SPEAKER 1

Stanza:
La Pera
I watched a man choke on a pear,
and hoped for 6 or 7 minutes
that someone else would help him.

Description:
La Pera deals with my sense/flaw of inaction and indecision. While the scene it portrays is a hyperbolized, actual event, it highlights my fear of squandering potential or not helping others due to not being decisive and confident.

Visual descriptors:
inaction / indecision / inmobile

Sketch:

SPEAKER 2

Stanza:
El Músico
The guitar was called Mojave.
It had 10 strings with 4 broken.
The perfect sound to reverberate against
an audience of sand.

Description:
El Musico focuses on the use of injury or setback to channel creativity. I sustained a hand injury, which left me unable to play guitar, but as a result found alternative and new ways to express myself. Such setback reminds me of the need to express myself for myself, without any regard for who might or might not be listening.

Visual descriptors:
beautifully broken / repurposed

Sketch:

SPEAKER 3

Stanza:
La Muerte
Ya me cansé.
Espero que Dios me lleva bien pronto,
said my grandmother after a discussion
weighing the benefits of weed over painkillers.

Description:
La Muerte highlights a strange view of death that I developed as a teenager and early adulthood. This view consisted of an unsure, uncertain idea of death, but that what was certain was that death would be rest from the hardship of life. It also speaks to the almost universal aspect of people finding respite from life in various diversions, drugs, or escapes (in this case, my use of drugs vs. my grandmother’s use of drugs).

Visual descriptors:
escape / weary / hidden

Sketch:

SPEAKER 4

Stanza:
El Nopal
Let whoever reads this understand
that when the desert took me,
it left me with only a lighter
and a friend.

Description:
El Nopal references a previously written poem, but speaks to dynamics of family and friendship. Namely, that it is inevitable that family and friends hurt one another, or suffer for one another.

Visual descriptors:
painfully precious

Sketch: 

SPEAKER 5

Stanza:
El Alacrán
I found one of the Milky Way’s spiral arms
embracing a small ranch in Tapalpa.
In the darkness I heard two scorpions dancing, singing,
We have not been before, and we will not be again.

Description:
El Alacran brings about a more refined and comforting, yet fatalistic view on death. It shows that life is and always will be finite, and that our connection to the cosmos, whether we are consciously living or not, will be infinite.

Visual descriptors:
infinite / connection

Sketch: