Portuguese Heritage Reading
Sharon Coleman is a fifth-generation Northern Californian, her Azorean ancestors arriving here in the 1850s. She writes for Poetry Flash, co-curates the reading series Lyrics & Dirges, and co-
directs the Berkeley Poetry Festival. She’s the author of a chapbook Half Circle and a book of micro-fiction, Paris Blinks. Her recent publications appear in Your Impossible Voice, White Stag, and Ambush Review. She’s been nominated twice for a Pushcart and once for a micro award for blink fiction.
Consecration
I wake to the size of the silence within me
slide feet into shoes
stand tall, taller
balance the weight of your absence
on the edge of each breath
until the moment comes
to pour out the tale of your passing
to speak
to touch everything with you
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Fátima Policarpo is a Portuguese-American writer. Her fiction has been featured by Ninth Letter, and her work has been supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, and the Luso-American Foundation. She holds an MA from New York University, where she studied literary responses to violence.
Excerpt from: To a father on teaching a daughter to skin a rabbit
Carry the animal into the house, but let the girl be the one to hand it to her mother, who will clean and quarter and cook it. When the girl hesitates to hold the thing that looks like a wound, press it into her
arms and let her know it’s important for her to follow it through to the end. If she starts talking to the dead thing as she cradles it, gently praise her for helping you put dinner on the table. Eat together. Insist that the girl enjoy the result of her hard work, even when she
refuses. Discuss what she learned from your time together. As an act of gratitude, offer her the head.
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Tim Kahl is the author of Possessing Yourself (CW Books, 2009), The Century of Travel (CW Books, 2012) and The String of Islands (Dink, 2015). His work has been published in Prairie Schooner, Drunken Boat, Mad Hatters’ Review, Indiana Review, Metazen, Ninth Letter, Sein und Werden, Notre Dame Review, The Really System, Konundrum Engine Literary Magazine, The Journal, The Volta, Parthenon West Review, Caliban and many other journals in the U.S. He is also editor of Clade Song – www.cladesong.com. He is the vice president and events coordinator of The Sacramento Poetry Center. He also has a public installation in Sacramento {In Scarcity We Bare The Teeth}. He plays flutes, guitars, ukuleles, charangos and cavaquinhos. He currently teaches at California State University, Sacramento, where he sings lieder while walking on campus between classes.
Jogo Do Lenço
Trago no bolso do peito
Um lenço de seda fina,
Dobrado de certo jeito.
Não sei quem tanto lhe ensina
Que quanto faz é bem feito.
Acena nas despedidas,
Quando a voz já lá não chega
Por distâncias desmedidas.
Depois, no bolso aconchega
Assaudades permitidas.
Também o suor algado,
Àsvezes, enxugo a medo,
Que o lenço é mal empregado.
E quando me feri um dedo,
Com ele o trouxe ligado.
Nunca mais chegava ao fim
Se as graças todas dissesse
Deste meu lenço e de mim,
Mas uma coisa acontece
De que não sei porque sim:
Quando os meus olhos molhados
Pedem auxílio do lenço,
São pedidos escusados.
E é bem por isso que penso
Que os meus olhos, se molhados,
Só se enxugam no teu lenço.
—José Saramago
Handkerchief Game
I carry in my chest pocket
A handkerchief of fine silk,
Folded in a certain way.
I don't know who taught me
Whatever is done should be done well.
It calls attention to itself during farewells
When another voice can’t go along on
Those immense journeys.
Afterwards in the cozy pocket
The sad longing is allowed.
The sweat is salty also,
At times, it wipes away the fear,
The handkerchief has a nasty job.
When I cut my finger
It holds the wound together.
I could never stop telling you
About all the graces
Of my handkerchief and me,
But one thing happens
I don’t know why:
When my eyes are wet they plea
For help from the handkerchief,
They are forgivable pleas.
And I think it is good
That my eyes, if wet, only wipe
Themselves on your handkerchief.
—José Saramago tr. by Tim Kahl
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Anne-Marie Ross writes poetry and prose in Oakland, California. She is from an Anglo-Portuguese family from Lisbon, but her ancestors spent several centuries in colonial Africa. Writing about this history led her to attend Disquiet International in 2013 and to
perform at the Marsh in Berkeley. At Berkeley City College, she was ushered into Sharon Coleman’s poetry sequence, which opened the possibility of enjoying poetry writing. She works as a substitute teacher in San Leandro, where she meets kids like her- Portuguese without Portuguese names- every day.
I Know Where the Bodies Accrue Freezer Burn
One eye sees,
one eye remembers.
The mouth tears flesh
flashes back to when it reached only for grass, then
forgets.
Ticks of the clock between punches
between the barks of the manager
have stretched out
too long.
The horse, tired of weight
takes a page from the tiger’s book.
With one hoof, he pulls the lever
factory doors whine shut.
White walls trap the barking inside
hooves melt into long fingers, reaching for prey.
A freezer, only just cocked open
holds the secret as to why the boss is
on such a long vacation.
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Lara Gularte lives and writes in the Sierra foothills of California. Her book, “Kissing the Bee,” was published by The Bitter Oleander January 2018. Her writing may be found in The Gavea-Brown Book of Portuguese-American Poetry and in Writers of the Portuguese Diaspora in the United States and Canada. Her work can be found in anthologies as well as various literary journals. Literary critic, Vamberto Freitas reviewed her work in “Da Poetica ancestral Luso-
Americana” in Acoriano Oriental and Nas Duas Margens . She is a poetry instructor for the California Arts-in-Corrections program at Folsom, and Mule Creek prisons. In 2017 she traveled to Cuba with a delegation of American poets and presented her poetry at the Festival
Internacional de Poesia de la Habana. She is an assistant editor for Narrative Magazine.
A SEASHELL MYTHOLOGY
Light from the window falls in blue pools on the floor.
The room becomes an ocean.
Waves lift and drop her till she’s worn away,
and sharp edges turn smooth.
Time changes its course, and the past traps her in its nets.
Her mother snorkels past, silver-fin moving,
her father on a rock poised for a dive.
Hands cupped she reaches toward shore.
Around her neck, grandma Mary’s gold crucifix
weighs her down.
Salt water fills nostrils, seeps into her soul.
On the beach the tide finds her curled inside a shell hiding.
