Tag Crab Creek Review

feature + interview up at Crab Creek Review blog!

José Angel Araguz 2 Comments

Happy to share a poetry feature and mini-interview that went live earlier this week up at the Crab Creek Review blog!

Screenshot_2017-05-01-14-54-28-2This feature comes as part of their “From Their Archive” series. It’s a generous and encouraging feature to see in the writing community. The post includes my poems “Alien” and “Desgraciado” as well as a short interview where I talk about things that are inspiring me lately and give some advice on the writing life.

“Alien” is included in my second full length poetry collection, Small Fires (FutureCycle Press). This poem is a good keystone of sorts for that project as it has some of the major themes explored throughout that book.

I’m sharing “Alien” below but highly encourage y’all to check out the full post.

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José Angel Araguz

Alien

When I heard this word first thrown around
in conversation, my family’s Spanish
cracked to let in this strange stretch
of cautious whisper, the weather changed
in my mind. I’d read of spaceships,
of planets so advanced you could
travel freely, no stopping to be
asked about citizenship, no stone
face behind a badge peering
to where I sat in the backseat.
The world became another place.
The word wetback began to bring
to mind the scene where the dark creature
burst from a woman’s stomach
in a movie. The sky grew overcast
in my mother’s eyes, kept her inside,
when someone talked of borders.
Rosaries turned secret communicators.
Prayers: reports of worry and want.
Each crucifix, a satellite.
Before, I would stand outside and look
at what I felt to be not empty space
but an open window to another life.
Now, another life invaded.
There were people with papers,
and there were people without.
There were questions I was told
the answers to should they come up.
There were stories I was asked
to forget. When my mother pressed
the silver face of St. Jude
into my palm, I felt the weight of it,
the cold and unfamiliar
​feel of what I didn’t know.

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Check out another poem and my mini-interview at the Crab Creek Review blog!

rioing with roberto carcache flores

José Angel Araguz 1 Comment

maps coverIn my microreview & interview of Roberto Carcache Flores’ A Condensation of Maps, I noted how Flores has a knack for working up images that connect on both a conceptual and emotional level. In this week’s poem, “Friends in Rio Sapo,” we see the gradual build up of details and images culminate in a moment of quiet revelation.

The title sets up a moment of connection along “Toad River,” a phrase which is engaged immediately through the image of “passing clouds” looking “like white lily pads / in a heated / swimming pool.” This latter detail is jolting, as it implies a human element amidst an otherwise nature-focused poem. This jarring moment, however, serves to push the reader closer into the other details. As we move from cliff, albatross, mango groves, and stray dogs, just who the “friends” of the title are become apparent.

This coming together of elements continues in the second stanza as the speaker’s communion with Rio Sapo mirrors the arrival of “stray dogs.” At its heart, this poem reveals such communion as one of its gifts. I say gifts because of the third stanza’s subtle tumbling of details. Line by line, the third stanza evokes in words a similar spell as cast by what it describes. Between the sounds (undress, night’s, silence, innocence on one end; croaks, bank on the other) and the imagery presented, this last stanza reveals not the speaker’s thought but their experience before the reader.

Rio_Sapo

Friends in Rio Sapo – Roberto Carcache Flores

The passing clouds
are reflected on
the water’s surface,
like white lily pads
in a heated
swimming pool,
my feet feel
the rocky cliff’s
sharpness,
an albatross
glides through
surrounding
mango groves.

The opening
of a tuna can
and a bag of raisins
gathers some
stray dogs
around me,
their noses
grown tired
of corn meal
and the occasional
drum stick.

The frogs
begin to undress
the night’s
silence
with the
innocence
of their
early croaks,
all along
the moonlit
river bank.

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20170514_174144-1I’m also happy to share that I have received my copies of my new book Small Fires (FutureCycle Press)!

If you’re interested in purchasing a signed copy, feel free to email me at: thefridayinfluence@gmail.com

Copies can also be purchased from Amazon and FutureCycle Press!

This collection includes my poem “El Rio” originally published in Crab Creek Review.

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Happy rioing!

José