Border crossers/erasers, Chicana/o art and literature, contemporary poetry, spoken word, lit. theory, poetry, literary criticism, and... The Absurd:
Music
John Coltrane, Vicente Fernandez, Miles Davis, Manu Chao, Herbie Hancock, Edge/Bono, Johnny Marr, Pérez Prado, Mos Def, Roddy Frame, Cafe Tacuba, Jazzanova, Julieta Venegas, KRS-1, Chuck D, Richie Valens, Eryka Badu, Angel, David Bowie, Wes Montgomery, Lila Downs, Cal Tjader, Common, Jill Scott, Raphael Sadiq, Stevie Wonder, Willie Bobo, Mario Bauzá, Donny Hathaway, Boozoo Bajou, Ely Guerra, Seu Jorge, Los Lobos, The Clash, Lysa Flores, Charles Mingus, Los Tigres del Norte, Nina Simone...come down selecta! spin that shit!
Books
Currently reading: Junot Diaz The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Leticia Hernández Linares The Razor Edges of My Tongue
Heroes
Mahcic Emilio Riley Hernandez, Che, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Toni Morrison, Eduardo Galeano, William Faulkner, Martin Espada, raulrsalinas, Carl Hancock Rux, Cesar Chavez, John Coltrane, Morissey, Garcia Lorca, David Bowie, Franz Fanon, Marisela Norte, Malcolm McLaren, Malcolm X, X-Clan, Chuck D, Tony Gwynn, Leonard Peltier, Roberto Clemente, Arturo Islas, Prof. Ricardo Griswold del Castillo, Prof.Guillermo Nericcio, Dolores Huerta, Jacques Derrida, Willie Perdomo, Edward Said, ASCO, Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Fidel, Luis Castro, Carlos Fuentes, James Joyce, Nezahualcoyotl, Sor. Juana de la Cruz... More Heroism: Xican@ artists inspire me....
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ASCO Tags LACMA In 1972 three members of ASCO, the Chicano multi-disciplinary conceptual and guerrilla arts collective spray paint their names on the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to protest a racist comment by that institution's curator about the possibility of including Chicano art in museum exhibitions
mah•cic (mah-SEEK') [Nahuatl] adj., "whole or complete"
The first solo collection of poems from a 10-year veteran of the Chicano spoken word collective The Taco Shop Poets.
Order Mahcic Here
Mahcic is also available at the following stores and galleries:
San Francisco: City Lights, Modern Times Los Angeles: Imix Books, Tropico de Nopal San Diego: Voz Alta Austin: Resistencia Bookstore
and many others...just ask for it!
ISBN# 0-9717035-4-X
Praise For mahcic
“mahcic gets you open on Riley’s music. A poet who writes like a master DJ: scratching metaphor, mixing cultures and re-mixing themes until he infiltrates your consciousness and makes you recall the gloss before the glitter while warning you about the wind before the storm.” –WILLIE PERDOMO, WHERE A NICKEL COSTS A DIME
“A VERY fine book!!” –AMIRI BARAKA, TRANSBLUESENCY
Tomás Riley’s poems are the necessary documents we must carry to insure the safe crossing, the guide by the hand, the finger to the lip, poetry becomes a paint by numbers game of language, truth and funk. His gaze takes us across streets as he crosses himself at the corner of 24th and la Misión, more like the intersection of revolución and eternidad. This first collection of poems takes pen to pavement, so do listen closely to the familiar street beating like a thousand sacred hearts tattooed forever. –MARISELA NORTE, norteWORD
What you hear in Tomás’s poems is the vernacular of the streets transformed into cool, lean imagery that flits through the urban landscape with the swiftness of a hummingbird. We see choppers hovering over streets and empty lots of the Mission, hear the sirens of patrol cars, smell the simmering arroz and ripe mangos, food to bad-rappin’ brothers with backpacks full of empty dreams and sad young girls with rainbows on their wet lashes. It is a skillful dance Tomás performs to connect the mundane, the harsh and the ordinary with its lost ancestral source and to express that blood legacy with gentle, human clarity. –GENNY LIM, CHILD OF WAR
"Musical, surprising, and riveting." –ISHLE YI PARK, THE TEMPERATURE OF THIS WATER
One of the most exciting new voices to emerge in Chicano poetry that I've heard for a long time. -ALEJANDRO MURGUIA, THIS WAR CALLED LOVE
"Scored as recombinant beats in the endless remixings of a social body, Riley's poetry does double duty as funky urban baroque and as a creative summation of various translingual, post-hip-hop, and spoken-word aesthetics." –URAYOAN NOEL, RAIN TAXI REVIEW OF BOOKS
"They don't make the kind of dictionary you're going to need to read Riley's poems. Imagine T.S. Eliot and Billie Holiday and Jacques Derrida and César Chávez and Frida Kahlo having a baby, and you begin to get a sense of the genetic density and richness of Riley's poetry." –PROF. G.A. NERICCIO, TEX[T]-MEX: SEDUCTIVE HALLUCINATIONS OF THE "MEXICAN" IN AMERICA
"The poems in this book are so alive that it may be hard to hold them in your hand. " -RESENAS BOOK REVIEW
Also Available
The original collection from San Diego's Taco Shop Poets. Features work from all of the collaborators and co-conspirators that came through the TSP circle over their 10 years in existence. Now out of print, these few copies have resurfaced to hit the street in the hands of a whole new audience. The San Francisco Chronicle credited this work with "sparking the revival in Latino performance art". This anthology marks the beginning of a whole new movement of Chican@/Latin@ poetry collectives and ensembles that surfaced in the wake of this influential group.
Bio
Tomás Riley is a poet, writer, educator and a veteran of the influential Chicano spoken-word collective The Taco Shop Poets (TSP). With TSP he has appeared in the HBO documentary Americanos: Latino Life in the United States, Gregory Nava's PBS dramatic series American Family (2002), and is profiled in Hector Galán's ITVS documentary series on Latina/o arts: Visiones(2004). His self-released spoken word CD Message From the New Forreal debuted in 2003, and he performs on Chorizo Tonguefire (1999) and a jazz/word collaboration with Chicano artist-activist icons Jose Montoya and Raul R. Salinas entitled Intersections (2004).
As both a soloist and a member of TSP Tomás has performed his unique blend of Chicano bilingualism, cultural politics and lyricism at more than 200 venues across the country including the Guild Complex, Beyond Baroque, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and countless indie bookstores, cultural centers, universities, taco shops and bus stops in barrios everywhere. He has shared the stage with the likes of Willie Perdomo, Marisela Norte, Guillermo Gomez-Peña, and Lorna Dee Cervantes. His written work has been anthologized in Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam, Chorizo Tonguefire: The Taco Shop Poets Anthology, Pacific Review and various journals and literary publications. Most recently his first solo collection of poetry, Mahcic, was published by Calaca Press in December 2005.
He holds an MA in American Literature with an emphasis in contemporary ethnic-American discourse, has taught from the elementary to the collegiate level, and is a founding member of the San Diego visual and performing arts space The Voz Alta Project. Currently he mentors young writers in the Mission District of San Francisco.
Tropico de Nopal, LA
Living Word Festival, SF
Who I'd like to meet:
Other writers and artists currently pushing the disciplines, redefining the paradigms and carving whole new niches; community minded, politically conscious agents of change; teachers and radical educators empowering youth; other Chican@/Latin@ artists, indigenistas, activistas and all artists of color making it happen because they have to...or anybody who really thinks that kind of stuff matters.
Yo brotha! Just as a reminder, Dodgers best record in baseball......Padres....well, not as bad as the nationals.....Ill keep you posted on how we end up going into October...Stay up!
YES! Mistaking Planes for Stars: The Poetry of Place in Southeast Los Angeles featuring (my muse) Aida Salazar---Feb 9, 7pm @ Galeria de la Raza. See? She inspired my art (here) as well as many musicians all over Cali. Check her out tomorrow!
Leticia Hernández Linares
Reyes Rodriguez, "Just Around the Corner" 
Tropico de Nopal, LA
Living Word Festival, SF
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