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Morton Marcus: This is KUSP community sponsored radio for Santa Cruz, Monterey Salinas on 88.9, 90.3, and 89.7 on your FM dial. Stay tuned for a special pre Cinco de Mayo celebration on the Poetry Show.

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Francisco Alarcon: Las flores son nuestra arma, flowers re our weapon. We opened the doo s of our homes to greet them, hey came in and evicted us. e showed them the open green f our valleys, the sacred sky they cut down the trees for

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their furnaces. We gave them all the fruits of this l nd, they poisoned with mercury o r rivers, but we survived this ot of our days, but we survive the lot of our days. Now, we fa e them in this final battle t save our lives and all lives.

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Desierto, desert, grant s your strength, viento, wind, low us some courage, madre agua guide us in your tender ways, c rnalitos y carnalitas, brothers nd sisters, don't be afraid, car alitos y carnalitas, brothers an sisters, don't be afraid. La

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flores, las plumas, the flo ers, the feathers are on Morton Marcus: That was Francisco Alarcon, poet, critic, teacher, who is our guest tonight in this pre-Cinco de Mayo celebration on the Poetry Show. This is your host, Mort

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Marcus. We'll be back in a moment. Well, we are here tonight to actually commemorate, as many people in Norte Americana do not know, a great battle on May 5th, 1862, the Battle of Puebla when the Mexican government under

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Juarez defeated the French troops. And that great victory is celebrated year after year as Cinco De Mayo. And we are here talking with the teacher of Spanish and Spanish culture at UC and a poet of sterling quality, Francisco Alarcon.

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Francisco, welcome to the Poetry Show. Francisco Alarcon: Thank you. Morton Marcus: We didn't, as you know, mean to get you here right on Cinco de Mayo. We've just been trying to find each other

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and get the show going, and it just so happened that this was the week and it couldn't be more perfect. We've got a lot to talk about, a lot of events that you want to talk about, as well as reading your own poetry. Why don't you tell us actually where

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you're from and how you started to write poetry? Francisco Alarcon: Well, I was born in LA many years ago. And then my family moved to Mexico when I was about five years old. So I was raised both in LA and in Mexico, Guadalajara. My

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mother's from LA, too, and her family came to the states in 1907 because one of her uncles had joined a Mexican circus and had come to Texas, so my great-grandmother came to Texas in 1907. They lived in Amarillo, Texas, and then they moved to

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California, that was in the 1920s. And so in 1929, my family moved to Mexico during the big depression because there was a tremendous anti-Mexican feeling in LA. And so, and my family in the last four generations, we have moved back and forth to

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Mexico and the United States, so I am binational, I consider myself bicultural, and I think I have, you know, bilingual in other ways too. Morton Marcus: That's very interesting. How did you- when

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did you get interested in poetry? Francisco Alarcon: I think poetry for me comes from my family. I had the pleasure to really get to know my grandmother on my father's side in Mexico, who was a wonderful

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poet. And she used to recite poetry to me, and it was very moving that I wanted to- so moving that I wanted to remember her lines. And since I have a very bad memory, I will write those lines myself, and then later, I had to make up for the

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lines that I have forgotten, so I think that was the process. It was sort of a natural process for me, it was not like I decided at one point, you know, I'm going to be a writer. It just happened to me that there was a tool that I had at that

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point. And poetry to me then refers to my own background, to my own family. When I write poetry, it's like talking to my own grandmother. Morton Marcus: What -- one of these impossible questions to

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ask but I ask it anyway -- what do you hope to accomplish in your poetry? Francisco Alarcon: I think poetry is a collective feeling, I don't think poetry is something you can control. I

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think a poet is a voice, a poet is just a medium, and I don't write in a consistent way. I basically provide a medium for the voice to speak through me and so I have no control in what I want to accomplish, I just provide a medium. I write in a

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very impulsive way. I can write- last time I wrote fifty poems in three weeks and it was like I couldn't stop because I knew that the voice was telling me the poems. So I think what I wanted to do, you know, consciously or unconsciously, is

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to provide my voice to the whole voice of humanity overall. Morton Marcus: Very nice. Certainly the first poem that you read, I take it that was your poem? Francisco Alarcon: Yes.

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Morton Marcus: Was really a poem about collectivism, it was about what the human race can possibly accomplish, and certainly very, very moving. And I was thinking who could be the influences behind that poetry? Who are the poets who have influenced you?

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Francisco Alarcon: Well, like I said, my- I think the poet that I can say that was my greatest influence was my own grandmother. She never published. And I think she was a wonderful poet, and that she used to sing her poems and so I

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think that's something that I can relate to. After my grandmother, then I went to school and at school, you get to read a lot of poets. I really have read the classical Spanish poetry, you know, the mystical poets like San Juan de la Cruz,

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like Santa Teresa, like Jesus, like Fray Luis de León. I really relate al lot with mythical poetry like that. And it's very erotic and they got away with eroticism in 16th century Spain, it was very closed in many ways. And then later, I read, of

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course, the Latin American poets that I really respect like Vallejo, like Neruda, and also the Spanish poets, like Garcia Lorca, like Manuel Hernandez, and, of course, one of the poets that I really respect a lot is Antonio Machado, Antonio Machado

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for his simplicity, and I can relate to that. Morton Marcus: Yes, wonderful, wonderful poets and all actually favorites of mine. In -- how shall I say this -- in your poetry, you are a Chicano poet, you call yourself a Chicano

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poet, and what I would like the listeners out there to hear from you is, what is Chicano poetry. If anyone was ever Chicano moving back and forth across the border, that certainly would be the definition, but many Latinos no longer want to use the term

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Chicano. Francisco Alarcon: Well, I think Chicano, it comes from a movement that happened in the states in 1960s, 1970, when we wanted to basically find our identity where we're not

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Mexican-American like we were told we were, and Chicano really emphasizes the Indio aspect, the, you know, that we're native to this continent, you know, we didn't come and, you know, we're not the recent immigrants to this continent, we've been here

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for at least you know, thirty to fifty thousand years. And so, I think that Chicano refers to that, the root, the indigenous roots we have in our culture that has been basically oppressed and overshadowed by the European influence that we

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also have in our culture. So Chicano means that you are proud to be descendant of Indians, and I think it's a beautiful name because it refers to the original name of, the Mexica. The Mexicas had come- the Aztecs that came from the north and in

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Aztec mythology goes back to Aztlán and Aztlán is located in the Southwest, what is now the US Southwest. But I think it goes beyond that, I think it's sort of a mental spiritual state when you can relate to history, when you can reclaim that root

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that you are, then you're a Chicano. And now, it seems to me that Hispanic has been used, it's been used since Carter. The Carter administration coined the term Hispanic, but I don't call myself Hispanic. I'm not, you know, her panic or our panic or

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their panic and that's my panic, I'm Chicano and I think I'm proud to be Chicano, and I think it's important for people to have that sense of identity and I think identity is something that is a label placed on you and if I were to have a label, I

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will then choose Chicano. Morton Marcus: Wonderful and that certainly explains the music that you people out there heard selected by Francisco, it was pre-Columbian music, so that goes right along with the Indio

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aspect of this. I would like you to read some of your poetry and maybe tell us what some of the elements of Chicano poetry is. When I was living in the Mission years ago in San Francisco, Chicano poetry was an attempt to use both English and Spanish

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together to express the life in the barrios and the experience. Francisco Alarcon: That's one way to express yourself. I write both in English and Spanish and I think the next poem that I want to share with you will be a poem that I dedicated to my

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grandmother, and it's a poem that is in Spanish because I think it's important also to recognize that we have two languages and I think we have to use both languages. And so this poem is dedicated to my grandmother, and it's called:

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EN UN BARRIO DE LOS ANGELES, and it says: El español lo aprendí de mi abuela decía en las canerías de pescado mi abuela platicaba con las

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sillas en la cocina abuela aprendí a contar nubes a reconocer en las macetas la yerbabuena

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montaña el desierto el mar de México veía en sus trenzas un día me dijeron: se fue muy lejos conmigo

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So this poem relates to my grandmother. Morton Marcus: Did you by chance do an English translation of it? Francisco Alarcon: Yes, but I don't like to read this in English because I think somehow it's an injustice to the poem. I

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have a collection of poems that is going to come out next year, and I'm very surprised that actually the Chronicle Books, the newspaper, the Chronicles San Francisco, they're publishing books now, and they're publishing a collection

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of mine next year that's called, "Cuerpo en Llamas/Body in Flames." And it has to do with that we have to retrieve our memory and the memory of flames, the memory that, you know, is painful for us to recognize. And it's going to be bilingual, in

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English and Spanish, some of the translations was done by myself and other ones, all the poems were translated into Spanish. And some were translated by a friend of mine, Francisco Aragón, who is a wonderful poet himself, and he's from San

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Francisco, and he is one of the editors of their Berkeley Poetry Review in Berkeley. Morton Marcus: That's great, I look forward to that. In fact, let me extend you an invitation right now when the book comes

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out, come back on the show, and we'll have a celebration here. Francisco Alarcon: Sure. Morton Marcus: Wonderful. Let's hear some more poetry, and let me just say, because I'm always throwing in comments, if you

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haven't heard the show before, now what we heard in that last poem was Francisco Alarcon's love of language and the beauty of it, and especially the beauty of Spanish. When I heard Garcia Lorca's poems read by a Spanish actor and I got the same

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impression as I did when I just heard you read, which it's like clear water is just falling over a face of silver, it's beautiful. There are certain languages in the world that I align myself with, obviously, American English is one, but

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Spanish is one language I've always regretted I could not write in. Francisco Alarcon: The next poem is a poem that I think is going to come out in this collection called, "Body in Flames," and

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it's a poem that I wrote many years ago when I went home. I went to Stanford University for many years, I served time at Stanford, and I went home and my mother looked at me and then I looked back, and she looked back, and she told me,

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"Franciso, que te pasa?" and I said, "What mother, what's going on?" And she says, "estas perdiendo tu color," you're losing your color. And I looked at myself and- on the walls because she has a lot of photos, and yes, when I was thirteen,

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fourteen years old I was very, very dark. So that really troubled me and so what I did, I wrote a poem and I'm going to read this poem that's called: I USED TO BE MUCH, MUCH DARKER, and I think that's a fact and it

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says: I used to be much much darker, dark as la tierra recien llovida and dark was all I ever wanted: dark tropical mountains, dark daring eyes, dark tender lips, and I would sing dark, dream

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dark, talk only dark. Happiness was to spend whole afternoons tirado como foca bajo el sol, "you're already so dark, muy prieto, too indio!" Some would lash at my happy darkness, but I could only smile back. Now, I'm not as dark as I once was,

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quizas sean los anos, maybe I'm too far north, not enough sun, not enough time, but anyway, up here, "dark," is only for the ashes: the stuff lonely nights are made of. So the, you know, the struggle that we have, in terms of color,

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and it goes beyond color -- I think culture, language, memories -- and I think we've been silenced for too long and I think this poem has to do with that. Morton Marcus: What's fascinating, as you're saying,

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your mother tells you come back from Stanford, and your mother tells you that you've lost your darkness. It's like they have started to put a white powder on you, right? Francisco Alarcon: Well, that happens. I think that happens to

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a lot of people of color. When you go to school in this country, you give up a lot of power. I think, you know, I am one of those that is very critical of this school system because I think I witnessed and I felt the school system as a

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small version of a prison system, you know, we- Morton Marcus: Why don't you go into that a little bit to give some of the reasons why you feel that way? Francisco Alarcon: Well, first of all, in terms of language-

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Morton Marcus: Right, that's the first one. Francisco Alarcon: Okay, that's he first thing, you know, when you come in, and I have a poem that tells a little bit about that experience-

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Morton Marcus: Sure. Francisco Alarcon: And I think that will tell you the experiences of millions of people in this country when they go the first day of school and it's called, "First Day of

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School," and I'm going to read it in a bilingual format, both in English and Spanish. But I think at this point, I think it would be good to read it both in English and Spanish. And I think it is a poem that talks a little bit about this experience that a

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lot of people find, and that we are oppressed and- let me see if I have it. Morton Marcus: Okay, while you're looking for that, and it's difficult to talk and do it at the same time, you do teach

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at UC and you are teaching Spanish, as I said, and Spanish culture. Francisco Alarcon: That's right, and I think the reason why I do that is because I believe that people have to retrieve their

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memory, and one way to do that is to retrieve their language, the language that was lost because the school system basically eradicated it. They were using knives, psychological knives, that I think a lot of people have a lot of scars from.

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Let me read this poem, it's called: FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL, and it says: Parado frente a la "teacher" Apreté aun más fuerte La mano de mi abuela. Standing before the teacher, I squeezed harder

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my grandmother's hand. The teacher smiled and said something odd in English. Mi abuela luego me dio su bendición y se fue. My grandmother later gave me her blessing and left. Yo me quedé hecho silla. I stay behind, en un mundo, like a

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chair in a very, in a very strange world. Morton Marcus: Since you are, are you really- you can't be called an American-Mexican as a Chicano in that way, I mean, you really have roots because you lived in Mexico. What do you

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think of a poet, such as Gary Soto? Francisco Alarcon: I think he's a wonderful poet. I think he's a wonderful poet and also, he expresses, you know, his own roots. He's from Fresno, which is, you know, and I think he

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went to Fresno State University with Philip Levine and I think he expresses that school of poetry. Morton Marcus: Yours is much more steeped, though, in Mexico. Francisco Alarcon: Well, I think, you know, I'm very, you

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know, I lived in San Francisco for eleven years, and I know all the poets of San Francisco, so I know also the other side of poetry which is also Anglo-American poetry and I've seen the best poets that I consider in San Francisco at

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this point and I- so I do read a lot of poetry in English, so I consider myself, I think, both in the American tradition as well in the Mexican tradition, I think you don't have to choose. I think I am an example of a person that can

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[unintelligible]. Morton Marcus: Good point, I don't want to put you in any little box, you are poet first, you know, and then we talk about all of this other stuff. Okay, how about another poem?

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Francisco Alarcon: Sure. Morton Marcus: And if on the same subject or if you even want to talk more about the educational system, that's fine. Well, you know, I should tell you that I also suffered through

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graduate work at Stanford. So, anything you can say would not shock me. Francisco Alarcon: Well, let me tell you, in terms of language, I have done a lot of translations from English into

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Spanish and Spanish into English and I belong to a brigade that was called the Roque Dalton, a culture brigade in memory of Roque Dalton, a Salvadoran poet that was killed in Salvador and as a brigade, we came out with about four books. The first one,

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an anthology of- bilingual anthology of South American poetry was published by us and it was published in San Francisco by City Lights. And sometimes I get up in the morning and I look at myself on the mirror and I will refuse to

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translate, that day I say no, I'm not going to translate, I'm going to use my own language that is neither English or Spanish. And so sometimes I refuse to translate, I think translations sometimes don't work. And so this poem is about

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one moment, one of those instances that I refuse to translate and it says, "Un Beso Is Not a Kiss," okay. If you were to look, beso on a dictionary it says kiss, I said, no:

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UN BESO IS NOT A KISS Un beso es una puerta que se abre un secreto compartido un misterio con alas. Un beso no admite testigos. Un beso can't be captured, traded, nor sated. Un beso is not just a kiss, un

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beso is more dangerous, sometimes even fatal. And so, of course, this is- I think everybody has different languages, I don't think people are monolingual, I think you have your own personal language. And you use different languages-

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throughout the day, when you are with your family, you use one language, when you go to school, you use another language when you are with your friends, when you are in love, I think you use another language.

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Morton Marcus: Great, we've still got around five minutes to go. Let us talk about what's going to happen on the fifth of May and the different celebrations around here and what's going to happen in poetry after we take the break, so what

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I'd like you to do now is read another poem or so. Francisco Alarcon: Well, I want to read also a poem that, because we're celebrating Cinco de Mayo, and I think Cinco de Mayo -- the first one that I read, it had to do with Cinco de

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May also -- I think Cinco de Mayo is not just about a battle that was fought in 1862, I think Cinco de Mayo goes back and I think in time to maybe 1492, I think people have been resisting since 1492, but also I think Cinco de Mayo could be very

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personal, a struggle that happens in your own life and your own way. And so this is a poem that is dedicated to my sister, in a way was her own Cinco de Mayo and says: A SMALL BUT FATEFUL VICTORY

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That summer night, my sister said, no, she was not going to do the dishes anymore. My mother only stared at her, maybe wishing she had said the same thing to her own mother. She too had hated her "woman" chores of cooking, cleaning, always

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looking after her six brothers and her father. A small thunder shook the kitchen as we quietly looked around the table of five other brothers. The impasse was broken when my put on an apron and started to run the hot water in the sink. I could almost hear

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this, I could almost hear the sweet music of victory ringing in my sister's ears, in my mother's smile. So after that my sister never, never again did the dishes. And now she's going to be a dentist and my father is the one that

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does the dishes, and my mother is the one that cooks because my father doesn't know how to cook. So in a way what happened in my family that was a Cinco de Mayo resistance against the patriarchal way of doing things in a family.

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Morton Marcus: Yeah, the patriarchal way. And I have read that poem and it was in the anthology, the Lighthouse Point anthology. Yeah and I'm very, very glad that you read it, yes. And I said, well, now here is something that almost upsets the

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whole patriarchal system in the Mexican-American or Mexican family. And I said, what a wonderful little poem, it seems so simple, but it really is going deep into the roots. Francisco Alarcon: Yes, I think, you know, there's a lot of

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stereotypes people feel that somehow the family -- Chicano families, Mexican families -- are very, very traditional. And I don't think that's the case at all, I think things are changing and changing very fast, my own family can see that. My mother

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when we were kids, you know, she used to be so traditional in many ways, now she's so liberated in her own ways, and she's so beautiful because she can do a lot of things that she would not do twenty years ago.

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Morton Marcus: I think this is happening with a lot of immigrant families in this country. I mean, the lifestyle changes that went on in the 60s have really brought changes in people, I mean, even in my uncles, but-

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Francisco Alarcon: I think, you know, it's not just the US, I think this is global. I think this is global, I don't think it has to do with American influences, I think has to do with globally. I think my relatives in Mexico are very

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different from what they were ten, fifteen years ago. It has to do with- we're having a tremendous networking, finding, you know, happening right now and in this continent and Africa and Asia, so I think people learn from each other. And I

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think that's very beautiful, I think women are liberatin themselves. And I think Chican poetry, I will say that one o the most important movements at this point are the voices of Chicanas, I think that's ve y, very crucial. We're doing

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an anthology, and we're going to have the book party next we k, and I think the anthology rea ly exemplifies what I'm telling ou. Forty poets are publishe in this anthology, half are Chicanas. And I think Chic nas are really light-years ahea

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of Chicanos in the way that hey can deal with the intimate s lf, they can deal with love, hey can express themselves, and not be ashamed or silent like a lot of men. It is very difficult for Latino males at this poin to express love, and in poetry,

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this is very interesting fo Morton Marcus: While you've mentioned this, would you- do know where the party is happening? It is an issue- Francisco Alarcon: It is an important- it's Prairie West and

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it's called, "Chicanas y Chicanos en Dialogo," that's the theme, you know, the dialogue between Chicanos and Chicanos. And there's going to be the book party, it's going to happen at the Louden Nelson Community Center at 301 Center Street,

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near downtown in Santa Cruz. And it's going to be from 7:30 to 9:30pm. And I think is going to be one of the largest concentrations of Chicano poets in the last ten years. I think the last anthology that was like this was, Mango, a magazine that

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was published by Lorna Dee Cervantes, who is also the co-editor of this issue of Prairie West, and that was published about ten years ago. Morton Marcus: You didn't mention what day it is.

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Francisco Alarcon: And that's going to be on Thursday, May 11th. Morton Marcus: Okay, great. And we'll have to have a note here also so that we can announce it again next week. We have been

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talking to Francisco Alarcon. We will be back in a few moments. Right now, we are going to go out for our usual musical break and listen to Chuco Sanchez- Francisco Alarcon: Cuco Sanchez. Cuco Sanchez is I think one of

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my favorite Mexican singers. He expresses what I think is the closest to the authentic Mexican music of the soul and this is, "Fallaste Corazon," and if I were to translate that is, "Heart, You Fail Me."

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Morton Marcus: Okay, here we are. Francisco Alarcon: [Fallaste Corazon by Cuco Sanchez] Morton Marcus: This is Mort Marcus again and we are listening to some of this some wonderful music in the

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background by Cuco Sanchez. And I just asked you to pay attention to this, something that we've just been talking about. In celebration of Cinco de Mayo, the Cabrillo College Women's Center presents a Chicano Poetry Festival

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featuring Simona Sigueres, Gabriella Guiterrez, and Maria Rincon Gelada. Do you know these people? Francisco Alarcon: Yes. Morton Marcus: And these exciting local poets will read

00:30:41.520 - 00:30:57.060

together on Tuesday, May 2nd, that's tonight, they all read this afternoon, sorry about that, folks. Okay, Louden Nelson Community Center, May 7th, Cinco de Mayo: A Celebration of Mexican Resistance with Dr. Loco and Robert Oheda, I guess is

00:30:57.060 - 00:31:03.850

that it? Francisco Alarcon: Ojeda. Morton Marcus: Robert Ojeda Band, the Whitehawk Dancers, food, face painting for kids and much, much more. That is Sunday,

00:31:03.850 - 00:31:20.020

May 7th, this Sunday at Laurel Park from 12 to 6pm. Laurel Park is right behind the Louden Nelson Community Center. What is that? What's the street, you had that street before? Morton Marcus: Great, it's on Center Street. "Rescatando la

00:31:16.560 - 00:31:34.180

Francisco Alarcon: Center Street. patria"- oh, it's rescuing the homeland, well, this has to do with it. I'm trying to think over an exhibit featuring works of over tenty Salvadorian artists including the works of

00:31:31.430 - 00:31:47.790

Francisco Alarcon: Yeah, there are three events on that date, [unidentified] Mata who is presently Professor Director of the School of Art in the National University of El Salvador is- well, I guess it's on 509 Broadway in Santa Cruz,

00:31:47.870 - 00:32:06.670

509 Broadway. And that show is going to be presented on May 6th, May 6th, that's Saturday at 4pm at the Cavalry Episcopal Church at 532 Center Street, so that is for "Rescatando la Patria, Rescuing the Homeland," a collection of surrealist

00:32:06.750 - 00:32:20.670

paintings by contemporary Salvadoran artists. This and the first event is from 4:30 to 6:30 and everybody's invited exhibit, again, May 6th at 4pm, this Saturday at the Episcopal Church at 532 Center Street. And on May 11th, Nicola Geiger and

00:32:20.750 - 00:32:39.160

Eileen Vance in association with the Resource Center for Non-violence present, "My Country is the Whole World," an evening of poetry and song in celebration of Mother's Day, and we can't forget that. And I think that is all we will do

00:32:39.240 - 00:32:58.670

except for announcing "Manos de Aztlán", the 10th annual Chicano Art Show which will feature major artists from throughout California, as well as youth and student artists from UCSC and surrounding communities. This event is part of the UCSC Cinco

00:32:58.740 - 00:33:17.700

de Mayo cultural celebration, which will also include the following scheduled activities and that is on May 5th, Cinco de Mayo, reception of the Chancellor's University has this for everybody, that's okay, here we go. El Consilio invites you

00:33:17.780 - 00:33:31.860

to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, a reception from 4:30 to 6:30pm at at the Chancellor's house, and then there's going to be also the Chicano Arts Show, which is opening at the Mary Porter Sesnon Gallery at Porter College, and that will be on the

00:33:31.940 - 00:33:52.640

fifth of May, I gather. Morton Marcus: And it's all this Friday, starting at 4:30, the the opening of a beautiful exhibit that is put together by Theatro del la Tierra Morena, and that's going to be at Sesnon

00:33:52.640 - 00:34:07.550

Gallery from 7 to 11. And then we're going to have a dance, [ nidentified], for the communi y and that's going to be also t Porter College at the dining all. And the music is going to be Steve Cervantes a d the California Dream Band and

00:34:07.550 - 00:34:26.220

also David Dorado as a DJ, so it s gonna have all kinds of music salsa, cumbia rancheras, and th most modern Chicano music to . reception at the Chancellor's House at UCSC. Then the Chicano

00:34:26.220 - 00:34:37.740

Art Show at Porter College in the Mary Porter Sesnon gallery from 7 to 11pm and the dance from 10pm to 1am with music by Steve Cervantes and his California Dream Band, that at he Porter College dining hall.

00:34:37.870 - 00:34:48.190

Francisco Alarcon: That's right, from ten o'clock to one o'clock am. Morton Marcus: Great, sounds like a lot of fun, actually. Okay, we're going to say goodbye to Mr. Sanchez now and we are

00:34:48.190 - 00:35:04.690

talking to Francisco Alarcon, the poet and president -- am I right? -- of the Chicano Writers Union here in California? Francisco Alarcon: Well, what it is is the Centro Chicanos Escritores is a Chicano Writers Center. This is a nonprofit

00:35:05.050 - 00:35:20.890

organization that wants to promote Chicano/Latino writings and- throughout the state. I'm also involved with the Mission Culture Center, San Francisco. I'm also the President of the Board. This is one of the largest Latino Arts Centers in

00:35:20.890 - 00:35:35.860

the nation, I think, and we do a lot of exhibits. We have our own resident theatre company as well as a gallery and an incredible number of classes, we have about forty-two classes, free to the community. And right now we're very busy because we're

00:35:35.860 - 00:35:46.930

celebrating Cinco de Mayo in San Francisco, in la Mission this coming Saturday. Morton Marcus: Now, where are you going to be? Are you going to be in San Francisco or are you going to be down here?

00:35:46.000 - 00:35:58.600

Francisco Alarcon: It's beautiful because I can do both places. I'm going to be here Cinco de Mayo and then on Saturday, I'll be for the parade in the Mission District and I'll come back to join the celebrations in

00:35:58.690 - 00:36:10.310

atsonville, too. So I think e erything is under control right now. Morton Marcus: Sounds great. Francisco, let's hear some more Francisco Alarcon: I'm going to read some poems that I did

00:36:05.440 - 00:36:18.860

poetry. together with another poet, and his name is Juan Pablo Gutierrez, who is the director of the Mission Cultural Center in San Francisco, who is a wonderful artist himself and a

00:36:18.860 - 00:36:32.810

poet. And this came up out of our concern that we had for youth And I remember many years ago- well, actually, two years ago, we had a wonderful program at the Mission Cultural Center that was called Spray Can Art, and we had about seven hundred

00:36:32.810 - 00:36:52.010

youth that came and they did wonderful pieces. You know, they're using the spray cans and we were threatened by The City Hall saying that that we couldn't have that kind of art going on at the Mission Cultural Center, that we have to somehow

00:36:52.010 - 00:37:00.940

close the exhibit and we said, no way. We have the freedom to do whatever we want. Morton Marcus: Let me ask you, why did they want to- Francisco Alarcon: Well, because they don't believe that art

00:37:01.090 - 00:37:12.460

could be on the walls. And so they had a whole graffiti campaign against, you know, well, the campaign against graffiti was this [unidentif ed]. And so out of that, we w re so concerned that it was o e of the few avenues that p

00:37:12.460 - 00:37:27.190

ople had used in the Mission D strict that we came out with a ombination of photos and poetry hat was called, "Response fro San Francisco," that inc uded photos from graffiti fro the street as well as poe s. And so we did that and the

00:37:27.190 - 00:37:41.890

that exhibit travelled thr ughout the States and went to ew York, and then P nnsylvania, and then to the UC E tension in San Francisco. The p otographer was Linda Wilson, who s a wonderful photographer, and the artists of course were the

00:37:42.040 - 00:37:56.560

ission District youth. And so l t me give you some examples of t ose poems. The first poem is t tled, "Listen," because I thin you have to listen to Chic no art, you have to use not only your eyes, you have to use your ears, you have to use your mout

00:37:56.560 - 00:38:07.210

, you have to use your hand and your feelings. So this is c lled: LISTEN, this is a very short poem. Listen, listen to these walls, touch the heartbeat of the

00:38:07.210 - 00:38:24.760

barrio, dream a teenage dream, become an accomplice of art for life's sake. The next poem is titled, "Wall-Writer." And a lot of artists and youth, they call themselves you know, poets,

00:38:25.390 - 00:38:34.630

wall-writers, they don't write on paper, they write their signatures on beautiful designs on the walls of San Francisco and other barrios. And this is titled: WALL-WRITER

00:38:35.860 - 00:38:54.220

I'm so sad sometimes I tattoo big tears on concrete. So mad, I blow up pictures of corpses and screams, so scared I draw self-portraits to full-body snatchers. So happy, a whistle with colors, a love song on the wall, so cool, there's not even

00:38:54.220 - 00:39:12.250

a chance to catch my sombra. So proud, I want everyone to know my nickname: Chucho, Sleepy, Chico, also Smiley. So real sometimes I use red for my veins. So sure there will always be another wall, entonces quien [unidentified].

00:39:13.210 - 00:39:25.090

Another poem from this, and this is- was at the end of exhibit, and it was titled: RESPONSE You say graffiti is unique, tribal-oriented, disappearing.

00:39:25.240 - 00:39:38.950

You put me in museums, call me the freshest expression in America, you don't understand. I'm the public diary you reduced to art. So in a way, this is, you know, engaging discourse that I think

00:39:38.950 - 00:39:48.550

we have to define art our own ways and not how museums and other critics define art. Morton Marcus: But let me just ask you, was this outside the building, was it on the outside walls of the building or-

00:39:48.000 - 00:40:02.160

Francisco Alarcon: It was inside. It was very beautiful Unless this was a public building, I mean, if it was a because what we did we, put paper on the walls, so they private building and you got permission from the person who

00:39:53.370 - 00:40:06.750

didn't attack any walls, they were using beautiful designs on paper, and they just did not feel owned it, I mean-. Morton Marcus: The Cultural Center is a public building but

00:40:06.750 - 00:40:18.060

we are independent. And basically what happened, the community themselves, you know, members of the community took the building. And so I'm very proud of the Mission Cultural Center because it's been around for the last eleven years, and

00:40:18.060 - 00:40:28.660

really represents the best of the Chicano movement, it came out of the struggles of the 60s and 70s and so, we are elected by our community, the Board. Did you know of a group in the Mission called Commission Bellas

00:40:28.660 - 00:40:40.860

Artes? Francisco Alarcon: Yes, yes. They did, I think they did one of the few collections of poetry in the early 70s, and I think they were very, very committed to the arts and poetry, yeah.

00:40:41.010 - 00:40:47.540

Morton Marcus: Do you know Amilcar Lopez, is he still there? Francisco Alarcon: Yes. Morton Marcus: Yeah, I'll tell you after the show some

00:40:47.540 - 00:41:02.840

interesting stuff about that. Well, let us go on. This is- I feel that the whole show is now been imbued with a spirit, and it's wonderful. In fact, I'm going to be coming to some of these things myself, just really looks great. Why don't you read

00:41:02.840 - 00:41:10.190

us more poetry and even poetry of some other people if you want? Francisco Alarcon: Oh, no, I feel like in the rush that I had, I just came a little bit- just on time, I forgot the

00:41:14.210 - 00:41:29.600

olume of- that I wanted to share with you of- the one that we wan to publish, we're going to pu lish in Prairie West. And it's going to include forty writers, forty San Francisco Bay Area C icano writers and I think C icana writers, and so I thin

00:41:29.600 - 00:41:48.470

it's going to be a bea tiful gathering among the writer that we include in this colle tion: Lorna Dee Cervante , and [unidentified], Cherrie M raga, Gary Soto himself, Omar Sa inas, Jose Montoya, Juan Fel pe Herrera, Lucha Corpi, Ana Vi

00:41:48.650 - 00:42:02.780

lanueva, [unidentified], so it' a whole gathering of people, of voices that I think is going o be very powerful. So I wante to maybe not preview but I th nk people have to come and lis en to the poets themselves They are coming here on Thurs

00:42:02.780 - 00:42:22.820

ay, and I think it's important or people to know that. I want to read a poem, that- To me, l nguage is very important, langua e is sort of the skin of my color(?), language for me is crucial. And so I was- I read in 1986 when Proposition 63 ma

00:42:22.820 - 00:42:37.130

e English the official language of the state. And I think that as outrageous because in many ways, how can you legislat , how can you enforce a proclam tion that says, you know, hat this is the official lang age now, when I think Englis

00:42:37.130 - 00:42:55.160

is in no way in a threat of d sappearing in this state, and think has no need to have an law proclamation, you know, aking it official. So, and I ecame so concerned because in many ways, it also fires the not on that somehow we can erase h

00:42:55.160 - 00:43:09.110

story, that we can erase by, yo know, by this new, you know, p oposition a hundred fifty yea s of history in the Southwest. nd I think it's very importan for you to remember, you kn w, that California and Tex s and New Mexico and Colorad

00:43:09.110 - 00:43:24.680

were part of Mexico once and hat, you know, Santa Cruz, Los A geles, San Jose, San Francisco San Diego, Manteca and so on re names in Spanish, and the r asons why there were Spanish nd also my name's in Spanish, s it's very official. So, but in

00:43:24.680 - 00:43:40.220

the idea of- even in Santa Cruz even in Santa Cruz, that is o-called liberal, the preposi ion passed for I think almost 7 % of the voters, and I was very disappointed, so I wrote a poem. And this poem I'm going t read it first in Spanish, an

00:43:40.220 - 00:43:51.260

then I'm going to read the t anslation into the official lan uage of the CARTA A AMERICA/LETTER TO AMERICA Perdona la tardanza en escribirte, a nosotros nos

00:43:51.410 - 00:44:12.470

dejaron pocas letras. En tu casa nos toco ser tapetes. A veces de pared pero casi. Siempre estuvimos en el piso. Tambien te servimos de mesa. De lampara de espejo de juguete. Si algo te causamos fue risa. En tu cocina nos hiciste otro sarten. Todavia

00:44:12.470 - 00:44:36.680

como sombra nos usas. Nos temes, nos gritas, nos odias, nos tiras, nos lloras, nos niegas y a pesar de todo nosotros seguimos siendo nosotros. America, America, entiende de una vez: somos las entanas de tu cuerpo en la cara reflejamos tu

00:44:36.680 - 00:44:48.780

futuro. LETTER TO AMERICA Sorry for the lag in writing you. We were left with few letters. In your home we were cast as rugs, sometimes on

00:44:48.780 - 00:45:09.240

walls, though we were almost always on floors. We serve you as a table, a lamp, a mirror, a toy, if anything we made you laugh. In your kitchen we became another pan even now as a shadow you use us. You fears, you yell at us, you hate us, you murder

00:45:09.240 - 00:45:29.250

us, you shoot us, you deny us, and despite everything, we, yes, we continue being us. America, America, understand, once and for all: we are the insides of your body, our faces, our faces reflect your future.

00:45:31.320 - 00:45:40.320

Morton Marcus: Very nice, some collective anger there too, right? Francisco Alarcon: No, I think it has to do basically with, you know, I think this poem could be written by anybody that is poor,

00:45:40.350 - 00:45:52.800

anybody that is of color, anybody that's gay, anybody's a woman, anybody that's been oppressed by this system. I think a letter that anybody can write because we've been the toys of, you know, the patriarchal, or the homophobic,

00:45:53.010 - 00:46:02.820

or the racist system that we call America. So this is reclaiming America, we are America, we are the true Americans, we are going to define America and so it's just a matter of time.

00:46:03.450 - 00:46:15.690

Morton Marcus: Okay, great. We have ten minutes and I would like to hear as much of Francisco Alarcon poetry and all different voices that we can possibly hear. Francisco Alarcon: Well, let me read you some poems that I wrote

00:46:14.850 - 00:46:27.780

Morton Marcus: That's the "Dark Love?" last last summer, and this is a collection titled, "De Amor Osc ro, yo tras penas(?)" And this i a very interesting collec ion because I was writing this c llection in three weeks, and a f

00:46:28.050 - 00:46:49.110

iend of mine, Francisco Aragón ater went to Spain, and he told e that he had found some poe s by Garcia Lorca that were tit ed the same way, "De Amor Osc ro." And so I was very surpris d-

00:46:44.700 - 00:46:54.810

Francisco Alarcon: The collection of Garcia Lorca, by the way, we're publishing two unpublished poems in Prairie West. Morton Marcus: By Garcia Lorca?

00:46:54.810 - 00:47:08.250

Francisco Alarcon: Yes, because we're reclaiming Garcia Lorca as a Chicano poet, believe it or not, because I think again, his two poems that we're publishing as part of this collection that the family didn't want to publish because they were

00:47:08.250 - 00:47:17.310

homoerotic. Morton Marcus: Okay. Francisco Alarcon: Because, like I said, Lorca was a wonderful poet who happened to be gay. And the family, of course, did not

00:47:17.310 - 00:47:36.540

want to publish those poems that were too obvious. And so this collection was never really published. And so it wasn't until a few years ago that it came out in a small magazine in Spain, and then the poetry, the Berkeley Poetry Review published

00:47:36.540 - 00:47:48.270

some poems, and we are publishing another two. And so it's very interesting that we did that. And I'm going to read a sonnet that I call anti-sonnet. And I'm going to read it first in Spanish, and then I'm going to read the

00:47:48.270 - 00:47:55.260

translation and the translation was done by Adrienne Rich, and it's a wonderful translation. And I don't know if I can do justice to the translation. [IV]

00:47:55.800 - 00:48:15.510

Tus manos son dos martillos que clavan y desclavan alegres la mañana, tiernos puños desdoblados de tierra, dulces pencas de plátanos pequeños tus manos huelen a las zarzamoras que cosechas en los campos que roban tu sudor a dos dólares el

00:48:15.510 - 00:48:35.880

bote, son duras, tibias, jóvenes y sabias azadones que traen pan a las mesas, oscuras piedras que al chocar dan luz, gozo, sostén, ancla del mundo entero yo las venero como relicarios porque como gaviotas anidadas, me consuelan, me alegran, me

00:48:35.880 - 00:48:51.940

defienden Your hands are two hammers that joyfully nail down and pry up the morning, tender fists that unfold from earth, sweet bunches of small bananas, your hands smell of the blackberries you

00:48:51.940 - 00:49:11.050

harvest in fields that steal your sweat at $2 a bucket, they are hard, warm, young and wise, hoes that bring breath- bread to the tables, dark stones that give light when struck, pleasure, support, anchor the whole universe, I worship them

00:49:11.050 - 00:49:29.670

as reliquaries, because like nesting gulls, they console me, they like me, defend me. And so this collection goes like that and I think it has to do with love. And the new collection that I'm coming out

00:49:29.670 - 00:49:43.140

with is titled, "Cuerpo en Llamas." And let me read you some of those poems and they're very, very short poems. And the first one says: LOVE, LOVE DOESN'T EXIST

00:49:44.200 - 00:50:05.860

Love, love doesn't exist/it's a lie that there are lovers/the pure invention of fools/you tell me concealing your surprise/as you notice in the window of the cafe/both our shadows embracing. ORDER IN THE HOME

00:50:07.220 - 00:50:31.160

You complain because I leave wet towels on the bed, "All things have their place," you lecture me gathering the pile of books off the kitchen table. I hurry and cover with my body, the underwear that gleams like a smile on the red living room

00:50:31.160 - 00:50:48.550

sofa. BODY IN FLAMES I want to abandon words, go and awaken the senses. I want no memory, rather to embrace every instant. I want to think with my

00:50:48.550 - 00:51:05.290

feet, I want to cry with my shoulders, I want to set my whole body on fire. MY HANDS I have no other eyes than my hands, nor more of a mouth, a

00:51:05.290 - 00:51:26.220

heart, than my hands. Trembling, they close in on you, in the dark of night they see you, they speak to you. And this collection has to do with that, you know, the power of love. And maybe to, you know, end with a poem from my

00:51:26.220 - 00:51:42.210

collection called, "Tattoos" I want to end with a prayer. And this is a prayer, and that defines what I call God and I think it's a prayer that different people can relate. And the poem is both in English and Spanish, so I'm going to read it

00:51:42.270 - 00:51:52.560

you know like a serpent going back and forth, and it says: [Oración/Prayer] Quiero un dios de complice que se trasnoche en tugurios de mala fama y los sabados se levante tarde.

00:51:53.250 - 00:52:05.220

I want a god as my accomplice who spends nights in houses of ill repute and gets up late on Saturdays. A god who whistles through the street and trembles before the lips of his lover.

00:52:05.700 - 00:52:17.920

Un dios que haga cola a la entrada de los cines y tome cafe con leche. A god who waits in line at the entrance of movie houses and who likes to drink cafe au lait.

00:52:18.610 - 00:52:29.650

A god who spits blood from tuberculosis and doesn't even have enough for the bus fare. Un dios que se desmaye de un macanazo de policia en un mitin de protesta.

00:52:29.800 - 00:52:39.580

A god knocked down unconscious by the billy club of a policeman in a demonstration. Un dios que se orine de miedo ante el resplandor de los electrodos de tortura.

00:52:39.760 - 00:52:51.880

A god who pisses out of fear before the flaring electrodes of torture. A god hurting to the last bone and biting the air in pain. Un dios que le punce hasta el ultimo hueso y muerda el aire de

00:52:51.880 - 00:53:03.820

dolor un dios desempleado un dios en huelga un dios hambriento un dios fugitivo un dios en exilio un dios encabronado. A jobless god, a striking god, a hungry god, a fugitive god, an

00:53:03.820 - 00:53:20.470

exiled god, an enraged god on. Un dios que anhele desde la carcel un cambio en el orden de las cosas un cambio en el orden de las cosas. A god who longs from jail for a change in the order of things,

00:53:20.560 - 00:53:34.590

for a change in the order of things. Quiero un dios mas dios. I want a more godlike god. Morton Marcus: Thank you very much Francisco Alarcon. We have

00:53:34.590 - 00:53:49.080

been talking with Francisco Alarcon about a number of things, certainly Chicano poetry, certainly the coming of Cinco de Mayo. I want to remind the people out there that on May 7th at Louden Nelson Community Center, we will have a Cinco de

00:53:49.080 - 00:54:07.260

Mayo celebration of Mexican resistance with Dr. Loco, the Robert Ojeda Band and the White Horse Dancers. That's in Laurel Park right behind the Louden Nelson Community Center from 12 to 6pm. Now before that, Francisco was telling us about

00:54:07.260 - 00:54:25.740

this, actually on Friday, the 5th of May, or Cinco de Mayo, the reception at the University Chancellor's House at UCSC from 4:30 to 6:30pm, the Chicano Art Show from 7 to 11pm, and the dance, all of which everyone is invited to, a dance from 10pm to

00:54:25.920 - 00:54:38.910

1am. All of the last two are at Porter College and the Porter College dining room for the dance from 10pm to 1am with music by Steve Cervantes, and his California Dream Band. I really think that we've got you ready for this wonderful

00:54:38.910 - 00:54:51.900

weekend. I have also neglected to make some announcements which I'll make now, KUSP thanks Nicholas Van Angle for providing a grant to help make the Poetry Show possible. Nicholas Van Angle is a real estate agent in Carmel. At the same time, Plaza

00:54:51.900 - 00:55:04.470

Books has provided a grant which has helped make the last half hour of programming possible. Plaza Books is located on the Pacific Garden Mall in Santa Cruz, we appreciate their support. My friends, let me tell you that next week Joe will be

00:55:04.470 - 00:55:18.450

here and I will be here, and we will be talking and presenting the first in the series of recordings that we made down in Australia of the new Australian poetry. So next week begins it, we've been talking about it, I think you will find it

00:55:18.450 - 00:55:32.430

fascinating, a whole new kind of poetry that has not been going on in this country, maybe ever. But there's another kind of poetry going on, Chicano poetry, go to the readings, go to the celebrations, Cinco de Mayo, with our brothers from the

00:55:32.430 - 00:55:42.080

South. Thank you again, Francisco, wonderful show. And we're going to sign off with, you can tell us what the final record is. Francisco Alarcon: Well, this is a one of the best Chicano poets

00:55:42.080 - 00:55:58.430

I think, I have tremendous respect for Jose Montoya. He came to Santa Cruz about a week ago, and he has his own group that he calls Casindio. There's a beautiful metaphor again, who we are, we are almost Indian, we are almost everything. So this

00:55:58.430 - 00:56:48.830

is a wonderful poet, he's a singer, and the first song is called, "LULAC Cadillac," and it's a take off of Don Quixote, the Spanish [unidentified] so listen to that. Morton Marcus: [LULAC Cadillac by Jose Montoya and the

00:56:48.860 - 00:56:50.720

Casindio]