Tag the influence

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 =

Richard Serra & what it comes down to

José Angel Araguz 2 Comments

This week I offer up a new lyrical alignment1. This time I’m working with a quote by artist, Richard Serra who died earlier this spring.

In what became “What It Comes Down To (below),” I found myself drawn to a counted verse approach, specifically working out couplets consisting of a 3 word line followed by a 4 word line. I like how Serra’s stark words breathe across couplets. Since he’s talking of obsession and repetition, both of them come through even further with the added white space.

What I get out of Serra’s words here deals mainly with presence. Obsession and repetition here relate to presence in that they are an insistence of it. Obsession insists on presence in terms of attention; repetition insists on presence by embodying it. Serra is making a point about how obsession leads to repetition, which is attention leading to embodiment.

So much of art as well as living feels split in this way. Whenever we make time to do our art, that is a decision of attention; the art that comes from it is embodiment. Whenever we make time to do things for ourselves–outside of obligations, paying bills, chores, etc.–a similar attention and embodiment occur.

But what is made present after all our efforts?

That’s the poetry of it, I believe.

What It Comes Down To

a found poem based on a quote by Richard Serra

Obsession is what
it comes down to.

It is difficult
to think without obsession,

and it is
impossible to create something

without a foundation
that is rigorous, incontrovertible,

and, in fact,
to some degree repetitive.

Repetition is the
ritual of obsession. Repetition

is a way
to jumpstart the indecision

of beginning. To
persevere and to begin

over and over
again is to continue

the obsession with
work. Work comes out

of work. In
order to work you

must already be
working.

Abrazos,

= José =

  1. For the record, what I term here as a lyrical alignment falls under the category of found poetry. I typically take a quote or excerpt of prose, then work it out into lines. I find that working with other people’s words allows you to focus on pacing, enjambment, breaks across line and stanzas, etc. without worrying about “saying” something.

    The cool thing has been said; this is just poetic celebration. ↩︎