Interview with Patrick Rosal. Sunday, September 2nd, 2012.

41: Patrick Rosal, author of “Boneshepherds” and “My American Kundiman” talks about how his latest collection negotiates anger by love, and both Saenz and Rosal honor Baldwin’s work as a teacher for such navigation. Rosal’s Uncle Charlie was as influential to his work as Neruda and Philip Levine and the guest reads a poem from “Boneshepherds” – “Bienvenido: Santo Tomas,” for his Uncle Charlie.  www.patrickrosal.com. 

                             (Photo credit Peter Dressel)

This week’s Poetic License comes from Daniel Chacon.

Interview with Reyna Grande. Sunday, August 26 th, 2012.

41: Ben & Daniel are back for a brand new season! This show talks with Reyna Grande, author of the new memoir "The Distance Between Us." She talks about why she was hesitant to write a memoir, why "cucuys" have played important roles in her life and writing process, and why she has a penchant for killing her characters.

http://www.reynagrande.com

Interview with Roberto Perezdiaz. Sunday, July 8 th, 2012.

40: Roberto Perezdiaz talks about how his short story collection, "Mas Sabe el Diablo," handles both innocence and maturity. He spent a year as a court translator, and Spanish-to-English translation work helped him craft language.

Interview with Craig Santos Perez. Sunday, July 1st, 2012.

39: Craig Santos Perez, author of "from unincorporated territory [saina],"  talks about Guam, writing [saina], and that poetry’s relationship to neo-colonialization and the history of colonialization, cannot be neutral. Words inspire his activism as a “tongue is the steering paddle of the mouth.” Even as Perez lectures at the University of Hawaii in Manoa, his international presence as a performer and activist allow him to weave his complexities as a migrant and immigrant into his work.

Daniel reads selections from a forthcoming posthumous collection of "Leukemia Poems" by Andrés Montoya, written when the late writer was in the hospital dying of leukemia.

Interview with Lawrence Welsh. Sunday, June 10th, 2012.

36: Lawrence Welsh, author of "Begging for Vultures," discusses a collection of new and selected poems.  This L.A. native talks about the hitchhiking trip across the Southwest that led to his applying to UTEP for their MFA program.  Welsh also describes the "organic" way he approaches poetry, and why meditation is so vital to his creative process.

Welsh also reads 2 poems from "Begging for Vultures" - "New Irish Whiskey" and "Begging for Vultures."

Daniel & Ben also talk to writers & educators Macarena Hernandez and Carol Brochin Ceballos.  They talk about their efforts in securing a grant to help inspire El Paso teachers to teach Mexican-American literature in their classes.

Born and raised in South Central Los Angeles, Lawrence Welsh first hitchhiked to New Mexico and Texas in 1989. Five years later, he moved to El Paso, where he still lives.

A first generation Irish American and former award-winning journalist, Welsh has published eight books of poetry, including Begging for Vultures: New and Selected Poems, 1994-2009 (University of New Mexico Press, 2011).

A winner of the Bardsong Press Celtic Voice Writing Award in Poetry, Welsh is an associate professor of English at El Paso Community College. He’s married to Lisa McNiel, a professor and poet, and they have two young children, Megan and Patrick. Welsh’s journalism awards include the Society of Professional Journalists Bill Farr Reporting Award, the Copley Los Angeles Newspapers Award, and the Women in Communications Endowment Award.

In 2011, Irish America Magazine in New York City named him one of the “Top 100 Irish Americans” of the year. In 1979, he co-founded The Alcoholics, the L.A. punk rock band. Artifix Records of Southern California will soon release East of Sepulveda: 1979-1982, a retrospective of the band’s studio and life cuts.

Interview with Fred Arroyo. Sunday, June 3rd, 2012.

35: Daniel & Ben talk with Fred Arroyo, author of “The Region of Lost Names” (2008) and “Western Avenue and Other Fictions” (2012).  Arroyo explains why “Western Avenue” is more of a novel told in a cycle of short stories, and why it’s a companion to “Region of Lost Names.”  He also explains why he refers to the central figures in his work as “people,” not “characters.”  Arroyo also describes how he approaches endings.

In this week’s Poem of the Week, Ben reads “The Word ‘Class’ Should Not Appear in The Poem,” from Karen Fiser’s collection, “Words Like Fate and Pain.”

Fred Arroyo, assistant professor of English, Drake University, is the author of The Region of Lost Names: A Novel (University of Arizona Press, 2008). A recipient of an Individual Artist Grant from the Indiana Arts Commission, he has published fiction, poetry, and essays in various literary journals (Crab Orchard Review, Pinyon, Washington Square, North Dakota Quarterly). Fred has completed a collection of stories, Borders of the Heart, and is working on a book of essays, Close as Pages in a Book. Fred was named a 2009 Top Ten “New” Latino Author to Watch (and Read) by LatinoStories.com, and his novel was a finalist for the 2008 Premio Aztlán Literary Prize.  

Initially, Fred grew up on the east coast in a bilingual community, and when his family moved to the Middle West his sense of language, identity, and place became defined and, strangely, more fleeting. He often feels—even with multiple graduate degrees in writing—that he’s still learning how to tap into the potency of words. In Spanish there is the word anyoransa (a deep sense of longing and nostalgia). Nostalgia and possibility, memory and longing—they make life and fiction credible and mysterious, and these are forces Fred’s often discovers alive in his writing.

(Taken from http://redroom.com/member/fred-arroyo/bio )

Interview with Sherwin Bitsui. Sunday, May 27th, 2012.

34: Daniel & Ben talk with writer Sherwin Bitsui, author of “Flood Song,” winner of the American Book Award. Bitsui talks about the intuitive process by which he conceives of his poems, and why he has to hear his poems sung or read. 

Bitsui also reads a poem from his collection “Flood Song” 

Sherwin Bitsui is originally from White Cone, Arizona, on the Navajo Reservation. Currently, he lives in Tucson, Arizona. He is Dine of the Todich'ii'nii (Bitter Water Clan), born for the Tl'izilani (Many Goats Clan). 

He holds a BA from University of Arizona and an AFA in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts. He is the recipient of a Truman Capote Creative Writing Fellowship, an Individual Poet Grant from the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry, a Lannan Foundation Marfa Residency, a 2006 Whiting Writers’ Award, a 2008 Tucson MOCA Local Genius Award, a 2010 PEN Open Book Award and an American Book Award for his book Flood Song. 

Sherwin has published his poems in American Poet, The Iowa Review, Lit, Narrative and elsewhere. His poems were also anthologized in Between Water & Song, Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century. He is the author of Shapeshift (University of Arizona Press 2003) and Flood Song (Copper Canyon Press 2009). 

(Taken from http://www.bitsui.com/?q=node/1 )

Interview with Pat Mora. Sunday, May 20th, 2012.

33: Ben & Daniel talk with writer & poet, Pat Mora.  Mora talks about her experience in writing in different genres, including her struggles in getting her children's books bought and published.  She also discusses the arms-length relationship she and other children's book authors have with their illustrators.

For the Poem of the Week, Mora reads "Ode to Our Lady of Guadalupe" from her book "Adobe Odes."

"Ms. Mora's poems are proudly bilingual, an eloquent answer to purists who refuse to see language as something that lives and changes," wrote The New York Times of Pat Mora's poetry collection, Agua Santa: Holy Water. Her most recent collection is Dizzy in Your Eyes: Poems about Love written in the voices of teens. Other collections include Adobe Odes, Aunt Carmen's Book of Practical Saints, Communion, Borders and Chants.

The Washington Post described her acclaimed memoir House of Houses as a "textual feast...a regenerative act...and an eloquent bearer of the old truth that it is through the senses that we apprehend love." Nepantla: Essays from the Land in the Middle was reviewed by Choice as, "Twenty inspiring essays written in a very poetic prose...A valuable contribution to American literature." Pat's most recent book of nonfiction is Zing! Seven Creativity Practices for Educators and Students.

She received Honorary Doctorates in Letters from North Carolina State University and SUNY Buffalo and is an Honorary Member of the American Library Association. Among her other awards are the 2006 National Hispanic Cultural Center Literary Award and a Civitella Ranieri Fellowship to write in Umbria, Italy. She was a Visiting Carruthers Chair at the University of New Mexico, a recipient and judge of the Poetry Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a recipient and advisor of the Kellogg National Leadership Fellowships.

A former teacher, university administrator, consultant and the author of many award-winning children's books, Pat founded the family literacy initiative El día de los niños / El día de los libros, Children's Day / Book Day in 1996. It is now housed at the American Library Association. The year-long commitment to link all children with books, languages and cultures, and of sharing what Pat calls "bookjoy," culminates in April celebrations across the country.

Pat is a popular national speaker at conferences, campuses, libraries and schools. The mother of three adult children, Pat is married to anthropology professor Vern Scarborough and lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

 

(Taken from http://www.patmora.com/adultbio.htm )

Interview with Lucrecia Guerrero. Sunday, May 13th, 2012.

32: Ben & Daniel talk with Lucrecia Guerrero, author of "Tree of Sighs," a book which won Guerrero the 2012 Premio Aztlan, a national literary prize awarded to emerging Chicana & Chicano authors. Guerrero talks about what inspires her characters as well as the mostly-male Chicano writers who have influenced her. Guerrero also shares her reading wish list. 

The Poem of the Week comes from another prize winner, Laurie Ann Guerrero. Guerrero is the most recent recipient of the Andres Montoya Poetry Prize. Daniel reads the poem "Preparing the Tongue" from Guerrero's collection "A Tongue in the Mouth of Dying." 

Lucrecia Guerrero's short stories have appeared in literary journals such as The Antioch Review and The Louisville Review. CHASING SHADOWS, her collection of linked short stories was published by Chronicle Books in 2000. TREE of SIGHS, 2011, was published by Bilingual Press. She is the recipient of awards from the Christopher Isherwood Foundation, Montgomery County Cultural Awards and residencies from Hedgebrook for Women, New York Mills, and Fundacion Valparaiso. Guerrero holds an MFA from Spalding University and enjoys facilitating writers' workshops. She grew up in Nogales, Arizona on the U.S.-Mexico border but has lived in the Midwest for years. 

(Taken from http://www.thelatinoauthor.com/authors/G/Lucrecia_Guerrero/ )

Interview with Carmen Giménez Smith. Sunday, April 22nd, 2012. 11:30 a.m.

30: Carmen Giménez Smith is a writer, poet, and professor of Creative Writing at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces NM. She talks about how her writing style is conducive to her busy life as a professional and a mother of two. She also talks about how she blends her careers as a writer and teacher, and why she sometimes has to teach what she personally doesn’t like because it presents a teachable moment. 

Gimenez Smith also reads one of her poems for the Poem of the Week – “Photo of a Girl on a Beach” from the collection “Odalisque in Pieces.” 

Amit Ghosh, publisher of the literary journal BorderSenses, contributes to this week’s Poetic License, with a reflection on his struggle to break away from his culture’s expectation to be a doctor, engineer, scientist, or lawyer, and follow his passion as a writer. 

Carmen Giménez Smith is the author of a memoir, Bring Down the Little Birds (University of Arizona, 2010), three poetry collections—Goodbye, Flicker (University of Massachusetts, 2012), The City She Was (Center for Literary Publishing, 2011) and Odalisque in Pieces (University of Arizona, 2009)—and three poetry chapbooks—Reason's Monster (Dusie Kollectiv, 2011), Can We Talk Here (Belladonna Books, 2011) and Glitch (Dusie Kollectiv, 2009). She has also co-edited a fiction anthology, My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me (Penguin, 2010). She is the recipient of a 2011 American Book Award, the 2011 Juniper Prize for Poetry, and a 2011-2012 fellowship in creative nonfiction from the Howard Foundation. Formerly a Teaching-Writing Fellow at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, she now teaches in the creative writing programs at New Mexico State University and Ashland University, while serving as the editor-in-chief of the literary journal Puerto del Sol and the publisher of Noemi Press. She lives with her husband, the writer Evan Lavender-Smith, and their two children in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Amit K. Ghosh is the co-founder and publisher of BorderSenses. He earned an MFA in Creative Writing from UTEP in 2002. Amit enjoys reading and writing about immigrant experiences. Living in the frontera for over a decade has made him aware of the conflict between human and national boundaries. Originally from India, Amit has grown to love the US for its limitless possibilities and Mexico for its passionate existence. 

(Taken from http://www.bordersenses.com/staff.php )

Interview with Lee & Bobby Byrd. Sunday, April 15th, 2012.

29: Ben & Daniel talk with Lee & Bobby Byrd, owners & publishers for Cinco Puntos Press in El Paso. They talk about how they were introduced to the world of publishing, and how Cinco Puntos became a home for books no one else would publish because they connected so closely with the border culture. They also talk about the poetry collection “Beauty is a Verb” which features works written by writers with disabilities.

The Poem of the Week is read by Bobby Byrd, and comes from the “Beauty is a Verb” collection. “Avoiding Rigidity” by Hal Sirowitz, who lives with Parkinson’s Disease.

Writer Denise Chávez will also be talking about the upcoming Border Book Festival, which takes place April 19-22 in Mesilla NM.



Bobby Byrd, poet, essayist and publisher—grew up in Memphis, Tennessee during the golden age of that city’s music. In 1963 he went to Tucson where he attended the University of Arizona. Since then he has lived in the American Southwest. In 1978 he and his wife—novelist Lee Merrill Byrd—moved to El Paso, Texas with their three children. The city and the border region has become their home.

Bobby Byrd, the recipient of a poetry fellowship from the NEA, a D.H. Lawrence fellowship, and an international fellowship to study in Mexico, is one of the most accessible poets writing today. His work is compassionate, tender & joyful. He is the author of numerous books of poetry including Pomegranates, Get Some Fuses for the House, On the Transmigration of Souls in El Paso, The Price of Doing Business in Mexico, and his most recent, White Panties, Dead Friends & Other Bits & Pieces of Love.

He and Lee are publishers and owners of Cinco Puntos Press. In 2005 they received the Lannan Fellowship for Cultural Freedom. Click here to read about the Lannan Foundation award!

(Taken from http://www.cincopuntos.com/authors_detail.sstg?id=4 )

Lee Merrill Byrd, novelist and publisher, was born and raised in New Jersey but has spent most of her life in the Southwest. In 1985, with her husband, poet Bobby Byrd, she founded Cinco Puntos Press, a publishing company named after their neighborhood in El Paso, Texas. Cinco Puntos—a publisher of non-fiction, fiction, poetry and children’s literature—is recognized for bringing the multicultural literatures of the American Southwest, the U.S./Mexico border region and Mexico to a national audience. Lee and Bobby have three children and five grandchildren.

Lee’s collection of short stories, My Sister Disappears, was published by Southern Methodist University Press in 1993. It received a Southwest Book Award and the Stephen F. Turner Award from the Texas Institute of Letters for the best first work of fiction in 1993. In 1997, she was the recipient of the Dobie-Paisano Fellowship. In 2005, she and her husband received Cultural Freedom Fellowships from the Lannan Foundation.

In October 2003, Cinco Puntos published Lee’s first picture book for children, The Treasure on Gold Street, A Neighborhood Story in Spanish and English. It received a Skipping Stones Honor Book Award, a Southwest Book Award, a Paterson Poetry Center Prize, and a Teddy Award from the Texas Writers League.

Cinco Puntos published Lover Boy, A Bilingual Counting Book, in the Fall of 2005. In the Spring of 2006, Algonquin Books published Lee’s first novel, Riley's Fire. People Magazine chose Riley's Fire as one of the top 10 books of 2006.

Interview with Tony D’Souza. Sunday, April 8th, 2012.

28: Daniel & Ben talk with novelist Tony D’Souza, author of “White Man” and “Mule.” D’Souza talks about his latest novel “Mule,” about a struggling writer who turns to drug running to make a living. He discusses the research behind “Mule,” and why the book had such a hard time getting published. D’Souza also talks about why his first book “White Man” is similar to “Mule,” and about the difficulty following up an acclaimed first novel.

Interview with Benjamin Alire Saenz . Sunday, April 1st, 2012.

Extended interview with Benjamin Alire Saenz.



27: Daniel interviews his co-host, Benjamin Alire Saenz, about his new young adult novel, “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe.” The book, which is set in El Paso in the 1980s, tells the story of loner teen Aristotle who befriends fellow teen, Dante, who is the exact opposite of himself.



In this week’s Poetic License, Daniel reflects on Chicano masculinity and its different incarnations in his life.

Interview with Luis Alberto Urrea. Sunday, March 25th, 2012.

26: Daniel & Ben talk with writer Luis Alberto Urrea, who talks about his latest book “Queen of America.” The book is a follow up to “The Hummingbird’s Daughter” and was inspired by famed curandera, Teresita Urrea. He talks about the 26 years of research that went into writing the two books.

The Poem of the Week is “Oxtail Stew” by David Dominguez, from his book “Work Done Right.” Read by Daniel Chacon.

Benjamin Saenz contributes to this week’s Poetic License with a reflection on why he’s been a sinner since the day he was born.



Luis Alberto Urrea, 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist for nonfiction and member of the Latino Literature Hall of Fame, is a prolific and acclaimed writer who uses his dual-culture life experiences to explore greater themes of love, loss and triumph.

Born in Tijuana, Mexico to a Mexican father and an American mother, Urrea has published extensively in all the major genres. The critically acclaimed and best-selling author of 13 books, Urrea has won numerous awards for his poetry, fiction and essays. The Devil's Highway, his 2004 non-fiction account of a group of Mexican immigrants lost in the Arizona desert, won the Lannan Literary Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Pacific Rim Kiriyama Prize. An historical novel, The Hummingbird's Daughter tells the story of Teresa Urrea, sometimes known as the Saint of Cabora and the Mexican Joan of Arc. The book, which involved 20 years of research and writing, won the Kiriyama Prize in fiction and, along with The Devil's Highway, was named a best book of the year by many publications. It has been optioned by acclaimed Mexican director Luis Mandoki for a film to star Antonio Banderas.

Urrea's most recent novel, Into the Beautiful North, imagines a small town in Mexico where all the men have immigrated to the U.S. A group of young women, after seeing the film The Magnificent Seven, decide to follow the men North and persuade them to return to their beloved village. A national best-seller, Into the Beautiful North, earned a citation of excellence from the American Library Association Rainbow's Project. A short story from Urrea's collection, Six Kinds of Sky, was recently released as a stunning graphic novel by Cinco Puntos Press. Mr.Mendoza's Paintbrush, illustrated by artist Christopher Cardinale, has already garnered rave reviews and serves as a perfect companion to Into the Beautiful North as it depicts the same village in the novel.

Into the Beautiful North, The Devil's Highway and The Hummingbird's Daughter have been chosen by more than 30 different cities and colleges for One Book community read programs.

Urrea has also won an Edgar award from the Mystery Writers of America for best short story (2009, "Amapola" in Phoenix Noir). His first book, Across the Wire, was named a New York Times Notable Book and won the Christopher Award. Urrea also won a 1999 American Book Award for his memoir, Nobody's Son: Notes from an American Life and in 2000, he was voted into the Latino Literature Hall of Fame following the publication of Vatos. His book of short stories, Six Kinds of Sky, was named the 2002 small-press Book of the Year in fiction by the editors of ForeWord magazine. He has also won a Western States Book Award in poetry for The Fever of Being and was in The 1996 Best American Poetry collection. Urrea's other titles include By the Lake of Sleeping Children, In Search of Snow, Ghost Sickness and Wandering Time.

Urrea attended the University of California at San Diego, earning an undergraduate degree in writing, and did his graduate studies at the University of Colorado-Boulder.

After serving as a relief worker in Tijuana and a film extra and columnist-editor-cartoonist for several publications, Urrea moved to Boston where he taught expository writing and fiction workshops at Harvard. He has also taught at Massachusetts Bay Community College and the University of Colorado and he was the writer in residence at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette.

Urrea lives with his family in Naperville, IL, where he is a professor of creative writing at the University of Illinois-Chicago.

(Taken from http://www.luisurrea.com/about-luis )

Interview with Corrinne Clegg Hales. Sunday, March 18th, 2012.

25: Daniel & Ben talk with writer Corrinne Clegg Hales, author of the poetry collection, “ To Make It Right.” She talks about how her work is haunted by the spirits of the dead, and how she tries to make her poetry accessible to readers who might otherwise skip over a poem.

The Poem of the Week is “Diving Into the Wreck” by Adrienne Rich – read by Benjamin Saenz.

This week’s Poetic License is a reflection by Daniel Chacón on how his imagination transformed his childhood.



Corrinne Clegg Hales is the author of four poetry collections, most recently Separate Escapes, winner of the Richard Snyder Poetry Prize (Ashland Poetry Press, 2002). Her previous books are: Out of This Place (March Street Press, 2001), January Fire (Devil's Millhopper Press), and Underground (Ahsahta Press). Her poems have appeared in The Hudson Review, Ploughshares, The Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, The Southern Review, and many other journals. She has received two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and she won first place in the River Styx Poetry Prize competition for 2000. She teaches in the creative writing program at California State University, Fresno.

(Taken from http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/v1n2/poetry/hales_c/index.htm )

Interview with Tony Diaz. Sunday, March 11th, 2012.

24: Daniel & Ben talk with writer Tony Diaz, novelist and leader of the Librotraficante movement, which is on a mission to smuggle banned books back into Tucson, Arizona, after the city’s school board removed a number of books from the district’s classrooms, including many books on Latino studies. The Librotraficante caravan is traveling from Houston to Tucson, and will make a stop in El Paso on March 14 at 7 p.m., at the Mercado Mayapan, 2101 Myrtle.

Originally from Chicago, novelist Tony Diaz is the author of novel THE AZTEC LOVE GOD, which Ishmael Reed selected as the 1998 Nilon Award for Excellence in Minority Fiction. Reed called Diaz “Relentlessly brilliant.” Diaz is also included in major anthologies such as HECHO EN TEJAS: An Anthology of Texas Mexican Writers edited by Dagoberto Gilb, and LITERARY HOUSTON edited by David Theis. His essays have also appeared in the Los Angeles Times and Houston Chronicle. He has just completed his second novel THE CHILDREN OF THE LOCUST TREE which is in the hands of his agent.Diaz moved to Houston to pursue a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from the University of Houston's Creative Writing Program. He became only the 3rd Latino to complete an MFA from that program.While in graduate school, he began conducting workshops and seminars for different community organizations such as the then-Chicano Family Center and Talento Bilingue de Houston. That work inspired him to remain in Houston after completing his studies. He went on to create Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say, which just celebrated its 13th Anniversary. Nuestra Palabra promotes Latino literature and literacy. This consists of workshops, readings, and book fairs. He is also the host of the Nuestra Palabra Radio Show on 90.1 FM, KPFT.He also designed his dream college course: Introduction to Mexican American Literature which he teaches at Houston Community College by linking his expertise and contacts to the history and study of our culture. He also serves as the faculty advisor for The Egalitarian, the official student newspaper which serves the entire 60,000+ student body and all campuses of HCC.

Interview with Philip Levine. Sunday, March 4th, 2012.

23: Daniel & Ben talk with Poet Laureate of the United States, Philip Levine. Levine talks about his love of New York City, why he always wanted to be a poet, his life as the U.S. Poet Laureate, and how the Diego Rivera murals in Detroit influenced him as a young man. Levine also contributes this week’s Poem of the Week, reading his own poem, “Llanto” (for Ernesto Trejo).

Philip Levine born in Detroit, Michigan, on January 10, 1928, was formally educated in the Detroit public school system and at Wayne University (now Wayne State University), Michigan's only urban public research university. After graduation, Levine worked a number of industrial jobs, including the night shift at the Chevrolet Gear and Axle factory, reading and writing poems in his off hours. In 1953, he studied at the University of Iowa, earning a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. There, Levine studied with poets Robert Lowell and John Berryman, the latter of which Levine called his "one great mentor."

In 1957, after teaching technical writing in Iowa City, Levine travelled to California, where he hoped to relocate with his wife and two children. Levine was welcomed by the poet Yvor Winters, who agreed to house the aspiring poet until he found a place to live and later chose Levine for a Stanford Writing Fellowship.

Levine published his debut collection of poems, On the Edge (The Stone Wall Press), in 1963, followed by Not This Pig (Wesleyan University Press) in 1968.

Since then, Levine has published numerous books of poetry, most recently News of the World (Alfred A. Knopf, 2010); Breath (2004); The Mercy (1999); The Simple Truth (1994), which won the Pulitzer Prize; What Work Is (1991), which won the National Book Award; New Selected Poems (1991); Ashes: Poems New and Old (Atheneum, 1979), which received the National Book Critics Circle Award and the first American Book Award for Poetry; 7 Years From Somewhere (1979), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award; The Names of the Lost (1975), which won the 1977 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets; and They Feed They Lion (1973).

About writing poetry when not working the night shift, Levine has written:
"I believed even then that if I could transform my experience into poetry I would give it the value and dignity it did not begin to possess on its own. I thought too that if I could write about it I could come to understand it; I believed that if I could understand my life—or at least the part my work played in it—I could embrace it with some degree of joy, an element conspicuously missing from my life."

In a review of Breath, Publishers Weekly wrote: "Levine writes gritty, fiercely unpretentious free verse about American manliness, physical labor, simple pleasures and profound grief, often set in working-class Detroit (where Levine grew up) or in central California (where he now resides), sometimes tinged with reference to his Jewish heritage or to the Spanish poets of rapt simplicity (Machado, Lorca) who remain his most visible influence."

Levine has also published nonfiction essays and interviews, collected in The Bread of Time: Toward an Autobiography (University of Michigan Press, 1994); Don't Ask (1981); and So Ask: Essays, Conversations, and Interviews (2002).

As editor, Levine published The Essential Keats (Ecco Press, 1987). He has also co-edited and translated two books: Off the Map: Selected Poems of Gloria Fuertes (with Ada Long, Wesleyan University Press, 1984) and Tarumba: The Selected Poems of Jaime Sabines (with Ernesto Trejo, Sarabande Books, 2007).

Levine has received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Harriet Monroe Memorial Prize from Poetry, the Frank O'Hara Prize, and two Guggenheim Foundation fellowships. For two years he served as chair of the Literature Panel of the National Endowment for the Arts.

He taught for many years at California State University, Fresno, and has served as Distinguished Poet in Residence for the Creative Writing Program at New York University.

In 2000, Levine was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Retired from teaching, Levine currently divides his time between Brooklyn, New York, and Fresno, California.

(Taken from http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/19 )

Interview with Melinda Palacio. Sunday, February 26th, 2012.

22: Daniel and guest co-host Sasha Pimentel-Chacon talk with Melinda Palacio, author of “Ocotillo Dreams” and “Folsom Lockdown.” Palacio talks about her upcoming collection of poems, “How Fire is a Story Waiting,” and how a visit to her estranged father in prison inspired the poetry chapbook, “Folsom Lockdown.”

The Poem of the Week was written by, and is ready by, Melinda Palacio – “Abluela’s Higuera.”

Writer & educator Oscar Bermeo contributes to this week’s Poetic License, with a reflection on why he cannot label himself a “Latino writer.”



Melinda Palacio grew up in South Central Los Angeles and now lives in Santa Barbara and New Orleans. She also writes a Friday column for La Bloga.com. Palacio holds two degrees in Comparative Literature, a B.A. from Berkeley and an M.A. from UC Santa Cruz. Melinda is a 2007 PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Rosenthal Fellow and a 2009 alum of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. Her poetry chapbook, Folsom Lockdown, won Kulupi Press’ Sense of Place cash prize and publication, Spring 2010. Her work has been published in a wide variety of journals and anthologies, including the Arizona Republic, BorderSenses, the East Valley and Scottsdale Tribune, Phoenix Magazine, Sage Trail Poetry Magazine, Buffalo Carp, Black Renaissance Noire, the Valley Voice, PALABRA: a Magazine of Chicano/Latino Literary Art, Poets and Artists, the Maple Leaf Rag III and IV, La Bloga, Askew Poetry Journal, Latinos in Lotus Land: an Anthology of Contemporary Southern California Literature, Poets of the American West, Strange Cargo, El Tecolote, San Pedro River Review, Pilgrimage Magazine, Quercus Review, Eleven Eleven, the Mas Tequila Review, Hinchas de Poesia, the San Diego Poetry Annual, and Southern Poetry Anthology. Arizona State University’s Bilingual Review Press published her first novel, Ocotillo Dreams, Summer 2011. She enjoys public speaking and sharing her knowledge of writing and publishing through workshops, lectures, and panels. Tia Chucha Press will publish her full length poetry book, How Fire Is A Story, Waiting, Fall 2012.

Interview with Marcia Hatfield Daudistel. Sunday, February 19th, 2012.

21: Daniel talks with Marcia Hatfield Daudistel, editor of “Grace and Gumption: The Women of El Paso” and “Literary El Paso.” Daudistel talks about the struggles in convincing an out-of-town publisher that El Paso had a plethora of writers to contribute to its “Literary” series. She also talks about “Grace and Gumption” and the upcoming publication of “Authentic Texas: The People of the Big Bend.”

Daudistel also reads this week’s Poem of the Week: Pat Mora’s “Desert Women.”

And in this week’s Poetic License, UTEP Creative Writing professor Jose de Pierola reflects on “The Dream of the Perfect Language.”

Interview with R. Zamora Linmark. Sunday, February 5th, 2012.

19: Ben & Daniel talk with R. Zamora Linmark, author of the novel “Leche” and the poetry collection “Drive By Vigils.” Linmark talks about why “Leche” is only partly autobiographical, and about his struggles in getting the novel published. He also touches on the influence that Frank O’Hara had on his poetry.

The Poem of the Week is by this week’s guest, R. Zamora Linmark. Daniel Chacon reads “Sunday Morning” from the collection “Drive By Vigils.”

And in this week’s Poetic License, Sasha Pimentel-Chacon examines “unexpected etymologies” and the purpose of different languages in poetry & speech.