Episode 92 with Alan Chazaro, Hip Hop Head, Baller, Aesthete, and Writer of the Prize-Winning This is Not a Frank Ocean Cover Album and Piñata Theory

Episode 92 Notes and Links to Alan Chazaro’s Work    

 

   

    On Episode 92 of The Chills at Will Podcast, Pete welcomes Alan Chazaro, poet, hip hop head, baller, and artist in the truest sense of the word. The two talk about Alan’s childhood in the Bay Area, the importance of music and hip hop in his work, as well as ideas of identity, cross-culturalism, pochismo, and gentrification, among other topics. The two discuss Alan’s eccentric and diverse interests in arts of all types, and the inspiration for, and themes behind, his prize-winning This a Not a Frank Ocean Cover Album and Piñata Theory. 

 

        After nine years as a public high school teacher in Louisiana, Massachusetts, and California, Alan Chazaro decided to pursue his creative writing more seriously and has been living as a freelance writer who travels and enjoys new cultures around the world. He’s a San Francisco Bay Area local but also has been finalizing his paperwork as a Mexican dual-citizen, so he’s jumping between both countries while he continues to write, edit, teach, and grow. In 2018, he graduated with his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of San Francisco where he was a Lawrence Ferlinghetti Poetry Fellow, which is awarded to a writer “whose work embodies a concern for social justice and freedom of expression.” Previously, he attended Foothill Community College, and later UC Berkeley, where he participated in June Jordan's Poetry for the People program. He also got some game from Patricia Smith, among others, at the Voices Of Our Nations summer workshops. His first poetry collection, This Is Not a Frank Ocean Cover Album, was the winner of the 2018 Black River Chapbook Competition and his second, Piñata Theory, was given the 2018 Hudson Prize. They are both available with Black Lawrence Press. Currently, he’s working as an adjunct professor at the University of San Francisco, managing his online NBA zine HeadFake, moonlighting as an assistant poetry editor at AGNI Magazine, and raising money for NBA arena workers during COVID-19. For more info, find him on Twitter @alan_chazaro.

Buy Alan Chazaro's Piñata Theory

 

Buy Alan Chazaro's This Is Not a Frank Ocean Cover Album

 

Pinata Theory: A Conversation with Alan Chazaro from The Adroit Journal

 

Review: This is Not a Frank Ocean Cover Album-done by José Hernández Diaz for Diode Poetry

 

Reviews: Identity as the Fractured Thing: Gustavo Barahona-López on Alan Chazaro’s Piñata Theory-For Honey Literary Magazine

 

Buy Alan's Notes from the Eastern Span of the Bay Bridge

At about 3:30, Alan talks about his upbringing in the California Bay Area and his family’s story, as well as how gentrification has affected his city and neighborhood

 

At about 8:10, Alan talks about his relationship with language and reading in his adolescent years,  as well as his family’s experiences with assimilation

 

At about 9:45, Alan talks about the importance of sports and stereotypically-masculine pursuits in his life and in his writing

 

At about 10:50, Alan talks about a overwhelmingly-positive influence from his surrogate grandfather in his exploration of literature and art

 

At about 14:30, Alan talks about Bay Area music and its influence on him and his work

 

At about 15:55, Pete comes with two hot Bay Area hip hop takes 

 

At about 16:55, Pete asks Alan about his usage of “pocho,” such as its used in his Twitter handle

 

At about 18:00, Alan shouts out Sara Borjas for her work in reclaiming the term “pocho/pocha,” which inspired him and his work-Sara will be in conversation with Pete in a few weeks!

 

At about 19:15, Pete and Alan discuss the book Pocho by Villarreal

 

At about 20:00, Alan highlights some chill-inducing literature in high school and college after being “academically , and he responds to Pete’s question about representation 

 

At about 21:20, Alan talks about merging different art forms and knowledge in community college in conjunction with formative texts like those of Martin Espada and the music of Lateef the Truthspeaker

 

At about 23:25, Alan discusses his evolving understanding of how representation was tied to his reading and artistic development

 

At about 27:20, Alan talks about his contemporary reading habits and listening habits, including Oakland’s Ovrkast. and Offset Jim

 

At about 29:10, Pete wonders about any “ ‘Eureka’ moments” for Alan in his artistic endeavors

 

At about 30:20, Alan talks about his unique and varied experiences growing up melded into the book he wanted to write

 

At about 31:50, Alan talks about his musical output and how “being a person of words and ideation” found a natural fit in hip hop and poetry

 

At about 34:05, Pete drop bar(s)

 

At about 35:00, Alan lays out the timeline that led to the publishing of Frank Ocean and Piñata Theory

 

At about 36:50, Alan discusses  some “seeds” that led him to put his publishing ideas into action and shouts out The June Jordan Poetry for the People program 

 

At about 39:20, Alan discusses some of his motivations 

 

At about 40:25, Pete asks Alan about his views on form, titles, and themes/concepts in poetry

 

At about 44:20, Pete wonders about Alan’s philosophy on language and translation in his work, and Alan gives background on his poem written solely in Spanish

 

At about 46:20, Alan discusses identity and cross-culture, as well as music’s thread through his life, including different genres

 

At about 50:35, Pete highlights love in its many forms as shown in some of Alan’s poems

 

At about 52:10, Pete and Alan discuss themes of “home” and identity and love and belonging in some of Alan's Piñata Theory

 

At about 54:30, Alan shouts out his incredible grandfather and his appearances in Alan’s poetry

 

At about 57:10, Pete and Alan discuss father/son relationships and ideas of masculinity, as well how searching for poetry ideas and threads  

 

At about 59:45, the two discuss Alan’s poem about watching the 1996 Julio Cesar Chavez and Oscar De la Hoya fight and its ramifications and metaphors

 

At about 1:01:55, Pete and Alan discuss themes of innocence and youth in Alan’s poetry, with Alan shouting out Outkast as one of his many muses

 

At about 1:04:40, Alan describes the poetry collection’s title and its “many cores”

 

At about 1:08:45, Alan shouts out East Bay Booksellers, Walden Pond Books, Pegasus Books as some local indie stores to support

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Please tune in for the next episode, a conversation with Steph Cha. She is the author of Your House Will Pay, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the California Book Award, and the Juniper Song crime trilogy. She’s a critic whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, where she served as noir editor, and is the current series editor of the Best American Mystery & Suspense anthology.  The episode will air on November 30.