Puertorriqueño (Ray DeJesús)

The following post is dedicated to my grandmother Raquel "Quequi" Maldanado Rodriguez (1926-1994). Me haces falta, mami. Te amo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i) For the past several weeks I have given much thought to the idea of identity crisis in poetics. I've been much beleaguered with conflict:  Do I keep my mouth shut? Don't agitate, to I need this discussion in order to sleep soundly, even if this discussion is whispered, a monologue.

ii.) My conscience directs me towards that second choice. Dad: "Don't get on some soapbox!" Me: "I won't!" Mom: "You need to do it! Why not?"

1) There is a silence to my last name, a quietude I've never been able to completely discern. What does it mean? Do I change it? You know, cute high school kids can be quite cruel. Like so many other high school students,I heard the jokes, and I took them, stored them away, festered they did, I'd let them go, eventually. The power of affirmation, reaffirmation, embrace, detachment.

2) What in the hell is poetry? I'm fifteen-years-old, and I'm looking at trochees, stanzas, enjambments, and what I once completely disregarded, dismissed, I decide to touch, devour. In a previous post, I mentioned that cummings' 100 poems was the first volume of poetry I truly read, parsed. I carried it with me at all times: On my way to a friend's, on the N train headed towards Brighton. Why was this text becoming inextricable from my person? A limb. Forgive the mawkishness, it's nostalgia.

3) I remember handing George (Mr. MacLarty at the time) my first attempt. He was so very kind; he was diplomatic, generous. A little too lyrical, but keep trying he said. I was easily discouraged. I decided to sleep for the next two years, but I kept on reading during those moments of wakefulness. I'd scribble something for my la-dy friend, proudly signing it before handing it to her. Silly. Too lyrical, but maybe I'd get it straight. I never did get it straight, and don't plan on getting it straight, but I stay its path. I'm still sleeping, but college in September, time to wake up, just a little.

4) First semester concludes, I decide on my major: Comparative Literature. Fancy, no? Dad: "What the hell are you going to do with that? Maybe advertising." At the time, I wasn't sure, and I'm still not sure, but I was certain that I loved books, text; I liked slamming my body against the shelves of the college library (true story). Chuito Sin Coquis: My first college attempt at writing a one-act play. Good? No. Necessary? Yes. Poorly acted by yours truly on a stage in St. John's University? Of course. Necessary? Yes. Born: 1993. From: Disparaging remarks made by some latina friends at the time. Some of those gems: "Why you dress like that?"; "You smoke Chesterfields?"; "You're like a blancito." Now, mind you, I love, and still love, these friends, but make no mistake, a challenge had been declared by said friends. Why should I write this one-act-er that was best suited for the litter box. Necessary? Yes. Why should I keep writing? Should I? what are 'mi gente' going to think of me. Should I write about the cultura, la famalia? Could I write about other things? Maybe. Not sure. Hand me that riddle.

5) Fast forward: Years later, I continue writing that thing called poetry or poesia; I'm stubborn. Problem: That damn last name. If I only I could change it. No, I'll keep it. Mami would slapped me in the head for even thinking such a thing. I keep it. Now what? What? Yes, Victor Hernández Cruz, William Carlos Williams, Piri Thomas, Miguel Piñero, Julia de Burgos, they'd all been there, done it. Caveat: Not in anyway am I putting my name in that list, just imparting examples.

6) La familia: DeJesús, Rodriguez. Locations: Caguas, Ponce, Brooklyn. Scattered about cool cats. Diaspora with a smile. Grandma (Mami) took care of me, taught me la lengua, made me eat the food, waved the flag, proud to be boricua. Me, proud? Not so much. It took years of thought and therapy before I'd embrace that last name. I suppose my problem with the last name is that it seemed to obstruct, impede my plans. What plans? How? Don't have an answer. Lucky to be bilingual, right Mami, Mom, Dad, Papi? You see, I'm not pontificating, but paying homage to my roots, my foundation, my cement. This for Pepe, John (mi primo, dead at 37 due to alcoholism), Ismael, Abuelo Fingue, Abuelo Luis, Titi Lola, Titi Carmen, Tio Paco ( the gang stories of Red Hook, priceless. Names: The Chaplin Mau-Maus, The Apaches, et al). All them cowboy and indians, my family. Wild cats, Fragmented, but united under one organic, poetic smile. Prosody, unbeknownst to them, was and is in their blood. Whether it manifests itself in form of "Coño" (fuck in our dialect), merengue, salsa, Hector Lavove, Tito, the music, the perpetual dance, tounge and foot. Ray, write about anything you want, it's all there for you to cradle. Use it all. Combine it all. Make it one. Sonrisa. Oh, the physiognomy of it all. The physiology. Orgullo. 

Recommendation of the day: Poets off Poetry (POP), which can be found at Coldfront, is a monthly series where poets write about music. The series is curated by the inimitable Jackie Clark. Ms. Clark will be launching a new series, Song of the Week, in the next few months. Happy to announce that I will be contributing to SOW.   Matt Hart for POP: http://coldfrontmag.com/category/poets-off-poet   The Lower East Side of Manhattan
by Victor Hernández Cruz
By the East River of Manhattan Island Where once the Iroquois canoed in style— A clear liquid caressing another name for rock, Now the jumping Stretch of Avenue D housing projects Where Ricans and Afros Johnny Pacheco / Wilson Pickett The portable radio night— Across the Domino sugar Neon lights of the Brooklyn shore Window carnival of megalopolis lights From Houston Street Twenty kids take off On summer bikes Across the Williamsburg Bridge Their hair flying With bodega bean protein Below the working class jumping like frogs— Parrots with new raincoats swinging canes of bamboo Like third legs Down diddy-bop 6th Street of the roaring Dragons Strollers of cool flow When winter comes they fly In capes down Delancey Past the bites of pastrami Sandwiches in Katz's Marching through red bricks aglow dragging hind leg Swinging arms Defying in simalcas Hebrew prayers inside metallic containers Rolled into walls Tenement relic Roofs of pigeon airports Horse-driven carts arrive with the morning Slicing through the venetian blinds Along with a Polish English Barking peaches and melons Later the ice man a-cometh Selling his hard water cut into blocks The afternoon a metallic slide intercourses buildings which start to swallow coals down their basement Mouths. Where did the mountains go The immigrants ask The place where houses and objects went back Into history which guided Them into nature Entering the roots of plants The molasses of fruit To become eternal again, Now the plaster of Paris Are the ears of the walls The first utterances in Spanish Recall what was left behind. People kept arriving as the cane fields dried Flying bushes from another planet Which had a pineapple for a moon Vegetables and tree bark popping out of luggage The singers of lament into the soul of Jacob Riis Where the prayers Santa Maria Through remaining fibers of the Torah Eldridge Street lelolai A Spanish never before seen Inside gypsies. Once Cordova the cabala Haberdasheries of Orchard Street Hecklers riddling bargains Like in gone bazaars of Some Warsaw ghetto. Upward into the economy Migration continues— Out of the workers' quarters Pieces of accents On the ascending escalator. The red Avenue B bus disappearing down the Needle holes of the garment factories— The drain of a city The final sewers Where the waste became antique The icy winds Of the river's edge Stinging lower Broadway As hot dogs Sauerkraut and all Gush down the pipes of Canal After Forsyth Park is the beginning of Italy Florence inside Mott Street windows— Palermo eyes of Angie Flipping the big hole of a 45 record The Duprees dusting Like white sugar onto Fluffed dough— Crisscrossing The fire escapes To arrive at Lourdes' railroad flat With knishes she threw next to Red beans. Broome Street Hasidics with Martian fur hats With those ultimatum brims Puerto Ricans supporting pra-pras Atop faces with features Thrown out of some bag Of universal race stew— Mississippi rural slang With Avenue D park view All in exile from broken Souths The horses the cows the chickens The daisies of the rural road All past tense in the urbanity that remembers The pace of mountains The moods of the fields. From the guayaba bushels outside of a town With an Arowak name I hear the flute shells With the I that saw Andalusian boats Wash up on the beach To distribute Moorish eyes. The Lower East Side was faster than the speed Of light A tornado of bricks and fire escapes In which you had to grab on to something or take Off with the wayward winds— The proletariat stoop voices Took off like Spauldine rubber balls Hit by blue broomsticks on 12th Street— Wintertime summertime Seasons of hallways and roofs Between pachanga and doo-wop A generation left The screaming streets of passage Gone from the temporary station of desire and disaster I knew Anthony's and Carmen Butchy Little Man Eddie Andrew Tiny Pichon Vigo Wandy Juanito Where are they? The windows sucked them up The pavement had mouths that ate them Urban vanishment Illusion I too Henry Roth "Call It Sleep." From Maraca: New and Selected Poems 1965-2000 by Victor Hernández Cruz. Copyright © 2001 by Victor Hernández Cruz. Published by Coffee House Press. Used by permission of the publisher.

Comments

[Matthew Guadagno]

Absolutely fantastic work. Especially love the picture of you know who. Keep up the great work, Brother.