Tag Black Lawrence Press

dispatch 123022

José Angel Araguz 1 Comment

Whole lotta life keeps happening. It’s the main reason I’ve been quiet here. Like today, my partner has been out with a migraine for the greater part of the day, now evening, and I’ve been in the silence that comes with caregiving.

Well, the not-so-silent because my cat, Semilla, is here with me.

Semilla, a black cat, staring out into the camera.
Semilla, a black cat, staring out into the camera.

I’d like to share some recent highlights and publications before the year is through:

  • I was excited to contribute a short write-up for Poets & Writer’s series “Writers Recommend.” I riff a bit about inspiration as well as shoutout the work of Karla Cornejo Villavicencio and Cristela Alonzo.
  • On the Rotura (Black Lawrence Press) front, I am deeply honored to have the book reviewed recently. Thank you to Staci Halt who wrote this insightful review for The Los Angeles Review!
  • Thank you also to Angela María Spring for including Rotura in their “10 New Poetry Collections by Latinx and Caribbean Writers” over at Electric Lit! Means a great deal to be included among such a powerful set of books.
  • And looking ahead, I am excited to share in this space that my debut creative nonfiction collection, Ruin and Want, was chosen as the winning selection during Sundress Publications’ 2022 Prose Open Reading Period! This lyric memoir was a revelatory journey to write, both personally as well as craft-wise. I’m excited to have it find a home at such a great place!

If you’re reading this, thank you for being here. It means a lot to share this space. I’ll be doing some new things next year on here. I also promise to get back to reviewing and sharing in this space in the coming year as it remains something that matters to me greatly.

In the meantime, take care of yourselves out there!

Abrazos,

José 

new poems & review

José Angel Araguz Leave a comment

¡Hola! Happy to be sharing with y’all some recent publications 🙂

First, I am excited to share that I have two poems featured in the latest issue of Talking Writing. This publication of poems is special to me as it has me in two different modes. The poem “Listening” is more in the usual lyric narrative vein, while “On Touch” is more the work I do in the aphoristic, gregueria vein. Both poems mean much to me and I’m excited to share them.

Secondly, I am honored to share this review of Rotura by Dana Delibovi in the latest issue of Witty Partition. Delibovi does a great job of noting the nuances of the project, engaging with both the conceptual themes and the formal aspects. Rare is the reviewer able to honor the use of Sapphics while also unpacking some of the more politically charged moments. Indeed, Delibovi’s description of the book as both “polemical…[and] beautiful” is reaffirming on a number of levels.

a hand palm up holding two scraps of paper on which the following two phrases are written: “welcome to the jungle” and “don’t give up.”

I shared the above image on my Instagram account, poetryamano, with the following caption:

Here are some phrases that are good to hear at any point, I imagine. I don’t remember who handed me these mid workshop during my last semester at NYU getting an MFA, but I’m grateful for them. Still need to hear this. And if you needed to hear this, well here it is. I’m in the middle of doing a journal project, in which I go through the journals I have dating back to 2004 and transcribing anything that is of merit, merit being given a very generous, loose, yet complicated and ever-evolving form. I’m doing this so I can also get rid of the journals and have some space open in our very small apartment, haha. and if this frightens you, you can talk to Marie Kondo about it. I’m hoping that this transcription project will at least be worth reading over once, if not sent out into the world. But we are a ways off from that. Kind of lost my thread, kind of feels right. Welcome.

I’ll underscore the not giving up part today as the world continues its fluctuations of incomprehensible and incredible.

¡Cuídense!

José