Mikaela raves:
Hot off the proverbial presses:
Don't miss Sandra Cisneros and Levi Romero reading their work at St. John's this Tuesday!
Tuesday, July 18, 7 pm
Great Hall
Author of House on Mango Street and two fabulous books of poetry, Cisneros writes gorgeous, powerful fiction and hilarious, bitter poetry. Yes, women love her. Yes, she's an important chicana voice. Yes, she will make you laugh til your eyes bleed and your sides quake to nothing. Yes, she will slice open your heart. Doesn't that sound GREAT?For his own part, Levi Romero, native of Dixon, New Mexico, has captured and distilled the native lilt of our land of enchantment and delivered story after story that reminds us of our homes, our families, our culture, and our place here. He's been active in the schools training the next generation of poets to hear, value, and raise to an artform their own voices and those of their elders and friends. Levi is central to our literary heart here in the Q.
A taste of Tuesday:
"Old Maids" -- Sandra Cisneros
My cousins and I,
we don't marry.
We're too old
by Mexican standards.
And the relatives
have long suspected
we can't anymore
in white.
My cousins and I,
we're all old
maids at thirty.
Who won't dress children,
and never saints--
though we undress them.
The aunts,
they've given up on us.
No longer nudge--You're next.
Instead--
What happened in your childhood?
What left you all mean teens?
Who hurt you, honey?
But we've studied
marriages too long--
Aunt Ariadne,
Tia Vashti,
Comadre Penelope,
querida Malintzin,
Senora Pumpkin Shell--
lessons that served us well.
|