Author Archives: Wilson Santos
Contract with America – live reading
Recorded during the Literature Lives open mic event at the North Bergen Free Public Library in NJ on June 27th 2012. These literary readings are held once a month on the last Wednesday of every month.
This poem was written in 1994 during the Clinton years, when Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the House. I still read the poem because it is still relevant even today. As long as Gingrich continues to be active in political life, and continues to speak publicly, this poem will remain current.
Dreaming of Tomorrow (1992)
Oh yes,
dreaming of tomorrow and you and me
And the flowers above the coffee table
Full of dust.
Fermenting inexpensive wine
Walking across a Chinese carpet
Venetian blinds wide open
The sun complimenting the lint
On our second hand love seat.
Read the rest of this entry
Dear Lady (1995)
Dear Lady of countless years
walking down these market streets
carrying fresh vegetables
and a load of laundry balanced
high atop your head;
Lady of a thousand wrinkles
distorting your aged face,
Lady of wreaking breath
of timeless death,
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Songbird (2011)
I’m a songbird
blissfully gliding toward my sunrise.
I stretch my wings from north to south
and sing my sweet melody to freedom.
I leave an American sour breeze at my wake
and head east
but I won’t stop there. Read the rest of this entry
This Night Clearing (2010)
three days of blistering rain and purple-hued clouds break
for a full moon glowing blissfully in this
northern night sky
the crickets, perched in the sanctuary of their
eastern white pine, sing their harmonious
love songs to all who would take a
moment and listen to the melody within Read the rest of this entry
Walt Whitman: Slavery, Paradox and Future Poetics
*This essay was originally written for a Graduate course on American Poetry in Fall 2010.
Walt Whitman’s personal inconsistencies regarding his position on slavery have been the subject of much scholarly criticism and debate. It has been well documented that Walter Whitman, the journalist, political activist and public figure, held dramatically opposing views on slavery and race concerns than did Walt Whitman, the poet, bard of democracy and champion of equality. The latter Whitman used his poetry–particularly the many editions of Leaves of Grass–to indulge in a sense of admiration, identification, sympathy and respect for the “hounded slave,” while the former was an active member of several political parties, composed ideological editorials in a few political publications and was for some time, an ardent opponent of the abolitionist movement. Given his blatant paradoxical ideologies and his transparently polar vision on slavery, how is a twenty-first century reader supposed to reconcile these contradictions? Read the rest of this entry
Good vs. Evil According to Rousseau
*This essay was originally written for a Graduate course on Romanticism in Fall 2010.
Are humans naturally born good or evil? This question rests at the heart of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, in which he attempts to situate the earliest traces of human divisions that have perpetuated, as he suggests, the corruption of modern civil society. If we are to acknowledge Rousseau’s assessment of civility, we will find that civil society under his definition is not civil at all, but savagely more regressive than the ancient “noble savage” he reveres. According to Rousseau, “…nothing is so gentle as man in his primitive state, when, placed by nature at an equal distance from the stupidity of brutes and the fatal enlightenment of civil man… he is retrained by natural pity from needlessly harming anyone himself, even if he has been harmed” (50). It is this natural pity for one another that makes humans good. Once this pity is removed and human vices, like greed, egocentrism and pride take over, man’s natural goodness deteriorates to an unnatural bad. Read the rest of this entry
The Suppression of Knowledge: An American Legacy
*This essay was originally written for a Graduate writing class on December 14, 2009.
Bertolt Brecht, the renowned German poet and playwright once wrote, “Hungry man, grab that book.” Brecht recognized the power of knowledge and understood; one way to satiate hunger is through knowledge. The American political system has long understood what Brecht referred to and has systematically denied literacy and education to the lower classes as a means of maintaining socioeconomic division, power and supremacy. Although education is considered a civil right due every citizen of this country, one would have to consider the quality of such education and scrutinize the disparities between the educational institutions of the dominant and non-dominant societies. By examining the roots of educational inequality and reaching a broad understanding of the limited educational opportunities offered people of color, this inquiry aims to look beyond what is offered, to what can be had, to find meaningful and creative ways of using knowledge and literacy as a means of liberation. Read the rest of this entry
The Island of Refugio Bautista
The sun rises over the drought stricken hills hovering Los Pinos Del Eden, a small farming town borne from the shadows of La Descubierta, Dominican Republic, where Refugio, climbing out his mosquito net, has just wakened from reminiscent dreams of New York City, fantasizing about the corner of 8th Ave and 6th, eating two Papaya hotdogs with sweet onions, ketchup and a piña colada. It’s a bustling New York Saturday night. Fast motorcycles line the Avenue. Women in tight shorts and fat asses walk to Club Bad. The incense man across the street peddles fragrances and who knows what else. Old vinyl records spread across the sidewalk are looking for a home. Refugio is walking tall in tight leather pants, motorcycle jacket, dark shades, five o’clock shadow and mohawk. His Harley is pulled up beside five pimp’d out street bikes. He climbs on his hog, revs the throttle, and shoots north up 6Th Ave toward Washington Heights.
Wilson Santos 