FRANCISCO ARAGON

Last night Francisco Aragon brought his poetry to town, with a reading at Foster Auditorium.  Francisco is the author of  PUERTA DEL SOL, from Bilingual Review Press.  

He is also the editor of THE WIND SHIFTS: NEW LATINO POETRY, perhaps the most far-reaching such anthology since Ray Gonzalez's AFTER AZTLAN.

One of the poems Francisco read was dedicated to Jack Spicer, one of the many subjects swirling around the table when we had lunch earlier in the day.

Love Poem

by Francisco Aragón

Just let the San Andreas stay put, keeping this tunnel intact, enough to amble out of it, past Louie’s Dim Sum a Saturday afternoon, breeze detectable off the bay—visible in the distance, carrying with it the smells of open air markets: crab freshly caught and seahorses piled in bins along Stockton... or Jack, strolling out of the tube connecting Polk Gulch and North Beach—on his way to Aquatic Park to spread the Sporting Green on his favorite patch of grass... He is ferrying the portable radio to his ear listening for the count in the bottom of the ninth at Candlestick, begins to smooth the pages with his palms before he sits to keep it dry: the split seat of his pants for Jack Spicer (1925–1965)

Francisco is on the staff of Notre Dame's Institute for Latino Studies, working out of their office in D.C.  Check out Francisco's work with the Institute at the Letras Latinas blog site.