Poem-A-Day: When There Were Ghosts by Alberto Ríos

March 3, 2014 When There Were Ghosts by Alberto Ríos   On the Mexico side in the 1950s and 60s,  There were movie houses everywhere    And for the longest time people could smoke  As they pleased in the comfort of the theaters.    The smoke rose and the movie told itself  On the screen and in the air both,    The projection caught a little  In the wavering mist of the cigarettes.    In this way, every story was two stories  And every character lived near its ghost.    Looking up we knew what would happen next  Before it did, as if it the movie were dreaming    Itself, and we were part of it, part of the plot  Itself, and not just the audience.    And in that dream the actors' faces bent  A little, hard to make out exactly in the smoke,    So that María Félix and Pedro Armendáriz  Looked a little like my aunt and one of my uncles--    And so they were, and so were we all in the movies,  Which is how I remember it: Popcorn in hand,    Smoke in the air, gum on the floor--  Those Saturday nights, we ourselves    Were the story and the stuff and the stars.  We ourselves were alive in the dance of the dream.        Copyright © 2014 by Alberto Ríos. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem  "I've taught a course on magical realism since the seventies, and when people hear this they often talk immediately about ghosts. They want to talk about 'magical,' while I try to point to the noun 'realism.' But this made me think: Can ghosts and realism be reconciled outside a literary moment? Yes, I realized, drawing on my own life. Yes and easily." --Alberto Ríos  Most Recent Book by Ríos The Dangerous Shirt (Copper Canyon Press, 2009)               Poem-A-Day Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-A-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Browse the Poem-A-Day Archive.     Alberto Ríos is the author of The Dangerous Shirt (Copper Canyon Press, 2009). He is currently the inaugural poet laureate of Arizona and, this year, was elected to the Academy's Board of Chancellors.  Related Poems Blue Oxen by Dara Wier     Epitaph by Eric Pankey     Ghost by Paul Mariani __________________________ Love reading Poem-A-Day? Help support it today.     Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.

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