Mangos, Pinta & Junot

Get out and support some beautiful writers and artists in the Bay!

Mangos with Chilethis Thursday at La Peña in Berkeley,
Pinta tu Propio Mundo Saturday@ Galeria de la Raza in the Mission in SF,
and Junot Diaz at several locations in the Bay...
See you there!


QTPOC Traveling Cabaret
Encuentros 2: Dispatches from the Queer Borderlands


Thursday September 18, 2008
$10-$15 sliding scale - 8pm

Mangos with Chile Productions presents: Encuentros 2: Dispatches from the Queer Borderlands. Curated by Ms. Cherry & featuring tales from immigrant & first generation queer & trans artists. Through story, hip hop, dance, burlesque & theater, artists reveal the queer sides of immigration and the struggle to survive these war years.
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Sat., Sept 20
Time: 7:30pm
Admission: $15 General $10 Students & Galeria Members


Pinta Tu Propio Mundo
Hosted by Leticia Hernández
Featuring: Raquel Gutierrez, Lysa Flores, Kirya Traber, Kim Addonizio, Amie Suzara, and DJ La Rumorosa


For seven years, the Pinta tu Propio Mundo/Create Your Own World series has gathered cutting edge artists that celebrate the creative expression and resistance of women. Founded by spoken word artist Leticia Hernández, this event has grown from a reading among friends to a multidisciplinary gathering of established and emerging women artists. This year, DJ La Rumerosa will open the doors to the voice of slam champion Kirya Traber, Butchlalis de Panochtitlan founder, Raquel Gutierrez, Chicana rocker, Lysa Flores, award winning novelist and poet, Kim Addonizio, East Bay phenom Amie Suzara, and Mission poetista and host, Leticia Hernández. Amelia Berumen of Izpapalotl Clothing, will sell her one of a kind cloth poems at the event.



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Junot Diaz readings in the Bay (I hope to be at the Oakland one!)
September 18
City Arts and Lectures, In conversation with Paul Lancour, Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA, 8:00 pm.
September 19
Barnes and Noble, 98 Broadway, Jack London Sq., Oakland, CA, 7:00 pm.
September 20
MACLA (Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Americana), San Jose, CA, 8:00 pm.

Las Manas Tres on KPFA TONIGHT

KPFA La Raza Chronicles Tonight 7pm 94.1 www.kpfa.org

Tuesday Sept. 9, 2008

La Raza Chronicles fills the airwaves with its Spanglish enchantments with public affairs, news sin fronteras, musica y poesia. Nina Serrano interviews the dynamic poetry trio Las Manas about their original poems and spoken performance-art pieces- are you ready to be shocked with what is innovative and fresh in feminista Latina thinking? We will also hear from C`tone about the latest La Raza Chronicles Blogspot and the story of his involvement in community media. Mr Chuch brings us the buzz from the Streets of Aztlan. Emiliano Echevarria shares his expertise and fabulous collection of Musica de Cuba.

Negotiating the Weary

Negotiating the Weary

 

 

How to read poetry indeed. I wanted to share first off that the anxiety of returning to school to be and do Poetry with a capital ‘P’ has me all wound up. I am facing down some demons of sorts by entering into the academy as a POET. A poet who only believed she could write poetry because she learned of adults in Central America learning literacy and revolution through poetry.  Because of poetry with no rules, but baptized in the comfort of oral tradition. Because of community based poets telling it like it is from the heart. Only learning of poetry from living poets mouths.

I sit down to read poetry. Even though the words like to dance out of place when I read or hold them down for enough time to get a sentence out.

It seems fitting, anxious as I am that the first set of poems from Langston Hughes speaks of dreams, growing older and claiming a place in society that keeps you at the margins. Hughes writes “Help me to shatter this darkness, to smash this night, To break this shadow into a thousand lights of sun, into a thousand whirling dreams of sun!” These metaphors speak to me. I feel the weight. Only a few lines before he says he is the shadow lying in the darkness of a wall that is keeping Hughes from his dreams.