During 2016, we will shine the spotlight of our public esteem & rapt attention on two poets per month. This month’s second poet is Bonafide Rojas.
Fox Frazier-Foley: Talk to me about the core of your creative drive and the expression it finds through poetry. There are lots of ways to be creative in this world – what motivates you to write poems, specifically? Additionally, what motivates you to navigate the Poe-biz landscape?
Bonafide Rojas: I push myself harder than anyone else can to get better, especially when i don’t feel “creative” i push to write. I challenge myself by writing with forms that have constraints. I’ll write fifty haikus, twenty villanelles, or ten sestinas for me, no one really ever sees those poems. They’re for me to look at, to have, being consistent is key, longevity is a gift. Those are also my main points of motivation. Understanding longevity has allowed me to really approach things patiently, approach it from a point of view of “Will this be beneficial?” I still approach poetry from an organic way of wanting to be published, to publish & create products that not everyone is creating, but also understanding these are not for immediate releases, everyday is a new way to approach old practices, its one of the reasons i started Grand Concourse Press.
FFF: What are your influences – creatively (esp in terms of other media/ other art), personally, and socially/politically?
BR: Graffiti has always been an influences on me, even before poetry was an outlet, so when poetry came my main outlet, i really enjoyed infusing them both, putting poems on stickers, writing poems in random places but wheat pasting poems has been on my radar for some time now. The Nuyorican School Of Poetry, The Black Arts Movement, The Beats, The Dadaist, The Surrealists, all those movements have had an influence on me. The colonial status of Puerto Rico has always influenced my politics. When you are from an island that has been colonized from 117 years there are some very difficult discussions to have with yourself, with your community, with your fellow artists & sometimes the poets have to share that story because that might be the only way younger generations will listen, liberation isn’t an always an older persons action, it relies heavily on the continuum of the next. Lastly, rock & roll, so much rock & roll in my life, it always comes through in my work.
FFF: Describe your aesthetic as a poet. What do you value? What do you try to do with/in your work? What, to you, makes cool art/literature? What’s most important for you in a poem, or in a book of poems – as author and as reader?
BR: I haven’t been asked about my aesthetic in a long time but I value the poem, the craft, & the process. I give the reader a different perspective of myself & of the story i am telling, a perspective they may never see in a conversation, or observation. I’m more focused, compressed & intense when describing poetry, reading a poem or when someone is reading my poetry. I think Art/Literature has always been cool but have we always treated it that way? I think we need to always share how important art & literature is to us, i always share how important poetry & art is to me & to my development as a person even if it sounds cliche. Let everyone feel the urgency in your voice, the passion, it is necessary because if an artist is nonchalant about their work & their process, then the onlookers who may have an interest in art will see it as “Ok, then it’s not that important.” Do you know how many times I’ve watched Toni Morrison, Junot Diaz & Sandra Cisneros talk about their craft & i don’t write fiction but i love hearing them talk about it. What’s important to me could be different things like in books its concept, theme, in poems it’s the same but i also look at structure, arc of the narrative, even the way the book physically, the layout. I love books, the smell of paper, the way the poem looks on the page, the line breaks, the words the poet chooses, the simple, the abstract, everything.
FFF: Tell me, if you’re willing, about something—an experience, a piece of art, anything really—that has fundamentally moved and/or shaped you as a person. What was the experience? What was it like How did it shape you as an artist/poet?
BR: There are so many moments: the first one that comes to memory is listening to Jimi Hendrix & The Beatles the first time, it really transformed my perspective in many ways like experimentation, boundary pushing, being vulnerable enough to show emotion in art. To this day i still listen to their catalog in wonder & amazement. In literature, getting a new book is always an experience, it changes me overtime, new words, new phrases, new & old emotions, a poem that inspires another, always writing to continue the tradition, to add to this foundation i created, fiction, non- fiction, graphic novels, & poetry all add to the landscape i create in my head. The birth of my son changed me, made me think of legacy, made me comfortable enough to think of the future, what will i leave behind twenty, thirty, forty years of work, this art i’ve cultivated has never been for instant gratification.
FFF: Name a book or two that you think everyone should read, and tell us a little bit about what makes it/them so mind-blowingly awesome. Also, feel free to add in anything else you might want to talk about pertaining to your art/craft/literary or writing life that I didn’t ask?
BR: I taught a few workshops this summer & i start the workshop off by asking what are peoples favorite books & no one mentioned this one. I think everyone should One Hundred Years Of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez & i know it sounds funny that a Nobel Prize-winning author & book should get publicity from me but i’m always in awe when people tell me they haven’t read that. I was going to say Residence On Earth by Pablo Neruda, my favorite Neruda book, but i’ll mention ten writers people should read: Jason Reynolds, Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie, Dennis Kim, Glendaliz Camacho, Roya Marsh, Rich Villar, Randall Horton, Nkosi Nkululeko & my two brothers: Willie Perdomo & Tony Medina.
I’ll take this moment to speak of my press Grand Concourse Press, it’s not an easy task to start a press, even though i do see people doing it which is good. We have allowed corporate big business to control what we read for a very long time & it doesn’t speak to the independence of the work that is out there. I started Grand Concourse Press to control my output, to control my work & not have someone tell me, you need to wait, we don’t like this cover. Why do we think we need a suit & tie to tell us well this will work, especially if they know nothing about the massive landscape of poetry today. I know some people say “If you’re a real Poet, you should have a real press to publish you” & you know what i used to think the same way until i realized my validation as a writer comes from me writing my poems & sharing it with an audience, a community, my peers & my mentors. I am still literally in a beginning stage with the press but the support has been amazing, I just released Dear Continuum: Letters to A Poet Crafting Liberation by Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie & the response has been wonderful & I’m happy that she is getting that response because the book is amazing. I’m working on a new release for a poet who i will not name, only because they’re reclusive & would probably try to tell me to stop publicizing, but i’m excited about that release also, i’ll keep you all posted. Thank you for asking such great questions, Fox Frazier-Foley, thank you for including me in this spotlight.
FFF: Thanks for being part of it, Bonafide Rojas!
Bonafide Rojas is the author of three collections of poetry: Pelo Bueno, When The City Sleeps, & Renovatio. He’s been published in Chorus, Manteca, Bum Rush The Page, Role Call, Learn Then Burn, Mi No Habla Con Acento & Becoming Julia & numerous other journals. He is the founder of Grand Concourse Press, the band The Mona Passage & currently lives in The Bronx, NY. He loves pizza.
Fox Frazier-Foley is author of two prize-winning poetry collections, Exodus in X Minor (Sundress Publications, 2014) and The Hydromantic Histories (Bright Hill Press, 2015), and editor of two anthologies, Political Punch: The Politics of Identity (Sundress Publications, 2016) and Among Margins: An Anthology of Critical and Lyrical Writing on Aesthetics (Ricochet Editions, 2016). She is founding EIC of .
