Tag astrology

* new chapbook – Reasons (not) to Dance – released!!!

José Angel Araguz 1 Comment
* new chapbook - eek! *

* new chapbook – eek! *

I am happy to announce the release of my new chapbook, Reasons (not) to Dance!

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, this collection of prose poems and flash fictions imaginatively explores moments of hesitation and celebration in the tradition of the Latin American microcuento as practiced by Ana Maria Shua, Eduardo Galeano, and Agosto Monterroso.

To celebrate, I will be posting short readings throughout the summer. Along with excerpts from the chapbook, I will be sharing some of the artwork that made as well as almost made the cover.

Speaking of which, the ink painting on the cover is by Andrea Schreiber (often referred to on the blog as “Ani”). Here’s the original piece:

* looking *

* looking *

The image was inspired by the piece “Look” which I include below along with a short reading. “Look” was originally published in Blue Earth Review and earned 2nd place (along with another Reasons piece, “Relinquished”) in BER’s 2014 Flash Fiction Contest. Enjoy!

Look

after Kafka

When the afternoon light has turned to evening light and she turns to tell you this, points out the purple as the kind of purple she would want a whole room painted in, and you consider what that room would be like if you stood in it, this purple at every side, when the sky you are both looking at seems different each time you look and in your mind say look to yourself and look because she has been looking and wants you to as well, when she perhaps has even gone as far as to enter that room and close the door behind her and is standing alone with this purple at every side, when all you can do is turn from the purple glints across her eyes and look again at the sky, a deeper purple now that imbues itself on the stones of the church, on the sides of the tree, on the slick of the leaves, on the skin of the couple passing by, a purple distance between them, a purple silence and a purple expression on each of their faces – then it is time to shut the blinds and for a moment stand with her in the completely darkened room and let your eyes and hers adjust.

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To purchase a copy of Reasons (not) to Dance go here.

Special thanks to Diane Kistner and all the good people at FutureCycle Press!

Also, I now have an author page on both Goodreads and Amazon! Feel free to stop by and share your thoughts on the new chapbook. More excerpts and readings to come throughout the summer!

Happy reasoning!

Jose

* meeting at the Café San Martín

José Angel Araguz 5 Comments

I came across this week’s poem – “Café San Martín” by Agustín Cadena – while reading through the anthology Goodbye Mexico: Poems of Remembrance. I find in the lyric a  subtly profound meditation on the past, or rather the past we live with in our memories which is always juxtaposed against the ever-changing the present.

This being the first week of June, I thought this an apt piece to share. In the poem, it is always June. The speaker’s address is one of emphasis: the name of a cafe no longer there is repeated until everywhere there are cafes. The moment the poem wins me over is when the speaker’s shoes fill with water, as if the rain were a memory seeking him out.

* plaza lo que plaza *

* plaza lo que plaza *

Café San Martín – Agustín Cadena*

Do you remember the Café San Martín?

I do, sometimes,

when it rains in the afternoon and it’s summer.

We liked to go there and drink coffee

and smoke while we looked at the rain.

The Café San Martín was small,

lukewarm, and it had big windows

that looked onto a meridian of June.

But it is no longer there.

Now on that corner where it was

they sell video games.

Have you tried to go back?

Have you walked in the rain, alone,

remembering the girl you were

and asking yourself where would these people have gone,

with their pink curtains and old spoons

and their Café San Martín?

Yes, I have wanted to go back,

many times,

when I happen to think of you,

when my shoes fill with water

and I wish I were that age again

and not so foolish

as to let go of your hand that afternoon.

Once again it is June and raining.

Everywhere there are cafés

in certain neighborhoods.

The present erases all traces.

*translated by C. M. Mayo

*

Happy tracing!

Jose