"Amalio Madueno's Lost in the Chamiso follows in the great tradition of William Carlos Williams's Paterson and Charles Olson's Maximus Poems, and like those forerunners interweaves the personal with the historical and the mythical to create a rich fabric of the imagination. With great good humor, seriousness and candor, Madueno speaks from the inter-lingual borderlands that shape our future. His vision and message are vital." --Sam Hamill
PRAISE for CHAMISO
from
Alma Luz Villanueva*
poet/author winner of American Book Award for Fiction
"LOST IN THE CHAMISO is a tidal wave of words, images, experiences, joy, anger, humor, great sorrow, great ecstasy, stories leaping from poem to poem in the 'five parts' of this epic poem. Amalio Madueno reaches to Juarez, Mexico, to the women in black mourning the desparecidas, the young women who've 'disappeared'...in ten years, 400 young women...
"They disappear and then we find them," he tells us.
Further on, he tells the story of his Tia Lalo
who was told by a white woman during the depression: "No wetback should have shoes like that in times like this!"
And then further on, Madueno writes of the assimilation of the 50s (I remember this well, when I was punished for speaking Spanish- my first language- at school).
In the poem, How Old Am I, he writes, "Remember and mind and remember"
Exactly, this is it- do not disappear, do not assimilate, and DO wear those shiny new shoes that love to dance. He writes, "The most important thing is transformation," and that's what these poems do- all five parts- they are in constant transformation, to remember and mind and remember, to transform.
In the poem, Pocho Deer Song, After The Yaqui Traditional- Madueno sings:
"I am a Pocho alive in the fantastic wilderness... It is still going on, the wilderness still listens,
Listens to itself- even now."
As a sister Yaqui Pocha, who now lives in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico (with the very poor Indians begging on the streets, to the wealthy who buy art that would support them for years), these poems/stories have reached me on the trade route winds. The ancient trade routes that knew no human borders for centuries...these poems reached me across the imaginary border of Mexico/USA."
embers home
*Alma Luz Villanueva titles include:
THE ULTRAVIOLET SKY
NAKED LADIES (winner of PEN Oakland Fiction Award)
*Alma Luz Villanueva titles include:
THE ULTRAVIOLET SKY
NAKED LADIES (winner of PEN Oakland Fiction Award)
and poetry included in CALIENTE, THE BEST EROTIC LATIN AMERICAN WRITING
