Fluid Chicano: The Pedro Files

Back in 2015 I published my book "The Fluid Chicano" with Slough Press in the Rio Grande Valley. It was my first extensive collection of poetry put into book form. I've been a writer all my life, I suppose. Even before I knew I was one. There is a photo of me when I was a child, maybe about 2 years old, in which I'm in my grandma's backyard with my siblings playing while holding a notebook in my armpit. I believe Native Americans had it right to believe that whatever object a child instinctively chooses marks his or her destiny. I chose the blank page onto which I would write all kinds of things. I've written a lot of poetry, short stories, essays, copywriting, ghost writing, novellas, newspaper articles, blog posts, you name it. But since the pandemic hit just a couple of years ago, my writing genie went missing. I've been on a severe writer's block. Which is why, a few days ago, I was taken by surprise by a good friend of mine, Pedro Garcia, who has recently been reading my poetry book, The Fluid Chicano.  

Pedro contacted me with the surprise that he had recorded a spoken word performance of a few of my poems from that collection. This news brought back a whole different mindset and memories from the time that I was putting together the poems and the whole manuscript for publication. Some of them are social and political commentary, as would be expected. But a whole lot of the poems are of a personal nature. Themes of love and loss are prevalent, which is why I felt I had boarded on a rollercoaster ride when I heard Pedro's recordings. Not only because of the content, which I wrote from personal experience, but by the dramatization of the verses. It reminded me that poetry, (like music, art, literature, and all artistic creations) is better appreciated and understood even by the author when someone else reveals what that work of art inspires in them, and how it inspires or instructs their interpretation and perspective on the piece. 

Thanks to Pedro Garcia for this great gift of dramatization of some of my poetic creations accompanied by thematic music in the background. I went ahead and put them together in a video with some images. They are truly a great rendition by an outstanding performer and professional artist and actor. Check out the poetry dramatizations I call, "The Pedro Files". 

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