The New York Times reports on the growth of the position of poet laureate in states and cities across the county.
Among the poets laureate HUIZACHE has published:
Updates on some of our contributors:
We’re excited to share news of Maceo Montoya’s latest publication, Letters to the Poet from His Brother. Montoya will be published in HUIZACHE’s fourth issue, coming this fall.
Here’s what he has to say about his book: “I’m writing now to announce the release of Letters to the Poet from His Brother, published by Copilot Press. A combination of both my written and visual work, the book is described as ‘hybrid memoir woven between essay, painting, drawing, and poem.’ Letters to the Poet from His Brother is a deeply personal book, delving into my relationship with my late brother, poet Andrés Montoya, as well as with my artist father Malaquias and the cultural legacy of the Chicano Art Movement. It’s an important moment for me to share these thoughts with family, friends, fellow writers and artists, and the greater community.
“Perhaps most importantly, I also see it as a way of sharing Andrés, my memories of him, and his impact on me. For that reason I wanted to find a way of connecting Andrés more directly to the project. So in his honor, proceeds from the first 300 copies sold will be donated to the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize Initiative–a project of Letras Latinas, the literary initiative at the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame. This will eventually help to fund a symposium focused on Andrés’s life and work.”
David Campos, whose poetry appeared in HUIZACHE’s third issue, has been named winner of the 2014 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize.
Rhina P. Espaillat, who judged this year’s contest, writes of Campos’ collection: “But the prize goes to the remarkable Pica, a work whose five parts trace a son’s effort—only partially successful—to fulfill his father’s expectations and—perhaps even more difficult—understand those expectations enough to forgive them.”
You can read one of Campos’ poems, Dusk, right here on our website. And you can follow him on Twitter at @camposwriter.
Congratulations!
Congratulations to Laurie Ann Guerrero, who has just been appointed San Antonio’s new Poet Laureate by Mayor Julian Castro. Guerrero, whose collection A Tongue in the Mouth of the Dying won the 2012 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize, was a featured reader at HUIZACHE’s recent reading in Seattle.
Of her collection, Francisco X. Alarcón writes, “This is the poetry of both saints and sinners (and even murderers). The poet conjures up Pablo Neruda, Gloria Anzaldúa, Sylvia Plath, and is rooted in the best Latin American, Chicano/a, and contemporary American poetics, able to render an effective poetic version of Nepantla, the land where different traditions meet, according to Anzaldúa. These poems make the reader laugh, cry, cringe, lose one’s breath, and almost one’s mind, at times. These poems restore my faith in the power of poetry.”
And congratulations, too, to Carmen Tafolla, who has just completed her busy two-year term as the city’s first Poet Laureate, during which she conducted over one hundred events, ranging from school visits to public performances. Tafolla is the recipient of numerous honors, including two Tomás Rivera Book Awards, two ALA Notable Books, and the the prestigious Américas Book Award. She has been recognized by the National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies for work which “gives voice to the peoples and cultures of this land.”
We’re honored to have published them both in HUIZACHE.
For more on San Antonio’s new Poet Laureate, visit:
HBO has optioned h3 contributor Domingo Martinez’s The Boy Kings of Texas (Lyons Press 2012). The coming-of-age memoir about growing up in Brownsville, Texas, in the 1980s was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2012; a Gold Medal Winner of the Independent Publishers Book Awards; and a Non-Fiction Finalist for The Washington State Book Awards.
From the press release:
“It’s beyond my comprehension that this book has drawn this level of attention and success, but I’m doing my best to absorb it and adjust,” said Martinez, who is currently working on his next book, My Heart is a Drunken Compass, which will be published by Lyons Press in November 2014. “I have to credit my agent, Alice Martell, and my editor, Lara Asher, for seeing the potential in the book in the first place, and all the support I’ve had at Lyons Press. It was my first book, and with nothing in the way of a publishing background, I was certainly a gamble. But to their credit, they saw what the book could be and what it’s done, and so here it is, making the leap from the literary to the cinematic—and on HBO, no less.”
Martinez will write the script; Salma Hayek and Jerry Weintraub are the executive producers on the project.
And to read Martinez’s Changes in Altitudes, check out our third issue.
Congratulations!