You Are Invited

Friends and Visitors—

If you’re free this week, Wednesday or Friday evening, you are invited to the following special events.

1. The College of Santa Fe in partnership with the National Hispanic Cultural Center (Women & Creativity 2009) and Recursos de Santa Fe present Valerie Martínez, Santa Fe Poet Laureate, reading her new book-length poem, Each and Her, on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 7 p.m. at the Southwest Literary Center/Recursos on 826 Camino de Monte Rey, Santa Fe. The reading is free and open to the public.

Each and Her is a book-length, collage poem that addresses (among other things) the murders of over four hundred women in Juarez, Mexico since 1993. At the same time, the poem engages with works of contemporary Mexican poets, photographers, and painters; American theologians; Latin American and Chicano writers; Martinez’s memories of traveling to Juarez as a young girl, as well as facts about the maquiladora industry and the cultivation of roses. It is a wide-ranging poem which has, as its central impulse, a reckoning with femicide in its relation to memory, geography, economics, literature, and religion. Sections of the manuscript recently appeared in the American Poetry Review, Mandorla, and Breach Press and will appear in the anthology JUNTA: Contemporary Writing of the Latino/a Avant-Garde (University of Notre Dame Press, 2010). University of Arizona Press will publish Each and Her in 2010.

Martínez is the author of three books of poetry, one book of translations (of Uruguay’s Delmira Agustini), and Reinventing the Enemy’s Language, the most comprehensive anthology of contemporary native women’s writing to date. She is on the faculty of the Dept. of Creative Writing & Literature at the College of Santa Fe and Santa Fe Poet Laureate for 2008-2010.

Contact Recursos/SW Literary Center at: 505-982-9301. To get there, turn south on Camino de Monte Sol which is off St. Francis Drive between St. Michael's and Alta Vista.

2. SCA Contemporary Art, in partnership with the National Hispanic Cultural Center (Women & Creativity Month, 2009), will present an Ekphrastic performance entitled “Capitalism: Fueled by Envy and Greed” on Friday, March 27, 2009 at 8:00 p.m. at SCA Contemporary Art, 524 Haines NW, in Albuquerque. The performance, by poets and spoken word artists Valerie Martínez, Maureen Seaton, and Jasmine Cuffee, is a response to sheri crider’s installation, of the same name, which includes a scale replica of a section of a 1946 Albuquerque home constructed with materials (destined for landfills) culled from local construction sites. The performance is free and open to the public.

Ekphrasis is the dramatic representation of a visual work of art and describes a long tradition of poets responding to art and architecture. The word comes from the Greek ek and phrasis, 'out' and 'speak' respectively--to proclaim or call an inanimate object by name. Crider’s “Capitalism: Fueled by Envy and Greed” examines issues of affluence, land usage, waste, and consumption in relation to our notions of “house” and “home.” Large Gouache paintings depict dramatic alterations of the landscape as a result of residential construction. “Footprint 1946,” the largest piece in the exhibition, is a section of a house frame constructed with materials and household items (some commercial, some very personal) that crider has salvaged from Albuquerque construction sites and sign shops over the last two years.

Valerie Martínez is the current Santa Fe Poet Laureate, on the faculty of College of Santa Fe, and Co-Artistic Director of Littleglobe, Inc., an artist-run non-profit that collaborates with communities on art and community dialogue projects. Maureen Seaton is the author of thirteen books, both solo and collaborative, including Sex Talks to Girls (a memoir) and Cave of the Yellow Volkwagen (poetry). Jasmine Cuffee is co- founder of the “Duke City Youth Poetry Collective,” a member of the award-winning 2004 Albuquerque poetry slam team and 2007-2008 Individual City Slam Champion.

SCA is dedicated to facilitating space for experimental, innovative and contemporary art, presenting exhibitions by emerging and established, local, national and international artists working with large scale sculpture, painting, print, drawing, photography, installation, sound and video art.

For more information, contact SCA Contemporary Art at (505) 228-3749