March 2008ISSN 1543-6063 www.MIpoeSIaS.coM
aMerIcaN
cubaN
ISSue
Si Gst eit:emm TrelleS
March 2008 Volume 22, Issue 3
poeTry
4
GrISel y. acoSTa
Dream Water Breath Death • Holographic Glitter • Concentric Circles
7
rIch vIllar
174th Street • Ode to Henry Kissinger • Denitions
11
elISa albo
Baby, I Love Your Way • Hatikva • Getting Out of the Kitchen and On With Your Life
14
eMMa TrelleS
How to Write A Poem: Theory #62 • What Would Have Happened if I Had MarriedYou • In an Alcove Between the Beacon and the Avalon • Autumn Unexpected
16
SaNdra caSTIllo
Quickening Days • This is What Happens When I Fall Asleep
20
vIrGIl Suarez
La Madre del Agua • Balsero/Rafter • Blue Cuban • Moon
22
SuzaNNe frISchkorN
Letra • What It Means to be Cuban, Hyphenated • Clerestory Sky •Samhain
24
achy obejaS
May First • 3 Stories
25
huGo rodrIGuez
C-Shift • D.O.A • The Gods of Rescue
26
MIa leoNIN
When I Arrive • Unraveling the Bed •
Aparicion de la Virgen
• A Miami Story
30
keMel zaldIvar
Poem • Apostrophes to the Sky • How to Read Dick Case
31
adrIaN caSTro
Handling Destiny: On Crossing Borders • Handling Destiny: Tools of the Trade •The Fickle Nature of Friendship
40
dIeGo QuIroS
The Sun • Superuous Touch (while riding the metro) • Wind
42
krISTINa MarTINez
The Escape Artist Otherwise Known as Our Lady of Charity • Fit of Cypresson the Dirt Hill
45
rITa MarIa MarTINez
Reading Jane Eyre • Jane Eyre’s Fashion Remedy • Saint John Rivers Popsthe Question on Jane Eyre
48
dulce MeNeNdez
Miami • How To Paint A Cuban Dream
50
carIdad MccorMIck
Puta • Quinceñera • Erosion
52
rIchard blaNco
New Orleans Sestina Against Order • Even if the Sun Explodes • Looking for theGulf Motel, Marco Island, Florida
revIewS
17
oScar hIjueloS, rhyThM kING
Kirk Curnutt reviews Oscar Hijuelos’s
Rhythm King
.
34
The INveNTIoN of SkIN: love, MaGIc aNd MIracle IN MIa leoNIN’S poeTry
Michael Parkerreviews Mia Leonin’s
Unraveling the Bed.
44
MIcro-revIew
Julie R. Enszer on Achy Obejas’s chapbook
This is What Happened in Our Other Lie
.
froNT cover
The Ecstasy o St Theresa
(Diego Quiros) is about the moment just prior to making love. The actual moment of ecstasy in lovemaking is captured inside the triangle, which marks the transition between this world and the other. The trianglerepresents the vulva, and the angelic symbols written around its border represent creation, the doorway to giving life. The arrow ontop is Cupid’s arrow about to strike. The owers are Angel’s Trumpets, which, much like making love, are highly intoxicating and aresometimes ingested for recreational or shamanic intoxication. The painting is a combination of the Bernini sculpture, a model from aVictoria’s Secret catalog, and the painter’s own attempts at experiencing small moments of divinity through the body of another.
For more information on and the latest guidelines for MiPOesias, please stop by www.mipoesias.com.
When MiPO publisher DidiMenendez rst asked me to editthe American-Cuban issue, I hadsome particular ideas about thepoems I wanted to include. Mostly,these thoughts were a list o whatI wanted to avoid. I did not wish topublish odes to a palm-rich island.I did not want to read about ripemangos or assimilation or the onesuitcase everyone crammed theirlives into when they fed rom therevolution. I thought the American-Cuban poet was now beyond thetropical motis and the ever-presentcontemplation o the past. It wasour time to show we could write widely; we were not hyphenated poets compelled by our histories, butsimply writers working our crat in resh ways. And I was right. And I was wrong.The 18 poets in this issue o MiPO showed me that we are still telling our stories, and there is no talewithout a beginning. Where we come rom is as vital to our lives as blood and air. Yet the poems on thesepages requent the past as readily as the present, or even the imagined, and they are all places lled withremarkable voices. They tell o road trips to New Orleans and Key West, o the resurrection o Jane Eyre,o the deities we pray to and or whom we light candles. At times these poems are not narrative but lyric,foating reely between dreams and cities, between the the moon and the harvest. Some voices speakor the those who can no longer be heard, the ones who did not survive the desperate ocean passagebetween ascism and reedom.The late Cuban poet, writer and dissident Reinaldo Arenas once noted that his people were dened bynoise because Cubans can neither enjoy nor suer in silence. We must be heard. So it goes with thepoems in this issue. They are insistent and erce. They make a ne noise.Emma Trelles
leTTer froM The edITor
march 2008 mipo | 3
DiDi MenenDez’portrats brg out thpom th pot.
s mor portrats at th Amrca Pot Portrat Collcto amrcapots.blogspot.com
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