By David A. Romero
Published 05/30/2023 9:00 Am PST

Riverside, CA – The voices of poets rang out through a microphone and echoed upon the brightly-colored canvasses of paintings and the bronze of sculptures, and into the ears of the approximately hundred and fifty, both sitting and standing in attendance, at The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art, Culture & Industry, as part of Viva Poesía: the first live poetry reading event in the museum’s history. 

Opened on June 18, 2022 in the former Riverside Public Library building, next to the Riverside Art museum, “The Cheech” holds the largest collection of Chicano art in the world (approximately 700 pieces). It is the culmination of actor, comedian, and art collector Cheech Marin’s support of, and investment in, Chicanx and Latinx artists over the decades. 

Viva Poesía featured poets Paul S. Flores, Sonia Gutiérrez, Margaret Elysia Garcia, Donato Martinez, Ceasar K. Avelar, Wendy L. Silva, Bernice “bere” Espinoza and myself, David A. Romero. The event was hosted by Darren “Aztec Parrot” de Leon, poet, radio host, and founding member of Los Delicados: Poetas del Sol.

The event was introduced by its co-organizer Jorge C. Hernandez, aka Mr. Blue, host of Radio Aztlan, who began it with a solidarity clap, known well to members of the Chicanx Movement. As he stood atop the stage set in front of the De La Torre brothers’ two-story installation of the Aztec earth goddess Coatlicue, Hernandez spoke to the genesis of the event:

“Lilia [Acevedo], my collaborator said, ‘Hey, we need to do a Chicano poesia night’ ... and the next day Donato [Martinez] called me and said, ‘Hey Blue, any chance I can get on the radio program?’ and I said, ‘Well, why don’t we do something better? Why don’t we put together a poetry night?’”

Lilia Acevedo (leader of Cultura Con Llantas) and Hernandez have collaborated and supported each other for decades in Riverside County and beyond, with events including, but not limited to: Vinyl & Rides on the Riverside Art Museum rooftop, Cantos de la Lucha at UCR, and holiday themed events at the Riverside Art Museum. 

“Jorge and I have known one another for over 25 years. He was my Chicano Sociology professor. A couple months ago, while prepping for the Cantos de La Lucha program, Jorge handed me a binder with several different items he’s collected. On the cover of the binder was a flyer for a Cesar Chavez event at RCC, with his name listed as the speaker. It took me a few minutes to realize that I had created that flyer for the event I organized in 1999.” Acevedo said, following the event. 

Thanks to Acevedo and Hernandez’s efforts, and with help from The Cheech, Viva Poesía was able to gain co-sponsorship from Los Cinco, Latino Network, RideNPride Car Club, as well as hors d'oeuvres and refreshments from Zacatecas Café. A Son jarocho group, Conjunto Axolotl, was also invited to play and sing as guests filtered into the museum and settled in for the poetry, playing their own folk versions of, and telling the stories behind, such classics as “La Bamba.”

In the weeks leading up to the event, after his phone conversation with Jorge C. Hernandez, poet and professor of English composition, Literature, and Creative Writing at Santa Ana College, Donato Martinez, reach out to his publishers with El Martillo Press, myself, and Matt Sedillo, asking us to join him for the event and to help him fill out the evening’s performers. With our collaboration, the event would combine authors published by FlowerSong Press of McAllen, TX, with authors published by El Martillo Press, as well as local poets important to the community of Riverside. 

Martinez spoke of what Viva Poesía meant to him, following the event:

“This place was a former public library that I used to visit as a young man. The library was old, musty, and somewhat eerie. It was always cold there. And now we have this great, amazing, and beautiful place that houses Chicano art.... It was a poetry reading of “coming home” even though I have never left... I consider Corona/Riverside my home, and this was the first time in many years that a large group of family and friends have seen me read.”

Martinez struck a chord with an audience that included many of his friends, family, and students from Santa Ana College who drove out to see him. Between poems like “Drunk Tias” and “A Long Line of Pachucos” he engaged in conversation with them, asking them questions, and urging them to audibly respond to the poetry. They shouted out and clapped and cheered him on.

Margaret Elysia Garcia, author of the daughterland, found her own ways to engage the audience, carefully setting up poems like “Spanish” and “Pico Rivera: Rain Drive,” bracing them for poetic journeys that would move them from laughter to tears.

“There were so many people who'd come to listen to us and it really was such an honor. Also, I understand and read Spanish, but I don't speak it very well and that always fills me with nervous anxiety in bilingual spaces where I'm expected to [speak Spanish] on top of performance nerves. I've read at many spaces and I've often been the only Chicana at the reading and searched for 'relatable' pieces to read to all white audiences. But here it was different. I read what I wanted to read and I saw heads nodding in the audience and laughter and people totally getting what I was expressing and that was a wonderful feeling.” Garcia said, following the event.

The current poet laureate of Pomona, Ceasar K. Avelar nodded his head in agreement upon hearing Garcia’s words, reflecting upon his experience of performing poems from his collection, God of the Air Hose and Other Blue-Collar Poems, “There was a dope connection with the audience. You could see in their eyes that they understood what we were saying. They had been there. They had lived it. The good and the bad. The night was like medicine for all of us.”

Each poet preceding and following Garcia, took the audience on their own unique journeys, showcasing styles that ranged from those influenced by the American literary tradition, to hip hop, to more classical Chicanx styles of performance, and beyond, demonstrating that their performance styles and writing techniques were as varied as the mediums, colors, and brushstrokes used in the paintings hanging on the museum’s walls.

Sonia Gutiérrez, who drove up from San Diego to join the reading, brought her unique, playful, and meditative style to her time onstage, reading both prose and poetry, from her collections Spider Woman/La Mujer Araña and Dreaming with Mariposas. In a poem creating a counter-narrative to the Adam and Eve story found in the Old Testament/Torah, Gutiérrez posited that Adam and Eve, and their respective reproductive organs, might have had very different origins than typically imagined. This elicited some of the most riotous laughter of the night. 

A true highlight of the evening, was the penultimate performer, San Francisco-based poet and educator Paul S. Flores who had also traveled (down from the Bay), who exploded from the crowd, and instead of electing to begin his performance onstage at the podium, as all the other poets had, performed his appetite-whetting poem, “Arroz Con Pollo,” from his forthcoming collection WE STILL BE: Poems and Performances, as he wove in and out of the audience. 

“That really made me hungry,” Said one audience member, Julie, of Temecula, CA following the event, remembering the various Latin foods and cooking techniques Flores described in his poem.

With his performance in the crowd and poems performed on stage, Flores demonstrated to the audience why he is considered one of the most influential Latino performance artists in the country and why he has moved crowds to respond to issues of transnationality and citizenship ever since he appeared on Season 4 of HBO’s Def Poetry. It was astonishing to see him perform live for the first time.

As for myself, I had the great honor of closing out the night, thanking Donato Martinez, giving a shoutout to Matt Sedillo (who unfortunately wasn’t able to join us), celebrating the publishing of El Martillo Press authors: Flores, Martinez, Garcia, and Avelar, excitedly teasing the announcement of Gutiérrez to our lineup, and speaking to what the reading meant to me, personally.

As the nephew of Frank Romero, whose “Arrest of the Paleteros” is one of the signature paintings in The Cheech, and the cousin of Sonia Romero, whose “Sacred Heart” papercut/linoleum cut was visible to most audience members behind us for the event’s entirety, Viva Poesía held special importance. It was a celebration of our arrival as Chicanx artists, whatever the medium. 

Through a poem “Micro Machines,” the final poem of the evening, I recounted a story of how once on a field trip to the LA County Museum of Art (LACMA) I encountered a micro-aggression from a museum docent after asking if my uncle might have had his art exhibited there. After hearing my uncle’s Spanish surname name and a description the subject matter of his paintings, the Caucasian docent responded with skepticism and pointed to an alternative placement of my uncle’s work, based upon a prevailing stereotype for Latino males: that my uncle didn’t, in fact, paint cars in his paintings, but that he was merely a car painter.

This moment at LACMA impacted me for years and similar events shaped the way we as Chicanx and Latinx people often view our own artistic and intellectual accomplishments, with a pre-set fear of reduction and trivialization by others. What The Cheech and I hope, Viva Poesía, demonstrated for all those who attended, as well as those who watched the event live, or even just heard about it, is that we have arrived. No matter what the rest of the world thinks of us, we have a home. A place where we belong. We have a tradition as Chicanx and Latinx people. We are brilliant. We are high art. We will not be made to feel ‘lesser than.’ I thank Cheech Marin for giving the artwork of my uncle and cousin a home, and for providing a grand space for us poets to share our words.

I am honored to say that El Martillo Press and FlowerSong Press books have been welcomed into The Cheech for sale in their gift shop. Thanks to Annie Guadarrama, Guest Services Manager, at The Cheech for making that possible.

When I thanked Lilia Acevedo for all she had done in co-organizing the reading, she responded with a statement that deeply resonates with me, one that I believe would be reflected by all others who worked to make it happen.

“As a Chicana I have a personal responsibility to my community. I will always advocate for my people and do my best to enrich my community by being of service.”

¡Que viva!

David A. Romero is a Mexican-American spoken word artist. Romero is the author of My Name Is Romero (FlowerSong Press), a book reviewed by Gustavo Arellano (¡Ask a Mexican!), Curtis Marez (University Babylon), and founding member of Ozomatli, Ulises Bella.