SPD’s All Star Reading Extravaganza: Celebrating New Lit Generation
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Books & Bookshelves: Photos, VidPo and Reading Report
Acoustic space is the space we hear: multi-dimensional, resonant, invisibly tactile, “a total and simultaneous field of relations.” Though these “holistic” properties are important, I’d like to sidestep the simple unity that holism implies by stressing the co-dependent play of multiplicities within acoustic space. Unlike visual space, where points generally either fuse or remain distinct, blocks of sound can overlap and interpenetrate without necessarily collapsing into a harmonic unity or consonance, thereby maintaining the paradox of “simultaneous difference”.
Erik Davis speaks on Marshall McLuhan theory of acoustic space in Roots and Wires and reprinted in Sound Unbound
Books & Bookshelves with all of the woodcraft waiting to be filled with all kinds of media, add an amazing poetry collection with new & used books alongside rare chapbooks, plus the sounds of Market Street in the background adding elements of real world chaos and you have one the best “acoustic spaces” I’ve had the pleasure of performing in.
It feels good to say performing as opposed to reading because the effects of a good acoustic space means a desire to let loose with the work and bring the emotional intent built into the verse out in the delivery of the work. I’ve been hesitant to use the term performance when describing my reading style but I think it’s an aspect of the work that I’m going to embrace again, not to the detriment of my writing development but something that can grow symbiotically with it. In short: If I’m striving to improve as a writer and critical thinker of poetry then I should also continue to advance in my presentation of the work (both in the print submission and verbal delivery aspects).
The other impetus behind presenting my poems in the best possible light was the strength of my co-features.
I’ve known DeWayne Dickerson outside of poetry circles for almost two years now and am proud to call him a friend. This is the second time I’ve read with DeWayne and it’s an honor to share the same space with him. His poems examine life with a lens that shows all the flaws in our world while also appreciating those flaws as part of out own humanity; it’s not about this world being broken but how it can be fixed. With DeWayne’s poetry, that starts and ends with his poetic speaker, who is never passive (and in fact may be contributing to the shortcoming of this world) but always honest when dealing with his community resulting in poetry that is raw, scary and hilarious (sometimes all at the same time).
Even though she had a sore throat, Camille Dungy delivered a provocative set of poems—some new, some from What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison and a great cover of Lucille Clifton’s “won’t you celebrate with me”—that highlighted her ability to craft the musicality of contemporary language. The craft is right on par with her delivery that was both poised (in its rhythms and silences) while also determined (in the clear intent and diction of the speaker). All this done with a love of words and their possibility.
As for me, I celebrated my new chapbook by not reading any poems from it. Yeah, I know that’s a poetry “Don’t” but I’m so happy with having this series of poems completed that I’m looking forward to completing my next chapbook, tentatively tilled, Heaven Below. The poems from the new chap constituted the bulk of my set-list with only one poems from Palimpsest in the mix and one cover poem that really helped me frame what I was trying to balance in terms of urban renewal and placing a human face on the divine designer of “the City.”
Set-List
• Getting Ronald Reagan to Visit the South Bronx
• Psalm for Public Housing
• Skelsies
• A Personal History and Reflection on Sixty Years in the City from the Reverend JT
• the preacher: ruminates behind the sermon from A Street in Bronzeville by Gwendolyn Brooks
• Cucaracha
• Epistle Written at the #4 Train—Woodlawn Station, 4:30am
• In the City, You Can’t Help but Think of God
Big shout out to Michael Edwards for setting up the reading and David Highsmith, the proprietor of Books & Bookshelves, for sharing his beautiful acoustic space with us.
Photos and VidPo from the Achiote Press Reading Celebrating 40 Years of Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley
I’m always happy to support mah peoples at Achiote Press but it’s pretty easy when you have a fantastic set of features, a celebration of a landmark event, insightful Q&A and a great turnout.
Lee Herrick was great, as always. His new poem was excellent with a fascinating back story that added insight to a poem that was working on so much resonance in tone and language that he couldn’t possibly give away too much. In fact, I hope he continues to build on the theme.
Hugo GarcÃa ManrÃquez’s work also played with silence and language especially the Spanish poems. ManrÃquez read some “Sin Titulo” poems that had me thinking of Javier Huerta’s online anthology of “undocumented poems.”
Naomi Quiñonez brought her trademark blend of “elegant and fierce” (credit Achiote Press’ Jennifer Reimer for that) but also brought the history and knowledge reminding us of the struggle to create and maintain an Ethnic Studies program and a time when the question “Is Chicano Lit really American Lit?” was not one of theory but of survival. (Will the Literature of Our Own Language be included in the American Canon? Looking at the question and seeing how much exoticization still surrounds multi-lingual poetry the answer might not be so cut-and-dried.)
One of my favorite moments was when Quiñonez read “Eve, Malinche and Helen,” from her first collection Sueno de Colibri/Hummingbird Dream, and prefaced that her view of Malinche in her poem is flawed due to the lack of materials and study at the time. I could see a lot of poets going back and rewriting the poem but Quiñonez embraces the moment of learning and works towards a greater understanding.
All credit goes out to host Jennifer Reimer and her co-editor at Achiote, Craig Santos Perez, for putting together a great reading.
You can find the pictures here and click below to get a sample of some of the great poesia.
Achiote Press Reading featuring
Naomi Quiñonez, Lee Herrick and Hugo Garcia Manriquez
Jimmy Santiago Baca at the Cesar Chavez Public Library (Salinas, CA)
There is nothing greater than when a community comes out in force to hear their poet. Mad props to the staff of the Cesar Chavez Library for getting the word out and making sure that all of Salinas knew that Jimmy Santiago Baca was coming to read.
A crowd of 100+ from every demographic you can think of came out ready and eager for Mr Baca. I was very fortunate to be included as one of the readers for the night and was asked to go up first. Reading from Palimpsest, I shared “The Story of How Pigeon Came to Live in City” and “Palipsest: Ghazal.” Both poems went over pretty well considering my voice was very nervous.
Local poet and journalist Marc Cabrera came through next with two very earnest poems. The first felt like a riff off of Miguel Piñero’s “A Lower East Side Poem” as Cabrera was asking that his ashes be spread over the East Side of Salinas. Cabrera’s attention to detail and sincere love of his East Side home came through loud and clear in his poem and gave me an even greater appreciation of Salinas.
Garland Thompson closed out the opening poets with some signature pieces done with a bombastic theater style. Garland was one of the event organizers and had been working tirelessly throughout the weekend to make sure that Jimmy could speak at local youth centers and get to catch some of the sights in the Monterey Peninsula. Much props to him for all his hard work.
Jimmy came out to close the night in the role of poet and story teller. Barb and I were talking this morning about how some poets do such an eloquent job at being able to share the details of their lives and the urgency behind their craft. Elders like Al Robles, Wanda Coleman, Anne Waldman, Amiri Baraka, and José Montoya come quickly to mind. This list isn’t all about elder status, I’m thinking about the great talk Junot Diaz gave recently and how only a little of it was him actually reading from the book and so much was the experience of writing the book. Folks like Roger Bonair-Agard, Suheir Hammad, Javier Huerta, Paul D. Miller, and Chad Sweeney are some other writers who can make writing feel alive without resorting to didatic rehashing.
Back to Jimmy, his stories of survival and cultural pride cut straight to the heart of the Salinas residents. He praised them for their hard work but also pushed them to take another step and be able to claim their identities in both familiar and hostile environments. More than anything, Jimmy speaks the straight-up, el vivo y hecho, the real deal, to communities that have been repeatedly lied to. In return for his honesty, the communities gives him respect and attention so that his poems can have an open space to be absorbed.
The selection Jimmy read from his new collection, Rita and Julia, was epic in its scope but remained centered with a clear speaker living and considering the choices the world gives. A very Whitman-esque turn in Baca’s work that extends the long poem form he has embraced since MartÃn & Meditations on the South Valley and C-Train and Thirteen Mexicans.
For me, it was an incredible treat to hear him read “I Am Offering This Poem.” It’s been a favorite of mine for years and to see him pull out Immigrants in Our Own Land brought out all kinds of fanboy in me. On the critical tip, Jimmy read the poems from his newest collection and first collection with an ease of voice and writing styles (the poet in control of his craft and confident in his text) while sill maintaining a sense of urgency (the poet offering the poem as a point of discussion, an opportunity for dialogue, that the audience may not take so he must relay in his voice and word choice how critical the message is). If you didn’t see him switch books, you might even imagine that he was reading from the same book which, after seeing some writers endlessly read from their old work or clumsily tripping over their own new text (I’ve been guilty of both crimes), is a level of poetic mastery more poets should be trying to reach.
In the end, it’s all about the transformative power of poetry and how it can affect every life; poetry can get you love, prestige, and acclaim. But poetry can’t do anything if you try to jam it down people’s throats or present it in a laissez faire fashion.
The difference maker? Trust, in your work and in your reader, and faith, in the work and in yourself.
The proof? The life story and rich literary history of Jimmy Santiago Baca.
Jimmy Santiago Baca reads at the Cesar Chavez Public Library
[ETA: Barb’s thoughts on hanging with Jimmy and the Salinas reading.]
Anticipating: breaking poems by Suheir Hammad
It’s been a great month of poetry books and reading events for me with different voices and styles all coming together to help me try to make more sense out of my own poetics. Surprisingly, two roads that have been intersecting quite a bit is the path between hip-hop lit and political poetry.
For starters, I think all hip-hop is political. It’s born of a desire to prove that a culture can emerge from near-nothingness and leave behind a standing testament to celebrate that survival. And, since I can never find an authoritative dictionary meaning for the term poetry, I will say that is one of my personal definitions for poetry as well. I’ll also add that all the poems I am attracted to are political.
In logic terms, if hip-hop is to political what political is to poetry, then hip-hop is poetry. At least it is for me.
The only problem is that a logic equation doesn’t always hold water in the real world; sometimes it only works out in theory, which isn’t good enough. For art to succeed, for poems to be effective, they have to work in practice as well as concept.
This brings me back to the VONA Faculty Reading this past July and my first introduction to Suheir Hammad’s breaking poems. From the get go, these poems resonated with familiar pull and push of the classic hip-hop break, the spot in the song the DJ knows will get the crowd even more amped and up for the party. Suheir started off with “break is this†and images of myrrh and smoke, the intermingling of the holy spice with the clearing of rubble, a slow prayer that reminds the listener of a past horror (the pull) and the hope for more as her speaker’s people enacts the “we†and “still looking for our.â€
Since I’m going by my notes from the night, I’m not sure if the speaker is looking for what is “ours†or for more “hours†but that quick wordplay, the cutting and scratching of language, was repeated deftly throughout Suheir’s reading.
The hip-hop break was present again in another poem where “someone is drumming//to accompany the dead†as the rhythms and beats we know from the dance club and blaring car speakers are transformed into measured intonation and consistent meter in Suheir’s breaking poems set.
Then again, these poems don’t all take place in the familiar Bronx of my youth, or Downtown Oakland of my present, they are happening in the present of the speaker’s Palestine. Where the break is not just a musical/poetic concept but the daily real. Suheir’s last poem brought that alive in “break (clustered)†where the shape of the spoken poem took the form of a slow ticking bomb, as it started with an introspective deliverance, as the speaker contemplates on where the break will happen next. “Whose son will it be?†“We mourn women complicated.†This reflective mood is shattered as the language becomes more pointed, the lines more jagged, and the tension builds out to a point even past the poem (“Language can’t math meâ€) and then settles with the internal image (“One woman//One woman//One woman gives birthâ€) that is ready to set the break off again and “harvest witness.â€
Barb has already started reading breaking poems and is citing some of the bombardment and brokenness I was feeling from the live reading. She is also seeing another layer of code-switching that I didn’t pick up from Suheir’s set. And that’s all good. A reading shouldn’t be the whole book, it can never be since it is only the aural aspect of the poem, but a reading should be about possibility, excitement, and daring. Can the text match the sound? Can a fantastic reader deliver a fantastic book? Can the two aspects of poetry, the orature and the literature, fight to maintain their own space in the speaker’s message?
Anticipating that the answer to all those questions will be a resounding Yes I can’t wait to get a read at Suheir Hammad’s new book and to try to follow along as her book release party is webcast live from the Bowery Poetry Club tomorrow.
More breaking poems:
• Video: Suheir reads “break word”