Luis H. Valadez

Hardcore / Hip Hop / Ambient

Chicago Heights, IL

You do not have the current Adobe Flash Player

To listen to this audio clip you will need to upgrade Adobe Flash Player

You do not have Adobe Flash Player

To listen to this audio clip you will need to install Adobe Flash Player

About

Hello everyone,

My name is Luis Humberto Valadez. I am from a place called Chicago Heights, IL. It's a suburb of Chicago (on the south side) but not a suburb in the way one would typically view the term. While some distance from Chicago proper the landscape of Chicago Heights is rather urban and, in the experience of many, treacherous. For all the bleakness of this place, it is also remarkably diverse and sentient. It has factored into so much of my perspective that it looms as a backdrop in my first book of poetry "what i'm on" (University of Arizona Press, 2009).

I went to undergrad. at Columbia College Chicago and received my MFA in Writing & Poetics with a concentration in Poetry from Naropa University in Boulder, CO. I am a winner of the Lily Endowment and a Hispanic Scholarship Fund Scholar. I received the Academic Excellence Award from Columbia College Chicago as well as the Honors, Hiro Yamagata, and Ted Berrigan Scholarships from Naropa University. Previous to "what i'm on," I released two chapbooks of original work (Heid I-IV and Eye Part One: Eyes Likes it When Ya Die/Lord, Hear Our Prayer) on my own Cerda Press as well as a chapbook of translations from Spanish poet Federico García Lorca's Poet in New York. My work has been published in Bombay Gin 31, 26 Magazine, Columbia Poetry Review, Sliding Uteri, and Wet: A Journal of Proper Bathing from the University of Miami, as well as the online journals Watching the Wheels: A Blackbird, dogmatika.com, and Retort Magazine amongst others I was an editorial assistant for Arielle Greenberg's Youth Subcultures: Exploring Underground America (Longman, 2007), and Co-Editor-in-Chief of The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics' journal Bombay Gin 32, which included Anne Waldman, Thurston Moore, Jello Biafra, Rachel Blau Du Plessis, and Juan Felipe Herrera.

As a performer, I've shared the stage with folks like Thurston Moore, Against Me, Saul Williams, Jello Biafra, Juan Felipe Herrera, Ten-Speed, Tim Z. Hernandez, Megan A. Volpert, and others. I've played bass and screamed in a few bands as well. Before I approached writing seriously I was playing music, electric bass specifically, and I like to bring a live musical energy to my poetry readings/performances. I have also released an EP of poetry and music with multi-genre producer/musician endofnight, called wat ahm on (ep) in conjunction with Last Minute Records.

In my ventures as a writer and student it has become quite apparent to me that exploiting my disadvantaged socio-economic background to academic success story is a bad. I find it better to break down, deform, and deconstruct the mores of hood stories and life. One on end I see myself as peeling away at layers of identity and neuroses and at the other I see myself as throwing hooks in water. As many have done for me in the past, I am hoping to provide others with something to grab onto to get them through the next phase of their life. I sincerely believe that had certain artists and other presences not come along in my life when I was a child and given me something to grab onto and float along with, I most certainly would either be in jail or dead and perhaps have caused some vile destruction on the way to those plateaus. In light of all of this, I still believe it most important to search for the intention behind the initial sentiment.

These days I write, perform, play bass, make music, and work as a Program & Education Coordinator for Chicago HOPES (Heightening Opportunity and Potential for Educational Success). We are an initiative of the Chicago Public Schools Homeless Education Program that provides one-on-one tutoring, personal development programs, and other support and services for students living in homeless shelters in Chicago. I work with the organization as an Americorps VISTA. We are looking for more volunteers and support, so please check us out www.chicagohopes.org.

What some other folks have to say about Luis Humberto Valadez's work:

"Valadez's work is not simply fierce language poetics...here is a writer--the genuine article--whose style is that of a truth speaking curandero, offering sacred cantos to anyone interested in illuminating that inner revolution called corazon. To read his work is to discover the future of American poetica!"

-Tim Z. Hernandez,
Author of Skin Tax,
2006 American Book Award

"Strong--real light flashes."

-Amiri Baraka

"Brave, raw, and exposing of a young man's consciousness. Luis's work is not confessional in the limited, put-it-in-a-box way that big publishers like to market their material to liberal guilt."

-Andrew Schelling
Author of Tea Shack Interior: New & Selected Poetry
Winner Harold Morton Landon Translation Award

Valadez's impressions abruptly transport the reader from swaggering elucidation to raw pain. In a sometimes-resigned glance around for divinity, wat ahm on triggers equally sudden heart-rippings, laughter, and cinematic naturescapes.

-Claire Nixon
Journalist
Creator, Transients Comics Series

Photos(4)

Text(2)

Aug 13, 2007

five mens' wounds

after i asked if you
ever enjoyed sex and you said
"well, certainly not the first
who barged in from the cold and
called me even colder"

and no more was to come
from the car home
from your hospital work

i had a dream we took
a crowded train into the …

Getting Punched in the Arm Over the Summer

"Well, I've heard that he's been real broken up since his mother died, y'know. I heard that last night he just kept ordering drinks he wasn't drinking and food he wasn't eating. It's just like he craves this nourishment but he can't take it in."

Miguel Algarín …

Comments(24)

You must be logged in to post comments. Not a member? Join now!

Travis, Aug 21, 2007:

Its cool your busy, I am busy here at school, trying to stay organized. I'm returning to Kansas City this weekend to see a reunion tour with a band called "Coalesce".
Other than that man, not much. I have no life, I just smoke my cigarettes and write and go to school. I'm tyring to find places to speak my words, but so far theres no form of Prose or Poem readings here.

-Peace

Ziplok, Aug 13, 2007:

Travis, Jul 10, 2007:

I myself am a theology student. I'm in between Philosophy/Anthropology right now. I'm 1 1/2 years from a degree, so I'm almost done and then god willing I will go to grad school/seminary. I'm not exactly sure what I will be doing, I might be a scholar or something for the bible, I really have no idea. Thats what I've wanted to do for a while. I have played in a few bands and like to write a lot of prose or hip-hop oriented style writings im surprised I never really did anything with that. However I've never talked about my writing or even spoken any of it. I just kind of write it for myself, but I would love to do something with it, maybe music. But I cant see myself as a hip-hop artist.

Travis, Jul 8, 2007:

what did you major in at school?

BrainStorm Operations, Jul 7, 2007:

Hello random Virbonaut!

Greetings from the flight deck of the BrainSt0rm-01. We wish you a blessed journey.

-Chill The Planet,

St0rm from BrainSt0rm

Travis, Jul 5, 2007:

besides writing? do you do anything cool? do you play any instrumetnts or generate any beats for your music?

Travis, Jul 3, 2007:

i've heard of that Columbia school, my ex-girlfriend wants to go there really badly. Uh yeah, i went to a place called Johnson County Community College in Kansas City, but while I was going there I was homeless, so i was pretty much living in my car. But now Im staying wiht my friends and im getting money to go to a place called Emporia State University, so I'll have a place to live in the dorms which should be pretty cool.