Nicole Henares
Nicole Henares has been a high school English teacher for over 20 years, and in 2021 she is a workshop leader for the Círculo de poetas and Writers Annual Conference. In Nicole's workshop, "The Heroine's Journey," participants explore the concept of what makes a heroine in history, in a story, or in myth. Nicole considers that we all are living history. As we look around the events as they are happening around us, we must continually ask ourselves- What happened? How did this happen? How could it have been different? Her leadership, teaching, and creative writing focus on exploring how our lives are deeply connected to the images we encounter.
Excerpt from "Aurelia Lorca And The Heroine’s Journey"
Aurelia is not my real name.
But, I, too, have lost myself
in order to find the burn
that keeps everything awake.
I, too, will always be on the side
of those who have nothing and
who are not even allowed to enjoy
the nothing they have in peace.
I, too, am an anarchist
in the best sense of the word.
I heed only three voices:
that of death,
that of love,
and that of art.
Almost eighty years ago,
the great poet Federico Garcia Lorca did not finish his last play-
Dreams of My Cousin Aurelia.
His protagonist, Aurelia, said she could not live
without reading fiction and putting on plays
because the men in the village never laughed.
To read the entire poem go to "Aurelia Lorca And The Heroine’s Journey"
Javier Huerta
Javier O. Huerta is the author of American Copia and Some Clarifications y otros poemas, which received the 31st Chicano/Latino Literary Prize from UC Irvine. He studied in the Bilingual Creative Writing MFA Program at the University of Texas at El Paso. Currently he teaches at Chabot College in Hayward and lives in Berkeley, California.
Mythical Lover
There was a man who loved. It is not important to know his name. Only that he bought his beloved some flowers. It is not important to know what type of flowers. Only that he placed them, along with a brief note, underneath her windshield wiper. It is not important to know what the note said. Only that he did not sign his name while writing hers in bold letters. It is not important to know her name. Only that he misspelled it. Later he received a phone call and denied leaving the note and flowers. It is not important to know how long they talked. Only that the receiver, now and then, lightly touched his lips.
Geneffa Jahan
Geneffa Jahan unravels threads of her ancestry from 13 generations of South Asian heritage. Born in London, England to Ismaili Khoja parents from Tanzania and Uganda, she immigrated with her family to Canada at age 10, where she completed her schooling and attended university. For the past 25 years, she has made her home in Santa Cruz, California where she teaches English composition and World Literature at Cabrillo College. She participates in local creative communities where she seeks to build bridges across cultural and linguistic differences. Assuming the Persian surname, Jahan, meaning “world,” she envisions a global movement where we all heal by spilling the secrets that silence our suffering.
In her debut collection, Spilling the Chai: Poems about Family and Food, Geneffa Jahan takes us to the most intimate room of the house and the most ritualized moments of a family to explore what must be revealed, addressed, and undone, choosing which spices to carry forward and which to discard. In this volume, Jahan explores the mélange of languages and recipes that defined her family as Khoja Ismailies of the South Asian diaspora journeying from India to East Africa to England and North America.
SLEEPING SEEDS
Soowa means to sleep. Dhana is seed
Soowadhana—the more elegant name
for the dinner’s parting gesture
the host’s farewell
the other being mukhwas, “mouth stench”
as if the meal had run out of metaphor
at that late hour, all eloquence consigned
to ornate silver dishes, dainty embellished
spoons swirling mountains of color
into a kaleidoscope of pulse and pearl
the flattened teardrop of fennel
clear quartz of crystalline sugar
and tiny egg-shaped sweets of impossible pink
with a splinter of mint.
When it was time to make the rounds
I clamored to be chosen to circle the room
and drop a few seeds in the sea of cupped hands
raised as if in prayer, an inverted grace lifted
not to Allah but an over-zealous girl
I would tip the seeds from spoon
to hands soft, supplicant, ready to receive
my shower of blessings
a thimble’s worth
of baksheesh for each one.
Like a palmist, I would study
the underside of bone
plump pillows of flesh
seeds stuck in crevices
the children could lick off their hands
but adults would cup
the tiny mound to their lips
and with a sudden jerk
toss their heads back
like horses now
free, unfettered
heads taking turns
to snap back and take my seeds
a sudden flash of throat
before they disappeared
wound beneath scarves
or tucked under toppees
seeds gathered, dispersed, driven home.
I wondered then if it was really
the seeds that were sleeping
or the saga
their word for story
our word
for people who share your line
but now I know
that all of us were sleeping
all of us, seeds, saga
stories
waiting to be roused
by a new dawn
or the next day’s meal
Joseph Jason Santiago LaCour
Joseph Jason Santiago LaCour is a Poet, Artist and Emcee from the Midwest. He lives and works in Santa Cruz, CA, at The Tannery Arts Center with his Partner and fellow artist, Rica De La Luz Smith. Sacred Poets is a platform for their creative expressions. They have both received grants from Arts Council Santa Cruz County.
He is a host and organizer of Mic Drop! - a monthly open mic event at the 418 Project contributing to a strong community of artists and supporters locally and globally.
Latest work:
LEDDITGO: An album
released 2022
streaming on all platforms
Instagram: @josephjasonsantiagolacour
Facebook: Joseph Jason Santiago LaCour
Raina J. León
Raina J. León is an Afro-Boricua Philadelphian (currently living on Lisjan Ohlone lands in Berkeley). She is a daughter, sister, madrina, comadre, partner, poet, writer, and teacher educator. She believes in collective action and community work, the profound power of holding space for the telling of our stories, and the liberatory practice of humanizing education.
She seeks out communities of care and craft and is a member of the Carolina African American Writers Collective, Cave Canem, CantoMundo, Macondo, Círculo, The Ruby (SF), and the SF Writers Grotto. She is the author of three collections of poetry, Canticle of Idols , Boogeyman Dawn and sombra: dis(locate) and the chapbooks, profeta without refuge and Areyto to Atabey: Essays on the Mother(ing) Self. She has received fellowships and residencies with the SV Community of Writers, Montana Artists Refuge, the Macdowell Colony, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Vermont Studio Center, the Tyrone Guthrie Center in Annamaghkerrig, Ireland and Ragdale.
She is a founding editor of The Acentos Review, an online quarterly, international journal devoted to the promotion and publication of Latinx arts. She is also the poetry editor for Raising Mothers (raisingmothers.com). She is a full professor of education at Saint Mary’s College of California, only the third Black person (all of us Black women) and the first Afro-Latina to achieve that rank there.
Scenes in the life of a lesser angel
I borrow wings from other angels, coast
the streets to find feathers loosely attached
to slender silver ties. With care, I close the catch
and fasten cardboard stiffened form so close
I cannot breathe or fly for the air
pushed out into a world in masquerade.
I am African. I am goddess with flare
sounding the trumpets. I call out God.
Meaning changes like sea water in storm.
I part the crowds until, beaten, my wings
fly, fall, litter the streets. I cradle the newborn
twins and realize that I am fallen,
a lesser angel, wingless and depressed.
I am seductress unpetaled, undressed.
II.
dress her navel in lotus flowers
to swim in the pool of her abdomen
twine orange blossoms in her hair
and smell the scent of oils and natural perfume
kiss her nipples so that they become pyramids
wet from a summer rain of tongue
press her down into soft linens with hard
body folding into hers like tributary waters
warm her hands against heated chest
that covers drum rhythms resounding
men, worship your women this way
women, flush at the adoration
and you will know how I feel
when he touches my hand
Raina J. León, "Scenes in the life of a lesser angel" from Canticle of Idols. Copyright © 2008 by Raina J. León.
Erica Lopez
Erica Lopez is an English high school teacher who has taught for twenty-five years. She is dedicated to helping and empowering her students. She is a speaker, author, and life coach, and her goal is to help others find love within themselves and to find peace. She embraces spirituality as a psychic/medium, energy healer, and chakra specialist. She is a poet that feels that poetry can help people heal their inner-self.
She is currently in the book production process of self-publishing her poetry book My Silent Voice Unleashed. Releasing the silence to heal the pain. Speak the unspoken words to release yourself from the pain and hurt by standing in your power and giving yourself the gift of having a voice. She is also in the process of self-publishing Creating Peace through the Grieving Process, a book that helps you deal with the loss of a loved one.
She participated in a suicide attempt survival collaboration called Alive to Thrive released in November 2022. She has also written in two other book collaborations Badass Within published in September 2022, and Healing and Growth: Inspiring Stories for Massive Transformation released December 15, 2022. This fall the Gracefull Growth book collaboration will be published, a book about dealing with grief. She helps people connect to their higher selves.
Connect with Erica: ericalifecoaching.com; ericablopez39@gmail.com Instagram: erica_lopez74;
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ericalifecoaching
TikTok: ericalopezthree7s.
Mexican wife
What is this?
Having to be quiet and not say a word
I am a Mexican woman
Who only has a voice with the comadres
The man walks in
And there is silence
Awkwardness
Not wanting to spark his temper
Or his drunken rage
Swallowing big gulps
Trying to not crack the eggshell
I know better than to speak
Whatever I say is wrong
I know better than to servirle
He will throw the plate
Or push me
Trapped because Catholic girls
Do not divorce
They stay with an insecure man
Because that is what Mexican women do
We stay and build a wall of resentment
We stay, and stay, and stay
Leaving is not an option
This is our lot in life
Nothing changes, all is the same
I choose to swallow my words
Who are you?
I am a mother, a Mexican wife
I am defined by my roles
But who am I?
I am a woman wrapped
In a dysfunctional life
With a man who thinks he is a saint
Because he provides
Who thinks it is his God-given right
To get drunk
He was born to work
But also,
He was born to intimidate
To manipulate
To cheat
To prove his machismo
I pray to the Virgen
To help him be a
God-fearing man
But nothing seems to change
Everything continues to be the same
I am Mexican
I am defined by my family
By my children
And by the spouse that feeds us
Over and over we are told
By our ancestral women
The children need their father,
And I question
This kind of father
Who drinks what little money we have
Who spends his time on other women
Who sends us to church food pantries
When there is no food
We eat beans and rice over and over again
Yet without fail, we go to church
Every Sunday,
We go to confession
On the outside
What a loving family
On the inside
It is just desperation
You can see it in the children’s eyes
The sadness of not knowing
Is dad going to yell today?
Is he going to throw things?
Is he going to dump out the eggshells?
Is this what God intended?
Is it true?
Tienes que Sufrir
Para Merecer
What does that even mean?
In order to be worthy
We must suffer
Every day is unknown
Like a rollercoaster ride of anxiety
Not knowing if rage or joy is coming
Me, a Mexican wife
Holding on to hope
To all the angels and saints
That maybe, just maybe
This craziness will end
Or maybe, I will find peace
In death
Elizabeth Marino
Chicago poet Elizabeth Marino has seen her work travel. Her poems and essays have appeared in little magazines, litzines, blogs and print anthologies in India, Gambia, England, Scotland, San Francisco, Austin, Cleveland and Chicago, including two Vagabond collections (Rise and EXTREME), as well as the new full-length ASYLUM (poems and memoir). Her work also appears in four Revolutionary Poetry Brigade anthologies. Prior releases include two chapbooks, Debris (Puddin'head Press, 2011) and Ceremonies (dancing girl press 2016). She was awarded a Ragdale residency, a Hispanic Serving Institution grant, and a CAAP grant. She holds an MA in English from University of Illinois at Chicago's Writers Program and a BA in English and Humanities from Barat College, in addition to coursework at the University of Oxford. She earned her living teaching writing and literature at local universities for years, as well as had a popular SAGE workshop.
ASYLUM
Another sleepless night,
and my remote
takes me to Charlie and his
blue plastic boat, shared at
St. Vincent Orphan Asylum
in Chicago. His hair was wondrously
full, and he made my belly laugh
as we waited and drifted.
The dormitory cribs were
far different from the blue vinyl
mats on the concrete floor
of the women’s wing of the
shelter. Each places of shelter
and transit, an end time
at any time.
And I see these pictures
of the children stacked up like
cordwood, relatively safe
in their Texas detention camps,
compared to the Pakistani children
stacked up like cordwood
in ox carts, after a drone attack.
It is difficult to shut off
these images on the screen
of the mind’s eye. The browser sticks,
and keeps refreshing itself.
In the morning
I must go out the door
and decide to be alive.
José (Manny) Martínez aka J.M. Curét
José (Manny) Martínez aka J.M. Curét is the author of the short story Wife-Beater Tank Top, from the Akashic Books 2020 anthology Berkeley Noir. His short story Papi’s Stroke and poem, Fragmented/Fragmentado were published in the May 2020 issue of The Acentos Review. His poems Tracy and What Had Happened Was were published in Quiet Lightning’s Sparkle + Blink Issue 109. J.M. lives in the Bay Area teaching high school English and Ethnic Studies, and lends his voice to various salsa bands in the Bay Area.
Sueño Contigo
Borinquen,
sueño contigo aunque
irme de ti fue lo más que yo quize
Sueño con tus palos de mango,
cual la fruta yo subia a buscar, o
recojia del piso o obtenia a pedrá.
Borinquen
sueño contigo porque
tus rayos de sol y el sal de tu mar
jamás me han dejado.
De ti yo nunca hablo mal,
pero que no me hablen de tu politica
o de tu sistema de salud
por que entonces ahi si que no.
Borinquen
sueño con tu pasado, tu futuro,
y tu presente. Sueño con tu gente.
Humilde y guillú, ansiosa y tranquila,
feliz e infeliz- tó a la misma vez.
Gente que no tienen que conocerte
pa darte todo lo que puedan darte.
Gente que te partan el alma con machete,
bate, pistola, chancleta, musica y letra
o lo que encuentren, porque nadie usa
los recursos disponibles como el Boriqua.
Mira la alcapurria
Borinquen sueño contigo
por las lecciones que me enseñastes.
Por ti se cuando darle un break a alguien y
cuando decir, mira no jodas mas coño
como tener orgullo en mi trabajo
y como mandar a alguien a las ventas del carajo
como pararme firme en mi orgullo y mi identidad
como seguir pa’lante, porque patrá ni pa cojer impulso.
Borinquen sueño contigo
Porque algo en mi sabe que
lo nuestro no se ha terminado
me llamas, me llamarás, me has llamado
me has ruinado para cualquier otra patria
y en mis momentos mas sublimes o
mas en necesidad de esperanza
contigo es que sueño. Borinquen.
Aideed Medina
Aideed Medina is a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet, award-winning spoken word artist, and playwright. Her work has appeared in Fresno State's Club Austral Literary Magazine, Chicano Writers and Artists Association Journal, La Bloga, Poets Responding, Art of the Commune, Split This Rock, Nueva York Poetry Review, Di-Liio Revista Literaria, Artivista Anthology, The Common, Farmworkers Portfolio, Issue #26 Amherst College, and Somos Xicanas Anthology, Riot of Roses Publishing, as part of a collection of original art songs composed for The Opera Remix, Fresno Grand Opera, and as part of Eclectic Collective plays: Encounter Intuitive, and Artista Invisible. Her poetry has been included as part of three municipal murals of the 559 Mural Project. She is the author of 31 Hummingbird, Editorial Xingao, a full-length poetry collection, Segmented Bodies, Prickly Pear Press, and a chapbook, Selected Poems from Segmented Bodies/ Salmos de la Sierra Madre, with Aziz Cordova, Universidad Autónoma Nuevo León, México.
Waiting In Hot Cars
Put it in one of the shopping carts abandoned on the blacktop.
The summers turn streets and parking lots
into fire breathing tar snakes.
The roads always slither away beneath our feet,
but at the end of August,
of the apocalypse,
roads can swallow cars,
people.
Watch the man in the next car over
peeling back a scab, tired man.
We all must watch.
Lean against the seatbelt, heavy.
Head heavy, his scab bright red.
We have been crying.
Nobody knows, we have been crying.
He posted a photograph on his favorite social media
to keep the real world at bay.
Crucifix over the doorway, scissors against the windows.
These are the shields our mothers handed us to keep the bad things
from crawling in,
through windows, through doorways.
Nobody knows we have been crying, afraid, in the dark, never alone.
Head heavy, saw my eyes, closed his.
The blacktop swallows everything away in August.
Adela Najarro
Adela Najarro is a poet with a social consciousness who is working on a novel. Her extended family left Nicaragua and arrived in San Francisco during the 1940s; after the fall of the Somoza regime, the last of the family settled in the Los Angeles area. She serves on the board of directors for Círculo de poetas and Writers and works with the Latinx community nationwide, promoting the intersection of creative writing and social justice.
She has published five poetry collections. Her latest book, Variations in Blue, was selected by the Letras Latinas/ Red Hen Collaborative as the second volume in their curated series. The California Arts Council recognized her as an established artist for the Central California Region and appointed her as an Individual Artist Fellow. More information about Adela can be found at her website: www.adelanajarro.com.
An Ambiguity
Until syllables undulate a Nicaraguan cadence,
I am a white girl. Once I was asked,
“Where’d the green eyes come from?”
The question arising from longing for a simple
explanation: a gringo father and a love story
where Lupita throws down a rose. Un amorcito
mío once told me not to worry because I was
brown inside. Even so, for a while I dyed my hair
almost black. I still wear gold hoop earrings,
but I haven’t tattooed that iguana on the inside
of my right wrist. Her Honorableness Sotomayor
got rid of the subdued hues and laid on
red nail polish after her confirmation. She began
the business of being herself. My mother
keeps insisting that I was born blond. Blondness.
Whiteness. I have been so confused.
I look in the mirror y quiero un color quemado.
A burnt umber. La pimienta. The prickly spice
of tropical brown. But I am güera, chele, fair skinned,
blanquita. Desde América Latina.
Latin America. The history.
My eyes are from los conquistadores.
From genocide. From the collision
and a struggle
to survive.
