I’m sure I made my parents really proud, and in the end that’s what life is all about.

Check the full interview here.

Thank you to Jeff Von Ward, Gina Goldblatt, Rey-Philip G, Sacred Grounds, my friends, other readers and the awesome crowd that turned out at Writing Without Walls #2. It was an honor to share the mic with such dope readers and the venue, audience and vibe were all awesome.

It’s great to see a new, fun and well-organized reading series so I highly suggest you attend the next one in Berkeley!

Here is a video below.

Check out the rest of the readers here.

I hope you’ll come listen and drink and then drink with me afterwards because chances are you are pretty awesome and I want to hang out with you.

Here’s the Facebook Event for more info.

I am honored to have my translations of Yanko González’s Alto Volta (2007) appear, for the first time in print in English in the 101st issue of Transfer.

As usual, the reading was well-attended and awesome, and not just because the free wine. There were some really great poets and writers and their words will stick with me for some time to come.

Thank you to the awesome Transfer staff once again and here is a video of me reading. Enjoy:

Direct link.

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

Langston Hughes

Happy birthday buddy. He was born today in 1930.

This poem is a huge part of why I write poetry. I love the image but also the rhythm and the sonic qualities of this poem blew my mind when I first read it. So short, yet so sweet. RIP

An excerpt:

“His fingers were ever working as we descended. I wanted to touch them, see if they could really be that stubby and callous. They would feel like the silt that lined the walls, the rough but delicate rock that stained to the touch with red dust. He took flimsy rice papers and rolled joints we smoked down to the nub, tossed into the chasm as we sank lower and lower.”

Check them out here.

From the poem:

“Fun fact: Chile is the leading per-capita consumer of Coca-Cola and mayonnaise.”

http://osfrjournal.blogspot.com/2010/12/stephen-rosenshein.html

You weren’t on either.

There is a certain allure to 80’s music to short women
at least in the way I look down on them figuratively
literarily skeptical certain that this might be the last

time we dance although it is not. The little points
of light will be gone the spinning will slow
but continue slower and slower never quite

stopping on any particular point in the universe
in time in space in the drip of liquid from the outside
or the inside of a cup gripped in (our) palms.