This Moment / Right Now
for Monica Hand
by Roberto Carlos Garcia
there’s a whispered prayer blowing the crumbs of a season’s harvest
off a girl’s plate
& a roar breaks from her insides, the roar a lioness
a beast that knows
& a man kneels somewhere cupping his tears
for the loneliness he feels
though he’s surrounded by the world, & a finch in a tree singing
for a lover as the buds on its branch
pop into leaves that will flourish & welcome the green grasses,
Right now a boy is wondering
if people can really dodge bullets
& is he one of them & somewhere nobody bothers
to ask, they simply wait
Wind spins across the landscape they say God is twirling his fingers—
The heartbroken hook new bodies, night after night, drink after drink
& I dance—my feet mashing grapes for wine & I sing mockingly—
what is life / what is life
What are you interested in as a writer? What are your muses?
The human condition in the moment. Also, the ways in which history informs our daily lives. I think it is vital to be connected to that. Not just the history but to know who wrote that history and why, and what the counternarratives are and why. History has a lot to teach us.
Many of your poems bring light to the experiences of underrepresented communities. How can poetry be a tool for social justice?
Poetry or anything for that matter, can only be a tool for social justice if we speak our truth through the making of it, and the only way to do that is to truly investigate ourselves and our lives. This is hard work, and it is immensely terrifying. Not everyone is ready or willing to do that, for obvious reasons. It is lonely, it challenges our systems of reality, our choices and our habits, our fantasies, and so on. Any work that hasn’t attempted to do this soul / spirt / heart work can only be propaganda. And unfortunately, there’s more than enough propaganda to go around.
What inspires you in others' work? How do others' voices influence your own?
I like to be surprised. I love a great narrative, a great story. I want to feel when I read. I also like to see skill and play at work. That inspires me step my game up, it gets my creative juices flowing.
In addition to being a poet, you are the founder of Get Fresh Books Publishing. Can you tell us a little about this cooperative press?
The press was started to provide publishing opportunities for underrepresented voices. We wanted to offer a fee free alternative and we’ve been very successful thus far. If you’re reading this, please visit our online store and pick up a book or donate. We could really use your support.
And your new book?
My latest book, What Can I Tell You? Selected Poems is published by Flowersong Press out of McAllen Texas. It contains poems from my first three books. I believe readers will appreciate my poetic progression. It was challenging to decide which poems would be included. Ultimately, I feel like we did a great job putting it together.
What are your rhythmic strategies? How do you establish rhythm in your poems?
I try to capture the natural way people speak. I also like a lean line so that can sometimes push me to examine the syllabics and what that’s doing.
Where can readers find more of your work/buy your books?
I provide links to all my books and published work on my website. My books can be found wherever books are sold.
Poet, storyteller, and essayist Roberto Carlos Garcia is a self-described “sancocho […] of provisions from the Harlem Renaissance, the Spanish Poets of 1929, the Black Arts Movement, the Nuyorican School, and the Modernists.” Garcia is rigorously interrogative of himself and the world around him, conveying “nakedness of emotion, intent, and experience,” and he writes extensively about the Afro-Latinx and Afro-diasporic experience. Roberto's third collection, [Elegies], is published by Flower Song Press and his second poetry collection, black / Maybe: An Afro Lyric, is available from Willow Books. Roberto’s first collection, Melancolía, is available from Červená Barva Press.
His poems and prose have appeared or are forthcoming in POETRY Magazine, The BreakBeat Poets Vol 4: LatiNEXT, Bettering American Poetry Vol. 3, The Root, Those People, Rigorous, Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day, Gawker, Barrelhouse, The Acentos Review, Lunch Ticket, and many others.
He is founder of the cooperative press Get Fresh Books Publishing, A NonProfit Corp.
A native New Yorker, Roberto holds an MFA in Poetry and Poetry in Translation from Drew University, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
John Wojtowicz grew up working on his family’s azalea and rhododendron nursery in the backwoods of what Ginsberg dubbed “nowhere Zen New Jersey.” Currently, he works as a licensed clinical social worker and adjunct professor. He has been featured on Rowan University’s Writer’s Roundtable on 89.7 WGLS-FM and several of his poems were chosen to be exhibited in Princeton University's 2021 Unique Minds: Creative Voices art show at the Lewis Center for the Arts. He has been nominated 3x for a Pushcart Prize and serves as the Local Lyrics contributor for The Mad Poets Society Blog. His debut chapbook Roadside Oddities: A Poetic Guide to American Oddities was released in early 2022 and can be purchased at www.johnwojtowicz.com. John lives with his wife and two children in Upper Deerfield, NJ.