Tag: Ada Límon

poetry, Poetry Month, Spring

Is There A Poem in Your Pocket?

Mona Alvarado Frazier

Hello,

I hope this month finds you better in mind, body, and spirit than last month.

Masks are coming down, venues are up, and people are venturing into museums, concerts, and other large inside gatherings. I’m excited about the avenues opening and cautious at the same time.

Unknown Bird in the Garden

The month is ending and rolling into May, bringing a sunnier springtime and birds I’ve never seen before into the garden. We usually have crows, sparrows, and other birds in varying shades of gray, so spotting this red-headed beauty had me tip-toeing for the camera.

But before we slide into May Day, Cinco de Mayo, Mother’s Day, my own mother’s birthday, and Memorial Day, I’d like to commemorate April’s Poetry Month.

April 29th is the day to share a poem (Poem in Your Pocket Day). I found this one, or it found me:

Instructions on Not Giving Up by Ada Limón

More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world’s baubles, and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.

Patient, plodding…growing over whatever winter did to us…living despite the mess of us

I love the colors and visuals in the poem. What strikes me most are the words the greening of the trees. This makes me think of growth even when a plant is dormant.

The rebirth, despite the mess of us. Despite the collective state of the world and our miniature worlds. The verse points to the beauty of life’s realism and the not very appealing aspects. This makes me think of how joy can live after hurt, how the emptiness can be filled, and how we can blow life into dying embers.

The poem reminds me that we can nurture the strange idea of continuous living. I want to remember that instruction.

So, to remind me, I stare out my window and see the succulents in the garden. They were various shades of green until they bloomed their flowers. Now, we have an abundance of butterflies and bees that makes our cats give us attitude when it’s time to come inside. They too would rather be in the sunshine.

Heidi Ho in the Garden

Writing Life: 14 months to Publication

A couple of months ago, I re-worked my sixty-word description of my novel. Yesterday, my publisher notified me that my manuscript title will have to be ‘retitled.’ The current title is the one I’ve had for soooo long.

I’m a flexible person, so I brainstormed titles with my writing group and came up with a group favorite: Accused. I submitted that one and will hope for the best.

I’m lucky in drawings, and last week I won a 10-minute video session with an editor to go over my query letter for my second novel. The Zoom call was helpful (and humbling). This was sponsored by Manuscript Wishlist.

Next month, I may surprise you with a newsletter format. I’m not a techie person, so wish me luck.

Stay healthy, don’t give up, and enjoy the sunshine, literally and figuratively. See you in May and thanks for reading.

poetry

Ten Latinx Poets on #NationalPoetryDay

Mona Alvarado Frazier

I want to do what spring does to cherry trees-Pablo Neruda

Yesterday was the first day of Spring and the first day I caught a breath. A weeklong cough and a road trip of 1100 miles will do that to you.

Today is National Poetry Day. BookRiot published a list of “25 Gateway Poets to Start Reading for World Poetry Day.”

This had me thinking about the first time I became interested in reading poetry. It wasn’t any of the poets in my English Lit classes in high school.

In college, I bought, and read, my first book of poetry:

1-Floricanto by Alurista. His words caught me up in poetry, the poems reflected my childhood, my experiences. My favorite: “We Walk On Pebbled Streets.”  I still have the old book, weathered and marked up in the margins with images that resonated, made me think, ask questions.

 

Poetry book by Alurista
Floricanto by Alurista

The following are Latinx poets I’ve read.

2- Sandra Cisneros: My Wicked, Wicked Ways and Loose Woman. Every woman finds themselves in her poetry. My favorite, a three-page poem:

You bring out the Mexican in me

The hunkered thick dark spiral

The core of a heart howl

The bitter bile.

The tequila lágrimas on Saturday all

through next weekend Sunday.

3. Margarita Engle writes novels in verse, many of the novels are for Middle Grade and Young Adult readers. The Lightning Dreamer : Cuba’s Greatest Abolitionist and Poet Slave of Cuba are favorites.

4. Frank Acosta publishes poetry on Facebook. Here’s a post about his poetry.

5. Juan Felipe Herrera, the first Latino Poet Laureate and awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for his collection of poems “Half of the World in Light.”

6-Gloria Anzaldúa, a NEA award winner and co-author with writer/playwright Cherríe Moraga of Borderlands.

To live in the Borderlands means to

put chile in the borscht,

eat whole wheat tortillas,

speak Tex-Mex with a Brooklyn accent;

be stopped by la migra at the border checkpoints;

Living in the Borderlands means you fight hard to

resist the gold elixir beckoning from the bottle,

the pull of the gun barrel,

the rope crushing the hollow of your throat

7. Jimmy Santiago Baca‘s poetry is gut-wrenching and intense. He’s written several books of poetry besides a screenplay, Bound by Honor.

8. Verónica Reyes, Chopper Chopper centers on poems from “Bordered Lives.”

Poems by Veronica Reyes

9. Melinda Palacio. I first read “Folsom Lockdown” her chapbook, and went on to  “How Fire is a Story Waiting.” My favorite is “Things to Carry,” her poem about visiting her father in prison.

10. Ada Límon. “Sharks in the River.” She made a blog entry that described a feeling I also had:

I feel like everything these days is just notes. No completed thing, just notes. But I am taking them and walking with them and move them around in my body and flying them like kites and listening to them rustle and maybe someday I will make something.

Now go read some poetry, an old favorite and someone new.