Ivan Argüelles Memorial Tribute
Hosted by Solomon Rino
with Will Alexander, Marilla Argüelles, Alexander Argüelles, Sharon Doubiago, Jack Foley, Rafael Gonzalez, Andrew Joron, and Armando Rendón
Iván Argüelles, one of the great poets to span the turn of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, a scholar and polyglot, with a most prolific gift of writing multiple poems per day, every poem greater than the former, publishing 56 books in his lifetime, died April 28, 2024. This memorial will be a gathering of family, friends and colleagues, to share Argüelles’ work and celebrate this epitome of poets.
About the speakers
Will Alexander is a poet, novelist, playwright, philosopher, visual artist, and musician. He has published over two dozen books in a variety of genres and has earned many honors and awards including a Whiting Fellowship for Poetry, a California Arts Council Fellowship, the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award, a Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award, and the 2016 Jackson Poetry Prize. He has also exhibited his artwork in group and solo shows. His work is known for its visionary, oracular surrealism and the influence of Negritude. Among his publications are Refractive Africa (New Directions, 2021/Granta, 2022), which was a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, The Combustion Cycle (Roof, 2021), Across the Vapor Gulf (New Directions, 2017), and The Sri Lankan Loxodrome (New Directions, 2009). His book Compression & Purity (2011) was volume five in the City Lights Spotlight Poetry Series. He is currently the poet-in-residence at Beyond Baroque in Venice, California. He has lived his entire life in Los Angeles.
Marilla Argüelles is a free-lance artist/designer/and lecturer in New York for national craft magazines until she moved Berkeley in 1978, where she became a special-education program designer and disability rights/prisoner advocate. Her political banners: Eating Our Young, Still Number One, and The Cremation of Care were featured at East Bay Heritage Quilters and KPFA craft shows.
Alexander Argüelles is an educator and language specialist.
Sharon Doubiago is a poet and the author of numerous collections of poetry including the book-length poem South America, Mi Hija, The Book of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes (1997) Hard Country, and a lengthy dissection of the O. J. Simpson Case, The Husband Arcane: The Arcane of O (1996) amongst others.
Jack Foley is a poet, literary critic, and radio personality. Since 1988, he has hosted a show of interviews and poetry presentations on Berkeley radio station, KPFA.
Rafael Jesús González is a poet and educator. He is Professor Emeritus of Creative Writing & Literature, he has taught at the University of Oregon, Western State College of Colorado, Central Washington State University, the University of Texas at El Paso, and Laney College, Oakland (where he founded the Mexican and Latin American Studies Dept.) He has four times been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He was Poet in Residence at the Oakland Museum of California and the Oakland Public Library under the Poets & Writers “Writers on Site” award in 1996. He served as contributing editor for The Montserrat Review and received the Annual Dragonfly Press Award for Literary Achievement in 2002 & 2012. In 2003 he was honored by the National Council of Teachers of English & Annenberg/CPB for his writing. In 2013 he received the César E. Chávez Lifetime Award. The City of Berkeley honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015 and was named the City of Berkeley’s first Poet Laureate in 2017.
Andrew Joron is a poet, translator, and educator. He studied under anarchist philosopher Paul Feyerabend at UC Berkeley, obtaining a BA in philosophy of science. Joron began writing science-fiction poetry before turning to surrealist-influenced lyric, reflecting his association with Philip Lamantia. His translations from German include philosopher Ernst Bloch’s Literary Essays. City Lights published his book Trance Archive. He teaches English at San Francisco State University.
Armando Rendón authored Chicano Manifesto (1971, Macmillan; 1996, Armando Rendón) chronicling the Chicano Movement, the first book about Chicanos by a Chicano, and after retiring from a career in public affairs in 2004, turned to writing for himself, penned a chapbook of poetry, Up to Earth in 2013 and wrote the four-part series, The Adventures of Noldo and his Magical Scooter (2013-16).The Wizard of the Blue Hole is his fifth Noldo novel.In November 2009, he launched Somos en escrito The Latino Literary Online Magazine – www.somosenescrito.com – to publish and promote the spread of Chicano and Latino literature.
Solomon Rino is a playwright, poet, book artist and publisher. His first book was an ethnography of Tibetan ritual tradition, Deity Men, Reb gong Tibetan Trance Mediums in Transition. He translated from the Hungarian Miklos Radnoti’s Bor Notebook as “A Wiser, More Beautiful Death”. He edited and designed the book, “Like an eye in the hand of a beggar” by Leopoldo Maria Panero, translated by Arturo Mantecón. He edits the annual journal “Second Stutter” representing significant voices in contemporary poetry.
This event is made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation.