Adelina is my most favorite performer of all time. Smart, sexy, politically conscious and a master improviser. I love performers who are so present in each performance no matter how crafted and polished manage to make you feel that every word was crafted just for your time and place. She makes it all look easy. She’ll have you eating out of the palm of her hand by the end. Like really, she might invite you up on stage to eat a tamale out of her hand. Depends what kind of show she wants it to be. Because, of course, she is in charge. And then there’s la famosa pero elusive Cherrie. She seems real low key from the times I have seen her read and the few times I have met her. Maybe she just prefers to write and create than put herself out there, you know, not a lot of flash… but then again she doesn’t need it. She is the editor and author of seminal Chicana works such as This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color and Loving in the War Years: Lo Que Nunca Pasó Por Sus Labios as well as many plays, poems and essays. I hear she is an amazing mentor and teacher too. She doesn’t let you get away with any writerly bullshit and really cares about helping other people of color succeed. I hope to one day take a class from her or even better yet work with her.
So go this Saturday.
You will not regret it.
LA RED XICANA INDÍGENA presents… A Night of Queer Women of Color Performance* featuring Cherríe Moraga & Adelina Anthony
ONE NIGHT ONLY! SATURDAY, JANUARY 30 @7:30PM Multicultural Community Center, Martin Luther King Student Union, UC-Berkeley (corner of Bancroft & Telegraph) Suggested donation: $10 – $25 or more.
ADELINA ANTHONY, performing “Zen Ranchera” and excerpts from “La Chismosa” (directed by D’Lo)
CHERRÍE MORAGA, reading from new works, including an excerpt from her play, “Who Killed Yolanda Salívar”
PLUS MUSIC by LAS BOMBERAS DE LA BAHIA * SOLIROSE
*Some material may not be suitable for children under 16.
La Red Xicana Indígena, which originated in 1997, is a network of Xicanas Indígenas who are actively involved in political, educational and cultural work that serves to raise indigenous consciousness among our own communities and supports the social justice struggles of people of indigenous origins of this continent North and South, especially the human and civil rights campaign of undocumented migrant peoples and their children in the U.S.
If you cannot attend but would like to make a tax deductible donation, please write checks to: “Citliliztli” for “La Red” c/o J. Luna. 22167 Montgomery St. Hayward, CA 94541. If you have “In Kind” donations for this event or for La Red Xicana Indígena, please contact Elisa Huerta at UC Berkeley Multicultural Center 510-642-6528 or elisahuerta@berkeley.edu. See flyer for details.
This may be the first christmas I am spending in the Bay area that I can ever remember. I am still debating on when and how I can go visit home either christmas day or after. Since I am spending this time here I am in search of some good Guatemalan tamales, mostly tamales rojos de puerco y pollo and a few sweet tamales negros. So far I have found that the Guatemalan restaurant San Miguel in San Francisco sells them but they wouldn’t be ready until the 24th which is cutting it a little close and I would be coming from the East Bay to pick them up. I need to make a decision and put an order in soon.
Papa tells me
not to cry
tears are of no use to the
the generation of friends
that are gone for ever
no family
to stand
no bills
to avoid
no houses
to build
no systems
to regard
no open toes afraid of the cold
no pools of release
what use are the hot drops except to mark the ache in a clear ink no one will read except your weary flesh dried and cracked
drenched in someone else’s sweat
holding on
an
addiction to the past
no one sees
fascination with blank faces
eyes refracting heart walls
to protect
the parchment of historical ‘supposed to’
craving an individual category of soil to rest
that doesn’t exist.
My friend Rio likes to make videos. And sometimes they make me laugh so hard I don’t need to do sit ups that day.
I’ll will be performing hope you can make it!
Lo Que Callamos L@s Jot@s:A New Interactive Live Talk Show
One Night Only
Host:
QueLAco and Yosimar Reyes
Type:
Music/Arts – Performance
Network:
Global
Date:
Friday, September 25, 2009
Time:
8:00pm – 11:00pm
Location:
Galeria De La Raza
Street:
2857 24th St
City/Town:
San Francisco, CA
Co-Sposored By QueLAco:
Join these Locas as we launch our new live talk show filled with desmadre, poesia and a whole lot of drama. You haven’t seen a show like this: Oprah and Laura En America dont got shit on us JOT@S. Make sure u bring your case that night. Featuring
Xuanito Espinoza-Cuellar (Las Vegas, NV)
Emmanuelle “Neza” Leal (Los Angeles, CA)
MamaCoAlt (San Francisco, CA)
Maya Chinchilla (Oakland, CA)
and many more.
With Special Guest DJ AGANA Spinning All Night
Curated by Yosimar Reyes (San Jose, CA)
Been working on this one for a couple of weeks. Still working but wanted to share something new. Let me know if you have any feedback or critiques or feelings or what hits you or doesn’t. Much love.
Cuts Deep
you came to me with your open wound
and I drop everything because this time I can fix it
fix you
and in the process I will be healed
cause I will finally be successful at something
you
you will be that something I think
and I will stand back and admire my work
you
you will be that work of art
and I will be your savior your hero your smart girl
the one who has it all together
the one who knows it all
the wise old soul trapped in this baby’s body.
I will be whole happy and ready to fix the
next problem
turned project turned work of art
but of course that isn’t how it is
how it should be
I get lost in you I don’t fix you you need even more of me I loose me I drop me I am gone and you get lost in me too.
you hate me for wanting to fix you for thinking you need to be fixed for helping you don’t appreciate it you hate that I know so much you put me down because I know things you don’t, you criticize you tell me I don’t know.
you wish I was better more whole that I did things the way you would.
That I don’t fix
I open up the wound
and explore how you got it
you tell me about all your tragedy and I want to heal you cause I know I can if you just let me if I just forget about me if I forget about me I don’t have to deal with me
or my wounds my mistakes my fears my weaknesses
I am the wound
you are the wounded
we are walking wounded
Reading Niedecker for a poetry craft class. This poem makes me smile:
Poet’s Work
by Lorine Niedecker
Grandfather
advised me:
Learn a trade
I learned
to sit at desk
and condense
No layoffs
from this
condensery
Mills College a Place for Writers Works in Progress
Faculty Reader:
Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Visiting Professor in Creative Writing
English MFA Student readers for this first installment:
C.J. Singh
Michael Kelley
Maya Chinchilla
Meg Day
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Time:
5:30pm – 6:30pm
Location:
Bender Room at Mills College
City/Town:
Oakland, CA
I wrote this poem today riffing off of a line or two I had stashed away as an intro for two of my poetry classes and also as part of my goal to write a poem a day for 30 days. I suppose if I pushed myself harder I should have written two different poems but I felt each class was asking me to do the same thing but in different words.
One asked me to introduce myself. The other asked me to “write a poem that conveys your consideration of craft.” One was a ‘poetry for the people’ class where I feel right at home with their discussion of ground rules, how trauma gets handed down, positions of power and authority, art and it’s existence in the beloved community; the other was a ‘craft of poetry’ class that already makes me tense with it’s discussion about constraints, restraint and distinctions between “language poets” and everything else…but I am pushing myself to stay open and in the conversation.
Feeling torn between wanting to try new forms and just wanting to improve on what I already do…wanting to tell stories that matter (at least to me) or leaving poetry all together and just call what I do “Creative Non-Fiction” performance art or write plays. So here she is. Still considering the line breaks, order and everything else.
Warning: there are food references in this poem. 
Maya
like the people
Central American superhero
powered on black beans
tortillas and el pueblo unido
I be a radical loving rebel girl
sensitive but not breakable
I be a two spirit open heart school girl humble diva
I am the breaking point
the verge
the edge
emotional living
on the surface
defender of the universe
lover of activities in bed
I have a warriors insight
Planning and multitasking.
I am big heart love protected by a force field of
preparation and ancestral knowledge
living in a broken tongue
remembering what I love
that first moment that first sound that first time that first kiss
love in the time of aids riots and bilingual hate
heart break back beat floating down the river of several rhythm nations
I am the topic of gossip and misinterpretation
my matrix jumping ways make you nervous
because you lack my context
tough stuff sweet heart big dreamer
corny tamale palabrista
calling on the silence and making it loud.
