Luis Urrea in San Diego

San Diego (LaJolla), Friday, Dec. 2, Warwick’s Bookstore could hold no more. Packed house listen to Luis Alberto Urrea talk about his newest novel, “Queen of America” (A stand-alone sequel to Hummingbird’s Daughter). I arrived late and had difficulty getting in the door. Much love and hugs all around.

A Photo More Scary than Godzilla’s Bad Breath

Swabbed in a greenish-glow worthy a “B” horror movie, Allen Ginsberg, far right, traveled to Japan with poet-friend Nanao Sakaki (next to Ginsberg) to tour an atomic energy plant and warn of the dangers of messing with Mother Nature. Plant workers, Tenseki Ildaka and Sogu Fukumura escorted the poets during their excursion. Sakaki walked the earth preaching environmental conservation. He lectured against nuclear power. Having observed the very moment the atomic bomb exploded over Nagasaki, he knew first-hand the destructive power of the atom. Thirty years before the earthquake, tsunami and accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Sakaki said, “Fifteen nuclear plants north of Kyoto … already the [Japanese] government thinks five-million will die if something happens to a power plant like an earthquake.” Two poets made their appeal but then who listens to poets—what could they know?

Another Nanao friend, Kazu Kawamoto, stated in 1981: “… most Japanese still seem to believe that humans can control nature. One tenth of all earthquakes on the Earth occur on and near the Japanese Islands. But 52 nuclear power plants are in operation and 20 more are planned … It is just stupid. I wonder how we can change this situation before the catastrophe. Not much time left.”

Earth slides slightly

Mother Nature burps
Mankind bows.
--Charles Redner

Photo:The Allen Ginsberg Project - http://ginsbergblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/nanao.htmlby Hitomi Watanabi. Nanao's Collected Poems is due out next year from Blackberry Books, Maine.

Terror Travels the Devil's Highway

“Terror Travels the Devil’s Highway”
–the first Maggie Lopez, Border Patrol Agent novel.
Shorty after moving to Tucson in 2000, I learned firsthand what it was like living near the Mexican border. I heard for the first time, the term, “illegal alien.” I perhaps saw them, or at least, the trails they left behind in the desert. Maybe one made up the beds at the resort where I maintained an office. Maybe my wife and I actually hired one, Maggie, to help us organize our new house when we moved in. She was the sister of a national car rental firm employee. It never crossed our minds to ask for papers.
Then came 9/11.
For me, that changed the border issue from one of slowing or stopping illegal immigration of undocumented workers to one of stopping potential terrorists. I fathomed that most people could not tell an Arab from a Mexican, if the Arab lost the beard, kept the mustache, and arrived at the border speaking fluent Spanish.
Now I wonder, what if hundreds, if not thousands arrived in the U.S. alongside the undocumented workers? I also imagined the potential assistance and protection that could be afforded by the drug cartels.
What terror would we face then?
A cry went out after 9-11 concerning border security but little has changed over the past years. More agents have been added, a few more miles of fence constructed but basically, I believe, the border remains wide open.
Armed with my theory and a good laptop, I began this novel for an audience of one—Senator John McCain. I had been warned by a senator’s aide that I would never get a copy into his hands.
I wrote the book anyway.
This novel concerns a fictional plan to spread terror beyond the east coast at the same moment the Islamic fundamentalists were hitting the WTC twin towers, the Pentagon, and the failed, surmised target of the White House.

Charles Redner
August, 2011

Horse No. 1202

Dramatic reading of "Horse No. 1202," a poem written and performed by Academy Award Winner (screenplay, "Dances with Wolves") Michael Blake.   Audio

Hero of Down But Never Out, statue of Joey Giardello dedicated in Philadelphia

Giadello is the first boxer to have a statue placed in Philadelphia (Stallone’s Rocky aside). Giardello is a former middleweight champion and International Boxing Hall of Fame inductee who died in 2008. Giardello and his son, Carman are the subject of Down But Never Out, the true story of their life together. Giardello helped Eunice Shriver start the Special Olympics and raised thousands of dollars for St. John of God School for special needs children located in southern New Jersey.

Look! That's us on the cover

“Look! That’s us on the cover!” Local Orange County weekly, The Globe, featured co-hosts of the “Write Now TV Show.” Story to follow.

HBR 3 spring 2011 -- It's here!

See, Amazon.com/books
Check it out. Most exciting issue ever. Hear the words of Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder. Gary Lawless and David Amram who gave us a poem to celebrate Neal Cassady's birthday. Joy Harjo favors us with "Eagle Poem," Oh yeah, our editor made me include,"The Night BP Drove Old Dixie Down."