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June Journals 6-25-88
The check I bounced was for $208. My buddy, Alfonso S., did the design
and layout for Victor Martinez’s first book, Wrecking Them Back. I feel like
telling Vic to forget it. Ain’t got the dough. Shit. Another good book down
the great tar pit of Chicano scrawl. Now what? I know Victor has something
cooking in these poems. Zyzzyva just published “National Geographic” in
their summer issue. And now, even that micro-crack in the North Americani
Universe of Chicano Chance is over. Victor has the biggest voice in Califas
at this very second. But it is leashed. Or perhaps it gains fetters when it is
published? I think so. This is the tightrope we walk. Wait for Juan Godot to
publish our stuff or just let him roam, loose-toothed, and angry at readings,
rallies, tables, and sidewalks? What shall it be: North American Literary
Order that is “Craft” or Sabotage, our openness without official gatekeepers,
word gendarmes?
I told Alfonso I would pay him in cash. He said the check was redeposited
by his bank. I wish my bank would do that once in a while. |
