Hermelinda Hernandez Monjaras – BRAINFØG IX

Visual poem with a title that reads: BRAINFØG IX. There is a light gray, blooming image behind the words. The poem’s orientation is landscape. The words are arranged in three columns, separated by text oriented from top to bottom. The text reads: (left column): a billion insects alive in my armpits I drink with my liver she keeps me company hues of aqua de jamaica cling to afford life outside poverty I wearimposter smeared faces turbid estuary rehab sessions crawl on walls infest in small holes with an envelope close my intestines (text that reads top to bottom between left and middle columns): my patriotic silent rent every month $784 as a teacher assistant can’t help but worry about access to health care and the legal system (middle column): ambiguous patterns impose I see a trash can? cat? figure? I walk closer a man stands up & runs away stains oblique image adulting as a temporary aperture pupils squint obsessing over dystopian films for stimulus I die a broke/n woman (text that reads top to bottom between middle and right columns): On the edge of relocating 11 apartments: within 7 years (“illegal immigrants” in strikethrough text, leaving only a capital I) deal with so much shit (right column): I walk for miles to locate seagulls seahorse perches on pine cones I swear the air conditioner shifts into pelvises shifts into new pairs of thunder pubic bone-sighted letter soup cotton shaped candy floating dust bleeds in my gut

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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 2

Time, oceans, precious jewels, tortillas & hangouts, the City.

Can you put them together?

2.

“Johnni, you ever gone to El Capitan theatre kitty corner from here? It’s a parking lot now.” “Everything is a parking lot now.” I tell Frank. I used to go to El Capitan when I was 10. I don’t talk about those days anymore. I did find a diamond ring when I was 10. On Folsom and 22nd. I was buying tortillas for my tía Abina. The ocean swallowed the diamond in La Jolla Cove. The perfect place to swallow diamonds.

“It’s too late to head back to North Beach,” I tell Frank. It’s one of our hangouts. Sometimes we get up in the morning and roll out to Golden Gate Park. We both live on 24th & Capp Street. Bell Apts. He’s on the first floor. I sublet #10 to him. Up on the 3rd floor now, my studio. At GG  park, we walk to the end, cross

the street and shuffle on the sand. We go in his smudgy gray-green Malibu carrucha about 100 years old. To tell you the truth, the other day, Frank got close to getting stabbed in the Tenderloin. A guy with a miniature jack knife came at him. Who knows what. Frank leaped into his gray-green shark car. Good ‘ol Malibu. “Get on the cement,” I say to Frank. I didn’t know the beach had a cement stage. Frank crouches and throws a left hook and dances in all directions. My Pentax follows his boxing moves. Flash. Flash. Flash!

David Campos – Bullard Pride Redacted

This is page 1 of 2 of a redacted Fresno Bee Article. It reads as follows: simmering with secession Bullard Pride neglected 14 broken promises its feeders claim the Bullard area has contributed to the district more than any other neighborhood in property tax dollars and received less in return The group of the affluent The members are the process of secession the group seems very determined Breaking Ideas the group has In the past looks different Bullard Pride has been upset over the number of transfer students the problem students could submit within the next two months The process Is consuming several layers of communities Bullard Pride will focus to go over the state board (continues in next image)
(continued from previous image) This is page 2 of 2 of a redacted Fresno Bee Article. It reads as follows: for racial and ethnic segregation Bullard Pride Bullard Pride Bullard Pride Bullard Pride Bullard Pride said the secession is a good plan to water down the diversity Bullard Pride racist and elitist This is about white flight about usefulness about what kind of effect it will have on students

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Artist’s Statement: In the article “The Resegregation of Jefferson County,” Nikole Hannah-Jones writes that “since 2000, at least 71 communities across the country, most of them white and wealthy, have sought to break away from their public-school districts to form smaller, more exclusive ones.” This led to research into my state’s segregation and integration efforts. The rhetoric, the maps, and the data were all there—coded language, school boundaries, and even diversity statements covered the stagnant “struggle” toward integration. As an educator, this project provided context for my experience and those of the students in the classroom. Notes and citations will appear at the end of the project. 

    Hermelinda Hernandez Monjaras – BRAINFØG VIII

    Visual poem with a title that reads: BRAINFØG VIII. There is a light gray, blooming image behind the words. The poem’s orientation is landscape. The words are arranged in short phrases, connected in a path by horizontal (--) and vertical ( | ) lines. Line breaks are denoted by the / symbol. Roughly following connected paths, the text reads: (from top left corner): men / who – dress in full face / masks | shatter door / shatter glass –ransack / the trunk | never / grow up / get shot across / the knee | took his car & / left him & bloodied | hid from a swarm / of helicopters | wear a tough / face | mold fire / into a fist (from top right, centered as a wheel hub): women / who | (up) saw him get / killed on the street – (right) ended up / in a mental / hospital | (down) wake up with / baseball / bats / smacking rearview / mirrors – (left) lost custody of her / husband / with an older man (from lower middle, text upside-down): whose – daughter deports / her father – whose – son killed his sister / in-law (from bottom of image, connected by | to the word “whose” from previous path at the phrase whose “house burned / down” the text reads top to bottom): apartment reduced / to ash luckily no / one was home (this text reads left to right): house burned / down arson started at midnight bone / collapse / nothing / left but a / roof

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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 1

    “Hooray for the Illogical”
    — Amy Uyematsu, from That Blue Trickster Time

    “Taped to the wall of my cell are 47 pictures…”
    — Etheridge Knight, from “The Idea of Ancestry”

    “Something like chocolate egg clair.” What is Donut Land? You must decipher these 15 midnight moments, notes, conversations. Do not look for meaning, Do not look.

    1.

    Here. With Frank Wilma. We always rotate

    to Donut Land at about 11:30 pm after all our doings

    in the Mission District. In particular, poetrylandia.

    “I’ll take a Bear Claw,” I say. Frank says he’ll take

    something like a Chocolate Egg Clair. Just like him

    to want an Egg Claire. It’s got every flavor in the world. 

    Orale, carnal, pásame un chunk, I say. Creamy and Eggy.

    We keep on rappin’ in Spanglish. Whatever it is.