Ποιειν Και Πραττειν - create and do

 

Today’s show is a tribute to the late Francisco X. Alarcón (1954-2016). Jack airs part one of an interview he did with Francisco on August 26, 1991. What is remarkable about the interview is that nothing in it seems “dated”: everything Francisco says is as true now as it was then. He discusses his belief that poetry is essentially a mode of music and that rhythm is “the heartbeat of the mother.” He feels that poetry has a prophetic element which he has experienced many times. He asks, "What is 'American' poetry?" He tells us of his arrest and imprisonment in 1984 on a false charge of murder. Wikipedia: “The investigation itself was considered ‘discriminatory.’ Alarcón felt that if he had been white, he never would have been considered a suspect.Others questioned the police department's actions and felt that they were also homophobic.” He discusses the fact that US states wishing to ban the Spanish language have—like “California,” “Florida,” “Texas”—Spanish names. “Spanish,” he insists, “is here to stay.” He discusses the question of “boundaries.” In “The Poet as Other,” Francisco writes, “How can we break the politics/poetics of exclusion and silence that have prevented the poetic expression of people like me? How can we empower others if we do not first empower ourselves? We have to empower ourselves by bringing together what has been disjointed, by recognizing ourselves in others, by accepting and celebrating who we are.”

 

In a review of Snake Poems Jack Foley wrote: “Francisco X. Alarcón is a gay man with deep roots in the Mexican past. Snake Poems arises out of his discovery of another Alarcón—possibly an ancestor—Hernando Ruiz, a Mexican Catholic priest commissioned by the Spanish Inquisition to compile, translate, and interpret the chants, spells and invocations of the local Indians. That Alarcón’s book appeared in 1629, and sections of it appear again in Snake Poems, though the living Alarcón’s attitude towards the subject matter differs considerably from his ancestor’s. The book is a kind of Oedipal battle whose prize is not the mother but history. ‘Hands / like these,’ claims the living Alarcón, “one day / will write / the main text / of this land.’”

 

This poem is from Francisco’s first book, Tattoos (1985):

 

 

I used to be

much much darker

dark as la tierra

recién llovida

and dark was all

I ever wanted—

dark tropical

mountains

dark daring

eyes

dark tender lips

and I would sing

dark

dream dark

talk only dark

 

happiness

was to spend

whole

afternoons

tirade como foca

bajo el sol

“you’re already

so dark

muy prieto

too indio!”

some would lash

at my happy

darkness but

I could only

smile back

now I’m not as

dark as I once was

quizás sean

los años

maybe I’m too

far up north

not enough sun

not enough time

but anyway

up here “dark”

is only for

the ashes—

the stuff

lonely nights

are made of

 

 

Francisco X. Alarcón, interview from 1991, Part Two.