Friday, June 20th, 2008...9:43 am

gary brower | a portrait

click on the image to enlarge.

Gary L. Brower

who holds a B.A. degree from Drury University in Spanish & History, M.A. & Ph.D. degrees in Romance Languages & Literatures from the University of Missouri at Columbia, has taught at Baker University (Ks.), Rogue Community College (Or.), University of Kansas, University of New Mexico, University of Southern California, University of California at Los Angeles, University of California at San Diego (visiting), as well as directing academic programs in Barcelona & Madrid, Spain, and Guadalajara, Mexico. A specialist in Hispanic Literature, especially of Latin America, he has published numerous essays in Spanish and English on writers such as Angel Gonzalez, Octavio Paz, Jorge Luis Borges, Carlos Fuentes, Juan Rulfo, Juan Carlos Onetti, Manoel Bandeira, Ernesto Sabato, Ezequiel Martinez Estrada & others, in various academic journals. He has also written two books on the impact of Japanese haiku on western poetry: The Haiku in Spanish American Poetry (Ann Arbor, University Micro) & An Annotated Bibliography of Haiku In Western Languages (with D. W. Foster), (Metuchen, NJ, Scarecrow Press). An associate editor of American Haiku magazine in its heydey, he also translated poems of Angel Gonzalez & Pablo Neruda.

And he has worked as a journalist in the English-language press of Los Angeles, including the positions of news editor & managing editor of a daily newspaper. In addition: he has worked with the southern Oregon Mexican migrant farmworker community, producing & directing a monthly Spanish-language PBS-TV program, “Quinto Sol”, (KSYS-TV, Medford, Or.), an ESL Outreach Program (Rogue River Community College) to migrant camps, the Jackson County (Or.) Hispanic Library Access Program & editing a weekly Spanish-language newspaper, which he founded, El Noticiero. He has worked with the Oregon Committee for the Humanities (Hispanic film program) & received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Carpenter Foundation, Del Amo Foundation, Witter Bynner Poetry Foundation & various universities.

His poetry (& translations from Hispanic poetry) have been published in magazines such as Puerto del Sol, The Poetry Bag, Put Poems, Tansy, Sagitario, Cottonwood Review, New America, Ann Arbor Review, New Mexico Magazine, Mundus Artium, 10.5 Arts Magazine, The Signpost, Ke5tra, Beatlick Poetry & Art News, The Rag, Sin Fronteras, The Peace of the Night (chapbook anthology), Saintvituspress.com, In Darkness, Memory (chapbook anthology), saintelizabethstreet.org, Sage Trail, Lunarosity.com & Central Avenue. He is currently one of the organizers of the Duende Poetry Series of Placitas and a chapbook, Planting Trees in Terra Incognita (Albuquerque, Destructible Heart Press) was issued in 2006. Another, The Book of Knots, (also Destructible Heart Press), was issued in 2007, as well as a broadside (with photographer David Cramer) “For the Wild Horses of Placitas,” a photo-poem, (June, 2007) & a CD-Gary Brower Reads (Vox Audio, 2008). He has read widely with guitarist El Nino David & dancer Susannah Garrett at such venues as the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque (Homenaje al poeta Angel Gonzalez), the Sunflower Festival in Mountainair, Duende Poetry Series, etc., & on CDs “A Tribute to Federico Garcia Lorca” (Vox Audio, 2007), “Duende & Friends read in Placitas” (Vox Audio, 2006). He has also taught classes on Hispanic literature for the Oasis program in Albuquerque. Born in Kansas City, Mo., he now lives in Placitas, NM.