14 Abriles: Poems by Carlos Cumpián
A REVIEW BY CJ LAITY
Carlos Cumpián, having been named among the Chicago Public Library’s “Top Ten” most requested poets and serving as editor of March Abrazo press for over twenty-five years, is Chicago’s Chicano poet and publisher in my opinion. He started his local poetry career in the 1970s and is a revolutionary who has introduced the public to the work of Sandra Cisneros, Trinidad Sanchez, Carlos Cortez, E. Donald Two-Rivers, Frank Varela, Brenda Cárdenas, and many other Latino and American Indian writers.
But as is the case with many such pioneers, Cumpián's endeavors to promote the work of other poets have often forced him to put his own work on the back burner. The last time he published a book of his own poetry was in 1996 when Luis J. Rodriguez's Tia Chucha Press published Cumpián's collection called Armadillo Charm.
Now, "in a country that isn’t in a rush to transfer its war dollars to the arts, especially poetry" (indeed, recently Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn called a government grant that funded educational poetry exhibits an example of "this nation's most wasteful spending"), and during the current anti-Mexican immigration wave that Cumpián says has renamed Arizona "Aryan-Zona," Cumpián has once again come out strong with a sampling of new poems. "Like a human cicada I've unearthed myself after 14 years," Cumpián says about his new chapbook, 14 Abriles: poems. He "needed" to write this book, he says, because "our indigenous relatives who dare to migrate without documents are being demonized and mistreated as they seek work and a means to care for their families."
with their demands to
detect and detain
all those who have another language
other than English in their brains. (23-26)
(from "What do you call this place?"
OR "Can the enchilada coexist with the hamburger?")
With that said, it is surprising and even refreshing that the poems in this collection of fourteen "Aprils" don't take life very seriously, but instead poke some fun at the situation and mix plenty of Chicago nostalgia in with it, as is the case with Cumpián's poem about the "high-tech insulation" used during Chicago winters, "Mexkimo Poem #1:"
I'm pulling down my home winter-barrier plastic
that shielded us from cold drafts for six months. (10-11)
Anyone who knows Cumpián personally knows that he is not afraid to share his theories about the great unknown, and he doesn't hesitate to slip in some of the far-out with his poem about "Mexico City's UFO angels:"
aluminum torsos with legs that pop in and out of sight,
figures sprout wings in a mysterious crescent. (30-31)
—and also with his slightly bilingual poem about the legend of the bloodsucking Chupacabra, a beast that ends up coming home in Cumpián's imagination to Chi-Town:
Relax, we're safe in Humboldt Park
(but watch out Hyde Park)
por que esa sucker wouldn't find enuf
blood to live on
after Chicago's mosquitoes
do their picnicking in July. (44-49)
The most powerful piece in 14 Abriles is a poem called "Daughters" in which Cumpián's voice builds up to a passionate crescendo of rhythm as his imagination travels the globe, tackling an expansive range of cultures with two liners such as:
Daughters with machine guns, gasoline
soaked tires and pecans by the sack.
Daughters of blue corn pollen in an adobe hut
lit by candles of beeswax…
Daughters of Invention make wiggle-worm spoon music played on
hands and knees, while
Daughters of gentrification struggle with
fashion pretension and sky-high rent. (5-8, 26-29)
Another powerful piece in this book is called "Yo Homie, Mexica Tiahui!" (loosely translated, "brown men and women move forward!"), in which Cumpián muses about how he's never seen that expression on a tee-shirt:
pornographic, praises to those who drug traffic,
mean defamation of people from other nations,
angry tweeties and sweeties, amid shout outs to dead family…
. . . there are tee-shirts for beer drinking, and tee-shirts that
prove no one was thinking when they went shopping. (2-4, 15-16)
It is eerily foreshadowing that the first poem in this collection, "Open Mic, Open Muse," is about Decima Musa, a Pilsen venue that hosted poetry shows up until its closure on December 16, 2010, only months after Cumpián started releasing this new book to friends and colleagues and only days after Cumpián was himself featured there for a Palabra Pura event.
The microphone displays a silky blonde strand while the matte
gunmental stand still holds a hint of the good-perfumed hostess’ hand
that guides each reader through the Guild’s Complex on another
special Wednesday night. (12-15)
In Chicago, you can find 14 Abriles at Tres Americas Bookstore (4336 North Pulaski Road), The National Museum of Mexican Art (1852 West 19th Street), and The Heartland Café (7000 North Glenwood Avenue). You can also find it in Milwaukee, WI, at the Woodland Pattern Book Center (720 East Locust Street). And, of course, you can buy directly from the author at his readings or readings sponsored by March Abrazo Press.
Carlos Cumpián, having been named among the Chicago Public Library’s “Top Ten” most requested poets and serving as editor of March Abrazo press for over twenty-five years, is Chicago’s Chicano poet and publisher in my opinion. He started his local poetry career in the 1970s and is a revolutionary who has introduced the public to the work of Sandra Cisneros, Trinidad Sanchez, Carlos Cortez, E. Donald Two-Rivers, Frank Varela, Brenda Cárdenas, and many other Latino and American Indian writers.
But as is the case with many such pioneers, Cumpián's endeavors to promote the work of other poets have often forced him to put his own work on the back burner. The last time he published a book of his own poetry was in 1996 when Luis J. Rodriguez's Tia Chucha Press published Cumpián's collection called Armadillo Charm.
Now, "in a country that isn’t in a rush to transfer its war dollars to the arts, especially poetry" (indeed, recently Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn called a government grant that funded educational poetry exhibits an example of "this nation's most wasteful spending"), and during the current anti-Mexican immigration wave that Cumpián says has renamed Arizona "Aryan-Zona," Cumpián has once again come out strong with a sampling of new poems. "Like a human cicada I've unearthed myself after 14 years," Cumpián says about his new chapbook, 14 Abriles: poems. He "needed" to write this book, he says, because "our indigenous relatives who dare to migrate without documents are being demonized and mistreated as they seek work and a means to care for their families."
with their demands to
detect and detain
all those who have another language
other than English in their brains. (23-26)
(from "What do you call this place?"
OR "Can the enchilada coexist with the hamburger?")
With that said, it is surprising and even refreshing that the poems in this collection of fourteen "Aprils" don't take life very seriously, but instead poke some fun at the situation and mix plenty of Chicago nostalgia in with it, as is the case with Cumpián's poem about the "high-tech insulation" used during Chicago winters, "Mexkimo Poem #1:"
I'm pulling down my home winter-barrier plastic
that shielded us from cold drafts for six months. (10-11)
Anyone who knows Cumpián personally knows that he is not afraid to share his theories about the great unknown, and he doesn't hesitate to slip in some of the far-out with his poem about "Mexico City's UFO angels:"
aluminum torsos with legs that pop in and out of sight,
figures sprout wings in a mysterious crescent. (30-31)
—and also with his slightly bilingual poem about the legend of the bloodsucking Chupacabra, a beast that ends up coming home in Cumpián's imagination to Chi-Town:
Relax, we're safe in Humboldt Park
(but watch out Hyde Park)
por que esa sucker wouldn't find enuf
blood to live on
after Chicago's mosquitoes
do their picnicking in July. (44-49)
The most powerful piece in 14 Abriles is a poem called "Daughters" in which Cumpián's voice builds up to a passionate crescendo of rhythm as his imagination travels the globe, tackling an expansive range of cultures with two liners such as:
Daughters with machine guns, gasoline
soaked tires and pecans by the sack.
Daughters of blue corn pollen in an adobe hut
lit by candles of beeswax…
Daughters of Invention make wiggle-worm spoon music played on
hands and knees, while
Daughters of gentrification struggle with
fashion pretension and sky-high rent. (5-8, 26-29)
Another powerful piece in this book is called "Yo Homie, Mexica Tiahui!" (loosely translated, "brown men and women move forward!"), in which Cumpián muses about how he's never seen that expression on a tee-shirt:
pornographic, praises to those who drug traffic,
mean defamation of people from other nations,
angry tweeties and sweeties, amid shout outs to dead family…
. . . there are tee-shirts for beer drinking, and tee-shirts that
prove no one was thinking when they went shopping. (2-4, 15-16)
It is eerily foreshadowing that the first poem in this collection, "Open Mic, Open Muse," is about Decima Musa, a Pilsen venue that hosted poetry shows up until its closure on December 16, 2010, only months after Cumpián started releasing this new book to friends and colleagues and only days after Cumpián was himself featured there for a Palabra Pura event.
The microphone displays a silky blonde strand while the matte
gunmental stand still holds a hint of the good-perfumed hostess’ hand
that guides each reader through the Guild’s Complex on another
special Wednesday night. (12-15)
In Chicago, you can find 14 Abriles at Tres Americas Bookstore (4336 North Pulaski Road), The National Museum of Mexican Art (1852 West 19th Street), and The Heartland Café (7000 North Glenwood Avenue). You can also find it in Milwaukee, WI, at the Woodland Pattern Book Center (720 East Locust Street). And, of course, you can buy directly from the author at his readings or readings sponsored by March Abrazo Press.
CJ LAITY is the publisher of ChicagoPoetry.com, Chicago's original
poetry news blog and calendar. Over the past two decades, he's served
as editor for Letter eX and Poetry Cram,
and has also been the poetry coordinator for the Bucktown Arts Fest and
the organizer and host of events for Printers Row Book Fair, Chicago
Public Library Poetry Fest, Chicago Poetry Fest, Chicago Blues Fest,
and The Printers Ball. He is also a graduate of Columbia College's
Fiction Department.