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.

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

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