Juan Felipe Herrera – Johnni Capp Street | Notes from Donut Land 7

Reflect on Mexican Novelists, reflect on “American Poets” reflect on borders.

7.

There’s about 75 chairs and about 50 tables. Windows all around in Donut Land. Light and darkness all at the same time. And donuts, donuts, donuts —  at midnight. I love hanging out with Frank Wilma. It’s one infinite conversation with pieces of everything else in it.  We just got back from Mexico City shuffling on the streets going to a prize-winner event for the prestigious Grijalbo. Luis Zapata won it for— Los Vampiros de la Colonia Roma. He was wearing an appropriate streetish thin black leather jacket. Here it’s just us two. Two guys since 1977 still yappin’ with glazed and eggy, caramel donut minerals on our faces.

Hermelinda Hernandez Monjaras – BRAINFØG XIII

Visual poem with a title that reads: BRAINFØG XIII. There is a light gray blooming image behind the words. The poem’s orientation is landscape. Four groupings of text appear in irregularly shaped and slightly overlapping dotted figures that look vaguely like tabbed file folders The text reads: (top right): I divide 24 ribs into three shards to flaw as one sines and cosines ripple into existence the brain & the x-direction (bottom right): 1 version is a child trapped in the past child whose brain angles cosine who swims inside a maze of fog ghost child who chases the shallow end my existence of time inverted reflection the x-direction (top left): 2 is a clogged thread who chases the sunset y-direction: sun settled emotion chopping into a ghost fear cripples in of where there’s no escape past-woman who chases a leaf near a vertical line fog desire emotion exist in the vertical direction (bottom left): 3 the moth or molecular life outside the river the untamed version to myself she is interior & exterior one within my ribs

read image description (alt text)

Artist’s Statement: For The Fresno 15 Creative Writing Marathon, I used 15 Rorschach I made by dabbing a red rose with paint onto paper. This series is an attempt to write on brain fog: forgetfulness, incoherent thoughts, mental fatigue, lack of clarity, and more. Each day became a challenge: the strings attached within me were reluctant to push, create, and pull; memory became a mass of confusion to frame. Luckily, these 15 days were possible due to persistence and help from my mentor, Anthony Cody, author of The Rendering. Lastly, this series is one step forward toward my future poetic work.

Juan Felipe Herrera – Johnni Capp Street | Notes from Donut Land 6

American Poetry, Midnight America. Are they the same thing? American Poetry?

6.  

We always rap. Maybe like the classic Modernists in Paris. EE Cummings, Gertrude Stein, T.S. Eliot in some odd amber-colored café. So what? What is that thing called “American Poetry?”  

We hang out in Donut Land. Midnight America. I am trying to describe who we are, what this thing is, this poetry thing. This poe- talk thing. Nada. Like everything else. No one knows what is “American Poetry.” 

Hermelinda Hernandez Monjaras – BRAINFØG XII

Visual poem with a title that reads: BRAINFØG XII. There are light gray blooming images on either side of a central column of text. The text is a repeated line growing more transparent with each repetition until the lines fade entirely. The text reads: raw from the face I vessel more blankness raw from the face I vessel more blankness raw from the face I vessel more blankness raw from the face I vessel more blankness raw from the face I vessel more blankness raw from the face I vessel more blankness raw from the face I vessel more blankness raw from the face I vessel more blankness raw from the face I vessel more blankness raw from the face I vessel more blankness raw from the face I vessel more blankness raw from the face I vessel more blankness raw from the face I vessel more blankness

read image description (alt text)

Artist’s Statement: For The Fresno 15 Creative Writing Marathon, I used 15 Rorschach I made by dabbing a red rose with paint onto paper. This series is an attempt to write on brain fog: forgetfulness, incoherent thoughts, mental fatigue, lack of clarity, and more. Each day became a challenge: the strings attached within me were reluctant to push, create, and pull; memory became a mass of confusion to frame. Luckily, these 15 days were possible due to persistence and help from my mentor, Anthony Cody, author of The Rendering. Lastly, this series is one step forward toward my future poetic work.

Juan Felipe Herrera – Johnni Capp Street | Notes from Donut Land 5

The universe, universes, the Big Blank of Nothing. Writing.  Where do you live?

5.

Victrolas spends hundreds of hours on his writing. A sentence for example takes days. Victrolas 

speaks of things no one speaks about. He says there is a copy of each one of us in a parallel universe — as we speak. Many copies of each one of us boppin’ in a different life.

When I think of a parallel  universe I erase this universe. When I erase this universe all I can

imagine is a blank. A blank is the most mind-shattering thing to imagine since existence is impossible in any direction. “Johnni,” Frank says, ‘Stop talking to yourself.” Frank’s voice is

always energetic, it waves and waves and gains velocity and staccato. I am still thinking

about parallel worlds. Maybe a poem is the tremulous bridge that takes us there.

Only Victrolas would think of parallel universes and “reversible landscapes,” as he once said.