New Santa Ana | Tag Archives: Sandra Esmeralda De Anda

The Santa Ana Poem of the Week is “21st-Century Hedonism” by Brennan Roach

Posted on May 21, 2021 by Editor Posted in Arts and Culture, Literature, Poetry Leave a comment

The Santa Ana Literary Association will be presenting a new poem by a local poet every week this year. This week’s poem is 21st-Century Hedonism by Brennan Roach.

21st-Century Hedonism

By: Brennan Roach

Have you seen my post?
It’s been liked by most.
Please cast your vote
To help me boast.

Warning!

The burnout scene is a revolving door
A microcosm of all generations
It’s an ego type that sways in the wind of intention
on the barometer of revolution and complacency
Make sure to mold the wax before you burn the wick

Brennan Roach is an artist, musician, and ardent proponent of literature. His band, Time and Energy, is a favorite among Santa Ana locals. He’s also the Executive Director of Prestidigitational Finances and Eidetic Acquisitions at the Santa Ana Literary Association. You can find more of his work at https://www.brennanroach.com.

The Santa Ana Poem of the Week is “Charades” by Joshua Wood

Posted on March 30, 2021 by Editor Posted in Arts and Culture, Literature, Poetry, Santa Ana Leave a comment

The Santa Ana Literary Association will be presenting a new poem by a local poet every week this year. This week’s poem is “Charades” by Joshua Wood.

Charades

I want to be real and accountable
But the slippery laws we must perform
Under so often take shape as inchoate
Mazes containing trained regretful monsters

Like sad circus elephants chained to posts
We know there is intelligence there
See it in their watery imploring eyes
But the looks make us nervous. We move on

And they go crazy in their fouled cages
Charging the bars, rubbing their owns skins raw
Against the enclosures trying to remember
When they first understood this would kill them

Then set out to warn any who wandered in
Of the violent loneliness of this place

Joshua Jennings Wood directs the Creative Writing Conservatory at the Orange County School
of the Arts, the largest such pre-college conservatory in the country. He received the John Fowles Writing Center Award for Fiction and has been a finalist for Glimmer Train’s Short Story Award for New Writers, The North American Review’s James Hurst Poetry Prize, and the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry. Further writing appears in such publications as Volt, DIAGRAM, OccuPoetry, The Berkeley Poetry Review, and Doused the Sun and Snorted the Moon: An Addiction Anthology. Previously, he was an editor for dirtcakes, a journal dedicated to exploring the UN Millennium Goals.

The Santa Ana Poem of the Week is “Santísimo” by Antonia Silva

Posted on March 23, 2021 by Editor Posted in Arts and Culture, Literature, Poetry, Santa Ana Leave a comment

The Santa Ana Literary Association will be presenting a new poem by a local poet every week this year. This week’s poem is “Santísimo” by Antonia Silva.

Santísimo

By Antonia Silva

late at night el diablo anda suelto while I peel

off my skin scrape away the layers of self

va pisando el mismo pavimento I obsess over

all the times I gathered my family together

under one roof recorriendo el barrio por completo

all my tías commune with angels all my tíos

tattoo mal de ojos on their hearts we are a family

of old stories and caution tales

a grandmother in a hurricane of migration

a grandfather who cracks the creosote code

I join the coyotes in my neighborhood

we howl and scratch our paws

god’s door. we beg no

forgiveness for the boys we ate

we were hungry then and they were

weak. we are hungry now and crave

another meat. our words, a graveyard

of trinket bones and locket hearts

snarl warms our snouts. we bust

down the door and devour this god

we are a family of tradition and travesura the loudest

party on the block where tomato vines creep

up to heaven’s gate my tongue is a broken bottle

a field of agave azul in a sunflower car my teeth

smolder and sharpen I am reclusive reckless

the midnight throat in full bloom my angels spin

the wilted petals into blessings I step out

under a wily winter moon and drink the rivers dry

I water the yarrow in my yard with a bucket of tears

sink into soil and sit so long I become a desert garden

a santa ana wind on the solstice of locura

y el diablo el señor pues igual

y me la fleto si es que me lo topo

como quiera los dos estamos

igual de locos

Note: The italicized words are borrowed song lyrics from “El Diablo Anda Suelto” composed by
Santa Grifa.

Antonia Silva is a queer Mexican-American poet born and raised in Santa Ana, CA. Antonia’s work is published in Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Rising Phoenix Review and forthcoming in Winter Tangerine. Follow Antonia’s work on Instagram @n0palitx.

A Year in Poetry has begun in Santa Ana

Posted on January 5, 2021 by Editor Posted in Arts and Culture, Literature, Poetry, Santa Ana Leave a comment

The Santa Ana Literary Association is embarking on a year-long poetry project called: Santa Ana, a Year in Poetry. Working in conjunction with the Santa Ana Public Library, each week we’ll feature one poet from the local area.

Communion

By: Sandra Esmeralda De Anda

I carved a cantaloupe, my soul, under the Best Buy sign.
I looked at it, I cherished it, I praised it!
For staying so sweet yet so bitter when it is not home.

Someone recently asked me where home was and all I could say it is that time when we weren’t afraid.

That time we used to live off those BB gun blues, shooting pellets at each other’s bodies like rainfall after a drought pouring into the crevices of our parents’ dreams.

We were loose seams — but we were tethered together, chasing the vermin around like they were geese, like there was no Police Station right smack in the middle of something they called affordable housing. We used to eat the MREs the church used to give us & gambled the crackers & chocolates away
in a game of marbles or cops & robbers.

Our troubles were invisible. We felt invincible.

Sandra Esmeralda De Anda is a non-fiction writer, standup comedian, and cultural and political critic. She is currently the Program Coordinator for The Orange County Justice Fund, an immigration bond fund. Her writings have been featured in The Voice of OC, The OC Weekly, Makara Arts, and Longleaf Review.