The Chills at Will Podcast

Episode 92 with Alan Chazaro, Hip Hop Head, Baller, Aesthete, and Writer of the Prize-Winning This is Not a Frank Ocean Cover Album and Piñata Theory


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Episode 92 Notes and Links to Alan Chazaro’s Work    
 
   
    On Episode 92 of The Chills at Will Podcast, Pete welcomes Alan Chazaro, poet, hip hop head, baller, and artist in the truest sense of the word. The two talk about Alan’s childhood in the Bay Area, the importance of music and hip hop in his work, as well as ideas of identity, cross-culturalism, pochismo, and gentrification, among other topics. The two discuss Alan’s eccentric and diverse interests in arts of all types, and the inspiration for, and themes behind, his prize-winning This a Not a Frank Ocean Cover Album and Piñata Theory. 
 
        After nine years as a public high school teacher in Louisiana, Massachusetts, and California, Alan Chazaro decided to pursue his creative writing more seriously and has been living as a freelance writer who travels and enjoys new cultures around the world. He’s a San Francisco Bay Area local but also has been finalizing his paperwork as a Mexican dual-citizen, so he’s jumping between both countries while he continues to write, edit, teach, and grow. In 2018, he graduated with his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of San Francisco where he was a Lawrence Ferlinghetti Poetry Fellow, which is awarded to a writer “whose work embodies a concern for social justice and freedom of expression.” Previously, he attended Foothill Community College, and later UC Berkeley, where he participated in June Jordan's Poetry for the People program. He also got some game from Patricia Smith, among others, at the Voices Of Our Nations summer workshops. His first poetry collection, This Is Not a Frank Ocean Cover Album, was the winner of the 2018 Black River Chapbook Competition and his second, Piñata Theory, was given the 2018 Hudson Prize. They are both available with Black Lawrence Press. Currently, he’s working as an adjunct professor at the University of San Francisco, managing his online NBA zine HeadFake, moonlighting as an assistant poetry editor at AGNI Magazine, and raising money for NBA arena workers during COVID-19. For more info, find him on Twitter @alan_chazaro.
Buy Alan Chazaro's Piñata Theory
 
Buy Alan Chazaro's This Is Not a Frank Ocean Cover Album
 
Pinata Theory: A Conversation with Alan Chazaro from The Adroit Journal
 
Review: This is Not a Frank Ocean Cover Album-done by José Hernández Diaz for Diode Poetry
 
Reviews: Identity as the Fractured Thing: Gustavo Barahona-López on Alan Chazaro’s Piñata Theory-For Honey Literary Magazine
 
Buy Alan's Notes from the Eastern Span of the Bay Bridge
At about 3:30, Alan talks about his upbringing in the California Bay Area and his family’s story, as well as how gentrification has affected his city and neighborhood
 
At about 8:10, Alan talks about his relationship with language and reading in his adolescent years,  as well as his family’s experiences with assimilation
 
At about 9:45, Alan talks about the importance of sports and stereotypically-masculine pursuits in his life and in his writing
 
At about 10:50, Alan talks about a overwhelmingly-positive influence from his surrogate grandfather in his exploration of literature and art
 
At about 14:30, Alan talks about Bay Area music and its influence on him and his work
 
At about 15:55, Pete comes with two hot Bay Area hip hop takes 
 
At about 16:55, Pete asks Alan about his usage of “pocho,” such as its used in his Twitter handle
 
At about 18:00, Alan shouts out Sara Borjas for her work in reclaiming the term “pocho/pocha,” which inspired him and his work-Sara will be in conversation with Pete in a few weeks!
 
At about 19:15, Pete and Alan discuss the book Pocho by Villarreal
 
At about 20:00, Alan highlights some chill-inducing literature in high school and college after being “academically , and he responds to Pete’s question about representation 
 
At about 21:20, Alan talks about merging different art forms and knowledge in community college in conjunction with formative texts like those of Martin E
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