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Antonio de Jesús López
Amá said you died the week before I was born,
que eras tan feroz with your jumper,
before se puso de moda, and the little girls who wore ’em

butterflew into muchachas. Tenía que verte
in pot-bellied teles, canal crackling
like comal-burnt tortillas. Te ví

in pants flared like your nariz, chata
like my sister’s. I munched on tacos, juice
dripping as Amá squealed, Agarra la colita. Te ví

your hands castanets, my size 3 Godzilla shoes
tapped to their bidi bidi. Tus eyebrows arched
to a dome with tierra-dusked faces. Te ví

como la flor la maestra Barragán showed us,
a night-blooming cactus I called selena
grandiflorus. From Tejana lips, ví

the Spanish I couldn’t mouth. Stuttered songs
till words flowed like the taco’s orange grasa.
I lick my fingers, lean on the couch cover. Ví

you peer from orange-stained glass, cooing
my tongue to finally sing, Me diste túúúú.
My heart trembled, I can speak like us. Ví,

full lips like mine hush the roaring crowd
that tightens my tummy just like Amá’s
raspberry kisses. You leave the stage,

your sparkles sugar the sofá’s puddle of drool.
 
from the book GENTEFICATION / Four Way Books
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"The Transformations of John Donne"

"The challenge for any biographer is to delve into the apparent contradictions between the two Donnes, the piratical Jack who sailed with Raleigh to Cadiz and who wrote brilliant sonnets, rich in witty paradox and bold sexual assertion, and the prelate Dr John, who eventually became dean of St Paul’s; an accomplishment....that owed as much to his networking skills as it did to his considerable ability at preaching."

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What Sparks Poetry:
Irma Pineda (Juchitán de Zaragoza, Oaxaca) on Ecopoetry Now 

"In my mother-tongue, Didxazá (Zapotec), there are two words for referring to nature. One word is nagá, which makes reference to greenery, that which grows and reproduces, like plants, trees, flowers, maize: because there will be food, there will also be life. The other word, which we use more frequently, is guendanabani, which you translate as the blessing of life and which makes reference as much to the human life as to everything that surrounds us."
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