Xánath Caraza’ publishes "Floating Pink Shaman" after art by Thomas Weso in chapbook Corazon Pintado

Mammoth Publications, our small literary press in Lawrence  (www.mammothpublications.com ), is publishing Xánath Caraza’s Conjuro: Poems in September. This will be tri-lingual, in Spanish / English / Nahuatl. Before this comes out, enjoy her work in a new chapbook Corazon Pintado: Ekphrastic Poems (Kansas City: TL Press, 2012). One of my favorites is “Floating Pink Shaman,” based on the artwork of Thomas Pecore Weso. Caraza’s writing derives from her awareness of Indigenous thought: words are tangible objects, not abstractions, and capable of influencing physical reality’s web of interactions. Tom Weso, the artist, was raised by his grandparents on the Menominee Indian Nation reservation in northern Wisconsin, influenced by the Native American Church.

Floating Pink Shaman
            (After “Floating Pink Shaman” by Tom Weso)

A la derecha, tu resplandor

© 2011 Image by Thomas Pecore Weso

Noche rosada de mi primer sueno
Luz nocturna
Cá  lida arena
Hombre mágico que protege
Con las astas del venado
Al cactus de sabidurÍ a eterna
Generaciones de conocimiento
Corren port tus venas
Ser sagrado de arena
Bajo el cielo de la noche, eternal
 © Xánath Caraza

Floating Pink Shaman

            (After “Floating Pink Shaman” by Tom Weso)

To the right your gleaming light
Pink night of my first dream
Loneliness of the desert
Nocturnal light
Warm sand
With the antlers of the deer
Magical man that protects
The cactus of eternal wisdom
Generations of knowledge
Run through your veins
Sacred being of sand
Under the eternal night sky
© Xánath Caraza

© 2012Cover art by Chan

Xánath Caraza, from Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico, has lived in Vermont and Kansas City. She has an M.A. in Romance Languages and lectures in Foreign Languages and Literatures at the University of Missouri-Kansas. Her chapbook Corazón Pintado: Ekphrastic Poems is from TL Press (2012). She won the 2003 Ediciones Nuevo Espacio international short story contest in Spanish and was a 2008 finalist for the first international John Barry Award. She has published fiction and poetry widely in the United States, Mexico and Spain. Caraza is an advisory circle member of the Con Tinta literary organization and a former board member of the Latino Writers Collective in Kansas City. Her Day of the Dead artwork has been exhibited at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City. She has taught in Mexico, China, Spain and the US. Caraza is currently working on First Friday in Kansas City: Short Stories, Flash Fiction and Poetry, forthcoming from Mouthfeel Press in 2013.