Tucson Weekly: Media Mix (November 6

Media Mix VERBAL FIREWORKS: Hundreds of thousands of people cross international borders on a daily basis. Global commerce has forever changed the face of nationalism, placing corporate above cultural identity: In the rural highlands of Guatemala, women colorfully swathed in the cotton weave of their village walk along the dirt road in Adidas tennis shoes; and the brimming baskets of curios they carry on their heads are destined for tourist shops in Spain, Mexico, and Tucson, Arizona. By descent or design, we are all citizens of the world. Yet even as our world expands exponentially, crisscrossing all boundaries of race, ethnicity, economics and culture, it does so in such a way that we understand less where we came from, and perhaps even less where we're headed.
Enter the poets: Two powerful voices--Victor Hernandez Cruz and Adrian Castro--combine forces to articulate the beauty and sometimes tragedy of clashes between cultures. Cruz, a Puerto Rican native raised in New York, takes the human and physical landscapes of Latin America, the Caribbean, Los Angeles and his native city's Lower East Side, and hammers them into syncopated verses in Spanish and English. His disparate elements fall like a monsoon rain, the individual drops building and melding into a smooth torrent, punctuated by occasional thunder. Panoramas, a new collection of poetry and essays from Coffee House Press (paper, $12.95), offers further credence to claims that Cruz is "the premier Puerto Rican poet of our day."
Castro, a young poet whose debut collection Cantos to Blood & Honey (Coffee House Press, $12.95) has garnered impressive critical acclaim, also writes with a rhythmic Caribbean pulse. Drawing from Spanish, English and Yoruba languages, drumming rhythms and a colorful palette of historic and ultra-contemporary imagery, his original poetry layers diverging histories, mythologies and aesthetics from Africa, the Caribbean and North America in an attempt to synthesize the complex cultural experiences of our great American "melting pot"--the latter being a perhaps too-callous metaphor for what amounts to the majority of transplanted peoples living in our country today.
For both Cruz and Castro, poetry is performance. Without dismissing its literary value, their poetry reads as though it's straining to be read aloud, en voz alta, straining above the din of our vapid consumer culture. One imagines the cadences, the music and the language are unrivaled when spoken by the authors themselves. See for yourself at a free reading from 7 to 9 p.m. Saturday, November 8, in the Hotel Congress, 311 E. Congress St.
For $15, local writers can join Cruz and Castro in a workshop from 12:30 to 3 p.m. Saturday in the José Galvez Gallery, 743 N. Fourth Ave. Both programs are sponsored by the UA Extended University Writing Works Center and the UA Poetry Center. For registration and other information, call 626-4444.
MUSIC TO OUR EARS: The UA School of Music has long been the best-kept secret on the local music scene, with cheap programs by far-ranging talents from jazz and classical guitar to chamber music and original compositions by world-renown composers. This Monday's festival, The Music of Charles Ives and Aaron Copland, not only promises an outstanding program of two of this century's most important American musical voices, it combines for the first time three of the major UA ensembles: orchestral, wind and contemporary.
Another breath of fresh air on the evening's program is a narration of Copland's "Lincoln's Portrait" by the newly seated UA president, Peter Likins. Since he replaced the virtually invisible former-President Manuel Pacheco on October 1, President Likins has demonstrated an openness and accessibility long absent from the UA's executive leadership. His thoughtful response to a critical student letter in a recent issue of the Daily Wildcat and this collaboration with a UA arts event are a welcome change of pace, and we hope, harbingers of an energetic new administration.
Concert is at 8 p.m. Monday, November 10, in UA Crowder Hall, south end of the pedestrian underpass on Speedway east of Park Avenue. Tickets range from $3 to $6, available at the UA Fine Arts box office or by calling 621-1162. Festival passes range from $5 to $15, and include a lecture by prize-winning author and composer Jan Swafford, dinner, and a contemporary pre-concert performance conducted by Daniel Asia. Call 621-8517 for information.
VOICE OF HOPI: Join independent producer and director Victor Masayesva for a visual presentation and discussion of his work at 7 p.m. Friday, November 7, at Etherton Gallery, 135 S. Sixth Ave. Masayesva, widely recognized for his experimental video and filmmaking dealing with Native American communities, was raised in the conservative Hopi village of Hotevilla, during a time when contact with Anglo people and culture was limited to interactions with government school teachers. His film Imagining Indians was the first feature-length film produced and directed by a Native American, and it's screened in festivals on all five continents. He is also a printmaker and photographer. Call 620-1626 for more information on the gallery talk.

Home | Currents | City Week | Music | Review | Books | Cinema | Back Page | Archives