[Music intro]

LYNNE THOMPSON: Hello! My name is Lynne Thompson, Poet Laureate for the City of Los Angeles and I’m so happy to welcome listeners to this installment of Poems on Air, a podcast supported by the Los Angeles Public Library. Every week, I’ll present the work of poets I admire, poets who you should know, and poets who have made a substantial and inimitable contribution to the art and craft of poetry.

LYNNE THOMPSON: If you’re a regular attendee at poetry readings, you’ll know that often the events include not only a featured reader but an “open” when writers in the audience are invited to share their work. It is in these opens that one can find writers who you as an attendee may not know, nevertheless they are often treasures, established or otherwise, who are important to hear. Such was the case for me with the poet David Romero. Romero is a Mexican-American spoken word artist from Diamond Bar, CA and the author of My Name Is Romero. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California with a double major in Film and Philosophy.

LYNNE THOMPSON:Today’s poem is "Micro Machines" by David Romero.

Micro Machines

Mexican kid with the white skin and blue eyes
Knows a lot about art
This brings a smile to the white face of a museum docent
She asks the boy how he knows so much
The boy replies,
“My uncle is an artist”
The boy says this without a hint of cynicism or derision
This
To him
Is the greatest thing a person can be
An artist
The docent asks the boy,
“What’s his name?”
“Frank Romero”
“What does your uncle paint?”
“Cars”
“He paints old cars”
American cars from the 1920s through 50s
L.A.
Palm trees
Freeways
And familiar streets
As the background
Always bold in color
With a zigzagged impasto stroke
The kind of thing you see that immediately makes you say,
“That’s a Romero”
The boy suggests to the docent,
“Maybe he has something here?”
A pause from her, then,
“There’s an auto museum down the street
Maybe he has something there”
No, that doesn’t seem right...
“Maybe what you mean is - - he paints - - cars”
There’s a dusty wood and tin garage under this museum
And the docent has put his uncle into it
They call this aggression
But, really, it’s so easy, as she does it
But, his uncle doesn’t look the same there
His uncle
With bold, striped sweaters
Full, wild hair, and beard
Laugh, big enough to fill a room
Larger than-life-personality
Looks very different in the docent’s garage
To her, his uncle is a tiny uncle
With a shaved head
Brown Pendleton and Dickies
Navy work apron
And silver paint spray can in hand
He paints with that
In place of a brush
The cars in the garage
Are smaller too
They’re micro machines
And like them
The boy feels small
And getting smaller
His hopes
His pride
All the world and its colors
Shrinking to a vanishing point
Because he knows what she means.
I know what she meant
I couldn’t expand upon these ideas fast enough.
 
There is nothing wrong with painting cars
Painting pictures of cars
Or, dressing like a cholo
But, we are not all the same
You can’t paint us all with the same brush
Fit us all into the same stroke
Whatever the medium
There is nothing wrong with taking pride in your work
But, what is wrong
Is for anyone to assume
That we are a smaller people
A lesser people
It is wrong to assume
That any one of us can’t be acclaimed
Can’t hang
In your museum
Give him the top floor
Because my uncle is an artist
A painter
His work has hung in galleries the world over
You can find him in the Smithsonian
See his mural in L.A.
By the 101
And, yes
He, like me
Is a Mexican!
My uncle is an artist
A painter
Who’s been paid to paint cars
That were literally
Bigger than the Mona Lisa
My uncle is an artist
A painter
And like me he knows how to use
The principle of diminution
Which is making objects smaller in a piece of art
To help create a sense of perspective
My uncle is an artist
A painter
And he doesn’t get paid to talk about paintings

He gets paid to paint them
With checks
Larger than your desperate attempts
To try and re-frame him
And I won't let any of you
Make me feel small about any of us
Ever again.

LYNNE THOMPSON: The Los Angeles Poet Laureate was created as a joint program between the City’s Department of Cultural Affairs and the Los Angeles Public Library and this podcast is available wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening!

[Music outro]

• Back to Poems on Air: Episode 67



DISCLAIMER: This is NOT a certified or verbatim transcript, but rather represents only the context of the class or meeting, subject to the inherent limitations of real-time captioning. The primary focus of real-time captioning is general communication access and as such this document is not suitable, acceptable, nor is it intended for use in any type of legal proceeding. Transcript provided by the author.