Circulo Members 2025

Azalea Aguilar

Azalea Aguilar is an emerging Chicana poet from South Texas, where the scent of the gulf and memories of childhood linger in her work. Her poetry delves into the complexities of motherhood, echoes of childhood trauma, and the resilience found in spaces shaped by addiction and survival. She writes to honor the past, give voice to the unspoken, and carve tenderness from the raw edges of experience. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, including Angel City Review, The Skinny Poetry Journal, and The Acentos Review. She has been featured at events hosted by the American Poetry Museum in DC and is currently crafting her first manuscript, a collection exploring the intersections of love, loss, and lineage.

THE PLUM TREE

The Chinese plum tree that sat adjacent to my house as a child

Whispers, wants to be remembered

Reminds me how I once climbed her trunk all the way to the top

Smelled her sap on my fingers

Collected shirts full of her fruit

Translucent amber bellies calling to me

Peeling gently at the tender parts

Juicy pulp sliding from fingertips to tongue

I’d eat until my stomach protested and then I’d eat more

Sit under her shade, cradling my churning belly

Fearing momma’s scolding

I told you not to eat too many of those damned things!

Being with her mimicked escape

Taunting me with her shadows

Glimpses of sunlight between branches

Offering solace, nourishment

When my house felt suffocating

Calling to me still

Her memory wakes me some nights

I close my eyes and see her

Dancing in the wind

Dahlia Aguilar

Dahlia Aguilar is an emergent Chicana writer in her 50s from Corpus Christi, TX. She’s a Macondista and alum of Under the Volcano’s 2024 writing residency held in Morelos, Méjico. Her manuscript Tidal Range was a finalist for Trio House Press’ Louise Bogan Poetry Award 2024 and her poems appear in various anthologies and journals including Acentos Review, Skinny Poetry Journal, Somos Xicanas (Riot of Roses) and Boundless (Flowersong). She lives in Ward 7 in the Deanwood neighborhood of Washington, D.C. with her son, two dogs and menopause. She is a member of Tintas DC.

When I Was Made of Sand

When I was made of sand I dove

deep to the Gulf floor, searched

seashells for signs of life. Thought

about crab who leaves the calcite castle

behind her. People ask me

Do you miss Corpus Christi?

When I was made of sand, I could

hold my breath for a long time. Daddy

taught me. I won my distance

ten seconds at a time

ten more seconds and

ten more seconds.

I swam several bars from shore,

forgot my family, pretended:

I can’t hear you, Mama. Until

I couldn't

hear her call me back to shore, call

Daddy back from drink.

Keep that nickel between your legs. Don’t

get married, ever; I can still hear daddy

far as I swim

far as I swim.

Julie Calderón

The proud eldest daughter of Peruvian immigrants, Julie Calderón earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from UC Berkeley and a Master of Arts in Creative Writing from the University of San Francisco. She has worked as a high school English teacher and school principal for the past 29 years. She has been a grant recipient from the National Endowment for the Humanities. She is a member of Horror Writers Association and participated in the last two StokerCon conventions. When not writing fiction or reading horror, Julie is an Afro Brazilian dance enthusiast/performer alongside her teenage daughter.

Kitchen

Black smoke curls up from the blender's underbelly.

I hope my brother doesn't notice the lack of meat in our meal.

I miss when words were my main ingredients

and I fed my loved ones

stories.

Pam Concepcion

Pam Concepcion is a poet and a multimedia artist from the bustling Metro Manila, Philippines. Her work explores how complex social phenomena intimately affect our relationships with ourselves, friends, loves, family, and everyone around us.

Since 2023, she has been active in the poetry scene around LA. She has featured in readings like Serpentine, La Palabra, SaLA Salo, Trenches Full of Poets, Mobile Data Mag at Beyond Baroque, Café Con Libros, LA Poet Society events. She is also an alumni of Community Literature Initiative Season 11. She is currently the host of La Palabra poetry & open mic reading at Avenue 50 Studio in Highland Park.

Her first book, Unbecoming, a coming of age collection of poetry, photos and collages is set to be published with Riot of Roses in late 2025.

ligáwin

naliligaw ang aking tula

sa siyudad na ‘di ko kilala.

mga salita’y nasuot sa eskinita,

mga tugma’y sumakay sa maling plataporma.

sinubukan kong humingi ng direksyon,

ngunit lahat ng daana’y abandonadong konstruksyon.

hindi ko na maitulay ang mga emosyon; may sariling

nasyon

ang aking Ingles. Siya’y islang walang mabuong koneksyon.

iba kasi ang daloy ng trapikong ‘kano.

mga labi’t dila’y mabilis at delikado—

linalagpasan lahat ng letrang nakakalito,

at laging nagmamadaling dumating sa punto.

kung saan-saan na akong napunta

kakahanap ng tamang linyang magpapasaya

sa isang makatang gutom na gutom na

para namnamin ang bigkas ng bawat pantig sa dila

subalit siya’y dinala ng diyos sa dayuhang lupa

kaya’y mga kuwento’t tula’y mananatiling isang pagnanasa.

ligáwin1

my poems are lost

in a city i don’t know.

the words wound up in alleys.

the rhymes got on the wrong platforms.

i tried to ask for directions,

but all the roads are abandoned constructions

i can’t seem to bridge my emotions; my English

is from its own nation, an island who can’t form

connections.

the ﬂow of american traffic is different.

their lips and tongues are fast and vicious—

overtaking all the confusing letters,

always rushing to get to the point.

i ended up going everywhere

trying to ﬁnd the right line that brings joy

in the poet who’s starving

to savor the ﬂavor of every syllable on the tongue

but the lord brought her to a foreign land

so all the stories and poems remain a desire.

___________________________

1 someone who tends to get lost

Cecilia Gamiño

Cecilia Gamiño, M.A., is a first-generation Mexican-American cultural critic, writer, archivist, and artist from Los Angeles. She earned her B.A. in Psychology in 2016 and her M.A. in English Literature in 2023, both from California State University, Dominguez Hills. Her graduate research focused on the evolving Chicana feminisms, bicultural identity, and aesthetics in the work of poet Marisela Norte, as well as Norte’s contributions to the spoken word scene in Los Angeles during the 1980s and 1990s. Cecilia also dabbles in creative writing, mainly autofiction and horror. Her work appears in Razorcake and The Gutter.

This is an epigraph for a short story I am still working on. I wrote this during the online Circulo Conference, 2025, in the writing workshop Sin Miedo: Sparking Horror and Dark Speculative Fiction.

Ellas conocen su historia

At a certain age, we all hear it

We get curious

passing her mural,

the candles, flowers,

the portrait of her

before.

They say she died at the hands of her suitor—

an artist, an anglo.

They say que era su musa.

That he charmed her,

convinced her to change her clothes,

her hair color,

even her name.

Born Rosaura

but he called her Rose.

Diego Graglia Thea

Clovers (all you need is love)

I was looking for a four-leafed clover

In a sea of three-leafed ones.

I was looking for a bit of fortune,

Some luck, a turn of the tide.

My eyes were busy scanning

The hillside, the trailside, the emerald patch.

Looking but not seeing,

wanting what I didn’t have.

My mind kept running theories

About not finding a single one.

Ten years here with the redwoods,

is it possible there are none?

The clovers must have felt pity

For this being being so blind.

Each of them going unseen

As soon as I did my count.

Yet every leaf was there, perfect,

Perfectly shaped like a loving heart.

Hearts shiny with forest rain,

Hearts facing every possible side,

Hearts torn, broken, wilted,

Hearts glowing in chlorophyll shine.

See,

I was being such a human.

Looking for what I didn’t have.

Instead,

A sea of love had met me

Right there where I was at.

I was looking for a bit of fortune.

And I forgot all you need is love.

Georgina Marie Guardado

Georgina Marie Guardado is the Poet Laureate Emerita of Lake County, CA for 2020-2024, and a 2021 Poets Laureate Fellow with The Academy of American Poets. She is the Literacy Program Coordinator for the Lake County Library and President of the Mendocino Coast Writers’ Conference. She has received support from the Mendocino Coast Writers’ Conference, Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, Hugo House, and SF Writing Salon. Her work has appeared in Noyo Review, Poets.org, Gulf Coast Journal, Yellow Medicine Review, The Muleskinner Journal, Two Hawks Quarterly, and more. She received her BA degree in Liberal Studies, Literature & Creative Writing from Antioch University, and her MFA from the Pacific University MFA in Writing program where she was a recipient of the Kwame Dawes Mapmakers and Master of Fine Arts Merit endowments. She resides in northern California.

On My Cherry Wood Coffee Table

For Krisie

a stalk of artichoke stands in a clear vase
filled just below halfway
cold water
paired with sprigs of eucalyptus

I stare
and stare
and stare

waiting for the face of some god to speak from it
to say, it’s alright darling

the vase sits on this table I’ve attempted to
refurbish once before

to cover the deep, nervous nail marks of my childhood dog
as she pressed her holy-spirited paws against
the old-tree-made-table-made-piece-of-home
to find me

clawing her way through
the glossy cherry finish

I do this too
now
clawing closer to forgiveness

Originally appeared in Noyo Review

AnaMaria Guevara

AnaMaria Guevara has dedicated herself to innovating in the fields of education and mental health for more than 25 years. Committed to decolonizing mental health, she writes through a lens that is often political and spiritual, individual and collective, of the past and the present. She first discovered the healing power of storytelling as a first-year college student at UC Santa Cruz under the tutelage of Lecturer and Poet, Elba Rosario Sánchez. During that time, AnaMaria published three poems by Moving Parts Press: ¿Cómo Olvidar?, Señor de Falso Ropaje (from Silence to HOWL (1993), and Under a Dark Cloud (Lenguas Sueltas, 1994). Since then, her work has remained private up until the present, where she is committed to use her art as a way to spark conversation that evokes higher consciousness. She aims to release and publish a collection of poems in the near future.

Ropa Usada

Ropa usada

Used clothes

Do these words elicit treasured memories,

of a time spent with loved ones,

exchanging hand-me-downs,

looked forward to with enthusiasm and joy?

Or do these words feel bitter on your tongue

Tug at your heart

Bubble uneasily in your belly?

A reminder of a time of struggle,

A stroke of longing,

A harsh message of “you have less.”

Did I misunderstand and hear,

“I AM less?”

Ropa usada

Medicine to purge the poison

That insists that I must buy more

Medicine to calm the feverish delusion

That abundance is worldly possessions

The more expensive the more worthy.

Ropa usada

Me envuelvo en tí

You are love

Generously shared.

I receive you with gratitude.

I take what I need and nothing more.

G. Zach Hauptman

G. Zach Hauptman (they/them) is a Bay Area-based librarian working in the public sector. They are a poet, fanwriter, LARPer, genderfuck nerd, and occasional blogger of trans, queer, and gender issues. With their writing groups Truth Sans Justice and Jews with Tattoos they write live action roleplaying games that run in and around the SF Bay Area.

I want Paul B. Preciado to spit in my mouth

apply 40.5 mg of androgel
topical
daily

this is you
this is your toxicity
it is unusually high
for someone of your sex
would you like to fix it

would you like to fix
tits
the only thing keeping me good
healthy, wise and gentle
softnesses are where femininity grows
acquiescence
bowing like movement of long curls
on my pubis

the hair on my face bristles neatly
trimmed like a bonsai
a human planted
in the soil of socialbody
clipped and shaped, flayed delicately
and twisted into place
growing bent and warped by the gardener's sheers
this is a soul left to unfold
in a bottle

I'm living in Dysphoria Mundi
anti-pathological discomfort
this is your toxicity level
apply 40.5mg of androgel
topical
daily

cis feminist holds up a map of my body
it is unusually high for someone of your sex
toxicity
misogyny is (of course) inherent to manhood
but femininity exists as its own blessed thing

saint judith of the
butlerian jihad
is this why i'm bad
i've always been bad
this tomboy girlboy boigurldyke
swimming upstream
from femininity
measuring its goodness against
my badness my love of badness
my love of boyness in my girlness

when i tore down the feminity
of me
broke the stage
sewed new costumes
built new sets
was the poison already in me

dear judith
of blessed memory
i saw a man say
(i'm sorry judith. i thought you were dead)

Brenda Hill

Brenda Hill is a Poet/Songwriter from Springfield, MA. She serves as a Writing Consultant /Teacher's Assistant at Bard Microcollege in Holyoke, MA., where she graduated in 2019. She is an Advisory Board member for A Queen’s Narrative and the Inaugural Clemente Alumni Council. Brenda is a recipient of the Trust Transfer Project for entrepreneurial artists. Her poetry has appeared in Nautilus II, 30 Poems in November, the Bard Microcollege Zine, and Massachusetts Bards Poetry Anthology 2025.

Numb

I woke up today

And felt

Nothing

I heard the birds chirping

But I couldn't hear the song

Not too long ago

I can remember hearing

the song the birds were singing

BUT

TODAY

HEARD

NOTHING

Went outside to play in the grass

Instead of feeling

A tickle on my feet

I feel sharp blades

Cut across my feet

Instead of feeling

The sun on my face

All I felt was a slow burn

My tears burn

And leaves a feeling

Of desperate despair

Of pleading and asking the same question

Why me?

But I'm not going to go there

I will say because it happens

I will simply say because

Here

Thakur Kumari

Thakur Kumari [Ta-Kure] [Ku-Mar-E] is an emerging South Asian American writer and poet. Through her writing, she explores multicultural expressions of grief, trauma and the history of colonization. Her work developed as a coping mechanism to her own traumas and lived experiences, citing that one day the words kept pouring out of her brain when she felt like she had no other forms of expression left. Thakur calls her literary works “poetic stories” which peak into her sense of anomie and derealization.

Green

It’s so underrated

All around us, on the floor, in the sky above

Giving us life

Like new mothers alike

Tending to their newborns with milk and a smile

Green, it’s everything

It’s alive, it’s dead, it’s barely hanging on by a thread

Just like the generations before me

A cycle that continues

Yet slowly transforming with each new goddess born

Green, it can be vibrant, dark, and even muddy

Like the story of her life

Full of hopes and dreams that never came true

Entombed in a snow globe, only to be admired from a distance on a mantle

Green is generous

It gives and it gives

Only to be cut down

Just like all us women in our everyday lives

Head held high, a sign of disobedience

Hurdling insults and trying to break us

Society is never pleased

Green, the color of my eyes

How lucky am I

To have a piece of nature

To have the essence of every woman today and every woman before me

To have every corner of the world tucked away in them

And to be able to see green for what it truly is

Beautiful

Just like me

Just like her

Just like you

And just like them

Carlos Ornelas

Fiery Irony

I want to be fireproof

But I am a scarecrow

I want to be free

But I am an inmate

I am here on the Frontline

Trying to put out a fire

I did not ignite.

Embers fly

And all is melting

Neighbors cry

The poor is helping.

Must I remain

Inside a flame

While they are seeking

Who to blame.

Sweet dreams are

made of these

Eurhythmics,

Is this a part of

The Olympics?

There is rebuilding

And a rail system

That needs land to build upon.

These are plans

That need my hands

My savage hands

Are good for nothing.

They did the same thing

To build dodger stadium

Instead of fires

They used men

And bull dozers.

Now they use me.

But I don't mind

I'm just an inmate.

This is repentance.

This is how I serve

My sentence.

I rather perish

In the flames,

Than to be safe

Behind the fences.

Oh the fences,

Prison fences

Are not like any

Other fences.

These fences

Are fire proof,

But not me,

I am a scarecrow.

They pay me

50 cents an hour

Because inmates

Don't get hired.

I guess this is what

You call fighting

Fire with fire.

No freedom fireworks,

Sometimes, fire works

Against you.

They said they would

Lesson my sentence.

If I joined this fire camp,

Because no one

Hires felons

But they love to fire felons

We've become

The fire fill ins.

Baptism under fire

I'm a double helixe’d fetus.

They may scorch me

With these flames

And I hope to be a phoenix.

If I never make it home

Tell my mother

I died righteous,

This is why

they switched to tablets

And retired

The papyrus.

I am putting out fires

In neighborhoods that

Never welcomed me.

And

I'm starting to let

my hair grow,

I want to be fireproof

But I am

Just a scarecrow.

No more poignant unemployment

They promise they will hire me,

And will no longer fire me.

What a fiery irony.

Claudia Ramírez Flores

Claudia Ramírez Flores is a Mexican American poet shaped by the shifting landscapes of migration. Her work holds the ache of absence alongside the tenderness of remembrance. A UC Berkeley and Yale Writers’ Workshop alumna, and a contributing writer for Journal X, she braids Spanish and English to honor voices lost to silence, violence, and confinement. On the page and in the room, her poetry becomes a bridge, spanning liminal zones, carrying the past into the present, the self toward community, and grief toward the possibility of healing.

Tisha Reichle-Aguilera

Chicana Feminist and former Rodeo Queen, Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera (she/her) writes so the desert landscape of her childhood can be heard as loudly as the urban chaos of her adulthood. She is the author of the YA novel, Breaking Pattern (Inlandia Books), which received Honorable Mention for First Book of Fiction in English from the International Latino Book Awards, and a prose chapbook, Stories All Our Own(Bottlecap Press), a collection of stories about five cousins who are the same age every summer, their travesuras, and desire to escape gendered social conventions. One story from that collection was nominated for Best of the Net and another was spotlighted in Best Small Fictions 2022. Other stories have been anthologized and nominated for awards. As part of her socially engaged practice, she facilitated a Writing into Wellness workshop at Westchester Senior Center and led preschool teachers at Escuela de la Raza Unida in Blythe, CA through a monthly Storytelling and Narrative Writing workshop. With local high school students in person and online for college students, she offered seminars in food writing and the collective voice. She has also facilitated flash fiction workshops at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center and online. In addition to writing and teaching fiction, she writes poetry, essays, and plays. She is a Macondista and works for literary equity through Women Who Submit. Find her @writertish https://tishareichle.com/

Excerpt from “Mia Culpa”

The room is stuffy, but Abuela’s toes are exposed and her circulation isn’t good anymore. I heard the doctor tell Mamá that Abuela could lose her feet because of the edema. Instead of just putting her socks on or covering her with another blanket, I get the blue lotion from the windowsill. Neighbor Marta made it special for Abuela. It smells minty and fruity. I put a little in my hands and gently rub Abuela’s swollen feet.

She closes her eyes and lifts her head back, tries not to cry out in pain. Half-moons under Abuela’s eyes reflect the blue-gray of her sheets. Her completely bald head is covered with a pink flowered scarf. Her skin is hot, but whatever Marta put in the crema soon relaxes Abuela. Her face stops contorting, and she wiggles her toes.

Read the entire story at Angel City Review (Issue thirteen, July 2024)

Jess Saravia

Jess Saravia is a Two-Spirit Xicana y Latina multimedia artist that writes about spirituality, nature and death. She is a proud daughter of a single immigrant mother who initially sparked her love of writing and all things whimsical. Her work has been published in the first ILL Anthology, Synchronized Chaos online magazine, Fullerton College magazine and the Homies Who Submit zine with upcoming features in the Engendering U.S. Central American Women & Womxn’s Testimonios anthology and Those Who Think Differently: An Anthology of Stories of Indigenous Autistics from Turtle Island. When she is not writing, she is busy daydreaming, spending time with loved ones and organizing for her community. To follow her adventures, follow her Instagram: @tzapotl_flores (personal) and @tzapotl_lit (literary account).

Karen Terrey

Karen Terrey serves as the Poet Laureate for Nevada County. She's a writer, editor, and writing coach, offering writing services, developmental editing, publishing guidance, and creative writing workshops in Truckee through her business Tangled Roots Writing for clients of all ages. An alumni of Community of Writers, she teaches at Sierra College and has served as a poetry editor for the literary journals Pitkin Review and Quay. She is a recipient of a Sierra Arts Endowment Grant, the John Woods Scholarship to Prague Summer Program, the Steve Turner Scholarship to Surprise Valley Writers Conference, and a scholarship to the Vermont Studio Center. Her poems have appeared in Rhino, Edge, Meadow, WordRiot, Puerto Del Sol, Wicked Alice, Canary, and Gray Sparrow Journal, among others. Her poetry chapbook Bite and Blood is available from Finishing Line Press and local bookstores, including Word After Word in Truckee, CA. Find more info on her website www.tangledrootswriting.com

BREAKS IN THE FENCE

Fences that divide us
are negotiated by bears blacker than the night,
dogs crawling beneath,
dark knots of children’s faces
spying between broken pine slats,
mariachi music everywhere,
tented tops of cowboy hats bobbing along,

and morning greetings at driveway edges
by neighbors cleaning up

laundry lint, broken wine bottles, old notes,
oatmeal, coffee grounds, what
ever we throw out of our lives,
on the street the next morning
between neighbors.

Black noses forage in the night,
garbage lids clatter off porches.

Originally published in Medusa's Kitchen

rosangélica

rosangélica is a writer, poet, multidisciplinary artist, photographer and graphic designer born and raised in Los Angeles, and currently living in Northern California. Her writing explores the emotional landscape of human experience. She finds the poetry in nature, in the personal and mundane, uncovering the beauty while confronting the darkness of our collective humanity.

Through her creative practices, rosangélica looks to build platforms for self-expression, to nurture a sense of belonging and pride in our communities. “I continue to seek stories to have a better understanding of who I am, and hope that in doing so, I inspire others to share their stories too.”

rosangélica also leads bilingual generative writing workshops for women. She is a trained writing workshop leader, certified in the Amherst Writers and Artist (AWA) Method. She is fluent in English and Spanish and is passionate about creating safe and welcoming spaces for writers of all levels, and walks of life. As a native Spanish speaker, she believes that expressing and writing in both English and Spanish are essential to the way she navigates life and her writing, as they are full expressions of who she is. She believes that bilingual writers should feel free to express themselves in either language, even within the same written piece. She hopes to nurture a kind of freedom to BE through writing, a freedom to break from social norms and practices, to express in more authentic ways while choosing to rewrite who we are.

rosangélica holds a BA in Literature from the University of California Santa Cruz. Some of her poetry has been published in Los Escritores del Nuevo Sol anthology “Then & Now,” 2025. Her poem, “¿Qué quedará?” received an honorary mention from the Voces de Sacramento Spanish Writing Contest in 2025.

Ashes

white-gray specks dance freely around me

they fall from the sky like a soft snow

they stick to my skin and make a home

as I lay still, eyes scan the unknown

the unfeel, deciphering what is real

color has hushed its sound

no chirping of birds, or whistling trees

no bright magentas in the bougainvillea trees

the world has gone silent

though dissonant screams continue in a muted song

a veil of white particles fall smoothly across my face

as I look up at my world full of red, full of gray

ashes nestle between my eyelashes

their towering specks cascade into my eyes

creating a paste with my tear of thoughts

it runs down my cheeks and seeps between my lips

slowly filling my acrid mouth

drying my words, muting my tongue

eyes scream behind the mask

the world is full of gray

children are still fenced inside gunmetal cages

sleeping underneath metallic blankets of lies

lies of the land of the free

where black and brown blood continues to rain down

and red stained hands roam free of cable ties

black and brown picking hands

are now also speckled in gray white

as they continue along endless rows

after each fading red sun

so that their children can eat

so that all the world can eat

the world has gone silent

but the little ones still cry

dust is what is left of me

only a white gray mound

against a ground full of red, full of gray, full of white

it is hard to recall what I used to be

the little white dust dances freely around me

the world has gone silent

but the cry is never gone

it has never been louder

so now it is only a matter of time

for the strength of our communal winds

winds to sweep the ashes of you and me

return the world its sound

silbando un canto de libertad

reclamando una tierra donde podamos escuchar

voces que solo hablan la verdad

no queda de otra

más que levantarnos y luchar

—

Published in Los Escritores del Nuevo Sol anthology, Then & Now (2025).

Vibiana Aparicio-Chamberlin

Vibiana Aparicio-Chamberlin, Boyle Heights, illustrated her awarded books, Chicana on Fire, Ignited by the 1970s East L.A. Chicano Protest Movement and Mi Amor, A Memoir. Vibiana’s MFA is in Creative Writing from Antioch University. Her Bachelors in Bacteriology is from Immaculate Heart College. She is a Phi Kappa Phi scholar from Cal State Long Beach. Her writing is published in Beyond the Lyric Moment, Dismantle, El canto de los delfines, the Mary Journal, the Phi Kappa Phi Journal, Statement Magazine, Brooklyn and Boyle and La Bloga Chicana/o literary blog. “I write about the beauty and struggle of my Chicano Mexicano gente.” You can find Vibiana online: Instagram: vibiana.aparicio; FaceBook vib Aparicio; www.artediosa.com

Abuelas mías

Dedicado a Emilia Rodriguéz Aparicio y Ángela Carrasco Luna

Gente pobre

Sin sepulcro

Sin flor

Destitute, without tombstone, without marigolds

the poor lie not in that gilded

cemetery, marbled and encircled

with wreathes of paper and silk flowers.

Those pillared, concrete monuments

on calle Yáñez–

Are they to be the monuments

forever eternalized?

Your blessed bones–like corn

sprout from Mother Earth.

From your seeds, come my Chicana self

abuelas mías

searching like the wandering

Aztecs and Tarascans for your Texcoco

searching like the Yaqui Yoemem

for truth in the talking tree.

Your daughters came to Arizona, Texas,

New Mexico, and California–

searching, bleeding, giving birth

to Chicanos still

searching for Aztlán.

You are not forgotten.

Scótt Russell Dúncan

Scótt Russell Dúncan, a Xicano writer, edited the first Chicano sci-fi anthology, El Porvenir, ¡Ya!: Citlalzazanilli Mexicatl and is creator and editor of the Xicanxfuturism: Gritos for Tomorrow, Codex I & II. He is director of Palabras del Pueblo writing workshop and co-creator of Maíz Poppin' Press. His novel, Old California Strikes Back, a magic memoir and meta-novel described as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas meets Yo Soy Joaquin, is published through FlowerSong Press. www.scottrussellduncan.com

Untitled

And ever since then, chili peppers have been my vampire blood and air. And often my heart burned because of disappointments and indignations, but all the fires felt like chili pepper fire. Books I read seemed to describe this burning. Seguin, the Tejano hero of the Revolution who was later robbed of everything by the very Texans he fought for, warned Chicanos that we would be treated as foreigners in our own land. Montezuma, writhing in his palace in Tenochtitlan, said it better as an Aztec city fell under Cortez “My heart is bathed in chilis.” Dissatisfied and disenfranchised hearts burn. My heart burns because 1846 has never ended. My heart burns because I’m still seen as a descendant of Cain, who we know from trash romance novels is our vampire father, but really means I am a native of Turtle Island. My heart burns because I have survived here, in the place of many fires, the dry kindling of my homeland of the Southwest.

Círculo de poetas & Writers

A community of diverse poets & writers supporting the literary arts

Azalea Aguilar

Dahlia Aguilar

Julie Calderón

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