Poetic Voices: Flor y Canto

2012-04-25T07:37:25Z

Poets and musicians gathered Friday night at the Guild Theatre to raise funds for C.O.R.E., Chicano Organizing and Research in Education, and their Que Llueva Café scholarship fund.

C.O.R.E. is a non-partisan, research, and advocacy organization with the purpose of improving the education environment of all Chicano/Latino students. C.O.R.E.’s membership, including its board members, come from various backgrounds and fields and support the organization’s many efforts, which include a variety of scholarships, such as the Que Llueva Café.

The Que Llueva Café scholarship was founded in response to “what is an unfair immigration system that continues to deprive aspiring new scholars from continuing their education in the only country they have ever known, the U.S.,” according to the C.O.R.E. website. The scholarship provides financial assistance to undocumented students so that they may continue on their academic path.

The $10 cover charge donation provided the several dozen attendees with an evening filled with poetry and music from some of the area’s finest poets and musicians. Raffle tickets offered opportunities to win gift cards, several bottles of wine, and an electronic book reader. A silent auction was held for a piece of original art by poet and C.O.R.E. member Nancy Aidé González, who also organized this annual fundraising event.

“I believe in the scholarship, which supports the hopes and aspirations of college-bound undocumented students,” she said. “Many of the students applying for the scholarship have had difficult lives. Despite setbacks, they have achieved academically and want to attend universities. They want to improve their lives. They are the dreamers the DREAM Act seeks to help.”

C.O.R.E. executive director Miguel Cordova said scholarship applications have arrived from Georgia, South Carolina and Arizona, from graduating high school students who “believe they can make it in college.”

The event featured local poets Francisco X. Alarcón, Julia Connor, JoAnn Anglin, Graciela Ramirez, Paco Marquez, Sean Penna, Rosalba Gabriela Ruvalcaba, Betty Sánchez, an open mic, and musicians Patrick Grizzell, Cynthia Llano Faulkner and Joaquin Clemente Faulker. Several poets are also members of Los Escritores del Nuevo Sol, a Sacramento-based writing group.

The mix of poetry read in Spanish by Ramirez and Sánchez was complemented by the poetry read in English by Anglin and Aidé González. Several poets, including Alarcón and Marquez, read their pieces in both Spanish and English.

The audience was moved by poems like Penna’s “Las Muertas de Juárez,” about the deaths of women in Juarez (“A vile lachryphagous moth/ Drinking tears of sorrow/ Pain/ And misery/ From those he has taken/ And those he is yet to take”).

Aidé González read her poem “La Llorona,” based on the Mexican legend of the Weeping Woman.

“It is said La Llorona’s spirit is blessed with natural beauty and long, flowing black hair,” she said. “Wearing a white gown, she roams the rivers and creeks, wailing into the night and searching for children to drag, screaming to a watery grave. Though the tales vary, the one common thread is that she is the spirit is of a doomed mother who drowned her children and now spends eternity searching for them in rivers and lakes. I wrote ‘La Llorona’ because it is an important legend in my culture.”

Local poet and musician Grizzell performed two sets, including a bluesy song, and at times incorporating the harmonica along with the guitar. He can often be found throughout Sacramento performing music or reading poetry, and his books may be purchased at The Book Collector.

Early Mexican and Californio musical pieces were performed by C. Faulkner on mandolin and J. Faulkner on guitar. C. Faulkner related that people often ask why the songs are performed in Spanish. “Because at this time [California] was Alta California.”

The duo performed a set that included “El Capotin.” C. Faulkner credits Charles Fletcher Lummis with preserving these songs, which he recorded on Edison wax cylinders in 1903 and 1904.

Sacramento poet laureate emeritus Julia Connor began her reading with “The Place of Dark Blue Flowers,” a poem about Sacramento.

Her second poem, “Hidden Religions,” is a “poem about the making of poetry couched in the lore of ancient Ireland.” The poem refers to how sacred stones in Ireland in the 3rd century B.C. had to be chipped so that they would fit exactly when used to create stone monuments. Connor compares that construction to the poet sculpting words to fit a poem.

Connor also read a series of poems entitled “Postcards from Todo Santos” after having spent a week in that part of Baja California. The first section was about dogs because she said that the town was “full of dogs.” Connor finished her reading with “Epitaph.”

One of the highlights of the event was Alarcón’s invocation to the four cardinal directions. Beginning with North and ending with West, he invited the audience to stand and join him in calling the earth’s four directions. At each location, the ancient Nahuatl word, “tahui,” is called out twice.

“In the Nahuatl tradition,” Alarcón writes, “North is the Land of the Dead,” where the ancestors originated from, and they are called upon “to grant us their wisdom.” East is where the sun rises and “is the direction of our birth, of our childhood and youth, of passion, and is ruled by the protectors of love, of the arts and poetry, and of what is really most precious in life,” he continues. South is the “fertile land of Mesoamerica where my family ancestors came from. It is dedicated to honor all women.” West is where the sun sets, and “in the Nahuatl tradition, it also represents the end of our life journey.”

Alarcón has performed this ritual, which is an ancient oral tradition, hundreds of times at poetry readings, weddings, funerals, and performed the invocation once in the Senate Chamber of the California State Capitol.

In addition to his invocation and his poems, including one in the form of a letter to Hernando Cortez and another in response to Columbus, he is the creator of the “Poets Responding to SB 1070” Facebook page. He began the page in response to the controversial Arizona bill that many claim encourages racial profiling. He also spoke of the nine students known as the Capital Nine who protested the passage of SB 1070, calling them “the hope of our nation.”

“We are all humans,” he said. “Each poem is an act of faith, a call for action.”

Poetic voices educate immigrant choices

2012-04-24T06:42:41Z

More than 85 people attended a poetry benefit at the Guild Theater on April 21, 2012 to raise funds for the “Que Llueva Café” scholarship which aims to support the dreams, hopes, and aspirations of college bound undocumented students so they can earn their college degree and allow their hard work and sacrifice to persevere.

Thirty scholars were chosen holistically by a panel of community volunteers through CORE, Chicano Organizing and Research in Education earlier this month. Every year, the group aims to raise $15,000 to help undocumented scholars working towards higher education. Recipients live everywhere in the United States, not just in California.

“When we first put this scholarship together five years ago, there was a lot of hate,” Miguel Cordova, a state worker at Department of Education admits. He said some of the board members endured threats for moving the controversial scholarship forward.

“I think there is a great deal of fear. We have since come a long way towards bridging the gap for equality in education.”

He wishes that he could provide help to all 1,400 scholars who apply yearly. Their stories are enduring, but the group just does not have all the funds required to help them all. The applications go through at least five reviews until a decision is made.

The benefit is one of the many that the group organizes for the year which raised $13,000 so far. They are well on their way for their goal with one more fundraiser planned late in 2012.

Francisco Alarcon, Julia Connor, JoAnn Anglin, Nancy Aide Gonzalez were some of the educators who recited prose. Other poets include Betty Sanchez, Sean Penna, Rosalba Gabriela Ruvalcaba, and Paco Marquez. Musicians, Patrick Grizzell, Cynthia Llano Faulkner and Joaquin Clemente also gained spectators attention.

The evening is proof that poets come from all walks of life. From social workers, to lawyers, musicians, to visual artists, they paint the picture representing the meaning of the American dream.

"Poetry makes business sense,” said John Martinez. “In poetry the use of similes communicates the ideas that we are trying to set forth. I use similes daily when I'm closing," said John Martinez, an attorney who rededicated himself to writing rhyme at age fifty.

After four children and half a dozen grandchildren, he decided to pick up the passion he left behind at twenty. “It's never too late,” he adds. His wife Rosa America said that he used to write poems when they first met as a young couple starting out in life. When you follow ambition, work and family responsibilities have a way of taking over your life.

Here is Martinez in one of his rare public appearances.

And just like many influential older brothers, he was able to convince his younger sibling Ramiro Martinez, a visual artist to also share his take on literacy in the open mic later in the night.

Ramiro’s poem can be viewed here.

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Poetic Voices: Flor y Canto

Poetic voices educate immigrant choices