Love Letters & Hate Mail

Chicano artist and Eastside resident Linda Gamboa has been part of the city's cultural scene since the early 1980s. After taking a break from poetry readings, she is back and will join fellow female poets Frankie Salinas and Pat Viera at a La Palabra Poetry Reading this afternoon (Sunday, Nov. 22) at Avenue 50 Studio in Highland Park.

The program is titled "Love Letters & Hate Mail" and here is one of Gamboa's poems:


Nevermore ... I Say

"Nevermore, will I go back..."
I've said (over and over)
Put myself in the position
Of ridicule and disrespect
Still, I find myself
Here
Sitting in the threshold of pain
Eating my pride
Once more
With each bitter bite
I cringe
Just to think
I have sunk
So low