First drafts of poetry, as well as commentary on poems, poets and poetry-related randomonia.

This is my brain: _/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/ This is my brain after leaving too much work for the last minute and not having anything to eat all day: _________________ Admit it, you love the visuals. ;-) I'd wonder why I leave these financial advertorials I have to write every month to the last minute but I already know why. My name is Guy LeProscratinator Gonzalez. That's why. My level of proscratination fluctuates more than the stock market, though, and is just as arbitrary and subject to outside forces. When it comes to work - aka the employment that allows me to pay…

Continue Reading

Still recovering from a long weekend... -> My new favorite song: Harder to Breathe, Maroon 5. Also, I bought the Nappy Roots' new CD, Wooden Leather, and, after the first listen, it sounds like another winner. -> Taylor's Teacher, Teacher was a lot of fun. A little unfocused and uneven in its tone but I think it stakes out interesting ground for him and has a lot of potential. Not as self-indulgent as some other one-person shows I've seen and has a couple of really powerful moments. He's got rights-of first-refusal on further commentary. -> Kids and pictures are a…

Continue Reading

It's felt like an unusually long week and I'm tired as hell. Might have something to do with letting myself get dragged back onto the poetry_slam listserve yet again! Grrrrr... Went to Urbana last night for Cristin's surprise tribute and send-off to Australia for her six-week trip. Hadn't been there in a while and it turned out to be a lot of fun. I lost count of how many of us read but we took over the open mic and each chose a poem of Cristin's to share - except for Orion who did his usual whacked-out Orion thing. I…

Continue Reading

Nothing representing Latinos

Tonight is Acentos and the cluttered attic that is my brain has been toying with an idea that Rich Villar mentioned last month, a couple of weeks after their show with Louis Reyes Rivera.

When I heard they had a disappointing turnout for it – including my stupid hungover ass among the missing! – I was extremely surprised. Not even the scenesters made the short hike to the Bronx for what was, by all accounts, an amazing experience. At the following Acentos, Rich and I talked about it and some interesting ideas he was considering.

In a seemingly unrelated moment, while preparing for the Oneonta show last week, I was putting together a list of poetry resources for the audience and was dismayed to realize that I had nothing representing Latinos! Spent a while on Google looking for an equivalent to the Asian American Writer’s Workshop or Cave Canem and came up empty.

Nada!

All of this got me thinking about the significant gap that exists between the generation of poets that founded the Nuyorican Poets Café back in the ’70s and my own generation of relatively unpolished but well-intentioned newcomers, echoing the concerns Rich had raised a few weeks earlier.

(more…)

Continue ReadingNothing representing Latinos

Just wanted to elaborate on a little something I touched on in the previous entry which was initially sparked by a discussion on Phil West's LiveJournal earlier this week: the question of emotion vs. polish or, a bit more esoterically, authentic vs. reflexive. In the simpler of the two debates, emotion vs. polish, I typically lean towards preferring emotion. Polish - especially taken in the context of whom Phil was having the initial discussion with - is often used as a euphemism for "better," with the inherent implication that emotional work is less-polished and, as a result not as good.…

Continue Reading

Today’s going to be a good one.

Mr. Lawnge's remix of Queen's Flash Gordon Theme is playing on my Launch station as I start writing this. :-) A busy week ahead as I'm taking two days off work to head up to SUNY-Oneonta for a feature on Wednesday night. Robb Thibault - Fargo, 1998 - runs the Student Union and invited me to open their slam season. Have a full 30-40 minutes so I'm looking forward to stretching my legs and doing some pieces I haven't done in awhile. Getting paid nicely, too, which is always a good thing! Hung out with Phil West on Friday night,…

Continue ReadingToday’s going to be a good one.

Taking a breather from another whirlwind day at work that will conclude with the aforementioned seminar with the greedy but nervous (don't believe anyone that tells you the stock market has recovered) and me in a suit... Icewind Dale II is the shit! I'm not a big computer gamer - preferring the portability of my GameBoy Advance - but this one has me completely hooked. COMPLETELY! I finally made it through the second stage of the game last night, wresting control of a critical bridge from a ferocious assortment of baddies that would've allowed the evil horde to overtake Targos.…

Continue Reading

No more posts to load