Hermelinda Hernandez Monjaras – BRAINFØG XI

Visual poem with a title that reads: BRAINFØG XI. There is a light gray blooming image behind the words, repeatedly stamped over itself diagonally down and to the right. The poem’s orientation is landscape. The text is faint and left-justified across the image(s). The text reads: Blueblue VIOLET’D Red. orANGE’R. Red R’orAnGE’S. D’rEdoRANGE’S. Blue bLUeoraNGe. W’violET. BLUe’R. Red B’OraNgE. Yellow BLuErED’S Red. Red BLuErED’S Violet. G’RedvIolEt’F D’yellOwblUeBLuE’S.

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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 4

Cortazar, streets, the future. Draw a map. What map?

4.

I have a habit of sliding around in the Mission District since I’ve been in 4th grade. Harrison & 20th, Shotwell & 23rd, 16th & Mission St. One day I’ll live on San José Avenue between 24th & 25th, where Río, Yolanda and René live. Frank listens to my long lists of things. When I visit him at Apt#10 his non-stop blasts of Bruce Springsteen rattle me, take me in. Can’t help thinking of the days when I lived in #10. Every second, I was writing. Every second I was forgetting everyone else existed. Victrolas lives in #2. In a way, this is who we are. We chomp on donuts at midnight. We talk about Julio Cortazar and old buildings on Mission street. We float across histories and peek into the future. Non-stop. A future we will create. 

Hermelinda Hernandez Monjaras – BRAINFØG X

Visual poem with a title that reads: BRAINFØG X. There is a light gray blooming image behind the words. The poem’s orientation is landscape. The words are arranged in two columns, justified to the space between the columns. Each column is presented with spacing that is consistent within the column, yet slightly out of alignment with the other column. The text reads: (left column) :: What is a scorpion cloud’s fear? :: Does age machine wash a girl who wears red shorts & her legs outgrowing a bed? :: Or the short sleeve machine wash of a red shirt & her breasts, is it incest? :: Do chains reshape through the anus up the spine down the breasts? :: Where does it contain until it enters a container? :: If it enters, does it release, quit, forget these walls linch? :: Does it muscle and grip inside a scream? :: Does it void inside a screech born like an ear split? :: Is a forest of lightning a captiveknife to its stress? :: Can you pinpoint where stark daylight howls into the chamber voice? :: What possesses my father’s face & his father’s neck? :: Where do flames sew a picture of thin lines kissing? :: Does it drench from the sink’s lips? Is it hollow dislocation? :: Does it cover what’s under the cover? What’s under the cover? :: What pines under the throat of a monkey flower? :: What is falsehood? What is fatherhood? Does it burn incense? :: Is it hazardous or a ‘true expression of loving’? (right column) :: How would you explain a keyhole that shadows the assault’s feature & frame? :: Whose shame masks the banana peel’s citrus skin? :: Do clouds musk the scent of arousal? :: What consequences on the surface of concrete? :: What adults on the balcony of flesh? :: Can stains on sheets inhabit a weather where he does not exist? :: Can time leash the cold that sleeps under the tiger’s teeth? :: Does the odor reek of anger guts? :: Does it void inside a semicolon rolling down my thigh? :: How do these attachments condition the wood on water? :: Who siphons on glass, which flows and weeds? :: Are tapestries lucky because their bones mold inside a bottle? :: Do shores ink on cobras or cobijas? :: Relocate or escape, are these carpets real? :: Where does the blade decapitate inside the warehousemirages? :: How many versions of ‘I’ do i withhold? :: When does change occur on the taxidermy of dark-colored trauma? :: Which is medicine as fever falls: the promise where drought departs or the promise of when ‘good’ rain brings memories? :: How does the past curl in a pond of species? :: In a pond of species, who is it you’re trying to protect?

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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 3

Of all things, a 1964 VW van. What is inside, what is outside? What is this?

3.

I have a ’64 VW van that I bought from Barbara Pash, somewhere near the Judah train line. 650 pesos. I gave it to Frank. He liked it. It had a wooden pop-up roof. Or maybe it was the back seat that got to Frank—where you could have juicy conferences with your camaradas and play your boom box. Park in the middle of the sidewalk on Folsom and 24th Street where I plan to move (again)—for a while. Frank asked a street mechanic to fix the generator. That was the last time he saw that ’64 VW. It was all banged up. It was perfect for a poet.

David Campos – Notes

Notes and Citations

This was a project deeply rooted in research. I owe a deep gratitude to the work that inspired this work. I owe a deep gratitude to those that put in the work. 

  1. Education Security Map 1: It refers to an analysis pointed out by “The Resegregation of Jefferson County” by Nikole Hannah-Jones. The outline is of the high school boundary map of Fresno Unified.
  2. Education Security Map 2: The outline is from the “Residential Security Map” of Fresno, Ca created by the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation 1936.
  3. In The District Court of The United: This is the petition filed by the parents of the students. Petition; 3/2/1945; Civil Case File 4292; Gonzalo Mendez et al v. Westminster School District of Orange County et al, 3/2/1945 – 7/18/1947; Civil Case Files, 1938 – 1995; Records of District Courts of the United States, Record Group 21; National Archives at Riverside, Perris, CA. [Online Version, https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/petition-mendez, October 17, 2023]
  4. United: this is the judgment and Injunction ruling that the School Districts Could No Longer Segregate Students. Judgement and Injunction; 3/21/1946; Gonzalo Mendez et al v. Westminster School District of Orange County et al, 3/2/1945 – 7/18/1947; Civil Case Files, 1938 – 1995; Records of District Courts of the United States, Record Group 21; National Archives at Riverside, Perris, CA. [Online Version, https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/judgement-and-injunction, October 17, 2023]
  5. School Boundary Segregation Map: The Photo in the back is a screenshot of the Fresno Unified School District, 2023-2024 Elementary School Boundary Map. The is all found text from fresnounified.org/enroll/
  6. Multilevel Marketing School System: magnet schools shouldn’t exist.
  7. Where the Sun Sets: It uses a photo by Matt Artz titled “grayscale photo of typewriters on tables” https://unsplash.com/photos/NP4mDCN0PIU?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditShareLink
  8. Later: this was informed by reading archived articles on integration efforts of Fresno Unified in The Fresno Bee.
  9. to prune those kids: It uses the following photo as a background: The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. “Sunday school for migrant children in a potato pickers’ camp. Kern County, California” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1937. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/8d6b36f0-8843-0136-6041-05b80a2beed2
  10. failure to stop: Every dot is punctation enlarged. Even the rectangle is a version of a punctuation that has been enlarged.
  11. Discipline: This uses the following photo as a background: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Art and Artifacts Division, The New York Public Library. “Negro Children” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1935 – 1943. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/6ac86cb0-d56d-0131-db1b-58d385a7bbd0

It also uses the data from the Miseducation project by ProPublica. The data is from 2018. https://projects.propublica.org/miseducation/

  1. School Was the Place Where: Uses my middle school yearbook photo.
  2. English Class | Past, Present, and Future Tense: Uses the following photo: Collier, John, Jr, photographer. Questa, New Mexico. Grade school. Jan. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/2017846152/
  1. List Their Highest Level of Education: This uses a collage of photos taken by me of my father, grandfather, and myself. Their photographs are from 12 years ago. Mine is from two years ago.
  2. Bullard Pride Redacted 1 & 2: It’s a redacted article from The Fresno Bee. “Fresno Bee, Tracy Correa. “Bullard secession proposed – Group considers effort to separate from Fresno Unified.” 6 Feb. 2011