Christopher Carmona was the inaugural writer-in-residence for the Langdon Review Writers Residency Program in 2015. The Texas Observer recognized him as being one of the top five writers in 2014. He has two books of poetry, beat and I Have Always Been Here and one book of short fiction, The Road to Llorona Park. He edited The Beatest State In The Union: An Anthology of Beat Texas Writings with Chuck Taylor and Rob Johnson and Outrage: A Protest Anthology about Injustice in a Post 9/11 World with Rossy Evelin Lima by Slough Press. He has also co-written a conversation book, Nuev@s Voces Poeticas: A Dialogue about New Chican@ Poetics.
The American Alphabet
a is for anger. b is for brutality. c is for culture not represented. d is for disruption. e is for empathy not felt. f is for fire not set. g is for greed not grace. h is for history buried deep. i is for ignorance not isis. j is just cause. l is not for love. m is for mentiras we believe. n is for nigger. o is for oppression. p is for peace we’ve never known. q is for quiet when the rinches come. r is for revolution never achieved. s is for survival in stories we sing. t is for truth in those songs. u is for us coloring their history. v is for vanity in both its meanings. w is wetback. x is for xenophobia, America’s white state y is for you because z might not be last