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Tomás Rivera Poetry Award

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 13:06:55 -0700

Tomás Rivera Poetry Awards 2008: Instructions
DEADLINE: Poetry postmarked or emailed by Friday, APRIL 11th.

Email to Prof. JF Herrera at juanfherrera@mac.com or
Send to Prof. JF Herrera at Tomás Rivera Poetry Awards ’08,
UCR, #4133 Dept, Creative Writing, Riverside, Ca. 92521
Info: Vanessa, (951) 827-5572

AWARDS
Colleges: First Prize: $250.00, Second Prize: $150.00, Third Prize: $100.00
High Schools: First Prize: $250.00, Second Prize: $150.00, Third Prize: $100.00

All students currently enrolled in Inlandia Colleges and High schools are eligible. The Department of Creative Writing will provide awards as vouchers for books, school and computer items and supplies to be redeemed at the UCR Bookstore.

Theme: Poems must relate to the artwork of Alfredo Arreguín. To view Arreguín’s work please go to Arte of Alfredo Arreguín at (please type the following in lower case) : http://gallery.mac.com/juanfherrera#100088 (For more information contact Juan Felipe Herrera at juanfherrera@mac.com, or pick up informational material at:
• Riverside Community College- Office of Academic Support, 951-328-3820,
• Riverside Main Public Library-Downtown, 951-826-5201, or
• UCR Palm Desert Campus Main office, 75-080 Frank Sinatra Drive, Palm Desert, 760-834-0800

Your poem can…
• Poetically describe one of Arreguín’s paintings (colors, layers of images, the central image, faces, landscapes and how they all are connected to each other);
• Have a conversation with the painting (the people, the animals, the images, the subjects, the colors);
• Relate the painting to your life, memory and experience;
• Talk about the place of art in your life, community, family and world;
• Look like a painting with words and images scattered all over the page (collage with words);
• Be bilingual in Spanish and English. Or be written in English or Spanish.

Guidelines: The poem must be no longer than 3 pages, double-spaced typed, on an 8 ½ x 11 paper. If it is a collage, it can be put on a poster or construction paper no larger than 12 x 14 inches. Number all pages (except for collage). Place your full name, address, school name and phone contact number on the top right hand corner of each page (except for collage – on a label on back side), then insert into envelope -- or email attachment above stated address.

Winners must be present to receive awards at the 21st Annual Tomás Rivera Conference 2008.
Thursday, April 24, 2007 at the University Theatre- 12:00pm to 3:00pm

Tomás Rivera Conference 2008 – Free to the Public!

Great Cast, Great Children

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 07:08:39 -0800

Just want to let you know that we are off and running with the show. Great music by Cristian Amigo, great set desgin by Deb O, great Direction by Rebecca Lynns Brown, great cast (Tara Ricasa, Maggie Carne, Edward Padilla, & Eric Sumangil), great La Jolla Playhouse team. Please let schools in San Diego county know, We are reserving some dates for school performances in March. Call the La Jolla Playhouse (858)-550-1070, Amore.

Happy Salsalandia New year!

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 18:33:03 -0800

Just a note to let you know that our Salsalandia Children’s Play with Música is about finished. We have a great cast at the La Jolla Playhouse and an amazing team of creative geniuses. Seriously, really. It is a dream come true for me. And the actors are amazing. It’s a story about making salsa, blending familias from Mexico and Manhattan, New York, Michoacan, about loss, about siblings feeling abandoned, about dance and music, about magic and the power from within that can transform all things above and below. If you live in the San Diego County area and want your local elementary schools to feature it, please contact the La Jolla Playhouse. And if you want the play to come to your town, let me know at juanfherrera@mac.com Here’s to Salsa! Visit me at juanfelipe.org ---

Great reading at So. Pasadena Library

Sat, 15 Dec 2007 09:36:27 -0800

Just thought I’d let you know that me and Margarita had a great time at the SP Library -- a full house of gente and peoples came! I want to thank Steve Fjeldsted and VECINOS community organization. They did an effective job, one of the best. And it was the first Bilingual presentation there! So we all made history. I was very pleased. We caught a storm on the way back to la casa, hwr, it was gift of freshness. People loved the 187 Reasons book too. And Torry, a great writer from UCR was there to greet me with a basket of home-made chocolate chip cookies. Now, you can’t beat that with a Pogo-Stick. Lovely. I’ll be giving a Keynote talk at UC Merced on February 2nd for the North regional conference of NACHS. And that, let me tell you, will be delicious.

187 Crossin’

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 13:14:28 -0800

The Book release for 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can’t Cross the Border (City Lights, SF) on 11/15 was a blast! Many gracias to Elaine Katzenberger, Maia Ipp, Chanté Mouton & Stacey Lewis at City Lights & all the good peoples that came to the event. Also many appreciations to Francis Wong, Arlene Biala, John-Carlos Perea and Genny Lim who musicalized and poetized and danced the Bump with me. You lit up the Express.

Another big gracias to Lisa Alvarado & staff at La Bloga (labloga.blogspot.com) for featuring the book today-- and the good people making cool comments. Grazias!

Last night as I tuned into the CNN Republican Presidential Campaign “debates” on the tele, I couldn’t believe (yes I could) that the first 45 minutes were all about “Illegal Aliens.” Not to mention the pre-selected You Tube questions. Not one person or statement expressed the Migrant Homelander experience, not to mention the question of Mexican and Latino labor and resource exploitation. Not to mention that other odd phenomena that has to do with Bordermaking, Class and Power.

I could go on with another 187 things that were omitted. They’re in the book. Let’s send it to CNN.

CNN: Let’s at least meet halfways, camaradas.

Chandler, Az., to North Beach

Fri, 9 Nov 2007 06:15:28 -0800

Went to Chandler, Arizona recently and worked with the students there and most wonderful teachers. The second graders put together a Teatro Cilantro - and they performed my children’s book, Super Cilantro Girl - La Super Niña del Cilantro, about a girl that grows green like the plant and flies to save her mom at the border patrol station. All this in front of a couple hundred mexicano parents. Lovely. The young ones were very interested in a more humane way of being heroes... They put all their heart into it. This new book, 187 Reasons.. is for older readers and yet it has (I hope) similar calls for action, from the center of our corazón...

I want to see you at City Lights next Thursday about 7pm...my good poetryjazz familia will be there -- Francis Wong, Genny Lim, John Carlos Perea, Arlena Biala (just back from Hawaii) and Margarita Robles, my compañera. Stompin’& shouting good words for all.

Help Me Get the Word Out

Sat, 3 Nov 2007 16:05:23 -0700

When you have chance, help me get the word out on 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can’t Cross the Border, the book. I will really appreciate it. I think you will enjoy it. The first foto is from 1917, when my mother, Lucha, and my aunt Aurelia and familia were living in Barrio Nino Perdido, in Mexico City. The Mexican Revolution was still having its tremors and my mom’s family made the famous exodus to El Norte, to Juarez, Chihuahua and encountered that switch on the ground, unnamed yet, now called the Border. Here’s a shot of me in 1955, first grade, Central Elementary, Escondido, Mrs. Bryant’s class. First time anyone of us saw a school in California.

Recently, I discovered that El Nino Perdido is now part of Tepito -- still one of the poorest colonias. Yet, full of possibilities.