English 137T

Topics in Chicana/o Literature and Culture: Chicano Poetry--Text and Context

Description

We will open with "Yo soy Joaquin"/"I am Joaquin," Rodolfo 'Corky' Gonzalez's stirring political poem of 1968 that inspired a politically based literary output that dominated Chicano poetics for well over a decade and still stands squarely at the center of a great deal of Chicano poetry to the present day.  We will read poetry by Alurista, Ricardo Sanchez, Beatrice Zamora, Ana Castillo, Raul Salinas, Jose Montoya, Gary Soto, Pat Mora, Alfred Arteaga, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Gloria Anzaldua, Jimmy Santiago Baca. And we will also then read this poetry within the much wide context that includes the Beat Poets, the Black Arts Movement, Asian and Native American writers, and other poets of the contemporary American period.

While I haven't decided yet on texts for the class, many of the poems we read may well come directly from internet sources quite simply because so many publications of the Chicano Movement are out of print.  Of course, we will read the significant criticism on Chicano poetry by Juan Bruce Novoa, Tey Diana Rebolledo,  Rafael Perez-Torres, Jose Limon, Alfred Arteaga, Gloria Anzaldua, and other scholars and writers.

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