Some like poetry by Wisława Szymborska
Some —
that means not all.
Not even the majority of all but the minority.
Not counting the schools, where one must,
and the poets themselves,
there will be perhaps two in a thousand.Like —
but one also likes chicken noodle soup,
one likes compliments and the color blue,
one likes an old scarf,
one likes to prove one’s point,
one likes to pet a dog.Poetry —
but what sort of thing is poetry?
More than one shaky answer
has been given to this question.
But I do not know and do not know and clutch on to it,
as to a saving bannister.
Acknowledgment: The End
One of this year’s unexpected X-mas gifts was a rejection letter from (Will Remain Anonymous) Press’ poetry chapbook contest. A part of me is cool with this. I know the game and it boils down to the fact that there will be winners and losers and this time around I was not one of the winners. Kurits Blow summed it quiet succinctly: And these are the breaks.
Another part of me is kinds mad that I went through the time, trouble and environmental waste of putting together a SASE. Hey, if all you are going to do is send out a form letter, wouldn’t it be greener to give folks the option of an e-mail response?
Another part of me is smiling at the evolution of the Bronx Projects kid into a full fledged Nor-Cal Tree Dapper. Dap: a man hug. Shoulder dap: a true man hug. Tree Dap: not a full hug but a sign of eco- respect. Word.
And there is the part of me that is wondering why I spend energy, not to mention cash, on these contests. The answer came to me as I was reading through Wind In a Box and even before the poems hit I see this line— Sincere thanks … for first acknowledging the poems (and previous versions of the poems) in this book.
You know, I’ve seen and used the word acknowledgment a few times but never really looked at it dead up solo. Acknowledge. Recognize. See. Accept. Validate. That’s what it all comes back to. Hitting open mics, hustling for features, slamming, submitting, applying for fellowships, querying, blogging. All so that folks can acknowledge me as a writer.
Well, Im’a flip it a bit and acknowledge folks who read this blog on a regular basis and the folks who leave comment for recognizing this process of not just becoming a writer but also trying to contribute something unique to American letters. Even if it’s only to a small audience, it’s a start and the launch pad for bigger projects. So thanks again y’all and here is to a better New Years.
Palabra.
The new knack that’s comin from way way back
Being stuck in traffic at 6:30 is not where I wanted to be last Friday, especially when the reading I am heading to starts at 7 and I am one of the features. Still, I figure I can get to KSW on time since I have
a) faith that God loves a good poetry reading and thus will part the Bay Bridge
b) I am a good city driver and can weave through slow moving Volvos with ease
My faith went to mush a half hour later as I was still about 100 yards shy of the toll plaza with little relief in sight. At this point my only shred of hope was that this reading would start at poet time (uhm, give or take 7:30) and that I could still make it in time.
By 7:35 I was down in the Mission and was able to score parking right in front of Space 180 which meant all I had to do was race up the stairs and then relax until I got to read cuz you would think I would at least get a second to compose myself before being called to read.
That turned out not to be the case as I walked in just as Margaret Rhee was finishing her set and then Truong Tran, the MC for the night, immediately called me up to read my work.
SET-LIST
• Viewing the world from the back of a turtle
• This Wednesday
• Proverbs by Teresa de Jesus from Poetry Like Bread: Poets of the Political Imagination
• Dedication
• Political Theory
Note to self: Do not start a reading by reciting your long prose poem when you are still trying to get your breath back from running up three flights of stairs. Actually, I didn’t get my full breath back until I read the cover poem but every reading is an experience and so it goes.
Other than the lack of oxygen for the first poem, I think the reading went well. The order of the poems built in intensity, the work varied in line length and point-of-view from poem to poem, and the audience was very receptive to the work. This is also the first time in a long time that I was not concerned with reading brand new work. Maybe it was all the stress at work lately and how that has encroached my writing time, or maybe it was the fact that I have been to some great readings lately where no one is really that worried about the difference between old work and new work, or maybe I just needed a chance to read poems just for fun.
With my reading done and over with, I could sit back and enjoy the work of the rest of my workshop mates which was all kinds of dope. I am bummed to have missed Margaret Rhee’s set but I hope to hear more of her work soon. Vanessa Huang brought a mix of different poetic forms and styles and I really dig her poet/journalist piece on interviewing Katrina survivors. Sita Bhaumik’s work is sparse but cuts right to the point, her “Dawn†poem which makes use of the names of common household cleaning agents is pure fun. Adrien Salazar brought an older prayer poem and the new hotness with a serial poem that examined the struggle of the migrant worker thru various time periods and perspectives thru effective poetry. Nicole Bohn’s mix of the body politic, humor and music always leaves a strong impression behind, her “W†war poem standing out as well as her ode to Billy Holiday and Lester Young. Debbie Yee has a keen eye for overlooked detail which comes out clearer every poem and sharper every reading.
The only other person who I really wanted to hear from was Truong. As much as I have enjoyed learning from him in class, it is even better to hear him take all the principles about combining the political with the poetic and put them in action in his poems. His last group of poems are so strong and take full advantage of the relationship between the poet and the audience, coming right out and addressing and preconceptions on the listener/reader’s part without ever shying from the fact that both have equal say in what is unfolding in the poems.
What’s the time? It’s time to get ill.
Deadlines looming all around me with a creative non-fiction essay and a chapbook contest entry both due tomorrow. But it feels good to be busy and to have these projects and it feels even better that I have taken them upon myself.
Now let’s see if I can squeeze some more time out of the clock to blog about New York, the Great Snow Storm That Wasn’t, the differences between the MTA & BART, Barb’s reading, my current reading list, my sense of place and how in poetry world I am trying to make a dollar (full manuscript) out of fifteen cents (my chapbook project).
Chad Sweeney and Kaya Oakes @ Pegasus Bookstore
I first got to hear Chad Sweeney’s work a few months back and was immediately impressed with the awe and genuine joy he exhibits in both the process and presentation of his poems. The line that stood out that night one where he spoke of cages and a place where all they grow is cages. It takes a WHOLE year to build a cage!
I am not sure if that is the exact line and I am very sure he didn’t capitalize it that way but that is my memory of this line filled with an enthusiasm that felt like it followed the poet from the original writing, to the making of the chapbook A Mirror to Shatter the Hammer, to the reading of the poem.
With all that said, I was very much looking forward to Chad’s reading from his debut collection An Architecture.
SIDENOTE: While waiting for the reading to start, I was looking through Pegasus’ awesome used poetry collection and was thrilled to find a first edition paperback of Victor Hernandez Cruz’s SNAPS. And the price of this fine piece of Nuyorican/Califas poetry? Less than $5. Score!
Kaya Oakes set off the reading and for a second I wasn’t feeling her poems. I thought she was being just a little too flippant with the work and then would gather it all up in the middle and then wind down towards the end. Turns out that what I was interpreting as flippant was a sincere look at life from a poet who wasn’t looking for solutions but instead finding pathways and intersections where real life and interesting language meet. A good reading of both newish work and (what she called) b-side poems from Oakes’s first book Telegraph.
Chad then went up and instead of just reading from his just-freshly-arrived-from-the-publishers-book he instead decided to talk about how he came to the project that would become the 56 section serial poem. The talk ranged from converting music into speech; to extending the range of the Objectivists; to entering a writing zone that “intended nothing;†to making leaps, jumps and parachute drops vis-à -vis various voices, to a conscious break from his previous writing into a new voice that was unafraid to leave a poem unresolved. Willing to go back and explore an idea again, not with the intent to write the same poem twice, but with the desire to chronicle the change in the voice from one experience to the next. A poetic experiment – forgive the much maligned and overused term – to (dis)prove Heraclitus’s quote:
“You cannot step twice into the same river; for other waters are continually flowing in.â€
The poems in An Architecture live up to all of Chad’s non-intentions. Even as the “man hold tight to his own leash†change is the constant thread in these poems. Change in the form of fire, wind, government, war, transportation and wreckage to name but a few. But with the thread comes a tapestry and the bigger tapestry is in mountains, sky, minerals, city, night, faith, music, breath and color.
At least that is what I picked up from the reading and I am sure I will find this and more in the reading of An Architecture.
But the most important thing I got from this reading was inspiration, and the reminder that a poem is more than just words leaning against each other or fighting for white space on the page. Poems may begin as these things but then they have to become more.
During his introduction, Chad insists that, “A poem can’t be thought, it has to be dream.†I agree.