Radio Interview with Jack Foley 1991
JACK FOLEY, "COVER TO COVER," KPFA, 94.1 FM, WEDNESDAYS, 3:OO P.M.
also available at www.kpfa.org
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 3
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
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
FEBRUARY 10
Francisco X. Alarcón, interview from 1991, Part Two.
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