. Whethering won the Colorado Prize for Poetry. She has received the Poetry Society of America’s George Bogin (09), Alice Fay DiCastagnola (07), Cecil Hemley (06), and Robert H. Winner (03) Memorial Awards, as well as the 2008 Patricia Goedicke Prize in Poetry from Cutbank, the University of Montana’s literary magazine.  She is co-publisher of Omnidawn Publishing (www.omnidawn.com).

WordTemple on KRCB    Wednesday, September 19 at 7:00 p.m.

BRYAN TSO JONES and ANNE SEXTON

Many of you heard Bryan Tso Jones give a wonderful reading at the WordTemple Poetry Series earlier this year.  Tonight on KRCB: an in-depth interview with Jones, author of the award winning collection, Raking the Hollow Bones.  Jones’ poems explore the two cultures in which he grew up, interweaving mythological stories and folk tales shared by both sides of his Chinese-American family.  The poems, organized in sections such as JIA (Family), GUI/SHEN (Ghosts), REN (Humanity), and more, echo ideas postulated in Confucian philosophies.  “Readers of this impressive book may often feel that they are on the verge of stumbling across the ‘gold key/we have misplaced./It opens the door/we shut in our youth.’  But by the end of the book, they will realize that they possessed the key all along: it is the poems themselves.” — Troy Jollimore

Following Bryan Tso Jones, I introduce the life of Pulitzer Prize winning poet Anne Sexton and play recordings of Sexton reading her work.  Poems include “Old Dwarf Heart,” “For My Lover Returning to His Wife,” “You, Dr. Martin,” and more.  “(Sexton) drew her poems from a great depth in herself, and they continue to stir us…Her voice remains a distinctive one in American poetry of the past half century.” — J.D. McClatchy

FOR MORE INFORMATION on the WordTemple Poetry Series and WordTemple on KRCB, go to www.wordtemple.com or contact me directly.

Other News:

SONOMA COUNTY BOOK FESTIVAL   Saturday, September 19 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Courthouse Square, Santa Rosa.  Check out the schedule at www.sonomacountybookfest.org.   (Thanks to Gwynn O’Gara for organizing the poetry stage this year!)

–Katherine Hastings

Today I mailed out my submission for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award for a first book of poetry. I’ve always wanted to win this book prize ever since I was a kid of 22 years of age. Not just because of its prestige and the prize money that comes with it, but because it is one of the few–if not, the only–major book prize to come out of Southern California (Claremont Graduate College to be exact, in Claremont, CA). C’mon SoCal institutions, step up your game!

 The Latino Writers Collective presents The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry ON TOUR with editor Francisco Aragon, author of Puerta del Sol and director of the Institute of Latino Studies at Notre Dame University, with contributors Brenda Cardenas, author of Boomerang, and John Olivares Espinoza, author of Date Fruit Elegies. The Wind Shifts is the winner of the International Latino Book Award in Poetry. Reception and book signing to follow.

What: Latino Writers Collective Reading Series

When: September 23, 2009, 7:00

Where: Plaza Library, 4801 Main Street, Kansas City, MO

Rusty Morrison and I will be reading for the WordTemple Reading Series in Santa Rosa, hosted by Katherine Hastings.

Rusty Morrison is the co-founder of Omnidawn Publishing and her second book, The True Keeps Calm Biding its Story, was last year’s Jame Laughlin winner and took this year’s Northern California Book Award in Poetry (knocking me and four others out! ; p )

Where: Sonoma County Museum

When: Friday, September 11, 2009

Time: 7:00PM-?

For a fifth time, I will be attending the Macondo Writers’ Workshop. What’s different this time around is that I will be co-facilitating a workshop with the novelist Fan Wu. The workshop will be a traditional one with a focus on self-editing.

 Looking forward to seeing all the wonderful Macondistas!

When? July 27-August 1, 2009

Where? Our Lady of the Lady University, San Antonio