Weekly Poem: The Poet at Thirty-four—for Joseph Lease
We are we & when we are not we
the poet thinks we are a gun
in his head the poet thinks we are a rivulet in the forest
the poet thinks we are we
& when we are we we are a naked moonpearled night
& a child fishing thick shadows...
Five Questions with New Mexico Authors – David E. Stuart
This week we ask archaeologist and author David E. Stuart some questions about his groundbreaking book Anasazi America: Seventeen Centuries on the Road from Center Place, which has given many people interested in New Mexico and in Pueblo culture a way to think about the past and about its applications to the future...
Doug Dunston’s Mind: “Practical Creativity”
In numerous postings, the New Mexico Mercury has commented on the great number of brilliant and creative Albuquerque residents, capable of turning our city’s uniqueness into prosperous livability—if only our urban structures and political machinations allowed us to make real use of such talent. Doug Dunston, who is Professor of Music at New Mexico Tech but lives in Albuquerque, is one such extraordinary mind...
Emerging Voices: Sarena Whitten
Curator’s note by Stevie Olson: This week, the Mercury is excited to run its first video documentary in Emerging Voices. For her senior project, Sarena Whitten took to the streets of Albuquerque to learn more about the city’s homeless population. In Invisible People - Stories From the Streets, Sarena pieces together powerful interviews from people explaining how they became homeless, what it is like to be homeless, and how the police treat them...
Five Questions with New Mexico Authors – David L. Caffey
This week we ask author David L. Caffey some questions about his detailed, fast moving and fascinating book called Chasing the Santa Fe Ring: Power and Privilege in Territorial New Mexico, from UNM Press, 2014...
Weekly Poem: Midwest Ranchera
Thursdays, the devil danced at the Black Saddle, cloven
hooves tracking dust for later evidence. He drove a black
Mercury with suicide doors and flames flickering the fins.
Sometimes he slid from the door with his tail forking long
and taut to the floor. Hot-tongued, he would say, Do you
want to touch it? And who didn’t want to touch that tail?...
Leaving China: An Artist’s Visual Memoir
Leaving China: An Artist Paints His World War II Childhood is a memoir by designer and illustrator James McMullan, who has long been the principal poster artist for Lincoln Center Theater. I saw a few of the plays his works advertised when I lived in New York, but remember many of his posters. Like his posters, his illustrated memoir is clearly contemporary as well as vital and emotional.
Leaving China is categorized as a Young Adult book, targeted at teenagers. It would be a fine gift for any adolescent (especially young misfits), but it deserves a wider audience...
A love letter to New Mexico
Dear New Mexico,
No one writes letters anymore. No one ever writes to states. They should. I’m writing to you because I’ve just driven through your land, beneath your open sky, for ten days. Now that I’m back in Colorado, my belly is too empty. I miss you.
I miss you, and I’ve never taken the time to tell you how I love you.
The first time I met you, in 1998, I was twenty. I’d traveled all the way to Las Cruces because I’d fallen in love with a boy who was from there. He said he wanted to show me the desert...
Television and the Ghost of Washington Irving
I was born at Sleepy Hollow, in New York, a village that Washington Irving described as, “one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee…there lies...one of the quietest places in the whole world. A small brook glides through it, with just murmur enough to lull one to repose.”...
Emerging Voices: Amanda Custer
Curator's note by Stevie Olson: This week, the Mercury is excited to publish two poems by Amanda Custer. Both pieces explore Amanda’s experience of living with a grandmother who has Alzheimer’s. Her language is full of engaging imagery, and both poems use beautiful progressions to harness the reader’s emotions. We hope you enjoy...