By Staff
Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.
Muchos años después, frente al pelotón de fusilamiento, el coronel Aureliano Buendía había de recorder aquella tarde remota en que su padre lo llevó a conocer el hielo.
This is the unforgettable opening line of Gabriel García Márquez literary masterpiece Cien años de soledad— One Hundred Years of Solitude. [Read more…]
By Anna Daniels
Back in the early 70’s Julian was home to an enclave of young writers, intellectuals and politicos. John Wester was part of this group of kindred spirits that also included SDFP contributor Jay Powell and Bud Sonka who recently introduced me to John’s poetry. I hope that we will hear more about what they built and thought about up on the mountain during that time. [Read more…]
The poet’s secret pact
By Anna Daniels
Brent Beltrán is the Wednesday editor du jour, so I gave him a heads up yesterday that Bukowski’s poem would be ready to post today. Brent shot back an email with “In honor of Bukowski I’ll get blindingly drunk and bang my head on the keyboard in hopes that a poem appears on my computer screen.” I sense that the man who wrote “Poetry is what happens when nothing else can” would approve of the homage.
Much of Charles Bukowski’s poetry expresses his contempt of hypocrisy, willful stupidity, gratuitous judgments, posturings of superiority and the easy sell-out. [Read more…]
Poet as memorist
By Anna Daniels
It’s National Poetry Month and readers have been sending in their requests for poems and poets. Securing publication rights for the poem of the day has been challenging, which is one of the reasons why I am using videos. Many of you have been sending videos links which means I have enjoyed hours and hours of total immersion in all kinds of poems by all kinds of poets. You have introduced me to poets I never knew about or poems by familiar poets that I had never read before. Don’t stop! Thanks to Anna Prouty for suggesting Elegy. [Read more…]
By Anna Daniels
Patti Smith, the queen of punk and one of the few women who was even able to make a name for herself in the punk scene, is now in her late 60’s, still writing, singing and politically active. Piss Factory was one of her first recordings, released in 1974.
Sixteen and time to pay off
I got this job in a piss factory inspecting pipe
Forty hours thirty-six dollars a week
But it’s a paycheck, Jack.
It’s so hot in here, hot like Sahara
You could faint in the heat…
The rest of the poem here. [Read more…]
By Anna Daniels
Republicans have been having a hard time stringing words together when it comes to explaining why they don’t support pay equity for women. It’s a straightforward concept–equal pay for equal work. Yet it takes women until April 8 to catch up with men’s earnings from the previous year. The median earnings for a woman working a full time job is about 77% of a man’s. That figure drops for women of color and it hasn’t budged in more than a decade.
President Obama’s first action upon assuming office in 2009 was to sign the Lily Ledbetter Fair Wage Act. This act restored protection against wage discrimination that was stripped away by the Supreme Court’s decision in Ledbetter v Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. The act extended the period of time for employees to file claims for wages lost because of discrimination. Yet wage discrimination on the basis of gender continues to exist. [Read more…]
By Anna Daniels
During National Poetry Month, San Diego Free Press will be publishing a poem of the day. San Diego has poets, some very familiar and others not so familiar. We will be posting their works on Saturday and Sunday, while you are enjoying late coffee and oranges in a sunny chair.
During the week we will draw upon poetry from other places and times. Thursdays however, are reserved for Ishmael von Heindrick- Barnes video/poem series for SDFP called Geo-Poetic Spaces. We will also keep our eyes open for poems from SDFP contributor Will Falk.
Today we bring you Octavio Paz. The one hundredth anniversary of Octavio Paz’s birth was this past March 31st. The Mexican born poet was a prolific poet and essayist. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1990. [Read more…]
By Anna Daniels
It’s April and the whole month is devoted to reading poetry, writing poetry and listening to poetry. National Poetry Month was inaugurated by the Academy of American Poets in 1996 in the hopes of keeping this particular art form alive and flourishing. It is not as if poets stopped writing poetry and became successful hedge fund managers instead over the past decades. The obstacle has long been one of connecting audiences to poets.
Those connections began to occur a number of years ago in poetry slams–often informal arrangements set in coffee houses and book stores. These venues have provided an opportunity for both writers and audiences. A number of years ago San Diego buses displayed poetry written by local students above the seats. The series was called “Poetry in Motion” and it was one of the collaborations of poet and educator Quincy Troupe. San Diego is fertile ground for the poetic imagination. [Read more…]
Does the 51 year old husband, father of four, lawyer and current Governor of New Jersey have what it takes to be President, too?
By Anna Daniels
“Will he or won’t he?” was on every pundit’s mind when New Jersey Governor Chris Christie arrived in Las Vegas to address the Republican Jewish Coalition. Anonymous sources say that the real reason for the visit was to receive the blessing from billionaire Sheldon Adelson for a 2016 presidential run, with the attendant promise of Adelson’s substantial financial backing. Christie coyly avoided directly answering a question about the purported meeting when asked at his Friday March 21 press conference.
Christie has a great deal riding on this visit to Las Vegas. He has clearly distanced himself from his two hour press conference in December 2013 when the Bridgegate Scandal genie could no longer be stuffed back into the bottle. During that press conference he seemed chastened, confused, vulnerable and according to an unnamed staffer, he looked… old. At one point he choked up, seemingly at the point of tears. His approval ratings plummeted, with some left wondering whether his inability to control his emotions led to questions about his leadership capabilities under stress.
The Republican Jewish Conference attendees seemed palpably relieved that the old Christie was back. [Read more…]
By Anna Daniels
On January 15 Councilmember Marti Emerald released a statement about the imminent closure of the Albertsons store and pharmacy in the City Heights Retail Village. This announcement took the community by complete surprise. While it is true that “This planned closure of a major retailer is unfortunately a common story in older, low income neighborhoods…,” this particular Albertsons is part of a unique, extensive redevelopment effort in City Heights.
Albertsons opened in 2001, has a large footprint, carries fresh produce, is clean and well lit and includes the kinds of onsite services within the store that one associates with its more suburban (read successful) counterparts– Starbucks, deli, bakery as well as services tailored to City Heights tastes and needs.
It is frankly difficult to perceive how this particular store fits into the “common story” narrative. [Read more…]
By Anna Daniels On January 1, 1994, a trilateral free trade zone was established in North America. This treaty between the United States, Mexico and Canada resulted in the mass relocation of factories and capital south of the Mexican border. At the same time as the United States is involved in negotiating a Trans-Pacific Partnership […]
By Anna Daniels
This year many of us will be thankful to sit around tables laden with wonderful food in the company of friends and family. And for many of us, a dinosaur will be the main dish. Seriously. We accept the fact, with a few stubborn creationist holdouts, that dinosaurs died out millions of years ago before humans were on the evolutionary scene. No more T Rex, Velociraptors or Stegosaurus.
But those were the non-avian dinosaurs. The dinosaurs that didn’t die out are the avian dinosaurs, more commonly known as birds. This is a fun fact for the kids at the Thanksgiving table, but it’s a heavy lift to mentally shift from the lifeless, plucked Butterball on the table, even if it’s a twenty-five pounder, to memories of Jurassic Park. A marauding wild tom turkey however is quite another thing. It may be a much scaled down tyrannosaurus, but admit it- it’s a dinosaur. [Read more…]
