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José Angel Araguz 2 Comments
A blackout poem that reads "To take time and space is resistance."
A blackout poem that reads “To take time and space is resistance.”

Shared the above on my Instagram account @poetryamano on this the Day of Mourning with a note on taking care of one’s self during this time of the year. Whether it’s toxic family (here or elsewhere) or simply feeling left out of the big societal pressure that comes with national holidays, be kind to yourselves and take the time and space that is yours.

This week I’d like to give two celebratory shoutouts.

The cover for Testament by Luke Hankins.
The cover for Testament by Luke Hankins.

First, I’d like to celebrate Luke Hankins’ new chapbook Testament (Texas Review Press) which is now available for pre-order. I had a chance to spend time with this collection early and wrote the following statement:

“Testament shows Luke Hankins deftly at work in a ‘small glory’ of a chapbook! Whether addressing the troubled country that is America or bringing the reader into the prayer-like intimacy of resonant daily moments, Hankins’s poems here create spaces of presence and awareness that are refreshing and which reward rereading. Testament evokes its title by speaking the facts of the self in such ways that we can join Hankins in loving ‘the broken world better / that has broken me.’”

(blurb for Testament by Luke Hankins)
Bernadette Mayer sitting and waving before a microphone with a glass of wine and a water bottle.
Bernadette Mayer sitting and waving before a microphone with a glass of wine and a water bottle.

My second note of celebration is for the recent loss to the poetry community of Bernadette Mayer. Check out her poem “The Way to Keep Going in Antarctica” and join me in being “strong” in the way such poets and poems show us to be.

More soon, fam.

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