FELLOWSHIP APPLICATION:
PLEASE PROVIDE
AN INTRODUCTION
TO YOUR WORK
(250 words)
Response:
MY POETRY COMES from a big water truck bouncing and
exhaling smoke over dry molds of wheel marks made by other
trucks that passed the same way sometime last season at the same
packinghouse in a different no-stoplight Central California town
with another name that will be mispronounced in perpetuity, which
is to say for ever, as ever and this error will be defended until it is
deemed correct and most true. Amen. Amén. Ah, men. This is the
poetry of a man in the passenger seat of said truck. He’s trying to
light a cigarette amidst all the vibrations and the damn truck keeps
moving. Chewy is talking again. I gotta get his words on the page,
but this match keeps blowing out. These poems, though, they wanna
be about something beautiful like birds n’ shit. Chewy keeps talking
about birds. One hand on the wheel, he leans forward to look up and
from under his cap. His other hand enters my space with fingers out
like he’s flying or the birds are flying or we’re flying or the truck is
flying; we’re birds now and I still can’t get this shit lit. The water
treatment plant is an entire ecosystem of migratory birds, he says.
This poetry is for the birds. It wasn’t until my third week at work
that I realized me and Chewy are probably cousins. Some border
crossing mess, a case of mistaken identity, papers and names on
paper. It only counts if it’s on paper. Unfamiliar words that don’t
match faces. I could quote Borges again, but I’ll chill. FYI, I just
went over the word cap. Somebody baptized their first cousin and,
like me, didn’t realize it. Grandma’s porchside pre-9/11 mention is
the only living artifact. Art-is-fact? Art are facts. The packinghouse
is full of abuelas. Full of art-are-facts. All forthcoming poetry will
attempt to revive dead abuelas and their art-is-facts. One of those
decolonized sisters told me this hummingbird was my abuela. Ok,
I’m wit’ that. Henceforth, all abuelas are hummingbirds. Poetry
should be full of abuelas, full of birds, full of birds who take you to
the doctor and tell your teacher you got diarrhea so don’t trip if he
asks to go to the bathroom more than once. Full of birds who know
why you’re passed out on the living room floor, but still make you
eggs and papas in the afternoon. Birds! who scrapbooked all your
articles in the local paper about Division II softball and community
college wrestling. Full of birds! Old birds too busy dirty packing
muscat and wonderfuls. Birds that get cancer. Birds that get valley
fever. Birds that die of diabetes. Birds that watch professional
wrestling and own cats with feline leukemia. I hate that my poetry
has to be about this shit, but it’s true Bill Moyers. It’s true, Harold
Bloom. I’m not making it up, Don Share. I see you over there, Tom
Lutz. The rivers in these poems got arsenic in ‘em and not in the
Funny Cary Grant way. More like bye bye Tia Cissy way, bye bye
Chicana Role Model, bye bye Iceworker, bye bye Tia Cookie, and
bye bye Coach Garza kinda way, wey. And each and every night, I’ll
write you faithfully. All of you. When we die, I hope we all go to the
bird’s nest built by ese Ai Weiwei. And maybe then I’ll stop telling
this tired ass story. But anyway, Chewy says I gotta go back to work
now and I finally got this cigarette going. Jesús had a lighter the
whole time, that bastard. I’ll tell you this, ain’t nothin’ in this whole
world like blowing smoke in the middle of a newly plowed field like
this one. Punto. Neta. Bye.
Joseph Rios is the author of Shadowboxing: Poems and Impersonations (Omnidawn), winner of the American Book Award. He was named one of the notable Debut Poets by Poets & Writers for 2017. He is from Fresno’s San Joaquin Valley. He’s been a gardener, a janitor, a packing house supervisor, and a handyman. He is a VONA alumnus, CantoMundo fellow, and a Macondo fellow. He lives in Los Angeles.
Instagram: @josefobear
Photo by sunsju on Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND