Lorna Dee Cervantes opens her pencil into pixels - poetry, peace y Xicanisma
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Ai, There Will Never Be Another Like you, R.I.P.
Here's what I just posted to my Facebook page:
Lorna Dee Cervantes
is crushed to hear from the unmeasurably talented, Jill Talbot that my best buddy & colleague while at CU has passed in OKL City. OKC! I was there! How didn't I know she was there, if she was there? Oh no, you bit**! Last thing I said to you live was: Now don't go & die on me owing me money! Someday I'm gonna need it." Say'n it 'cause you'd like it. I'll make hella sweet tea for you tonight, Ai. R.I.P. Poems live on
Alfred Arteaga (5/3/50-7/4/08) - Funeral Information
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.
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.
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
Professor Alfred Arteaga in his office, 10/09/06, UC Berkeley
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"
Into the Spring - Sad News: Michael Rossman Has Left the Dimension
Michael Rossman, photo by Marc Franklin
Berkeley Free Speech Movement activist, poet, writer, scientist, thinker, teacher, archivist, musician, father, rock hound, human being extraordinaire, Michael Rossman has left the dimension and ventured forth into Spring. I am very sad, sad that our paths crossed so late in life, sad with regret that I didn't spend time with him when I had the opportunity as I feared infecting him with that terrible flu bug I had this past winter.
I'll testify: Michael could change your life with the slightest touch.
You can visit Michael's leukemia blog and leave a comment for friends and family. I just visited this morning and read the the single comment at the end of his last post, an haiku: "MICHAEL HAS LEFT US. May 12, 2008."
Visit Michael Rossman's official website a site where he posted his books, poetry, essays, a science teaching manual, translations, Berkeley Free Speech Movement history, political poster archives and other material in their entireity: a virtual wealth of information and materials which deserve to reach a wider audience. I am hoping to help publicize the website, so if you can, please link to his sites and help to get them into circulation and visible on the search engines. This material is a great gift.
Here's what I wrote on my blog entry regarding Michael's fight with leukemia and my connection to him which was as poet to poet; although I loved him:
"Michael Rossman was one of the founding organizers of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and was there at the wheels of the patrol car holding Mario Savio (sic: Jack Weinberg) at Sproul Plaza on October 2, 1964 along with 1,200 others--soon to swell to 10,000 plus others. He, along with many others, stood up on the top of the patrol car that day and began to speak truth to power. He is still speaking, and writing, with his shoulder always to the wheel. Please help to keep this history alive as Michael struggles to maintain his own life. His spirit, as always, is strong--and we are the richer for it.
I am a child of the Free Speech Movement which was a movement for Civil Rights for all, and I know I owe my being here to it's legacy. What stopped the war started my life. And I am not alone."
Sad News: El Poeta, raulrsalinas Begins His Longest Walk
I Just received these bulletins on MySpace that my friend and one of my earliest influences, raúlsalinas has passed. This is very sad news for me. I'm so glad I spent the past two days doing what he would have done: on monday I participated in the press conference and rally for the beginning of the Longest Walk. I read a couple of poems at Sproul plaza at UC Berkeley in support of the return of the bones of our ancestors from there and everywhere else they are being held hostage. Then, yesterday, I participated in the march and rally at Berkeley to support the council's decision to shut down the Marine recruitment station. I also witnessed the harrassment and police intimidation of Raza youth in the park where they skateboard which was taken over by militant right wing racists who verbally and physically assaulted them. Three youths were arrested after being roughed up by police.
Raúl, your Spirit is strong. And it is present. Tiahui, Maestro. I will miss your smile. ~ Lorna Dee Cervantes ------------------------------------------
----------------- Bulletin Message ----------------- From: GARCIA GRAPHICS Date: Feb 13, 2008 9:09 AM
Raul Salinas. Activist, Master Poet, Chican-indio Legend... Your influence and wisdom will live on through generations.
For those who knew of him, please feel free to repost and send love and prayers his way...
¡Raúl R. Salinas, Presente! March 17, 1934- February 13, 2008
Jazz Hipster | Pinto | Cockroach Poet | Human Rights Activist | Xicanindio | Elder | Comrade
It is with profound sadness and heartache that we inform you of the passing of Calaca Press Field Commander, Raúl R. Salinas.
Raul, the author of the seminal Chicano experience poem, Un Trip Through the Mind Jail, was not only an accomplished poet but a dedicated community activist who gained a political consciousness while serving approximately 13 years inside some of America’s most notorious prisons (Huntsville, Soledad, and Leavenworth among others). While in prison at Marion he was befriended by Puerto Rican Nationalist Rafael Cancel Miranda (famed for an armed assault on congress on March 1, 1954 with fellow Nationalists including Lolita Lebron). Sr. Miranda was a major influence on Raul’s lifework. Imprisoned during the early Chicano Movement years he was active in the prison rights struggles of that time. His book, raúlrsalinas and the Jail Machine: My Weapon is My Pen: Selected Writings by Raúl Salinas (edited by protégé Louis G. Mendoza) highlights his struggles and victories inside America’s prison system. Including winning a landmark prison rights case.
After his release from prison in 1973 he dedicated his life to Chicano and Native American causes. He was a member of the Centro de la Raza in Seattle, the American Indian Movement, a cofounder of the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee and various other progressive organizations dedicated to defending the rights and interests of all working class and colonized people. A true internationalist he was committed to supporting Puerto Rican independence (as well as ending the bombing on Vieques), the Cuban Revolution, The Nicaraguan Sandinistas, the Zapatistas in Chiapas and the Bolivarian Process of Presidente Hugo Chavez Frias of Venezuela among many other internationalist struggles.
After serving many years of forced exile in Washington state (where he helped defend Native American fishing rights), he eventually returned to his home in Austin, TX. Shortly thereafter he opened Resistencia Bookstore and Red Salmon Arts which became a cultural and political hub for East Austin’s Chicano community.
In 1999, after hearing about this “cool vato de aquellas,” Calaca Press took a chance by calling Resistencia Bookstore out of the blue to introduce ourselves and seek a meeting. After a somewhat cold conversation we later flew to San Antonio for the Inter-American Book Fair where we were to gather. Instantly we hit it off and plans were made to bring Raul to San Diego to record a couple poems for volume 2 of our Raza Spoken Here audio series. After an amazing recording session featuring Raúl and Taco Shop Poets rhythm section Mikey Figgins on bass and Kevin P. Green on drums it was decided to go forward with a full CD of Raul’s work. A few months later Raul came back to San Diego (sleeping many a night on the infamous striped couch in our tiny apartment in Barrio Lomas) to finish recording what would become Los Many Mundos of raúlrsalinas: Un Poetic Jazz Viaje con Friends. During this session we recorded, but never released, Un Trip Through the Mind Jail. Perhaps the only quality recording of this major work of Chicano literature.
It was during 2000 that Raúl affectionately and facetiously dubbed Calaca owners Brent E. Beltrán and Consuelo Manríquez de Beltrán the Chairman and Comandante CHElo, while calling himself the Field Commander of Calaca Press. Raul helped create and foment the current mystique that surrounds our Calacaverse and the work that we do. Between 2000 and 2004 Raul made numerous trips to San Diego to visit Calacalandia and became a regular amongst the Calacas and SD’s Chicano art/activist scene. Without the example of our Field Commander, Calaca Press and our organization the Red CalacArts Collective (whom we borrowed the Red and Arts from Red Salmon Arts as an homage), would not be what it is today.
Our Field Commander and comrade will be missed and remembered. He will always hold a special place in our collective memory.
Adelante, compañero, siempre adelante.
Desde Calacalandia,
El Chairman y La Comandante CHElo
gray grease for raúlrsalinas
salinas slides gray grease against the groove the hard roots rock he walks a moment crystal city clear still bringing jazz and jams again
sonrisas tumbling lingua franca in a dice shoot dipping days salinas cool viejito haze ’mano may raise in riffs
he started breathing in san anto brought it blessed in san anto in the bop unbroken guadalupe sunday growing largo salinas dealing su descarga and the smoke is in the air disappearing like a mingus moon balloon
salinas when they sing the sad corridos do they also sing for you? above the freeways passing over and the sometimes quiet corners we demeaned by quarantine the en masse gente de masa
tired because restlessness is next to joblessness and talking the fruition of dead president cutbacks
tired because double barrels aim down broadway emblematic of i-say-so blue clad predators
tired because life does not flash before the eyes of hard rock vatos dancing green back mambos celebrating every day as día de los muertos
now die, just die no requiems no peace in campo santo lies no real magic mantra may revive conscience not common sense of the shaman distant drum songs keeping time we’re running blind holding bandanas and bullets and borderlines
we seek we climb we only find the gristle and gray smoke sage trencitas in the ancient way burning down a desert stage the migrant phrases each by each the whole of soul frozen on an empty afternoon
by Tomás Riley From the book mahcic: selected poems (Calaca Press, 2005)
Sad, sad, sad. Very sad news tonight. I just heard from Marcos at Poetry For the People, that one of my former students and mentees, Haas Mroue, died in Lebanon, where he was born, of a heart attack - at 41. Haas was an exceptionally talented writer. He wrote poetry, novels, short stories, screenplays, plays, essays and travel articles for Frommers and others. He was an incredibly lovely person - in all ways. He was well loved and will be missed tremendously. Haas was a student in my undergraduate class, and was so advanced that I moved him to my graduate poetry workshop, where he excelled, and I recruited him for the graduate program which he joined the following semester. While in my workshop, Haas wrote the powerful and moving collection of poetry, BEIRUT SEIZURES, which was published in '93.
I last saw Haas years ago in San Diego, and so I had been thinking of him heavily this last trip there last week. I wondered if he was there and would come to the reading. Yes, he was there. Haas moved to Port Townsend, Washington after San Diego, where he found a home.
It is bittersweet to think of him rediscovering his home in Lebanon after so long in exile. Haas, you will always have a home in our hearts. More later, when my eyes clear.
"My Gift is that I'm not beautiful.
My career was never about looks.
It's about health and being in good shape." ~Shirley Maclaine/
For Lalo, because I miss your "¡Ajúa!"
Lorna Dee Cervantes is available for readings, musical performances with brother Steve, lectures, school visits, private manuscript consultations & summer workshops in Mexico, Poetry In Paradise at Taller Ixchel with Tammy Gomez. Write PoetDee at mac dot com.
