Antonio Lopez’s interview was so inspiring and heart-felt. Every word he spoke sent chills down my spine. The way he delivered himself was very powerful and unique; something that I do not see often. To me, his superpower is poetry and writing overall. It is quite obvious that poetry is his natural talent, and his language which I find it fascinating. One thing during his interview that stuck with me is the way he views poetry. Antonio Lopez mentions that many people think of poetry as something from the Renaissance Era and nothing more.

Like in many of his poetry, Antonio Lopez displays his understanding of poetry and politics in “Triptych of the Adobe-Cotta Army” This poem really is one of my favorites. The choice of diction helps the readers, like me, visualize what exactly is being interpreted in the poem. Lopez includes politics by defining the effects of gentrification in his poem. In the interview, he highlights that he can only speak in poetry. Referring back to the way people view poetry, generally, he strives to communicate the conflicts and problems within the community through poems. He wishes to demonstrate that it is possible. In Triptych of the Adobe-Cotta Army, it displays Antonio’s view of how gentrification impacted the community, his family, his home.

Another important thing that Antonio Lopez included in his interview is that we, the low-class minority, need to attend Ivy League colleges or achieve education overall. That we should go against the title that the higher class gives, and change it.

Evelyn Hernandez

Being Paved Over

Gentrification is a truly nightmarish process that uproots communities and culture to lay way for big tech, rich usurpers, and the veiled notion of “progression” under a capitalist society. It’s another example of the great divide between those up above and those down below, where the lower struggle so the upper can take more for themselves. In this small collection of poems, Antonio Lopez demonstrates three perspectives of the impact of gentrification in his life: first on his father and family, then the impact on the community around him, then finally the contempt and snide remarks from Lopez himself as he fights back against dais gentrification in later years. However, out of the three poems the second poem, Triptych of the Adobe-Cotta Army, this divide is divide and suffering from gentrification is put on display the most, showing the negative impacts gentrification has on people who do not even feel they are allowed to survive in where they live anymore.

The poem begins with a powerful depiction of contrast between the two worlds that Lopez finds himself in while his town is being gentrified: “My Fingers are desperate\ to unearth the ruins\ of my countrymen.\ Only to find a Tesla\ on the second floor\ of our apartments\ -now a parking garage.\ The Amazon logo\ smirks above me\ like a biblical cloud” (Lines 1-10). The choice to emphasize that the parking garage is now above the apartments he now lives in help drive the image of the old land and culture being literally paved over in place for someone else’s. Lopez is trying to find his culture and heritage outside, only to see that his culture and land has been literally paved over and forgotten about, the overlords of capital and big tech smirking down on him; Amazon is depicted as being on a biblical cloud, giving them a religious undertone of being all-powerful and domineering on him and his community, like the settlers or colonials during Manifest Destiny, claiming land that they see as theirs in the name of “helping” the people already residing there while also fulfilling their own interests.

There is then a vivid description of the people that this gentrification produces, growing up in extreme poverty while surrounded by the lavish lights of the wealthy. Lopez speaks of the life that these people live, what they wear, how they act, their culture that has adapted to this new life, capping this section off with the end of the person he’s describing: “until the asphalt swallows\ him again. And Marias\ now mourn Jesus\ outside a sagging fence,\ wreathe his chain-\ link with lit candles,\ cardboard sign saying\ “We miss you”, streamers\ without the heated balloon\ that promised flight” (Lines 41-50). The person Lopez has been describing is given the name Jesus in this section, giving him the religious property of sacrifice and crucifixion: Jesus has been taken by the streets, born and died tragically in poverty, with the surrounding community mourning his lost in the only way they can. He’s not given a lavish sendoff, only a cardboard shrine remembering him, something that many people including myself have seen many times before. This gives weight to the story of not only Jesus, but also the many people that we the reader have seen in similar shrines; the many faces we have passed by that struggled in the same way Jesus did in this poem.

The poem ends with calling back to the asphalt, with Lopez writing “And so Father cradled my head\ inside asphalt. Prayed\ for our rite\ to simply wade” (Lines 67-70). This brings the messaging of the poem to the forefront at the very end of the poem, showing the feelings and emotions of Lopez and the people in his community about gentrification: They pray and pray to be allowed to simply survive and live in the communities that they have built up and lived in for years, hoping that the powers that be that have been pushing them out will allow them to simply survive, to wade in the waters of life. There is also a connection to the religious aspect of the poem in using “rite” instead of “right”, making this plea a holy one, circling back to the images of big tech being religious figures in their own way, giving more weight and scariness to the powers they use to destroy these communities.

Sky Miller

Voices of the Unheard

Gentrification is when the original community in a neighborhood is changed due to the increase in affluent residents and business. Most locals who were in these certain neighborhoods for generations, have a strong resentment for this new movement. While others believe this is just evolution within the city to make it prosper. Growing up in California that is being gentrified before our eyes, I understand what most people go through just like Antonio López. Since gentrification is a controversial topic, lots of people steer away from bringing up the challenges most residents face when going through gentrification. When a city is being gentrified the cost of living increases and other citizens struggle and eventually have to move out of their hometown. This shift affects most minority ethnic groups and helps rich people more than anyone. Some people see gentrification as an investment while others see it as destruction to their authentic community. 

Most citizens are told to send letters or call their councilmen so real change can happen. In this letter Letter to the Editor Lòpez brought up points that many minorities think when they feel that they have been wronged. In the first paragraph Lòpez talks about how some people cut a ribbon due to a new health clinic opening. The diction that Lòpez used to describe the ribbon cutting, “a measly ribbon”, already sets the tone for this letter. Lòpez then goes on to mock the location they put the health clinic in, “The press bravely announced East Palo Alto as a ‘strategic location’ in the Silicon Valley…” as if he were mad they described East Palo Alto as a “strategic location”. The most impressive part of the poem is when Lòpez listed out five questions that this editor did not mention in her book. The question that was the most effective in my opinion was “4. Should I unlearn Spanish so I can take the SAT ॥ ‘fairly’?”, knowing how hard the SAT is for english speakers like me, I can only imagine how much non-english speakers struggled. However, as López pointed out, the city and state do not care how hard it is, you just need to pass it. Lastly, López ends the poem by asking a question, “Más que nada, cómo te parece if you and your colleagues wrote about us, and not just the negative shit?”. Having to ask someone what the first part meant, they explained to me López is asking, “More than nothing how would you like it if your colleagues wrote about us not just the negative shit”, he is wondering why can’t it ever just be positive, why only negative comments about people in his community. This poem and the rest of his poems not only cross the traditional borders of English poetry but also challenge it, while also challenging politics, politicians, and gentrification as a whole by showing true emotions within the poem. Cussing is not something that is typical for poetry, however, in this poem it brings it to life, and it makes the poem come true seeing how angry people really are about this whole process. These communities face grievances everyday, and they do not need to be burdened anymore then they already are.

Joseph Jordan

Losing The Burning Spirit

With Antonio Lopez’s poem Triptych of the Adobe-Cotta Army, it drives deep into the theme of gentrification as it details the processed rebuilding and remodeling of a poor neighborhood with its community endanger of the outcome that may come, but through personification, symbolism, and imagery, Lopez illustrates the battle the locals have risen up fight against but not lasting for long. Lopez incorporates an exclusive style of the poem as through the title of “Triptych,” it is defined as a three part piece as by looking at the poem, it is separated into three parts which presents a new direction and tool of poetry. 

By looking at the first part of the poem. Lopez begins, “My fingers desperate / to unearth the ruins / of my countrymen” as he personifies the desperation of discovering within the ruins of their home that included the local people who lived by that area. Gentrification is a very distinguishable change to a community as it wipes away the culture and “visual” negative aspects of an area that make it true to the people who have lived their whole lives, but the change is what takes them away from the reality of their home to impress higher class people. Lopez having lived in East Palo Alto has probably witnessed such striving of gentrification as he mentions, Tesla / on the second floor of our apartment / — now a parking garage” as the Tesla company being a big contributor the the gentrification of certain areas by taking home space of families and locals. Explains who is causing this issue that is affecting many locals as if they can not fight against the big companies of Tesla and Amazon as they take over their area without much of a say to those who respect the city. 

Through the second part of the poem, Lopez opens the relationship between the saviors and the locals of such areas when clashing. Lopez describes, “hooded saints / tore the covenant / of earthly silence” where Lopez identifies the villains who are masked as those “saints” that will help the neighbor their their plans, but they destroy the city as breaking the universal agreement of not letting the changes affect the families and locals who have submerge their roots into the city. It’s as if they are to “preach” to the community as they try justifying their actions and decisions for the best of the city and people, but many people who do not think the same. As those people who are greatly affected are those protecting the poverty line of the city, Lopez describes “pressed / against my lips / a cholo’s chalice” where he forced to hear and understand the struggles of those front he tough areas of the city. Up for the fight, Lopez states, A fist tucked / inside a hoodie” where it demonstrates the hidden anger and frustrations the people must feel as their homes are taken away and their city changes that gentrification brings without their knowing but wanting to risk everything to take back their city. 

WIth the final part of the poem, Lopez portrays the heroes who risk everything to protect their home and community as they become soldiers in this endless battle of gentrification. Lopez mentions, “Consider the clothesline as a bandolier / sling over the ruined soldiers, / whose uniformes still cling / onto apartment balconies” as he makes the comparison of the clothesline to their bandolier that holds the ammunition over their shoulders as they are to dress to go to war against the gentrification. Lopez symbolizes the locals who wanted to fight against the battle as the soldiers, but they have let their burning spirit of taking back their city die as they give up the fight and hang up their uniforms. 

Lopez explores a different direction of poetry to better develop his main idea of the battle of gentrification because through the personification, symbolism and imagery, he demonstrates the to challenge the politics of gentrification as they are to being against the big corporations and locals losing their courage of speak back towards the gentrification.

Naraint Catalan Rios

Gentrification has left me and many without a home

 

The topic of gentrification is almost never brought up but it is something that sadly is happening a lot and it greatly affects communities in multiple ways. I myself can relate to these poems and the poet because I too come from the East Palo Alto (EPA) area. After I was born my family and I lived there for a couple of years before moving to Redwood City which is close by. It is a hard truth to think about but because of the gentrification, my family was obligated to relocate. In Antonio Lopez’s poem “Letter to the Editor” which is a letter directed to the editor Dara Kerr, an enterprise editor based in Oakland that writes about labor in the Silicon Valley, he brings up many questions that I’m sure everyone would like an answer to. 

Many would say that my chosen poem isn’t really considered a poem because of the format and lack of rhyme; however, I think it is even if it doesn’t follow the traditional guideline of an English poem. It is literally not formatted as a poem because it is a letter however it still has the same effect as if it was a poem. Many poems are made to describe a specific situation or event and within call people out which I find that in this piece that is what is going on. In the letter, the author Antonio mentions the article that the editor wrote about the new health clinic that was opened in East Palo Alto in which it was mentioned that “The press bravely announced East Palo Alto as a “strategic location” in the Silicon Valley,”(lines 2-3) one of the biggest things that came to mind when reading this is what about EPA made them feel like that was a “strategic location” what are they looking to benefit from this? The poet also brings up the many companies that have taken over parts of the EPA area in which they have built their offices and in this situation, they are the ones causing gentrification in that area. The poet calls out the article for the way that the editor chose to describe the area “ ‘we paid a visit to this once down-and-out’ town”(line 8-9), “Más que nada, cómo te parece if you and your colleagues wrote about us, and not just the negative shit?” (line 18-19) With these phrases and the use of rhetorical questions “1. How come I didn’t have one white friend till I was sixteen?” (line 11) the poet brings to question the reality of things and the gentrification effects on the community. 

Sandra Landa-Sanchez

Money Money Money

Gentrification is sadly something that occurs in today’s society seemingly everywhere. Communities losing their homeland and the neighborhoods they’d grown up in, their children grew up in– to build a Starbucks. To establish that this multi-million dollar chain possesses more importance than the lives of human beings. Antonio Lopez in the poem, “Triptych of the Adobe-Cotta Army” highly resists the normalization of gentrification in communities of people of color through the use of biblical allusions, imagery, similes, and intentional stanza choice in order to cross the traditional borders of English poetry.

Lopez early on in the poem, within the second stanza, writes, “Only to find a Tesla/ on the second floor/ of our apartments/ —now a parking garage.”. (Lines 4-7) To represent how a place that once used to be his home is now a mere garage covered in cement with big brand fancy cars that don’t serve him or his community in any way. He continues with, “The Amazon logo/ smirks above me/ like a biblical cloud.” (Lines 8-10) Through the use of this simile with the word “like”, he wishes to compare the logo to the biblical allusion of a cloud meant to symbolize the presence of God. As though this logo currently represents what people worship, material things, money. It is more significant to them now.

On the other hand, Lopez intentionally formats his stanzas to span the borders of English poetry as a whole. He uses tercets throughout the poem, stanzas that consist of three lines and a few variations of one-line stanzas. Through this extremely specific stanza choice, Lopez aims to challenge not only English poetry but to occupy the traditional elements of it as a whole. Another key point is Lopez’s use of imagery in the poem. He illustrates to us the environment he was surrounded by in the communities he embraced growing up. He puts down, “outside a sagging fence,/ wreathe his chain-/ link with lit candles,/ cardboard signs saying/ “We miss you,” streamers”. He illustrates this chainlink fence that isn’t secured properly and a memorial of candles and balloons that sometimes you encounter on the side of the road. We can visualize this sense of camaraderie through calamity. Created in these lines lies a somber tone, that while mourning this tragedy in his community, he finds love and peace being surrounded by those who do care. Unlike the massive corporations, they are now surrounded by.

Antonio Lopez within all of his poetry successfully provokes the idea of gentrification and the traditional elements of this now normalized society. By introducing to us readers the beauty of his community and how much it meant to them before it was taken away, we can truly see the damage this impact has had on their area. And how we must put a stop to the normalization of these changes in everyday communities. 

Patricia Brewer

Flying on the Reservation

The poet Natalie Diaz explains in her interview the importance of the body and a sense of self was to her and the people around her, saying that “Things like pleasures, and the autonomy of pleasure, and ecstasy- those things weren’t allowed for us. We weren’t supposed to fulfill those things. So for me, it’s always about trying to come back to the body, trying to say- How can I constantly return to the body, even when it’s uncomfortable, so that I have the possibility of those things?” Diaz exclaims the constant denial of her self identity and place of belonging from outside forces, either politically or culturally, that keep the people in the reservation trapped. In both of the poems “Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan Seraphym Subjugation of a Wild Indian Reservation” and “My Brother at 3 A.M.”, Diaz demonstrates the emotions and systems of oppression that befall her and her people, as well as commenting on way to break away from those entrapments through community and understanding and fighting for the self.

The poem “Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan Seraphym Subjugation of a Wild Indian Reservation” utilizes a lot of vivid imagery in the very beginning of the poem, showing the various wildlife around the reservation, while commenting the lack of “angels”: “Angels don’t come to the reservation.\ Bats, maybe, owls, boxy mottled things.\ Coyotes, too. They all mean the same thing-\ death. An death\ eats angels, I guess” (1-5). Diaz makes the comparison to all of these animals to mean death, which would usually be seen negatively, as she is commenting on the cruel land her and her people have been forced to reside on, but there is some positives, as this “death” keeps away angels. And angels don’t “fly” near the valley.

Angels and religion are utilized a lot within this poem, but angels are most notably a vehicle for whiteness and the white race, shown in one key section of the poem: “It’s no wonder\ Pastor John’s son is the angel- everyone knowns angels are white.\ Quit bothering with angels, I say. They’re no good for Indians.\ Remember what happened last time\ some white god came floating across the ocean?” (15-19). This section is obviously a reference to Manifest Destiny and the early colonialism of the American settlers, who used their faith and destiny as pretext for conquering and displacing countless Native Americans, almost completely slaughtering them before eventually putting them into the prisons they called “reservations”. There, the Native Americans were left alone to die of disease, poverty, and addiction.

What’s most interesting about this section is the first half of it, referring to the Christmas pageant where the church holds plays. Here, Diaz comments that only the pastor’s son gets to play the angel because he is white. This not only comments on the feeling of superiority that the church and white people have in general have towards Native Americans, but also showing a clear connection to the white race and these “angels” Diaz mentions. For Diaz, these “angels” were nothing more than conquerors, marauders that came in and took control of everything they could see until nothing was left. She wishes that the angels would leave them alone and stayed up in the “heavens” where they resided, because the last time that they came to the reservation, they put her and her people there in the first place.

What’s most interesting about this poem, however, is the heavy usage of enjambment in this poem, most notable in the lines: “I haven’t seen an angel\ fly through this valley ever. Gabriel? Never heard of him. Know a guy named Gabe though-\ he came through here one powwow and stayed, typical\ Indian. Sure, he had wings,\ jailbird that he was. He flies around in stolen cars.” (5-10). Each of the words that are enjambed in these lines hold extra weight in this poem, words like “fly”, “Gabriel”, “Indian”, and “jailbird”. There is a clear comparison between the angel of Gabriel and that of this person named Gabe, who is an “Indian”. While Gabriel doesn’t fly around the valley, Gabe does, yet his version of flying is certainly different than the typical symbols of flying, especially in the context of “angels”. Yet, the heavy enjambment of “fly” and “jailbird” are highlighted so well in my mind. They are emphasized to such a degree that there is certainly a connection between these heavily enjambed lines. In this case, Diaz is using the symbol of flying and movement as a call to return to the body and community. Here, the man named Gabe is painted in a very negative light: He’s a criminal, steals cars, is seen as a “typical Indian”, and leaves behind children everywhere he goes. This is a commentary on the heavy cultural scrutiny that Native Americans face not only from outside forces, but have been conditioned to put on each other. It is a clear overlook of the struggles that this man named Gabe has faced. No one considers how he ended up that way, only the outcome.

Yet, unlike Gabriel and other “angels”, Gabe does fly around the valley, closer than any of the people who thought they were “helping”, like the pastor and his family. Unlike the “angels”, Diaz does not wish that Gabe doesn’t return to the valley, for Gabe is not some outsider, but a part of the community, and that community is what will be needed to deter the “angels” from causing more harm.

Sky Miller

“FREE LAND”Masking Concentration

Ozawa born and raised in Japan lived a life of hardship and overcoming, he left his life in Japan for the betterment of his life and the fact that he stood up for his rights, as he was against the way that Japan was controlled by the government at the time. He parted ways with his native land of Japan, living in the time of tension in Japan and tension in the United States towards the Japanese. Although Ozawa did not himself live through the internment camps that were built for the Japanese people during WWII he was around in that time, although he was at an elder age. Ozawa saw the freestyle of the haiku poems as a better means of getting messages across and a better way of expression than the traditional forms of poetry, which is why he found fascination and interests in this type of poetry. Ozawa would go on to live in the Central Valley, organizing and taking part in the Valley Ginsha Haiku Kai, a group of poets who found themselves in the art of haiku poetry. They would proceed to right poems about their experiences in the United States as part of the Japanese community.

The poem that caught my attention was one written my Ozawa that reads:

“Sensing permanent separation

as you left me in extreme heat

on gravel road”

This poem can be connected to the way that the Japanese community of the United States felt when they were taken from their homes and put in internment camps by United States officials as well as being made inferior, not being allowed to go/reside in certain locations due to them being Asian. Imagery is used in this poem to paint the picture of what the people taken away lived through. Although they were literally “left” in “extreme heat,” the fact that it is mentioned in its own line helps emphasize and has the reader better understand that there was horrible discomfort in these camps, and although the government tried to mask the camps and claim that this was only for the safety of the American people, the Japanese weren’t treated humanely in these camps, not only living in cramped horrible conditions, but also having to face the extreme weather of the rural location of the camps. The imagery of the “gravel road” allows the reader to imagine the path that the people had to take. When paving a path gravel is commonly used, this path had gravel, but this path paved with gravel lead them to hell. This path lead them to a place of discomfort and deprive them of their freedom on this supposed “land of the free.” I left the first line of this haiku for last as it hits the reader very hard, the “sensing” of “permanent separation” the feeling that you will never have what you had once had again, the separation from that life that the Japanese had worked to hard so build. This line captivated the true feelings of the Japanese people and the feeling that they will never be set free from this cage that they have been put in. Their life and liberty stripped away from them. This short poem, in such few lines manages to captivate the lives of an entire community, who was shunned by a “free country.”

Guadalupe Lemus

Saying Goodbye to Last Year’s Grass

By the ditch- last year’s grass

begins to bud

again we must part

-Reiko Gomyo

This Haiku is an excellent portrayal of the feeling of the passage of time within the internment camps. The poem first starts with the word “ditch”, where the grass is growing. This word gives the reader an image of a dirty place by the side of the road or beside a building. People commonly associated a ditch as a place where the unwanted or missing go, given the idiom “found dead in a ditch somewhere.” Because of this. Reiko is associating the internment camps as being a ditch, a place where the unwanted go to wallow out of sight from the populous.

Reiko then goes on to mention the grass specifically from the previous year. This not only cements that time is passing for her, but also showing the reader that she has been in the camp for so long that she watched the grass on this ditch grow and die. All the while, she sat in one place, unable to move due to a situation outside of her control.

The grass then begins to bud, symbolizing a glimmer of life within the ditch, subtly referencing the general sense of community and hope among the Japanese Americans who were wrongfully imprisoned in these camps. Even though they were imprisoned, they created schools, newspapers, and farms to collaborate with each other and attempt to bring a sense of normalcy and community in the horrible situation they found themselves in. Just like the grass stuck in the ditch, they too began to show signs of life.

The final line of this Haiku is the most powerful line, however: “again we must part.” Reiko is now parting with last year’s grass, showing that the grass is leaving as time is passing. This gives powerful imagery towards just how much time she and many other Japanese Americans spent in essentially stasis, unable to move or act with any sense of agency. The key word in this line is “again”: It would be one thing to mention that the grass is coming and leaving her, but since she included the word “again”, the reader is shown that this is not the first time that she has said goodbye to the grass in the ditch. Instead, she has seen multiple seasons come and go through the lens of this ditch, unable to move as she watches time pass her by. Once again, there is a powerful imagery of time fast-forwarding around her, through the lens of this grass, almost like those time lapses of the sky that videographers take over the course of many days, months or years.

The Japanese Americans would end up spending over three years in these “ditches”, watching the world pass them by while under a strict regime and constant surveillance. During this time, they watched the seasons come and go, endured the hottest heats of the summers and the coldest nights of the winters. And during spring, they would watch the sparse patches of grass that dotted the desert sprout, denoting that another year had come and gone while they continued to be persecuted. Every time they saw that, they hoped that they would be saying goodbye to last year’s grass for the last time.

Sky Miller