Sunday, March 27th, 2011
Putting down the letters. – March 26, 2011. Boyle Heights, CA – A night of written letters and spoken words, a young man prepares for his turn on the dais.
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Category Daily Shot, Photography / Tags: Tags: art, boyle heights, chicano, community, culture, East Los Angeles, photografa, Photography, poem, poetry, spoken word, Writing, /
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Thursday, January 7th, 2010
(Please excuse any grammatical errors. All short stories by Solovino Reyes are in development and will be edited throughout the year.)
Based on a poem written last year.
Solovino Reyes was alone again; holding a slight grudge against life he walked through the porthole-esque streets of downtown Los Angeles where the drudgery stained gray walls and the black asphalt suffered to create some kind of stimuli for his mind. But like a wet book of matches, damp and flaccid, he experienced no sparks, no kindle, no nada; only a relentless sinking feeling coaxing him further down the dim obscurity of the night.
Earlier in the evening, the bustle of the bar scene failed to kick start the good side of his duality and at 4a.m., around here you won’t find the good side of anything. In a drunken progression he passes by all the closed restaurants and businesses. No one is around. There are no ridiculous art-walk crowds to distract him from himself. No lady to steal a kiss from. At his age he shouldn’t be trying to steal kisses anyway. So he flips the mental middle finger at his current reality with a shrug of the shoulders and a voice in his head says, “Fuck it all. Who cares.”
(more…)
Monday, November 23rd, 2009
It took me way too long to post this writer. I first read Aquino while part of a writers workshop: www.theundeniables.org.
But it was on the last day of this seasons Tuesday Night Cafe in J-Town that I met him. The Tuesday Night Cafe is a poetry and performance showcase that has survived for eleven years under the navigation of Traci Kato-Kiriyama. He dedicated this poem to her on the night I was there. I’ve wanted to post it since that day and I’m glad I finally got around to doing this.
Below is the poem he read on that night and I’ve included two other poems by Aquino.
Enjoy.
Friday, November 6th, 2009
The following poem is from Jim Marquez’s latest book “Heart of the Beast-Collected Love Stories” available exclusively at ANTIGUA COFFEE HOUSE in Cypress Park, or at www.LuLu.com/JimMarquez.
Jim has self-published 9 books in the past 5 years and is the Editor of the “Citizen LA”, a monthly arts & culture magazine out of Downtown Los Angeles serving the arts communities of the City of Angels. In addition to being born & raised in East LA, he is a proud graduate of East Los Angeles College & Cal State LA.
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Slow dancing in a dive bar, mid-week, not in downtown.
This was a dream, right?
A mid-west beauty,
In my arms
An actual lady… (more…)
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Category Writing / Tags: Tags: chicano, East Los Angeles, jim, jim marquez, Latino, marquez, Writing, /
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Monday, October 26th, 2009
Ominous angels overlook the dark ballrooms of the Alexandria.
As I drove west on Cesar Chavez the downtown skyline stabbed at the heavens and I could see a dark cloud looming from the Pacific, threatening our city, but as Tom Waits uttered maladies on my radio I embraced the ominous cumulus as a good omen. I was on my way to visit some of the darkest hallways and stairwells that exist in Los Angeles. Rumors of spirits lurking have drawn me here tonight.
These “appearances”, along with the tenants in the old buildings, are rapidly changing nowadays but underneath it all is a soul that you cannot supplant. Just take a walk down Spring or Main Street late one night to feel the remnants of the past; spirits of yesteryear still electrify the passageways.
Rafael Cardenas, was born in 1971 in Pihuamo, Jalisco: a small town in the central part of Mexico on the western coast. His parents migrated to the US in 1974. He grew up in, and still lives in, East Los Angeles. His writing and photography comes from his fascination with words and the creative process.