Courtesy of American Poetry dot Biz
“American Poetry, as I shall demonstrate this year and in all years ever after celebrates what’s great about America (baseball) and what’s great about poetry (it’s short). It celebrates the creation of a text, an art form that is basically worthless to everyone concerned but somehow still worth having around, like really excellent graffiti. The Politics of Self-Promotion in Poetry must come to an end. I don’t know why some are so eager to engage in it: I have experienced the bountiful love and the unmitigated hatred of many poets, many of the same poets. And there’s barely any decipherable difference, I find both impossibly hostile. There is a different way through poems: not everyone has to start a blog, become buddies with other people who have blogs, start movements of poetry, publish book after book after book, become a professor, put students into debt, ruin your own life and live in a vast sea of your own bitterness: that doesn’t seem like a way to go. It’s hard out here for pimps, visionaries, people who don’t want to play the game. But I’d rather die as an enemy to what most poets in this country represent than live the life of the professional poet, the friendly poet, the one who wanted to join the system rather than fuck it up.
The only thing you need to be a poet in this country is to read poems, hear poems and write poems. Nothing else matters and nothing else ever will. There could be a revolution in every line or a complicit agreement in each to be a part of the problem: you decide, it’s your mediocrity we’re talking about here. After every workshop has been taught, after every student loan bill has been paid, it’ll still be you in a room with a blank page headed towards dawn.
You may think of me as just another creepy charlatan, and of course I am. I’ve created this character over the years, the angry outsider, the crazy poetry terrorist, the sexy koala of love, the wrathful hammer of anger, whatever, this personae has served me well. I am angry and I am somewhat sexy. In the end, I simply wish to evaporate up off the pavement, leaving nothing at all behind. In the moments when you choose for yourself a life of middle management v. a life pleasing only yourself with the poems you tinker at, I hope you will chose. You can support a system that puts students and poets into massive debt for no apparent reason, or you can resist that system. You might as well spend that money, in my opinion, on books of poetry you enjoy, on door $ for poetry readings, on cases of bad beer and on a couch in the middle of the woods to make out on. The revolution is not a facebook group and you will not receive an evite to it. American Poetry happens, for me, the moment everything else is happening: especially not this essay.” -Jim Behrle
OCHO #16
OCHO 16: MiPOesias Magazine Print Companion
Guest Edited by Barbara Jane Reyes
Featuring: Tara Betts, Brian Dean Bollman, Ching-In Chen, Sasha Pimentel Chacón, Linh Dinh, Sarah Gambito, Jessica Hagedorn, Jaime Jacinto, Nathaniel Mackey, Craig Santos Perez, Matthew Shenoda, Jennifer K. Sweeney, Truong Tran, Dillon Westbrook, Debbie Yee
Cover Art: “Imperialism, 24″ by Juan Carlos Quintana.
Buy your copy here.
Nathaniel Mackey with Craig Santos Perez @ The Holloway Series
Bummed out that I couldn’t go to Lunch Poems and check out Arthur Sze’s reading. Barb has told me so much about his work and it would have been great to hear his work. The UC library where the series is held is also a dope place for poetry. On the plus side, I did get to check out Craig Santos Perez and Nathaniel Mackey read tonight.
Hillary Gravendyk dropped an awesome intro for Craig that highlighted his hard work as an author, critic, and editor; and how these roles all come together in the service and promotion of poetry. Hillary went on to speak of Craig’s ability to co-opt the text of the co-opter and from that weaves a new text that “gently resists the urge to speak for the group.â€
Craig read poems from four of his 11 chapbooks, the first a set of poems from Informant where Craig updates Williams Carlos Williams’ “This Is Just To Say†to speak on the violations of the Hearst Museum, and the refusal of the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand to acknowledge indigenous rights.
From there we heard the tales of Juan Malo, a mythical figure in Chamorro resistance literature, the commoner who is able to out wit and befuddle his
Another shift in tone occurs when Craig reads from Pre-Touring as the We comes to the forefront of the poems. This We shifts back to a very immediate I in his last poem “Achoite†where respect for nature (the things that came before us and will live on after us) is taught through the ritual of cultivating achiote seeds with his grandmother.
All these tones and sceneries delivered without rush or hyperbole, the poems practically speaking for themselves.
That’s it for now. Tomorrow, more on Nathaniel Mackey and the intersection of history and memory, and how Sze and Mackey both take the delicate word and craft it into fine materials that seek to outlast time.
Charles Simic on the current state of Poetry in the US
Poetry doesn’t need much promotion. It is doing quite well in this country. I gave a reading the other night in Concord, N.H., with two former poet laureates — Donald Hall and Maxine Kumin —and 740 people came. That’s a lot of people!
– Charles Simic, New York Times 02/03/2008
While I have no beef with Charles Simic or his work, I do not know any of his work at all, I am disappointed in this quote. While 700+ is a great audience for any event, his example serves as a poor example of the state of poetry readings I have been to.
I have been to a ton of readings both here in the Bay and in New York and have generally found that average attendance for a poetry reading is pretty low. Yes, if one was putting together a reading that featured three poet laureates I am sure you would get an amazing attendance. But how often does that happen? And is the audience in attendance for poetry or just to bask in the glow of these personalities.
Before I go on, let me cite one exception to this ruleРthe Friday Night Slam at the Nuyorican Poets Caf̩ regularly sells out regardless of who is slamming and/or featuring. But then I am asking are people there for the poetry or for the spectacle of slam?
Back to Simic and the “promotion of poetry.†I believe that while poetry is not in any danger of dying I do believe that any poetry reading is fighting a battle against a variety of other cultural stimuli and, for the most part, poetry loses that battle against theatre/music events/TV/cinema/et al. It loses that battle big time. Especially on the front line of that battle: open mics. Yes, I know open mics are a hit-and-miss forum where you are more likely to hear unpolished, raw, over extrapolated work but I would love to find a successful poet who did not start their writing career with unpolished, raw, over extrapolated work.
In response to the quote above, I say this: Mr. Simic, the poetry in this country needs and deserves as much promotion as any other art. In your role as poet laureate you should not be happy with the status quo and you should explore any and all possible venues to increase the spotlight on all poetry events (even the ones who attract less the 700 people).
I walked the ghost town/Used to be my city
My favorite book of poetry from last year was the iceworker sings and other poems by Andrés Montoya. I say that because it was the volume of poetry I read most often during there. Must have checked it out of the Oakland Public Library at least three times and would have probably kept checking it out ‘cept for the fact that Barb got me a copy for X-mas.
It felt like I read that book just at the right time, a time when I wasn’t quite sure what to do with the grittiness that was becoming Anywhere Ave. Childbeaters, gamblers, petty criminals, and wannabe gangsters floating all around and who was going to be responsible for their actions? Who was going to clean up the mess that was happening around the block?
Andrés Montoya showed me that no one *has* to clean up anything. Living in the CIty means living with everyone and all their crap. The best we can do is be responsible for ourselves, try to keep our own backyards and front stoops clear and hope everyone else does the same. Hell, even acknowledging that your stoop is dirty is a big step towards keeping the City in check. Ever try asking a neighbor to clean up their garbage? Ever try asking a stranger? It ain’t easy, that’s for sure.
Back to Montoya. His speaker points no fingers except to himself. His speaker asks for no sympathy or pity. His speaker does ask for love and does admit that he may be unworthy of it but he’s gotta ask. Right? More than anything, his speaker remains honest. Not truthful or factual which are different animals, just honest.
Well, that’s my off the top of the dome, gut reaction memory from my reads of his work. But I feel that there is still more in the reads. More music, more memory and more hope to be saved. As the cover image states, the time for Forgiveness is right now and inside the pages of Andrés Montoya’s poems.
All that being said, I am very honored to be included in the forthcoming issue of in the grove and also to be a part of a reading celebrating the life and poems of Andrés Montoya. Many thanks to Daniel Chacón and Lee Herrick for letting me give a little back to Señor Montoya.
in the grove release party!
Special Issue: An homage to Andrés Montoya
Fresno, Califaztlán
Thursday, April 10 2008featuring
Dave Hurst
Craig Perez
Lee Herrick
Javier Huerta
Teresa Tezari
Oscar Bermeo
Optimism One
Maceo Montoya
Steve Yarbrough
Michael Medrano
David Dominguez
Tim Z. Hernandez
Kenneth R. Chacón
Malaquias Montoya
Corrinne Clegg Hales
Veronica E. Guajardo
Sasha Pimentel ChacónFor an updated list of readers, please check here