Poetry - Guest Poet

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GUEST POET

Each summer special guest artists are invited to exhibit works which interpret or express the site's theme in some way. This year's Guest Poet had five poems included on the site based on the Mexican game of Loteria. The poems, as in the original book, were accompanied by the linocuts of the Guest Printmaker. Loteria (Spanish for "lottery") is a Mexican game of chance most closely comparable to bingo in the U.S. The 100 poems and images included in the book were based in part on the traditional Loteria cards and game (read more below). More information about the Guest Poet and Guest Printmaker were available on the site's Guests page. (2013 NOTE: Because artwork was created for this page and the individual poem pages, each page will be accessible but without the text of the poems or accompanying linocuts.)

LOTERIA TABLA 5

Loteria Poems

As described above, Loteria is a game from Mexico most closely comparable to bingo in the United States. Instead of only numbers, images are used on the "Tablas," or Loteria playing boards, and corresponding Loteria cards. The tablas generally consist of four rows of four numbered and named images. Instead of calling a number from a ball as in bingo, a card is drawn from a deck of loteria cards (a traditional deck has 54 cards). A riddle or some type of clue is often given to tell which card has been drawn, rather than directly reading the name or number of the image. If the image corresponds to an image contained on the player's board, the player marks the image with a marker (it could be a bean, coin, rock, etc.). A person who gets four images in a row calls out "Loteria!" or "Buena! (good)" and is the winner. The sheet at left is an imaginary sheet created based on the titles of the poems in the book. The five poems included on the site are highlighted in colors on the card at left. Click on any of the five images with colored borders at left to go to the poems, or click on any of the titles below:

La Rosa (The Rose)
El Ferrocarril (The Railroad)
El Fuego (Fire)
La Loteria (Loteria)
La Pera (The Pear)