I’m not going to write about this. Or that. That thing we did, not that. Or this trip we took over there, yeah, this one, the one all the way over that way. Yes, that one. No, I’m thinking it’s best not to write about this this this or damn this or this one or this motherfucker bent over and did what? Not not going to write about that. You asked me to write about that, or reminded me this would make a great thing to write about, yes this, you said you never lived through that before, so this would make a great, yeah, yeah, that one that whole thing that time the one yeah this one too. I mean, you said this story was just too good, yeah that one, this time it has to end up in print. Poem, story, you should write this up in an article you said, but you know this this this this this all this this this this was not made to be written about. This once written would be something totally different and you know the world doesn’t take kindly to this or this or this. It’s so exotic, so amazing, so cliché goddamnit, I mean really do you really need me to write about this or this or this. Like that wasn’t enough, like all that out there in the papers isn’t enough to tell you all you never really cared to know about that anyone. What? You care about all the trival this and that, bric a brac being told out there? Really? Well, I hate to say this, hate to be repetitive, but no matter how many times you remind me or suggest this to me, I am not going to write about all this that we just lived through this and this and that and oh yeah that, no for real this or that, none of it because we lived through all that. Together.

My Own Personal Grind

There is a writing project called The Grind in which people write together each day for one month. It's mandatory to write every day and email out your pieces.

There is another writing project called the 3:15 Experiment where people write together each day for the month of August at 3:15am.

I've done the 3:15 Experiment a few years. I wanted to do the Grind for the first time or the 3:15 again this year. But instead: for the month of August, I am going to discipline myself and write a text a day. Just one text of any length. With no genre conventions tied to them. And I will post these texts as I write them. As a means of noting what I have done.

It's my own personal grind.

New Format

I am done with Bad Texas. But I am not turning my back on the past. Rather I just changed the web address of what was Bad Texas. The address is now johnpluecker.blogspot.com. And I will probably change the title a lot. For at least a while. I wanted a space where I could just post things I am writing, photos, experiments, meandering, failed texts, issues, a more open format. The title Bad Texas feels small now. Constricting. Definitive. The new name, the current name, the name that will be here for a bit is Bad Friends. Because Texas originally was the word used by the Caddo indigenous people in Texas for friend. The Spanish heard the word and named Texas for it. Bad friends. I like the new openness of the title. But I am sure it will change soon. So be open to the changes. Because Bad Friends will not last.

O wind, rend open the heat,
cut apart the heat,
rend it to tatters.

Fruit cannot drop
through this thick air--
fruit cannot fall into heat
that presses up and blunts
the points of pears
and rounds the grapes.

Cut the heat--
plough through it,
turning it on either side
of your path.

- H.D.

Revising Translations

Spanish: Los programas de igualdad de oportunidades se empezaron a aplicar en el campo laboral debido a que ahí se necesita urgentemente suprimir la discriminación, ya que ésta afecta sobre todo a la población femenina.

First Draft: Equal opportunity programs were first enacted in the workplace since there is an urgent need to do away with discrimination there, as it affects the female population above all.

Revised Sentence: Equal opportunity programs were first put in place on the job, since the elimination of discrimination there was an urgent priority due to its overwhelming impact on women.

Like twenty minutes on the revision of one sentence. But I think it is better now!

Waka Waka

Más info sobre las versiones acá.


And even more history of the Waka Waka here. Some (like Dibussi Tande here) argue this is another in a long line of world artists plundering African music, taking it, passing it off as their own and then unwilling to credit (or pay!) the original creators.

Justice for Anastasio Hernández Rojas

Though Spanish-language press has been talking about the death of Anastasio Hernández Rojas all weekend, news in English is starting to come out about this man who was killed by Border Patrol agents on Friday at the San Ysidro International Port of Entry. The Fresno Bee reports that:

Relatives told the American Friends Service Committee that Hernandez was deported May 25 after being stopped for a traffic violation in San Diego, said Christian Ramirez, national coordinator of the group's Project Voice immigration reform campaign. He then returned to the U.S. illegally through the rugged mountains east of San Diego with his younger brother, who had also been deported, Ramirez said. They were arrested by the Border Patrol on Friday afternoon. Hernandez came to the U.S. when he was 14, followed by four brothers, and all of them work construction jobs, Ramirez said. He has mostly lived in the San Diego area with his wife of 21 years and five U.S.-born children.

News about the death from Nueva Raza is here and from the LA Times is here. More information about the autopsy is here. The San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium is organizing to fight for some kind of justice in this case (and in all similar cases past, present and future).

Blasphemous Elegy for May 14, 2003

by Javier Huerta

exhale: breathe out, give off, let out, send forth, throw out, cast out, blow, blast, fan, gasp, heave, huff, pant, puff, whiff, whisper, whistle, sigh, wheeze, disembogue, expectorate, expel, ooze

the abandoned trailer exhaled a ninety-nine headed beast

ella me espera en Houston
ella me espera en Houston
ella me espera en Houston
ella me espera en Houston

ella me espera en Houston
ella me espera en Houston
ella me espera en Houston
ella me espera en Houston

ella me espera en Houston
ella me espera en Houston
ella me espera en Houston

ella me espera en Houston
ella me espera en Houston
ella me espera en Houston

I modestly propose that every year on the 14th day of May as a way to memorialize the 19 journeyers we hold our breath—better yet, that we abstain from breathing—for a period of 24 hours so that one year we might come to asphyxiate the 14th of May. I offer this proposal not for the sake of vengeance but for the sake of proving to ourselves that we are, indeed, more than human.

José Felicito Figueroa Gutiérrez edad desconocida de Honduras
Catarino González Merino edad desconocida de México
Mateo Salgado Pérez edad desconocidad de México
Héctor Ramírez Robles 34 años de México
Chelve Benítez Jaramillo edad desconocida de México
Rogelio Domínguez Benítez edad desconocida de México
Jorge Mauricio Torres Herrera 15 años de El Salvador
Roberto Rivera Gámez 24 años de Juventino Rosas, Guanajuato
Serafín Rivera Gámez 34 años de Juventino Rosas, Guanajuato
Elisendo Cabanas González 27 años de Tulcingo del Valle, Puebla
Marco Antonio Villaseñor Acuña 5 años de la Ciudad de México
José Antonio Villaseñor Leon 31 años de la Ciudad de México
Edgar Gabriel Hernández Zúñiga 17 años de Cárdenas, San Luis Potosí
Juan Carlos Castillo Loredo 20 años de Cárdenas, San Luís Potosí
Ricardo González Mata 24 años de Plan de Iguala, San Luís Potosí
Oscar González Guerrero 18 años de Plan de Iguala, San Luís Potosí
José Luís Ramírez Bravo 21 años de Ajuchitlán del Progreso, Guerrero
Juan José Morales 24 años de Nuevo Leon
Augusto Stanley Vargas 31 años de Republica Dominicana

gentlemen,
that the beast
ran
off terrified I
do not
believe nor
do I
believe that
it gnawed off
its limp
and lifeless heads
besides
such a beast
would
have ninety-nine
stomachs
each
full of urine
and sweat
yet its
hunger
and thirst
would continue
what nonsense
understand
this clearly
there is
no beast
only
an indeterminate
number of survivors
19 bodies
and
an infinity of noses

inhale: drag, draw in, gasp, inspire, insufflate, respire, sniff, suck in, absorb, consume, annihilate, appreciate, rejoice in, relish, revel in, devour


the abandoned trailer inhaled our teddy bears

affair aware bare bear beware billionaire blare care chair compare concessionaire dare debonair declare despair disrepair doctrinaire ensnare extraordinaire fair forswear foursquare glare hair hare heir impair lair mare millionaire pair pear prayer prepare questionnaire rare repair scare share snare solitaire spare square stair stare tear their there they’re unaware underwear unfair ware wear where

Parece que va llover. No hay para atrás De amor. Siganme. Es un fenómeno. El cielo se está nublando. La necesidad de nuestros países. Los buenos. A esta triste canción. Ví fotos del niño No contaban. Hay una linda region. No sé si sería eso. Con mi astucia. Para darle vida. Asinas. Una mancha y un ramo. Tengo todos mis movimientos. Ni modo. Las mismas pesadillas. Unieron sus almas. Mi cuñado y sus dos tíos. Yo no los maté. Ay mamá me estoy mojando. Pi pipi pipi. En la eternidad. Perfectamente calculados. Luego cambian la pagina Nunca te podre olvidar. Ya ya ya ya.

*** More info on the Victoria 19 here. Thanks to Eduardo & Javier for the reminder. ***

One of the students asked, How do you know whether a poem is good or bad? I answered her by saying, There are so many people who love the work of poets that I don’t like, but I realized at this stage of my life that it’s none of my business what people like. The important thing is that people utilize their creative centers and get moving in their own way. So there’s that. The other thing that I think it very, very, very, very, important that young poets don’t take advice, solicited or not.

- CA Conrad at Bombsite