I translated the poems that make up Black Tulips: The Selected Poems of José María Hinojosa (University of New Orleans Press, 2012).This Ping-Pong folio*  is inspired by several of Hinojosa’s relatively early poems, poems largely made out of questions. The question is a central trope in general in the work of Hinojosa. His poetry is a kind that is speculative and imaginative, with a language that grows increasingly richer, symbolic, and dense. The act of wondering fills his work, wondering about the world, about love, and finally about the present and future of the country he loves. Though his politics could not be further from my own, being the first translator of Hinojosa into English, becoming his voice in this language for the first time, was a great pleasure and a great responsibility. There was a great injustice in erasing such a gifted, significant poet. “Lost, but now found,” writes Jonathan Cohen, translator and poet. I can only hope he stays found for a very long time- Mark Statman

*Each year Ping-Pong magazine has a folio where we invite responses to various poems in translation. This year we will feature Alexander Blok.

Write your own poetic response to the following questions posed in this poem (in Spanish and English) by José María Hinojosa.  Read More >

How would you describe a beautiful woman? The American media-complex puts forth its definition of female beauty, and shocker-alert, it is equated with money: Botox injections 600.00, boob jobs, 5-10,000.00, hair styling, well, I once watched a “behind the stars” type of show that said Victoria Beckham spent 50,000 on her hair per year. Sheesh. In the amount of characters it takes you to tweet (140), give us your definition of female beauty. Here Denise Duhamel explores this notion, taking scissors to prescriptions of beauty:

Fat Fashionista

O Gucci, Diesel, Calvin Klein, and your teeny garb.  Even you, frolicking Betsey Johnson. I saved two years to buy one of your dresses only to find that none of them fit. O Victoria Secret with your tiny panties that only stretch so far. O skinny jeans, halters, and bikinis. O Anne Klein, Versace, Guess, Ralph Lauren! I can only window shop unless I diet—and what would be the pleasure in that? O Marc Jacobs, Valentino, Dolce and Gabbana, Stella McCartney, let me tell you—there was a time when I had my own private designer, my grandmother Bertha Bourgeois and her aqua Singer.  Even when she worked from a Butterick pattern, she pinned the crepe paper to me first and made any adjustments. All my clothes were custom—I could be an apple, a pear, a turtle, any shape I wanted.  My designer didn’t care. I strutted the vinyl carpet runner that lead from her hallway to the living room wearing her latest creation.  Every season I picked my fabric and consulted with BB who took to it with chalk, her pinking sheers cutting along the bias.

Your job is to write a piece of flash fiction in 200 words or less based on one of the stanzas in Joe Hall’s poem from the 2013 edition of Ping-Pong here:

POTTING SHED

“The newlyweds will only see their wives

through the grillwork.” I kiss you

behind the ear in the mesh

Read More >