inquire

A crossing point for ideas, words, images, and energies

Reboot

Tony Diaz, author of The Aztec Love God (Fiction Collective, 1998), interviewed by Gerald A. Padilla in Latino Book Review:

 

“It seems that Democracy needs to be rebooted every 50 to 60 years. That duty has fallen on the shoulders of Chicanas, Chicanos, and Latinxs this time around. However, we’ve been prepared for this. What our community used to do to simply survive, will now help us thrive, and together we will overcome this oppression and lead the nation into an era of Enlightenment.”

 

 

Manipulation

Ralph Clare, in Electronic Book Review, reviewing Chris Kraus’s After Kathy Acker (Semiotext(e), 2017):

 

“Surely there are dangers with any system of thought that relies solely upon logic and scientific truth, as well as with any anti-systemic or purely mythical thought that throws science out entirely. Both lead to the possibility of gross manipulation, be it by warmongers and technocrats or cult leaders and snake oil salesmen, or a mixture of both—i.e. Donald Trump.”

 

 

Xenophilia

Andrew Joron, author of The Absolute Letter (Flood Editions, 2017), interviewed by Barbara Claire Freeman in OmniVerse:

 

“Stopping this cycle of violence means radically changing the world system. But we first have to set fire to our minds—using words, the stuff of poetry—before we can set fire to a system based on capitalist greed, on the one hand, and cultural xenophobia, on the other. Poetry—which has no market value, and whose operating principle is xenophilia—wants something other, makes a space for the other.”

 

Answer

Assotto Saint, author of Stations, interviewed by Charles Michael Smith in Book Maven:

 

“I deal with black gay issues because my art right now is an answer back. It’s a reaction. The world is still fucked up and why not have it coming from a different perspective and see it from there?”

 

Ice

Veronica Golos, author of Rootwork, from her Artist Statement preceding a selection of poems on the Best American Poetry blog:

 

“Ultimately, what we mean to do, I think, is to ‘break the ice’ that surrounds the reader, and the poet.”

 

 

Observe

Elizabeth Jaeger, writing in The Literary Review about Gary Fincke’s book The Darkness Call (Pleiades Press, 2018):

 

“Sometimes it is too easy to observe history, science, and current events as separate from our personal lives.”

 

 

Devastation

YZ Chin, in Singapore Unbound, reviewing Crystal Hana Kim’s If You Leave Me (HarperCollins, 2018):

 

We “would do well to remember that the devastation of war extends far beyond its supposed end.”

 

Healing

Thomas Davis, in The Huffington Post, speaking of poet Joseph Beam:

 

“We heal from sharing our stories and making sure they are not forgotten.”

 

 

Truth

Denise Duhamel, author of Blowout (Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 2013), interviewed by Julie Marie Wade, in The Rumpus:

 

“The “truth” is the poem itself.  Just because someone writes a poem about a feeling she has does not mean that the feeling will stay forever. The truth of the emotion of the poem remains, even if the particular truth of the poet changes.”

 

 

Terrorism

L. Lamar Wilson, author of Sacreligion (Carolina Wren Press, 2013), interviewed by Abdul Ali in The Best American Poetry:

 

“Ninety-four percent of black women tried to save the soul of America on Nov. 8, 2016. White male terrorism, to which many white women & far too many black men & other people of color have pledged allegiance, found a way into the White House through the “electoral college,” the back-door entrance wealthy white men crafted into the Constitution to keep themselves in power.”