Bruce Dean Willis

is Professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature at The University of Tulsa. His research and publications focus on diverse aspects of poetry and performance, and expressions of Indigenous and African cultures, in Latin American literature, particularly Brazil, Chile, and Mexico.

TIME FOR CHOCOLATE is available for purchase through One Act Play Depot! A brief description:

An intoxicating evening of music, poetry, and chocolate... in pre-conquest Mexico!
Based on a fifteenth-century dialogue among nobles schooled in rhetoric and philosophy, the play pits father against son in a war of words over the power and beauty of artistic expression.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

La Calavera Nueva del Emperador


The word calavera (literally "skull") has many meanings in Mexico, from the famous drawings and papier-mâché skeletons, to sweetbread and sugar-candy skulls and bones. A calavera is also a poem of satirical verses, published in newspapers this time of year for Día de los Muertos, poking fun at well-known figures through an imagined demise. This one alludes to Hans Christian Anderson's "The Emperor's New Clothes" ("El traje nuevo del Emperador"), and to some traditional spooks, in reference to a certain South American politician.


Llámese Pérez o López,
Gómez o Sánchez o Chávez,
emperador egocéntrico
de más de un país el mal es.
Dictador, por otras señas,
que busca lucir ademanes,
procura un traje nuevo
jamás visto por rufianes.
La Calaca le da cuerda,
estambre roja y telares,
y obreros bolivarianos
sin derechos laborales,
mantenidos como zombis
sin medios que les señalen
oposición a su líder
ni crítica de sus planes.
Sale el sátrapa al alba
vestido color de sangre,
y ahí entre la muchedumbre,
que una niña lo delate,
apuntando con un dedo,
gritándole sus verdades:
“Tú nunca fuiste Bolívar.
Quítate de entre titanes.
Te veo como desnudo,
como lo que eres: farsante.”
Estas palabras sonoras,
mágicas y fulminantes,
mataron al opresor,
tumba’o de su pedestal.
Ahí lo recogió la Muerte,
se lo llevó al lugar que arde,
y entre tanta llamarada
y tantos déspotas cuates,
al difunto dictador
se le antojó andar sin traje.
Y así fue, cantando claro,
con la lengua sin pelaje,
que la voz de la inocencia,
la niña buena al rescate,
al vampiro petrolero
le quitó la vida de antes,
para darle chamba nueva
sin derechos laborales
en las fábricas de azufre
con los demonios de Dante.



Saturday, October 24, 2009

Exvotos

Cuerpo, ¿jaula del alma?
No: lienzo, tambor, barro, página.

Todo a la vista:
Los ojos iluminan lo que los oídos vociferan,
pero los párpados me apantallan los sueños
que las cejas solapan.
Sólo los delata
la brisa entre las pestañas.

Los labios les dan alas a las
palabras que pasan por la malla
de mis dientes.

La nariz y la lengua trabajan enyugadas
en producir sabor y saber.

Me late que el pecho
me soporta hombros, cuello y cabeza,
y el peso de toda esa infraestructura
hace brotar:
dos pezones.

El codo me extiende la generosidad,
el brazo me echa una mano,
las costillas me cuentan las cosquillas,
las rodillas me hacen cuclillas,
cada pierna me da pie.

El sexo me da dónde agarrar—
(y las pompas dónde asentar)
—las ideas.

El ombligo me sujeta cual tachuela
cuando estiro las extremidades
a la vitruviana,
las vísceras golpeando tatúes
sorprendentemente irregulares
desde adentro,
mientras las palmas sobre la panza
imponen varios ritmos
complicados pero precisos
desde afuera.

Los dedos son para abrir senderos
entre los cabellos,
sensores del cerebro,
y las uñas para trazarme los cauces
subcutáneos
de la sangre.

De tripas corazón y de lágrimas pulmón
pero qué hay de mí sin la piel
que me abriga los músculos y los huesos,
la piel que me delimita y me delinea
de lo no-yo;
me incorporo,
puedo solo
expresarme de las más diversas maneras,
así, articulado
y así, agradecido
como me encuentro y me palpo este día de hoy.

Cuerpo, ¿jaula del alma?
No: lienzo, tambor, barro, página.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Does the Fruit Stay Forever on the Branch?

A flower-song I composed in the voice of Tecayehuatzin, a fifteenth-century ruler of Huexotzinco in central Mexico. Tecayehuatzin convened a group of poet leaders for a symposium on the theory and practice of in xochitl in cuicatl (basically, poetry) - you can read an excerpt of a play I based on the symposium. The play is now available for purchase at One Act Play Depot. Here Tecayehuatzin addresses himself, in the style, to another poet, Cuauhtencoztli, whom I cast in the play as his son.

As the sapling grows,
as its shoots seek the face of the sun,
its growth is a flowing, like a fountain, like a spring,
with the waters of the earth, with the life of the earth.

And as the sun follows the rain,
so does the fruit spring from the flower,
from its vibrant emanations,
from its fragrant exhalations.

Like unto this growth, the youth who stretches and fills,
who seeks the face of the sun,
whose leaps and dives give grace uprooted to the yearnings of the sapling,
will in his own way, in her own way,
bear the fruit of his acts, bear the flower of her breath,
springing from the nourishment of the earth.

Does the fruit stay forever on the branch?
The fruit must be consumed when it is ripe.
Do the flowers stay forever on the tongue?
The flowers must be sung when they're in bloom.

In the rhythm of our songs, of our mouths and of our hands,
we build on the rhythms of the flower and of the fruit,
of the earth and of the sky,
of the jaguar and of the eagle.

Does the fruit stay forever on the branch?
The fruit must be consumed when it is ripe.
Do the flowers stay forever on the tongue?
The flowers must be sung when they're in bloom.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Choque Corporal

Deixar de ver os corpos cariocas
tropicais
sadios e sarados e dourados
de tanto caminhar e tanta malhação e tanto sol,
e tanta boa fruta fresca e tanto bom fruto do mar,
subir um avião,
descer em Dallas
e começar a ver
gordura pastosa desabafada e desparramada pelos assentos da sala de espera do estéril aeroporto cinzento,
e ouvir 'bem-vindo,' aliás,
é um desengano
de tamanho XXXL.

Friday, October 9, 2009

They Came from Outer Spain

Slide from a presentation about the Hispanic Document Collection at the Gilcrease Museum of the Americas. It's a contextualization of the European arrival to the Americas as an alien invasion.


Tuesday, October 6, 2009

The Tremor

Having skipped breakfast
to make class on time,
I thought it was me.
I thought it was my body shaking my head,
that I was going to faint in hunger.
But then I heard:
"Is your chair moving too?"
And at my affirmation,
we both knew it was a temblor,
not knowing what a temblor is until that moment.
No shaking, no bouncing--just rocking,
as if the earth,
that most seemingly solid substance,
were suddenly the sea,
and my friend and I, seated in our desks,
riders of rowboats rolled gently on the waves.

It was over in a few seconds,
but our astonishment kept growing
like the ripples of a splash in a pond.
Cholula, Puebla, 1989