Lorna Dee at Stanford Today, American Literature Association (ALA) Featured Reader Tomorrow, 4 pm, Hyatt, SF

I'll be a guest speaker in two Stanford classes tomorrow. One, Cherrie Moraga's class is open to the public. So join me today at 4 - 6 pm with the artist, Celia Herrera Rodriguez in El Centro Chicano at Stanford. Click here for more info and to hear Linda Hogan at another performance open to the public next week.

Tomorrow I'll be the featured reader at the American Literature Association's conference at 4 pm - following this session at 3 pm:

Session 5-G Critical Reflections on Lorna Dee Cervantes’s Drive: the First Quartet (Pacific J)

Chair: Eliza Rodriguez y Gibson, University of Redlands

1. “‘Bad’ Girls on Bird Ave: The Poetics of Girl Power,” Tanya González, Kansas State University
2. “Violence, Poetic Language, and The Reader as Critical Witness,” Tiffany Lopez, University of California, Riverside
3. “Ethics and Readership,” Juan Mah y Busch, Loyola Marymount University

You can register for the entire conference as an independent scholar (I kind of like the term) for $80 (which will get you where in a tank of gas?)

19th Annual Conference on American Literature

May 22-25, 2008

Hyatt Regency San Francisco
In Embarcadero Center
5 Embarcadero Center
San Francisco, CA 94111

Into the Spring - Sad News: Michael Rossman Has Left the Dimension

Michael Rossman, photo by Marc Franklin

Berkeley Free Speech Movement activist, poet, writer, scientist, thinker, teacher, archivist, musician, father, rock hound, human being extraordinaire, Michael Rossman has left the dimension and ventured forth into Spring. I am very sad, sad that our paths crossed so late in life, sad with regret that I didn't spend time with him when I had the opportunity as I feared infecting him with that terrible flu bug I had this past winter.

I'll testify: Michael could change your life with the slightest touch.

You can visit Michael's leukemia blog and leave a comment for friends and family. I just visited this morning and read the the single comment at the end of his last post, an haiku: "MICHAEL HAS LEFT US. May 12, 2008."

Visit Michael Rossman's official website a site where he posted his books, poetry, essays, a science teaching manual, translations, Berkeley Free Speech Movement history, political poster archives and other material in their entireity: a virtual wealth of information and materials which deserve to reach a wider audience. I am hoping to help publicize the website, so if you can, please link to his sites and help to get them into circulation and visible on the search engines. This material is a great gift.

Here's what I wrote on my blog entry regarding Michael's fight with leukemia and my connection to him which was as poet to poet; although I loved him:

"Michael Rossman was one of the founding organizers of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and was there at the wheels of the patrol car holding Mario Savio (sic: Jack Weinberg) at Sproul Plaza on October 2, 1964 along with 1,200 others--soon to swell to 10,000 plus others. He, along with many others, stood up on the top of the patrol car that day and began to speak truth to power. He is still speaking, and writing, with his shoulder always to the wheel. Please help to keep this history alive as Michael struggles to maintain his own life. His spirit, as always, is strong--and we are the richer for it.

I am a child of the Free Speech Movement which was a movement for Civil Rights for all, and I know I owe my being here to it's legacy. What stopped the war started my life. And I am not alone."

Visit Michael Rossman's Official Website

Michael Rossman's blog where people can visit and leave comments learn about ways to help.

Or visit Michael Rossman's Leukemia Blog where you can just read the individual entries.



Always, Michael, always.

Poems Under the Dome Tonight - Where In The World Is Lorna?

I'll be doing my civic duty, reading a poem under the dome at City Hall this evening. Come join me. Sign up to read your own or your favorite. I won the raffle at the Lunada reading last week at the Galeria de la Raza, so I'm on in just a couple of hours, 5:30-9 pm. Selected as one of San Francisco's "fun and cheap" things to do in The City, come and hear the universe and chance's choice of local poets - maybe become one yourself. Impress a date. Express yourself. Meet my friend, Diamond Dave, a trip in and of itself, at the world's biggest open mic without a mic. Poetry On!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And, May 3 at the International Workers Day celebration at Cafe Boheme, my favorite hangout, at 6 pm, featuring the poet laureate of The Mission, Alfonso Texidor.

May 6 I'll be reading at Gavilan College in Gilroy.

May 14 I may be on the air on KKUP's poetry show, 8-9pm.

May 15th I'll be in Fresno - YAY!

More info to follow. Book me now! Now, I'm bookin'. Ciao!

Home Again, Hanging In There, Good Arroz Con Pollo, A New Mailing Address, and "Highway of Tears"

Home again after Chicago where I had a great time under extraordinary weather and in the midst of even more extraordinary company. The students at DePaul University were all the bomb. It was so good to see good people again: Francisco Aragón and my old friend, poet and fellow bookslinger, Carlos Cumpian—a rare treat. And what can I say about Rigoberto Gonzalez? He is so good he sends shivers up and down your spine. He was reading new work and in good form. It was all good. 'Though I spent most of the time in my hotel room (single mothers with 13 year old boys will understand that one) and too shy or something to try and seek out Oprah or "her people" to discuss the option on my screenplay. Someday. Meanwhile, I worked on it, breathing in Kid's streets and feeling the air of lake kiss my neck as I walked along her banks—all the while thinking about the repressively hot summer days when, if you were black or colored, you couldn't even dip a hand in to cool you off. And, the riots one hot August day. She must have been there. I felt her there, with me. I swear, she was humming in my ear while the movie rolled through my mind. Some day.

Coming home, I missed my good friend, Francisco Alarcón read at La Peña. I just couldn't get there in time, having just arrived that afternoon. I actually put in my BART ticket but just missed the BART train to Berkeley, and realized I would never make it in time, so came back home. Which was okay. I needed to spend the time with my son.

I had discovered this tiny Colombian restaurant with "pollos ricos" written on the door frame across from the 24th Street BART station next to the McDonald's with my step-mother's (Precita Eyes) mural painted by local kids. I was in a hurry, didn't have much cash despite the book sales (thank you!) and wanted something quick and substantial. I ordered arroz con pollo and the last arrete of the day. The owner cooked it right in front of me. I was kind of surprised, watching her saute onions and bell pepper. I was in a hurry, but it got to me quick, along with fried platanos and a salad. The arrete was a new one for me. It was delicious. Slightly sweet and creamy in the center, like a fat little tortilla. Then, since I was hungry, I opened the to-go package there in the tiny restaurant to sample the arroz con pollo. I almost got tears in my eyes thinking of my grandmother's food. Especially after having watched that woman's quick hands prepare it in front of me. It was SO GOOD!! I scarfed it up and practically licked the container. I walked out, after giving her a hefty tip and an exclamation of "bien rico!", and waited for the bus across the street. Then thought of the rest of that arroz con pollo in the pan. She was closing and putting everything away, but I went back and ordered another to-go for my son. We ate well on that for two days. I made a rice omelet (my mother's favorite breakfast) the next morning with the left-overs. Good arroz con pollo. I can't wait to go back and see what else she's got cooking. And the next afternoon, I got to hear Francisco read and talk on KPFA. It was so good to hear his voice, my dear old former housemate.

Sunday, I went to the Lunada at the Galeria de la Raza to hear my other good friend, Naomi Quiñonez read. But, sadly, her father had just passed and she was still in LA. My sincerist condolances to her. My son went, and that was good he got to hear. There were a lot of people for the open mic, and it was all good and invigorating. Marc Pinate sang a few songs. Goddesses, is that boy a fine lyricist! I told him, when I had my turn at the mic, that he has to burn me a cd of his songs, and I'm sure I'd crank out the rest of my novel just listening to them. Very inspiring. Look for it.

I decided to read this new poem I just finished between dancing all night, for hours, to reggae music at the Embarcadero for a 420 celebration. I love writing to music. It felt good to feel it out, in that audience of brown and smiling faces, with new and old friends there. Even my son thought it was "not bad" — high praise from a 13 year old. Here it is, although maybe not for long.

I hope you are walking in sunshine, smiling with new and old friends, eating something so good it brings good memories and tears to your eyes and productively dancing through your life.

Me? I'm hanging in there. Barely making rent, and it's late, what with waiting on the checks to dribble in here and there from past readings. I'll be reading at the Cafe Boheme for International Workers Day on May 3rd at 6 - 9 pm. And, I'll be at Gavilan College in Gilroy on May 6th. Otherwise, my Cinco de Mayo's free and clear. Good time to ask me. Have Poems. Will Travel!

I have a new mailing adress, too. Send me your book orders (DRIVE - $25, BIRD AVE y New Mission Poems - $10), inquiries, your manuscripts for consultation, your books, your best wishes.

Lorna Dee Cervantes
3181 Mission Street, # 16
San Francisco, CA 94110

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Highway of Tears


You signed the wind
with your blood. What
is the color of violence?
Is it the same as the color
of justice? This solstice,
this soul state is full of you and
your absence, here in an unmarked
grave of tomorrow. We are soldiering
on, a new way through yesterday's
underbush. Do you see? Is
there an end to this war with the other?
Let us fight for the truce
of one to the other, to hold hate
in the palm of love. The tendered bullets
spell their names in shattered splats
of light. The miserable trade
freedom for exploding faces, imploded
skulls, history slipping down the losing
slope. What can we salvage of a bleeding
heart, a child's oozing finger, a grandmother's
eyes searing into some new space,
some new traveling show of macabre
art? Come and heal the wounded
geography of hunger, settle the stunned
birds, the fearful flight into the rest
of our lives. Handle with care, these piled
on corpses, these shredded flags of bones
laid on the Constitution's levee like sandbags.
Become the other, heartened, though swollen
with the polluted waters of corporate greed.
Something enforces when the heart
becomes the border's pass, when the hand
becomes an opening fist, when the stroke
becomes a way to get across. All
the wet backs and the muddy footprints
become a fairy tale of the way
things were—once divided, now
a unity in multiplicity; the complicity,
yesterday's myth, a hard luck story
told to children, another broken line, another
missing in the chain link fence that once kept
us out and Liberty's aguila locked in.


4/4,19/08

Lorna Dee Cervantes in Chicago, DePaul U. & Guild 4/15-16: Where In The World Is Lorna?

I'm in wonderful Chicago, Memphis Minnie land. I'll be at DePaul University tonight, April 15 at 7 pm, which is located in the heart of Lincoln Park, in Chicago, on Halsted and Fullerton Aves. The presentation will be in a building called the Schmidt Academic Center, at 2320 Kenmore St. in Room 254. Get your taxes in and come on down!

Tomorrow I'll be performing with Rigoberto Gonzalez at the Guild Complex:

Lorna Dee Cervantes and Rigoberto Gonzalez

Wednesday, APRIL 16 -- PALABRA PURA
LORNA DEE CERVANTES and RIGOBERTO GONZALEZ
Center on Halsted, 3656 N. Halsted, Chicago
Doors open at 6:00 p.m. Reading begins at 7:00 p.m.
Free admission. Books for sale. Authors will be available for signing.

In honor of National Poetry Month, two internationally renowned poets -- Lorna Dee Cervantes and Rigoberto González -- will read for Palabra Para at the Center on Halsted.

A fifth-generation Californian of Mexican and Native American (Chumash) heritage, Lorna Dee Cervantes has been a pivotal figure throughout the Chicano literary movement. Her poetry has appeared in nearly 200 anthologies and textbooks, and she has been the recipient of many honors, including an NEA fellowship, a Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Award and a Pulitzer nomination for her book DRIVE: The First Quartet. She lives and teaches in San Francisco, California.

Rigoberto González is the author of seven books, most recently of the memoir, Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa, winner of the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. A story collection, Men without Bliss, is forthcoming. The recipient of Guggenheim and NEA fellowships, and of various international artist residencies, he writes a book column for the El Paso Times of Texas. He lives in New York City and is Associate Professor of English at Rutgers University/Newark.

A Home Haiku

So hot today. Sun
like the sun of my hot youth.
I am home again.

Michael Rossman At the Birth of the Free Speech Movement: Archives, Poetry, Essays, Manuscripts, Translations, Learning-Games, Science Pedagogy

Michael Rossman, photo by Marc Franklin

I wrote the following poem for Free Speech activist, poet, writer, scientist, thinker, teacher, archivist, musician, father, rock hound, human being extraordinaire, Michael Rossman who is in the hospital undergoing treatment and transfusions for a rare form of leukemia which was diagnosed this past July. Many people know of and know Michael as he has many friends and admirers strung across the globe. I know him as a much admired poet and friend, activist and thinker. I wanted to share this poem, inspired by accounts of a series of dreams he had while in the hospital which were posted on his leukemia blog. Michael Rossman's official website is a new site where he has been busy posting his books, poetry, essays, a science teaching manual, translations, Berkeley Free Speech Movement history, political poster archives and other material in their entireity: a virtual wealth of information and materials which deserve to reach a wider audience. I am hoping to help publicize the website, so if you can, please link to his sites and help to get them into circulation and visible on the search engines. This material is a great gift.

Michael Rossman was one of the founding organizers of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and was there at the wheels of the patrol car holding Mario Savio at Sproul Plaza on October 2, 1964 along with 1,200 others--soon to swell to 10,000 plus others. He, along with many others, stood up on the top of the patrol car that day and began to speak truth to power. He is still speaking, and writing, with his shoulder always to the wheel. Please help to keep this history alive as Michael struggles to maintain his own life. His spirit, as always, is strong--and we are the richer for it.

I am a child of the Free Speech Movement which was a movement for Civil Rights for all, and I know I owe my being here to it's legacy. What stopped the war started my life. And I am not alone.

You can read a short account published in California Magazine forty years after the event here at this link.

Watch a video of Michael Rossman speaking about Berkeley in the Summer of Love here.

Michael Rossman's Official Website

Michael Rossman's blog where people can visit and leave comments and keep up to date on his conditions and learn about ways to help.

Or visit Michael Rossman's Leukemia Blog where you can just read the individual entries.

Here's my poem, with much love and all best wishes for Michael:




--------------------------------------------------------

The Recovering Rockhound Dreams Remission



He dreams of crystals as big as his chest,
a super-mall of captive light working
a rare and lightening magic: amethysts
as large as bottled ships, slabs of serpentine
flaking into scales as big as floor tiles,
aquamarine seas of watery mirrors and rainbow
cavalcades of tourmaline headdresses.

What would it take to enter there, to buy
all the stock in hand? What would I do with all the hematite
I could carry but could not lift? Where would I put these sterile
globes of rose quartz, these ancient spears of fission ash?

All around him is a light-show, kaleidoscope of fun
perspective, minute facets of knowing, experiments
in receptivity, dual points of view for the asking, hard
products of the quest, the desert's canyon horde.
Every probe, an opening. Every opening, a dripping
stalactite mound. Where would I put the feet
to hold this massive rock, these jagged ridges
in the clusters' sway? Serious enough to crush
a man. More precious than money's worth, a man
who sparks when the lights go out, who refuses
to go - that one vein yet uncovered, that extends
into the family of man, a geodesic harmony
of connections, fugue into living. At dusk

the exploration begins, a dusting, a delicate
operation that could last a lifetime
save one.



Lorna Dee Cervantes
2/27/08

"Poem For the Holtville Burial Grounds, For the Undocumented Dead"

Poem For the Holtville Burial Grounds,
For the Undocumented Dead

(after a photo by Francisco J. Dominguez)




All of you is a cross to bear,
single and quantum, solo and
quota. The erasures, barely a scratch
on the earth, a heart's indentation,
a lateral fall under the desert sun.

Take this son, these mother's hands,
these blistered lips and withered
femurs. Make a claim for what
was written there: a crumbling treaty,
a signed agreement, a spit
on the street and a ticket
to the last act they will ever perform.

Play this lottery and bust
the house: the lives, the lives, the lives,
until you get it right and she
gets away with her life. He
gets away with murder. They
get away with an entire country.
And they are left here — a remembrance,
a resistance, a solid will.

Read it in the absent eyes,
the listless stance, the all
about tomorrow — now. We walk
among the living in the dead. We dream
about precision. And a watch
beeps, unaware, and a justice
is determined. Don't separate yourself
from them. A glass of water's
all it takes. A word. An act of God.




Lorna Dee Cervantes
3/31/08

April 6 - Luis and Susan Cervantes Day in San Francisco - Remembering My Father

Today, remembering my dad. He passed away 21 days after this proclamation was made in 2005. I light some sage, copal, and remember his light. He was a brilliant flame. He is still in our hearts.

Luis Cervantes -- Muralist Who Inspired Generations of Artists

--------------------------------------------------
Susan & Luis Cervantes Day in San Francisco - April 6, 2005

PROCLAMATION - City and County of San Francisco

Whereas, San Francisco recognizes the individual achievements of its residents, celebrates their contributions to the community and appreciates their rich legacies of ingenuity, creativity and innovation; and

Whereas, San Francisco owes a debt of gratitude to Susan and Luis Cervantes who established Precita Eyes Mural Arts and Visitors Center in 1977; more than 20,000 students and tourists have passed through their doors as the starting point for mural tours; and

Whereas, Precita Eyes, a non-profit multipurpose community arts organization, holds the distinction of being one of only three community mural centers in the United States; and

Whereas, with its deep rooted community ties, Precita Eyes has added to the beauty, culture and economic vibrancy of the Mission, while at the same time encouraging community residents to embrace all forms of artistic expression; and

Whereas, Precita Eyes offers mual and art classes for children and youth that enable them to develop their individuality and confidence through creative activities and to experience unifying, positive social interaction through collaboration; now

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that I, Gavin Newsom, Mayor of the City and County of San Francisco, on the occasion of Precita Eyes' A Celebration of Community Mural Art, do hereby proclaim April 6, 2005 as...

SUSAN AND LUIS CERVANTES DAY IN SAN FRANCISCO!

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto
set my hand and caused the Seal of the City
and County of San Francisco to be affixed.

Gavin Newsom, Mayor

Where In The World Is Lorna? Spring Readings Calendar

April 4, I'll be reading/performing today at San Francisco State University in Humanities Bldg room 587 at 3:00 pm for the conference, Murder in the Margins: Global Systems of Exploitation
--------------------------------------------------
April 8, I'll be reading/performing at Yuba City Community College.
--------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, April 9th I'll be performing with Q.R. Hand at City College of San Francisco, Phelan & Ocean, in Conlon Hall, 101, 7-9 pm. Free. Open Mic!
--------------------------------------------------
April 15, I'll be reading/performing at DeKalb University, Ill.
--------------------------------------------------
April 16th I'll be performing with Rigoberto Gonzalez at The Guild Complex for the Pura Palabra Series sponsored by Poets and Writers in Chicago, Ill.
Time: Doors open at 6:00 PM, Reading begins at 7:00 PM
Cost: Free admission.
Location: Center on Halsted, Chicago's LGBT Community Center, 3656 N. Halsted, Chicago
--------------------------------------------------
May 3, I'll be reading/performing at The Cafe Boheme on 24th and Mission (my father's special hang-out) at 6:30 for May Day with Alfonso Texidor and others.
----------------------------------------------------
May 6, I'll be performing at Gavilan College in Gilroy.
----------------------------------------------------
May 15, I'll be performing in Fresno, CA.
----------------------------------------------------
May 21, I'll be reading/performing at Stanford University.
----------------------------------------------------
May 22, I'll be reading for the American Literature Association Conference in San Francisco. Followed by a panel on my work, featuring a new book of criticism on Lorna Dee Cervantes published by Wings Press.
----------------------------------------------------
??? Your venue or event? Book me now! Have Poems. Will Travel.

Will I See You In Silence Soon? 4-1-08

Keeping Quiet

by Pablo Neruda


Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.

This one time upon the earth,
let’s not speak any language,
let’s stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be a delicious moment,
without hurry, without locomotives,
all of us would be together
in a sudden uneasiness.

The fishermen in the cold sea
would do no harm to the whales
and the peasant gathering salt
would look at his torn hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars of gas, wars of fire,
victories without survivors,
would put on clean clothing
and would walk alongside their brothers
in the shade, without doing a thing.

What I want shouldn’t be confused
with final inactivity:
life alone is what matters,
I want nothing to do with death.

If we weren’t unanimous
about keeping our lives so much in motion,

if we could do nothing for once,
perhaps a great silence would
interrupt this sadness,
this never understanding ourselves
and threatening ourselves with death,
perhaps the earth is teaching us
when everything seems to be dead
and then everything is alive.

Now I will count to twelve
and you keep quiet and I’ll go.


San Francisco, Inside the Ferry Building market plaza, April 1 at 9 AM.
Ferry Building Market Place, One Ferry Building San Francisco California at Embarcadero and Market Street

Though out the world people will gather in squares, stations, in organizations or wherever they are and stop their motion for 5 minutes.

Pause for thought. Pause for human kind. Pause for our planet.

Be in the main hall inside the Ferry Building Marketplace on April 1 at 9AM and freeze your position. Have your mobile phone alarm set for 9:05AM so that you know when to start moving again.

Let your friends know so they can join you! Or encourage them to make an event where they are!

So far we have simultaneous April 1 events in:
London Paddington, 5 pm.
Malmö Gustav Adolfs Torg, 6 pm.
NYC, Grand Central Station, noon.
San Francisco, Ferry Building, 9 am.
Copenhagen, Central Station, 6 pm.
Florence, Piazza Duomo, 6 pm.
Brussels, Grand Place, 17.30pm
Milan, Galleria Vitt. Emanuelle II, 6 pm.
Portland Oregon, to be announced.
English farmer freeze, to be announced.

This event is inspired by the ImprovEverywhere freezing in place performance in Grand Central Station. Check out the video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwMj3PJDxuo


Come out and be part of the spectacle!

Happy Birthday, Steve!!

Happy Birthday to my brother, Steve Cervantes!

And to Eric Clapton & Tracy Chapman. And, of course, Cesar.

Lorna Dee Cervantes, 3-27, Sacramento State U - Where In The World Is Lorna?

La Raza Galeria Posada: 30 Years of Literature, Art y Cultura
March 14 – April 19, 2008
CSUS Library Gallery

Program:

CANTO: Poetry and Song @ CSUS
Thursday, March 27, 7pm in the CSUS Library Gallery
Free

Featured poets:
Lorna Dee Cervantes is an internationally acclaimed Chicana poet whose poetry has appeared in nearly 200 anthologies and textbooks. She has performed her poetry twice at the Library of Congress and numerous other venues, university & college campuses in the US, Mexico, Spain & Colombia. Her book, DRIVE: The First Quartet, is five separate collections under one cover and was awarded the Balcones Award for Best Book of Poetry, placed 2nd for Best Book of Poetry Written in English from the International Latino Book Awards, and was nominated for a Pulitzer. Cervantes currently resides in San Francisco.

Frank LaPena an internationally exhibited painter and published poet. As a young man, he became interested in the song, dance, and ceremonial traditions of his tribe. He has worked with the elders of the Nomtipom Wintu, the Nomlaki Wintun of Northern California, and elders of neighboring tribes, and he is a founding member of the Maidu Dancers and Traditionalists, dedicated to the revival and preservation of these Native arts.

Diego Carrillo is a spoken word poet. He began to write at the age of seventeen while traveling and studying in México. He has been featured at La Raza Galeria Posada, the Poetry Unplugged series at Luna's Café, Sacramento City College, Matrix Art Gallery, the Brick House, Borders Books and the Suga Shack Open Mouth Poetry event at CSUS. He has read with José Montoya, Raul "Tapon" Salinas and Talam Acey.

Music:
Esteban Villa is the co-founder of the RCAF and an internationally renowned artist and muralist. He is also an accomplished musician and composer. Villa’s songs are rooted in Country and Western Music and in the various musical traditions of Mexico, especially rancheras and corridos. However, it was his involvement with the Chicano Movement of the 1960’s that brought social issues in his own musical work. His new cd, Heartaches and Jalapeños, celebrates all these influences and melds them into music that is uniquely his own.

"Poem For the Fifth Anniversary (And One Year After You)"

Poem For the Fifth Anniversary
(And One Year After You)




I'm hearing surf in the traffic,
a constant that reminds me of you.
A single passing in the dark
madrugada, this stillness
dripping city before the gunnings
and get aways resume.

I caught you in the updraft,
uplifted. Can't say, let down.

While all around, Babylon is falling,
a constant rain over the plains,
a plain hunger and an aggressive counting,
the military budget adding another coffin
to the mix, another fine spray
of brains in Iraq. The helicopters fly
over the rooftops of this nation —
the ever-sighting unto Paradise,
the explosive way home.

I want to pass now, into another
dream, hold a first class box
to my next life opera, be the head
soprano; comfort. Love, I want
to comfort the dead. One million
two hundred thousand dead
in this undeclared war—a dispersion
of traffic, an oil slick on water.
No sign of slowing down.

You want to wake
from this nightmare?
It takes more than a vote,
more than an enterprise,
than austere suits and a pen,
more than a grave
or the well-filled gravy
boat, more than caring.

Every root taps. Every seed waits
or wakes up.



Lorna Dee Cervantes
3/20/08

Lorna Dee Cervantes at SF Galeria de la Raza Lunada March 21 - Where In The World Is Lorna?

Place: Galería de la Raza
2857 24th St. @ Bryant
San Francisco,CA 94110

Date: Fri., March 21
Time: 7:30pm
Admission: $5 or Free with food dish

LUNADA: Literary Lounge & Open Mic
Featuring Lorna Dee Cervantes & The Genie


Join us in March for the hyperreal, scratch guitar sounds of San Francisco’s own, The Genie and legendary Xicana poet, Lorna Dee Cervantes, winner of the American Book Award.

Lorna Dee Cervantes was born in 1954. She is the author of From the Cables of Genocide: Poems on Love and Hunger (Arte Público Press, 1991) and Emplumada (1981), which won an American Book Award. She is also co-editor of Red Dirt, a cross-cultural poetry journal, and her work has been included in many anthologies including Unsettling America: An Anthology of Contemporary Multicultural Poetry (eds. Maria Mazziotti Gillan and Jennifer Gillan, 1994), No More Masks! An Anthology of Twentieth-Century Women Poets (ed. Florence Howe, 1993), and After Aztlan: Latino Poets of the Nineties (ed. Ray González, 1992). In 1995 she received a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers' Award.

The renown pioneer of "scratch guitar", The Genie blends blues, jazz, electronica, bossa nova, latin and middle-eastern rhythms via slide guitar, beatboxing, and live sampling, to create a visually stunning and truly unique show.

Lorna Dee Cervantes at UC Berkeley Floricanto March 13 - Where In The World Is Lorna?

Lorna Dee Cervantes Spring Calendar

I'll be presenting tonight, March 13, at UC Berkeley along with Aya de Leon, Las Manas Tres, Gaby Erandi Rico and others. It will be in the Heller Lounge which is on the second floor of the Martin Luther King Student Union (above the ASUC convenience store), on the corner of Bancroft Avenue and Telegraph Avenue. The entrance to the lounge is located to the right of the stairs leading to Pauley Ballroom and to the left of the clothes store. I'll be reading about 6:30 pm. See you there!

I'll also be reading in San Francisco, at the Galeria de Raza's Lunada series, March 21st.

And, I'll be at Sacramento State on March 27; Yuba Community College on April 8; San Francisco City College on April 9. And, reading for Palabra Pura in Chicago on April 16 along with Rigoberto Gonzalez. More updates soon.

Blog Foto

(I can't seem to post or replace my blog photo, so I'll leave this entry up at the top. Please scroll down for latest blog entry)

Lorna Dee Cervantes 12/23/07
foto by Francisco J. Dominguezcopyright 2007

News From World Can't Wait - Peaceful Protesters Attacked In Berkeley

Non-violent World Can't Wait protest in Berkeley attacked by police AGAIN
2 protesters arrested . . . Several injured
This must stop! Your support needed!

Dear World Can't Wait Bay Area community,

This is a short report on the Friday, February 22 protest at the
Marines Recruiting Station in Berkeley. We will have more to say in a
few days, as WCW and our other friends in the anti-war movement make
new plans to continue this struggle and build for an outpouring of
resistance on March 19, the 5th anniversary of the Iraq war. However,
before we release more public statements, or take other steps to
address the continued use of excessive police force against nonviolent
protesters, we want to let you know what happened -- particularly
since police spokespeople have been lying about it ad nauseam to the
media, attempting to portray us as the aggressors.

Also in Berkeley, on February 16:
For the first time in five years, Berkeley police officers have shot
and killed someone. A 51 year-old African-American grandmother, Anita
Gay, was shot in the back by police in front of her home in South
Berkeley. Outraged members of Mrs. Gay's family and community and
anti-police brutality activists are mobilizing now. World Can't Wait
joins them in demanding that her killers be brought to justice.

How you can help:
Email us if you can write letters, attend court hearings, or
contribute to legal fees and replacement of damaged materials
(including over $9,000 dollars of sound and video equipment). We are
exploring our legal options now, and will keep you posted. And of
course, we are always looking for assistance from justice-loving
lawyers and trained legal observers. More info later this week.



February 22 report:
World Can't Wait activists arrived at the downtown Berkeley Marine
recruiting station at 11 AM. We were joined by Code Pink supporters,
Vets for Peace, A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, and a number of Berkeley High
students, and students from other schools, who came on their lunch
break and again after school. We had a short "speak out" in which
several anti-war military veterans spoke. Young women took turns
reading a statement from the women of Okinawa denouncing another rape,
this time of a 14 year-old girl, by U.S. Marines on this small
militarized Japanese island. Others read moving poems written by
prisoners in Guantanamo.

Each time World Can't Wait has protested in front of the Marine
recruiting center, police have become increasingly more aggressive and
overbearing - as they have now become toward other protesters there,
including Code Pink. They placed two armed officers smack in the
recruiters' doorway, impeding business as usual themselves. They
nipped at our heels every five minutes, belligerently enforcing every
permit rule, closely timing our parking in the 3 minute loading zone,
enforcing jay-walking laws, and making up new laws on the spot, such
as their outlandish claim that it was illegal for a lone pedestrian to
walk to the corner carrying a picket sign!

In the past when we have protested in front of the recruiting
station, we have been allowed to put up signs and a table on the
sidewalk, as long as we didn't block the sidewalk. Not this time. The
cops brought sound equipment to monitor our decibel levels. Since they
destroyed our very expensive sound system last week, we brought only
bullhorns, which made this even more ridiculous.

At 4:00 PM, when more youth arrived after school, about 20 of us took
a short legal march around the square, as we often do. Then to
conclude the day's action, we went for another short march chanting
and wearing the orange jumpsuits of Guantanamo detainees as we went.
Pedestrians and drivers were honking and waving at us, throwing us
peace signs and power fists. We headed for the traditional free speech
corner on Shattuck Avenue in front of the BART station.

We never arrived there.

Using the pretext of a sound violation for using a bullhorn - which
we've generally been allowed to use in Berkeley - the police waded
into our small group to grab one youth leader who had been leading
chants. As the police shouted and shoved and used their batons to push
their way through our group to get at this young man, activists
wrapped their arms around each other, non-violently standing between
the police and him. A crowd was quickly gathering. Youth of all
nationalities hang around this area, and when they saw the police
assaulting us, many pulled out their camera phones to snap pictures of
the brutality and joined our chants -- which had changed from "Stop
the torture, Stop the war . . . That's what we are fighting for!" to
"Let Him Go! Let Him Go!"

A dozen or so squad cars, sirens wailing and lights flashing,
suddenly rushed the intersection from several directions, as more cops
began pulling out their clubs and beating people. Young WCW activists
were hit in the face with batons. Older people were also assaulted: a
leading WCW organizer was grabbed and thrown head first into a brick
wall, and a member of Code Pink is on crutches after she was violently
thrown to the ground. (Both women are OK after emergency room
treatment). Finally, the police pulled the WCW youth organizer from
the crowd, threw him in the back of the squad car and took off for the
jail. They also arrested a 21 year-old Army "conscientious objector."
The police dispersed the riot squad, while almost simultaneously
holding a quick press conference to ensure the media would dutifully
report that the police had been "forced" by the protesters to go to
this level of violence, all because of a bullhorn.

We regrouped and marched back to the Marines station, and ended the
day on our feet and back at this outpost of the war machine, chanting
and speaking out. We want to let the community and the world know that
we are determined to step up the struggle to stop this illegitimate,
criminal war and occupation. We are all looking at what has happened –
including the huge showdown on February 12 between anti-war Berkeley
and the rightwing pro-war invasion, and also the fact that all of our
recent three World Can't Wait nonviolent protests at the recruiters
have been hit by full-on riot scale police attacks – as a clear sign
that the powers-that-be are worried because we are having an effect,
and that determination from the youth and everyone else is what is
called for now. More is needed, especially now, with the March 19th
fifth anniversary of the war fast approaching. This is our
responsibility to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, to the torture
victims at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, and to the world.
Another news flash: Thursday, February 21
20 World Can't Wait activists confront war criminal John Yoo
at UC Berkeley School of Law

As we said here last week, it is appalling to find the legal
architect of the Bush regime's torture policies and fascistic "unitary
power of the executive" doctrine presiding over a panel discussion of
respected law professors as they all calmly discuss the ins and outs
of the presidential elections. What does this say about the elections
- in which neither leading Democratic candidate will denounce the
Military Commissions Act and the torture it enables, nor the Patriot
Act? And what does this say about the new norms we are now living
under, where a war criminal is teaching constitutional law to future
lawyers and judges?

See the front page story and photo from the Daily Californian here:
http://www.dailycal.org/article/100496/protesters_disrupt_panel_led_by_former_administrat

Rafael, Stephanie and Noel,
SF Bay Area WCW Chapter
415-864-5153


Enough! The World Can't Wait!
Drive Out the Bush Regime!
Impeach Bush & Cheney for War Crimes!


Donate generously . . .

- A Berkeley homeowner just gave WCW $400 to buy 25 more jumpsuits.
- Another woman who can't afford to miss work for the protest sent a
check for $100.
- Two local business owners continue to generously donate their space
for WCW events.

WCW is an all volunteer organization. It is a vehicle for the change
we need NOW. Funds from you are the fuel this vehicle needs. Give all
you can.
Make checks payable to: "SF World Can't Wait" Mail to: 2940 16th
Street, Room 200-6,
San Francisco, CA 94103, or donate on-line at worldcantwait.org.
TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATION INFO:
To make a tax deductible donation of $100 or more in support of WCW's
educational activities, checks should be made out to: "The Alliance
for Global Justice," a 501(3)(c) organization, and designate "for WCW"
in the check memo line. The Alliance for Global Justice latest
financial report is available at their offices: 1247 E St. SE,
Washington, D.C. 20003
MAIL ALL CHECKS TO:
SF World Can't Wait
2940 16th St., Rm 200-6
San Francisco, CA 94103



www.sfbaycantwait.org
(415) 864-5153
sf@worldcantwait.org
Important Note on Forwarding WCW Emails:

See that blue "Forward email" link just underneath the black border
below? Good.
Clicking on that link is the best way to forward our mass emails to
all of your fellow and potential DOTBR'ers (Drive Out the Bush
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We've had reports of people:
Forwarding a WCW email by using the "forward" button within their
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Use the blue "Forward email" link . . . Stay on our email list
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Sad News: Poet, Literary Critic, Performance Artist, Professor Vincent Woodard Passes

I just discovered this tonight: "Remembering Vincent Woodard" and "Safe Journeys, Dearest Vincent" I am so sad. Vincent Woodard, my dear colleague and friend and supporter at CU Boulder has passed. How is it that someone so beautiful and brilliant and wonderful is no longer with us? How much we regret the time not spent with would-be friends and dear ones. This is all so sad. I wish I'd known. I would have flown up for the memorial at CU the other day. What an incredible Spirit that man had, what a Light. He will be missed. I may try to make the memorial in Austin on March 21.


And, tomorrow (today), 2/23, I will be reading and remembering my friend and one of my earliest influences, raúlsalinas, "El Tapon" at the Galería de la Raza on 24th Street in the Mission at 7 pm. We will be raising funds for his widow. Please come and hear tributes along with his words by Alejandro Murguía, Tomas Riley, Leticia Hernández, Naomi Quiñonez and others. I hope to be reading the original version of "A Trip Through the Mine Jail" which I read as a young high school student in the Chicano journal Aztlán in 1970.


This blog has always been more for the dead than for me. This light for their's.

"Blood Moon, 7:45"

Blood Moon, 7:45

(for JD)


For a brief moment in time
the eye of the moon gazed
down upon my past loves, past
heart-wonders, upon you, my past lover.
For a while before it became
a sliver of a skiff, you and I,
the Owl and the Pussycat, were in love
once more inside a silver boat sailing
on the sea of sky—and almost disappeared
or dipped behind a star. Our love-
spittle descending down, our salivation,
our salvation of the moment
before the amorous fuzz that became
us was no more. No matter
what science finds us here (there),
two love-sucked suckers in a field
of budding roses turning the great dial
and straining against the pawl. All
that time I thought I knew you,
fed you a moment of me. Every cliche
tucked neatly in place, snug as
the diamond you placed upon my hand,
our pawnshop find, our brilliant
glass act. We were a sensuous lot,
a cipher coming home, our signals
strong as the waves crashing upon our shore.
Do you evermore? I hope so. There
where the mist envelopes, just over
that ridge where the light, now a nail
without a finger, points. For a moment
we were a phenomena I will remember
to the grave. Or until fire becomes me
and I peer out upon a lucid bay
again. Under this blood moon drawing
our animal souls from home, I am
once again with you, gazing into
that part of myself who sits here
still. That heart that still loves
you—before the season passes,
before this changeling light disappears
into a blood mush and reappears,
changed. Same moon. Same face.
Same love, but shadowed and reinvented.
Soon to be, again, mundane
as that moon now refracting the sun's dial.
And I'm left here, dialing alone,
and wondering of you, your total
eclipse from me. And, move on.



2/20/08

Sad News: El Poeta, raulrsalinas Begins His Longest Walk

I Just received these bulletins on MySpace that my friend and one of my earliest influences, raúlsalinas has passed. This is very sad news for me. I'm so glad I spent the past two days doing what he would have done: on monday I participated in the press conference and rally for the beginning of the Longest Walk. I read a couple of poems at Sproul plaza at UC Berkeley in support of the return of the bones of our ancestors from there and everywhere else they are being held hostage. Then, yesterday, I participated in the march and rally at Berkeley to support the council's decision to shut down the Marine recruitment station. I also witnessed the harrassment and police intimidation of Raza youth in the park where they skateboard which was taken over by militant right wing racists who verbally and physically assaulted them. Three youths were arrested after being roughed up by police.

Raúl, your Spirit is strong. And it is present. Tiahui, Maestro. I will miss your smile. ~ Lorna Dee Cervantes
------------------------------------------


----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: GARCIA GRAPHICS
Date: Feb 13, 2008 9:09 AM


Raul Salinas.

Activist, Master Poet, Chican-indio Legend... Your influence and wisdom will live on through generations.

For those who knew of him, please feel free to repost and send love and prayers his way...




¡Raúl R. Salinas, Presente!
March 17, 1934- February 13, 2008

Jazz Hipster | Pinto | Cockroach Poet | Human Rights Activist | Xicanindio | Elder | Comrade


It is with profound sadness and heartache that we inform you of the passing of Calaca Press Field Commander, Raúl R. Salinas.

Raul, the author of the seminal Chicano experience poem, Un Trip Through the Mind Jail, was not only an accomplished poet but a dedicated community activist who gained a political consciousness while serving approximately 13 years inside some of America’s most notorious prisons (Huntsville, Soledad, and Leavenworth among others). While in prison at Marion he was befriended by Puerto Rican Nationalist Rafael Cancel Miranda (famed for an armed assault on congress on March 1, 1954 with fellow Nationalists including Lolita Lebron). Sr. Miranda was a major influence on Raul’s lifework. Imprisoned during the early Chicano Movement years he was active in the prison rights struggles of that time. His book, raúlrsalinas and the Jail Machine: My Weapon is My Pen: Selected Writings by Raúl Salinas (edited by protégé Louis G. Mendoza) highlights his struggles and victories inside America’s prison system. Including winning a landmark prison rights case.

After his release from prison in 1973 he dedicated his life to Chicano and Native American causes. He was a member of the Centro de la Raza in Seattle, the American Indian Movement, a cofounder of the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee and various other progressive organizations dedicated to defending the rights and interests of all working class and colonized people. A true internationalist he was committed to supporting Puerto Rican independence (as well as ending the bombing on Vieques), the Cuban Revolution, The Nicaraguan Sandinistas, the Zapatistas in Chiapas and the Bolivarian Process of Presidente Hugo Chavez Frias of Venezuela among many other internationalist struggles.

After serving many years of forced exile in Washington state (where he helped defend Native American fishing rights), he eventually returned to his home in Austin, TX. Shortly thereafter he opened Resistencia Bookstore and Red Salmon Arts which became a cultural and political hub for East Austin’s Chicano community.

In 1999, after hearing about this “cool vato de aquellas,” Calaca Press took a chance by calling Resistencia Bookstore out of the blue to introduce ourselves and seek a meeting. After a somewhat cold conversation we later flew to San Antonio for the Inter-American Book Fair where we were to gather. Instantly we hit it off and plans were made to bring Raul to San Diego to record a couple poems for volume 2 of our Raza Spoken Here audio series. After an amazing recording session featuring Raúl and Taco Shop Poets rhythm section Mikey Figgins on bass and Kevin P. Green on drums it was decided to go forward with a full CD of Raul’s work. A few months later Raul came back to San Diego (sleeping many a night on the infamous striped couch in our tiny apartment in Barrio Lomas) to finish recording what would become Los Many Mundos of raúlrsalinas: Un Poetic Jazz Viaje con Friends. During this session we recorded, but never released, Un Trip Through the Mind Jail. Perhaps the only quality recording of this major work of Chicano literature.

It was during 2000 that Raúl affectionately and facetiously dubbed Calaca owners Brent E. Beltrán and Consuelo Manríquez de Beltrán the Chairman and Comandante CHElo, while calling himself the Field Commander of Calaca Press. Raul helped create and foment the current mystique that surrounds our Calacaverse and the work that we do. Between 2000 and 2004 Raul made numerous trips to San Diego to visit Calacalandia and became a regular amongst the Calacas and SD’s Chicano art/activist scene. Without the example of our Field Commander, Calaca Press and our organization the Red CalacArts Collective (whom we borrowed the Red and Arts from Red Salmon Arts as an homage), would not be what it is today.

Our Field Commander and comrade will be missed and remembered. He will always hold a special place in our collective memory.

Adelante, compañero, siempre adelante.


Desde Calacalandia,

El Chairman y La Comandante CHElo





gray grease
for raúlrsalinas

salinas slides
gray grease
against the groove
the hard
roots rock
he walks
a moment
crystal city clear
still bringing
jazz and jams again

sonrisas
tumbling
lingua franca
in a dice shoot
dipping days
salinas cool
viejito haze
’mano may raise
in riffs

he started breathing in san anto
brought it blessed in san anto
in the bop unbroken
guadalupe sunday
growing largo
salinas
dealing su descarga
and the smoke is in the air
disappearing
like a mingus moon
balloon

salinas
when they sing the sad corridos
do they also sing for you?
above the freeways passing over
and the sometimes quiet corners
we demeaned
by quarantine
the en masse
gente de masa

tired because
restlessness
is next to joblessness
and talking
the fruition of dead president cutbacks

tired because
double barrels
aim down broadway
emblematic of
i-say-so
blue clad predators

tired because
life does not
flash before the eyes
of hard rock vatos
dancing
green back mambos
celebrating every day
as día de los muertos

now die, just die
no requiems
no peace in campo santo lies
no real magic mantra may revive
conscience
not common
sense of the shaman
distant drum songs keeping time
we’re running blind
holding bandanas
and bullets
and borderlines

we seek
we climb
we only find
the gristle and gray smoke sage
trencitas in the ancient way
burning down a desert stage
the migrant phrases
each by each
the whole of soul
frozen on an empty afternoon


by Tomás Riley
From the book mahcic: selected poems (Calaca Press, 2005)

Taking Stock

So far this year, 2008, I've gotten a divorce (finalized), bought a house, fell in love, fell out of love, fell back in love, quit drinking (no brainer, I hardly drink anyway), quit smoking (yeah, I know), applied for a job in a totally different field, finished an 80 page book and published it. Now what? Year of the Rat has hardly even begun. Time for the new. Time for re-beginnings. And, you?

Where In The World Is Lorna? Rally, Rallying, And Lorna Dee's New Book!

Foto Copyright 2008 by Francisco J. Dominguez - Not to be used without expressed written permission.

Well, one place I'm not is NYC at the AWP. I so wanted to go this year and meet up with all of you, visit old friends and attend the Latino Arts Conference which was at the same time. I also wanted to attend the honoring of Tato Laviera, and all the other side readings and events to the AWP this year. Also, maybe get in some schmoozing. IF I so desire and choose to re-enter academia. Ahem. But the conference sold out early, and my economic resources depleted early as well. Besides, what with all this germ warfare going on, I've been fighting off a nasty flu/ bronchial thing that just keeps lingering on like the pink mucus de-energizer bunny.

So, where I've been is rallying and rallying. Besides the 35th Anniversary of Roe vs. Wade event in San Francisco, I had the great honor to be invited by Janice Mirikitani, a poet who has had a major influence on me and my work, via Leticia Hernandez, a young poet who is dynamite and who presented at the event last year - to present for the 22nd Annual Martin Luther King March and Rally for the Glide Memorial Church at the Bill Graham Theater. Luckily, my voice held out, only one little off-squeek. But I was so nervous, I made the mistake of reciting my slogan: Don't Hate, Educate! as starting out: "Hate..." Oops. I should have covered my tracks like a jazz musician and said something else, turned it into something else, but instead I apologized and then got it right. I had 5 minutes so read 3 short poems, 2 new ones on immigration rights - stating that if MLK, Jr. were alive today, he'd be standing for the rights of immigrant workers. Then I read "10 One-Line Poems For America" from DRIVE: The First Quartet. Early on I asked Howard, the incredible Saxophonist for the Glide choir and Tim, the electric guitarist to jam with me on the one-line poems. Luckily, they agreed. I do SO love performing with jazz musicians - it really is in my blood. Howard jumped in on the second immigration poem and it sounded really good. It was a very moving day, all around. And, thanks so much to photographer extraordinaire, Francisco Dominguez for snapping this shot (no doubt destined to be a classic) of me reading the last word of the second poem: "JUSTICIA!" a la Phil Goldvarg.

Then, rallying once more, I presented my poetry along with a little motivational speaking and lecturing on the writing process (the creative/critical process) for the Chicana/Latina Foundation. This was also quite moving. It was so great to see so many beautiful minds in that room, and know that each one is afforded the opportunity she deserves. Good luck to all.

Meanwhile, I was asked to provide copies of my latest book for them and the board members of the foundation, but DRIVE costs $25 each and I couldn't get the books on time (I just had a week), so I offered to put together some chapbooks of poems selected specifically for them. Well, that project turned into an 80 page new book of new and selected poems entitled BIRD AVE y New Mission Poems. I have limited copies for a mere $10 each. Sure to be a collector's item soon. You can write to me; or, better yet, invite me to come read/present in your location for copies. You can also click my Amazon pay system at the bottom of this page (long scroll, sorry) and see if that works to pay directly, and I'll shoot you a copy in the mail.

I'll be reading at UC Davis on Feb. 20th. And possibly reading for the Lunada at the Galeria de la Raza here in The City; that is, if I can convince Marc Pinate that the full moon is actually on thursday, Feb. 21. More on my spring schedule soon.

Also, I'll be starting intensive workshops this month. More on that soon, too.

"Peace is a many tendered thing."

Happy Birthday, Kelly!

Hope it's a good one. I love you!

Blog for Pro-Choice Day

Scroll down for my story, my speech to the Pro-Choice rally in San Francisco this past saturday. Keep our bodies free.

Readings; Or, Where In The World is Lorna Dee?

I'm reading this afternoon, January 21, for Glide Memorial's Martin Luther King Celebration after the march in the Bill Graham Auditorium at 99 Grove Street -- a great honor for me.

I'm reading tomorrow night, January 22, at the Live Worms Gallery at 1345 Grant Ave. in North Beach at 7 pm with H.D. Moe, Ronald Sauer and Ned Millett. My Step-mother, Susan Kelk Cervantes will be exhibiting her paintings along with others.

I'll be reading, speaking and giving a writing workshop for scholarship recipients of the Chicana/Latina Foundation Leadership Conference on Saturday, January 26.

More coming up. See you there!

My Speech to Pro-Choice Rally 35 Years After Roe vs. Wade

foto by Francisco J. Dominguez copyright 2008

Speech to Pro-Choice Rally for Women's Right to Choose - 35 Years After Roe vs. Wade (delivered 1/19/08, San Francisco, CA)



35 years ago the fog was so thick on the valley floor I couldn't see my face. I couldn't see the cars on the road or the bus as it pulled up out of the fog to take me to the east side hospital where, at 16 years old, I became the 6th woman in the state of California to receive a legal abortion. Three years before, at age 13, the fog was the same ornery stew as when someone grabbed me on the way to school, threw me to the ground in the empty lot left over from the freeway construction and raped me at knifepoint. At 15, I tried to heal by making sweet love to my boyfriend, a gentle baby-faced boy.

35 years ago a whiteness gripped my life and held me in its decisive grasp. I couldn't get away from the mass that held me down: the oppressive poverty, the ignorant faces that ignored me and what I could become, the fog that clogged my brain whenever I looked at the books I loved and thought I would have to leave behind forever, my mother, passed out on the floor every day when I came home from school, the days which seemed like another shovel of dirt burying me under a muddy future — at best. 35 years ago, my life was over before it had begun — just like every other girl I knew. I was pregnant.

35 years ago, there was no one to tell. No one, I felt, who could save me from my fate. My nights were blasted by the beatings my mother received from the men she met in bars. My nights were sirens and broken bottles and locks on the door against the male heaviness I felt outside. My nights were jobless, hopeless, futureless, a black hole, a darkening suction pulling me from my dreams. I wanted to study. I wanted to attend college. I wanted to "make something out of myself." I wanted to become an university professor. At that time, it was as if I wanted to visit Mars, or Venus, where I imagined all the women are small like me, but free. 35 years ago, my life was over — I was pregnant.

35 years ago I tried to end my life. I took my mother's extra long knitting needles and a bottle of alcohol under the bed and inserted the point into my womb. The pain was nothing compared to the inner pain I lived with during those dark misty days. I wanted to die, rather than live my living death. At the hospital, a nurse told me about a new program. I was sent to a bright office where a psychiatrist asked me one single question: "Do you want to terminate this pregnancy?" "Yes," I answered, without hesitation. And, like a dream, my boyfriend appeared in another office, and together we answered the same question: "I do." Yes. I wanted to live.

I will never ever forget that first waking, that first coming out of the fog of anesthesia. I will never ever forget this day, 35 years ago, when I gave birth to myself by aborting — a decision I have always felt I had to live up to — to honor that postponed being by being all I could become. I will never ever forget that feeling of extreme relief or those first words that came to me out of the mist that was my mind: "It's over." It was as if the enemy had lifted the gate to the underground cave and I was free. "Free at last! Free at last." Thank God, Almighty, I was free at last! 35 years ago I made a choice, for life. I made a change.

At 17, I moved out from the foggy alcohol fumes that was my mother's house, into a place where I could study. I graduated from high school with high honors, and followed my vocational counselor's advice — the counselor who believed that all Mexicans were stupid and "not college material" — and so I attended San Jose City College where I graduated with high honors and transferred to San Jose State where I graduated with the highest honors. Then I attended the University of California at Santa Cruz for my doctoral study, just as I had dreamed 35 years ago. And for the past 19 years I have lived my dream as an Associate Professor of English at a major university. Today I am an internationally recognized and critically acclaimed author. My poetry has been translated into at least six different languages and studied in universities all over the world. At age 40, when I felt I could afford a life that I never lived as a child, I gave birth to my son. My choice. My life. My happiness.

And now, 35 years later, I come back to the city of my birth, San Francisco, out of the fog and into the sun, to pass on that life-force, and to preserve our right, as human beings, to define our own destiny, to pursue our dreams, even through the fog of these dark times, to fight here today — for freedom, for liberty, for justice, for all.

Preserve Roe vs. Wade. Preserve the right of a woman to choose her life. Today I stand here to say:

We make the choice
that is our change.

We make the choice
that is our change.

WE MAKE THE CHOICE
THAT IS OUR CHANGE!

Gracias.


foto by Francisco J. Dominguez copyright 2008

foto by Francisco J. Dominguez copyright 2008

foto by Francisco J. Dominguez copyright 2008

foto by Francisco J. Dominguez copyright 2008

* More about the march and rally with photos and video here

More 100 Word Poems

I've been writing 100-word poems on given words every week and posting them on my poetry blog, "The Poems, the Whole Poem, And Nothing But the Poems". Just read and scroll down for the rest. I'm not sure if you have to be a MySpace member. Provecho!

R.I.P. Angel Gonzalez

Anti-Franco poet, Angél González passed way this past weekend: http://www.miamiherald.com/776/story/378624.html. This sad news via Joe Hutchison's blog where he has a translation of one of Angél's poems and links to others. Joe is one of the many fine Colorado poets I met and heard while there. New Mexico will miss the presence of this freedom fighter — adelante, Angél.