Where To Catch Me In This Pandemic

 

TLA Latino Caucus Presents:

Velada Poética Virtual: Latinx Voices to Know

Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, TLA’s Latino Caucus Round Table invites you to join us for a virtual evening of bilingual poetry with powerful Latinx voices from throughout Tejas. Featured poets are Julieta Corpus, Miriam Damaris Maldonado, Edward Vidaurre, and Veronica Sandoval (Lady Mariposa)

Liliana Valenzuela’s Codex of Love

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WHEN:

October 1, 2020 @ 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm

COST:

Free

CELEBRATION READING

Join us in celebrating the recent release of Liliana Valenzuela’s Codex of Love: Bendita ternura. Liliana will be joined by poets Jo Reyes-Boitel and Edward Vidaurre.

This event will take place via Zoom; please see details below. The book can be purchased via our online store here, or call us on 512-322-2097 to arrange curbside pick up.

Codex of Love: Bendita ternura is a migration of spirit. Liliana Valenzuela takes us by the hand and shows us where she comes from, where she’s been, and where she is through a collection that at times reads like a song and other times like a prayer. Valenzuela’s voice whispers to us and gives us pleasure. She is kind in her sensuality and transcendent in matters of the heart. The five sections in the collection are as visual as they are thought-provoking, through a metaphorical journey that’s tender and urgent. A well thought and well written poetic entrée for the starving reader.

Edward Vidaurre is the author of seven collections of poetry. He is the 2018-2019 City of McAllen, Texas Poet Laureate, a four-time Pushcart-nominated poet, and publisher of FlowerSong Press. His writings have appeared or are forthcoming in The New York Times, The Texas Observer, Grist, Poet Lore, The Acentos Review, Poetrybay, Voices de la Luna, as well as other journals and anthologies. Vidaurre is from Boyle Heights, California and now resides in McAllen, Texas with his wife and daughter.

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"WHEN THE VIRUS CAME CALLING: COVID-19 Strikes America"

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Sunday, September 27, 2020 at 4 PM – 6 PM PDT

TO REGISTER OR RSVP, CLICK ON THIS LINK TO RECEIVE YOUR OWN PERSONALIZED ZOOM LINK:
https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMufuuppzopGtx6ufqvK-vWAG0pkx_UuXAM

National book launch by GOLDEN FOOTHILLS PRESS for a historic anthology of poems, personal essays, and short fiction written by 45 distinguished authors from across America starting with when COVID struck.
Edited by national award-winning author, THELMA T. REYNA, this book depicts the grief, loss, hope, and courage that shaped us in real time as our lives changed dramatically. 33 of these top authors will read their work from the book. Come share this journey with us!

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AUTHORS READING THEIR WORK

US PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURAL POET:
Richard Blanco—Florida

POETS LAUREATE:
Edward Vidaurre – Texas
Elline Lipkin – California
Hazel Clayton Harrison –California
Marlene Hitt --California
Mary Langer Thompson --California
Radomir Vojtech Luza --California
Thelma T. Reyna –California

WRITING LEADERS:
EDITORS, PUBLISHERS, PROGRAMS
Don Kingfisher Campbell –California
Gerda Govine Ituarte --California
GT Foster –California
Jimmy Recinos --California
Pauli Dutton -- California
Peter J. Harris –California & Washington, D.C.
RD Armstrong --California
Seven Dhar --California
Joshua Corwin –California
Tresha Faye Haefner --Costa Rica

ACADEMICS :
PROFESSORS, WRITING INSTRUCTORS
Amy L. Alley --South Carolina
Carolyn Clark --New York
Cassie Premo Steele --South Carolina
Christine E. Reyna --Illinois
Mel Donalson --California
Mara Adamitz Scrupe -- Virginia
Michael Haussler --California
Judie Rae --Northern California
Judy Bebelaar --Northern California
Lauren S. Reynolds -- Michigan
Wanita Zumbrunnen --Missouri

OTHER AWARD-WINNING AUTHORS:
David Dephy -- New York
Maija Rhee Devine --Washington
Nancy Shiffrin –California
Victor Cass --California

LATINOPIA PLATICA EDWARD VIDAURRE PANDEMIA & OTHER POEMS y

http://latinopia.com/latino-literature/latinopia-platica-edward-vidaurre-pandemia-other-poems/

LATINOPIA PLATICA

Edward Vidaurre is a poet based in McAllen, Texas. His most recent book of poetry, Pandemia & Other Poems, and is published by Aztlán Libre Press. In this Latinopia Plática Edward reads the poems “Generation Z,” “Los Pajaros Saben” and “Girasoles.”

“LAST BREATH”

Pandemia & Other Poems

Introducing Pandemia & Other Poems by Edward Vidaurre, scheduled to be released in August, 2020. Vidaurre’s writings have appeared or are forthcoming in The New York Times Magazine, The Texas Observer, Grist, Poet Lore, The Acentos Review, Poetrybay, Voices de la Luna, as well as other journals and anthologies. Vidaurre is the author of six collections of poetry. He is the 2018-2019 City of McAllen, Texas Poet Laureate, a four-time Pushcart-nominated poet and publisher of FlowerSong Press. Vidaurre is from Boyle Heights, California and now resides in McAllen, Texas with his wife and daughter.

Praise for Pandemia & Other Poems 

Pandemia & Other Poems is the book we need right now. Edward Vidaurre’s tender, wise, jazz-singer words rise up and speak for this pandemic period when we realize our lungs connect us—and our stories and our songs. His poems move bird-like from coffee in the morning with mockingbirds to children “in tent cities, still, still.” Vidaurre can make you laugh out loud in one breath and break your heart the next. He tells us “I want to die trying/and try living,” and he does—with enough pain, generosity and imaginative energy to make you remember why our lives matter. 

—Sheila Black 

Pandemia & Other Poems is a new scripture for the plague years. Unabashedly bi-lingual and pan-cultural, a creation myth in the face of destruction, a seed of renacimiento in our charred garden. It echoes the great Raza voices while reaching deep into far older roots as it leaps into the future. This is the real deal. 

—Luis Alberto Urrea 

Pandemia & Other Poems is a road map of sorts where the poet lets us in on his dreams that offer hope, and his questions about the future give us all places to start coming up with answers. I highly recommend you take time to savor this poet-seers verses. Ase O! 

—Odilia Galván Rodríguez 

Edward Vidaurre tiene corazón, he cares, he is compassionate, he embraces the life we are all living at this time. He dares to move with hope, dreams and this prism in your hands — he sees and “works through the ghostly streets of uncertainty.” Enter his word streets, his pioneering stepping poems — Jazz poetry, the homeless, Covid -19, Black Lives Matter, GenZ, his inner lives, and his walking with all of our lives. This is the book to keep close to your heart. Libro Bravo, Corazón of love. 

—Juan Felipe Herrera

Order your copy at https://aztlanlibrepress.com/pandemia-by-edward-vidaurre/

Edward Vidaurre: About Me

Go to this link to read an interview I had with the great Rosebud Ben-Oni of Kenyon Review

VERVE {IN} VERSE: IN CONVERSATION WITH EDWARD VIDAURRE

Go this link to check out my Author page on Amazon.com

Books By Edward Vidaurre

Writer's of the Rio Grande for poems

Writer's of the Rio Grande

My Facebook page

My FaceBook Page

My TWITTER page

McAllen Poet Laureate Twitter

Interview on La Bloga

Interview on La Bloga

Valley Morning Star: Slice of Life

Newspaper The Valley Morning Star

Listen to me on Soundcloud

SOUNDCLOUD

STOP THE WALL: RALLY TO SAVE SANTA ANA NWR - Poet Edward Vidaurre

STOP THE WALL: RALLY TO SAVE SANTA ANA NWR - Poet Edward Vidaurre

With Called To Rise Youth Author

Mission Freshman's Poem Selected for Anthology

2018 Poet's Corner BISD

2018 Poet's Corner

DEAD END FOLLIES BOOK REVIEW

DEAN END FOLLIES

Trevor Boffone, Ph.D.

Artist Profile

Ramona and rumi: Love in the Time of Oligarchy: & unedited Necessary Poems

Edward Vidaurre has done it again! This chap-book collection cuts with the erotic edge of night, and explores inspirations that range from lipstick smears to screaming guitars. Edward is a true "peoples' poet" and remains a central figure in the Indie Lit scene he has helped nurture for years, along the banks of the Rio Grande River in deep South Texas. This chap book turns mostly inward...introducing readers to his love, his passion, his lust, his muses and inspirations. This is a poetic masterpiece that we can all relate to, with an honesty we can all aspire to bring into our own lives and loves.

Prologue

Ramona came to rumi, bare naked

Green in spirit and inexperienced

With knees folded inward

Wearing autumn leaves to cover her virginity,

Wearing the skin of her ancestors,

In her lungs: a yell of resistance

rumi was on his second hat, tilted

A jazz aficionado, blowing

smoke across the night sky

Wailing unstressed syllables in the dark

A master with words,

blood type: ink

Both

running scared

crashing into each other

A clash of short poems

Emerge

Early Morning

rumi wakes to the scent of gunpowder

Ramona wakes and lights a candle for her tongue

it’s early enough to lay dead on a hyphen

a litter of cats die eight deaths

They welcome the fog, slow moving

feeling love for one another

she, his notorious kisses & poetry

he, her love for rolling around in fire

Without blinking, Ramona listens to his words

& how his moustache dances between syllables

rumi in awe, watches her stretch her stare from fall to winter

Both drink in the gossiping mist

He plants squash for his foes

she picks up a rock to stare at her reflection

rumi raises owls, feeds them plantains

they bring him cantos in exchange

Ramona, plants the songs next to a rosemary garden

in a month, teething children will sing the harvest

She chants for rain to go away

by stomping on the earth

He bottles up petrichor

so she won’t forget

Ramona,

porcelain doll with broken fingertips.

rumi, the gluemaster.

They look up at the stars.

Ramona says she sees a shooting opportunity

rumi stares into her eyes and points at stars.

Music plays on the turntable

rumi hums the tune of grackles and a speeding car.

In Search For The Saddest Song

rumi leaves early in the morning

Searching for the saddest song

He walks over to the river

He hears birds sing

Perched above

A tree

A tree

Sad, looming

He hears birds sing

He walks over to the river

Searching for the saddest song

Rumi returns late in the afternoon

Ramona puts out her hand for rumi

To hand over the melancholic lyric

He brought it from the river

Where birds sing, sadly

The saddest song

A long cry

A long cry

The saddest song

Sad songs the birds sang

From over by the rio grande river

A lyric so sad and melancholic both cried

Ramona and rumi cried into each other hands

Ramona and rumi cried along the river of El Rio Grande

After listening to the saddest song the birds sang

Perched above, sad on the anacua tree

Then they slowly came to a hush

The saddest song

A body

A body

A song on replay

Slowly rising from the waters

A small child, a belt, no shoes, one sock

All the birds flee, carrying with them the saddest song

Ramona’s instructions on how to handle the death of a pet chicken

On how to handle the death of a pet chicken:

get down to her level, look into her eyes,

promise her she won't be eaten, tell her she's

the prettiest chicken that ever lived,

read a poem about clouds to her,

code-switch when praying at her feet,

show her where her altar will be when she passes,

bring the other pets in the family to show respect,

promise you won’t eat eggs for nine days as a novena,

kiss her beak, and wait.

Ramona sings her a lullaby,

rumi at a distance, shovel in hand,

prays to the earth for permission to dig.