Voices De La Luna a Quarterly Poetry & Arts Magazine 15 February 2017
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Voices de la Luna A Quarterly Poetry & Arts Magazine 15 February 2017 Volume 9, Number 2 www.voicesdelaluna.org Joe Jiménez, “The Consequence of Light—” Questions for Nan Cuba Jane Holwerda, “Compassion, Live” Daisy Rosario, “Blindness” Table of Contents A Hymn to the Morning, Phillis Wheatley 19 Together, Taylor Collier 23 Voices de la Luna, Volume 9, Number 2 The Dream, Fiorenza Bruni 23 Editor’s Note, James R. Adair 3 A Walk from Taksim to Sishane, Deborah Remerscheid 25 Cover Page Art, Naomi Wanjiku Gakunga 4 Why Matter Might Matter, Alan Berecka 25 Ritual, Harold Rodinsky 25 Featured Poet The Partial Angel, Lynn Hoggard 25 Quagmire – Love Poem for Two Homeboys Eating Chicanismo Like Ice – The Consequence of Light— – Smutgrass, International Poems Joe Jiménez 5 A Lonely Smoke Alarm ( ), Majid Naficy 20 Trees Burned on the Hillside & My Lover Died Before Nachts in Thierenbach / Elsass, Hejo Müller (Nights in I Could Tell Him, Joe Jiménez 24 Thierenbach / Elsass, trans. James Brandenburg) 20 Nkosi sikelel’ iAfrika, Enoch Sontonga (traditional Featured Interview translation) 20 Questions for Nan Cuba, James R. Adair 6 Stone in the Stream/Roca en el Río UTSA Featured Poet Red Bird, Marisol Cortez 21 Upon Leaving Her Graveside, Debra Peña 9 Recipes, Darby Riley 21 “We Need a Bold Cultural Revolution,” Darby Riley 22 Book Reviews Editors’ Poems Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life (Edward O. New Year’s Resolution, Joan Strauch Seifert 22 Wilson), James R. Adair 10 Refinishing, Carol Coffee Reposa 22 Off the Radar: A Father’s Secret, a Mother’s Heroism, Loneliness, Octavio Quintanilla 23 and a Son’s Quest (Cyrus Copeland), Mo H Saidi 10 Mardi Gras Parade Band, Lou Taylor 23 News of the World (Paulette Jiles), Mo H Saidi 11 Make America Great—Again? James R. Adair 38 Vertigo, Mo H Saidi 38 Art & Culture in the City Jesus, I Don’t Like Your Friends, Robert L. Flynn 38 2016 National Poetry Out Loud Contest, Local Winners Heading to 2017 Competition 13 Poetry Therapy My Soul Is Very Professional: The Light within the Dark, H-E-B/Voices de la Luna Youth Poetry Contest Winners Janet Y 26 Taken, Maram A. (First Place) 14 A Man Does Not Have Time, Jessica A. Trevino 26 The Swan Pair, Sophia Ruth N. (Second Place) 14 Life Is a Paradox, Marieangelina Espinoza 26 Small Talk, Nathan R. (Third Place) 14 Reaction to “Walk on By,” Sharon Young 26 Ode to Suits, Veronica B. (Fourth Place) 14 Reaction to “Walk on By,” Maria Korkames 26 What Makes You Afraid? Peter F. (Honorable Mention) 15 Seeing, Lynn Navarro 27 Behind the Curtain, Darby M. (Honorable Mention) 15 In a Moment, J.C. Williamson 27 Time Stands Still, Ashton W. (Honorable Mention) 15 My Depression Looks Like a Museum, Mecca Miles 27 A Poem I Didn’t Write, Haddie H. (Honorable Mention) 15 Art Therapy Select Poems Hopeful Ladies, Frances Rosales Ford 28 Venus, Eros 8 Untitled, Susan Herrera 28 The Black Man’s Burden (A Reply to Rudyard Kipling), Untitled, Trichele Allen 28 Hubert Harrison 11 Untitled, Frances Rosales Ford 28 The Black Man’s Burden, H. T. Johnson 12 Never Ever Have I…, Talayah Sullivan 28 The Black Man’s Burden, Edgar Rice Burroughs 12 Untitled, Tara Layer 29 When I Wake, K.B. Eckhardt 16 Winter Tree, Trish Bigelow 16 Poetry & Dreams Tribute, Nora Olivares 16 Making the Team, James Brandenburg 29 The Yellow Bells, Benjamin Nash 16 Jump into Experience, James Brandenburg 29 Blindness, Daisy Rosario 17 Self Portrait: Las Dos, Jasminne Mendez 17 News & Notes Ephemeral, Norma Liliana Valdez 18 Responses to Kipling’s “The White Man’s Burden” 11 Lines Written in Early Spring, William Wordsworth 18 The Scramble for Africa, African Independence, and (The) Tower (of) Life: November 7, 2016, Gabriel African Postcolonial Writing 13 Fernández 18 Community Outreach Efforts 38 After a Particularly Ugly Argument with My Lover One Saturday Morning, Undeterred the Proselytes at the Essays Door, Dexter E. Gilford 19 Christmas Dinner at the Synagogue, Harold Rodinsky 30 You Want to Bring Your Guns to My Class? Tom Murphy 19 Writing as a Way of Healing and Growth, Debra Peña 30 2 Voices de la Luna, 15 February 2017 Short Fiction Editor’s Note Compassion, Live, Jane Holwerda 31 James R. Adair Blood, Mac McCaskill 33 Anyone educated in the West can rat- Creative Nonfiction tle off the names of innumerable famous Fulfillment: Diary of an Amazonian Picker, Paul Juhasz 39 authors: Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Virginia Wolff, John Steinbeck, San Antonio Small Presses Emily Dickinson, William Faulkner, Wings Press 42 Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou—the Word Design Studio 42 list is endless. All of these authors wrote in English, but we could expand the Our Sponsors 43 list without problem to include authors whose works have been translated into Back Page English: Leo Tolstoy, Franz Kafka, Vic- Brief Bios of Selected Contributors 44 Idioma: The Importance of Words in a Post-Truth World, tor Hugo, Gabriel García Márquez, Isa- James R. Adair 44 bel Allende, Jorge Borges, Umberto Eco. What if the list were expanded to include famous Asian writers? Perhaps you know Submission Guidelines Shūsaku Endō, author of Silence (the basis of Martin Scorcese’s film) or Haruki Murakami, a contemporary Japanese bestselling Voices de la Luna is a quarterly publication dedicated to the artistic ex- author. What if we turn to sub-Saharan Africa? Some of you will pression of a wide range of perspectives and topics. In the service of that undoubtedly know Chinua Achebe, author of Things Fall Apart, goal, we welcome diverse, well-written submissions from every quarter. To submit material for publication in Voices de la Luna, go to voices- but have you read any other books by African writers? delaluna.submittable.com. In this issue of Voices de la Luna, in honor of the 60th anniver- —————————————————————— sary of the independence of Ghana, the first sub-Saharan African Voices de la Luna Monthly Literary Evening country to break free from its colonial ruler, we tell a little bit of the Poetry and Arts Presentation story of postcolonial African literature as it emerged in the wake Every Third Tuesday of the wave of independence declarations that followed Ghana’s. Poetry Workshop at 6:00 We also review reactions to the “scramble for Africa” that led to Featured Poet at 7:00 Poetry, Music, & Open Mic at 7:30 the European conquest of most of the continent in the late 19th The Tobin Library at Oakwell and early 20th centuries. Our cover art also reflects the African 4134 Harry Wurzbach experience: the artist who produced it is Naomi Wanjiku Gakunga, San Antonio, TX 78209 a native of Nairobi, Kenya, and current resident of San Antonio. —————————————————————— We are honored to have Joe Jiménez, a local award-winning poet, as our featured poet in this issue. His poems combine strength, rawness, and tenderness in a way that touches the reader on multiple levels. We also interview Nan Cuba, founder of Gem- ini Ink, award-winning author, and writer-in-residence at Our Lady of the Lake University. She talks about writing, teaching, and even a little about her days as an investigative journalist. Join- ing these writers are poets and writers of short fiction, some well- known and some not-yet-known. There are paeans to a mother, to a tree, to flowers, and to Frida Kahlo. Particularly notable in this issue are poems by the winners of our third annual HEB/Voices de la Luna Youth Poetry Contest. The Stone in the Stream group challenges readers to consider the impact of “improvements” to the environment, as does noted biologist E. O. Wilson, whose re- cent book is reviewed on p. 10. We have a short story about a radio call-in show and another about a Lakota federal agent deal- ing with tragedy. Meanwhile, writer Paul Juhasz still finds himself bewildered in an Amazon fulfillment warehouse. Since spring is approaching, I want to end with an excerpt from a poem hailing the arrival of dawn by Phillis Wheatley, captured as a young girl in West Africa and sold into slavery in colonial Boston. The full poem is on p. 19. See in the east th’ illustrious king of day! His rising radiance drives the shades away— But Oh! I feel his fervid beams too strong, And scarce begun, concludes th’ abortive song. Although Wheatley was writing in Boston, we here in South Tex- Themes for future issues of Voices de la Luna: as will feel “his fervid beams too strong” sooner than we would May: Healing and the Humanities August: Native Americans like to think about it. Enjoy the winter edition of Voices! Voices de la Luna, 15 February 2017 3 Cover Page Art Voices de la Luna A Quarterly Poetry & Arts Magazine Wetereire—Waiting ISSN 2168-4316 (print) Sheet metal, handcrafted paper, steel wire, ISSN 2168-4324 (online) stitching and crocheting with steel wire, machine stitching 72" × 27” × 14” Board of Directors by Naomi Wanjiku Gakunga Michael J. Burke, Chair / Allan F. Smith, Vice Chair James R. Adair / Lyn Belisle Hugh Fitzsimons / Tracy Moore / Debra Peña Naomi Wanjiku Gakunga Rajam Ramamurthy / Carol Coffee Reposa studied at the University of Sharon Martin Turner Nairobi, Kenya, and at the University of California, Los Angeles. Wanjiku’s works are Advisory Board predominantly wall hanging Mo H Saidi, Co-Founder, Editor Emeritus sculptures, created from non- James Brandenburg, Co-Founder, Editor Emeritus Ivan Becka / Richard Becker traditional materials: sheet Angelika Jansen Brown / Louise Cantwell metal and steel wire. Mike Gilliam / Harmon Kelley Sheet metal, known in Swa- Harriet Kelley / Habib Nathan / Darby Riley hili as mabati, is ubiquitous in David Shulman / Robert D.