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.

Friday, February 24, 2012

Reese's Remix

un silabario sabrosamente sintético... del náhuatl al español

Friday, February 17, 2012

Carne Vale

o que? você é vegetariana, que nem vegana?
mas a carne vale como carne humana
a carne vale na rua que nem no quarto
a carne vale na terça que nem na quarta
de cinzas de pó de fumo
convertidos e convestidos e transvestidos
os desejos com as suas fantasias
penas, pêlos, e antropofagias
quando tesão? quanto tesão!
eis uma incorporação
caníbal, cardápio carnívoro
como, logo sou
carne como você sou
carne ante você sou
carne com soma e carne consumo
carne com fome de mais
e mais carne
carne caramelo, cravo e canela
carne com leite, carne coletânea
carne fresca e nova que nem do Brás
carne velha e podre que nem do bispo
a carne me afoga na fome do fogo
do adão e da eva e da cacetada
carnes de cores e corações
carne sacra de devocões
carnes destacadas e desfiladas
carnes batucadas e esquentadas
caramba!
mas,
que seja carnaval porque a carne vale
e não carnaval porque a carne vai
embora
'ta vendo? valeu! fizemos foi carnaval!

Friday, February 10, 2012

Uncanned

A conjugation, or a juxtaposition?
A chord, an accord, a concordance:
that particular bark,
that particular chirp,
and the light burdened by a heavy mist.

It was a simultaneity of synesthesia,
a congruence of the uncanny
that transported me
from one humid morning
to another, suddenly not so
far away and long ago:

a generally generated street
somewhere in Mexico's
pungent abundance of pueblos.
Cobblestone, painted adobe, a dewy dawn
framing the smell of tortillas,
lightly slightly burning on a comal,
remarks from an anxious dog, a wary songbird,
and the calls of vendors, radiolocutores and roosters.

My mirror, the window could show nothing of this.
But this, this sensual scenery,
leaped into my mind on cue,
like the incongruous coiled-spring snake
released from
this, its peanut brittle cylinder,
uncanned.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

María Lionza

Monumento María Lionza, Caracas


Cabalga, de ancas anchas, en la danta.
Caza el chigüire y rastrea el jaguar.
Danza, ágil, ataviada con cocar,
y así al amante lo atrapa, y lo encanta.

Madre será, de una abundancia tanta
que esparce hijas por la selva a poblar,
las cascadas y plantas a animar.
De mama amplia, a la Amazonia amamanta.

Sus aguas inundan como su pelo.
Nadan en ellas las yaras hermanas,
más la anaconda, rayo, falo de aros.

María de la Onza no ostenta velo:
la milagrosa labra, sin sotanas
y en pieles planetarias, votos raros.