I have the pleasure of moderating our last panel of the day.
So I'll be introducing the four panelists in just a moment.
This panel is on the ongoing influence of Andrés Montoya.
We have the pleasure of hearing from four wonderful writers about that influence.
And as always, there will be plenty of time for questions at the end of the panel.
Monique Quintana is a contributing editor at Luna Luna magazine and she blogs at
her site Blood Moon about Latinx literature and is a pop culture contributor at
Clash Media.
Her novella is forthcoming in 2019.
The novella is a fantastical imagining of her hometown, Fresno.
And I'm just reading shortened versions of these bios.
Second will be Kenneth Robert Chacón, who is a native of Fresno. He received his B.A. from
UC Davis and his MFA in poetry from Fresno State.
His first collection of poetry was published last year, titled "The Cholo Who Said Nothing,"
and he teaches at Fresno City College.
Third will be Marisol Baca.
Marisol is the author of "Tremor" which won the Three Mile Harbor Press Poetry
Prize and she has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and she lives in Fresno and teaches
at Fresno City College as well.
And at the end of the table there is Tim Z. Hernandez-- who needs no introduction.
Writer/performer/artist, of course deep Fresno roots and currently teaches at the
University of Texas, El Paso.
His latest book, "All They Will Call You," is incredibly powerful and if some of you
have not heard, there is some good news that I asked if I could share, and Tim said
that I could.
Just a few days ago Tim signed the paperwork that, "All They Will Call You" will be made
into a film, so that's very exciting.
[Applause] And so with that, I'll turn it over to the panelists.
When I think of Montoya, I think of CWAA.
This is from the mission statement I wrote for CWAA when I was CWAA president in 2014.
Founded in 1991, the Chicano Writers and Artists Association is a collective of students
that seeks to diversify and politicize the creative community at Fresno State and the Central
Valley through literary events and projects.
The other day someone asked me how "Seewah" was doing, and I was like,
"What the hell is Seewah?"
[Laughter] When I finally figured out what they were talking about, I said I prefer CWAA
or, La CWAA.
CWAA as a sound made my friends think of an ugly gothic bird, so we made a crow our mascot.
We had a CWAA Crow. We figured this would be our great contribution to the legacy of CWAA.
One spring CWAA hosted a Rogue Festival reading, and we invited students from our MFA's other
student organization to read with us.
At the time, the student organization was run by all the popular white hipster kids
in the program.
And to be all subversive and political, we put the CWAA Crow in a newsboy cap on the event
flyer, but then remembered that most brown poets around here wore newsboy caps too.
That was an unfortunate accident.
That was the CWAA event that was the most attended by people from our program.
We sold a lot of tickets and the Rogue festival gave us an award for this.
Now, we generally did like and respect that student group and the hard work they did.
We also knew about the politics of hipster oligarchies and student organizing.
We knew that inviting the popular white kids would bring a lot of people out, and they
would buy tickets.
We kept all the money for CWAA, because we really wanted some kind of catering for our
next event, and Fresno State charges like fifty bucks for chips and salsa.
But really, with each event that we did, we began to recognize who was supportive of our
events and projects, and who wasn't supporting them.
I say support, of course, because we can still support students from afar.
We can't possibly show up to every event, and help out with every project.
Some of us live in a different city, sometimes we are legit sick with a fever, sometimes we
just don't have the heart to leave our homes or even get out of bed.
And that has to be okay.
The thing to think about is who you'll support, and why.
Specifically, how you'll do it.
The way we support student-run organizations, is a reflection of our community.
There's not a day that goes by, that I don't think about CWAA in some way.
Sometimes an old embarrassing photo will pass through my feed, or I'll accidentally open
an old CWAA file from my computer.
Yesterday I argued with one of my best friends, JJ Hernandez, via text message about some
old, unresolved CWAA politics. And I was like, "Damn. This shit is way too deep."
I learned from CWAA that brown writer people can seem like contradictions.
It was hard for us to brag about our CWAA accomplishments.
Our parents and grandparents raised us to be modest and have humility.
And compared to what we went through, who are we writers to think we're so important anyway?
But really, I have no problem bragging about how amazing I think I am when I'm drinking
with my friends at Bobby Salazar's.
But, it unnerves me to do it out in the open.
I still get embarrassed every time I share something about my writing on social media.
And that is something I need to work on, because we need to be proactive on increasing our visibility.
In the spring of 2015 CWAA was able to secure $7,500 from IRA money to go to
AWP conference in Minneapolis.
We ran around giving grants to all of our brown friends in the English department.
Everyone called me "CWAA Oprah," and I had never felt more proud in my entire life.
Now, it was our intention to span the CWAA Facebook feed with "look at us!" pictures
of us at the conference with famous writers and drinking at micro-breweries and riding roller
coasters at the the Mall of America.
But, we never got around to doing this, because we would always slip into our modesty and our humility.
We seem like contradictions because most CWAA people end up becoming abrasive and outspoken.
Sometimes we make people uncomfortable when we speak, sometimes we are not the best at diplomacy.
I still ask myself, "how can I be outspoken, and do it with integrity?"
B.C. (before CWAA) I always wanted people to think I was the "nice girl," even though
I knew I really wasn't.
Nowadays, I don't want people to think of me as a nice woman, because that might mean
I'm not really interested in making things better.
But it's not easy to be outspoken.
Some students put their reputations, and their personal wellness on the line to criticize
the inequities they see in their institutions.
This isn't an easy thing for them to do.
Sometimes I miss the late night text messages, the passing back and forth of digital files,
the bar food, the zig zagging across campus on my lunch break, hanging around mics and
speakers, hoping it won't rain, even though I know I shouldn't hope that. I know I shouldn't hope that.
This fall, my fifteen year old son ran around Fresno High, trying to join MECHA, only to
find out that it was defunct there.
When I asked him why he didn't want to start it himself, his reply was, "I don't want to
do all that work?"
Students feel safe when they can join something that has already been set in place.
It takes a few radical students to be the creatives of that space.
To take the risk that it might fail, that it might waver, that it might become something else.
It takes a few radical students to keep things going. To regenerate things.
To sort through all the valleys that are intangible.
It took me the longest time to learn that just because we can only do a small fraction
of what we wanted to do, doesn't mean those intentions weren't a part of our reality.
It didn't mean we weren't doing enough.
A few weeks ago, I found my old shopping bag with things we used to use for CWAA.
There was a bright blue table cloth, two happy- face girl and boy piñatas, and a jarful of candy.
There was a tattered piece of paper with notes on it.
There are things we wanted to do, but never got around to doing.
It said: "Mi Vida Loca" screening, Chicana fashion show, brown Hamlet.
[applause]
Okay, I think I'm next-- and I've written some things, some thoughts, you know Andrés had
such a huge influence on my life, and my writing, and probably more so after he passed way.
You know, with the publication of his book.
So I'm not sure if it's going to be cohesive, I might talk about butter and maybe some types
of cheeses or something like that, but--I'll do my best.
So I've told the story of how Andrés got me registered for college, of how he picked
me up one afternoon and helped me to write an essay to join the Puente program at Fresno City College.
A program that I now teach in, and have for several years.
A program that is near and dear to my heart.
I've told the story to many people how he took me, and he wanted me to go into the bookstore,
but I was packing a .32 underneath my belt--a gun, and-- I thought that the metal detector
would snitch on me, so I refused to go into the bookstore.
I told that story at AWP in Washington, DC the year before last.
And I've told it to my creative writing classes, and I've replayed that day over and over in my head.
It's a good story and if you haven't heard it, come ask me after, but I'm not here to talk about that.
I'm here to talk about Andrés and his writing.
You see, I've been stealing from Andrés Montoya practically my entire lifetime.
[laughter] [audience speaking] "Good writers borrow, great writers steal."
I must be hella good. [laughter]
For those of you don't know me, my name is Kenneth Chacón, I am Daniel's brother.
I am a graduate of the Fresno State program, and as Lee said, my first book of poetry,
"The Cholo Who Said Nothing," was published last year.
I am from Fresno, born and raised, I adopted what the hip-hop artist Planet Asia calls the
"Fresno State of Mind."
Which pretty much means that at a young age I was obsessed with guns and drugs, and you
know, gang things.
My book deals plainly with these issues.
As I've said before, I steal from Andrés.
I don't necessarily steal his words, although his language definitely shapes my language.
More than anything else, I stole his faith, I stole his Jesus, I stole the God who would
love you despite your flaws, despite your failures, despite your demons.
When I--that book really represented hope for me, and it has been a big--"the ice worker
sings--has been such a huge influence in my life, because of the Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
And I got to let you know, when I was younger I did a lot of reading, you know?
My brother was woke, Andrés was woke, you know?
They schooled me, I'm a little bit younger--well, thirteen years younger than my brother.
[laughter] So I read up on the Aztecs, on the Mexica.
I read up on the Spanish conquest and colonization of the Americas.
When I learned, my history, the history of my people, I was pissed.
It led to me favoring that idea of revolution, and I think Andrés and Daniel had a lot to
do with that, so I--I thought of like an actual [imitate reloading a shotgun] revolution.
And you know, I was in my little gang banging days but I loved that idea because it's something
you could do--something you can do for the people, for the poor, for the people of color,
for the refugee, for the migrant, for the oppressed.
I love the idea of them one day inheriting the earth.
But I also grew to hate Christianity, hate what Jesus represented--you know, blonde hair,
fair skin, blue-eyed.
I was raised somewhat Catholic. I didn't ever go, hardly at all.
I think I went to catechism twice or something like that.
But I certainly inherited the guilt part though, so.
[laughter] But I do remember going to visit Danny an Andrés in Eugene, Oregon when they
were grad students there.
I remember one night, my brother and I, as we are prone to do--sorry [at Daniel, offscreen]--we
got drunk and we had a serious disagreement.
We were at Ken Kesey's daughter's house--[at Daniel, offscreen] I'm not sure if you remember that.
It was the first night I ever dropped acid.
I didn't tell you about that [at Daniel, offscreen] [laughter] Anyways, so when we got home, my
brother and I we butted heads over a stuffed animal, I think it was named Floppy.
[laughter] And I remember the way my brother yelled at me, I was about
sixteen years old and just full of anger.
And I remember the heat around my neck that I felt as he yelled at me.
I remember being so mad at him that I punched his dresser and one of the drawers busted.
Then I remember Andrés--I remember Andrés coming between my brother and I, he had recently
become saved in a Christian sense.
And he was changing, little by little, you know. Just little evidences of him just becoming new.
A new creation.
And I knew him before his conversion, and the night that my brother and I actually got
in a fight, he drank a couple of beers with us, and I think he even smoked a joint.
But after--but after, my brother and I got into a conflict, I remember Andrés' hands.
Cause he had huge, gigantic hands.
I think they've been referenced a couple of times.
I like to think of his fists as being like two, uncooked turkeys.
[laughter] And I remember him getting between my brother and I, and I remember what he said
when he stepped between us, you know, when he put his hands on our chests.
I remember he looked at us with that look that you said earlier.
[to Daniel, offscreen] With that kind of puppy dog look, he said, "it's not right for brothers
to be fighting," and he got convicted that night, he said, "You know what?
It's not right for me to be drinking with you."
I was only sixteen and he felt like I needed a role-model.
And I remember him telling me that he was never going to drink again.
And as far as I know, he never did.
For the rest of the time that I was there in Oregon, my brother and I drank.
But he didn't, he didn't ever partake.
If I can speak honestly, Andrés is the reason for my book.
After that summer in Oregon, he looked out for me.
As I said, he got me registered at Fresno City College, and he often encouraged me to
write, and share my work with him.
But to tell you the truth, I was too afraid to open up.
I was afraid of the darkness that was inside of me.
And I was afraid to share that darkness.
It wasn't until I was a student at UC Davis, when Andrés was dying in the hospital, that
I started to write poetry regularly.
I've always felt bad, because I never got a chance to visit him before he passed away.
I was going through my own issues, and before I even got a chance to visit, he was gone.
His book was the reason I started writing poetry.
And eventually applied to the Creative Writing program here at Fresno State where I met Connie
and Chuck, and fantastic writers who have been nothing but supportive.
But I was amazed by the power of Andrés' words.
And it's funny cause he had this beauty, he had beauty.
But it was paired up against an ugly meth pipe.
He wrote about graffiti on bus thirty and Lion--who I actually knew at the time--who
spray painted and graffiti'd everywhere.
He wrote about gunshots, and lovers in Radio Park.
I felt like he was writing my life.
For years, I rejected Christianity,
I rejected Jesus.
I rejected hope.
Choosing darkness and depression as a form of self flagellation for my sins.
These were the years that I participated in the most self-destructive behavior.
And anyone who knows me, knows that I'm a little crazy.
That--basically I'm a little wild at heart. I've got two sides to myself.
And it has always been the case, that one side is trying to kill the other.
I think about it, you know, all throughout my life, I've been looking for like some freedom.
And while his book, The Ice Worker Sings, certainly deals with darkness, with the shadowy
alley, with the dimly lit hotel room, with the silence and the aftermath of a gun-shot.
It also speaks plainly of hope.
Andrés remembered the immigrant, he remembered the refugee, he remembered the prostitute,
the addict, the gang-banger.
The hope that I found in Andrés' poetry made me want to believe in something more.
Made me want to believe in crazy ideas, like: faith, hope, and love.
Now, I got to tell you.
I'm still--I still battle with my demons and, in fact, last night I drank way too much.
And even today as I was getting ready I was like, "gosh, I'm gonna talk about God, and
here I was getting drunk last night.
I'm just such a contradict--I'm a liar, I'm a hypocrite."
But in times like this, I like to remember Andrés' words.
He picked me up to take me to one of Daniel's plays that was being performed in Modesto.
It think it was called Barrio Bilingual Productions.
And I remember on the drive, you know, he had his two uncooked turkeys on the steering
wheel [laughter] and he looked over at me and he said, "so have
you been writing?" and I told him, "no."
I didn't have anything to say, I was going through so much in my life, I thought it would
be absurd of me to write when I don't know anything.
And he said, he looked at me, "That's a lie from the devil. We all got something to say."
And like I said, "The Cholo Who Said Nothing" was published last year.
You know, it's a good book, it's okay, it's alright.
But if you look inside, you'll see the things I've stolen from Andrés.
You'll hear his words, you'll hear his faith.
You'll see the Jesus, and the social justice that he was always striving for.
The love that--honestly--I think, he died for.
Andrés' writing has been a mighty blessing in my life, and it's apparent from all of
you, that it has been one in yours as well. Thank you.
[applause]
It's hard, going after you--I always feel like, you make me want to cry thinking about--
but I won't cry.
I was there, in Washington, DC watching the panel and I was thinking about--a lot about
that--when we were talking today about the panel, and how emotional, how on the surface
everything--not in a bad way--how on the surface our emotions were.
People were just crying, sitting next to each other, holding hands.
And I thought about that--it brought back all of that--but I'm going to talk. I'm Marisol.
I'm going to talk a little bit about first, I'm going to tell a story of how I met
Andrés, then I'll talk a little bit about how his work has influenced me.
I think I wanna tell it every single time I'm speaking for an event that celebrates him.
I was around sixteen, seventeen years old.
And I just had a poem published through CWAA--I think it was one of the very first issues.
I was a high school student, I was a senior, and I was a senior at Bullard high school.
So, talk about a weird world to be coming from, but I was writing all these poems, and
I was reading poems, and thinking about it, I hadn't met Andrés Montoya, or anyone pretty much, yet.
I went to, I think it was my first poetry reading where I read, and I was going to read
the poem that was published in--Flies, Cockroaches, and Poets, and I think it was
called, "The Jaguar God."
[laughs] I dressed up, with my idea, or my thought on how you would dress for a poetry reading.
Cause I don't think I had really been to any, it was at Barnes and Noble, the old Barnes
and Noble in Fresno that had the little, kind of like, terrace-y upstairs.
And I think, Andrés had been maybe thrown out from there a few times already
and I had never met him, and I went upstairs, and he came up to me and said, "hello, you'll
read right after me."
And--I was wearing this lavender dress, and it was like a crepe material, and I had pantyhose on.
It was a Sunday school--not a Sunday school--but a church dress.
I had my one poem, and I was so nervous to read.
He read before me, and obviously it was brought up earlier that Andrés would get up and he
would put his hands up.
But not only did he do that for his reading, he got up--he stood up, he put his hands out,
and then he went prostrate on the floor.
And looked up at the sky, and said, "Jesus Christ, why have you forsaken me?"
But he didn't say it like that, he screamed it.
[laughter] He screamed it so loud.
There were probably like four people--probably like my parents watching. [laughter] I realized
I was just dressed the wrong way.
[laughter] And I had to go after him, but, one of the things that was good was he kind
of taught me, at that moment, that you have to be courageous.
And you have to speak your truth no matter what, and so I did.
I went up right after him and I was you know, with the pajaros in my voice, and the shaking,
and I read "The Jaguar God," and I got some claps and that was really amazing.
That was my entry into reading poetry out loud for people.
What an amazing gift to come after that reading--to come after such an amazing poet.
Andrés was also the first person to introduce me to Lorna Dee Cervantes' work when I was that
young, and he was older, he was a mentor to me.
I didn't know him as a peer, I knew him as a mentor.
Someone larger than life, obviously larger than life, a big man, but also a presence that was large.
So Andrés' work and his spirit were what brought me and a few of his best friends and
family together over the years.
And that was also one of the gifts that he gave me.
These friendships have encouraged me and inspired me through countless times during my journey as a writer.
Andrés was a generous person.
When I knew him, I knew him in that way. I read with him many times after that.
I sat and I talked with him about poetry at Fresno City College and at the Revue.
I was young and I would just listen to what he had to say, and I'd ask him a million questions.
Especially near that large fountain at Fresno City College where I teach now.
I asked him the big questions about art, poetry.
And somehow I wasn't intimidated by him.
I felt like he would listen and he did.
He always spent time talking with me and seeing me when others did not.
Sometimes they treated me like a child.
I was a girl, a young woman.
So I got treated like a child a lot.
But he didn't treat me like a kid.
He saw potential.
And when he passed, those who were close to him, took up that role and helped me in that same generous spirit.
I remember reaching out to Daniel [offscreen] when I moved back to California, and I was
searching for a kindred spirit because New York felt really far away and strange and I was coming back.
And that is when I was invited to speak at--for Pákatelas.
I think I was maybe--there were only two women reading there.
And I was one of the only ones and the other was Teresa [Tarazi] and she came in a little later
with the babies--I think the baby in her arms--but it was a welcoming back into a community.
It was brought up earlier I think by Cynthia [Guardado] about this feeling of not belonging, of being
an outsider maybe?
And I think Andrés was not about--he was about making people feel like they were included--even
if he was critical of their work.
I promise I'm not crying, it's just my voice is nervous.
[laughs] But he was--he was inclusive.
It was important for him to treat people like they mattered.
And when he talked to you, he talked to you like you were the only person in the room.
That was pretty important to me.
Because he--because of this, he suggested that I go into CWAA, that I was part of CWAA.
I was the secretary for CWAA back in the day.
I met some of my best friends through writing there.
As a result of his encouragement I became close to those friends and that's meant a lot to me in my writing.
I won the Andrés Montoya poetry scholarship at Fresno State twice and that money paid for books.
One of the books that I remember buying with that money was "Poeta in Nueva York," which was Lorca's book.
It was the first time I ever read Lorca in that way.
I had read Lorca before, but it was that book that was very important to me when I was writing.
I watched as amazing writers won his first book prize, and these voices are celebrated
here last night, were impacted by his special light and his time on earth.
I live in places that Andrés lived and walked, and I do right now.
I live in the center of the city, and I can't help but to see, every single day, the Fresno
that speaks of him and his poems.
Many parts make so much sense to me now that I'm older and I can see this, I can't help
to see the influence in my writing.
I live a block and half from Radio Park. I walk there with my dogs.
My streets are Clinton and Blackstone, the highway is a veranda which cuts through everything above me.
That's where my house is.
I sit and I talk to students on the benches where he sat and he talked to me.
I walk home through the neighborhoods that are both rich with children and grandmas and
elotes and popsicle syrup.
And drug deals and exposed guns, sounds of gunshots every night.
And over it, all the ambulances screaming past me, the helicopter circling overhead,
and sometime so close that I can almost touch their metal bellies.
And I walk into Scotty's to grab a drink, or I enjoy the sun coming through the lace-bark elms
at FCC and I think about him asking, had I been writing, and telling me that he has been writing.
And making sure that I'm writing, always writing, reading, but writing. Writing. Writing.
No pretense, no politicking, no grabbing for attention, just curiosity.
And a need to get his message for redemption, Christ, poetry out.
He treated me like an equal.
Andrés, in this way was constantly questioning--his curious nature, and love of language was infectious
to me and I caught it.
In my own work, at least in, "Tremor," the poems are about landscape.
They're about a home for me that doesn't exist anymore, I can never go back.
They're about articulating pain.
Which is, almost impossible to articulate.
When I go back to Andrés' work, and I've done so many times, to remind
myself how to stay true to a place.
To ask myself what am I trying to say about this landscape?
About this pain? I'm not going to romanticize it.
Andrés wouldn't. He didn't.
And when he wrote, he wrote this truth--and most of those truths--as ugly and painful.
But with light at the end.
And this is an important lesson.
Not only one that Andrés and his work influenced in me.
His loss was immense, but through his attendance in life and art, a community has sprung up.
People taking his message, and working with it.
And being active and attentive, with other people's lives and other people's creativity.
And working all of that into some kind of light, and it continues.
I'm thankful for it.
[applause]
Thank you.
You know it's kind of weird, when I was invited to speak on this panel because--the idea of--how
do you speak about the influence of somebody you were in the time with that person, you know?
I think that Andrés and I were probably dipping our creative ladles into the same pond at
the same time, or the same ponds at the same time.
You know, we weren't--he wasn't published, I mean, he didn't have his book at the time.
I just knew him as a young writer like myself.
A little bit older than me, in fact.
Somebody who knew, and had known for quite some time, that he wanted to write.
That's what he was doing by the time I met him.
I was just--I had just come into the realization, I was like twenty years-old,
that I was probably going to pursue writing in a serious way.
And now-- I'm from Visalia, which is about an hour south of Fresno, I was not from Fresno.
And the only reason I was coming to Fresno in the mid-nineties was in search of
Juan Felipe Herrera.
[laughs] I was coming here because I had seen him on a PBS special late one night in Visalia
and I was like, "I teach at Fresno State," I'm going to go hang out around Fresno State.
So I did for a couple of years, I hung around Fresno State.
I hung around, just go hang around the campus, people would see me--I'd start to know people
at the fountain, say, "Hey, you come here?"
I'd say, "I come here all the time, yeah." [laughter] "Yeah I come here all the time."
And-- my friend the muralist, Ramiro Martinez-- I had just met Ramiro also, and
he said to me, "Hey Tim, do you wanna come and read some of your poems in Chinatown?"
Now, mind you, I was driving almost every day to Fresno just to be around other artists
because in Visalia, I didn't know any other writers or artists.
So I was driving here almost every day.
And Ramiro says, "Do you wanna come and do this reading at Chinatown?
It's a place called Centro Bellas Artes.
And I said, "Yeah, I'd love to."
Well, Ramiro had been collaborating with another visual artist, Francés Noriega, and
Francés was, you know, hanging around Andrés quite a but during those years.
So Ramiro and Francés were putting this art exhibit together that I was supposed to read
at-- I was invited to by Ramiro.
And Francés had invited Andrés to read.
So we were the only two that read together that day, at this art exhibit, where there
was like four of us.
[laughs] I had my parents there. John Martinez was probably there also, a few people were there.
Anyway, so Andrés and I read that night, and I remember thinking--
and we had a long conversation afterward.
There was wine, things like that there.
I started to get to know him then.
One of the things that struck me from that moment, and then of course, afterwards--
I was still seeing him around Fresno, Mike Medrano and I started hanging out, and we started
hanging around Juan Felipe-- finally I found him.
[laughing] I got to be in his office there at Fresno State.
During that time-- Andrés, to me, struck me as a holy roller.
I was like, you know, this guy is like, serious about Christ, you know. [Laughter]
I was like forget that, you know, I'm about the revolution.
I'm with Kenny, except without the gun.
[laughter]
I was like you know, so-- that is kind of where my head was at the time, thinking--
I was reading Ricardo Sanchez--I was listening to Gil Scott Heron and reading Amiri Baraka.
And I was like, "revolution!" you know?
And then I was-- and then I would go and read with Andrés somewhere, and he'd be talking
about Christ.
I was like, "Christ? This guy." [laughs]
And every time I saw him, he was hanging around Ramses [Noriega], Silvia Torres,
wonderful artist and human being also,
Hugo Manríquez, and all these folks. And I used to just imagine them having like,
poetry-readings-slash-prayer-circles.
That's how I imagined them in my mind and then when he started hanging around Marisol
and Mike Medrano, I felt like I was part of the heathens.
[laughter] And Andrés--like they were like, saved--and we would see each other, you know,
across campus or something.
I.E. the campus I didn't go to.
[laughs] I was hanging out with these guys close enough, you know.
And then, we would have poetry readings like at Barnes and Noble and all that, and
we would all get to hang out, and it was wonderful.
I'll never forget this one moment, where it all comes down to for me.
He would always have these kinds of questions for me, he would probe about my writing and stuff.
And I wasn't sure he was like pulling my leg--like he was trying to mess with me.
Or if he was being serious.
One time I saw him at Barnes and--I mean it was at Borders, which is now like an H&M, or whatever.
At River Park, it was a Borders at the time.
And I saw him there, shuffling through CDs, and he says, "How is the writing coming along?"
And I said, "It's coming along really good."
He says, "Hey let me ask you something. What's your purpose, bro?"
That's what he said, "What's your purpose, bro?"
[laughter] I just remember his face, he kind of leaned, "What's your purpose, bro?"
I went, "What? What do you mean, my purpose?"
He was like, "Yeah, you know. Who are you writing for?"
I said, "Well-- well, I write for La Raza, dude, I write for the People.
I'm writing poems of revolution, I write.
Yeah, you know I want change that's why I write.
Who do you write for?" I asked him.
And he goes, he just looked at me square in the face, he said, "I write for God."
And I went, "Yeah, I could have guessed that."
[laughter] I didn't say that. I didn't have the guts to say that at the time. But I was thinking that.
"I write for God." He said, "I write for God."
And then, you know, we continued on, having this kind of relationship.
Seeing each other at readings and all of that.
And then when his book of poetry came out, after he passed away, and I opened it up,
every other poem has the word Christ in it.
And-- I still kind of almost shrugged it off at the time.
But, I knew one thing, and that was that Andrés was unwavering from that.
It's nothing you haven't heard from this symposium.
He was unwavering from that, but, unapologetically Christian.
Unapologetically putting the word Christ in his poems.
Now, it has taken me--six books later--this was when I was hanging around Andrés was
1995-96 until his death in '99.
And then my first book was published in 2004.
And now, six books later, 'til just this last book, I've been going around the country,
people have been asking me, "What is the purpose?"
And I realized that my purpose is that I write for God.
Which is to say, love.
Which is to say, the human spirit.
And I find myself saying that more and more everywhere I go.
And I go, "Holy shit."
Andrés knew that way back before even his first book was published.
He knew that.
I don't know if that was any kind of direct influence, but I want to think that there
was a seed planted.
In the process of the last twenty years, I have just come to that place.
I think about Andrés now, and his poetry now because of that.
In fact, I'm gonna conclude with the last memory I have of Andrés.
The last reading I ever saw him at.
It was at Fresno State.
Oh, we're at Fresno State, yeah. The university Pit, by the free speech area, right out here.
And he had just found out that he was sick.
And it was Mike Medrano and myself sitting outside-- I don't know what the event was.
Is Mike here?
No, okay, alright. We're gonna call him on that.
[laughs] It was Mike Medrano and I outside, and he-- and Andrés went to read, and as Marisol
said, you know, Andrés would always-- he shouted a lot of things [laughs] during some of his readings.
But at this moment, Mike and I sat there, and watched him, he had just learned-- we knew
that Andrés had just learned that he was sick.
And-- he still had his ponytail, he was still the Andrés that I remember.
He stood there, and then he called out to God.
He screamed to God.
And so, it moved me, and I wrote this poem within that week, and it was published in Skin Tax,
and I'm going to read that.
When young Andrés died before his book came out, not a poet in town could find the words.
Tongues hung out to dry like raisins Out like burning flags gagging tears of ash
fire and smoke, weeping smudge stacks in the big sky holding hands as we did in the cavity
of church, where we gathered for the juice like ants on a gutted grape.
His voice tilling and tender and desperate at every reading praying poets find pulp in poems
When he sang/ when he loved/ when he cried out
[yells] GOD!
In the university Pit, books clapped shut
ravens jutted from tree limbs and rooftops
eyes yanked from the lovers gaits students snapped pencils, smeared ink, blinked and listened.
In fertile soil amid the orchards, the dust and sweat where crows clamor and swarm
in clouds, where summer ghosts rise from asphalt off highway 99--
I still imagine your voice, Andrés, in the warm baritone of earth, reciting iceworker hyms
to seedlings not yet touching sky, lulling the roots of trees:
peaches, plums and figs that will one day ripen to a plump sweetness.
nourishing our hunger--the fruit of our lives as you have known it.
Thank you.
[applause]
Thank you so much, can we have one more round of applause for all of the panelists?
[applause]
We have time for questions, please.
Or comments.
Could you hear him in the back?
[laughter]
For the sake of a little segway into the questions--these unexpected emotional moments, as each person
was reading, but I just--when Tim read that poem, and that exaltation, I almost started
to--I almost began to weep thinking about how much Andrés would have loved that.
Not just the poem, but what and how, you know?
Are there questions?
Yes?
[audience question inaudible]
That's a good question.
That's to the panelists.
[laughter]
I'm not sure I understood the question. I'm sorry.
So how do we not burn it down?
[audience question inaudible]
I can speak for myself, but-- what I've learned is that anger and pain-- it can be
an addiction just like anything else.
When you give in to your anger, when you give in to your pain, or your guilt, or whatever it is, your rage.
It becomes a high.
And you have to keep doing it, you have to keep-- and it has to get worse and worse, and
you know, the image of me punching the drawer, it leaves things worse than they were.
And so instead of tearing down, instead of burning down, it's about building.
The careful decision that love requires.
And maybe part of it is that crying out, is that escape for a moment from structure
and poem writing, and craft, and all that.
Calling out is the--you know--the moment where the sound just shatters everything, and it
should shatter everything, it does and that has to come out, and maybe it does a little
bit, without us even wanting it to.
But, trying to grab that moment and use it in a really good way, in a positive way.
Maybe trying to learn how to do that?
Maybe that's about having courage and all of that?
I think he definitely did.
Others? Yes. And then yes.
[audience question] So, all day today, I mean, so many wonderful things have been said.
And a lot of it's from the work, it has been about the content and his, I guess his delivery and presence.
I was wondering if you all could talk a little bit to his sort of, like, craft moments.
In terms of the artistry of the work.
How have you engaged with that, or how has that shown up in your own work?
I'll answer that. So, in my book that is coming out
next year, I was really invested in place, and what place means in Fresno.
I'm really interested in how our geography has worked into my life.
So I realized when I was starting to write it, I realized I had all of my happy memories
happened in Parkside Fresno. And I was like, oh, that was because that was where
I lived with my parents, before my parents split up and my dad left town--and he moved away.
And so, I think that meant a lot about me writing back all these places, like back to life.
Right? And so, the characters are like zigzagging across Fresno.
[inaudible]
... how it was really weird that there was a drive-in right next door
to a race car track, right?
I think I was just always really taken by place, and how Montoya was so connected to place.
So I tried to, I think because I'm a fiction writer, so I think for me it is very important
to focus on characters and desire first.
So I was thinking, how is my desire connected to all of these places that I long for that are no longer around?
Or that are still around, but are manifested in different ways.
Does anyone else want to speak to that one?
I was actually in a conversation with the poet Laurie Ann Guerrero about some of Andrés' work.
Again as I've mentioned this idea of sort of creative ladles and similar ponds--one
of the people that had a lot of influence, at least at the time, from what I could see,
was the poetry of Omar Salinas. In fact there--like, you can read an Andrés poem and see Omar in it,
and then you can see one of mine and see Andrés in it--uh Larry Levis, a lot of the sort of
local, Fresno and Central Valley poets and writers.
To me, when I read Andrés--"The Ice Worker Sings"--I should be more specific when I read
The Ice Worker Sings, I see all of them inside of this book in a very deliberate way.
In a way that not only stole, but also honored.
One of the things that I've always loved about Andrés' poetry, and this is where I find
him most alive in his poetry too, is in this kind of--essence of a coyote trickster, you know?
The trickster in Andrés which was, you know--I could never take him serious as a writer.
But I could always take him sincere as a writer.
There is a difference.
He was that way in person. He would-- like I said, was he pulling my leg or not?
Or a little bit of both?
And even in the same way that he introduces the idea of beauty inside--found in the ugliness.
Not that they are two different things, in fact they are one thing.
Beauty is ugliness. Ugliness is the Beauty.
You know, these are the sort of ongoing themes that I find some of the writers that I know
I was reading at the time.
From what I'm vaguely familiar with Andrés was also interested in too and I find in his poems.
Stephanie, did you have one?
[audience question] So, a friend asked me to ask you all this question.
My friend is in New York, he is in love with Andrés Montoya and his poetry.
He's of the opinion, and I strongly disagree that all poets really poach their
lives to really get to the juice out of whatever they can in their lives in terms of their poetry.
I was wondering if that's part--if what you think about in terms of an ethical question
kind of in line a little bit with what you were saying earlier--being poaching, maybe not?
How do you poach maybe from your own life?
Where are those lines for you?
What do you not talk about?
Or what is sort of ... [rest of question inaudible]
Well, I just--I was thinking about what you said, bringing the juice out of life.
I would definitely not want to drink the juice that I was--that's in "The Ice Worker Sings."
I think that's not juice at all.
[laughs] There is a lot of, you know, piss, and grit, and unmentionable types of things in it.
But it gives the--gives one the allowance to write about those things.
That I think, may be uncomfortableness to write about these things.
It's something that is hard for me to do.
But essential.
And I would say not that I know of right now.
Is there something I'm not writing about.
You know, I'm tackling it--things that are difficult.
But yeah no, I think there's definitely an allowance of these are the things that you
should write about, walking around and what you actually smell out of them, but you put life in it.
Hard to do but--
Anyone else wanna speak to that?
I don't think that-- you know this is interesting because-- my assessment as I was reading
"Ice Worker Sings" and reading "A Jury of Trees," you know I sort of see--Andrés does a lot
of sort of, he creates a lot of portraits of people and community and all of that.
It's very kind of almost external.
And yet, it could also be a portrait of self constantly right?
But he's looking at, you know, sort of the external world around him. Most Often.
And in Jury of Trees, obviously it's very-- and all of that.
But at the very end, when you find those poems he wrote when he was already sick, you start
to find very deep introspections suddenly you know?
I can't answer-- because I don't--I didn't speak to Andrés to in those final days, I
didn't know him to the level of intimacy that--his friends who knew him.
But, you know, for me, personally, there is no area that is a sacred cow in terms of my
own emotional landscape.
It's all up for grabs, all of it.
The thing is that sometimes it's not ready to be out yet, and it still takes time for
me to process and figure out and work through.
But I know it's going to come out.
It's a matter of when.
And you know, Andrés--his only book he knew was going to be out--that was not published
posthumously--uh, he was the young poet.
Like I said, it took me six books to get to--he was already doing that prior to his first
book and just imagine what he would have been writing right now?
[audience question] I want to thank all of you--your readings were very moving--I guess as we kind of end
the panel session of the symposium, I just want to pose the question: Each time we have
these kinds of events--you know, the AWP, we had a book release in Elmira this last
September, going all the way back to when we had the In the Grove release all those
years ago, and it was this excavation of the stories we shared and all of it is very, very important.
And it's wonderful and joyous to hear these stories.
It's also emotional and draining and--so many feelings, so many emotions and in some sense
it feels like we have been working towards this symposium for at least ten years, right?
Daniel Chacón, Francisco Aragón-- you know their discussion and I guess, the
question is what do we do now?
The book is out, right, Daniel has said this book represents the best and the best produced
in what remained of his work.
And then working after the book came out for this symposium.
Pulling all together these different writers, these different artists, and people who knew
Andrés to come together and I'm not saying we need to have any answers, or plans--I don't know.
So I'm asking what it your sense as far as how we move forward with Andrés' work and his memory.
You know one of the things that--this is not an answer, [laughs] but one of the things
is that, you know, obviously I think all of us are safe to say--it's safe to say that
all of us are an extension of his spirit.
And the work we do is very much a ripple from that--from his life.
But one of the things that strikes me is--and this happens often.
Is that when one of our poems passes, then we are inspired to do these things.
And I think that--and I think all of us in this room, at least that I know personally,
are doing things already while we're here.
You know, while we're here in this time.
And I think that's probably the most important takeaway is that each of us have this platform.
All of us--I mean this room is filled with so much talent--we all have this platform
and we are all able to do and give a little bit in the way that this symposium has hopefully
rippled out--in the way that all the events you mentioned in the last ten years--I can't
believe it's been ten years.
I think that we all continue to do that work and to find ways in which we can continue
this kind of work.
By this work I specifically mean these exchanges and conversations that go beyond Fresno State campus.
That go out into, you know, West Fresno, and they go out into Fowler and further out.
I think particularly in the way Andrés looked to the creases and the folds and the margins
of society for inspiration, that's where we--it would be good for us to go to those places,
those societies, those communities to do that kind of work.
I think, more than anything, the way that I see it is that--what would Andrés say?
What would Jesus do?
What would Andrés do?
[laughter] I think he would just say are you writing?
You know, and I think that's what he would want us all to do is write.
For the next Andrés Montoya, for the next writer who is gonna come out and who's gonna
just touch people in such a special way.
Plant those seeds, like were gonna sing our songs.
But we also got to help others find their voice.
At least that's what I think because that's what he would have done.
Yeah, I think I spoke a little bit about mentorship when I was talking earlier and I think
that that is the legacy is.
You know, it's important to acknowledge the work of the people that are working right now.
And to see people as--even if they're young, and they're working--but to see them as having
potential and I think we do that.
I think that's active and going on.
And it spreads far beyond Fresno State or the campus, or even Fresno.
But I think mentorship is probably one of the most important things, and keeping your
eye out for people.
And I think, I mean I see that.
Everyone that's here, you know, has been--everybody that I'm sitting around is actively doing that.
And that is mentorship and it's I think the very true way.
That is definitely something that he would have liked.
I just want to add a really short note, Maceo.
I absolutely agree.
Mentoring is vital.
And I think also--this has been said, and maybe it's obvious, but the importance of
teaching the books, and reading the books.
His two--but also books that are branched off of that, letters to the poet from his
brother, of course all the prize winners.
And that's what I wanted to say also in terms of the next so many years is: to the extent
anyone can, supporting the organizations that put the book prize.
The Institute for Latino Studies, the work they do.
Francisco, and building more organizations that support his work and the work of others.
A few more minutes for another question. So?
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