I'm delighted to welcome Heriberto Yépez to Tucson,
to POG.
Heriberto comes to us from Tijuana,
where he teaches philosophy at the Autonomous University
of Baja California, Tijuana.
No less a polymath than Monday's POG presenter, counterculture
icon Ira Cohen, Heriberto is also
essayist, short story writer, translator,
and fiercely energetic political literary blogger.
His Spanish language publications include the poetry
collection, Por una poética antes del paleolítico y después
de la propaganda, published by Grupo Editorial Anortecer
in 2000, a translation of poet Jerry Rothenberg,
two collections of essays-- he's not an old guy, you can tell--
and the e-book Obras electrónicas selecta.
Work in English has appeared in such journals such as Tripwire,
Chain, Cross Culture Poetics, and Shark,
as well as in the groundbreaking bilingual anthology
Across the Line / Al otro lado, the Poetry of Baja California,
published by sometime Tucsonan and once
and future POG presenter Mark Weiss's Junction Press in 2002.
Heriberto's current vlog projects
include the English language, Mexperimental
and the Spanish language Ensamble.
I also recommend February 2003, "Letter to You, the US."
Links to all these can be found on the Pod website.
It's evident even from the selections
in Across the Line / Al otro lado
that the range of Heriberto's work in poetry is great.
There's the savage beat Ginsbergean, maníacos y locos,
which in Mark's English translation "Maniacs
and Crazies" opens like this.
And I'll read just a couple of lines.
"Ubiquitous gimps with matted hair and greasy clothes
walking down bottlenecked streets
and digging through piles of garbage, the remains of school
lunches and restaurant scraps, clenching their hands
and muzzles into boxes of mixed leftovers of Chinese takeout,
harvesting half rotten lettuce tossed into the street
by taco stands, hovering around food vendors,
their only hope for a mouth full of warm food.
Although the taco makers' blood-spattered aprons
terrify them, reminding them of the horrors of psych wards."
Then there's "The Life of a Cucapá Woman,"
a species of found poem framed to be as accurate,
both mordant and tender.
It starts like this in Harry Polkinhorn's translation.
"Now I have a gas stove and my house
is no longer this twisted body beside the fire.
My grandfather-- my house is no longer this twisted body
beside the fire my grandfather made.
My new house is furnished.
I have a store-bought stove but it suffocates me
and I prefer to cook outside on an open fire.
I love doing my chores at night.
It's too bad there's no way to save Indian ways.
Who would use them?"
So I'm eager to hear more from him.
Please welcome Heriberto Yépez.