Who Were You Before Your Parents Were Born by Loss Pequeño Glazier

“Who Were You Before Your Parents Were Born”

Artist Statement

“Who Were You Before Your Parents Were Born” is a digital romp through the variable shades of identity all people face. It suggests that “who we are” is made of many people – too many strands to even count. I call this work a “poem-koan in variable text.” It attempts the kind of question to which one intrinsically knows the answer. These variations flicker onscreen. If you take time and watch the changes, you will get a sense of the entire text. For most lines, there are only two variants, other lines are fixed. For the writer, deciding which lines to vary and which to fix is tied to emergent tonalities of the poem. As if it has its own life, it resonates beyond the hands of the poet. Further, as we are all of mixed blood, these strands can have varying cultural resonances. The answer to the question, “Who Were You,” lies in the vast crowd that the poem’s narrator sees behind his parents. It is all these people. It is always all the people, known and not known, from histories real and invented, who see you and who might not even know you exist, who provide the context for one’s being. A mezcla of many colors.

Bio

Poet Loss Pequeño Glazier has spent a lifetime writing and traveling, having sojourned in far West Texas, Berkeley, Paris, India, Cuba, and Buffalo. Works include Transparent Mountain: Ecopoetry from the Great Smokies (2022), Luna Lunera: Poems al-Andalus (Night Horn Books, 2020), Anatman, Pumpkin Seed, Algorithm (2003), Digital Poetics: the Making of E-Poetries (2002), Small Press: An Annotated Guide, (1992), Prayer Wheels of Bluewater (1987), and other books, digital, exhibition, and performance works. He has performed in Mexico City, Madrid, Barcelona, Bergen, Berlin, Naples, Edinburgh, among other haunts, and across the U.S.  Digital works (Electronic Poetry Center, 2003-2017) and other resources, including digital poems 2002-2020, are available on his UPenn-EPC Author Page (http://www.lpglazier.com). Books are available at City Nights NC (https://www.citylightsnc.com/). Glazier is Professor Emeritus, SUNY Buffalo, and Founding Director of The Electronic Poetry Center, the E-Poetry Festivals (Buffalo, London, Paris, Barcelona, Buenos Aires), and UB Digital Poetry & Dance. A long-ago California resident with roots in Latino, mestizo, and mountain cultures, he now lives and writes in the astonishing biodiversity of the Smoky Mountains. His Ten Thousand Trees is forthcoming in September 2023.

This poem is part of The Los Angeles Review‘s electronic literature folio presented by Letras Latinas and The Poetry Foundation. Please read the introduction letter HERE for more information.

5 May 2023