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poetry, Rafael Alvarado

Poetry by Rafael Alvarado

Mona Alvarado Frazier
Probably because of my mood, the gray of the day, and I recently watched “For Colored Girls…” I chose to post a poem I came across while reading La Bloga and a post by Melinda Palacios. At the end of the poem you can find a link to hear a radio interview with the poet.

A Thousand Unridden White Horses
by Rafael Francisco Jose Alvarado
for corrie
she wants prince charming
she is of a fairytale heart
how do I tell her
prince charming died in the sixties
the sex revolution
easy access
made men worse than they already were
so the few who had that right heart
never understood
what it is to care
for a woman
with an open heart
who doesn’t want much
just honest eyes
that don’t lie

there, are a thousand unridden white horses
waiting to be found
how do I to tell her
that sometimes men fall short
don’t have the balls to love
passed lukewarm affection
when a woman dresses up to make you smile
and you don’t notice
you don’t deserve her touch

how do I say
Prince Charming is somewhere
inside a man
trying to grow up

Catch Rafael’s poetry interviews on theWorld Wide Word Radio Network. Tonight, March 18, Listen to Rafael’s past radio show with Margaret Randall and catch some current and upcoming poetry shows. Also, forthcoming, the World Wide Word Radio Network’s 4-year anniversary reading, hosted by Rafael Alvarado and S.A. Griffin, a free event at Beyond Baroque, 681 Venice Blvd, at 4pm, Saturday, April 9. Margaret Randal reads at Beyond Baroque with V. B. Price. 
Books

I wanna write like Junot Diaz

Mona Alvarado Frazier

This is traveling Thursday, but instead of a physical location, I’d like to tell you about my inner travel experiences with a 3-day writing boot camp and Junot Diaz. (He wasn’t there, mind you).

At the BootCamp, we learned about opening velocity like Frank McCourt in Teacher Man: ” Here they come, and I’m not ready. How could I be? I’m a new teacher and learning on the job. On the 1st day of my teaching career, I was almost fired for eating the sandwich of a high school boy.”

Here’s another one, JM Tohline from his upcoming novel, The Great Lenore,” When I met Lenore, she’d been dead for four days.” Grabbers, for sure.

After listening to 3 days of the character, dialogue, and voice critiqued and critiquing, I wanted to flop on the couch, but it was filled with signs, targets, and circles with slashes over the words “As, just, -ing, ly, stay in POV.” You get the picture.

It was a great experience, and my classmates were incredible people, but after three days, I was utterly exhausted. Yes, I used an -ly.

So the next day, at Border’s, you know they’re down to 40%; my writing world was expanded to bits. This book took me back to Sandra Cisneros’s poems, language, and energy. I turned the book over, I didn’t like the pink smudge on the cover, and back over again:

“The Brief, Wonderous World of Oscar Wao.” The title was reminiscent of old movies. As I usually do, I read the first line of the first chapter (for opening velocity, of course). Como que first line, the dude grabbed me at the title of the chapter “GhettoNerd at the End of the World 1974-1987-The Golden Age.” I can relate.

Junot Diaz breaks the rules with no commas, periods, quotes, or exclamation points! Two to a page sometimes, and footnotes to there,  imaginate comadre!

He slapped at all the rules, like a chancla to a cucaracha. He takes you on a wild ride through the DR to Jersey and back. And it’s all good. His writing style inspires me; maybe now I can get more emotion and depth into my manuscripts if I type pell-mell into my own world and raise a middle finger to ‘the rules.’

My writing teachers say, “But that’s not his first book; he can do what he damn well pleases now.” Maybe that axiom is true. I don’t know. I haven’t read his first book “Drown,” but I’m going back to Borders to search for that one.