VOICES DE LA LUNA EVENT FEATURES THREE POETS LAUREATE
Yes three! Two will be there in person while the third, Aline B. Carter, will be present in spirit through her poetry.
Organized by VOICES DE LA LUNA, a literary non-profit that publishes the VOICES DE LA LUNA magazine, the Nov. 11 event is billed as a “poetic tribute” to Carter, a Texas Poet Laureate from the 1940s who lived in the historic Maverick-Carter House where the celebration is taking place. After extensive renovation, the former patrician residence has recently been reopened as an event and reception venue in the downtown area, near the Tobin Center.
Two of the best poets in Texas today, Carol Coffee Reposa and Octavio Quintanilla – the current Texas Poet Laureate and the current San Antonio Poet Laurate, respectively – will read from their own work while Aline’s verses will be heard through the voice of her granddaughter, Marline Carter Lawson.
A retired San Antonio College professor, Reposa is the author of four poetry collections – including her most recent “Underground Musicians” – and the recipient of a number of awards and honors. For years, she also served as the poetry editor of VOICES DE LA LUNA magazine. Quintanilla, the current poetry editor, teaches literature and creative writing at Our Lady of the Lake University and is the author of the 2014 collection “If I Go Missing.” Both have also been widely published in literary journals in Texas and beyond. (See poems)
Aline Carter would probably have been honored to be paired with these two talented poets and thrilled to see them under her roof. Her own poetry was published in two volumes, “Halo of Love” and “Doubt Not the Dream” and she organized poetry contests on the subject of world peace and even won an international competition on that topic in 1950. A woman ahead of her time and a philanthropist, Carter had an interest in other areas as well, such as religion, social work and astronomy. In fact, she built an observatory in her home, which still stands.
A reception and tour of the historic mansion are included in the ticket price. The Maverick-Carter House was included in the National Register of Historic Places in 1998 and received the designation of a Registered Texas Historic Landmark in 2010.
(Celebrating Aline, 3-6 p.m., Sunday, Nov.11; For tickets go to www.voicesdelaluna.org or call Carla Pineda at 210-621-3686. Proceed benefit VOICES DE LA LUNA.)
An Evening with Willy Nelson
(for Adam)
Carol Coffee Reposa
In the arena at 80,
He leaves his glossy pickup and climbs
Illuminated stairs to reach
The revolving stage, jumbotrons above him,
And pour out his odyssey
From everywhere, the circle unbroken.
He’s on the road again, with blue eyes
Crying in the rain and Georgia
On his mind. So are whisky river
And the City of New Orleans.
So much still is left:
is grizzled beard
And long gray braids
Those gnarled hands and lean arms,
The trademark red bandanna.
I think about Ulysses
In his last years
Sailing west, past assorted storms
And rival deities, Poseidon and Calypso,
Telemachus and even Penelope
Knowing he would not return.
Soon we’ll all fly away
But I have a florescent longhorn
Stamped on my hand
To show me where I am
And where I’ve been
As I too follow the sun
And sail west.
Parting
Octavio Quintanilla
There was a time
I had no word for darkness,
and so I said, darkness.
I had no word to say devotion,
and so I said, Two sons
grieving one mother.
A time came when our parents
sat under a tree
and cried for us, their sons
on their way
to a new country.
When I try to return to my boyhood,
sometimes I end
with my head
on my mother’s lap.
