Apoteosis

APOTEOSIS

Un palo verde y lívido paso de la suya a la mía confiando en la tibieza de las manos como si fueron benignas

apenas sentía en la palma la fragilidad de su tacto con un cosquilleo débil apenas perceptible, solo porque lo estaba viendo

pequeñas vibraciones hechas por el movimiento de su forma exquisita: su cuerpo como ramita con piernas más finas que una aguja delgada se agarraban de mi dedo

sin desear soltarse como si la planta en la que lo puse era un objeto extraño y mi dedo era su hogar

—Traducción: Gustavo Garcia

Declaración de artista: Raymundo González (Ray González)

En mi trabajo hay una búsqueda de la identidad a través de los mitos de mi pueblo; un intento en cada pieza (sea de pintura, escultura o arte popular) por vincularme con todos aquellos que permitieron mi existencia mediante sus memorias, decisiones, sueños o suerte; es decir, intento una construcción del “yo” desde el “nosotros”. La lengua perdida de la familia, de la que sólo quedan palabras huérfanas, rituales, migración y oralidad nutren una serie de piezas que ilustran, como si fuera un cuento, la magia con la que crecí en la casa de los abuelos, donde se narraban historias con realidades sobrenaturales que le daban sentido a un mundo cada vez más distante.

Así, las brujas seguirán volando libres sobre los maizales, los diablos saltando de cerro a cerro y los aparecidos de La Cristiada continuarán por el viejo rumbo de los arrieros. En cada obra trato de acercarlos más. La cacería es una obra que remite a la infancia, la fugacidad del tiempo y la fragilidad de la vida.

Artist Statement: Raymundo Gonzalez (Ray Gonzalez)

In my work there is a search for identity through the myths of my people; an attempt in each piece (be it painting, sculpture or popular art) to link myself with all those who allowed my existence through their memories, decisions, dreams or luck; that is, I attempt a construction of the "I" from the "we". The lost language of the family, of which only orphan words, rituals, migration and orality remain, nourish a series of pieces that illustrate, as if it were a story, the magic with which I grew up in my grandparents' house, where stories featuring supernatural realities gave meaning to an increasingly distant world.

Thus, the witches continue flying free over the cornfields, the devils jump from hill to hill and the apparitions of La Cristiada continue along the old route of the muleteers. In each work I try to bring them closer. the value of the transition between generations that, with their infinite imaginations, preserve amazement. “La Cacería” is a work that refers to childhood, the fleeting nature of time and the fragility of life.

—Translation: Lee Gould

Colaboradores Contributors

Anna Adams has an M.A. from Boston University in Latin American literature and a Ph.D. from Temple University in Latin American History. She is Professor Emerita of History from Muhlenberg College, where she taught Latin American, Latino and women's history. Her academic interests center on nonCatholic religious communities in Latin America and among Latinos in the United States. She is a translator for La Presa.

Francisco Alatorre Vieyra: (Guadalajara, Jal., 1982). Ganador del Premio Efraín Huerta 2014 con el libro “Ladakh”. Los poemas que aquí presenta han sido publicados en el libro “Manía” (2019) y el sitio digital Trespiesalgato y están publicados con el permiso del autor. .

Andrea Alzati: Guanajuato, Gto., 1989). Poeta & artista visual. Estudió Literatura Latinoamericana en la Universidad Iberoamericana. Becaria del programa Jóvenes Creadores del FONCA en la disciplina de Poesía 2016-2017. Autora de los libros: Animal Doméstico, (México: Juan Malasuerte, 2017. España: Ediciones Liliputienses, 2020), Algo tan oscuro que no tiene ombre (México: Dharma Books & Publishing, 2018), y Todos mis quchillos (Valdivia: Komorebi Ediciones, 2019. Parte de su obra visual puede verse en su cuenta de instagram @aalzati.

Laura Edith Barrera Morales: Licenciada en Educación por la Universidad de Guanajuato y Maestra en Investigación Educativa por la Universidad de Guanajuato. Experiencia laboral en la ENMS Guanajuato como docente de asignaturas formativas y del área de Ciencias Sociales (Ciencias Sociales, Orígenes de México y México Contemporáneo) y en talleres de cultura mexicana, arte popular mexicano y lenguas indígenas con estudiantes de Oregon, Washington, Francia y Alemania. Experiencia en talleres y conferencias en Benemérita y Centenaria Escuela Normal Oficial de Guanajuato, así como en centros culturales.. También es poeta.

Sterling Bennett, former SSU Professor of German Language and Literature, lives in Guanajuato, Mexico with novelist Dianne Romain and is the author of five historical novels set in Mexico–one of them translated by Guanajuato poet Lirio Garduño-Buono: El Pianista de Pancho Villa–and of numerous short stories and, more recently, flash fiction stories of which “Cayman” is an example

Canadian soprano Renée Bouthot has sung in concert, opera, and musical theatre across Canada, and several times in concert in Guanajuato, including at the International Cervantino Festival. Throughout her career, Renée has worked as a conductor, adjudicator, and teacher, as well as a high school

administrator. As a composer of choral and chamber music, she continues to explore sound and text.

Paula Dunning is a retired freelance editor who lives in Echo Bay, Ontario and, until recently, split her time between that home and a home in Guanajuato. Her work has been aired on CBC Radio and published in the Canadian literary journal, Agnes and True, as well as in La Presa. Her full-length memoir, Shifting Currents, explores the personal and cultural conflicts of a young urban woman who went “back to the land” in the 1970s and 1980s. Her essay collection, The Stuff of a Life, was published by Embajadoras Press this fall. Paula blogs at www.echoriver.ca where she shares short essays and comments on the world as she experiences it.

Liliana Equihua. Escritora y migrante guanajuatense. Actualmente habita en Marseille, Francia criando un hijo de dos años..

Charlotte Forbes is a prize-winning author of short stories, including the The Good Works of Ayela Linde: A Novel in Stories, which was long- and short-listed for a variety of US and international awards, as well as short fiction published in literary reviews and anthologized in several collections. She is the recipient of an O. Henry Award; the Eyster Prize for Fiction from New Orleans University, a grant from the Christopher Ishwerood Foundation and a nominee for The Best New American Voices, among others. . She currently lives in San Miguel de Allende.

Gregg Friedberg is the author of The Best Seat Not in the House (Embajadoras Press, 2017), a sequence of poems concerning the relations between creator and creature, whether author and character or God and man; of Would You Be Made Whole? (Aldrich Press, 2015), a collection of unruly sonnets; and of What’s Wrong, a sequence of poems whereof the protagonist is a refugee from American marketing culture (Kelsay Books (2022). Friedberg likes writing poem sequences: loosely narrative, a matrix of themes considered from varying perspective. He divides his time between Guanajuato, Mexico, and Upper Sandusky, Ohio.

Gustavo Garcia: Optometrista, artista, y aficionado a las motos, también traductor de poesía.

Lirio Garduño-Buono: Ha publicado los poemarios Un viaje (UG,2001), El duende de las cosas repetidas (La Rana, 2006) y los libros para niños Historias de sueños y señales (La Rana, 2013) e Historias Naturales (2007, Instituto Municipal de la Cultura, Gto). Otros libros de poesía publicados por ella

son: Visiones y Retratos pintados con agua, (2011 y 2015, respectivamente, Fondo Editorial Querétaro). Las noches del Djinn (Les nuits du Djinn) apareció en 2020 con el editor francés Tangerine Nights en versiones español/francés y francés/árabe. El retrato de Emigdio, uno de sus cuentos apareció igualmente en 2021 con el mismo editor en la antología Prime à l’enfance, 2021. Vive y trabaja en Guanajuato, Gto.

Aleqs Garrigoz es poeta y periodista cultura mexicano, publicó su primer libro de poesía en 2003: Abyección. Posteriormente aparecieron La promesa de un poeta (2005), Paginas que caen (2008, 2013) y La risa de los imbéciles. Ha publicado poemas en medios en México, España, Estados Unidas, Columbia, Argentina, Perú, Nicaragua.

Judyth Hill, poet, editor, teacher, is the current President of PEN San Miguel, the author of nine published books of poetry and the internationally acclaimed poem, Wage Peace. She conducts poetry and memoir workshops at conferences world-round. Judyth was described by the Denver Post as, “A tigress with a pen.”

Humberto Hernández Herrera es de origen guanajuatense, padre de cuatro hijos, apasionado por la vida, actividades culturales y deportivas. Cursó sus estudios en la Universidad Tecnológica de León, combinándolos con participación en el Ballet Folklórico de la Universidad de Guanajuato. Se ha desarrollado profesionalmente dentro del Sector Educativo en el Estado. Colaborador desde 2012 con Gregg Friedberg presentando sus obras de inglés en español. Actualmente continua su preparación en el área de Acondicionamiento Físico y en Desarrollo Humano.

K M Howard is the pen name of Ken Morrow, to honor his father, Howard Morrow. Ken lives in San Miguel de Allende, GTO, MX and, in addition to poetry, writes program notes for classical music performances. His first collection of poetry, Uncertainty Principle, was introduced in January 2019. He is at work on a second manuscript tentatively titled Evidence.

Judith Jenya is from California and Hawaii and now lives in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. She writes poetry short stories and memoir. Her work is in “Solamente en San Miguel,“ Vol !!, 2010. “Aromas de Dos Pueblos” coauthored with Eugenia Yllades, 2014., Hamilton Stone review. Her writing has been anthologized in “Supernatural Tales,” Maui Writers Ink, 2017; Mexico Hoy,” Centros Pen de Mexico, 2018.

Linda Laino is a visual artist and writer residing in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Her poems and prose have appeared with distinction in literary journals and anthologies and her poem, Poem at Sixty, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2019. She holds an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and loves finding beautiful things on the ground.

Augusto Nava Mora: Complutense de Madrid; es especialista en Dante Alighieri. Estudió Letras Españolas en la Universidad de Guanajuato.. Además de publicar ensayos literarios y políticos, ha colaborado en varios proyectos que conjuntan las artes visuales y escénicas con la poesía: una exposición en la Embajada de Japón en México (2002), dos cortometrajes de arte y ensayo en Madrid (2008, como guionista, y 2017, como co-director, co-guionista y actor) y una puesta en escena con Teatro Kalipatos (de donde viene el poema que presentamos). Ha hecho también traducciones de teoría del cine (italiano-español, portuguésespañol), en particular, sobre el cineasta brasileño Glauber Rocha.

Peter Newman is a physician and teacher of medicine who has repeatedly worked in Dominica, the Arctic, Israel, and Uganda. His stories have appeared in Humanities- Canadian Medical Association Journal, Canadian Family Physician, La Presa, The Star, and The Globe and Mail. He received the 2021 Mimi Divinsky Award for narrative in medicine, and was short-listed for the 2022 International Amy MacRae Award for Memoir. He lives in Guanajuato and Toronto.

Dianne Romain, former SSU philosophy professor turned fiction writer, first published Thinking Things Through, a critical thinking textbook. In Guanajuato, where she lives with novelist Sterling Bennett, she took up the trumpet as research for her debut novel, The Trumpet Lesson. Her current writing projects set in Guanajuato include short stories and a second novel. Visit her at https://dianneromain.com/.

Jorge Javier Romero es matemático, traductor y escritor, autor de los poemarios nadie se esta quejando (2015) y no mas preguntas (2017)_. Formó parte de Amanecimos sobre la palabra. Antología de poesía joven venezolana (2017). Edita el blog de cine El tren en marcha.

Juan Romero Vinueza (Quito, Ecuador) Como poeta, editor, y traductor ha publicado en poesía: Revolver Escorpión (La Caída, Ecuador, 2016); 39 poemas de mierda para mi primera esposa (Turbina, Ecuador, 2018 y Dämmerung [o como reinventar a los ídolos] (Ediciones Liliputienses, España, 2019), que obtuvo la Mención de Honor del Premio Nacional de Poesía Jorge Carrera Andrade 2019

Robert Russell is a recovering economist, and a published poet and fiction writer. He has taught writing and performance workshops in Mexico, Wisconsin, and Chicago. He lived in San Miguel de Allende, MX for five years, and is now a copyreader and co-producer at WORT-FM radio in Madison, WI.

Paul Smart worked as a community journalist in the Catskills and Hudson Valley regions of the United States for 30 plus years. He has authored several books, started a couple of radio stations, and is now living in Guanajuato, Mexico.

Annie Smith (1939-2020) had a love affair with words ever since she could remember. She became a poet and memoirist as well as a chef and art teacher. Her poems appeared in many journals including Rattle, and La Presa. In 2017, she published Fragments of Loss (Embajadoras Press) a memoir in poetry and prose about the death of her first husband. As a chef, she operated the Firehouse Soup Kitchen, a restaurant in New Haven Connecticut which expanded into a cooking school and catering business. For 11 years, she taught art to children and adults. Her last years were spent in Guanajuato, MX where she lived with her second husband, Robert Brown.

Iván Soto Camba es egresado de la carrera de Ciencias de la Comunicación de ITESO. Fue ganador del IV Premio de Novela Mauricio Achar por su novela Pistolar (Literatura Random House, 2018). También recibió el XIII Premio Nacional de Poesía Alonso Vidal por su poemario Gelatina (Mantis Editores, 2015). En 2008 fue becario del programa Jóvenes Creadores, en la especialidad de relato. Ha colaborado con ensayos, cuentos y poemas en medios como Revista Luvina, Santa Crítica, Tres pies y otros.

Natalie Taylor: Born to Ukrainian parents, Natalie grew up in Argentina. The family eventually moved to the U.S. She has a journalism degree, and an MFA in creative writing from Vermont College, Montpelier, VT. Her short stories and poetry have been published in numerous literary magazines and she has received several literary awards. She and her husband now reside in San Miguel de Allende.

Manuela Thiess has worked in theatre, film and television, as well as a teacher in various schools and settings; her main interests are photography, art, and poetry. She has had numerous local exhibits of her photography. She taught in the California Department of Corrections for 15 years where she became interested in prison reform issues. In addition, she has taught at a juvenile hall as well as multi-leveled courses in part time assignments in Art, English, and Literature. Her B.A is in Liberal Studies, and her M.A. is in TESOL.

Miriam de Uriarte has published poetry, short stories, art reviews in museum catalogues and in the East Bay Express in San Francisco, California. Her monograph Gerold Heinz Luft-Pavlata: a German painter in Patzcuaro was published in 2109 by Embajadoras Press. She previously taught at UC Berkeley Extension, founded the Berkeley Child Art Studio, was education director at the Mexican Museum; director of the Stockton Children’s Museum, The Museum of Craft and Folk Art in San Francisco, and Director of Education at Museo del Barrio, in Manhattan. She is bilingual, of Mexican heritage.

Richard Wells: At age seven, Richard Wells sat down at his family’s Remington, and started his autobiography. In one form or another, that’s what he’s been writing ever since. His first book, “Sideways through Zion,” has been published by the Embajadoras Press. You can often find Richard in Guanajuato hovering above the Embajadoras Market.

Bonnie Wolkenstein is a writer, photographer and psychologist based in Seattle, WA, USA. Her poetry, essays and photography explore what lies below the surface of everyday moments. Published work: Penumbra, Poetica Magazine, New Note Poetry, The Good Life, Kansas City Voices, Drash: Northwest Mosaic, 56 Days of August, (Re) An Ideas Journal and La Presa. The host of the Guanajuato Writing Retreat, her first poetry collection, Dreaming in Cantera/Sueños en Cantera, was inspired by living in Guanajuato City 20192020 (WordTech Editions, Feb 2023).

Call for submissions Convocatoria

THE FEATURED THEME OF LA PRESA ISSUE 14 IS PROVOCATION

Provoke us, please, intriguingly. Or tell us how you’ve been so provoked: an account of provocation. Or possibly more positively – even sensually – a provocative tale. Or submit an essay on the subtleties (or – likely nowadays – the flagrancies) of provocation, of its philosophy, psychology – of its practice public and private.

Send 3 to 5 poems or prose (memoir, essay or story) up to 1000 words with a 60word biography, and the address to which we might send a copy of the journal in which your work appears. Submissions are accepted in English and/or Spanish. Thanks for considering La Presa. We look forward to hearing from you. Submissions are now open.

Send submissions to: leegould@embajadoraspress.com

Convocatoria

EL TEMA DESTACADO DE LA PRESA NÚMERO 14 ES LA PROVOCACIÓN

Provóquenos, por favor, de forma intrigante. O cuéntanos cómo has sido así provocado: una historia de provocación. O, posiblemente, de forma más positiva incluso sensual- un relato provocativo. O envíe un ensayo sobre las sutilezas (o probablemente hoy en día - las flagrancias) de la provocación, de su filosofía, psicología - de su práctica pública y privada.

Envíe de 3 a 5 poemas o prosa (memorias, ensayos o relatos) de hasta 1000 palabras con una biografía de 60 palabras, y la dirección a la que podríamos enviar un ejemplar de la revista en la que aparece su obra. Se aceptan propuestas en inglés y/o español. Gracias por considerar La Presa. Esperamos tener noticias suyas. Ya está abierto el plazo de presentación de trabajos.

Envíe obras al correo: leegould@gmail.com