Author Archives | Richard Vargas
Richard Vargas was born in Compton, California, and attended schools in Compton, Lynwood, and Paramount. He earned his BA at Cal State University, Long Beach, where he studied under Gerald Locklin and Richard Lee, and received his MFA from the University of New Mexico in 2010. He edited and published five issues of The Tequila Review from 1978 to 1980. His first book, McLife, was featured on The Writers Almanac with Garrison Keillor, and a second book, American Jesus, was published by Tia Chucha Press (2007). Vargas was the recipient of the 2011 Taos Summer Writers’ Conference’s Hispanic Writer Award and was on faculty at the 10th National Latino Writers Conference in 2012. Today he resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he edits and publishes The Más Tequila Review. The above poem is available in his new book, Guernica Revistited (Press53) has just been released.
Weekly Poem: déjà vu
The mayor comes over to my table and says I am invited
to join him and el jefe ICE agent for a drink. I walk over
and sit down as the mayor pulls out a small black book
and hands it to the agent. He begins to read aloud:
Richard Vargas, born in Compton, California. Members
of your family came here from Mexico, and you are one
generation removed from picking grapes and cotton.
You went to school, the university, and now call yourself a
“poet"...
13. March 2014
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