“reasons we should buy this belize livingsocial escape” by Vanessa Jimenez Gabb

Screen Shot 2014-09-13 at 1.32.25 PMThe following poem by English teacher Vanessa Jimenez Gabb was published on the “30 Latin@ Poets/30 Days” segment of the online magazine Luna Luna. Ms. Gabb is the author of Weekend Poems, Dancing Girls Press, 2014. Please enjoy the poem and feel free to leave a comment for Ms. Gabb.

reasons we should buy this belize livingsocial escape

Let us keep going, going, going, back to La Dorada.Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera
1.
to be wet and spa colored
2.
not spa colored
in the bourgy sense
by this i mean the rains
will turn us to mud
sinkholes in Cayo
with everywhere flora
molten intruding
3.
we ate conch
every time we were hungry
we ate until we dreamt
more meat and kept
and turned conch
shell and spire
ourselves habanero
as ceviche
4.
we have no easy
drinks to go down
what little umbrellas
are we holding
our hands
5.
the treaty of versailles
said yes cut away everything
between this river and that
take all the mahogany you can carry
’til there is none left
take with you
all the open that was

 

Click “continue reading” for Q&A with the poet.

Q&A with Vanessa Jimenez Gabb

How do you define Latin@ poetics?

Latin@ poetics, poetics in general, for me, is  about helping to raise consciousness and make us less alienated from ourselves. It’s about understanding the systems we are a part of and what they make of us good working people. To expose and to activate collectively.

Who are you reading now?

Right now, I’m making my way through Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s Good Omens, which one of my advisees is writing about for her IB Extended Essay. I also just received Patricia Spears Jones’ new book, Living in the Love Economy, and can’t wait to get red with it. Every day I read those writing about Gaza/Israel, the police state we live in, the various crises of capitalism…

Why a “belize livingsocial escape?” Why not elsewhere?

Girl, i’m down for anywhere! As far as Belize, it’s been about ten years since i visited last. Ian and and i took our first trip as a couple there. We climbed the Maya ruins. We ate conch every meal. We visited with family of mine i’d never met. We fished. Bliss. It was a time i wish i could have again and again. So, i’m working on a collection now about our ten years together and where and how we began, who i am in the relationship, who i’ve become. The notion of ruin, states of beauty and disrepair that people go through, couples go through, structures go through. If we can actually return somewhere. What about ourselves is lasting. How the personal is political and the political, personal.

 

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