Terry a O'Neal & Mariana Castro de Ali at SPC

Mariana Castro de Ali's art, now exhibited at the Sacramento Poetry Center. I helped her put up the art yesterday.


It was my first time featuring a poet and a visual artist, and it worked. I called it a little experiment, but it's something that I will do again in the future.

Terry O'Neal reading at SPC

Terry read her old and new poetry. She has a new poetry collection coming out before the end of the year, and, judging by the few poems she read, it promises to be a big hit. Of course, she read my all-time favorites, "Mama Africa", "African Child", and others from her volumes The Poet Speaks in Black, Motion Sickness and Good Mornin' Glory.

Terry a O'neal

When Mariana's turn came, I asked her questions about her art, which she explained well. I liked the performative nature of the question-answer session, an interview almost.

Mariana Castro de Ali, talking about her art.




More artistic images:
Some cattle. Mariana explained that she comes from the cattle region of Mexico, and so her art sometimes remembers the barbecues....

Mariana's exhibition will run at the Sacramento Poetry Center until September 6, but she also has another one running concurrently in Mexico and she is going there next Monday.



The art deals with issues ranging from terminal diseases and topics of freedom, immigration and the American Dream.

A piece depicting breast cancer.

As to the question of why her art uses objects ranging from receipts, corn rinds, tampons and thread, she said she grew up in a Mexican tradition where nothing was wasted.



After Mariana's amazing presentation, which was being taped for a documentary, we moved on to the open-mic session. Great talent as usual:

Diondre Garrison gave two captivating readings.

Already showing artistic diversity, the event ended up giving linguistic variety. Some poems were read in Spanish:


Maria Shahid reciting a poem in Spanish. I could not understand a word of what she was saying, but I felt the poem.

A bilingual (Spanish-English)rendition by Frank D. Graham and Hector de Avila Gonzalez.

I read two poems from my collection, Forever Let Me Go. One compared the Sacramento oppressive summers to the Mazvihwa (Zimbabwe) ones. The other details the frustrations of a persona who can't use email for twenty-four hours.