Sunday, July 27, 2008

Of All the Many Stages of Grief...

Of all of the stages of grief and her many bastard kin
isolation suits me best.

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Friday, July 25, 2008

Lorna Dee at SF Intl. Poetry Festival Flor y Canto Tonight, 7-25-08, Mission Cultural Center

Maybe I'll see you in The City tonight?
--------------------------------
Come support the Bay Area's emerging artists as the San Francisco International Poetry Festival: Flor y Canto en el Barrio hosts:

The Word From the Street
Friday, July 25th at 2:00pm
Mission Branch Library Main Reading Room
FREE


Writers from the forefront of San Francisco's next movement of poetry and spoken word join host Tomás Riley (Mahcic: Selected Poems, Post Chicano Stress Disorder) Friday afternoon at the Mission Branch Library (24th St. at Bartlett).



Scheduled to perform:
Eric Foster - 2007 Teen Slam Finalist
Annie Yu - WritersCorps
George Hurtado - 2006 SF Unified District Slam Champ
Erika Kent Cespedes - 2007 Teen Slam Finalist
Drew Vai - 2007 Teen Slam Finalist
Nestor Reyes - 2007 SF Unified Slam Finalist
Hadeel Ramadan - Youth Speaks Youth Advisory Board
and many more...

Check some of the brightest young writers in the city and give them the audience they deserve!

Tonight at the Mission Cultural Center:

7pm, GRATIS--"Nuestra America I"


Featuring: Alejandro Murguia, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Cherrie Moraga, Tomás Riley, Jack Hirschman, Milta Ortiz

The readings occur in conjunction with three days of poetry July 24th through 26th in San Francisco's Mission District.

Friends of the San Francisco Public Library, the San Francisco Public Library, and Litquake have joined forces this year for Flor y Canto en el Barrio: A Celebration of Latina/o Poetry.

The Festival will begin on Thursday, July 24 with a kick-off party at 6:00pm in Balmy Alley (24th St. between Harrison and Folsom) and a Lit Crawl of both established and emerging poets. The Lit Crawl will take place at over six different venues on 24th Street (between Mission and Bryant). Poetry readings and workshops for various ages and interests will continue throughout Friday and Saturday, July 25 and 26.

For locations of the poetry crawl or for more details visit the Friends' website at www. friendssfpl. org.




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Friday, July 18, 2008

10 Searches Leading to Lorna Dee

Besides the obvious, people who visited this blog were really looking for

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SALA DANCE MEETUPS NEAR BOULDER C O

Just sayin'.

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Thursday, July 10, 2008

Alfred Arteaga (5/3/50-7/4/08) - Funeral Information

Alfred Arteaga
Professor Alfred Arteaga in his office, 10/09/06, UC Berkeley. Photo by Lorna Dee Cervantes

Here's the latest information from the family on funeral arrangements. Viewing will be tomorrow, 5-7 pm in Santa Cruz. Funeral and after party in Pescadero.

Friday July 11th 5-7pm viewing
Pacific Gardens Chapel
1050 Cayuga Street
Santa Cruz, CA 95062
http://pacificgardenschapel.com/mapAndDirections.nxg

Saturday July 12th Noon
The funeral at the Holy Cross Church Mission.
126 High Street, in Santa Cruz.
http://www.holycrosssantacruz.com/mission.html


Directly following service is procession to St. Anthony's Cemetery in Pescadero, California. Family only, please at the commitment.

Saturday July 12th 2:30pm
After party
Native Son's Hall
112 Stage Road
Pescadero, CA
This is just down the road from the cemetery so walking distance for visiting after commitment.

Please no black. My dad requested colorful clothes.

Thank you,
-------------------------------------

There will be a memorial for Alfred at UC Berkeley sometime this fall.

Hasta, my friend, hasta

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Baby

Baby

We're at the dog park — the park across the street from where my father lived for 35 years. The place has been boarded up and for rent for the past three years since his death, a rezoned property which forced my father to move while in the last stages of cancer. He never made it.

I took the long way up, the path he would have taken, up and down the hill; then up that 4-flight vertical staircase I would climb as fast as I could, late for more Excel data entry all last month. I go up quickly, not stopping. My little dog looks at me askance. San Francisco becomes a moviescape.

Now, part of the park he helped reclaim is devoted to dogs. We sit on the lawn in front of his constant presence. It has been a good day. Not a movie day, but good. The boy, now big as a tall, bulky man, comes later — but arrives, a buttoned short-sleeve shirt over his Jimi Hendrix tee.

I don't remember what it was that made us laugh all day, like in his baby days. He gets my jokes in the way he did then — or allows himself. He grunts lots of appreciative "huh"s and laughs twice.

Yesterday I was crying, the tears, real and persistent, while he sat at the cafe across the street, surfing his laptop and sipping Italian soda. He came home early. I chose to let him see. He didn't believe at first. I'm the Mami-Lion. I don't spend my time in tears.

I forget how empathic he is, how empathetic. He was always soothing others from the time he was a baby, always patting away the tears of other babes, even before he had any words to share or wounds of his own to show.

The boy who mumbled "stupid retard" at me under his breath the day before now comforts me because he can. He comes over to where I have broken some vessel with an old song that pops up first on my iPod shuffle, my friend's favorite nearly thirty years ago, "No woman, no cry" — ruptured some seal I now can't close.

I had been posting info from his daughters, final wishes, last requests ("No black, please. Wear bright colors only.") Posting words I know someone will find, easily and first. Dreaded words.

I listen without counting, recounting as the email bells begin to chime.

I love how he remembers my old friend. "Of course," he says, and wraps his arms around me. "But it's okay. He's in a better place now."

Softly. Surely. Sweetly. "Baby," I say, "don't say that. That's not the thing to say. This is the better place. We want him here, on Earth, with us."

"Yes," he says, and he hugs me closer. "Poor Mami. That sucks."

"That sucks," I say, and cry on his shoulder. My Baby. As he strokes my head like a cat. "Poor Mami. Poor Mami..." into today.



7/9//08

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

"100 Words After the Family of You"

100 Words After the Family of You

for A.A.


Grief makes a family. Every
death takes us further from
ourselves, out where the dust
forms into galaxies, matrices of
trust—the threads we tuck
under time, the taking time
to tuck or cover. My
time with you: an embroidered
shawl, a magnifying glass, a
glass of water. Too brief.
So long. Old friend. Amigo
del camino del sól. Critic
to the end. Suavecito muy
lindo.
El sueño de mí,
sígue. Criticando. Signifying. Clarifying. Refining.
My life is half-empty
without you—music without the
chair, plate missing the meal,
this family of you without
you grieving songs of you.



7/7/08
Lorna Dee Cervantes

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Monday, July 07, 2008

Sad, Sad News - Alfred Arteaga, Poet, Professor Has Passed ...

... on to Mictlán.

I will miss your wit, your face your voice; that mind and you - as irreplaceable as you were irrepressible. Sigue Compañero, and you know, you were. ~ LDC

Alfred Arteaga
Professor Alfred Arteaga in his office, 10/09/06, UC Berkeley

Alfred Arteaga's Heart Fund
Poet, Xicano litcrit, Professor Alfred Arteaga

You can search this blog for more posts and information about Alfred Arteaga who passed last friday, July 4th, of an heart attack. Here is the information on services and a memorial to be held, possibly this saturday:

"Here is the preliminary information for my father's service:

Saint Anthony's Cemetery
Stage Road (near North Street)
Pescadero, CA 94060


We are thinking it is going to be on Saturday but we haven't confirmed it. We will have the funeral and the memorial service somewhere else in the area, probably in Santa Cruz. ~ Marisol Arteaga"

Here are some links to my blog. Alfred's website is www.alfredarteaga.com.

I'll post more later. This is very hard for me.

http://lornadice.blogspot.com/2007/12/lorna-dee-cervantes-performing-at.html

http://lornadice.blogspot.com/2006/11/fotos-from-road-front-nicolas-kanellos.html

Lorna Dee Cervantes & Alfred Arteaga
Gente de Cobre

Alfred Arteaga

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