In Flower and Song: 2012: A Condensed Review

2012 was an epic year for so many reasons and I am humbled and grateful for all of the amazing opportunities I was afforded. I remain forever indebted to my wife, family, friends, fellow artists, colleagues, and muses for granting me the energy and power to continue on my path of growth. People close to me often call me an overachiever, but I promise that I do not live life to overachieve. I do, however, strive to fill every moment of my time on this Earth with meaningful, constructive existence.

2012 was constructive. I had the privilege of visiting two sovereign nations, three countries,16 states, dozens of cities, and hopefully, hundreds of hearts. As a full time social worker and traveling performance poet, I dedicate my life to human interaction and empowerment. I grew a great deal professionally in 2012, receiving a promotion at the Denver Department of Human Services, where I continue to serve underserved populations. In addition to my work, I continued as a grad student at the University of Denver pursuing a multidisciplinary master's degree in Art, Literature and Culture.

As an Artist, 2012 was a year of tremendous success. I was busier than ever before touring, creating new work, teaching, and building community with artists all over the United States and abroad. I performed at dozens of colleges and universities across the nation, and I thank my agent, Travis Watkins with Layman Lyric, for all he has done for me over the last four years. As of January 1st, I will be represented by a new agency for performance poetry booking, and I will share that information once we are ready.

Poetry is about communication. Many people perceive poetry as esoteric and intangible, but it is really just a tool to understand ourselves and the world around us a little bit more. What I do is simple: I tell stories about the human condition. I am no more than a keen observer who documents his visions in poems and shares them with people. By giving the abstract a body to walk around in, poems become living, breathing contributors to our world. I am proud of the bodies I created in 2012.

Two big projects I had the opportunity to take part in in 2012 included an artist's residency in Tucson, Arizona and presenting at a spoken word festival in Havana, Cuba.

ARTIST'S RESIDENCY-TUCSON

Saguaro in the beautiful desert.

The artist's residency in Tucson was an amazing experience. In 2011, I attended the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture's summer institute in San Antonio, Texas. There, I met Yvonne Montoya, Director of Safos Dance Theater. We developed an ongoing working relationship, that resulted in an invitation from Safos for me to do a two-week residency with her company. The residency was called "Poetry en Vivo: From Page to Stage." The residency served 7th graders from Pistor Middle School and 10th graders from Hiaki High School of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe. I was charged with creating a poetry-based curriculum that addressed the issue of stereotypes and cultural misunderstandings between Mexican-American and Native American communities. Immediately following SB 1070, racial profiling of people of color led to tensions between members of Native American communities, who can be mistaken for undocumented immigrants in instances of racial profiling.

Youth residency participants
sharing original poetry.

The project sought to address and overcome these tensions, misunderstandings and stereotypes. During the residency, I provided the students the opportunity to find commonalities, thus laying the foundation for cross cultural communication. Youth worked together in cross cultural teams on the poetry project. The main method of engagement was storytelling via performance poetry and dance. Storytelling was selected due to the strong traditions in both Mexican-American and Native American communities. Rather than emphasizing differences, the goal of the project was to bring to light the commonalities among participants, and focus on the human aspect of each participant’s story.

I spent my mornings writing here

Safos treated me very well. They put me up in a hacienda style guest home with a gorgeous courtyard and I spent my mornings writing and reflecting. I was able to visit numerous community organizations, hosting workshops, getting to know the people, and of course seeing the beautiful landscape and eating amazingly good food. The sunset in Tucson is a show-off. As thousands of saguaro cacti give the spectacle a standing ovation, the bold and brilliantly-bright colors of her sky take a bow. As the mountains wrap their arms around the day, I became jealous of their intimacy. That is how gorgeous she is. She is an impeccable golden lily floating across the still water of the sky. A temptress who's fleeting beauty renders onlookers prisoners of the promise of a new day. The sunset in the desert reminds us city folk that the land is still something to worship and fall in love with. I fell in love with Tucson, and thank Safos Dance Theater for a wonderful time. I will be collaborating with Safos in 2013 on an original dance theater piece, so stay tuned for details! For more info on Safos click here

ZONAS POETICAS-HAVANA, CUBA

In January of 2012 year I was contacted by a dedicated Cuban poet named Elier Alvarez, aka, "El Brujo." All I knew about him was that he was a mutual Facebook friend of my real life friend and mentor, Paul Flores, who is a poet and youth worker from San Francisco. Elier informed me that he had studied my performances on YouTube, visited my website, talked to Paul about me, and was impressed with my work and accomplishments as a slam and performance poet. He explained that he was planning an international spoken word festival in July called "Zonas Poeticas." He wanted me to come to Havana to share my expertise in slam and performance poetry with the Cuban people. The goal of the festival was to create a space for workshops, debates, performances and overall dialogue about how Cuba can more effectively develop and infuse spoken word and performance poetry into the fabric of their already vibrant arts and culture scene. "El Brujo" is the the General Director of Caminos de Palabras, a promotional group that is developing spoken word in Cuba. Although the scene in Havana has existed for more than ten years, it is a relatively unknown art form outside its small circle. This is due to many factors, but the most salient are the lack of formal research and journalistic writing about the genre, as well as the practitioners not knowing how to how to successfully promote their creations.

For months Elier and I communicated online, mostly using Facebook's chat function. We were virtual pen pals communicating in real-time about the festival details. Like any emerging spoken word scene, there were many bumps and uncertainties along the way. At times, details appeared directionless and resources seemed less than limited, but we kept exchanging ideas. He sent the official letter of invitation that all foreign visitors participating in government-sponsored events must have. In Cuba, every public event has to be approved and sponsored by a government agency. Elier is an independent promoter of poetry and cultural events, which poses many issues in and of itself, but “Zonas Poeticas” was set to be an officially sanctioned event. Elier received support from the Cuban Agency of Rap, as well as two or three other agencies that saw potential in the event. I was charged with figuring out if the trip was going to be a beneficial one for me to take. With my work, school, and performance travel schedule being super busy, I had to really meditate on it. After months of contemplation and information, I accepted the invitation and boarded a plane to Mexico.

Hotel view of Havana

Traveling to Cuba “Illegally”
Because the ridiculousness that is the embargo continues to exist, and the permit process is tedious and almost impossible to navigate, I decided travel to Cuba without permission. Borders are houses of cards in the eye of a hurricane. Fences drawn in the sand the tide and wind wash away intentionally. See my full blog post on my trip to Cuba here or watch a slide show of my pictures from the trip here

Other highlights of 2012 include: