ABSTRACT
What would we call that moment in life in which the precarious nature of our existence without warning is exposed and suddenly everything we accept, believe, take for granted, seems to succumb to the unrelenting questioning of our mind? For some, these are symptoms of what is known as mid-life crisis. For me, these are just some of the very conditions in which poetry frequently comes to me. As a Chicano poet who also celebrates being gay, I have come to realize that I write desde afuera del margen mismo de la sociedad (from the outside of even the margin of society), and that for some, even my own gente, I represent the ultimate Other.
