dumbfoundry

Lalo Delgado, a poet whose writings about the hardscrabble existence of Latinos in the Southwest made him one of the grandfathers of the Chicano literary renaissance of the 1960's and 1970's, died last Friday in Denver. He was 73. [...]

His most famous poem is "stupid america," published in 1969:

stupid america, see that chicano
with a big knife
on his steady hand
he doesn't want to knife you
he wants to sit on the bench and carve christfigures
but you won't let him.
stupid america, hear that chicano
shouting curses on the street
he is a poet without paper and pencil
and since he cannot write
he will explode.
stupid america, remember that chicanito
flunking math and english
he is the picasso
of your western states
but he will die
with one thousand masterpieces
hanging only from his mind.

This entry was posted by eeksypeeksy on Friday, July 30, 2004 at 9:17 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.