A Blanquito In El Barrio

Overview
Excerpts

by Gil Fagiani

Out of the squishy swamp of dead personal lyrics that is contemporary American poetry, Gil Fagiani’s hard-boned zombies rise out of his poetry collection, A Blanquito in El Barrio. His poems of a white junkie in East Harlem are crafty narratives that sing the music of sex, compassion, friendship, justice, mercy, comedy, betrayal, dope and more dope. Fagiani is a poet of unusual power. These poems have strong heart and deep soul. A Blanquito in El Barrio is that rare good thing--a necessary good book.

—Angelo Verga, author of A Hurricane Is, 33 NYC Poems, and Praise For What Remains

In A Blanquito in El Barrio, Gil Fagiani tells stories, horrifying tales of heroin addiction, rendered unsparingly and stark, in unflinching poetic lines. It’s a story of addiction, rehabilitation, and redemption, peopled with desperate, decimated, and unforgettable characters, whose tragic lives he never condemns, but uplifts and honors with tough, vivid verses, set to the pulsing rhythms of Latin dance halls.

—Steve Zeitlin, Founding Director, City Lore: The New York Center for Urban Folk Culture

Gil Fagiani writes of his love for Spanish Harlem during the late 1960s and his profound connection to its residents. His affection for Latino culture rings out in poems that pay homage to such great musicians as Ray Barretto, Tito Puente, La Lupe, and Arsenio Rodriguez. This is an honest, gripping and deeply personal collection.

—Nicholasa Mohr, lives in East Harlem and is the author of Nilda, El Bronx Remembered, Rituals of Survival: A Woman’s Portfolio, Felita, and A Matter of Pride

Gil Fagiani's poetry collection Rooks (Rain Mountain Press, 2007) is set at Pennsylvania Military College in the 1960s, his poetry chapbook Grandpa’s Wine (Poets Wear Prada in 2008) focuses on his family’s immigrant generation, and has been translated into Italian by Paul D’Agostino (Poets Wear Prada, pending 2009). His book of poetry Chianti in Connecticut was inspired by his childhood in Springdale, Connecticut (Bordighera, pending 2009).

Gil’s poems and translations have been published in more than a dozen anthologies, as well as such newspapers and journals as The New York Times, The Paterson Literary Review, Mudfish, Skidrow Penthouse, Descant, Philadelphia Poets, Identity Theory, Saint Elizabeth Street, The Ledge, Italian Americana, The Journal of Italian Translation, and Gradiva.

He has translated into English, poetry written in Italian, Abruzzese dialect, and Spanish. He co-hosts the monthly open reading of the Italian American Writers’ Association at the Cornelia Street Café, and is the Associate Editor of Feile-Festa: A Literary Arts Journal.

by Gil Fagiani

Cuchifritos

I had the sizzle in my chisel for Nilsa,
dug her big eyes, moist, meaty lips,
color and curves like sculpted teakwood.
One night I took her to Papo's Cuchifritos.
She'd been playing hard to get all summer long
and I figured a belly full of spicy pig parts and fritters
might open her up to other bodily pleasures.

I'd eaten cuchifritos once before
after a night of blowing weed
and tossing down Bacardi with Manny and Count
the former president and warlord of a local street gang
--"We even had our own social worker "--Count boasted.
We'd finished harmonizing such doo wop classics
as "Deserie," "Wind" and "Gloria,"
under the archway of the Park Avenue El
when Count pulled out a wad of bills
--birthday money, he claimed--and said,
"let's grit at Papo's," a cuchifrito joint on 116th Street.

Beneath blazing light bulbs over front window metal bins,
Count pointed to orejas, rabitos, morcillas,
acapurias, pastelillos, rellenos de papa.
Juggling white cardboard boxes dripping cooking oil,
we sat on car fenders and ate pig's ears, pig tails,
blood sausages, fritters and meat-filled potato balls.

The swagger of that night stayed with me
as Nilsa and I walked into Papo's
and copped squats on steel shiny stools.
I pointed to half a dozen bins
and soon cuchifritos were piled high in front of us.
Before I could pick up my fork
Nilsa grabbed a fire-red bottle
and bathed a bacalaito--codfishfritter--
with Louisiana hot sauce devouring it in three bites.
Then she picked up the tip of an oreja
and began to chew on the rubbery cartilage,
her teeth making loud crunching sounds.

Under the Ferris Wheel

I looked up to them:
Count--his real name,
Heriberto Colón Hernández--
warlord during the glory days
of aristocratic, street fighting gangs,
and Nandy--Dandy Nandy--
former second tenor
of the 103rd Street Latineers,
a guest once on Symphony Sid's radio program.

Together they'd schooled me
--college dropout, utopian do-gooder—
in the ways of the streets:
la buena gente, la mala gente,
the trustworthy, the honorable,
the whores, hustlers,
títeres, and cutthroats.

They taught me
how to slap five,
make verbal jive
en español:
¿Qué pasa?
¡Vaya¡
¡Qué chévere!
Estoy en algo.

The best place to cop
piraguas,
pastelillos,
rellenos de papas,
pernil sandwiches,
bags of chiba-chiba,
cut-rate jugs of fruit-flavored wine,
Orange-Rock, Lemon-Rock,
Tito Puente and Machito albums.

Things to say to muchachas:
preciosa,
tú me vuelves loco,
¡ay mama!
But Count and Nandy changed:
long sleeves in 100 degree weather,
legs that couldn't stay straight.
They laughed less,
took off without warning.

I saw them together for the last time
at the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel
on 3rd Avenue and 116th.
Squeezing through a crowd
of fine Italian and Puerto Rican mamis,
with a cerveza fria in one hand
and a sausage hero in the other,
I scoped them out under the ferris wheel
picking through weeds,
metal piling,
cardboard boxes of pizza crusts.

“Qué pasa?” I said,
a boss lid cocked over my left eye.
"Something fell out
when we rode the ferris wheel,"
Count said, white-lipped,
the bones of his shoulders showing.
"Like what?"
Nandy turned,
dropped to his knees,
staring through the holes
of a sewer grating.
Next she chowed down on two blood sausages
thick and black as a policeman's club.
Then she picked up a fried pig's tail
and ate it like an ice cream cone,
strips of pork sticking out the side of her mouth,
lips a blaze of yellow grease.
I sat quietly nibbling on a potato ball.
"What's the matter, no tiene hambre—
you're not hungry?"
I smiled as a drum roll by Tito Puente