-
----Sin pelos en la lengua
Un mundo ancho y ajeno
en una Tierra
cada vez menos ancha
debe ser nuestro.
¿Quiénes somos nosotros?
¿Quiénes somos los otros?
¿Quiénes fijan las fronteras
cuando ni el hambre ni la justicia
saben de tales cosas?
El pan que no se comparte
----envenena el alma;
el corazón que no se abre
----envenena la vida.
Abajo con las fronteras,
----abajo con las banderas,
abajo con el mando de los ricos
----y que no haya pobres.
----------© Rafael Jesús González 2010
----Bluntly Speaking
A world wide & of others
in an Earth
ever less wide
should be ours.
Who are we?
Who are the others?
Who sets the borders
when neither hunger nor justice
know of such things?
The bread not shared
----poisons the soul;
the heart that does not open
----poisons life.
Down with borders,
----down with flags,
down with the rule of the rich
----& let there be no poor.
----------© Rafael Jesús González 2010
-
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
Full moon: Moon for La Llorona
-
-------Luna para La Llorona
Dicen que en noches de la luna plena
se oye el lamento desolado
de una mujer que llora por sus hijos.
Ha de vagar por el mundo esa madre;
no hay lugar a que no llegue su llanto —
a orillas de los ríos y los mares,
en los montes y los llanos,
los bosques, los desiertos,
las ciénagas, los arenales,
las selvas, los puertos,
en las esquinas de las calles
retumban los ecos de su llanto.
Llora por sus hijos
-----la desconsolada madre,
sus hijos arrebatados por la guerra,
por la violencia, por el hambre.
Es sordo el que no la oye,
su corazón tambor mudo y desusado;
llega su llanto hasta a los valles
y los mares secos de la luna,
hasta a los oídos indiferentes
-----de los ángeles.
--------------© Rafael Jesús González 2010
----------Moon for La Llorona
They say that on nights of the full moon
is heard the anguished crying
of a woman who weeps for her children.
That mother must wander through the world;
there is no place her crying does not reach —
to the edges of the rivers and the seas,
on the mountains and the plains,
the forests, the deserts,
the marshes, the sands,
the jungles, the ports,
on the street corners
resound the echoes of her cry.
She cries for her children,
-----the inconsolable mother,
her children carried away by war,
by violence, by hunger.
He is deaf who does not hear her,
his heart a drum dumb and disused;
her cry reaches to the valleys
and the dry seas of the moon,
even unto the indifferent ears
-----of the angels.
-------------© Rafael Jesús González 2010
-------Luna para La Llorona
Dicen que en noches de la luna plena
se oye el lamento desolado
de una mujer que llora por sus hijos.
Ha de vagar por el mundo esa madre;
no hay lugar a que no llegue su llanto —
a orillas de los ríos y los mares,
en los montes y los llanos,
los bosques, los desiertos,
las ciénagas, los arenales,
las selvas, los puertos,
en las esquinas de las calles
retumban los ecos de su llanto.
Llora por sus hijos
-----la desconsolada madre,
sus hijos arrebatados por la guerra,
por la violencia, por el hambre.
Es sordo el que no la oye,
su corazón tambor mudo y desusado;
llega su llanto hasta a los valles
y los mares secos de la luna,
hasta a los oídos indiferentes
-----de los ángeles.
--------------© Rafael Jesús González 2010
----------Moon for La Llorona
They say that on nights of the full moon
is heard the anguished crying
of a woman who weeps for her children.
That mother must wander through the world;
there is no place her crying does not reach —
to the edges of the rivers and the seas,
on the mountains and the plains,
the forests, the deserts,
the marshes, the sands,
the jungles, the ports,
on the street corners
resound the echoes of her cry.
She cries for her children,
-----the inconsolable mother,
her children carried away by war,
by violence, by hunger.
He is deaf who does not hear her,
his heart a drum dumb and disused;
her cry reaches to the valleys
and the dry seas of the moon,
even unto the indifferent ears
-----of the angels.
-------------© Rafael Jesús González 2010
Sunday, July 25, 2010
New Poets of the American West
-
an anthology of poets
from eleven
Western states
Kim Addonizio • Sandra Alcosser • Sherman Alexie • Jimmy Santiago Baca •Ellen Bass • Jim Barnes • Marvin Bell • James Bertolino • Sherwin Bitsui • Judy Blunt • Christopher Buckley • Henry Carlile • Maxine Chernoff • Marilyn Chin • Katharine Coles • Mary Crow • Matthew Dickman • Gary Gildner • Rafael Jesús González • Dana Gioia • Samuel Green • Mark Halperin • Sam Hamill • Joy Harjo • Jim Harrison • Jane Hirshfield • Garrett Hongo • Christopher Howell • Linda Hussa • Lawson Fasao Inada • Mark Irwin • Lowell Jaeger • Ilya Kaminsky • Melissa Kwasny • Lance Larson • Dorianne Laux • David Lee • Philip Levine • Adrian C. Louis • Clarence Major • Ron McFarland • Sandra McPherson • Jane Miller • Dixie Partridge • Simon Ortiz • Carol Muske-Dukes • Robert Pack • Greg Pape • Lucia Perillo • David Ray • Lois Red Elk • David Romtvedt • Alberto Rios • Pattiann Rogers • William Pitt Root • Wendy Rose • Vern Rutsala • Kay Ryan • Reg Saner • Leslie Marmon Silko • Maurya Simon • Floyd Skloot • Gary Soto • Kim Stafford • David St. John • Primus St. John • Luci Tapahonzo • Rawdon Tomlinson • Bill Tremblay • David Wagoner • Robert Wrigley • Al Young • and many more!
New Poets of the American West is a panoramic (and revealing) view of the West through the eyes of more than 250 poets and 450 poems, including poems in English, Spanish, Navajo, Salish, Assiniboin, and Dakota languages. Collected here are poems about horse racing, mining, trash collecting, nuclear testing, firefighting, border crossings, buffalo hunting, surfing, logging, and sifting flour. In these pages you will visit flea markets, military bases, internment camps, reservations, funerals, weddings, rodeos, nursing homes, national parks, backyard barbecues, prisons, forests, meadows, rivers, and mountain tops. In your “mind’s eye,” you will meet a simple-minded girl who gets run over by a bull, two mothers watching a bear menacingly nosing toward unsuspecting children, and children who “have yet to be toilet trained out of their souls.” You will learn to “reach into the sacred womb, / grasp a placid hoof / and coax life toward this certain moment.” You’ll teach poetry to third graders, converse with hitchhikers, lament for an incarcerated brother “trying to fill the holes in his soul / with Camel cigarettes / and crude tattoos.” You will sit at the kitchen table where perhaps the world will end “while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.” In the short time each of us has in this world, here’s your chance to experience life widely and to reflect on your experiences deeply. Lowell Jaeger, Editor In New Poets of the American West, we hear from Native Americans and first-generation immigrants, from ranchlanders and megaopolites, from poet-teachers and street-poets, and more. In fact, the West is so big, and home to such diversity that the deeper one reads in this anthology, the more voices and world views one encounters, the more textures of thought, emotion, and language one discovers, the less we may find ourselves able to speak of a single, stable something called the American West. Rather, we may find ourselves living in (or reading into) not one West, but many.
New Poets of the American West
is available for purchase
at amazon.com or by contacting:
fvccbookstore.com
or call 406-756-3814 (9:00 - 5:00 M-F)
For more information, please contact Lowell Jaeger at
406-756-3907 or ljaeger@fvcc.edu
ISBN: 978-0-9795185-4-6
7 x 10 - 550 pp
$24
-
proudly announces publication of
New Poets
of the
American West
of the
American West
an anthology of poets
from eleven
Western states
Edited by
Lowell Jaeger
Lowell Jaeger
Kim Addonizio • Sandra Alcosser • Sherman Alexie • Jimmy Santiago Baca •Ellen Bass • Jim Barnes • Marvin Bell • James Bertolino • Sherwin Bitsui • Judy Blunt • Christopher Buckley • Henry Carlile • Maxine Chernoff • Marilyn Chin • Katharine Coles • Mary Crow • Matthew Dickman • Gary Gildner • Rafael Jesús González • Dana Gioia • Samuel Green • Mark Halperin • Sam Hamill • Joy Harjo • Jim Harrison • Jane Hirshfield • Garrett Hongo • Christopher Howell • Linda Hussa • Lawson Fasao Inada • Mark Irwin • Lowell Jaeger • Ilya Kaminsky • Melissa Kwasny • Lance Larson • Dorianne Laux • David Lee • Philip Levine • Adrian C. Louis • Clarence Major • Ron McFarland • Sandra McPherson • Jane Miller • Dixie Partridge • Simon Ortiz • Carol Muske-Dukes • Robert Pack • Greg Pape • Lucia Perillo • David Ray • Lois Red Elk • David Romtvedt • Alberto Rios • Pattiann Rogers • William Pitt Root • Wendy Rose • Vern Rutsala • Kay Ryan • Reg Saner • Leslie Marmon Silko • Maurya Simon • Floyd Skloot • Gary Soto • Kim Stafford • David St. John • Primus St. John • Luci Tapahonzo • Rawdon Tomlinson • Bill Tremblay • David Wagoner • Robert Wrigley • Al Young • and many more!
New Poets of the American West is a panoramic (and revealing) view of the West through the eyes of more than 250 poets and 450 poems, including poems in English, Spanish, Navajo, Salish, Assiniboin, and Dakota languages. Collected here are poems about horse racing, mining, trash collecting, nuclear testing, firefighting, border crossings, buffalo hunting, surfing, logging, and sifting flour. In these pages you will visit flea markets, military bases, internment camps, reservations, funerals, weddings, rodeos, nursing homes, national parks, backyard barbecues, prisons, forests, meadows, rivers, and mountain tops. In your “mind’s eye,” you will meet a simple-minded girl who gets run over by a bull, two mothers watching a bear menacingly nosing toward unsuspecting children, and children who “have yet to be toilet trained out of their souls.” You will learn to “reach into the sacred womb, / grasp a placid hoof / and coax life toward this certain moment.” You’ll teach poetry to third graders, converse with hitchhikers, lament for an incarcerated brother “trying to fill the holes in his soul / with Camel cigarettes / and crude tattoos.” You will sit at the kitchen table where perhaps the world will end “while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.” In the short time each of us has in this world, here’s your chance to experience life widely and to reflect on your experiences deeply. Lowell Jaeger, Editor In New Poets of the American West, we hear from Native Americans and first-generation immigrants, from ranchlanders and megaopolites, from poet-teachers and street-poets, and more. In fact, the West is so big, and home to such diversity that the deeper one reads in this anthology, the more voices and world views one encounters, the more textures of thought, emotion, and language one discovers, the less we may find ourselves able to speak of a single, stable something called the American West. Rather, we may find ourselves living in (or reading into) not one West, but many.
Brady Harrison, Professor
University of Montana
University of Montana
New Poets of the American West
is available for purchase
at amazon.com or by contacting:
fvccbookstore.com
or call 406-756-3814 (9:00 - 5:00 M-F)
For more information, please contact Lowell Jaeger at
406-756-3907 or ljaeger@fvcc.edu
ISBN: 978-0-9795185-4-6
7 x 10 - 550 pp
$24
-
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Hart Crane (July 21, 1899 - April 27, 1932)
-
----------From Another Tower
------------------------to Hart Crane
Call love the knell
if in the paralytic dream
of longing hell
a bird should wound you.
-----(I too have heard
-----the bells of Santa Prisca
fling blue prisms of delight
into my green volcanoes -
-----voices like the darknesses
-----inside nuns' skirts —
iron sounds that starch the mind
and bleach dark hurts.)
-----Fate was molded thus
-----to give no reason
--------------------------or return
hasten the words which find no answer,
-----wander —
-----------------hesitate —
------------------------------and turn.
Perhaps the sea can tell —
-----resound the gong in its purpuric caves,
----------perpetuate the knell
and toll the clappers of the waves
to drown this glorious hell.
--------------------© Rafael Jesús González 2010
(El Grito, Vol. 6 no. 3, Spring 1973;
Author's copyrights.)
-----------------Desde otra torre
----------------------------a Hart Crane
Llámale al amor el toque
si en el sueño paralizado
del ansioso infierno
un pájaro te hiriera.
-----(Yo también he oído
-----las campanas de Santa Prisca
esparcir prismas azules del deleite
en mis volcanes verdes -
-----voces como las oscuridades
-----dentro las enaguas de monjas —
sonidos de hierro que almidonan la mente
y decoloran daños oscuros.)
-----El destino se moldea así
-----para no dar razón
--------------------------o retorno
apresurar las palabras que no encuentran respuesta,
-----vagan —
----------------titubean —
------------------------------y vuelven.
Tal vez el mar pueda decir —
-----retumbar el gong en las cavas púrpuras,
----------perpetuar el toque
y doblar los badajos de las olas
para ahogar este glorioso infierno.
------------------------© Rafael Jesús González 2010
----------From Another Tower
------------------------to Hart Crane
Call love the knell
if in the paralytic dream
of longing hell
a bird should wound you.
-----(I too have heard
-----the bells of Santa Prisca
fling blue prisms of delight
into my green volcanoes -
-----voices like the darknesses
-----inside nuns' skirts —
iron sounds that starch the mind
and bleach dark hurts.)
-----Fate was molded thus
-----to give no reason
--------------------------or return
hasten the words which find no answer,
-----wander —
-----------------hesitate —
------------------------------and turn.
Perhaps the sea can tell —
-----resound the gong in its purpuric caves,
----------perpetuate the knell
and toll the clappers of the waves
to drown this glorious hell.
--------------------© Rafael Jesús González 2010
(El Grito, Vol. 6 no. 3, Spring 1973;
Author's copyrights.)
.gif)
-----------------Desde otra torre
----------------------------a Hart Crane
Llámale al amor el toque
si en el sueño paralizado
del ansioso infierno
un pájaro te hiriera.
-----(Yo también he oído
-----las campanas de Santa Prisca
esparcir prismas azules del deleite
en mis volcanes verdes -
-----voces como las oscuridades
-----dentro las enaguas de monjas —
sonidos de hierro que almidonan la mente
y decoloran daños oscuros.)
-----El destino se moldea así
-----para no dar razón
--------------------------o retorno
apresurar las palabras que no encuentran respuesta,
-----vagan —
----------------titubean —
------------------------------y vuelven.
Tal vez el mar pueda decir —
-----retumbar el gong en las cavas púrpuras,
----------perpetuar el toque
y doblar los badajos de las olas
para ahogar este glorioso infierno.
------------------------© Rafael Jesús González 2010
Leo
-
-
--------------León
El león, ojos de carnalina,
colmillos, garras de sardónice,
lleva en el pecho corazón de rubí
que guarda el fuego fijo del valor.
-----Anhela devorar al sol
-----y mudarlo en oro
que surgiera por sus venas
como río caliente de luz.
----------------© Rafael Jesús González 2010
-------------------Leo
The lion, carnelian eyes,
fangs, claws of sardonyx,
carries in his breast a ruby heart
that holds the steadfast fires of courage.
------It desires to devour the sun
------& turn it into gold
that would run in his veins
like a hot river of light.
----------------© Rafael Jesús González 2010
-
-
--------------León
El león, ojos de carnalina,
colmillos, garras de sardónice,
lleva en el pecho corazón de rubí
que guarda el fuego fijo del valor.
-----Anhela devorar al sol
-----y mudarlo en oro
que surgiera por sus venas
como río caliente de luz.
----------------© Rafael Jesús González 2010
-------------------Leo
The lion, carnelian eyes,
fangs, claws of sardonyx,
carries in his breast a ruby heart
that holds the steadfast fires of courage.
------It desires to devour the sun
------& turn it into gold
that would run in his veins
like a hot river of light.
----------------© Rafael Jesús González 2010
-
Friday, July 16, 2010
On this day 65 years ago
-
It was on this day 65 years ago that the first atomic bomb exploded. This test explosion happened at 5:30 a.m. on this day in 1945 near Alamogordo, New Mexico, which is about 120 miles south of Albuquerque.
A scientist who witnessed the test reported: "We were lying there, very tense, in the early dawn, and there were just a few streaks of gold in the east; you could see your neighbor very dimly. ... Suddenly, there was an enormous flash of light, the brightest light I have ever seen. ... It blasted; it pounced; it bored its way right through you. It was a vision which was seen with more than the eye. It was seen to last forever. ... There was an enormous ball of fire which grew and grew and it rolled as it grew; it went up into the air, in yellow flashes and into scarlet and green. It looked menacing. It seemed to come toward one."
J. Robert Oppenheimer was the physicist who led the Manhattan Project, which created the atomic weapon. Years later, he said that what came to his mind as he witnessed the explosion were these words from the sacred Hindu text The Bhagavad Gita: "If the radiance of a thousand suns / Were to burst into the sky / That would be like The splendor of the Mighty One ... / I am become Death, the shatterer of worlds." But there at the desert on that day he murmured only the words: "It worked."
---------Lazarus to Einstein
‘What I have given you,‘
-----------he said,
------‘is the ghost of a flower,
for I have come back from the dead.
I have picked myrrh
---from mountains of black granite
& frankincense
---from green deserts of quartz sand
& dug gold
---from the pits of serpents.
I have come back from the dead
-----& know that they lie
for the moon is not green cheese
-----but cold white stone, &
the stars are not the eyes of angels
-----but suns.
& my going was painful
-----but my coming was hell
---------& I hated my going
---------but my coming back
-----I clasped to myself
---------calling it life
though life was dead in me.
-----& this ghost of a flower
is the black seed of a star
------------&, I think,
-----it may grow you a sun.’
----------© Rafael Jesús González 2010
(Tejidos, Vol. I no. 4, p. 3; author’s copyrights.)
----------Lázaro a Einstein
‘Lo que te he dado,‘ —
------------dijo —
----‘es el espanto de una flor,
pues he regresado de los muertos.
He pizcado mirra
---en montañas de granito negro
e incienso
---en desiertos verdes de arena de cuarzo
y he escarbado oro
---en las madrigueras de serpientes.
He regresado de los muertos
------y sé que mienten
pues la luna no es de queso verde
-----sino de piedra blanca y fría
y las estrellas no son los ojos de ángeles
----------sino soles.
Y mi ida fue dolorosa
-----pero mi volver fue un infierno
----------y odié mi ir
----------pero mi volver
-----me lo acogí
----------llamándole vida
aunque la vida en mí estaba muerta.
-----Y este espanto de una flor
el la semilla negra de un lucero
--------------y, creo,
------que te crecerá un sol.’
-------------© Rafael Jesús González 2010
-
It was on this day 65 years ago that the first atomic bomb exploded. This test explosion happened at 5:30 a.m. on this day in 1945 near Alamogordo, New Mexico, which is about 120 miles south of Albuquerque.
A scientist who witnessed the test reported: "We were lying there, very tense, in the early dawn, and there were just a few streaks of gold in the east; you could see your neighbor very dimly. ... Suddenly, there was an enormous flash of light, the brightest light I have ever seen. ... It blasted; it pounced; it bored its way right through you. It was a vision which was seen with more than the eye. It was seen to last forever. ... There was an enormous ball of fire which grew and grew and it rolled as it grew; it went up into the air, in yellow flashes and into scarlet and green. It looked menacing. It seemed to come toward one."
J. Robert Oppenheimer was the physicist who led the Manhattan Project, which created the atomic weapon. Years later, he said that what came to his mind as he witnessed the explosion were these words from the sacred Hindu text The Bhagavad Gita: "If the radiance of a thousand suns / Were to burst into the sky / That would be like The splendor of the Mighty One ... / I am become Death, the shatterer of worlds." But there at the desert on that day he murmured only the words: "It worked."
© 2010 American Public Media
‘What I have given you,‘
-----------he said,
------‘is the ghost of a flower,
for I have come back from the dead.
I have picked myrrh
---from mountains of black granite
& frankincense
---from green deserts of quartz sand
& dug gold
---from the pits of serpents.
I have come back from the dead
-----& know that they lie
for the moon is not green cheese
-----but cold white stone, &
the stars are not the eyes of angels
-----but suns.
& my going was painful
-----but my coming was hell
---------& I hated my going
---------but my coming back
-----I clasped to myself
---------calling it life
though life was dead in me.
-----& this ghost of a flower
is the black seed of a star
------------&, I think,
-----it may grow you a sun.’
----------© Rafael Jesús González 2010
(Tejidos, Vol. I no. 4, p. 3; author’s copyrights.)
----------Lázaro a Einstein
‘Lo que te he dado,‘ —
------------dijo —
----‘es el espanto de una flor,
pues he regresado de los muertos.
He pizcado mirra
---en montañas de granito negro
e incienso
---en desiertos verdes de arena de cuarzo
y he escarbado oro
---en las madrigueras de serpientes.
He regresado de los muertos
------y sé que mienten
pues la luna no es de queso verde
-----sino de piedra blanca y fría
y las estrellas no son los ojos de ángeles
----------sino soles.
Y mi ida fue dolorosa
-----pero mi volver fue un infierno
----------y odié mi ir
----------pero mi volver
-----me lo acogí
----------llamándole vida
aunque la vida en mí estaba muerta.
-----Y este espanto de una flor
el la semilla negra de un lucero
--------------y, creo,
------que te crecerá un sol.’
-------------© Rafael Jesús González 2010
-
Monday, July 12, 2010
Pablo Neruda (July 12, 1904/September 23, 1973)
-
-
---------Luna para Neruda
Por la ventana la luna anida
en las ramas más altas de un pino
----como una gran garza
de plumaje tan blanco que duele.
Inmóvil por un momento, se antoja
una figura luminosa en forma de sirena
en la proa del galeón de la noche
que corta por la espuma de las estrellas
para echar ancla en una isla negra
donde el poeta se ahoga en sus libros
que le trae uno de sus esclavos
ya no sabe si Calibán o Ariel,
si para liberarlo del insomnio
o más hundirlo en los sueños.
La luna se desenmaraña
de las ramas del pino
y sigue su curso.
----------© Rafael Jesús González 2010
----------A Moon for Neruda
Through the window the moon nests
in the highest branches of a pine
like a great egret
of plumage so white that it hurts.
Immobile a moment, it seems
a luminous figure in the shape of a mermaid
on the prow of the galleon of night
that cuts through the spindrift of the stars
to cast anchor on a black isle
where the poet drowns in his books
brought to him by one of his slaves,
he no longer knows if Caliban or Ariel,
if to free him from insomnia
or sink him more deeply in dreams.
The moon disentangles itself
from the branches of the pine
& continues its course.
-----------© Rafael Jesús González 2010
-
-
-
---------Luna para Neruda
Por la ventana la luna anida
en las ramas más altas de un pino
----como una gran garza
de plumaje tan blanco que duele.
Inmóvil por un momento, se antoja
una figura luminosa en forma de sirena
en la proa del galeón de la noche
que corta por la espuma de las estrellas
para echar ancla en una isla negra
donde el poeta se ahoga en sus libros
que le trae uno de sus esclavos
ya no sabe si Calibán o Ariel,
si para liberarlo del insomnio
o más hundirlo en los sueños.
La luna se desenmaraña
de las ramas del pino
y sigue su curso.
----------© Rafael Jesús González 2010
----------A Moon for Neruda
Through the window the moon nests
in the highest branches of a pine
like a great egret
of plumage so white that it hurts.
Immobile a moment, it seems
a luminous figure in the shape of a mermaid
on the prow of the galleon of night
that cuts through the spindrift of the stars
to cast anchor on a black isle
where the poet drowns in his books
brought to him by one of his slaves,
he no longer knows if Caliban or Ariel,
if to free him from insomnia
or sink him more deeply in dreams.
The moon disentangles itself
from the branches of the pine
& continues its course.
-----------© Rafael Jesús González 2010
-
-
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