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Torch Songs: Chicano
authors, Juan Felipe Herrera and Tim Z. Hernandez, featured at Galería de la
Raza Throughout the ages wise men, prophets, sages and, of course,
poets have attempted to illuminate the path of life in the only way that divine
truths can be revealed: poetry. On
March 9th Galería de la Raza presents two contemporary poet-sages
from California’s central valley who will try to shine some light on these dark
times at a literary reading appropriately titled, “Torch Songs: An evening of
poetry with Juan Felipe Herrera and Tim Z. Hernandez.” More than just a reading, the coupling of
renowned author/performer Juan Felipe Herrera with new writer Tim Z. Hernandez,
whose first book of poetry, Skin Tax
(Heyday Books, 2004), was published last October, is part of a year long season
of programming celebrating the cross-generational bridge that Galería de la
Raza’s 35 year history represents. Juan Felipe Herrera, whose work with the Galería spans decades,
has written over 20 books of poetry and prose and holds numerous literary
awards including the Ezra Jack
Keats Award and the Hungry Mind Award of
Distinction. Herrera, a trusted and respected mentor
and teacher of Hernandez, wrote the forward for Skin Tax and will introduce his former protégé whose writing
Herrera states, “represents a whole new direction in verse in the Latino
literary world.” As for Tim Z. Hernandez, although Skin Tax is his first published book, he has been writing and
performing spoken word and his own theatre shows for over ten years. Among his recent achievements, Hernandez won
a Best Solo Production Award at the Rogue
Festival 2003 for his one-man show, Diaries
of a Macho. In 2003 he also
received the James Dual Phelan Award sponsored by the San Francisco
Foundation. He is currently enrolled at
the prestigious Naropa University’s creative writing program in Boulder,
Colorado. Hernandez will be reading from his new book, Skin Tax which its publisher describes as “a powerful print debut of a poet with a
mature and complex talent immersed in the themes of a young male wrestling with
his sensitivity and his desires for love and affection, and the societal
pressures surrounding male sexuality, violence, and machismo. Emotionally
wrenching dilemmas are transformed through Hernandez’ verbal sorcery, a style
marked by the sharp, taut sounds of a performance poet mixed with an
accomplished lyricism grounded in the harsh realties of the Central Valley.” WHERE: Galería de la Raza,
2857 24th Street @ Bryant, San Francisco. WHEN: Wednesday,
March 9, 2005. 7:00 p.m. COST: FREE.
INFO: (415)
826-8009, www.galeriadelaraza.org Mama’s Boy
By Tim Z. HernandezCopyright 2004 They say I’m a Mama’s Boy like it’s a bad thing, when all along I thought that’s what a man was. They say my skin was made from goat’s milk & dandelions and that my eyes were plucked from cherry blossom in the month of February A Mama’s Boy they say, with hands too soft for picking legs thin as sprigs of mesquite They say my voice lacks the asphalt grit of courage, that I should work on it and that my name is too short to call me by name, and they’re right When they say I was born with a hole in my heart the size of a tiny fish eye. They’re right when they shout Mama’s Boy and poke at the tenderness that is my back claiming that my hair was quilted from a beggar’s scarf and that my smile was strewn from tender husks of sugar cane it’s true— Since I’ve fondled and groped at the inside of my mama’s womb, just a squirming confirmation of father’s lust, I’ve scheming ways to retreat to that warm familiar sack of membrane and love manifold This is why I lead with the docile nose of a house cat speak my intentions in raw doggerel utterances from the stiff core of a loose core of a taciturn tongue Why I tweeze the nose hair clean behind locked doors using the reflection off surgical steel buck-knives & limp toilet handles lather my jaw with baking powder and lava rock skin tax for the morning peel Because I am soft, zephyr soft and teeming with secrets I am the watermark of houses submerged My whimpering howl a rivulet of what remains from the hidden tidal tears of men Which is why they do not lie when they say my feeble knees are the silken steel edges of grandfather’s worn plow discs tease that my stomach is a sofa cushion stuffed with the down of a thousand geese and that my nipples are the fragile embroidery of Victorian gowns My words they say, these boyish longings do not pounce from the gut like
alloy drum fire candy wine lingo do not come on like
razor neck nicks splashed in allspice fire will not crowbar the ribcage will not shoehorn the chunk boot or adorn the rearview in deer hoof rabbit knuckle luck charms Instead, they are made from sugar water & pomegranate lust jelly for the dawn song warm rhythms for the doubtful eye & the accusing heart It is because of this, they jab their crooked fingers in my face and shout, Mama’s Boy! like it’s a bad thing when all along, you see, I thought that’s what a Man was.
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