W.M. Rivera
W.M. Rivera

W.M. Rivera has a new book titled Buried in the Mind’s Backyard (Brickhouse Books -- also available at Itascabooks.com and Amazon.com). Born in New Orleans, he began publishing poetry in the 1950s. His early poetry appeared under the names William Rivera and William McLeod Rivera in The Nation, Prairie Schooner, the Kenyon Review and the New Laurel Review among other publications. Recent poems have appeared in the California Quarterly, Gargoyle, Ghazal, and Broome Review. A first book of his poetry was published in 1960 titled, The End of Legend’s String, illustrated by Mexican artist, José Luis Cuevas. His new book, Buried in the Mind’s Backyard, was published by Brickhouse Books in 2011, with a cover print by Miguel Condé, one of Spain’s prominent artists. Rivera’s professional activities in agricultural development have taken him to more than 30 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America. Retired from the University of Maryland, he is putting together his next collection of poetry under the title The You that’s Left.

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Matchets and Diamonds

Returned from the heart-shaped continent, clocking time, Africans with PhDs taxi forth.*   Those who have crossed and live, look back, let go traditions for the modern grab. Their ‘Africa-Independent’ is overrun; its cities spiked with poverty, rotten profiteers, jobless youth, the reek of rhetoric… Banks’ corrupted leaders who front what’s rank.   Neither here […]

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Blank Slate

I hate to see that evening Sun bite down/
one ruler for another

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The Logic of Rot

“There are people who ignore Zambia’s plight. And there are people who try to take advantage of the situation.”

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KwaZulu-land

From Washington, DC to Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, for an agricultural development conference, held at the Golden Horse Casino Hotel, May, 2007.

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