Un Trip Down to the South Valley - A film by Ben McCallum

May 06, 2013

By Levi Romero

Ben McCallum's digital cuento, Un Trip Down to the South Valley, takes us on a visual viaje celebrating Albuquerque's south valley pride and heritage. Manuel Gonzales' Burque themed poesia provides a powerful accompaniment to the soundtrack. Ben McCallum, a student from Adelaide, Australia produced the video documentary as a student enrolled in my New Mexico's Literary Landscape course.

This piece was written by:

Levi Romero

Levi Romero’s work focuses on cultural landscapes studies and sustainable building methodologies of northern New Mexico, including centuries-old traditions of acequia systems, molinos, salas and other agrarian and cultural contexts related to the upper Rio Grande watershed. His documentary work is often presented through an interdisciplinary studies format that includes lecture, video/audio, and literary presentation. This ongoing series in New Mexico Mercury is dedicated to his and his student’s oral history and documentation work in the Chicana/o Studies program at the University of New Mexico.

Romero is the published author of A Poetry of Remembrance: New and Rejected Works, In the Gathering of Silence, and the forthcoming, Sagrado: A Photopoetics Across the Chicano Homeland. He was awarded the post of New Mexico Centennial Poet in 2012.