POETRY LUNCH with Francisco Aragón

A native of San Francisco, CA, Francisco Aragón is the son of Nicaraguan immigrants. He is the author of: Puerta del Sol (Bilingual Press), Glow of Our Sweat (Scapegoat Press) and After Rubén (Red Hen Press).

 Aragón is a member of the faculty of the Institute for Latino Studies at Notre Dame, where he founded, Letras Latinas, the Institute’s literary initiative. In 2010, he was awarded the “Outstanding Latino/a Cultural Arts, Literary Arts and Publication Award” by the Association of Hispanics in Higher Education.

 Aragón’s poems are known for the immediacy with which they land the reader in the center of the poet’s reflection, as this poem from After Rubén shows:

Hotel Mirror

 Looking I thought: hair.

And a voice said

On your head? where?

Who is that staring back

with such a round face,

that paunch? Father 

or son?

Aragón’s translations also grapple with perception and reality. In the midst of translating the famed Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío, Aragón became aware of a newly released group of letters in which Dario wrote passionately to the Mexican poet Amado Nervo. Inspired by these letters, Aragón began the process of “queering” some of the poems – translating them to reflect these revelations.

Aragón will read from, and answer questions about, his forthcoming book, After Rubén—a collection of poems, translations, and a personal essay on the Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío (1867 – 1916)—as well as from his limited edition hand-stitched chapbook, His Tongue A Swath of Sky. A luncheon follows.