Advent Calendar Day 3 - November 14
Excerpt from leaving a tip at the Blue Moon Motel, poems by Richard Vargas
Plus, today only, get 14% off this title in our bookstore—no code required.
“Vargas is a spokesman for the working poor, for the abused poor, especially women. His poems cut across cultures and races and political divides.… Without sentimentality, these poems break and heal our hearts.”
— Pamela Uschuk, author of the American Book Award-winner Crazy Love
menudo
i remember the morning
car ride to the Compton
neighborhood market
just the two of us
my dad would walk in
carrying the empty pot and lid
set it on the counter and ask
for it to be filled with our
sunday morning breakfast
while he picked up a package
of warm corn tortillas
i checked out the colorful
piñatas and sweet-smelling
pan dulce still warm from the oven
he would notice and buy a few
conchas and fruit-filled empanadas
watch the smile light up my face
the drive home was slow and gentle
making sure we didn’t spill
any of our orange-red bounty
i never cared for the oregano
but a squeeze of lemon
a spoonful of chopped onion
and a warm tortilla rolled up
in my small fist
planted the seed
for this poem to bloom
Read more of these poems—often bitingly funny and heartbreakingly real—in LEAVING A TIP AT THE BLUE MOON MOTEL, from the accomplished poet Richard Vargas.
Get 14% off this title until midnight Mountain time tonight, Friday, November 14.
About the Author
Richard Vargas was born in Compton, California. He earned his B.A. at Cal State University, Long Beach, where he studied under Gerald Locklin and Richard Lee. He edited and published five issues of The Tequila Review from 1978 to 1980, publishing early works by Jimmy Santiago Baca, Alberto Rios, Nila Northsun, Dennis Cooper, Ron Koertge, and many more. His first book, McLife, was featured twice on Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. A second book, American Jesus, was published by Tia Chucha Press in 2007. His third book, Guernica, revisited, was published in 2014 by Press 53 and was featured once more on The Writer’s Almanac. How A Civilization Begins was published by Mouthfeel Press in 2022. Vargas received his MFA from the University of New Mexico in 2010, where he workshopped his poetry with Joy Harjo. He received the 2011 Taos Summer Writers’ Conference’s Hispanic Writer Award, was on the faculty of the 2012 10th National Latino Writers Conference, and facilitated a workshop at the 2015 Taos Summer Writers’ Conference. Vargas edited and published The Más Tequila Review from 2009 to 2015, featuring poets from across the country. He has read his poetry to audiences from Los Angeles to Indianapolis and many locales in between.