Every Valentine’s Day at the station, we mark the occasion with Love Drive. Our listeners write in to us with their love notes, then we read them on the air and mail your loved one a Love Drive postcard from Valentine, Texas on Valentine's Day.
This year, we want to go big - because these times call for it. We want to shower our airwaves with your love notes, have a riot of love on the air, and create a two hour block of positive vibes for everyone to enjoy.
So tell us - who do you love? We want to hear about it. Send us your love notes, poems, and missed connections. Tell us your love stories, and be a part of this super special event. You can fill out the form on our website HERE to participate.
To inspire your love notes, I wanted to introduce you to Jose Fonseca, who has come to be known fondly by us as the Poet Laureate of Love Drive.
Here is the first Love Drive poem Jose sent in to us.
To Blanca,
A grey morning inside
Our small egg shell white
Kitchen you read from a yellow
Cover collection of Marianne
Moore poems drink coffee
From an orange mug a thunder-
Bird painted in magenta on it
Smell of rain and fresh Colombian
Roast wraps together on the oblong
Pearl color table you turn
To me
Hair catching lamp light
Like Phoenix feathers tossing
Off yokes of lava and with
Hot caramel words I can taste
On the roof of my mouth
Say: Jose, nunca te vaz.
Elise Pepple: Will you tell me about your writing process?
Jose Fonseca: Estoy raro porque no mantengo poemas. I just erase a ton of them. The time and mindset get erased. All my work is finite. They blaze and spit embers then smolder then disintegrate in black bits.
EP: When did you start writing poetry?
JF: Empecé a escribir en el sexto grado. Era para un clase, no me recordó la lección, y cuando leí la poesía que escribí, se bajo un silencio con el peso de todo el azul del cielo. That silence has happened numerous times after I have shared a poem in public. I assume it’s a good thing but I never know.
EP: Did someone inspire you to write poetry?
JF: Someone in particular, no. My body, how it is breaking apart, my community that hurts and heals in cycles, the circumstance I ramble into in life with on a wheezing motorcycle. I’d say those are inspirations.
EP: Do you write poems every day or when the spirit moves you?
JF: So, I am a cis Hispanic male, take what I say with that context. Cada mañana me levanto y entro al cuadrilátero para boxear lo que escribo. I want to dominate the work, pummel it to a point it will work how I want it to. If you have never been in a martial art I don’t think you can understand the satisfaction of just fighting, how everything you have you give, how you get exhausted and push past it, to a euphoric sense of motion and focus. Of course you lose a tooth, or rattle yourself senseless to a point where you only speak temporarily in first grade speech pattern, or bleed, or hurt so profoundly that every bone in your body quivers in cold sparks. That has happened in my writing, the pain, the euphoria, the glory and the shame.
EP: How long did you live in West Texas and where?
JF: Vivido casi todo mi vida en El Paso/Juarez. Odessa would be the other place in West Texas where I lived for roughly five years.
EP: If you had your way, is there a book of poems you would like to write?
JF: I have never thought about writing a book. No me gusta la idea porque cada colección de poemas o de cuentos son como un sarcofago. I understand that the reader discovers the miracle, like the garden tomb in Jerusalem, but from a writer's point of view, you're just done with it as much as you can be. But again, Leaves of Grass kept getting revised by Whitman, but I would say Whitman was still fighting it to get it where he wanted it to be. Some struggles never go away.
EP: Gracias José por compartir tus poemas con Marfa Public Radio y gracias por telling me about tu proceso de escritura.
Jose Fonseca is a poet and diesel mechanic now based in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Another Love Drive poem by Jose
You play Bad Bunny on the stereo
In short shorts you dance, heating panqueque,
Light lingers in your auburn hair a halo.
And the small teal kitchen sweats profusely,
Pan steaming, small glass coffee pot boiling,
Tu piel blanca bombilla encendida.
You always spat blue electricity
Out your bare sandy feet, sunburned cadera.
Te vi primero sobre agua negras,
Yellow city light floating on small waves,
Drunk, looking out, holding indigo chanclas.
Your charge caught me in a magnetic way.
I can never think you away, plus now
With those short shorts it's hard to figure out how.
High Five
If you still need some Love Drive inspiration, maybe Jose's playlist of love songs can help.
- La Barca by Luis Miguel - a cover of a Trio Mexicano classic
- Luz de Dia by Los Enanitos Verdes - Spanish rock anthem from the 90s
- I Want You (Back) by Don Julian and the Larks - super memorable golden oldie
- I’m Still in Love by Alton Ellis - great love song by a pioneer of reggae and ska
- More Than Words by Extreme - peak power ballad)
You can find all of our archived music shows on our Mixcloud.
Caló
Haciendo males - The literal translation in Spanish is doing bad things, but in Caló it means to be on a rampage or wilding, as in on a campaign to do bad things. You’re said to be haciendo males when it appears you’re intent on doing bad things, not just actually doing them. Kids are doing males when they’re hunting vulnerable mailboxes with a baseball bat on a lonely country road.
Caló is a borderland dialect. You can find more episodes here.
From the Newsroom
Plans for a new telehealth-powered “microclinic” in Terlingua are moving forward after local officials voted this month to approve a funding deal with a Houston-based company.
Board members of the Big Bend Regional Hospital District - a local public health entity - voted on Jan. 23 to help subsidize the plan by agreeing to pay $14,000 monthly payments to Hamilton Health Box, which would supply and operate a small prefabricated clinic. Patients visiting the clinic would see an in-person nurse but speak remotely via video screen with a doctor located elsewhere.
Travis Bubenik has the full story HERE.
PSAs
Grand Companions, a non-profit West Texas pet rescue, will be hosting their 8th annual bowling fundraiser. The event will take place on February 22nd at Diamond Lanes in Odessa, and will include prizes, an auction, and of course - bowling!
For more information, and to register online, click HERE.
Our Lady Of Peace Church in Alpine will be holding a Sweetheart Gala Event on Saturday, February 15th from 6pm-1am at the Alpine Civic Center.
The evening, which includes cocktails, dinner, dancing and a silent auction, will be a benefit to help with building repairs at the Church.
For more information or to RSVP for the event, call 432-294-0886
The 5th annual Lone Star Cowboy Poetry Gathering will take place on Thursday, February 20th through Sunday, February 22nd at Sul Ross State University in Alpine.
The event, which draws cowboy poets and musicians from across Texas and beyond, honors the traditions of the working cowboy through poetry, music and storytelling.
For more information, including a schedule of events, click HERE.
