Congressman Luis Gutierrez, Latino civil rights leader who visits Albany tomorrow to talk about his new memoir, Still Dreaming, is profiled and interviewed by Ed Morales in a recent issue of Rolling Stone:
"I wish a had a nickel for every time I had to write 'I will not talk in class' on the blackboard in grade school," says Gutiérrez, 59, calling from his office in Washington. "Some people are born talkers, and I wrote this book as though you were having a conversation with me." Fully conversant in Spanglish, Gutiérrez switches from Chicago street mode to island Spanish easily because of his family's move back to Puerto Rico while he was still in high school. While the transition was a little awkward – island locals were quick to call him a "gringo" because of his imperfect Spanish – he learned something important about himself there.
More in Rolling Stone: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/luis-gutierrez-congress-rebel-with-a-cause-20131010
More about Gutierrez's visit: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/gutierrez_luis13.html
Showing posts with label latino. Show all posts
Showing posts with label latino. Show all posts
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Profile of Luis Gutierrez in Rolling Stone
Friday, October 26, 2012
Edwin Torres: A Startling Performer, Tonight in the Ballroom
"I have seen Edwin Torres dancing to the sound of a musical saw while wearing a hat of dirt on his head in a store window, and once wearing pure white with the painter/poet Elizabeth Castagna on New Year's day 1999. I've always wanted to be Edwin Torres for a day, to think like him, to wear cool glasses, to be as tall and thin, to have Puerto Rican soul so I could write 'I'm near a tiger's smooch, BURP!'"
Read more of Brenda Coultas' Electronic Poetry Center review of Edwin Torres' poetry collection, Fractured Humorous here: http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/torrese/fractured.html
Get a taste of Torres' performance style on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8uOPBn5jW4 Read More......
Thursday, October 25, 2012
A Cascade Of Words: Jesus Papoleto Melendez
http://www.uctv.tv/shows/A-Cascade-Of-Words-Jesus-Papoleto-Melendez-2645
More about the Diasporican Poets Cafe tomorrow at UAlbany: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/puerto_rican_diaspora12.html
Photo: Melendez on the Boricua Poetry website. Read More......
Giannina Braschi this Friday at the Diasporican Cafe
Giannina Braschi, major contemporary bilingual poet and fiction writer, will join a number of other "Diasporican" poets on stage 5:30-7:45 p.m., Friday, October 26th in the Campus Center Ballroom.
Written in inventive mixtures of English, Spanish and Spanglish, Braschi's work explores collisions of language, culture and history with regard to the lives and experiences of 50 million Hispanic-Americans living in the United States.
In the Evergreen Review, Barney Rosset said of Braschi's 2011 novel, The United States of Banana, “Revolutionary in subject and form, United States of Banana is a
beautifully written declaration of personal independence. Giannina Braschi’s
take on U.S. relations with our southern neighbors in Latin America and the
Caribbean, most especially Puerto Rico, is an eye-opener. The ire and irony make
for an explosive combination and a very exciting read.”
In advance praise of Braschi's bilingual novel, Yo Yo Boing! (2011), Harvard scholar Doris Sommer said, “A bilingual rollercoaster....A rush of gloriously nuanced sentences that teeter
between the grotesque and burlesque…the text transmutes poetry into novel, into
screenplay, dialogue, and by extension to more and sometimes unidentified
variants.”
Upstate Nuyorican Poets Cafe
Featured performers will include Jesus Papoleto Melendez, one of the founders of the Cafe in the 1970s, Edwin Torres, a transformational figure at the Cafe in recent decades, and Giannina Braschi and Magdalena Gomez, both leaders of the Nuyorican poetry movement.
More on the event in Albany: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/puerto_rican_diaspora12.html
More on the Nuyorican Cafe: http://www.nuyorican.org/
And here's a recent article about a newly announced $7 million renovation of the cafe: http://www.thelodownny.com/leslog/2012/10/nuyorican-cafe-looks-to-undertake-a-7-million-dollar-renovation.html Read More......
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Performing Voices of the Puerto Rican Diaspora
Dear Readers, Writers, Teachers, Students and All Members of
the General Public:
We invite you to attend the following free events:
Performing
Voices of the Puerto Rican Diaspora
October 26 (Friday)
Conversations with Diasporican Writers — 2:15 – 3:45 p.m., Assembly Hall, Campus Center, Uptown Campus
Moderator: Tomás Urayoán Noel, University at Albany
Guest Writers: Magdalena Gómez, Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes, Jesús Papoleto Meléndez, and Edwin Torres
Diasporican Café: Performing Voices of the Puerto Rican Diaspora — 5:30 – 7:45 p.m., Campus Center Ballroom
Guest Writers: Giannina Braschi, Magdalena Gómez, Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes, Jesús Papoleto Meléndez, and Edwin Torres
Five internationally known U.S. Puerto Rican writer-performers will discuss their work in an afternoon panel discussion and present readings/performances in the evening. Both events are part of the 20th Anniversary Conference of the Puerto Rican Studies Association, which is being held at UAlbany October 24 – 27. For more information on the Conference go to: http://www.puertoricanstudies.org.
Giannina Braschi is the author of the collection of poetry and fiction El imperio de los sueños (1988; Empire of Dreams, 1994) and the novels Yo-Yo Boing (1998) and United States of Banana (2011).
Magdalena Gómez, poet, playwright, and actor, is the co-founder and artistic director of Teatro V!da, a performing arts collective that explores multicultural and multigenerational issues.
Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes is a poet, fiction writer, playwright, and performer. His publications include the story collection Uñas pintadas de azul (2009, Blue Fingernails), and the play Escándalo! (2003).
Jesús Papoleto Meléndez is one of the founders of New York’s Nuyorican Poets Café. An award-winning poet, his forthcoming book Hey Yo/Yo Soy! 40 Years of Nuyorican Street Poetry, is the first volume of his collected work.
Edwin Torres is known internationally for his experimentalist performance poetry that incorporates sound, visual theatre, and audience participation. He is the author of the poetry collection In the Function of External Circumstances (2010).
Sponsored by the Center for Latino, Latin American, and Caribbean Studies; the Department of Latin American, Caribbean, and US Latino Studies; and the College of Arts and Sciences at UAlbany
Read More......
October 26 (Friday)
Conversations with Diasporican Writers — 2:15 – 3:45 p.m., Assembly Hall, Campus Center, Uptown Campus
Moderator: Tomás Urayoán Noel, University at Albany
Guest Writers: Magdalena Gómez, Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes, Jesús Papoleto Meléndez, and Edwin Torres
Diasporican Café: Performing Voices of the Puerto Rican Diaspora — 5:30 – 7:45 p.m., Campus Center Ballroom
Guest Writers: Giannina Braschi, Magdalena Gómez, Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes, Jesús Papoleto Meléndez, and Edwin Torres
Five internationally known U.S. Puerto Rican writer-performers will discuss their work in an afternoon panel discussion and present readings/performances in the evening. Both events are part of the 20th Anniversary Conference of the Puerto Rican Studies Association, which is being held at UAlbany October 24 – 27. For more information on the Conference go to: http://www.puertoricanstudies.org.
Giannina Braschi is the author of the collection of poetry and fiction El imperio de los sueños (1988; Empire of Dreams, 1994) and the novels Yo-Yo Boing (1998) and United States of Banana (2011).
Magdalena Gómez, poet, playwright, and actor, is the co-founder and artistic director of Teatro V!da, a performing arts collective that explores multicultural and multigenerational issues.
Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes is a poet, fiction writer, playwright, and performer. His publications include the story collection Uñas pintadas de azul (2009, Blue Fingernails), and the play Escándalo! (2003).
Jesús Papoleto Meléndez is one of the founders of New York’s Nuyorican Poets Café. An award-winning poet, his forthcoming book Hey Yo/Yo Soy! 40 Years of Nuyorican Street Poetry, is the first volume of his collected work.
Edwin Torres is known internationally for his experimentalist performance poetry that incorporates sound, visual theatre, and audience participation. He is the author of the poetry collection In the Function of External Circumstances (2010).
Sponsored by the Center for Latino, Latin American, and Caribbean Studies; the Department of Latin American, Caribbean, and US Latino Studies; and the College of Arts and Sciences at UAlbany
Thursday, October 4, 2012
On the "Paradox" of Teaching Writing at MIT
Junot Diaz: It's more like teaching cooking in a state penitentiary.
More in USA Today: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/books/news/story/2012-09-05/junot-diaz-how-you-lose-her/57611976/1
Picture: Cooking at the Arizona State Prison-Perryville Desert Rose Cafe, from the Arizona Republic.
Read More......
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Junot Diaz on the Apocalypse
"If you could be any other writer, who would you be?" In a fantastic subversion of expectations, Diaz said that he would be Octavia Butler, the African-American science fiction author of such classics as Parable of the Sower and Kindred. It was a beautiful moment in the history of literature.
How does the idea of apocalypse play into your current project and your work in general?
As far as the apocalypse, I grew up in the most apocalyptic area in the world. We can’t think of a place that has endured more apocalypses than the Dominican Republic and the island of Hispaniola, or the island of Haiti has endured everything expect for a nuclear catastrophe. I think these shadows, these historical echoes reached me and they both intrigued and troubled me. And I came up in New Jersey, within slight distance of New York City during the time of the possibility of total nuclear annihilation. I was one of those kids that grew up in a time where you would see, on the news, they’d suddenly flash a map of New York City and they would show a big black ring, of every area, every town, every person within that range would be utterly obliterated, and of course, we were deep in the heart of that ring. The apocalyptic history of both the Dominican Republic and the United States has resonated with me and continues to shape a lot of the interests in my work.
More: http://www.bohemian.com/BohoBlog/archives/2012/10/02/extended-play-an-interview-with-2012-macarthur-fellow-junot-diaz Read More......
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Junot Diaz Wins MacArthur "Genius" Award
From the L. A. Times:
On Monday, news of who would be named the 2012 MacArthur Fellows leaked out early in reports by the Associated Press and elsewhere. Two writers are among the 23 artists, scientists and thinkers on the list: Junot Diaz and Dinaw Mengestu.
Diaz is the author of, most recently, the short story collection "This Is How You Lose Her," published in September. Mengestu's most recent work is the 2010 novel "How to Read the Air." Both are published by Riverhead.
Each author will receive a no-strings-attached "genius grant" of $500,000. All MacArthur Fellows are awarded $100,000 a year for five years.
More: http://www.latimes.com/features/books/jacketcopy/la-jc-macarthur-genius-junot-diaz-dinaw-mengestu-20121001,0,2594121.story Read More......
Monday, October 1, 2012
Junot Diaz Likes Character Flaws
“Characters who have all the answers and know exactly how to live and how to always do the right thing give off very little heat in a story,” he said in a recent phone interview.
“Most of us love ambivalence,” he said, “and my character Yunior is one of those dicey cats that will at times turn off and offend readers. He often makes the wrong choice, especially in relationships, but I still thought writing about him would be worth the risk because he’s an honest cat and there’s something refreshing about that.” More.
Read More......
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Near-Riot in NYC Book Store for Junot Diaz
More in Colorlines.com: http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/09/junot_diaz_nearly_causes_a_riot_in_new_york.html
The Assembly Hall, Campus Center, where he will speak at 4:15 and 8PM has an official capacity of 160. Feel free to weigh in if you think this is poor planning on our part. :) Read More......
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