Buy: Mexican Dinosaur by C.L. "Rooster" Martinez | Write About Now Publishing | October 2023 | $20
What living poet/writer had the biggest influence on your book?
Definitely Nikki Giovanni. I believe in the directness and accessibility of her work. I believe in the directness of her activist voice within a poetic framework and how it's clear while poetry still flourishes around it.
Can you describe the environment(s) where you wrote your book? This could be the room, the desk, the city, an MFA program, a fellowship, or any other environmental factor (you only wrote when it rained, you always wrote with fresh flowers in the room, etc.).
I wrote Mexican Dinosaur in a variety of environments. Some of the poems came from scratching notes and thoughts while traveling across the country for poetry slams, others from drilling my feet behind my desk in my office and forcing my gremlin fingers to do their damn job. However, I find my office to be a sanctum--art, movie posters, figurines, and books scattered around in a creative mess. And coffee. Coffee always.
What was your writing process? Your editing process? Did you adopt a unique process for this book, or do you have a “go-to” approach for all your writing?
Writing happens often with me. Even when I'm not writing, I'm writing. I've trained myself to lock important lines, ideas, titles, or whole poems in my mind until I can arrive somewhere to jot them. I'm also always on a device of some sort. My phone has a growing library of notes of unfinished poems, ideas, and half-brained plans to liberate the world. Editing and gathering/sorting is where the real work happens. I begin by gathering and seeing which poems match or are in conversation with each other. I align them into small armies according to how I feel. Sometimes I begin with an overall sense of what it should be or a title for the collection, so the work then becomes about filling out the menu of the idea. After I have a collection of things, I go back and edit for content, flow, structure, and more. I ask other writers for feedback on specific poems or chunks of the writing.
How did writing this book transform you?
Mexican Dinosaur aged me in a positive way. For me, it was a lot of conscientious choices to reject traditional, contemporary, or canonical approaches to creating the work. I wanted the book to feel like me. And some books like Citizen Illegal or Rant, Chant, Chisme speak to me, they weren't all the things I thought or feel. So by the end of it all, I felt years beyond where I began. I think it is normal--especially for new writers--to write towards a sort of acceptance by their peers, their heroes, and audiences. They want their work to belong on the shelves. That approach can lead to well-written work but can also be spiritually limiting to the artist. Mexican Dinosaur brought me to a place of self-assuredness I hadn't previously felt.
You can often tell a lot about a book by how it begins and how it ends. What is the first line and last line of your book?
The first line is: A curse word lept from my six-year-old lips
The last line is: to play.
Do you have a new project that you’re working on? Could you tell us a bit about it?
I'm currently working on what could be a follow-up to Mexican Dinosaur. Whereas MD was focused on unearthing history and pop culture, the new work examines Latinx and Mexican American futurism. I think it's interesting considering ideas like countries of origin, ethnicities, and diasporas in the future or off-world. Does one's Mexican-ness travel past the stars?
C.L. Rooster Martinez is a spoken word poet, professor, and occasional podcaster from San Antonio, TX. He has authored three books - A Saint for Lost Things, As it is in Heaven, and Mexican Dinosaur (winner of the 2024 NACCS Tejas Foco book award for poetry). Roost is Executive Director of Write Art Out Inc, a literary nonprofit in SA and a former grand slam champion. Find more about him at his Instagram: roostmtz.