#65 / 2008 Tour 4 Winter: Teseque

TESUQUE, NM

#65

A LIVE FOR ART COLUMN

Great fun revisiting Albuquerque, haven't been there in almost three years and we found many changes in the poetry scene we're most familiar with. It seems that most of the people who used to attend the Winnings Coffeehouse readings, associated with the poetry zine "Central Ave." and hosted by Dale Harris, are now gathering at the Fixed & Free Bike Shop in Knob Hill. We found a crowd of over twenty in the shop's art gallery, held on the third Monday of the month.

The host there is Billy Brown, a regular attendee at Winnings, according to Dale. "Billy gave a lot of spirit and heart to that venue for five years. So I'm delighted to see that Knob Hill has poetry and the old "Central Ave." community supports the bike shop readings," she said, "Plus, the poets still have a home."

We also attended a private poetry reading and open mic well into the hinterlands of Santa Fe. "Poetry with Paul" is a venue held in the private home of glass artist Paul White in Tesuque. The featured act during our visit was poet Gary Brower, flamenco dancer Susana Garrett and guitarist Nino David aka David Briggs.

There presentation included Nino David's flamenco music performed on his Jose Ramirez guitar. He accompanied Susana as she danced and recited poetry from Federico Garcia Lorca in the original Spanish. She dressed in black and her slender frame, with a long black Spanish scarf embroidered with red roses wrapped around her waist, sent the long fringe flying about her trousers as she performed her staccato dance. Very intense, very moving.

Gary Brower read poems influenced by Lorca. His gave a short history of the Spanish Civil War and also acknowledged in his work the experiences of the late Angel Gonzales of New Mexico University, during the Spain's civil war.

The poem most enthusiastically received portrayed the death of Lorca, assassinated along with two matadors. The murder scene depicted in a crescendo of Spanish guitar was dramatic and tragic. Gary reminded the audience, "We need to remember that poets must speak truth to power."

"Zero City" reflected on Gonzales' experience as a nine-year-old boy during Franco's dictatorship:

bullets, blood discovered on the ground...

the incomprehensible sorrow of the grownups...

rage and the desire to weep...

The opening act of border narrative poetry featured Sylvia Ernestina Vargara reading from her book "Scream."  Her poem "La Frontera" discusses issues on both sides of the border here in New Mexico. I found some of her most moving lines, not necessarily in order, to be:

The border is holding me back.

Death! Flash! Border Patrol!

A knife that cuts human bonds.

of those who once worked together.

Small farms are slipping away

Chain link knuckles rap in the wind

Don't make friends

Don't make the world a better place

"Give me your money bag"

Take the border and wrap it

around the black knight stabber of hearts

and the white knight of twisted lies.

I really enjoyed a poet who called himself only Orlando. He claimed he was going to mail his poem "It is Blackwater Again"  in with his IRS payment this year. His work criticized the Iraq contractors who "guard the devil himself when he comes to Baghdad."

Dale Harris was in attendance. As a resident of Miami for 30 years she said winter was a novelty to her when she moved to the Southwest. She reminisced about winter scenes on the Old Salt Mission Trail and the amnesty of the snow that draped winter clean.