{"id":3795,"date":"2023-11-27T20:53:37","date_gmt":"2023-11-28T00:53:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/?page_id=3795"},"modified":"2023-11-27T20:53:37","modified_gmt":"2023-11-28T00:53:37","slug":"castro-protector","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/poetry-archive\/castro-protector\/","title":{"rendered":"Castro &#8211; Protector"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"font-weight: 400\"><b><i>Protector<\/i><\/b><\/h2>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steve Castro<\/span><\/p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I handed her the rope. \u201cThat\u2019s an octopus,\u201d she said. \u201cMight as well be ink &amp; paper,\u201d I replied. \u201cThen can you write me a novella?\u201d She suggested. \u201cAbout what?\u201d I asked. \u201cWhy don\u2019t you write a love story between a machete &amp; a cigar,\u201d she said enthusiastically.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0The rope turned octopus then commented that such a love story had already been written. Ink &amp; paper don\u2019t just write themselves, I thought before a loud splash was heard coming through the open kitchen window. The octopus holding a machete in each tentacle told us to stay put while it disappeared into the black lagoon to investigate.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-4096 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1188\/2023\/11\/IMG_8096-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><strong>Steve Castro<\/strong> is a Costa Rican surrealist whose 2019 debut poetry collection, <em>Blue Whale Phenomena<\/em>, was published by Otis Books (Otis College of Art and Design. Los Angeles, CA). His poetry is forthcoming in <em>Image Journal <\/em>&amp; <em>Bayou Magazine<\/em>. It has appeared in <em>Guesthouse; Salamander; PALABRITAS<\/em> (Harvard College); <em>Water~Stone Review; Strange Horizons; DIAGRAM; Green Mountains Review; Verse Daily; The Florida Review; Forklift, Ohio<\/em>; etc. He holds two undergraduate degrees (B.S. &amp; B.A.) from Indiana University-Bloomington. He earned his M.F.A. in Creative Writing (Poetry) from The American University in Washington, D.C.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Protector Steve Castro &nbsp; I handed her the rope. \u201cThat\u2019s an octopus,\u201d she said. \u201cMight as well be ink &amp; paper,\u201d I replied. \u201cThen can you write me a novella?\u201d <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/poetry-archive\/castro-protector\/\">Continue Reading &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5280,"featured_media":0,"parent":1261,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3795"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5280"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3795"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4554,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3795\/revisions\/4554"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}