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Monday, May 31, 2004

I'm supposed to be packing. Instead, I'm working on exercises I'll use to teach teenagers in Ann Arbor, Michigan at the end of the month. Actually, I have to work on these while I'm here because I won't have access to my books again anytime soon. *sigh*

so here's one I'm going to try writing on the flight to LA:

concretizing the abstract

sample poems:
- Stephen Dunn's “sweetness” and “sadness” (from “between angels”)
- Bob Hicok's “Truth about love” (from “insomniac diary”)
- Audre Lorde's “separation” (from “New York Head Shop and Museum”)

1. list ten or more abstract ideas you might want to address or have tried to address (war, love, abortion, sadness, sweetness, separation, etc.)

2. choose one idea. write it at the top of a page and list 10 objects and 10 verbs that come to mind when you see that word.

3. write 10 snapshots/lines/vignettes where those objects act on those verbs

4. use those as a skeleton for your poem

so we'll see! OK, now I really do have to pack.

Saturday, May 29, 2004

we have such a cool season of theme slams set up, I'm sadder than ever that I won't be here for them. sigh. but YOU, the phantom YOU who might be reading this, YOU can be there! so here's the scoop:

louderMONDAYS: every Monday at 13 Bar/Lounge
35 E. 13th St., Union Square, NYC
sign up at 7 p.m sharp
$5 ($4 with student ID)
2-for-1 drinks all night
always an open mic and feature, often a slam

MAY 31: *UPPERCASE!* Three times a year, we celebrate
the lifeblood of louderMONDAYS: the up and coming
voices who regularly grace our stage with new work,
fresh ideas, and an unmatched passion for poetry. Join
us this Monday as MATTHEW SIEGEL, JESSICA TORRES, and
MARIA NIEVES showcase their growth and their glory.
And share your own on the open mic! Hosted by Fish
Vargas.

***JUNE IS THEME SLAM MONTH!!!***

JUNE 7: *HOT OFF THE PRESS New Poem SLAM* and *PATRICK
ROSAL!* This is a night for the history books. Check
it out: Old-school B-Boy, New Jersey native, and son
of Ilokano immigrants, Patrick Rosal is the author of
“Uprock Headspin Scramble and Dive” (Persea Books) and
the chapbook “Uncommon Denominators,” which won the
Palanquin Poetry Series Award. This award-winning
world-travelling mind-blowing poet and performer joins
us for one night only, and what a night it'll be!
Preceded by the OPEN MIC, Rosal's feature leads us
directly into our first theme slam of the summer: the
HOT OFF THE PRESS New Poem SLAM! Bring your freshest
craziest best new work to compete in this three-round
festival of the new!

JUNE 14: One delicious evening awaits us: presenting
*CHERYL CLARK* and the *HUNGER & FULL SLAM!* Cheryl
Clark is a self-described unregenerate black
lesbian-feminist poet, and author of four books of
poetry. Don't miss out on this dynamic,
boundary-destroying performer! And continuing our
tradition of summer theme slam madness, bring your
work about hunger, food, appetite, deliciosity (yes,
we invented a word just for this slam!) -- WARNING:
the judges will be scoring based on both the fantastic
nature of your poem and peformance AND on its
relevance to the theme! Question? email
curator@louderARTS.com. All of this preceded by the
best open mic in NYC!

JUNE 21: The summer of poetic intensity continues as
*SHELLY STENHOUSE* features and we rock out with the
*TRIBUTE* slam! Shelly Stenhouse is a NYFA recipient,
author of “PANTS,” and in addition to being widely
published and anthologized and twice nominated for the
Pushcart Prize, is one kick-ass reader. We are blessed
to have her grace our mic, and we need YOU to kick the
night off right by reading on the OPEN MIC. And come
prepared to rock the TRIBUTE SLAM with poems by and
about other poets, dead or alive, present or absent!
See you there!

JUNE 28: Break out your poetic lingerie – it's the
*Poetic Lingerie EROTICA SLAM* and *EDWARD CLAPP's*
feature! Ed Clapp is a world-travelling word-slinging
artist, educator, and community activist who will
knock your proverbial socks off with his joy and wit
and experiment. After the city's sexiest OPEN MIC and
Ed's terrific feature, we move on to Bar 13's
first-ever POETIC LINGERIE Erotica SLAM Oh yes, as if
we're not sexy enough every week, we're challenging
you to destroy the notions of what erotica is – the
judges expect to be transported, and scores will be
based on craft, presentation, and originality. Do you
have what it takes?

JULY 5: JERRY QUICKLEY stops off on his way to Iraq
JULY 19: JOHN RODRIGUEZ plus REGIONAL REGIONAL SLAM
JULY 26: SF poet ANTHONY MILLER and NYC REGIONALS

See you Monday!!!

The louderARTS Project
www.louderARTS.com


our refrigerator is working better as a microwave than anything else today. we got home from Peter's birthday party / Nuyorican open room / Yaffa Cafe flashback to find it heating the food. excellent. the landlord just came by and said something about a relay switch to something possibly malfunctioning... this is why I'm terrified to ever own a house. anyway, that's the news from the front. read "News of Home" by Debra Kang Dean (BOA Editions. rock on.)



Wednesday, May 26, 2004

mercury in season

pens lose their ink in pockets. your weakness
for redheads grows increasingly pronounced.

phone lines go static at critical moments
in conversation, everything feels like a metaphor.

a good man comes home at 3 a.m., trips and falls
through a glass coffee table in his parents'

living room. dead of course when found. true story,
the poet tells the folksinger, retrograde. two more days.

a new machine manufactures infinitesimal black holes
lending new credence to string theory. all is all.

it's just that three dimensions are the most we can perceive.
quantum physicists disagree.

cold May, too much rain, a newborn lies
oddly quiet in her crib watching ceiling constellations

shift and shift, trying to catch their breath.


Thursday, May 20, 2004

so I took a fairly long ride with a poet last night. this is what came of that. and comments are welcome!

invoking Audre

this voice is not a bird. does not flutter
in the throat or threaten to flee
/ is not loose like the body, like muscle
or cellulite, shifting / is stone
somehow, maybe the only thing
that lasts

~

I'm told we don't need any more poems
about women and their bodies. the man
who says this has had many small cancers
scraped from his face. I forgive him,
and think about you in that airport, a big woman
taking up space.

~

this voice is a lost hymn to a heretic goddess
the last wish of a half-hanged witch

this voice is not a gift taken back
by an angry father, not your freedom song

~

the man who says this is white, and straight,
and too intelligent for his education.
I wish you into the back seat, I turn the radio down.

he says it is the death of art.

~

I speak for the girl who knows which way
to turn the razor at a wrist

I speak for the boy stealing his mother's lipstick

this is not your freedom song

~

I don't know how to explain what it is to know
you were not meant to survive, and have. I think
I would press the excised skin between glass,
hang it over the sink. I say, there are no
new stories. certain words in certain order
keep us alive.


~

this is Alice Paul's hunger strike
Harriet Tubman's first run
and a grandmother explaining the physics
of momentum on a screened-in front porch

~

I say, if you can write a poem about a mailman
or a cactus that will save my life, then do it. meanwhile
homophobia. the hypersexualized body. racism, rape.
government, destruction, love.


the poem about the hobo is cute. I wish I could play
the harmonica.

~

this is Janis Joplin's caterwaul
Bell Hook's lost diary
and Eve's hand on the apple

not your freedom song
not your freedom song
not your freedom song


but a mouth broken open
so you may speak.

*****

notes:

Harold Bloom called slam poetry “the death of art.”
“we were never meant to survive” is from a poem by Audre Lorde.



this is from the jumbotron simulcast monitor thing during the concert at Battery Park. I've posted more of these photos on my web site, so you can see them there. yay for technology! Posted by Hello


look! it's a BBQ! and poker. I started to learn how to play, but kept getting distracted.  Posted by Hello

Wednesday, May 19, 2004

[ramblings on being paid to write poetry]

this job is causing me to have to re-think my hard-line stance against writing for performance (vs. simply writing for the sake of poetry.) I've never had to do more than simply look at the work after it came into being (meaning, after it's written and edited) and say, this can work in performance or this is really best left to the page.

so it's been a luxury, really, just wallowing in my poet-ness, slamming poems I knew weren't supposed to score well according to popular strategy, pushing boundaries because what was at stake, really? losing a slam? big deal. I had so much room to experiment, find ways to make the emotions communicate even if the meanings weren't always obvious.

with poetry for work, of course, it's different. I find myself too often in the position of being the only one saying that we shouldn't underestimate our audience, but knowing that there's a pile of work in my living room that, while relevant to this project, will never make it into the show. too abstract, too strange, too soft, too tangential.

and beyond that, I'm writing (or trying to write) with so many parameters in mind: for tomorrow, I need a one-minute piece relevant to voting in some way that manages to be nonpartisan... oh, and could it "blaze" please?

and I can't complain. I mean really, I walked past a real estate office this evening, it was 8 p.m. and men were sitting in cubicles under fluorescent lights -- three blocks from the ocean. that's just torture. so I don't pity myself, let's be clear.

so I'm writing for performance, and trying to maintain integrity while doing so (and resisting Norman's notions that I should perform in spike heels -- but that's another story.) it's a strange thing, knowing that your best work is not what you should be aiming for.

I think this is different from choosing what poems to use in a slam or feature because those don't affect my writing. yes, I'm happy when a poem I love turns out also to be effective in performance (i.e., I'm able to find a way to perform it so that an audience gets something out of it that they wouldn't by simply reading it on paper.) but I'm not writing FOR slam or FOR a performance. now, that's my job.

I suppose my stance hasn't actually changed that much, except that I can no longer say I never write with performance vs. page in mind. it's still true, though, that what comes comes and the muse is fickle at best. hence the pile of poems that will never make it into the Declare Yourself show. hence the hope that a book will come of those.

and none of this is revelation. more procrastination, I suppose. sigh. it's 11:30 and the poem's not coming. it may be an early morning.

Monday, May 17, 2004

[a pretense of drowning]

what percentage dead are we now. 31, you can fool the mirror but the clock, the clock doesn't tick but sits quiet and watches the lotions and lipsticks screw on the countertop, their high sighs and liquid twists a nun's dream of pornography. a third? if ninety. not at all likely. home movies notwithstanding, gone is dead. immobile. who's the fool now. all minutes become raspberries, perishable. press the book shut, flowers in the dictionary, done. for what? reminescence, a vomited history. but here: Kate, Julie, Bob, Ellen, Frank, Eric, Gene, Will, Louise, Erin, Kris, Mom, Dad, young Julie, Pete, Brooke, Bobby on the front porch, lake air, July. not dead, frozen. white zinfandel, pretzels. towels drying on the railing. at the window, a moon insisting come on in, the water's fine.


Sunday, May 16, 2004

power yoga is crazy. today the poets barbeque. I hope someone knows how. six days to NYC. so much writing to accomplish this week, not the work that's coming naturally. new blood is a blessing, as is the sun and english breakfast tea. read "The Year We Studied Women" by Bruce Snider.


not the ocean, not this time

is it the light, or some crazy permission of lipstick
on cheekbones. fluorescent. I want to know
where the blondes dressed as gypsies
are going. Saturday in Venice, not Italy, California.
a fantastic party, play in dress rehearsal, orgy.
not orgy, too many clothes, too elaborate
for imminent removal. small mirrors on his vest,
boots, her hat is fur, necessarily fake. earlier,
the beautiful dreadlocked man lifted his son
onto a stool, then down again. I want to be held
like that, raised and lowered like a cigarette, easy
and burning. the girl with the braids smiles, I'm part
of the circle or it's just the light again, night outside, in here
thick salt air, marijuana smoke from the sidewalk.
polyester shirt adjusts his jester hat, it's not surreal.
it's California, Saturday, Abbott Habit, cold,
an ocean over our shoulders. seeming to be asleep.

Friday, May 14, 2004

a primary reason to read literary journals is to find poets we'd never find otherwise -- for example, Barbara Ras. I ran into her poem "you can't have it all" in Mudfish last year, and kept it taped to whatever wall I'm claiming as mine most times since then. in the Strand last week with GK, I found her book "bite every sorrow" and wow. buy this book.

often when I see which books win major awards, I'm at a great loss to understand what on earth got them there -- not so with this one, which won the Whitman in 1997.

one of my favorites (so far -- I'm only halfway through) is this:

Angels on Holiday
by Barbara Ras

At first all they want is watermelon,
big bites, spitting out the black seeds
while the red pulp melts in their mouths.
They eat it on the ground, their wings
resting moplike behind them, then they go on to rice,
eating it with their fingers, the grain's grain,
weddings' exuberance.
Sometimes they try sex, approaching it
they way you approach a strange dog. People
are too scary. They'd prefer statues
of their own kind, angel to angel clapping
the way a kid will click plastic horses together,
head to head, feet to feet, over and over.
It's a vacation, a chance to learn
small talk, use tools, play cards,
the ace of diamonds, their queen of spades, its red shape
pointing both ways, here today, gone tomorrow.
Angels are shy, especially about their wings, which so far
only God knows are crocheted and starched
like the extra-toilet-paper-roll creations in the bathrooms
of grandmothers. They try out our soap, the one for bodies
called Darling, and Terror, for big dirt, which they use
for excessive dreaming, needing to purge like they need to know
who else is working for God, the fire department,
the devil, welders who make light a little too Promethean
for comfort, so they run off, go to the zoo in the rain
and watch monkeys run around and around their enclosure, inventing
chases the way the angels before they go home will make up
some more phrases to put into circulation,
flying off the handle, hope against hope, nose to the grindstone,
expressions none of us will get, but later
we'll think up meanings, serious ones, afraid our laughter
might scare something up, even the pigeons,
their feet, retractable forks,
tucked under them in flight.

***

so Whitman-esque, her ability to maintain energy through the wide line, to move from idea to idea and back without losing the tension...

I'm thinking about this piece in relation to Robert Hass' poem (the name of which is out of my head right now,) that deals with angels -- writing the invisible, hmmmm...

more later...

Monday, May 10, 2004

I should write about performing a group piece for some 7,000 people and having Gina's mic cut out. Or about the circus act madness of performing at a street fair where we're preceded by 12-year-olds with hula hoops and followed by martial artists in orange and nearly upstaged by a giant dragon dancing down Greenwich Ave. Or about having a cop recite a Langston Hughes poem to me on the street.

but for right now let me just say:

Join us tonight at Bar 13 for the Grand Slam Finals! It's my last night in town, and I'd love to see everyone out in support of what's bound to be a fantastic and unusual team.

Competing poets: Roger Bonair-Agard, Bonafide, Rich Villar, Fish, Abena Koomson, Jai, Mahogany Browne, Morgan Janssen, and Michael Cirelli.

5 rounds of amazing poetry, including a one-minute round for kicks!

13 Bar/Lounge (35 E. 13th St., Union Square)
7 p.m.
$10 (sliding scale for starving artists)
2-for-1 drinks all night

www.louderARTS.com

see you there!!!

Sunday, May 09, 2004

[invisible by design]

all this and a shoebox, leave the lid on, let the rattle die down so the trash collector suspects nothing. I smiled by accident, forgetting / how do such things mend? not broken but silent. over and out, checkmate but nobody wins. nobody walks out with the stuffed panda, red plastic heart on the outside.


Saturday, May 01, 2004

The Visitor
by Carolyn Forche

In Spanish he whispers there is no time left.
It is the sound of scythes arcing in wheat,
the ache of some field song in Salvador.
The wind along the prison, cautious
as Francisco's hands on the inside, touching
the walls as he walks, it is his wife's breath
slipping into his cell each night while he
imagines his hand to be hers. It is a small country.

There is nothing one man will not do to another.

***

nothing one man will not do to another

and there are photos. our dead, their tortured. coffins sliding from airplanes, silent as mice under doors. no families. no photographs, please, nothing to see here. no flag. a man on a box in a hood, wires to wrists, balancing. this one, naked, man in soldier green pointing, tangible laughter. how young he is, the laughing one. are we surprised men in hell become demons.

M.