writingatnight
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“Había llegado el tiempo en que las autoridades culturales me negaban existencia de escritor. Y sus previsiones irían más lejos, hasta convertirme en fantasma” (Ponte 17). Al adentrarse en las novelas de Antonio José Ponte y Ena Lucía Portela, el texto produce ciertas cualidades estéticas notables. En Cien botellas en una pared Portela nos … Continue reading
“Mi madre se volvió rubia en una casa cuadrada, en 1965, en una ciudad del desierto envuelta en vientos y arenas amarillas. “El desierto en Chile es parte de una extensión mayor de tierra, Atacama, que una vez perteneció a Perú y a Bolivia, o a los Incas y los Aymarás que habitaron el desierto … Continue reading
The subtitle to these pensamientos should probably be, “Why I Like the First Real Latino Movie Ever.” I’m writing of course, about the recently released film, For Greater Glory, directed by Dean Wright, and starring Andy García, Eva Longoria, Rubén Blades, and other notable actors. Like many Latinos, I feel nervous when I hear there’s … Continue reading
Había una vez una reina que tenía diez hijas, seis gordas y cuatro flacas. Como se trataba de un reino perdido en las montañas, no había una torre con señal para los celulares y la gente no tenía otra que comunicarse a gritos. Claro que en un reino así, los gritos eran muy variados y … Continue reading
Earlier this year, I lost my mother, after being fortunate enough to have a mom growing up, and sharing much of my adult life with her. I am grateful, true, but it’s been a very sad time as all of us know. It has been difficult to write, of course, though I think it helped … Continue reading
One of the most interesting developments north of Frederick Douglass Circle, in New York City, is the establishment of a new– bilingual!– bookstore in El Barrio, (East Harlem). It hasn’t quite opened yet, but I’ll be following their progress, hopefully along with many other writers. The name is La Casa Azul Bookstore, owned by the … Continue reading
On Sunday, December 4, 2011, I was invited to participate in a community panel at Wachtung Booksellers, in Montclair, NJ. It was a perfect afternoon for talking about poetry with other writer/teachers at a beautiful bookstore and a gathering of artists, poets, and readers. Marina Cramer, a writer herself, and gracious host and coordinator of … Continue reading
Hace poco he conocido, por la Web, a la artista Aviva Sawicki. Aviva ha desarrollado su arte por varios caminos: Después de trabajar durante 13 años con papel reciclado, realizando sus creaciones artísticas en Chile, Aviva da el siguiente paso y comienza a reciclar y utilizar bolsas de plástico. Lo que Aviva nos explica es … Continue reading
Last semester, Fall 2010, when I taught Latin American Literature at the JSM Institute/CUNY, I reviewed my syllabus for this course very carefully, as it is one I love to teach. I love it because the span of growth of LatinAm Lit swells in late 19th and 20th centuries, and encompasses my favorite writers, my … Continue reading
Poem I: Culinary Insecurity When you don’t cook you think you can’t ever make lovers close their eyes while they taste your bisque or neighbors mmh-hm as they bite borscht bits of red and cream. When you don’t cook your guests blink at the size of the crab cake on their plate can’t possibly- and- oh it’s gone. But you don’t cook and you think: ”Fluke.” I’ll never have this much luck … Continue reading
July 10, 2010 That day we walked outside the hospital a ways. It was hot and we were hot, and our car was overheated. We stopped at a gas station near the hospital where Claudia was and left the car there to be checked by the mechanic. My sister was in the hospital. In a … Continue reading
nov 18, 2009 My sister died on the 4th of July, a day so quiet and still in the morning heat that traffic seemed to be silent, birds seemed to have gone on vacation, and when I woke up I thought my own pain had grown still. I thought, perhaps, that there would be an … Continue reading
“Women have sat indoors all these millions of years, so that by this time, the very walls are permeated by their creative force, which has, indeed so overcharged the capacity of bricks and mortar that it must needs harness itself to pens and brushes and business and politics.” Virginia Woolf, from A Room Of One’s … Continue reading
There are probably few periods of time in our lives as indelible as the years we spend with a group of friends, siblings, cousins, a group of original beings about the same age, whose speech is unique, and with whom we share a language created and understood only by ourselves. If we are fortunate, we … Continue reading
La noche boca arriba (The Night Face Up) [Seix Barral, 1983] is one of Cortázar’s best-loved short stories. The majority of his short fictions are so well known, in fact, that one could have a conversation with friends fondly recalling plots and characters as if reminiscing about a friend’s exploits during his wilder days (…remember … Continue reading
Teaching Writing to Writers: When I taught in the MFA Creative Writing program at Goddard College, one of my specialties was to give the Critical Writing workshops that students would attend to learn how to write their long critical thesis (at least 20 pp), and the weekly annotations on all the books they read throughout … Continue reading
The syllabus for my survey course on Latin American Literature has not varied greatly in the past ten years, but undoubtedly it is not the one under which I came of age in the 1970s. What was great about that syllabus was the careful way that Prof. Luis Eyzaguirre organized the authors along the world … Continue reading
In every language there is the presence of all its history, carrying with it the tales of its conquest and vanquishing, its periods of enrichment and periods of impoverishment. In the omissions of a language we hear the silences it has brought about on others, and in its eloquence, the story of the way its … Continue reading
