Poets Responding in Retrospect ~ Sonia Gutiérrez
Sonia Gutiérrez
Poets Responding in Retrospect
When nine college students chained themselves to Arizona’s State Capitol on April 20, 2010, to protest Senate Bill 1070, poet Francisco X. Alarcón felt an urgency to speak up against Arizona’s Governor Jan Brewer’s SB 1070 and write “Para Los Nueve del Capitolio / For the Capitol Nine,” but it was not just about the senate bill Francisco X. Alarcón was referring to in his poem as “the Beast”; he alludes to Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Maricopa County who was racially profiling Latinos. Simultaneously, in Tucson, the school district targeted and banned Mexican American Studies because these school officials could not imagine people of Mexican descent could and should be taught a history that was rightfully theirs. Francisco X. Alarcón and his longtime friend, Odilia Galván Rodríguez, recognized that, historically, poetry grounds Chicanos and Chicanas living in the United States; that is how Facebook’s Poets Responding to SB 1070 was born—out of resistance to a systemic racist establishment that turned a blind eye at the injustice people were living in Arizona and copycat states.
When Poets Responding to SB 1070 presented a call for poetry, I, of course, joined the poets. I was ready. It was during those early years of Poets Responding to SB 1070, a beautiful collaboration between Michael Sedano’s La Bloga and Poets Responding to SB 1070 began. Poets created notes and the moderators for Poets Responding shared their work on the Poets Responding to SB 1070 page, voted, contacted poets, compiled poems, and then Michael Sedano would publish the poetry selection on La Bloga’s “On-line Floricanto.”
In early December 2010, I flew to Tucson, Arizona, with my pareja, Paulino Mendoza, to attend Professor Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez’s “Combating Hate, Censorship, and Forbidden Curricula Conference.” We came together and celebrated our existence through comedy, dance, spoken word, and activism; the arts heals and unites us as a people. At the conference, I shook Cherríe Moraga’s hand and saw Leslie Marmon Silko, a writer I had read as an undergraduate student. I also met Francisco X. Alarcón and Dr. Cintli Rodriguez and heard a few Poets Responding to SB 1070 poets and moderators—Andrea Hernández Holm, Hedy Trevino, and Elena Diaz Bjorkquist. That is how I recall Francisco X. Alarcón, becoming my Chicano role model; I, of course, continue to admire him in spirit as an author, mentor, former UC Davis professor, poet, and activist.
Then, in 2012, Abel Salas organized 13 Poets of the New Sun/13 Poetas del Nuevo Sol in Boyle Heights, California. Through poetry, all our voices aligned to expose the racist rhetoric and anti-immigrant sentiments in the United States and beyond. It was an honor and humbling experience, meeting poets I had seen online. At the 13 Poets of the New Sun/13 Poetas del Nuevo Sol event, I had an opportunity to meet Odilia Galván Rodríguez for the first time, including poets John Martinez, and the powerful and imposing voice of Matt Sedillo, Iris De Anda, Andrea Mauk, Elizabeth Cazessus, who I had met from my readings at the Centro Cultural de Tijuana (CECUT), David Romero, and Abel Salas. At the 13 Poets of the New Sun/13 Poetas del Nuevo Sol, Odilia Galván Rodríguez and Francisco X. Alarcón invited me to join the moderators for Poets Responding to SB 1070. Even though I taught/prepped classes, mothered, wrote poetry, and worked on my novel on and off, I knew that it was important to join Poets Responding to SB 1070, and I did.
Although I had heard critics argue that social media platforms worked in silos, I believed and continue to believe resistance is in our hands because every little action counts. By sharing photographs, articles, poetry—information brings people together since we have the power to be part of a “collective consciousness,” as Francisco X. Alarcón explained. We have the power to challenge the United States of America’s master narrative, by presenting our counter-narrative through song, prayer, poetry—we can leave a mark as a testament that we were part of the solution.
A few years back, I understood the importance of Poets Responding and its impact on my life. During the exodus of Central American children (in 2014) and 2015. When I posted an article about the children in detention centers, a colleague told me my post was a lie. And in 2016 when Donald Trump became president, trolls were writing racist rhetoric on our Poets Responding page. I would screenshot the words, consult the comment with my fellow moderators, and proceeded to remove and/or ban the pseudo followers. Another incident that allowed me to recognize how Poets Responding was impacting my voice is when I was asked to join a panel for one of the colleges I teach. The question had to do with immigration. In the audience, a veteran professor said that Mexican people were immigrating to the U.S. and because I was informed—because of my involvement with Poets Responding—I told him that his claim was inaccurate and a fallacy—that it was Americans that were immigrating to México and living in México illegally. I spoke from lived experience since I had witnessed with my own eyes in Bajamar, Baja California, a community of white immigrants enjoying México’s coastal beachfront.
Over the years, the flow of poetry persisted and became a book. In 2016, the University of Arizona Press published Poetry of Resistance: Voices for Social Change, coedited by Francisco X. Alarcón and Odilia Galván Rodríguez. As Francisco X. Alarcón was entering the spirit world, Poetry of Resistance was being born. When Francisco X. Alarcón passed away on January 15, 2016, we continued moderating Poets Responding. At his memorial and the day of his funeral in Long Beach, California, we read poetry to honor his life and legacy.
Fast forward to 2021, with two moderators running the page, Odilia Galván Rodríguez and myself, and Facebook’s censorship of La Bloga from 2017 to 2018, we took a break from publishing poems; however, we continue to share news on themes of social justice, by continuing to inform our readers and being a strong woke community and familia. Odilia Galván Rodríguez spearheaded PoetsResponding.org; the website is ready for visitors and poems for a new era.
In the meantime, see you in cyberspace until our paths cross.
Sonia Gutiérrez
POEMA GIVER
para mi Literary Saint Francisco X. Alarcón (1954 – 2016)
In my waking
sueños,
Poema Giver,
you rise
sobre sábanas
blancas de papel
ready, as always,
to write,
donde el cielo-sky
is filled with
luminous
letra-words,
y con tus manos
las amasas
y haces cielo-clouds
made of poemas
y después,
descansas
y subes los escalones, up-up-up
of a gigantic
capital letra A
y te vas down-down-down
its slide
con open arms,
riendo y sonriendo.
And that is how, así pasarás
los days de January,
los days de February,
y los days de March
meanwhile, por las mañanas
mis lágrimas, they run down
my face,
luna-moon-mirror,
pero happy
porque huele
a poetry.
Spanglish Translation by Francisco J. Bustos
The Books / Los libros
The Books
After hearing the ruling,
some people say
they went hiding behind trees.
They scattered
everywhere.
Some escaped the classrooms
and ran across fields, deserts, cities, borders
looking for the place of books.
While others once caught
were stamped with green Bs
on their chests. (Those books
are lost—and nowhere
to be found.) They were taken
by officials to places unbeknownst
to readers—places where their words
were dissected
and formed into secret algorithms
and placed into memory chips
and carefully encrypted
databases.
Others wore scarlet
Cs across their breasts. These
books always walked in fear
of being booknapped.
Others, veiled and wrapped
in brown paper bags,
were singled out during routine patrols
with a, “You. Show me your pages,”
as their private parts
were publically leafed
through, and their words
were poked with accusatory
index fingers.
Startled by the news,
others tripped as their letters
fell from the pages
and lay transfixed collecting memories—
of hands grasping their scuffed edges,
of hundreds of identical books being burned,
of being trampled and kicked
on the spine and then urinated on
and stuffed in plastic bags.
And yet, these books\
banned together—
found their words,
organized, and stood up
in unison shoulder to shoulder
to celebrate
the contents of their pages
as they exchanged smiles
with their ineradicable
trailing ghosts always always always
looking for the place of books.
Los libros
Después de oír la sentencia,
algunas personas dijeron
que se fueron a esconder detrás de los árboles.
Se dispersaron
por todas partes.
Algunos se escaparon de los salones
y corrieron atravesando campos, desiertos, ciudades, fronteras
buscando el lugar de los libros.
Mientras otros una vez atrapados
los estamparon con la letra P de color verde
sobre sus pechos. (Esos libros
están perdidos—y no se han
encontrado). Fueron llevados
por oficiales a lugares desconocidos
por los lectores—a lugares donde sus palabras
fueron diseccionadas
y formadas en algoritmos secretos
y metidas a chips de memoria
y cuidadosamente codificadas
en bases de datos.
Otros llevaban puestas la C
escarlata sobre sus pechos. Estos
libros siempre caminaban con miedo
de ser librocuestrados.
Otros, cubiertos con velos y envueltos
en bolsas de papel café,
fueron señalados durante el recorrido de rutina
con un, “Tú. Enséñame tus páginas”,
mientras sus partes privadas
fueron hojeadas públicamente
y sus palabras picadas
con dedos índices acusantes.
Asustados por las noticias,
otros tropezaron mientras sus letras
caían de las páginas
y yacían paralizados coleccionando memorias—
de manos sujetando las rozaduras de sus bordes,
de cientos de libros idénticos quemados,
de ser pisoteados y pateados en sus lomos
y después orinados
y metidos en bolsas de plástico.
Y aún así, estos libros
se acuadrillaron—
encontraron sus palabras,
se organizaron, y se levantaron
hombro a hombro
para celebrar
los contenidos de sus páginas,
y ellos intercambiaron sonrisas
con sus imborrables
fantasmas siempre siempre siempre rastreando
buscando el lugar de los libros.
