Tag literature

community news & new Debate series poems

José Angel Araguz Leave a comment

This week, I’d like to share some news from writers in my communities as well as a few opportunities in the world. Also this week: a new installment in my Debate series of erasures (for more info on the series, check out the original post). Enjoy!

Community News

First up, happy to share that poet and essayist Danielle Cadena Deulen’s third poetry collection, Desire Museum, was recently awarded a 2024 Lambda Literary Award! If you’re interested in hearing them read the final poem from Desire Museum, you can find it on YouTube HERE.

I reviewed Deulen’s second collection for The Volta Blog a ways back and also shared some of their work here on the Influence.

I’m also happy to share that poet and translator Dana Delibovi’s project, SWEET HUNTER: The Complete Poems of St. Teresa of Ávila, A New Translation and Commentary is available for pre-order. The book is scheduled to be released on October 15, 2024—St. Teresa’s feast day from Monkfish Publishing. Learn more about the project on the book’s site.

I had the privilege of getting to spend time with the collection and wrote the following blurb:

If, as Joseph Brodsky once declared, the translator of poetry is a rival to the original poet, then Sweet Hunter: The Complete Poems of St. Teresa of Ávila finds poet, critic, and translator Dana Delibovi answering the challenge with full commitment. The rivalry here, however, is not one of competing techniques. Rather, poem by poem, Delibovi renders Ávila’s vision with a clarity faithful to the original but which works in tones and nuances that speak to our contemporary moment. This tension across language and time presents parallel efforts and passions. Delibovi’s notes which accompany each poem add further depth and provide a running commentary where Delibovi’s own voice mixes with that of previous translators, ultimately creating a lively meditation filled with insightful details from Ávila’s life and practice. This layered approach is apt in engaging with the work of a mystic, work shaped by urgency and faith as much as craft. What Delibovi has gifted us is much more than a selection of poems: it’s a wholly distinct poetic journey.

—José Angel Araguz, author of Rotura and Ruin & Want

Lastly, I’m happy to announce a new book of poems, Matters for You Alone, by Leslie Williams recently published by Slant Books.

From the publisher: “Matters for You Alone is a spiritual exploration of friendship: its shapes and duties, stresses and blames—and its absolute necessity. The book takes its title from Jean-Pierre de Caussade’s classic, Abandonment to Divine Providence, as it strives to interpret everyday encounters and events—the domestic, the mundane—in light of the eternal.”

Check out “Friend Shift” featured in the collection.

Finally, here are the latest additions in the Debate series (for more info on the series, check out the original post).

Debate Series: takes 3.1 & 3.2

  • An erasure poem that reads: we changed the border with border police now the border patrols me.
  • An erasure poem that reads: we border the border now the border ends in a president.

Abrazos,

= José =

Thoughts on the 2024 Presidential debate + new project

José Angel Araguz 2 Comments

I looked it up—which is to say I found the transcript and hit CTRL+F—and can verify that the word “border” was used a total of 38 times during the first 2024 Presidential debate.

Trump said it the most, of course.

Mind, I didn’t go in expecting to have a good time. What surprised me, though, was how I felt every time Trump brought it back to the border: badgered, bullied, berated. All the B words.

I also thought of my students and what they must be feeling. That this is the world we must contend with together.

Because as much as Trump kept on about the border, there was more violence in what wasn’t spoken about by either candidate.

And when the two candidates went off about their golf game, I felt like so much of the world was erased.  

What often gets lost in discussions about “borders” is the reality and history of U.S. involvement in Latin America as well as in other parts of the world. More and more, people are compelled to cross borders because they are fleeing violence, persecution, extreme poverty, or environmental disasters.

Behind every number cited in a statistic, there are individuals, human faces and needs. Every time Trump said the word “border,” those human faces were reduced to rhetoric.

It’s like he is building a wall, only its made of words, and the more he foments hate against marginalized communities, the more words are weaponized against us, and the more obfuscated I feel from the world.

And I know I’m not the only one.

Human beings are not problems to be managed. The scapegoating of migrants has broad implications. It perpetuates stereotypes, fuels division, and distracts from addressing the systemic issues that contribute to migration flows. It risks normalizing discriminatory attitudes and policies that can have far-reaching consequences for our communities and abroad.

This presidential debate serves as a stark reminder of the power of language and discourse in shaping public opinion and policy. I mean, the word “border” was used a total of 38 times—which is to say that 38 times I felt the world get smaller—and here I am trying to show how presence is political.

My act of presence this time around includes this post but also a series of erasures based on the aforementioned transcript. I’ll be sharing the Debate Series here and on my Instagram account, @poetryamano, over the next few weeks. See the first set below. I ended up doing two takes on each quote to represent the “two sides” of the debate.

More than my communities are hurt by this mix of violence, neglect, and erasure by those in power.

For now, I can only speak about my corner of it and let it be known that at least here, in these words, is the debate continuing—not the slapped-together debate we saw last week, but the debate of how we will survive despite it.

Debate Series: takes 1.1 & 1.2

  • An erasure poem that reads: here the border a border most dangerous most dangerous it’s a terrible thing.
  • An erasure poem that reads: here many people border a border where in anger opened a terrible thing.

Debate Series: takes 2.1 & 2.2

  • An erasure poem that reads: borders illegally cross border on border states and cities and in some cases trust.
  • An erasure poem that reads: border resident rants border on overwhelm border and burden using us to crisis.

Abrazos,

= José =