The American Century: Literature since 1945 749And nowhere has this awareness of duality, of two Mexicos, been more apparent
than in the distinctive body of Chicano writing that began around 1960.
The term chicano probably derives from the sixteenth-century corruption in
pronunciation of mexicano or meschicano which then, with the dropping of the mes,
becomes chicano – or, for the female equivalent, chicana. Gaining momentum from
the widespread civil rights activism of the 1960s, the chicano movement found
expression in both poetry and prose. In poetry, chicano poets have been linked in
particular with other performance poets who are notable for their multiculturalism
and their attachment to a past when the oral was primary. “the past had a lot more /
talking than writing,” one early performance poet, David Antin (1932–), declares in
his talk poem, “what am i doing here” (1973); “i’ll make a bold hypothesis before / ...
there was writing there was / talking.” That has been the aboriginal belief, the
impulse driving performance poets like John Giorno (1936–), who (as a collection
like Subduing Demons in America (2006) shows) uses multiple voices and repetitions,
sometimes by adding tape tracks to the spoken word in performance; Jayne Cortez
(1936–), whose work (which includes Jazz Fan Looks Back (2002)) originates in
African-American traditions and who sing-shouts her poetry; and Kenward Elmslie
(1929–) and Ed Sanders (1939–), who make ample use of music and song (and
samples of whose work are to be found in Routine Disruptions (1998) by Elmslie
and America: A History in Verse (2000–2004) by Sanders). It also prompted the
Puerto Rican poet Miguel Algarin (1941–) (whose later work includes Love is Hard
Wo r k (1997)) to found the Nuyorican Poets’ Cafe. This became one center for
performance poetry. Another was Beyond Baroque, on the other side of the
continental United States in California; among the performance poets who have
appeared there are David Trinidad (1953–) (The Late Show (2007) is a recent
volume), Amy Gerstler (1956–) (Bitter Angel (1990) is among her best work), and
Dennis Cooper (1953–) (The Weaklings (2008) is one of his later works). Among the
most notable performance poets have been two, in particular, who reveal very
clearly the priorities, formal and ideological, of chicano poetry: Gary Soto (1952–)
and Jimmy Santiago Baca (1952–) – who is in fact half chicano and half Apache. As
collections like Healing Earthquake (2001) by Baca and New and Selected Poems
(1995) by Soto illustrate, the formal priorities are a clear uncomplicated language,
concrete imagery, a driving rhythm, and a linking of personal experience to the
social, autobiography to history. The ideological priorities are plain enough from
Soto’s declaration “I believe in the culture of the poor,” and what he has to say, in
turn, about the work of Baca. Of the two long narrative poems that comprise Martin
and Meditations on the South Valley (1987), Soto has said: “What makes this story
succeed is its honesty, a brutal honesty, as well as Baca’s original imagery and the
passion of his writing.” “A history is being written of a culture of poverty,” Soto
added of his fellow chicano, “which, except for a few poets, is absent from American
poetry.” Those few, of course, include the author of these words, Soto himself, in
work that commemorates and celebrates personal memories (“Bealy Street” (1977)),
his family (“The Cellar” (1978)), and the Mexican-American community (“Kearney
Park” (1985)).GGray_c05.indd 749ray_c 05 .indd 749 8 8/1/2011 7:31:43 PM/ 1 / 2011 7 : 31 : 43 PM