Austin Downtown Arts Magazine

Poetry

Heritage Blue

by Debra Call

The Heritage Blue anthology was compiled from a series of salon readings at the East 13th Heritage House a/k/a the Big Pink House, that took place in September, 1997 (Unprotected Poetry World Tour), April, 1998 (Austin International Poetry Festival), and August, 1998 (Our Stories, tribute to American playwright Lorraine Hansberry).

In 1978, the City of Austin granted landmark status to the Heritage House, located at 810 E. 13th Street, as the last remaining structure of Samuel Huston College. Bennedene Walton took up residence in this former home of Samuel Huston College Professor J.W. Frazier, providing temporary housing for students from around the world, and a rainbow community home base for persons involved with the education and expression of the creative arts.

Heritage Blue is a vibrant tribute to Walton's goal: to create a sense of community through play, through creating together. All profits from the anthology's sales will be donated to Heritage House for renovations and restoration of the historical landmark.

Co-editors Stazja McFadyen and Larry Jaffe have compiled a rich ensemble of poets offering a kaliedoscope of colors in 62 poems, in a vibrant tribute to East 13th Heritage House. Eleven locally based poets and six Southern California poets have contributed their works to the anthology. Woven into the fabric of Heritage Blue are moments in history, moments in lives, and witnesses to battles fought -- some won and some still raging. The poetry is breath-taking -- sometimes humorous, sometimes spine-tingling, always impacting, always witness to who we are and who we might be.

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Tammy Gomez, self-described "street journalist," poetizes Austin's everyday street scenes, such as this passage from "Hunger Poem":

I've engorged on the sweat of working class microwaved meals at the Circle K. and I know I've scarfed down a mile-long page of begging words I've heard on the street corners. Please pass the bread. Dame de comer.

Dr. Marvin G. Kimbrough, who serves as Chair of Humanities at Huston-Tillotson College, is a native Austinite. In "Ghost of East Eleventh Street" she describes the passing of the neighborhood where she grew up, recalling a community once so culturally rich, now gone to:

...the odors of residual cigarette smoke And regurgitated muscatel mingling with the fragrance of flowers Growing in yards of houses that shared the property line with juke joints.

In "The Heart of the Room in a World Made of Art," Heidi Zeigler celebrates a resurgence of artistic energy in East Austin, such as the poetry readings at Heritage House and Ebony Sun Java House:

The words in this room are the world learned by heart They beat with the rhythm of the art of the art, They flow like blood running red through the heart. This room is a world made of art made of art.

Heritage Blue will be released at a reading at Heritage House on Sunday, April 18, beginning at 2pm From PoetWarrior Press, the edition is priced at $11.95.

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