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Brown Girl Noise ABSTRACT BROWN GIRL NOISE When I started to consider myself a writer, and when I knew that I had no other choice but to be a writer, I wanted to be someone who was willing to speak truth to power, and I wanted to be someone who was willing to celebrate myself. Because we lived below the poverty line until I was in the fourth grade, I saw my parents make do with what little we had. I learned that creating beauty was essential to the way my parents lived their lives. My mom and dad were immensely proud of the rose garden they grew in the front yard of our trailer home, roses bigger than our heads. They exclaimed over the redness of their tomatoes, the sweetness of their tangerines, and the thickness of my dad’s lawn. My mom made beautiful dresses with rows and rows of lace, and she embroidered fat roses on our pillowcases. I learned that beauty was important and vital. Later, books taught me that words could be beautiful, too. So I learned to make beauty out of what I had, my words. When I enrolled in Chicano Studies classes, I learned that my words could be both beautiful and powerful. This new political education introduced me to artists who used their art to bring awareness to issues, to explore other aspects of history, to show new sociological perspectives. I knew then that I wanted to be aligned with writers who wanted more from their words than beauty. I want to write like Langston Hughes and the artists of the Harlem Renaissance. I even draw from the Confessionals like Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath who decided to expose their interiority to the world no matter what they found there. And of course I want to continue the traditions of someone like Amiri Baraka and the ii unapologetic Black Arts Movement, and the early Chicano Movement writers like Oscar Zeta Acosta, Alurista, and Cherríe Moraga who were simultaneously artists and activists. And I want to do what Claudia Rankine has just done. I want to experiment with form and conventions, and what a poetry collection can look like. I want to say that we have a long way to go to progress towards a healthy society for everyone. Despite all of the amazing scholarship and art that has already been created by marginalized communities, the wounds inflicted by exclusion are clearly not healed, are still intentionally ignored, and are continuously ripped open. Like bell hooks, I want my politics to inform everything that I do. I want my work to show that my values are deliberate and obvious. I want my poetry to be deeply rooted in the place and cultures that I am deeply rooted in: the Central Valley, Xicansim, Mexican culture, Hip Hop. I want my work to show that I am an American writer, a Mexican-American writer, an immigrant-somewhere- between-generation-one-and-1.5-writer, a Chicana writer, and a Xicana writer. Mireyda Barraza Martinez BROWN GIRL NOISE by Mireyda Barraza Martinez A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing in the College of Arts and Humanities California State University, Fresno May 2017 APPROVED For the Department of English: We, the undersigned, certify that the thesis of the following student meets the required standards of scholarship, format, and style of the university and the student's graduate degree program for the awarding of the master's degree. Mireyda Barraza Martinez Thesis Author Corrinne Clegg Hales (Chair) English Tim Z. Hernandez Poet/Mentor Lee Herrick Poet/Mentor John Hales English Tim Skeen English For the University Graduate Committee: Dean, Division of Graduate Studies AUTHORIZATION FOR REPRODUCTION OF MASTER'S THESIS I grant permission for the reproduction of this thesis in part or in its entirety without further authorization from me, on the condition that the person or agency requesting reproduction absorbs the cost and provides proper acknowledgment of authorship. X Permission to reproduce this thesis in part or in its entirety must be obtained from the family of Mireyda Barraza Martinez. Signature of thesis Chair: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Some of the poems have been previously published as follows: “we are here” was written for and read at the 2013 Chican@ Youth Conference, Fresno, California “U.S. Guns” was published in the online journal bozalta: arts, activism, scholarship “The Last Doll” (as “Cihuateteo Rip or Drum or Buzzing in My Ears”) was published in a slightly different version in the online journal razorhouse “Parading Down Blackstone Avenue” and “Coatlicue Tries to Write Protest Poetry” were published in the San Joaquin Review “i am a sixth sun xicana,” “four movements: the fifth is yet to be written, let’s write it” and “a time when we bled blood” were published in The Ram’s Tale “calwa park--one a.m.,” “terrorisms” and “you should write that down” were published in The Ram’s Tale “Ceremony” was published (as “I am Learning”) in the online zine Kvet TABLE OF CONTENTS Page PART ONE ............................................................................................................... 1 I am suddenly myself again .................................................................................. 2 the souls of my feet ............................................................................................... 3 The Muse of Work ................................................................................................ 4 what kind of man .................................................................................................. 5 Squatters on Miguel Barraza’s Land on the Eastside of Porterville .................... 6 My Dad Doesn’t Have Friends, ............................................................................ 7 Maria de Lourdes to Her Daughter ....................................................................... 9 The Last Doll ...................................................................................................... 10 dignidad .............................................................................................................. 11 Reading the Egg ................................................................................................. 12 Ceremony ........................................................................................................... 14 PART TWO ............................................................................................................ 16 Speaking to My Sábila on Being a Transplant ................................................... 17 Coatlicue Tries to Write Protest Poetry .............................................................. 18 Came Here Sweetly ............................................................................................ 19 Parading Down Blackstone Avenue ................................................................... 20 Bus Stop .............................................................................................................. 21 i am a sixth sun xicana........................................................................................ 22 social justice ....................................................................................................... 23 we are here .......................................................................................................... 24 terrorisms ............................................................................................................ 25 vii Page Cesar Chavez and Shit ........................................................................................ 26 U.S. Guns ............................................................................................................ 28 four movements: the fifth is yet to be written, let’s write it ............................... 30 PART THREE ........................................................................................................ 32 We Shared a Meadow Once ............................................................................... 33 how it ends .......................................................................................................... 34 not tonight .......................................................................................................... 36 Obstruction ......................................................................................................... 37 calwa park--one a.m. .......................................................................................... 38 first of the month ................................................................................................ 39 made you a believer ............................................................................................ 40 he freestyles ........................................................................................................ 41 Sanger ................................................................................................................. 42 this is what happened that night ......................................................................... 43 i want to burst ..................................................................................................... 44 in your house ...................................................................................................... 45 Embrace ............................................................................................................. 46 20 Minutes Late ................................................................................................. 47 PART FOUR .........................................................................................................
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