New Mexico Mercury

Dispatches from the 25th Annual National Poetry Slam

So, 20 years ago, Trinidad Sanchez Jr., Matthew John Conley, Jim Stewart, Bob Wilson, and Kenn Rodriguez all piled in a vehicle (Eric Bodwell's I believe) and made the trek to Ann Arbor for the National Poetry Slam (NPS).  Since that time, ABQ has sent a team to NPS every year, and this year, 2014, marks the 20th time we will pile in a vehicle (rented now) and head out. This year, NPS is in Oakland and the tournament is much bigger than it was back then.   

Albuquerque has a long, storied history with trips to NPS. From near fights in airports to national championships, from overnight drives to luxury flights, from personal vehicles to rental vehicles, from crashing on couches to staying in host hotels, ABQ makes it work from year to year. And this year is no different...

‘The unsolved murder capital of the world’

When Scot Key retired in 2008 after serving 12 years as district attorney, he said of Lincoln County, “In the decades prior, the county was ridiculed as the unsolved murder capital of the world.”

One of those unsolved murders was that of 16-year-old Katrina Chavez. She was a star at Hondo High School, a cheerleader, a volleyball player and a basketball player. The account of that unsolved and forgotten killing forms the most intense section of, The Enchantment of New Mexico, a new book by Dixie Boyle...

Friday Voyage: Albuquerque Rail Yards Sunday Market

Once an integral part of Albuquerque city life, the Rail Yards are once again brimming with economic and cultural activity. 

El Machete: Suck Up

Suck Up

1974 New Mexico Campaign Warned of Surveillance State

Before his renowned Qatsi Trilogy, filmmaker Godfrey Reggio led a media blitz warning of the impending dangers of surveillance technology.

Provincial Matters, 8-4-2014

V.B. Price's weekly collection of appreciations and observations.

¡COLORES! August 1, 2014

Social arts practitioner Naomi Natale of One Million Bones confronts the global issue of genocide. Founder of Santa Fe's innovative Dancing Earth Creations, choreographer and dancer Rulan Tangen shares her vision. And photographer and alchemist Ian Ruhter shares his experience photographing New Mexico.

Emerging Voices: Anna Jenkins

Curator's note by Stevie Olson: This week we have an intriguing short story by Anna Jenkins. She uses Raymond Carver’s style in “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” to construct her own version. I love her attention to detail throughout the piece and her use of dialogue to pull the reader into lunch-table conversation. Her pieces gives the reader a peek at what teenage girls may talk about when they talk about love. Anna, thank you for sharing your piece with us, and good luck in your final year of high school...

The Journeys We Make in the Spaces Between: Circo Radical

Local circus production bridges intergenerational performance art and social commentary

Weekly Poem: The Poet at Thirty-four—for Joseph Lease

We are we & when we are not we
the poet thinks we are a gun

in his head the poet thinks we are a rivulet in the forest
the poet thinks we are we

& when we are we we are a naked moonpearled night
& a child fishing thick shadows...