The Influence

Just a quick post to announce that my poem “American Studies” has just been published at Terrain: A Journal of the Built + Natural Environments (link includes audio)!

This poem is part of Terrain.org’s “Letter to America” Series which “presents urgent, powerful, and beautiful post-election responses from writers, artists, scientists, and thinkers across the United States.” This series so far includes contributions from a list of notable writers including JM Miller, Jane Hirshfield, and Tara L. Masih. Read more about the series here.

It means a lot to me to get this poem out into the world as it has helped me channel some of the grief, fear, and complicated emotions I’ve been dealing with post-election.

Special thanks to Simmons Buntin for the opportunity!

See you Friday!

José

kerosene Just a quick post to announce the publication of my essay “Snapshots From a Year Without Electricity” in Art + Money!

Art + Money is a free monthly newsletter in which writers and artists talk about how money shapes their lives. (No spam. Just crazy-great original essays.) Sign up here: http://tinyletter.com/catbaab/

“Snapshots From a Life Without Electricity” moves in small “snapshot” paragraphs through some of the pivotal moments of the year I lived in my friend Dennis’ house, sans electricity but with plenty of words to keep us going.*

Here’s an excerpt from my essay:

In this snapshot you recognize the field mouse as you last saw him. Your friend laughs at you whenever you come to him agitated after hearing the mouse scurry through the unused kitchen. There’s nothing for him there. Let him look around. After months of the mouse eating through books, shelves covered in what could be mistaken for confetti, the aftermath of words being ripped and ground until they weigh thick in ink and pulp inside his belly, you stand frozen here, as if mirroring the mouse. Anyone else looking in would think each still figure waited for the other to begin explaining everything; anyone else would wonder who in this snapshot is unable to move on.

Art + Money is published by my longtime friend and fellow writer Catherine Baab-Muguira. My essay has the honor of being the second installment.

Be sure to sign up for the newsletter to check out the rest!

See you Friday!

José

*(This friendship is also the subject of one of the sequences of my chapbook Corpus Christi Octaves).