Pembroke Magazine #40: Rosas vivas en mi huerto

Anyone familiar with PEMBROKE MAGAZINE (http://www.uncp.edu/pembrokemagazine/) knows that it pushes the boundaries of the possible, giving us special issues devoted, for example, to African-American literature, American Indian literature, and now Hispanic/Latino(a) literature---all the while including many of our own North Carolina writers, along with reviews, commentaries, and scholarship. The wizard behind this magazine is none other than Shelby Stephenson, award-winning poet and down-home NC picker and singer. This new issue is yet another cause for celebration. How does Shelby and his staff pull this off? The magazine is one of the state's treasures.

So is Shelby. He recently won the Bellday Poetry Prize, for "Family Matters:
Homage to July, the Slave Girl," about which you will hear more in a forthcoming post as well as on our ncarts.org site.



The new issue of Pembroke Magazine features Hispanic/Latino(a) writers, with Lilianan Wendorff as Guest Editor. Included among the authors are James Applewhite; Reinhold Grimm; Veronica Grossi; Judy Hogan; Debra Kaufman; Kathryn Kirkpatrick; Jose Latour; Susan Lefler; Glenna Luschei; Julio Ortega; Marty Silverthorne; Mark Smith-Soto; Nancy Tilly; Alma Luz Villanueva. Interviews: Ted Kooser; Mel Waters.

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(Liliana Wendorf)


INTRODUCTION by Liliana Wendorff (Excerpt)

We are delighted to introduce a special edition of Pembroke Magazine devoted to Hispanic/Latino(a) Literature. The prestigious, nationally known Pembroke Magazine historically has been at the forefront of innovation. It has concentrated on finding the overlooked topics and authors, and exposing them to a wider audience. It has dedicated issues to multiple kinds of literature as well as to national and international artists of different ages and backgrounds.



Pembroke Magazine has chosen to seize this singular moment to open the door on literature that may not have resonated with our audience, even in the recent past. This is an appropriate time in history for awareness of the commonality of human stories. Different ethnic groups are currently trying to penetrate the minds of each other. Our ideas become more comprehensible to what was the Other. And just as copper and zinc form a new metal, so do we form an alloy through the conversation of minds. Literature and criticism has always been at the forefront of this re-enlightenment. As nations become more global and interdependent, knowledge of other prisms on reality will feed the desire for understanding.

The authors included in this edition are representative of many different facets of the crystal of fresh reflections. Hispanic/Latino(a) literature is represented here by authors from different corners of the Hispanic/Latino(a) world: Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Spain, and the United States. The themes are equally eclectic. They range from the anticipated themes of immigration, assimilation, exile, alienation, and fragmented identities to romance and metaphysics. We hope this exposure will tantalize readers to further explorations or, perhaps more importantly, self-reflection.
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This is one of my favorite poems from the magazine, by Carlos Javier Morales, who has published 5 books of poetry and teaches in Madrid.

FUERA DE PROGRAMA

Aun quedan rosas vivas in mi huerto:
ven para verlas juntos.
Ya se que no te sobra ni un instante
en tu apretada agenda;
pero ven, que is la vida,
que ahora quiere ensenarnos su hermosura
y entonarnos su fragil melodia,
para que nunca olvides
que aqui tienes tu casa.

OUT OF PLANNING

(Author's Translation)

There are yet living roses in my garden.
Come here. We will watch them together.
I know that no time remains in your timetable;
but come here today: it is the life,
that now wants to show us its whole great beauty
and to intone for us its fagile melody.
And so you will never forget
that here is your home.




(Shelby Stephenson, editor of PEMBROKE MAGAZINE)