Sunday, April 10, 2011

"Integrity" (7-Minute Poem For NaPoWriMo, 4/7/11)

Integrity (7-Minute Poem For NaPoWriMo, 4/7/11)

for E. S.

Yours is the integrity of flint,
of steel, of iron. Yours
is the integrity of birds flocking,
whales in their loving pods. Yours
is the integrity of sand, what moves
with the will of you; all your sweet
sweat, your simple construction.
I love the sudden fill of you, your
swell and sway. I love how you do
what you say. You slay me
with your truth. I love the way
we fit together as if I were your
seed. I love the far away look
in your multicolored eyes, the land
and sea of you. I love
the way you look at me, that ancient
shore. I love how I am more
with you, your carbon, the filaments
of your fine hair. I love how you hold
me together, how fast and vast
the ocean of this love in its gentle
tide, the integrity of flesh, of salt,
of we.



Lorna Dee Cervantes
4/9/11

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Friday, April 08, 2011

"Radiation" (7-Minute Poem For NaPoWriMo)

Radiation



Words can stop a meltdown.
Splinters of where we live can heal
a fissure. The expansion
of a sudden mystery, the heart
stunned into being. Words of another
nation, under bark, transformed.

The tree holds, ever after.



Lorna Dee Cervantes
4/6/11

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Wednesday, April 06, 2011

"Strength" (7-Minute Poem For NaPoWriMo, 4/5)

Strength (7-Minute Poem For NaPoWriMo, 4/5/11)



All I've ever had was strength.
I show it in the cracks. I smooth
out stone on stone, I sheen with use.

All I've ever known was shame
and philosophy: Plato's Republic,
The Birth of Tragedy, Young Werther's Sorrows...

I have an affinity with the sea,
my sailor's blood, my stance:
my wild stallion, the waves

I do not enter lightly. I moan
and creak, the leather of a slave.
I can take the heat; hell, a sudden parting.

I do not know. I hold
fast, the spirit text: the great
death inside us; strong, inside us.



Lorna Dee Cervantes
4/5/11

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NaPoWriMo!! It's National Poetry Writing Month! Join Me In Writing A Poem A Day




NaPoWriMo - Taking Ten For Poetry In April - Poem A Day

(Note: I'm reposting this with today's word or writing prompt. I'll post my poem tomorrow. Scroll down for the new word/s, and scroll down for latest posts.)

Hey all,

I'll be writing a poem a day for April again this year for National Poetry Writing Month and National Poetry Month. This year I'll be posting them here. I'll also be posting daily prompts for you to play along while I post my finished poem the next day. If you have any words or topic suggestions, working titles, etc., go ahead and post them in the comments. Otherwise, I'm just trying to see what comes out, ten lines a day or more.

And, as always, stay to play! Try it on your own blog. Sign up on the official NaPoWriMo site. Sow the seed of your next book. One poem a day keeps the critic away. Or something. Name it. Yea, NaPoWriMo!

I've gone to One Word in the past and just keep writing for 7 minutes. Hey, 7 minutes out of your day for poetry: who says you have no time to write? I type up whatever I've written in one minute (they have a timer) and post it on their site. This year I plan to catch up on my 100 Love Poems To Strangers project as well. But since you're playing along, I'll also be posting prompts.

Here's today's word:

EGO

And the word for 4/2 is:

GALAXY


And the word for 4/3 is:

PLANS


And the word for 4/4 is:

SUCCESS

And the word for 4/5 is:

STRENGTH


And the word for 4/6 is:

RADIATION


GO!




Lorna Dee

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Monday, April 04, 2011

ACK!!! Upgrade Remorse!!

ACK!! I just clicked the wrong button. I did not want to change my template!! Now my sidebars are messed up and I lost all my links! Help!! I can't seem to get it back to the way it was, especially my list of 100 blogs I follow and their respective "rooms" in my house. My recent post list looks like alphabet macaroni and it's late. Grrrrr....

Mercury in retrograde...

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"Success" (7-Minute Poem For NaPoWriMo)

Success (7-Minute Poem for NaPoWriMo)



There's no success like shadows,
like the sun losing the day to moon,
like certain holes in a sandy shore,
like rivulets of green algae banking
on a sunny beach, like basking marmots
above the treeline, like pregnancy.

We who fall silent at the ebb
of night, we who are not afraid
to be whole, we who strive to fill
an afternoon with teardrops, with joy,
with slender needles of medicinal sap,
with cure and sow, with litanies,

We make success in the way we move,
the way we feel about rain, about mud
before it turns to brick. We know sadness
in the fertile soil, in the cull and curry.
We are successful ever after. We are
sucking the cesspools dry, a curing peace.



Lorna Dee Cervantes
4/4/11

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Lorna Dee Answers Questions From A Student at Lorna Dice

Now that I'm back and have access again to my blogs, I'll be posting on my other "official" blog where I answer questions from students, teachers, critics, and others: Lorna Dice (Lorna Says). I just answered some general questions from an English student here.

I'll be posting some that I posted on Facebook a while ago on the poems, "Starfish" and "Love of My Flesh, Living Death." Ha, if I can find them. I'll also be catching up on long (LONG) overdue interviews.

So if you're here visiting for a school assignment, try me over there on my other blog, and search both blogs for answers to your questions first. See you there!

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Where In The World Is Lorna Dee? April 5-8th, UC Riverside, Loyola Marymount University, 34th Annual Hispanic Women's Conference

Spring Reading Schedule, April 5-8th, Los Angeles



Lorna Dee Cervantes

Tuesday, April 5, 2011
1:30–3 p.m.


Location: Arts Building 335
University of California, Riverside

Category: Reading
Description: One of the preeminent voices in Chicana literature and American poetry,
Lorna Dee Cervantes is a dynamic poet whose work draws tremendous power
from her struggles in the literary and political trenches. Her power is channeled
by a keen intellect and careful attention to craft, which allows her to explore the
boundaries between language and experience. Joy Harjo says of her poetry,
"Lorna Dee Cervantes is a daredevil... We are transfixed as she juggles rage,
cruelties, passion. There is no net. Seven generations uphold the trick of survival.No one is alone in this amazing act of love."

Cervantes' first book, Emplumada (University of Pittsburgh, 1981), was a
recipient of the American Book Award. Her second collection, From the Cables of
Genocide:Poems on Love and Hunger (Arte Público, 1991) was awarded the
Patterson Poetry Prize, the poetry prize of the Institute of Latin American
Writers, and the Latino Literature Award. Her most recent work, Drive: The First
Quartet, was published in 2006.

Sponsored by Chicano Student Programs, the Department of English, The Center for Ideas and Society, the College for Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences, and MALCS de UCR.

For more information contact llasa001@ucr.edu

Open to: General Public
Admission: Free
Sponsor: English Department

Contact Information:
Lisette Lasater
x21456
llasa001@ucr.edu

___________________________________________________________________
Lecture: Lorna Dee Cervantes, Apr. 6


Lecture: Lorna Dee Cervantes

Date: Wednesday, April 6

Time: 4:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.

Description: Lecture

Location: Hannon Library, Von der Ahe Family Suite, 3rd floor
Loyola Marymount University
1 LMU Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90045

Admission: Admission and parking are free

Contact: Dr. Eliza Rodriquez y Gibson
Chicana/o Studies
erodri37@lmu.edu

More about this event:

Lorna Dee Cervantes will read and discuss her book, "The Poetry of Improbability: Art Activism & Beauty." Lorna Dee Cervantes is an internationally acclaimed poet.

Refreshments will be served.


________________________________
"Poetry Coffee House" with Lorna Dee Cervantes

34th Annual National Hispanic Women's Conference

Date: Friday, April 8

Time: 2 p.m. - 2:45 p.m.

Description: Poetry Reading & Workshop

Location: Salon 2, 1st Floor
Quiet Cannon
Montebello, CA

Contact: Tatiana Villanueva
Event Coordinator, Mexican American Opportunity Foundation
tvillanueva@maof.org

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"Plans" (7-Minute Poem For NaPoWriMo)

Plans (7-Minute Poem For NaPoWriMo)



What plans do the dead make?
They wile away in their silver linings.
They don't speak, even when spoken to.
Who would believe they matter?
They, who are so sorry and sorrowed.

Fortune today, dust tomorrow.
How many furtive longings? How much
their weight in pennies? Their well-made
beds, waiting in the ether. Royalty
or poverty, the results are always the same

ash. Ash in the ice-tray of forgiveness.
Ash in the spiral galaxy of love. Ash in
the core drum. Ash falling down. Ash
becoming a sea after tsunami.
Wet coal in the lump of the heart.

What plans after the wake
and rush, the sudden hush?

Ask.



Lorna Dee Cervantes
4/3/11

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Sunday, April 03, 2011

"Galaxy" (7-Minute Poem For NaPoWriMo)

Galaxy (7-Minute Poem For NaPoWriMo)



Into your galaxy I fall
heartfirst, fear akimbo,
over and over the tumbling falls
of sensuous rivers inside me.

Take me to your forked places
where the tongue seeks refuge.
Take me into precious highways where
the macadam vanishes into layers of distance.

Lead me to your past, to your dream
sequences, to your black holes
of remembrance. I will mark the trail
with the breadcrumbs of knowledge.

This journey leaves only once. We
are the destination. Here in this sparkling
sea of sky, your shimmering eyes
weave a map of sighs, night whispers.

If I could feel you here: the slow swirl
of your ticking time, the windy whirl of
your breath panting above me, I would
be home, landed. I would plant my flag.



Lorna Dee Cervantes
4/2/11

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Saturday, April 02, 2011

"Ego" (7-Minute Poem For NaPoWriMo)

Ego (7-Minute Poem For NaPoWriMo)



Don't go. Refresh yourself.
Be a river through the mesquite
forest, a single tree of wind.

Don't stop. Rehearse your
becoming on a stage of dead leaves.
Take the shell. Speak the entire emptiness.

Don't fall. Sleep in time's shadow.
Be a whale, bask above the tidal
wave. Be frothy and wild. Fly up.

Don't let go. Hold fast
to anger for an instant, love
for as many miles as she takes you.

Don't live alone. Embrace
the wee lives between the boards,
the many mice in the mind's larder.

Don't laugh alone. Tell!
Tell apart the loaves of bread
from the fishes. Be vicious to your sadness.

Don't remind yourself of others,
of lazy ashes in your days, of the way
we live: pomegranates, a single rubied seed.





Lorna Dee Cervantes
4/1/11

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Friday, April 01, 2011

Big Poetry Giveaway! Get Your Hot Books of Poetry Now! Celebrate National Poetry Month With FREE Books of Poetry!




I'll be participating in this year's BIG POETRY GIVEAWAY thanks to one of my favorite po-bloggers, Kelli Russell Agodon at "Book of Kells" (love that name!)

You can win one of my books of poetry along with another book by one of my favorite poets just by commenting below any time in the month of April, National Poetry Month. On May 1st I'll choose someone at random. I'm not yet sure which books. I'm tempted to choose based on who wins. I'll send both books to you absolutely FREE (my current favorite word.) ¡Órale! What do you have to lose but your shelf space?

Good way to give me a shout-out, too. I've missed you all as I've been shut-out of my blog for months until yesterday. But some of you know, I've been playing on Facebook all this time. Friend me there, while I still have about 20 friend spaces yet before reaching the limit. You can also "like" my fan page, and join my group, "I Took A Poetry Workshop With Lorna Dee Cervantes!" (Uh, anyone know how to post a "share" button for Facebook and Twitter on this page?)

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"Angels And Saints" - Link To My Poem For ronnie burk (April 1, 1955-2003)



"Angels and Saints", Poem For ronnie burk

Click the link to read my poem for my friend, Chicano poet & artist, ronne burk, and read about ronnie. (You can also just search my blog for "ronnie burk" to pull up other posts about him. He was a big part of the reason for me starting this blog six years ago: to keep alive the dead. Isn't that the impetus for all poetry? ronnie might add: to keep the planet alive! Gracias, ronnie. You won't be forgotten.

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Where In The World Is Lorna? San Francisco TOMORROW, April 2, 8 pm at Precita Eyes Mural Arts Center, FREE Poetry Reading for MAPP

I'll be reading for MAPP, The Mission Arts Performance Project, Saturday night, April 2, at 8 pm at the Precita Eyes Mural Arts and Visitors' Center located at 2981 24th Street in the heart The Mission. Come by and say hi, buy a book, buy a love poem for you or your love: I'll write one for as low as $10 and it will be published in my book, 100 Love Poems To Strangers. I don't read very often in The City, and as with all MAPP events, this was added at the last minute. Come tour The Mission, check out the other performances and art in the neighborhood, and stay for music and a wonderful art show by former Precita Eyes muralist, Selma Brown. The price is right, it's all FREE. See you there!



From "Angels & Reflections" by Selma Brown

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100 THOUSAND POETS FOR CHANGE on September 24. Join us!

The following is a message from Michael Rothenberg, re: 100 THOUSAND POETS FOR CHANGE, a global event taking place Saturday, September 24, 2011. Come raise your voices for CHANGE! I'll be reading and hopefully organizing something somewhere. Let me know if you'd like to be involved in San Francisco.

Lorna Dee Cervantes

_____________________________
Dear Friends of Big Bridge,

I am writing to you about 100 THOUSAND POETS FOR CHANGE. This is an event I have begun to organize on Facebook and I am now bringing to those of you who are not using Facebook.

100 THOUSAND POETS FOR CHANGE is a community action event scheduled for September 24, 2011, which will include readings, demonstrations, and concerts happening simultaneously throughout the world in the name of poetry and change. We have been working on this project for only two weeks and the response has been inspiring. So far over 12 countries and 25 cities have volunteered to organize an event.

Below, I am posting information on 100 THOUSAND POETS FOR CHANGE as it appeared on Facebook. I talk about “change” and “organizing” to give you some general ideas on how this event can work. If you are interested in organizing a local group, please contact me by e-mail: walterblue@bigbridge.org, or join us at Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=106999432715571, and “friend” me. In a couple of weeks I will be putting up a 100 THOUSAND POETS FOR CHANGE blog for this event where each local event will have its own event page with event information, and poems, journals, photos, videos from events around the world.

Please read the info below and if you have any more questions please feel free to contact me here at Big Bridge.


Thanks for join us!
Best,
Michael Rothenberg
Big Bridge www.bigbridge.org

100 THOUSAND POETS FOR CHANGE

Time: Saturday, September 24 · 11:30am - 11:30pm
Location:The event will takes place in many cities, at the same time and date, outdoors, and of course it will be televised.

Created By Michael Rothenberg, Terri Carrion

Do you want to join other poets around the USA and across the planet in a demonstration/ celebration of poetry to promote serious social and political change? If so sign up here and let's see if enough people are serious about an event like this. If enough people join this, then we can work on specifics, times, dates, descriptions, coordinate and make it real. This will be a good place to gather names and contacts for regional organization. Please post comments and ideas.

MORE ON 100 THOUSAND POETS for CHANGE: UPDATE, MARCH 27, 2011

There is a lot of information developing on this event. If you read some of the wall posts on the Facebook event pages you can stay current. But, people do have two major questions.

1) What kind of a change are we talking about?
2) I want to organize in my area. How do we begin to organize?

“What kind of CHANGE are we thinking about?”

The first order of change is for poets, writers, artists, anybody, to actually get together to create and perform, educate and demonstrate, simultaneously, with other communities around the world. This will change how we see our local community and the global community. We have all become incredibly alienated in recent years. We hardly know our neighbors down the street let alone our creative allies who live and share our concerns in other countries. We need to feel this kind of global solidarity. I think it will be empowering.

And of course there is the political/social change that many of us are talking about these days. There is trouble in the world. Wars, ecocide, the lack of affordable medical care, racism, the list goes on.

It appears that transformation towards a more sustainable world is a major concern and could be a global guiding principle for this event. Peace also seems to be a common cause. War is not sustainable. There is an increasing sense that we need to move forward and stop moving backwards. But I am trying not to be dogmatic. I am hoping that together we can develop our ideas of the "change/transformation" we are looking for as a group, and that each community group will decide their own specific area of focus for change for their particular event.

“I want to organize in my area. How do we begin to organize?”

100 Thousand Poets for Change will organize “participants” by local region, city, or state, and find individuals in each area who would like to organize their local event. Just let me know if you want to be an organizer by sending a message to me directly through Facebook, or to my e-mail: walterblue@bigbridge.org.

If you are an organizer for your community this means that first you will consider a location for the event and begin to contact people in your area who want to participate in the event. Participation means contacting the media, posting the event on the web, in calendars, newspapers, etc., reading poems, performing in general, supplying cupcakes and beer (it’s up to you), demonstrating, putting up an information table, inviting guest speakers, musicians, etc., organizing an art exhibit, and documenting the event (this is important, too), and cleaning up, of course.

Organizers and participants will create their own local event as an expression of who they are locally. Do they want a candlelight vigil or a circus, a march or a dance, do they want absolute silence, a group meditation on a main street; it’s up to the local organization. However, groups should be sure to hold some part of the event, if not all of it, outdoors, in public view. The point is to be seen and heard, not just stay behind closed walls. It is also important that the event be documented. Photos, videos, poems, journals, paintings! Documentation is crucial. The rest of the 100 Thousand Poets for Change want to hear what you have to say about change and enjoy your creativity too! The documentation will be shared through a blog/website that I will set up, a blog/website where groups can share and announce event information, as well as post photos, videos, poetry, art, and thoughts. But an event doesn’t have to involve tons of people. It can be just you (the organizer) and your pet, on a street corner, with a sign. Just let me know what you are planning! Every effort counts!

Each local organization determines what it wants to focus on, something broad like, peace, sustainability, justice, equality, or more specific causes like Health Care, or Freedom of Speech, or local environmental or social concerns that need attention in your particular area right now, etc. Organizations will then come up with a mission statement/manifesto that describes who they are and what they think and care about. When the whole event has taken place all the mission statements can be collected from around the world and, I hope, worked together into a grand statement of 100 Thousand Poets for Change.

That's quick, off the top of my head, summary of where we are now with 100 THOUSAND POETS FOR CHANGE.

Thank you for joining us!

Best, MR

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YEA! Lorna Dee is back on the blog!!!

Thanks, Ed! I can now sign into my blogs once more. Look for beau coup posts from me, Lorna Dee. Meanwhile, find me on Facebook if you haven't already: my regular page, my fan page, and my group, "I Took A Poetry Workshop With Lorna Dee!" Also, you can post to page to post your poems on "Poets Responding to SB 1070."

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