Author Padma Venkatraman‘s most recent novel A Time to Dance was an Honour Winner in the 2015 South Asia Book Award and was chosen for inclusion in IBBY’s 2015 Selection of Outstanding Books for Young … Continue reading ...
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By: Melinda Palacio,
on 4/10/2014
Blog: La Bloga (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Latino Poetry, Richard Blanco, Aaron Smith, Joseph Millar, Maria Gillan, Passaic County Community College, Paterson Poetry Prize, Add a tag
Last Saturday, I enjoyed my fifteen minutes (or more) of fame. I'm still feeling the glow of being including in the finalists for the Paterson Poetry Prize. I had the pleasure of meeting three poets with varying and powerful styles, including our winner, 5th Inaugural Poet Richard Blanco of Beyoncé and Anderson Cooper fame, and finalists Aaron Smith and Joseph Millar. What a way to celebrate Poetry Month!
By: Melinda Palacio,
on 3/13/2014
Blog: La Bloga (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Mardi Gras, Poetry Readings, International Women's Day, Richard Blanco, Anthony Posey, Ava Leavell-Haymon, Delia Tomino Nakayama, Gina Ferrara, Patterson Poetry Prize, Poetry Buffet, Add a tag
Melinda Palacio
By: Jason Boog,
on 1/21/2013
Blog: Galley Cat (Mediabistro) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Richard Blanco, Poetry, Barack Obama, Add a tag
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By: Marjorie Coughlan,
on 1/14/2016
Blog: (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Rob Weisbach, Paul Celan, South Asia Book Award, Carver: A Life In Poems, Climbing the Stairs, Richard Blanco, A Time to Dance, Island's End, MWD interview, Gregory Pardlo, Mathematwist, T.V.Padma, MWD Theme - All About Balance - disability & special needs, A Child’s Garden of Verses, Amitav Gosh, Children's and YA books about disability, Kazuo Ishugiro, Reba Paeff Mirsky, Smt. Savitri Rajan, The B. F. G., The Cleverest Thief, The Plague of Doves, Thirty-One Brothers and Sisters, Interviews, Isabel Allende, Katherine Paterson, Young Adult, Cynthia Rylant, Brian Selznick, Louise Erdrich, Laurie Halse Anderson, Jerry Spinelli, YA books, Padma Venkatraman, Roald Dahl, The Wind in the Willows, The Lord of the Rings, Stephen Roxburgh, Maniac Magee, Carolyn Coman, The Secret Garden, Keats, The House at Pooh Corner, Rainer Maria Rilke, Marilyn Nelson, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Nancy Paulsen, Rabindranath Tagore, Add a tag
Blog: (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Rob Weisbach, Paul Celan, South Asia Book Award, Carver: A Life In Poems, Climbing the Stairs, Richard Blanco, A Time to Dance, Island's End, MWD interview, Gregory Pardlo, Mathematwist, T.V.Padma, MWD Theme - All About Balance - disability & special needs, A Child’s Garden of Verses, Amitav Gosh, Children's and YA books about disability, Kazuo Ishugiro, Reba Paeff Mirsky, Smt. Savitri Rajan, The B. F. G., The Cleverest Thief, The Plague of Doves, Thirty-One Brothers and Sisters, Interviews, Isabel Allende, Katherine Paterson, Young Adult, Cynthia Rylant, Brian Selznick, Louise Erdrich, Laurie Halse Anderson, Jerry Spinelli, YA books, Padma Venkatraman, Roald Dahl, The Wind in the Willows, The Lord of the Rings, Stephen Roxburgh, Maniac Magee, Carolyn Coman, The Secret Garden, Keats, The House at Pooh Corner, Rainer Maria Rilke, Marilyn Nelson, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Nancy Paulsen, Rabindranath Tagore, Add a tag
By: Melinda Palacio,
on 4/10/2014
Blog: La Bloga (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Latino Poetry, Richard Blanco, Aaron Smith, Joseph Millar, Maria Gillan, Passaic County Community College, Paterson Poetry Prize, Add a tag
Melinda Palacio
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| Joseph Millar, Aaron Smith, Melinda Palacio, Maria Gillan, Richard Blanco |
Last Saturday, I enjoyed my fifteen minutes (or more) of fame. I'm still feeling the glow of being including in the finalists for the Paterson Poetry Prize. I had the pleasure of meeting three poets with varying and powerful styles, including our winner, 5th Inaugural Poet Richard Blanco of Beyoncé and Anderson Cooper fame, and finalists Aaron Smith and Joseph Millar. What a way to celebrate Poetry Month!
I'll skip the whiny details about my flights being delayed and then cancelled. Flying into Newark resulted in only a four-hour delay, but the airline gave me a one-hundred dollar voucher, which I'll use for an upcoming trip to Chicago where La Bloga will celebrate its 10th anniversary at the International Latino/a Studies Conference in July. I guess I'm going to complain a little bit more about my travel. On the way back, my plane was delayed by 12 hours, and then cancelled after midnight with no voucher or hotel stay because the problems was weather related. You win some, you lose some, I kept telling myself, and continued telling myself when I realized I had lost an entire day and a half at the airport in Newark.
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| Cancelled, delayed, bumped, and finally rerouted to Houston the next day. |
Speaking of winning, I sure felt like a winner being included in the Paterson Prize for my book, How Fire Is a Story, Waiting (Tia Chucha Press). Our winner, Richard Blanco, delighted the audience with a reading from his latest book, Looking for The Gulf Motel (University of Pittsburgh Press). Blanco reads poetry like a dancer. His foot and hand movements are reminiscent of el maestro Martín Espada.
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| Richard Blanco |
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| Joseph Millar |
Next, Joseph Millar took the stage and read from Blue Rust (Carnegie Mellon University Press). Millar had a casual delivery that impressed me with his ease at being in front of a packed room, his ease at being a poet, and his ease at simply being. He's a cool cat who returned to poetry after two decades of working a various jobs in the San Francisco Bay Area. And he didn't miss a beat.
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| Maria Gillan |
Maria Gillan, Founder and Executive Director of the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College told us ahead of time that Richard would be reading first, but we didn't know the overall order. I may have been nervous and spacing out during that memo, but recall feeling joyous when she called me up to read at the historic Hamilton Club Building in downtown Paterson, a beautiful building that was once a gentleman's club. Paterson is a town that could use some maintenance and TLC for its gorgeous building and famous Paterson Falls.
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| Paterson Falls |
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| Melinda Palacio |
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| The Poetry Center |
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| Aaron Smith |
Aaron Smith brought us home and brought down the house with his reading from Appetite (Pitt Poetry Series University of Pittsburgh Press). I already felt as though I knew Aaron because we have a mutual poet friend in New Orleans, Brad Richard, who I had the pleasure of reading with two days before I left for Newark at the Reading Between the Wines Series at Pearl Wine co.
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| Aaron Smith asked me to sign his book before we read. |
Aaron also bought my book and asked me to sign it. In fact, he bought all of our books, a wonderful gesture of poet to poet support and camaraderie. Aaron has allowed La Bloga to reprint his poem,
| Like Him | |
| by Aaron Smith | |
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| I’m almost forty and just understanding my father doesn’t like me. At thirteen I quit basketball, the next year refused to hunt, I knew he was disappointed, but never thought he didn’t have to like me to love me. No girls. Never learned to drive a stick. Chose the kitchen and mom while he went to the woods with friends who had sons like he wanted. He tried fishing—a rod and reel under the tree one Christmas. Years I tried talking deeper, acting tougher when we were together. Last summer I went with him to buy a tractor. In case he needs help, Mom said. He didn’t look at me as he and the sales guy tied the wheels to the trailer, perfect boy-scout knots. Why do I sometimes wish I could be a man who cares about cars and football, who carries a pocketknife and needs it? It was January when he screamed: I’m not a student, don’t talk down to me! I yelled: You’re not smart enough to be one! I learned to fight like his father, like him, like men: the meanest guy wins, don't ever apologize. | |
Upcoming April Events
Santa Barbara Sunday Poets at the Book Den, April 18, 4-6 pm.
April 30, UCSB Little Theatre, 4pm
May 2, First Friday Phoenix, 6:30 pm at Obliq Gallery
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By: Melinda Palacio,
on 3/13/2014
Blog: La Bloga (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Mardi Gras, Poetry Readings, International Women's Day, Richard Blanco, Anthony Posey, Ava Leavell-Haymon, Delia Tomino Nakayama, Gina Ferrara, Patterson Poetry Prize, Poetry Buffet, Add a tag
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| Peter Nu accompanies hostess, singer, and poet Delia Tomino Nakayama |
Three days after Mardi Gras, I participated in an International Women's Day Celebration, make that two. The first took place at the National Jazz Park in the French Quarter. The five-minute radio plug at WWOZ sure helped bring in a last-minute audience at 3pm on a Friday. Also, the fact that the auditorium was a stone's throw away from Cafe du Monde probably helped as well as the wonderful talent of women singing, playing the piano like nobody's business, and reading poetry. Most people who have never been to New Orleans might know of Cafe du Monde's beignets, fried donuts with fluffy powdered sugar to make you think you are eating a taste of heaven, a cloud with your chicory coffee.
Delia Tomino Nakayama put together a stellar last-minute celebration. I was especially impressed with Kanako Fuwa who is blessed with the ability to sing the blues and performed a perfect rendition of a Nina Simone song. It's great fun to hear her sing jazz standards intermixed with Japanese and traditional Japanese songs reinterpreted with New Orleans Second Line rhythms.
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| Cafe Du Monde, where locals and tourists stop for beignets and chicory coffee. |
Delia Tomino Nakayama put together a stellar last-minute celebration. I was especially impressed with Kanako Fuwa who is blessed with the ability to sing the blues and performed a perfect rendition of a Nina Simone song. It's great fun to hear her sing jazz standards intermixed with Japanese and traditional Japanese songs reinterpreted with New Orleans Second Line rhythms.
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| Poet Amanda Emily Smith |
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| Singer and Pianist Kanako Fuwa |
The following Saturday, March 8 at 2pm, I read with the Poetry Buffet. Unlike the impromptu reading at the Jazz Park, I've had the Poetry Buffet on my calendar since late last year. Hostess Gina Ferrara (Amber Porch Light, Word Tech Press 2013), originally had included Tulane Professor and Poet Peter Cooley. However, with Peter Cooley out sick (apparently he overdid it at AWP in Seattle and was already not feeling well when he got to the conference) that left Gina, myself, and Louisiana State Poet Laureate Ava Leavell-Haymon. Our material worked so well together, we couldn't have planned a more synchronous program. We dedicated our reading to International Women's Day and we were graced by a new generation of women, twin baby girls attended our reading at the Latter Library on St. Charles Avenue. The Latter Library is a special place to read. The old mansion has been restored but there's no question that the ghosts and old world charm remain.
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| Gina Ferrara, Ava Leavell-Haymon, Melinda Palacio at the Latter Library on St. Charles |
While I missed all the gente at AWP, having front row viewing seats to the Thoth Parade a few days before Mardi Gras was worth missing a year of the Associative Writers Program and Writers Conference. Even with Mardi Gras being the coldest in over a hundred years, the weather for the parade passing in front of my house was perfect. While I chose to revel in carnival over AWP, I'm glad I will get to see many friends at the July International Latino/a Studies Conference in Chicago, where la Bloga will be on a panel and celebrate its 10-year anniversary.
Some Mardi Gras Photos...
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| I caught the first of three coconuts at the Mardi Gras Indian celebration at Woldenberg Park. |
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| My King Cake turned out crescent shaped rather than round, but delicious. |
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| This is what a round, store-bought King Cake looks like. |
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| People watching is so much fun during carnival. |
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| Marilyn Monroe came to watch the parade with us. Photo by Anthony Posey |
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| Photo by Anthony Posey. I caught a rose with a broken stem, so I blew the petals to the wind. |
April is National Poetry Month. Upcoming Readings
April 2, I will read with Fleur de Lit's Reading Between the Wines at Pearl River Winery.
April 5, I have the honor of reading with Richard Blanco and finalists Joseph Millar, Aaron Smith and Richard Silberg at the Patterson Poetry Prize Reading.
April 19, the Santa Barbara Sunday Poets, TBA
April 30, I will read at the Little Theatre at UCSB in the College of Creative Studies.
0 Comments on Carnival Rambling and Readings in New Orleans as of 3/14/2014 3:45:00 AM
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By: Jason Boog,
on 1/21/2013
Blog: Galley Cat (Mediabistro) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Richard Blanco, Poetry, Barack Obama, Add a tag
Inaugural poet Richard Blanco will read a poem for President Barack Obama in Washington D.C. for the inauguration, but many of our readers have not read his work yet.
Below, we’ve linked to 14 of Blanco’s poems online, including the free poetry chapbook, Place of Mind. Here’s more from his official biography:
Blanco was made in Cuba, assembled in Spain, and imported to the United States—meaning his mother, seven months pregnant, and the rest of the family arrived as exiles from Cuba to Madrid where he was born. Only forty-five days later, the family emigrated once more and settled in New York City, then eventually in Miami where he was raised and educated. His acclaimed first book of poetry, City of a Hundred Fires, explores the yearnings and negotiation of cultural identity as a Cuban American, and received the Agnes Starrett Poetry Prize from the University of Pittsburgh Press.
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