OMG LAST DAY OF CLASSES JUST FINISHED. AHHHH. w0000t.
was so so nervous about my Hybrid Ids performance, but i think it went super. i'm glad i got to go last. i've been going last all day, presenting my final paper in rachel and lise's class last, bringing up Obama's "A More Perfect Union" speech as a final say in mckinley's course...and to cap it all off, performing "The Amerasian Blues: Shout OUT Call OUT Remix" for everyone in Hybrid Identities, Authentic Selves. man. so much fun. and l.m. did a bomb job with her beat-boxing.
i'd post the poem on here, but i think it's really meant to be experienced as a performance piece first and foremost. indeed i think i'd be more comfortable to post a video of the performance -- unfortunately i did not plan ahead enough to make that possible. ooooh well.
still an incredible incredible day. i want to write more, practice performing more. i'm realizing that this is something i can do. didn't feel like it was "my thing" when i was attending slam collective open mics here but somehow now...maybe through finding other spaces (AiR, CISA, Hybrid Ids) that i feel like are more conducive to my sort of project...i feel like i can. i can do "spoken word" or "slam" in a way that makes sense to me. in a way that i don't feel like i necessarily need to categorize or name. is it "poetry"? "performance art"? i don't know, and what's important is that i keep writing/performing. reflecting on form is important, too, but i don't want to feel like i have to keep doing a form, keep identifying with one form...when i'm at my most creative when i can mash up forms, integrate and break through...
moving
moving
moving
P.S. kim chang wants me to possibly be a t.a./research assistant for a janterm bilingual course on 1st person narratives. 1st person narratives written by chinese people in china, written by chinese people in america, written by chinese americans, written by expats in all directions...memoirs, poems, blogs...taking into deep critical consideration what these various identities, heritages, and histories mean. taking into account different writers' different subjectivities and positionalities. e.g. what might it mean for a white american to study/write about china? what might it mean for someone like me, who was born in china, whose entire extended family lives in china but who has spent most of his life in the u.s.?
and actually prof. chang really wants this course to address problems with "china studies" at hampshire, a loosely organized program that so far does not seem to be aware of its own history and position -- as if somehow "china studies" could just be an "objective" field studied by anyone and everyone (tabula rasa) from the same starting point. when in fact everyone has a different starting point, a different purpose and stake in the learning.
this course would be right up my alley. prof. chang wants to co-teach this course with a colleague who used to be at hampshire, and who i think might be at umass now. and ahhhh kim chang wants to do a course with me!!! **so excited**
ok. back to earth. need to focus on the rest of this semester first. not quite over just yet! FINAL PAPERS. PORTFOLIOS. PREP FOR CHINA SUMMER TRIP.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
the sound of their manifold munching
今天天气好凉快，真舒服 :D
mary ruefle has some brand spankin' NEW poetry in the latest volume of the kenyon review. yay! =) here are 2 of the poems:
A Custom of Mourning
I wore blood on my clothes for three days.
I used my initials, never my name.
I would not cut the grass
nor make repairs
no matter an outbuilding
or mechanical failure.
I did not eat eggs
as they are a sign of life
yet grew the border on my stationery
to three inches wide,
vastly restricting the space to write in.
I read not the news
nor old books
nor the backs of cans.
Everything was heated haphazardly.
As I had vowed,
the mirrors were covered with beautiful cloth.
My hair grew to fathoms
and the soles of my shoes
were made of leaves.
And when at last the thirty years did pass,
I too hated the end of summer,
and bitterly.
Metaphysical Blight
I think it was Saturday my mother was
pregnant with me she could not find
a place to eat the restaurants were crowded
it was the Saturday before Christmas
so she bought a meatpie some fries
a carton of milk from a kiosk
and I became a person.
What if all the cows ate all the grass
and there were no grass?
What if the women were ground
to a Turkish grind for some worthy cause
and there were no women? Without grass
and without women, what could be made?
What could be added to the world?
And the many cows munching in it,
the sound of their manifold munching,
would be as pervasive as a stream
in the not-too-distant.
I am nailed fast by little bolts like these.
A world of worried babies without grass,
without women, what would that mean?
You can guess the rest of the story,
how this dear foolish little bit of
Christmas shopping made me lonely,
so lonely even the carton of milk
failed to cause my cracked heart
to sprout a little wheat.
Hmm. I feel like I already should've had a Mary Ruefle tag/label. Apparently not!
P.S. I have a new links list in the sidebar! =]
mary ruefle has some brand spankin' NEW poetry in the latest volume of the kenyon review. yay! =) here are 2 of the poems:
A Custom of Mourning
I wore blood on my clothes for three days.
I used my initials, never my name.
I would not cut the grass
nor make repairs
no matter an outbuilding
or mechanical failure.
I did not eat eggs
as they are a sign of life
yet grew the border on my stationery
to three inches wide,
vastly restricting the space to write in.
I read not the news
nor old books
nor the backs of cans.
Everything was heated haphazardly.
As I had vowed,
the mirrors were covered with beautiful cloth.
My hair grew to fathoms
and the soles of my shoes
were made of leaves.
And when at last the thirty years did pass,
I too hated the end of summer,
and bitterly.
Metaphysical Blight
I think it was Saturday my mother was
pregnant with me she could not find
a place to eat the restaurants were crowded
it was the Saturday before Christmas
so she bought a meatpie some fries
a carton of milk from a kiosk
and I became a person.
What if all the cows ate all the grass
and there were no grass?
What if the women were ground
to a Turkish grind for some worthy cause
and there were no women? Without grass
and without women, what could be made?
What could be added to the world?
And the many cows munching in it,
the sound of their manifold munching,
would be as pervasive as a stream
in the not-too-distant.
I am nailed fast by little bolts like these.
A world of worried babies without grass,
without women, what would that mean?
You can guess the rest of the story,
how this dear foolish little bit of
Christmas shopping made me lonely,
so lonely even the carton of milk
failed to cause my cracked heart
to sprout a little wheat.
Hmm. I feel like I already should've had a Mary Ruefle tag/label. Apparently not!
P.S. I have a new links list in the sidebar! =]
the con
my top played song =]
gotta love the neurotic/hopelessly romantic/funny-desperate/tenderness.
I listened in, yes I'm guilty of this
You should know this
I broke down and wrote you back before you had a chance to
Forget forgotten, I am moving past this, giving notice
I have to go, yes I know that feeling, know you're leaving
Calm down, I'm calling you to say I'm capsized
Erring on the edge of safe
Calm down, I'm calling back to say I'm home now
And coming around, I'm coming around
Nobody likes to but I really like to cry
Nobody likes me, maybe if I cry
Spelled out your name and list the reasons
Faint of heart don't call me back
I imagine you
And I was distant not insistent
I follow suit and laid out on my back, imagine that
A million hours left to think of you and think of that
Encircle me
I need to be taken down
gotta love the neurotic/hopelessly romantic/funny-desperate/tenderness.
I listened in, yes I'm guilty of this
You should know this
I broke down and wrote you back before you had a chance to
Forget forgotten, I am moving past this, giving notice
I have to go, yes I know that feeling, know you're leaving
Calm down, I'm calling you to say I'm capsized
Erring on the edge of safe
Calm down, I'm calling back to say I'm home now
And coming around, I'm coming around
Nobody likes to but I really like to cry
Nobody likes me, maybe if I cry
Spelled out your name and list the reasons
Faint of heart don't call me back
I imagine you
And I was distant not insistent
I follow suit and laid out on my back, imagine that
A million hours left to think of you and think of that
Encircle me
I need to be taken down
Monday, April 27, 2009
first 100 days...some thoughts on 'asian american' and 'diversity'
so. somewhat different topic. i'd really like to make time to write on politics/media/cultural representations. and i'm sure that there is poetry that engages with these things - as i am starting to in my own work - but i have yet to explore that realm more in depth. anyway, for now...
is Obama the first Asian American president? some people seem to think so, citing his cabinet picks and his "asia" connection through his childhood in Jakarta, and his sister's part-asian heritage. (it's also interesting to look at some of the pre-election writing that on the one hand questions Obama's appeal to asian american communities and on the other hand - and maybe this has to do with how Obama's campaign progressed - shows some asian american organization's overwhelming support.
and yet what does all this perception/identifying mean, when Obama has publicly self-identified as black or african american? What does it mean when in his 2004 memoir Dreams from My Father, he wrote of struggling with a sense of mixedness - where are the voices claiming Obama as "my/our first biracial president? mixed heritage president?" what would that claim mean, in comparison to these other claims - to blackness, to asianness? certainly there is that claim to mixedness too, but i'm not seeing or hearing that as much. i'm still seeing this language of clear-cut 'demographics' and 'communities,' rather than a language of opening up across color and cultural lines.
there's talk of obama's cabinet as one of the 'most diverse' ever, with african americans and asian americans...yet there's still this idea that the asian american members will simply represent/be links to 'asian american communities' while the african american members will represent and support their populations. amidst all the praise for 'diversity,' there's little critical conversation on how these roles can be tokenizing, and fix or center certain people as representative of actually hugely diverse 'communities.' for instance, if gary locke, a chinese american (see below), is representative of asian america, then that perpetuates a particular image of asian american as primarily of chinese descent. it also makes it seem like 'asian american' is easily identifiable - oh you have chinese parents, but you've lived in the states for this long, you're asian american. this use of 'asian american' fails to account for individuals of all kinds of 'mixedness,' people who come from other parts of 'asia,' etc.
and what's more, there's a huge amount of cultural amnesia in the air; people seem to forget both the histories of opposition and cooperation between african american and asian americans...as well as the histories of all sorts of 'mixing' between people of color in this country. this 'diversity' discourse also erases the political histories of these terms themselves. briefly put, for example, "asian american" was an invention of the 1970s, born out of a specific sociopolitical moment (the civil rights era, then black power, new women's movements, etc). 'diversity,' in this multiculturalist framework, essentializes or a bit more mildly, tokenizes difference.
yes we can. progress. hope. that's great. but in recovering from the hemorrhaging headache of the last 8 (bush) years, let's not get too ahead of ourselves. remember history. think. just because obama has been doing some wonderful things in his first 100 days doesn't mean we should stop asking questions.
interesting bit from the yahoo.com article:
& much much more on Obama's first 100 days here.
**
p.s. am i, too, playing into this label game of 'diversity' with my post labels? i like calling them 'tags' better, from my LJ experience, but i guess blogger likes to call them labels. which makes it all the more jarring to think about this whole act of categorization...for practical purposes i do it so i can easily hunt down old entries for future reference/self deprecation/"good times" nods to myself. i want to persist in awareness, however, the uses of these terms. "african american." "asian american." by using these terms, i want to explore their histories (past & present), always calling attention to who is using them, and for what reasons.
p.p.s. cheeeck out my new label cloud widget!! i love those things.
p.p.p.s. i love that blogger automatically saves drafts. i've had to come back to this post 3 times now, because my poor dell laptop keeps dying in this wacko heat.
is Obama the first Asian American president? some people seem to think so, citing his cabinet picks and his "asia" connection through his childhood in Jakarta, and his sister's part-asian heritage. (it's also interesting to look at some of the pre-election writing that on the one hand questions Obama's appeal to asian american communities and on the other hand - and maybe this has to do with how Obama's campaign progressed - shows some asian american organization's overwhelming support.
and yet what does all this perception/identifying mean, when Obama has publicly self-identified as black or african american? What does it mean when in his 2004 memoir Dreams from My Father, he wrote of struggling with a sense of mixedness - where are the voices claiming Obama as "my/our first biracial president? mixed heritage president?" what would that claim mean, in comparison to these other claims - to blackness, to asianness? certainly there is that claim to mixedness too, but i'm not seeing or hearing that as much. i'm still seeing this language of clear-cut 'demographics' and 'communities,' rather than a language of opening up across color and cultural lines.
there's talk of obama's cabinet as one of the 'most diverse' ever, with african americans and asian americans...yet there's still this idea that the asian american members will simply represent/be links to 'asian american communities' while the african american members will represent and support their populations. amidst all the praise for 'diversity,' there's little critical conversation on how these roles can be tokenizing, and fix or center certain people as representative of actually hugely diverse 'communities.' for instance, if gary locke, a chinese american (see below), is representative of asian america, then that perpetuates a particular image of asian american as primarily of chinese descent. it also makes it seem like 'asian american' is easily identifiable - oh you have chinese parents, but you've lived in the states for this long, you're asian american. this use of 'asian american' fails to account for individuals of all kinds of 'mixedness,' people who come from other parts of 'asia,' etc.
and what's more, there's a huge amount of cultural amnesia in the air; people seem to forget both the histories of opposition and cooperation between african american and asian americans...as well as the histories of all sorts of 'mixing' between people of color in this country. this 'diversity' discourse also erases the political histories of these terms themselves. briefly put, for example, "asian american" was an invention of the 1970s, born out of a specific sociopolitical moment (the civil rights era, then black power, new women's movements, etc). 'diversity,' in this multiculturalist framework, essentializes or a bit more mildly, tokenizes difference.
yes we can. progress. hope. that's great. but in recovering from the hemorrhaging headache of the last 8 (bush) years, let's not get too ahead of ourselves. remember history. think. just because obama has been doing some wonderful things in his first 100 days doesn't mean we should stop asking questions.
interesting bit from the yahoo.com article:
Obama has a deep personal connection with Asia, having spent part of his childhood in Jakarta. His sister is partly of Indonesian descent; her husband in turn is of Chinese heritage.
"Sometimes I jokingly say that this is the most Asian-American president that we will have," said Helen Zia, a prominent Asian-American scholar and activist.
"He recognizes what it means to be bicultural or bilingual -- that it's something we can contribute to America rather than being seen as a potential enemy or alien," she said.
She said there was "poetic justice" that one of the Asian-American members of the Obama cabinet, Steven Chu, heads the Department of Energy.
In 1999, the then energy secretary, Bill Richardson, accused Taiwanese-born scientist Wen Ho Lee of stealing secrets from Los Alamos National Laboratory -- the birthplace of the atomic bomb -- to give to communist China.
Lee spent nine months in solitary confinement before the government dropped all charges against him other than carelessness with sensitive documents.
To the dismay of some Asian-Americans, Obama initially named Richardson to be commerce secretary. Richardson bowed out due to an unrelated controversy and Obama replaced him with Gary Locke, a Chinese-American.
& much much more on Obama's first 100 days here.
**
p.s. am i, too, playing into this label game of 'diversity' with my post labels? i like calling them 'tags' better, from my LJ experience, but i guess blogger likes to call them labels. which makes it all the more jarring to think about this whole act of categorization...for practical purposes i do it so i can easily hunt down old entries for future reference/self deprecation/"good times" nods to myself. i want to persist in awareness, however, the uses of these terms. "african american." "asian american." by using these terms, i want to explore their histories (past & present), always calling attention to who is using them, and for what reasons.
p.p.s. cheeeck out my new label cloud widget!! i love those things.
p.p.p.s. i love that blogger automatically saves drafts. i've had to come back to this post 3 times now, because my poor dell laptop keeps dying in this wacko heat.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
夏天 reading list
this is a work in progress.
i feel like i always make lists but i hate lists. i resist lists. and actually i dunno if i want to add this one so much as whittle it down for the summer. i.e. i'd love feedback on what you think i *absolutely* must read (whether or not it's on this list or not - but i want what you consider important, essential books *cough*not necessarily "classics" haha*cough*).
in no particular order...
novels
~Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
~The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz
~Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
~American Knees - Shawn Wong
~Speak, Memory - Vladmir Nabokov
~The Master - Colm Toibin [thanks e.m. for constantly reminding me of this one]
~Mona in the Promised Land - Gish Jen [r.r. suggested this to me over janterm...i checked it out from the HC library...still haven't read!]
~Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf [mandatory-out-of-love reread]
~Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut [again, thanks e.m. ...finally gonna get around to vonnegut? maybe?]
~Tropic of Orange - Karen Tei Yamashita [i've stumbled upon scholarly work on this author that makes her seem really awesome...so now i need to find out for myself...]
~Fixer Chao - Han Ong
~A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith
~Third Factory - Viktor Shklovsky [i guess this is a prose work, but i really dunno how to categorize it...:P]
also, it's about time i got around to more short stories by chekhov, raymond carver, lorrie moore, richard yates.
poetry
~Notes From a Divided Country - Suji Kwock Kim
~Collected Poems - Robert Hayden [love love love his work...so maybe it's time to really get into this rich, beautiful collection in its entirety]
~Human Dark With Sugar - Brenda Shaughnessy
~Secret Asian Man - Nick Carbó [i feel like this one's only available at amherst books...or else online, i guess]
~Blood Dazzler - Patricia Smith
~Names Above Houses - Oliver de la Paz
~Power Politics - Margaret Atwood
~The Colors of Desire - David Mura [a great discovery this semester]
~Love, Like Pronouns - Rosmarie Waldrop [who, having written a poem 'after' mei-me- brussenbrugge, reminds me that i ought to revisit mei-mei brussenbrugge...though i often feel like she's wayyy over my head]
~For the Confederate Dead - Kevin Young [started this semester, need to finish]
~Ardor - Karen An-Hwei Lee
~Alabanza: New and Selected Poems 1982-2002 - Martín Espada [future professor!]
and more: olena kalytiak davis, mary ruefle
anthologies
~Take Out: Queer Writing from Asian America [i might just steal this from the amherst college library for the summer...it's such a huge volume, and i'd love to really spend the time exploring it...]
**
perhaps i ought to begin a movie list, too. i just really, really need to see Ingmar Bergman's Persona.
i feel like i always make lists but i hate lists. i resist lists. and actually i dunno if i want to add this one so much as whittle it down for the summer. i.e. i'd love feedback on what you think i *absolutely* must read (whether or not it's on this list or not - but i want what you consider important, essential books *cough*not necessarily "classics" haha*cough*).
in no particular order...
novels
~Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
~The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz
~Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
~American Knees - Shawn Wong
~Speak, Memory - Vladmir Nabokov
~The Master - Colm Toibin [thanks e.m. for constantly reminding me of this one]
~Mona in the Promised Land - Gish Jen [r.r. suggested this to me over janterm...i checked it out from the HC library...still haven't read!]
~Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf [mandatory-out-of-love reread]
~Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut [again, thanks e.m. ...finally gonna get around to vonnegut? maybe?]
~Tropic of Orange - Karen Tei Yamashita [i've stumbled upon scholarly work on this author that makes her seem really awesome...so now i need to find out for myself...]
~Fixer Chao - Han Ong
~A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith
~Third Factory - Viktor Shklovsky [i guess this is a prose work, but i really dunno how to categorize it...:P]
also, it's about time i got around to more short stories by chekhov, raymond carver, lorrie moore, richard yates.
poetry
~Notes From a Divided Country - Suji Kwock Kim
~Collected Poems - Robert Hayden [love love love his work...so maybe it's time to really get into this rich, beautiful collection in its entirety]
~Human Dark With Sugar - Brenda Shaughnessy
~Secret Asian Man - Nick Carbó [i feel like this one's only available at amherst books...or else online, i guess]
~Blood Dazzler - Patricia Smith
~Names Above Houses - Oliver de la Paz
~Power Politics - Margaret Atwood
~The Colors of Desire - David Mura [a great discovery this semester]
~Love, Like Pronouns - Rosmarie Waldrop [who, having written a poem 'after' mei-me- brussenbrugge, reminds me that i ought to revisit mei-mei brussenbrugge...though i often feel like she's wayyy over my head]
~For the Confederate Dead - Kevin Young [started this semester, need to finish]
~Ardor - Karen An-Hwei Lee
~Alabanza: New and Selected Poems 1982-2002 - Martín Espada [future professor!]
and more: olena kalytiak davis, mary ruefle
anthologies
~Take Out: Queer Writing from Asian America [i might just steal this from the amherst college library for the summer...it's such a huge volume, and i'd love to really spend the time exploring it...]
**
perhaps i ought to begin a movie list, too. i just really, really need to see Ingmar Bergman's Persona.
please notice when you are happy
freewrite because there's no other way:
nostalgia abuzz in the ear amuck with honey
a scent in the dark
bloomscents, wakescents, sleepscents
f a d e s c e n t s
skingulpingsun, growing grassdreams
falling in love alloveragain with skyfluff
things like that
that bring me back
to i don't know what
what
pores opening memories pouring
an open membrane so many little slots like for
raindrops or the smallest speck of sunray
maybe back to 厦门, back to 亲戚, 阿姨,
奶奶's big house
王老吉 王老吉 王老吉
a puzzle
a very big puzzle
don't know howwherewhy every piece fits
but feeling the locks turn
**
so i have yet to read a book by kurt vonnegut. that's ok. right now. because i should be reading for class. i'm already in the library! with e.b. (sans white)! but one of my favorite webcomics (i have favorites yes), a softer world or perhaps more accurately, the writer for the comic joey comeau, has informed me (in his little news update blurb) of a wonderful kurt vonnegut quote i'd like to share with all of you. even if you already know it - and are probably a much bigger vonnegut buff than i could ever hope to be - i think this quote is still well worth a repetition:
while searching for the context of this quote - since joey comeau does not, in spite of all his generosity and good intentions, provide much context - i came across 15 Things Kurt Vonnegut Said Better Than Anyone Else Ever Has Or Will, Vonnegut's speech/essay 'Knowing What's Nice', and some funny Vonnegut-related blog posts by austin kleon.
and well, i just thought the quote's really simple and lovely. a nice reminder to say hi to the nice moments.
'cause personally, although i really really should be plowing through mounds of work...i've been having such a *happy* weekend of conversations, poetry reading, music sharing, campus walking...and i'd just like to acknowledge/remember that =D
nostalgia abuzz in the ear amuck with honey
a scent in the dark
bloomscents, wakescents, sleepscents
f a d e s c e n t s
skingulpingsun, growing grassdreams
falling in love alloveragain with skyfluff
things like that
that bring me back
to i don't know what
what
pores opening memories pouring
an open membrane so many little slots like for
raindrops or the smallest speck of sunray
maybe back to 厦门, back to 亲戚, 阿姨,
奶奶's big house
王老吉 王老吉 王老吉
a puzzle
a very big puzzle
don't know howwherewhy every piece fits
but feeling the locks turn
**
so i have yet to read a book by kurt vonnegut. that's ok. right now. because i should be reading for class. i'm already in the library! with e.b. (sans white)! but one of my favorite webcomics (i have favorites yes), a softer world or perhaps more accurately, the writer for the comic joey comeau, has informed me (in his little news update blurb) of a wonderful kurt vonnegut quote i'd like to share with all of you. even if you already know it - and are probably a much bigger vonnegut buff than i could ever hope to be - i think this quote is still well worth a repetition:
I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.'
while searching for the context of this quote - since joey comeau does not, in spite of all his generosity and good intentions, provide much context - i came across 15 Things Kurt Vonnegut Said Better Than Anyone Else Ever Has Or Will, Vonnegut's speech/essay 'Knowing What's Nice', and some funny Vonnegut-related blog posts by austin kleon.
and well, i just thought the quote's really simple and lovely. a nice reminder to say hi to the nice moments.
'cause personally, although i really really should be plowing through mounds of work...i've been having such a *happy* weekend of conversations, poetry reading, music sharing, campus walking...and i'd just like to acknowledge/remember that =D
Saturday, April 25, 2009
so much on my mind that it spills outside
what a beautiful, beautiful weekend. shorts + flip-flops. poetry + music. friends + nostalgia.
here's a song for you all:
Sweet summer night and I'm stripped to my sheets
Forehead is leaking, my AC squeaks
And a voice from the clock says, "You're not gonna get tired"
My bed is a pool and the walls are on fire
Soak my head in the sink for a while
Chills on my neck and it makes me smile but
My bones have to move and my skin's gotta breathe
You pick up the phone and I'm so relieved
You slide down your stairs to the heated street
And the sun has left us with slippery feet
And I want to walk around with you
And I want to walk around with you
And be here with you, we're going.
It doesn't really matter, I'll go where you feel
Hunt for the breeze, get a midnight meal
I point in the windows, you point out the parks
Rip off your sleeves and I'll ditch my socks
We'll dance to the songs from the cars as they pass
Weave through the cardboard, smell that trash
Walking around in our summertime clothes
Nowhere to go when our bodies glow
And we'll greet the dawn in its morning blues
With purple yarns/yawns you'll be sleeping soon
And I want to walk around with you
And I want to walk around with you
When the sun goes down, we'll go out again
Don't cool off, I like your warmth.
Let's leave the sound of the heat for the sound of the rain
It's easy to sleep when it whets my brain
It covers my rest with a saccharine sheen
Kissing the wind through my window screen
The restlessness calls says that I cannot hide
So much on my mind that it spills outside
Do you want to go stroll down the financial street?
Our clothes might get soaked, but the buildings sleep
And there's no one pushing for a place
Let's meander at an easy pace
And I want to walk around with you
And I want to walk around with you
I want to walk around with you
Just you, just you, just you.
~lyrics of "Summertime Clothes," Animal Collective (off their awesome new album which came out earlier this year, Merriwater Post Pavilion). thanks to this site.
i want to write a spring/summer poem. i want to write a spring/summer poem with this kind of joyous directness of expression.
been talking to e.m. a lot. talked to him last night when i was over at jeanette's mod - me and everyone else in my hampshire world, it seemed. talked him while feeling all this nostalgia, watching gilmore girls again (jeanette's dvds), listening to aimee mann's Bachelor #2 album. talked to him this morning and then this afternoon on the phone. read him bits of lorrie moore, margaret atwood, polina barskova. talked to him about how a part of me really misses russian lit. really misses polina. it's weird - and kinda nice - how e.m.'s bringing out all this nostalgia. and i think russian lit. & polina certainly still have a place in my life.
although i am exploring different things. and when i actually think about a piece i'm working on or - gasp - actually working on a piece, then it becomes clear to me that yes, i am exploring different things. nonetheless, it's not like i can't draw inspiration from many different sources. in fact, i think that's when my writing is at its best. when it just can't be any one thing totally. when i just can't be any one thing totally.
the thing is, i think i get nervous talking about these new things. because they're so new. i don't feel quite as comfortably articulate about them as i do with the stuff i was looking into last year or a couple of years ago. it takes time to find the words of the present moment. also, time to warm up to someone...it's funny how the 'now' can be the trickiest, most complex thing to communicate. perhaps because it's not merely a 'thing' that then gets exchanged through language. 'now,' like 'then' is something i create...we create...socially. so to bring someone into that creation, that process...it's an intimate act. letting someone really create with you.
that's precisely what i want, though :)
that walking around with you.
that so much on my mind that it spills outside.
**
so glad to see g.d. tonight. my laptop keeps powering off, maybe because it's so warm. what i was writing in this section was basically how, as s.l. keeps saying, it's good to have multiple, or plural friends...you share different things, create different things. and g.d.'s just been one of those rare people with whom, for whatever crazy reason, i immediately felt like i could talk about anything. we cover quite the range.
tonight in the bridge, the upper rcc, g.d. brought out something in particular...my thoughts on why i'm probably not going to be in a chinese class next semester. why i'd prefer instead to make more an effort to speak to my parents on the phone (in chinese), to keep up an email correspondence with my favorite aunt...i need more of that personal investment. because chinese is such a personal, emotional language for me. it's not a textbook language. it's not a a language of a non-chinese/white/american learning the language just for fun or for research, for job opportunities. it's the language of my childhood, the language of my relationship with my parents (though maybe 'chinglish' might more fully encompass that), with my entire extended family in xiamen. in the classroom, chinese begins to lose its realness...
the dialogues and scenarios that the textbook offers simply don't cut it. the classroom doesn't cut it. and even doing this immersion program this summer in hefei won't really cut it. i already know. because while yes, it's good to expand the meanings of the language for me, the possibilities of it...i feel like i'm losing the very reason the language is alive for me. in expanding meanings, i could start watching taiwanese dramas with j.l., explore more cpop with s.l. ...friends who i know from our conversations have similar sorts of personal, emotional histories with so-called native tongues. the standard, academic-ized ways are getting too confining. i want to still go to hefei this summer, but i need for that trip to be more mine.
otherwise, learning chinese actually begins to feel not so important to me, kinda lame. i feel distanced from it. ...and that distance closes up all at once, though, the second my mom or dad calls me on the phone. they have important things to say to me. suddenly we're all of us living our lives in this language. yes...i need to learn chinese in ways meaningful to me.
**
and here's a bit of the nostalgia i've been referring to...
a poem by polina, from last april (the reading she did at amherst college)...
Physiological Sketch
I remarked the madman,
Scourge of the Berkeley snails,
On his head a black diadem,
In his hands a trident.
He stalks them in flowerbeds by wicket fences,
Catches them on lawns and crunch with his foot...
Left on the ground are bits of shell and clumps of ooze...
You asked me to write about life so I'm writing about life.
With amazing frequency it looks like this...
Elementary... in our suburban village,
Populated by small beasts and rejects, embroidered
With unbearably green threads (William Morris
Influenced the decor). With haughty mien
My infant - rain or shine -
Surveys her kingdom in a stroller drawn
In the gloomy suite of her grandmother (she's more Rossetti,
That patina on bronze, pattern of spiderweb on a rose).
They don't need anyone, like they're all alone in the world --
Two fantastical beasts woven into a single mural.
Now they pause in silence over the snail
Who died in the holocaust of a neighbor's cane.
Now they pause in silence over the victim,
Who had crawled like a hieroglyph from another world.
Nona leans over, and Frosenka beats one light foot
Against the other as they hang above the gravel, above the path:
What do they see are there? Tell me. And what do they see there?
And where are they going each morning together? --
Forerunners of all who move, cry, breathe,
Perform great deeds.
-trans. Catherine Ciepiela
here's a song for you all:
Sweet summer night and I'm stripped to my sheets
Forehead is leaking, my AC squeaks
And a voice from the clock says, "You're not gonna get tired"
My bed is a pool and the walls are on fire
Soak my head in the sink for a while
Chills on my neck and it makes me smile but
My bones have to move and my skin's gotta breathe
You pick up the phone and I'm so relieved
You slide down your stairs to the heated street
And the sun has left us with slippery feet
And I want to walk around with you
And I want to walk around with you
And be here with you, we're going.
It doesn't really matter, I'll go where you feel
Hunt for the breeze, get a midnight meal
I point in the windows, you point out the parks
Rip off your sleeves and I'll ditch my socks
We'll dance to the songs from the cars as they pass
Weave through the cardboard, smell that trash
Walking around in our summertime clothes
Nowhere to go when our bodies glow
And we'll greet the dawn in its morning blues
With purple yarns/yawns you'll be sleeping soon
And I want to walk around with you
And I want to walk around with you
When the sun goes down, we'll go out again
Don't cool off, I like your warmth.
Let's leave the sound of the heat for the sound of the rain
It's easy to sleep when it whets my brain
It covers my rest with a saccharine sheen
Kissing the wind through my window screen
The restlessness calls says that I cannot hide
So much on my mind that it spills outside
Do you want to go stroll down the financial street?
Our clothes might get soaked, but the buildings sleep
And there's no one pushing for a place
Let's meander at an easy pace
And I want to walk around with you
And I want to walk around with you
I want to walk around with you
Just you, just you, just you.
~lyrics of "Summertime Clothes," Animal Collective (off their awesome new album which came out earlier this year, Merriwater Post Pavilion). thanks to this site.
i want to write a spring/summer poem. i want to write a spring/summer poem with this kind of joyous directness of expression.
been talking to e.m. a lot. talked to him last night when i was over at jeanette's mod - me and everyone else in my hampshire world, it seemed. talked him while feeling all this nostalgia, watching gilmore girls again (jeanette's dvds), listening to aimee mann's Bachelor #2 album. talked to him this morning and then this afternoon on the phone. read him bits of lorrie moore, margaret atwood, polina barskova. talked to him about how a part of me really misses russian lit. really misses polina. it's weird - and kinda nice - how e.m.'s bringing out all this nostalgia. and i think russian lit. & polina certainly still have a place in my life.
although i am exploring different things. and when i actually think about a piece i'm working on or - gasp - actually working on a piece, then it becomes clear to me that yes, i am exploring different things. nonetheless, it's not like i can't draw inspiration from many different sources. in fact, i think that's when my writing is at its best. when it just can't be any one thing totally. when i just can't be any one thing totally.
the thing is, i think i get nervous talking about these new things. because they're so new. i don't feel quite as comfortably articulate about them as i do with the stuff i was looking into last year or a couple of years ago. it takes time to find the words of the present moment. also, time to warm up to someone...it's funny how the 'now' can be the trickiest, most complex thing to communicate. perhaps because it's not merely a 'thing' that then gets exchanged through language. 'now,' like 'then' is something i create...we create...socially. so to bring someone into that creation, that process...it's an intimate act. letting someone really create with you.
that's precisely what i want, though :)
that walking around with you.
that so much on my mind that it spills outside.
**
so glad to see g.d. tonight. my laptop keeps powering off, maybe because it's so warm. what i was writing in this section was basically how, as s.l. keeps saying, it's good to have multiple, or plural friends...you share different things, create different things. and g.d.'s just been one of those rare people with whom, for whatever crazy reason, i immediately felt like i could talk about anything. we cover quite the range.
tonight in the bridge, the upper rcc, g.d. brought out something in particular...my thoughts on why i'm probably not going to be in a chinese class next semester. why i'd prefer instead to make more an effort to speak to my parents on the phone (in chinese), to keep up an email correspondence with my favorite aunt...i need more of that personal investment. because chinese is such a personal, emotional language for me. it's not a textbook language. it's not a a language of a non-chinese/white/american learning the language just for fun or for research, for job opportunities. it's the language of my childhood, the language of my relationship with my parents (though maybe 'chinglish' might more fully encompass that), with my entire extended family in xiamen. in the classroom, chinese begins to lose its realness...
the dialogues and scenarios that the textbook offers simply don't cut it. the classroom doesn't cut it. and even doing this immersion program this summer in hefei won't really cut it. i already know. because while yes, it's good to expand the meanings of the language for me, the possibilities of it...i feel like i'm losing the very reason the language is alive for me. in expanding meanings, i could start watching taiwanese dramas with j.l., explore more cpop with s.l. ...friends who i know from our conversations have similar sorts of personal, emotional histories with so-called native tongues. the standard, academic-ized ways are getting too confining. i want to still go to hefei this summer, but i need for that trip to be more mine.
otherwise, learning chinese actually begins to feel not so important to me, kinda lame. i feel distanced from it. ...and that distance closes up all at once, though, the second my mom or dad calls me on the phone. they have important things to say to me. suddenly we're all of us living our lives in this language. yes...i need to learn chinese in ways meaningful to me.
**
and here's a bit of the nostalgia i've been referring to...
a poem by polina, from last april (the reading she did at amherst college)...
Physiological Sketch
I remarked the madman,
Scourge of the Berkeley snails,
On his head a black diadem,
In his hands a trident.
He stalks them in flowerbeds by wicket fences,
Catches them on lawns and crunch with his foot...
Left on the ground are bits of shell and clumps of ooze...
You asked me to write about life so I'm writing about life.
With amazing frequency it looks like this...
Elementary... in our suburban village,
Populated by small beasts and rejects, embroidered
With unbearably green threads (William Morris
Influenced the decor). With haughty mien
My infant - rain or shine -
Surveys her kingdom in a stroller drawn
In the gloomy suite of her grandmother (she's more Rossetti,
That patina on bronze, pattern of spiderweb on a rose).
They don't need anyone, like they're all alone in the world --
Two fantastical beasts woven into a single mural.
Now they pause in silence over the snail
Who died in the holocaust of a neighbor's cane.
Now they pause in silence over the victim,
Who had crawled like a hieroglyph from another world.
Nona leans over, and Frosenka beats one light foot
Against the other as they hang above the gravel, above the path:
What do they see are there? Tell me. And what do they see there?
And where are they going each morning together? --
Forerunners of all who move, cry, breathe,
Perform great deeds.
-trans. Catherine Ciepiela
Thursday, April 23, 2009
in the mouth of my heart, inside my wrists
we've been reading the short story collection Drown in the other america. i'm digging this interview with junot diaz, which mckinley brought up in class today. especially:
[what happens when the 'naturalized' gets exposed for its artificiality, for its existence as a social construction...]
[and the dilemma of the 'ethnic' writer...]
with this latter quote, i feel like diaz really gets to the heart of the matter...and i connect with it a lot, being a writer with a chinese 'ethnic background,' as it might be described in the dominant, popular multiculturalist framework still reining in the u.s. today. how can i tell stories about my sense of chineseness without feeding into an imagination of cultural tourism, of this "voyeuristic thrill," as diaz describes it?
well i think it is possible to tell these more complex stories that serve a political and artistic purpose which confronts the tokenization and this whole phenomenon where 'culture' basically works in the same way as 'race' once did, in essentializing and hierarchizing difference. finding this kind of art, doing this kind of art to break through all that - i think that's pretty much my current project. and it's inspiring to see a popularly read, critically-acclaimed author speak of this 'disrupting' as his desire, his drive.
**
i've been thinking a lot and talking a lot with a friend about the emotionality of one's first/native language. like how chinese seems to speak right past my brain, into parts of my body that remember and feel in a deeper, inexplicable way. songs or poems in english can do that, too - tap into a deep emotional wellspring. but what i'm getting at with speaking and hearing chinese is somewhat different. because it is often the simplest things. just hearing my mother express her anger in chinese. talking to my dad about the weather. and i listen so unembarrassed to chinese pop songs, which would sound terribly cheesy translated into english.
so i love this emotion-language-sexuality passage from cisneros' story "Bien Pretty," the last piece in Woman Hollering Creek, which we've also been reading in the other america:
***
p.s. while looking up lin zhipeng yesterday, i re-discovered (i'd already seen some of his work, but had no idea it was him) the work of chi peng. fascinating guy, fascinating work :]
[what happens when the 'naturalized' gets exposed for its artificiality, for its existence as a social construction...]
A: You had mentioned language as it is typically presented, for example, in The New Yorker. You see your presentation and usage is more value free, perhaps?
Q: I think I make the values explicit. There’s nothing like making values explicit to have people questioning their system of values. Think about it. Nobody will admit that they have certain hierarchies of beauty locked in their head. But nothing shames or provokes people more than making those hidden values explicit. They can’t stand it when you take their hidden structures and lay them out in front of them. People just recoil. They like to think that it’s just organic, that there’s no ulterior motive, but in fact there’s deep ulterior motive and if you lay them out people go wild. I enjoy that stuff. Because I write so much about family and about love, it’s not like I’m intentionally provocative. At all. I’m rather conservative in most ways.
[and the dilemma of the 'ethnic' writer...]
Q: Yes. In Drown, though you deal with the subjects of sex and drugs, you are remarkably elliptical in your presentation. You avoid the type of stunning detail you use to such good effect when describing, for example, the boy whose face was eaten off by a pig.
A: If you’ve done drugs, and you’ve fucked, what more do you need? What am I describing and for whose benefit? Who’s benefiting from anthropology? I figure that my audience knows what the fuck I’m talking about. And if other people want their voyeuristic thrills, they need to go elsewhere. Plenty of writers of color will give you that voyeuristic thrill. I just don’t want to participate in those patterns. Way too often writers of color are, basically, nothing more than performers of their “otherness.” I’m trying to figure out ways to disrupt that.
with this latter quote, i feel like diaz really gets to the heart of the matter...and i connect with it a lot, being a writer with a chinese 'ethnic background,' as it might be described in the dominant, popular multiculturalist framework still reining in the u.s. today. how can i tell stories about my sense of chineseness without feeding into an imagination of cultural tourism, of this "voyeuristic thrill," as diaz describes it?
well i think it is possible to tell these more complex stories that serve a political and artistic purpose which confronts the tokenization and this whole phenomenon where 'culture' basically works in the same way as 'race' once did, in essentializing and hierarchizing difference. finding this kind of art, doing this kind of art to break through all that - i think that's pretty much my current project. and it's inspiring to see a popularly read, critically-acclaimed author speak of this 'disrupting' as his desire, his drive.
**
i've been thinking a lot and talking a lot with a friend about the emotionality of one's first/native language. like how chinese seems to speak right past my brain, into parts of my body that remember and feel in a deeper, inexplicable way. songs or poems in english can do that, too - tap into a deep emotional wellspring. but what i'm getting at with speaking and hearing chinese is somewhat different. because it is often the simplest things. just hearing my mother express her anger in chinese. talking to my dad about the weather. and i listen so unembarrassed to chinese pop songs, which would sound terribly cheesy translated into english.
so i love this emotion-language-sexuality passage from cisneros' story "Bien Pretty," the last piece in Woman Hollering Creek, which we've also been reading in the other america:
I'd never made love in Spanish before. I mean not with anyone whose first language was Spanish. There was crazy Graham, the anarchist labor organizer who'd taught me to eat jalapeños and swear like a truck mechanic, but he was Welsh and and had learned his Spanish running guns to Bolivia.
And Eddie, sure. But Eddie and I were products of our American education. Anything tender always came off sounding like the subtitles to a Bunuel film.
But Flavio. When Flavio accidentally hammered his thumb, he never yelled "Ouch!" he said "¡Ay!" The true test of a native Spanish speaker.
¡Ay! To make love in Spanish, in a manner as intricate and devout as la Alhambra. To have a lover sigh mi vida, mi preciosa, mi chiquitita, and whisper things in that language crooned to babies, that language murmured by grandmothers, those words that smelled like your house, like flour tortillas, and the inside of your daddy's hat, like everyone talking in the kitchen at the same time, or sleeping with the windows open, like sneaking cashews from the crumpled quarter-pound bag Mama always hid in her lingerie drawer after she went shopping with Daddy at the Sears.
That language. That sweep of palm leaves and fringed shawls. That startled fluttering, like the heart of a goldfish or a fan. Nothing sounded dirty or hurtful or corny. How could I think of making love in English again? English with its starched r's and g's. English with its crisp linen syllables. English crunchy as apples, resilient and stiff as sailcloth.
But Spanish whirred like silk, rolled and puckered and hissed. I held Flavio close to me, in the mouth of my heart, inside my wrists.
Incredible happiness. A sigh unfurled of its own accord, a groan heaved out from my chest so rusty and full of dust it frightened me. I was crying. It surprised us both.
"My soul, did I hurt you?" Flavio said in that other language.
I managed to bunch my mouth into a knot and shake my head "no" just as the next wave of sobs began. Flavio rocked me, and cooed, and rocked me. Ya, ya, ya. There, there, there.
I wanted to say so many things, but all I could think of was a line I'd read in the letters of Georgia O'Keefe years ago and had forgotten until then. Flavio...did you ever feel like flowers?
***
p.s. while looking up lin zhipeng yesterday, i re-discovered (i'd already seen some of his work, but had no idea it was him) the work of chi peng. fascinating guy, fascinating work :]
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Lord, I Have Loved Clouds!
it's earth day today. it's raining. everything in amherst looks very green and grey.
the earth day t-shirts hampshire's giving out today are a bit TOO green. like. the loudest shade of green you could find. i'm in the hc library reading and thinking and, evidently, writing in this blog.
i had free pizza in the prescott house office, as part of a very ill-attended earth day event. *sad* but the pizza was delicious. also itook stole a copy of GOOD magazine. it was the may/june 2008 issue, the 中国 issue, you see. entitled, "Don't Be Scared Of China (别 怕 中国)." pretty interesting, and from my brief skimming of the main article, they cover a fairly balanced account of modern-contemporary china, from everyone's favorite subject of chair mao to the very exciting chinese visual artists working today. on this latter note, i've discovered lin zhipeng from the central article in the magazine ("Ten Reasons Why China Matters To You") and am checking out his stuff - you should too. it's funny, sexy, and just the right kind of crazy.
anyway. back to 'real' reading. bought sandra cisneros' story collection Woman Hollering Creek this afternoon from amherst books, because i forgot to buy it from the school bookstore earlier in the semester. i've already read some of these stories, i think in high school, and now we're reading it in The Other America. i quite like the little story, "Eleven." here's the beginning:
i have to say, i was pretty tempted while i was in amherst books. tempted by the fresh-off-the-press english translation of 余华's (Yu Hua's) gargantuan 2005 novel called 兄弟 (Brothers). still have to finish reading yu hua's 活着 (To Live), which was turned into a movie in 1994 by zhang yimou. i was also tempted in amherst books by an english translation of 孽子 ('sons of sin' but english edition is Crystal Boys) by Pai Hsien-yung, a revolutionary text from taiwan, about young gay men living on the margins in taiwan. and then i noticed Ha Jin's recent memoir-as-writer extended-essay work The Writer as Migrant. the title alone is right up my alley. i flipped through that volume for a few minutes, catching mentions of nabokov, which reminded me of how much i want to read Speak, Memory and Pale Fire. turned around in the same section and found myself face to face with julio cortázar and his wildly experimental (but i hear, very entertaining at the same time) 'novel,' Hopscotch (Rayuela). ahhhh.
one wants to be immortal in bookstores. or, perhaps, to be of infinite disposable income. and then immortal.
**
i keep forgetting to post some olena kalytiak davis poems. and yet i have a whole book by her, from the amherst college library. so here's 2nd poem from that 1997 collection, And Her Soul Out of Nothing:
davis' humor reminds me somewhat of other funny depressive writers, e.g. louise glück in Meadowlands or parts of VIta Nova and "Prism" from Averno. though she reminds me more of mary ruefle, with the somewhat absurdist bent, yet kind of more straightforward, like an aimee mann song. i love these silly, sad lyric (in the broad sense)-makers. the funniest things in the world to me are things that have a deep desperation at heart. i need to read more dorothy parker.
& o what the hell. here are some more davis poems. maybe you deserve it. maybe you don't. (the following three pieces i've found online, before i got my hands on an actual book. i dunno which collections these poems may have ended up in...)
The Unbosoming
I have been a day boarder, Lord. I have preferred the
table to the Bed.
I have proffered, Lord, and I have profited, Lord,
but little, but not. I was Bored,
Lord, I was heavy, Lord. Heavy bored. Hopeless,
Lord, hideous, Lord. Sexless.
I was in love, Lord, but not with You. The nine
malic moulds, Lord.
The butcher, the baker, the under-taker. Lord, I was
taken under. I Repeat
Myself, Lord. I re-peat myself as the way back, the
way back to Myself,
Lord. I have trembled, Lord. His face, Lord, and Yours.
I am unlovely, Lord, I Nam
Not precious, Lord. Spy better, Love, and You will see:
I am nothing. I have Seen
How lovely, Lord, how lovely You are, Lord, but I refused
to kneel. I Refuse
To knell Your loveliness. I refuse to kiss. And I refuse
to tell. I am unwilling, Love.
I am unwell. Unkempt. My hideous loins, Love. My body,
which is all Wrack
And screw, Love. All slack and crewel. At Your beck and
call, Love, at His Beck
And call. Crestfallen, Love. Of the fallen breast.
Un-clean of eye. Loose of Thigh.
Ridiculous, Love. Most serious, Love. Unshod. Unshriven.
In vain and in Rain,
Love. I live and I Wire. I Wive, Lord, but I Fathom Not.
Six Apologies
I Have Loved My Horrible Self, Lord.
I Rose, Lord, And I Rose, Lord, And I,
Dropt. Your Requirements, Lord. 'Spite Your Requirements, Lord,
I Have Loved The Low Voltage Of The Moon, Lord,
Until There Was No Moon Intensity Left, Lord, No Moon Intensity Left
For You, Lord. I Have Loved The Frivolous, The Fleeting, The Frightful
Clouds. Lord, I Have Loved Clouds! Do Not Forgive Me, Do Not
Forgive Me LordandLover, HarborandMaster, GuardianandBread, Do Not.
Hold Me, Lord, O, Hold Me
Accountable, Lord. I Am
Accountable. Lord.
Lord It Over Me,
Lord It Over Me, Lord. Feed Me
Hope, Lord. Feed Me
Hope, Lord, Or Break My Teeth.
Break My Teeth, Sir,
In This My Mouth.
Francesca Too Can Stop Thinking About Sex, Reflect Upon Her Position In Poetry, Write a Real Sonnet
pilgrim, i did not mean to be so loose
of tongue, so bold in all i loosely told
in my smut so smug, so overly sold.
i did not mean, pilgrim, to traduce.
i apologize, i offer no excuse:
but, poet, though you have right to scold
it was high-souled you who made my mouth hold
what it held and tell what it told. a truce,
no, let’s call it an honor. mine is apt,
as far as long sentences go: my vice
in your verse will tempt others to try
and sing: readers, lovers forever rapt
and about to sweetly sigh: paradise!
thank you, poet, for keeping me alive
***
p.s.
bought new headphones - again. i need to stop breaking them in my sleep. i need to reduce my carbon footprint. in my sleep.
and so. re-listening to portishead's Third.
right now: We Carry On.
and then: Daniel, off Bat for Lashes' awesome new album, Two Suns.
p.p.s. my future (i.e. next semester) roommate likes Mrs. Dalloway (which i have read at least once every year the past three years). and books by haruki murakami (especially Kafka on the Shore and Sputnik Sweetheart, two of my favorites too). of course this is well worth mentioning to the world (of the internets).
the earth day t-shirts hampshire's giving out today are a bit TOO green. like. the loudest shade of green you could find. i'm in the hc library reading and thinking and, evidently, writing in this blog.
i had free pizza in the prescott house office, as part of a very ill-attended earth day event. *sad* but the pizza was delicious. also i
anyway. back to 'real' reading. bought sandra cisneros' story collection Woman Hollering Creek this afternoon from amherst books, because i forgot to buy it from the school bookstore earlier in the semester. i've already read some of these stories, i think in high school, and now we're reading it in The Other America. i quite like the little story, "Eleven." here's the beginning:
What they don't understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you're eleven, you're also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one. And when you wake up on your eleventh birthday you expect to feel eleven, but you don't. You open your eyes and everything's just like yesterday, only it's today. And you don't feel eleven at all. You feel like you're still ten. And you are--underneath the year that makes you eleven.
Like some days you might say something stupid, and that's the part of you that's still ten. Or maybe some days you might need to sit on your mama's lap because you're scared, and that's the part of you that's five. And maybe one day when you're all grown up maybe you will need to cry like if you're three, and that's okay. That's what I tell Mama when she's sad and needs to cry. Maybe she's feeling three.
Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden dolls that fit one inside the other, each year inside the next one. That's how being eleven years old is.
i have to say, i was pretty tempted while i was in amherst books. tempted by the fresh-off-the-press english translation of 余华's (Yu Hua's) gargantuan 2005 novel called 兄弟 (Brothers). still have to finish reading yu hua's 活着 (To Live), which was turned into a movie in 1994 by zhang yimou. i was also tempted in amherst books by an english translation of 孽子 ('sons of sin' but english edition is Crystal Boys) by Pai Hsien-yung, a revolutionary text from taiwan, about young gay men living on the margins in taiwan. and then i noticed Ha Jin's recent memoir-as-writer extended-essay work The Writer as Migrant. the title alone is right up my alley. i flipped through that volume for a few minutes, catching mentions of nabokov, which reminded me of how much i want to read Speak, Memory and Pale Fire. turned around in the same section and found myself face to face with julio cortázar and his wildly experimental (but i hear, very entertaining at the same time) 'novel,' Hopscotch (Rayuela). ahhhh.
one wants to be immortal in bookstores. or, perhaps, to be of infinite disposable income. and then immortal.
**
i keep forgetting to post some olena kalytiak davis poems. and yet i have a whole book by her, from the amherst college library. so here's 2nd poem from that 1997 collection, And Her Soul Out of Nothing:
I'm Only Now Beginning To Answer Your Letter
Remind me of your affliction.
I'd like a chronological exhibit
of the disorders leading up to our
conversation, like your old driver's licenses
arranged in that one thin pocket of leather,
the phases of your hair, the splay
of your youth. Your current
eyes distorted by lenses, you're speaking clearly,
louder than the drugs prescribed.
What I want to know about is the frenzy.
Sure, I can picture you
on Christmas Eve needing Mass
to last as long as a bottle of wine, but
I don't get the religion.
Explain Jesus.
Talking with you was like opening an empty drawer.
Talking with you was like emptying an empty drawer.
My hands overflowing with garments out-dated, or never worn.
What do you call that thing a priest wears
around his neck? The scarf of a priest...
Explain how we're so immediately alive.
And how far can I carry the thought of you
when already the snow won't hold me.
Even rosaries get tired.
And you're not thinking me,
you're just imagining my dead sisters.
You say you want to feel
the words.
You just want to live in Boston
with the painter Martha McCollough.
Sure, I can imagine the thought
of an easel, the idea
of thick paint.
But I want you to explain it simply, clinically.
Because now that I've thought about it, what
doesn't begin with love and death and end
in loneliness?
I'm only now beginning to answer your letter:
Remind me of your affliction.
davis' humor reminds me somewhat of other funny depressive writers, e.g. louise glück in Meadowlands or parts of VIta Nova and "Prism" from Averno. though she reminds me more of mary ruefle, with the somewhat absurdist bent, yet kind of more straightforward, like an aimee mann song. i love these silly, sad lyric (in the broad sense)-makers. the funniest things in the world to me are things that have a deep desperation at heart. i need to read more dorothy parker.
& o what the hell. here are some more davis poems. maybe you deserve it. maybe you don't. (the following three pieces i've found online, before i got my hands on an actual book. i dunno which collections these poems may have ended up in...)
The Unbosoming
I have been a day boarder, Lord. I have preferred the
table to the Bed.
I have proffered, Lord, and I have profited, Lord,
but little, but not. I was Bored,
Lord, I was heavy, Lord. Heavy bored. Hopeless,
Lord, hideous, Lord. Sexless.
I was in love, Lord, but not with You. The nine
malic moulds, Lord.
The butcher, the baker, the under-taker. Lord, I was
taken under. I Repeat
Myself, Lord. I re-peat myself as the way back, the
way back to Myself,
Lord. I have trembled, Lord. His face, Lord, and Yours.
I am unlovely, Lord, I Nam
Not precious, Lord. Spy better, Love, and You will see:
I am nothing. I have Seen
How lovely, Lord, how lovely You are, Lord, but I refused
to kneel. I Refuse
To knell Your loveliness. I refuse to kiss. And I refuse
to tell. I am unwilling, Love.
I am unwell. Unkempt. My hideous loins, Love. My body,
which is all Wrack
And screw, Love. All slack and crewel. At Your beck and
call, Love, at His Beck
And call. Crestfallen, Love. Of the fallen breast.
Un-clean of eye. Loose of Thigh.
Ridiculous, Love. Most serious, Love. Unshod. Unshriven.
In vain and in Rain,
Love. I live and I Wire. I Wive, Lord, but I Fathom Not.
Six Apologies
I Have Loved My Horrible Self, Lord.
I Rose, Lord, And I Rose, Lord, And I,
Dropt. Your Requirements, Lord. 'Spite Your Requirements, Lord,
I Have Loved The Low Voltage Of The Moon, Lord,
Until There Was No Moon Intensity Left, Lord, No Moon Intensity Left
For You, Lord. I Have Loved The Frivolous, The Fleeting, The Frightful
Clouds. Lord, I Have Loved Clouds! Do Not Forgive Me, Do Not
Forgive Me LordandLover, HarborandMaster, GuardianandBread, Do Not.
Hold Me, Lord, O, Hold Me
Accountable, Lord. I Am
Accountable. Lord.
Lord It Over Me,
Lord It Over Me, Lord. Feed Me
Hope, Lord. Feed Me
Hope, Lord, Or Break My Teeth.
Break My Teeth, Sir,
In This My Mouth.
Francesca Too Can Stop Thinking About Sex, Reflect Upon Her Position In Poetry, Write a Real Sonnet
pilgrim, i did not mean to be so loose
of tongue, so bold in all i loosely told
in my smut so smug, so overly sold.
i did not mean, pilgrim, to traduce.
i apologize, i offer no excuse:
but, poet, though you have right to scold
it was high-souled you who made my mouth hold
what it held and tell what it told. a truce,
no, let’s call it an honor. mine is apt,
as far as long sentences go: my vice
in your verse will tempt others to try
and sing: readers, lovers forever rapt
and about to sweetly sigh: paradise!
thank you, poet, for keeping me alive
***
p.s.
bought new headphones - again. i need to stop breaking them in my sleep. i need to reduce my carbon footprint. in my sleep.
and so. re-listening to portishead's Third.
right now: We Carry On.
and then: Daniel, off Bat for Lashes' awesome new album, Two Suns.
p.p.s. my future (i.e. next semester) roommate likes Mrs. Dalloway (which i have read at least once every year the past three years). and books by haruki murakami (especially Kafka on the Shore and Sputnik Sweetheart, two of my favorites too). of course this is well worth mentioning to the world (of the internets).
Monday, April 20, 2009
at weekend's end
CISA was awesome. and exhausting. i love the smith campus, especially their uber-chic campus center. much thanks to s.l. for all the support/kdrama-watching/camping trip adventuring this weekend. i feel like i've been on this adrenaline rush high all weekend, running around campuses, performing/explicating/living poetry. i hate it when ppl talk about 'living poetry,' though. it's so corny. i mean. one shouldn't have to state it so obviously. it needs to be a bit of a silly secret, this poetry thing. or so obvious that it loses that kind of pretentious sacredness.
anyway. CISA was great, yes. inspiring. i realize i might want to do another process piece or continue in a whole set of process pieces--maybe as part of an independent study at some point--with the main poem i've been performing this month, and others...because revisions, revisions, revisions...things change...thinking changes. and it's nice to follow that trajectory, have some record of it.
btw, i really loved marilyn flores' presentation, " 'Social Justice Was Just Like Breathing': Luz Rodriguez and Women's Participation in the Creative Resistance of the Nuyorican Renaissance." here was her abstract:
and here's excerpts from a poem by Martita Morales, "Sounds of Sixth Street," which Flores provided for us (excerpted as such) on a nice little handout of Nuyorican poetry:
plus:
~wonderful website for the nuyorican poetry cafe in new york city.
~a new york times article on nuyorican poetry and the above-mentioned cafe.
~npr interview with two poets from the cafe
~more poems
~and more poems
**
something just re-sparked the thought that i am going to school/living most of the time now in the town of emily dickinson. and i've lived in amherst before--indeed for several years--and visited emily dickinson's place (yeah emily and i are real tight). well, i stumbled across a photograph entitled "a swelling of the ground." and i could not help but think of "Because I could not stop for Death." so here:
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.
Or rather, he passed us;
The dews grew quivering and chill,
For only gossamer my gown,
My tippet only tulle.
We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.
Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.
**
i think i'm getting a bit sick, after such a crazy (and enormously fun) weekend >.< need to take it a bit easier. focus on the (tons of) schoolwork i have left for the semester. but just calm down, sit down, do what needs to get done.
anyway. CISA was great, yes. inspiring. i realize i might want to do another process piece or continue in a whole set of process pieces--maybe as part of an independent study at some point--with the main poem i've been performing this month, and others...because revisions, revisions, revisions...things change...thinking changes. and it's nice to follow that trajectory, have some record of it.
btw, i really loved marilyn flores' presentation, " 'Social Justice Was Just Like Breathing': Luz Rodriguez and Women's Participation in the Creative Resistance of the Nuyorican Renaissance." here was her abstract:
From El Barrio on the northern reaches of Manhattan to the Lower East Side neighborhood known as Loisaida, young Puerto Rican New Yorkers in the 1960s and 1970s formed a unique culture of art and resistance. This paper refers to this period as the Nuyorican Renaissance for its obvious parallels with the African-American art movement known as the Harlem Renaissance. Though underrepresented in academia, Nuyorican art and literature is expansive, and it noticeably flourished in this period. This was a time of rebellion across America, no less for the Puerto Ricans of New York, who took to the streets to protest housing conditions, petition for bilingual education, and demand independence for Puerto Rico. This era of Puerto Rican political awakening was uniquely expressed through Nuyorican poetry, an art form that has retained a special position in Nuyorican culture, as well as through dance, theater, and visual art. Drawing on the oral history of Luz Marina Rodriguez, a Nuyorican artist-activist, as well as poems, interviews with other Puerto Rican artists, and the relevant historiography, the role of women in this explosion of sociopolitical action and cultural production is explored. This project also highlights the significance of the movement for Nuyorican women's current engagements in community activism.
and here's excerpts from a poem by Martita Morales, "Sounds of Sixth Street," which Flores provided for us (excerpted as such) on a nice little handout of Nuyorican poetry:
...
and she rebels against the fact
that where she lives at
is a
95% Puerto Rican and
black community
and the white
honky-ass bourgeoisie
wants to take over
and she fights and she fights
...
and she is in assembly in school
and because she does not stand up
like the rest of her fellow students
to do the pledge of allegiance to the amerikan flag
she is harassed by her teacher and two deans
she is almost expelled
at which she more fully rebels
...
this is a Puerto Rican girl
trigueña and fifteen years old
this is a Puerto Rican girl
to her, her flag is GOLD
and she rebels
and she rebels
and for this, they want her expelled
but she keeps on fighting
yeah, she fights and she fights
because she knows she is Right!
plus:
~wonderful website for the nuyorican poetry cafe in new york city.
~a new york times article on nuyorican poetry and the above-mentioned cafe.
~npr interview with two poets from the cafe
~more poems
~and more poems
**
something just re-sparked the thought that i am going to school/living most of the time now in the town of emily dickinson. and i've lived in amherst before--indeed for several years--and visited emily dickinson's place (yeah emily and i are real tight). well, i stumbled across a photograph entitled "a swelling of the ground." and i could not help but think of "Because I could not stop for Death." so here:
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.
Or rather, he passed us;
The dews grew quivering and chill,
For only gossamer my gown,
My tippet only tulle.
We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.
Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.
**
i think i'm getting a bit sick, after such a crazy (and enormously fun) weekend >.< need to take it a bit easier. focus on the (tons of) schoolwork i have left for the semester. but just calm down, sit down, do what needs to get done.
Friday, April 17, 2009
hands that labor
i got into martin espada's poetry class @ umass this fall. it'll be my first workshop-based creative writing course since coming to hampshire. i'm pretty excited about it :) especially with espada's extremely fast response to my submissions--three poems to get into the class. i sent them, he wrote back saying he couldn't open the documents (>.<), i re-sent them as pdfs, he wrote back like two hours later welcoming me into the class. can't preregister, but he said he'd save me a spot =)
*yay* this is what i so need. so far it looks like (for the fall) i'm taking asian american women writers @ smith with floyd cheung (FLOYD CHEUNG!), asian american history @ mt. holyoke with richard chu (as a foundational course for the APA program), and martin espada's class. not sure about a 4th class. perhaps i should take at least one hampshire class. i'd love to do an independent study with rachel, but she isn't gonna be teaching in the fall; so we'd have to do it in the spring--which would, actually, be a nice 'capstone' div ii project.
well for now, here are some martin espada poems that i like, to celebrate:
Who Burns for the Perfection of Paper
At sixteen, I worked after high school hours
at a printing plant
that manufactured legal pads:
Yellow paper stacked seven feet high
and leaning
as I slipped cardboard
between the pages,
then brushed red glue
up and down the stack.
No gloves: fingertips required
for the perfection of paper,
smoothing the exact rectangle.
Sluggish by 9 PM, the hands
would slide along suddenly sharp paper,
and gather slits thinner than the crevices
of the skin, hidden.
Then the glue would sting,
hands oozing
till both palms burned
at the punchclock.
Ten years later, in law school,
I knew that every legal pad
was glued with the sting of hidden cuts,
that every open lawbook
was a pair of hands
upturned and burning.
*
Sing Zapatista
March 6, 2001
Tepoztlán, State of Morelos, México
Sing the word Tepoztlán, Place of Copper,
pueblo of cobblestone and purple blossoms
amid the cliffs, serpent god ablaze with plumage
peering from the shaven rock.
Sing the word Zapata, bandoliers crossing his chest
like railroad tracks about to explode, rebellion's black iris
in 1910, in his eye the peasants of Morelos husking rifles
stalk by stalk from the cornfields.
Sing the word Zapatista, masked rebels riding now
in a caravan without rifles, tracking the long rosary of blood
beaded and stippled across the earth by other rebels the color of earth,
bus panting uphill saddled with ghosts dangling legs from the roof.
Sing the words Félix Serdán, age eleven when he straddled the horse
to ride with Zapata, witness to a century's harvest of campesino skulls
abundant as melons, twined in white mustache and blanket
beside the comandantes on the platform.
Sing the word comandante, twenty-three of the faceless
masked in black so their brown skin could grow eyes and mouths,
smuggling Mayan tongues to the microphone in the plaza
where the church drowses in dreams of Latin by rote.
Sing the word durito, hard little one, scarab on a banner
draped across the face of the church where bells bang
to welcome the rebels, as the scarab-people cluster below
shouting their vow never to be crushed by the shoe.
Sing the word zapateado, tap and stamp of women dancing in the plaza
to the hummingbird rhythms of Veracruz, guitarist in fedora
watching his fingers skitter like scarabs across the wood,
shawled dancer lost in the percussion of her feet.
Sing the word Marcos, el Subcomandante, and listen
when he says above the crowd chanting his name:
Marcos does not exist. I am a window. I am a mirror.
I am you. You are me.
*
Heart of Hunger
Smuggled in boxcars through fields of dark morning,
tied to bundles at railroad crossings,
the brown grain of faces dissolved in bus station dim,
immigrants: mexicano, dominicano,
guatemalteco, puertorriqueño, orphans and travelers,
refused permission to use gas station toilets,
beaten for a beer in unseen towns with white porches,
or evaporated without a tombstone in the peaceful grass,
a centipede of hands moving,
hands clutching infants that grieve,
fingers to the crucifix,
hands that labor.
Long past backroads paved with solitude,
hands in the thousands reach for the crop-ground together,
the countless roots of a tree lightning-torn,
capillaries running to a heart of hunger,
tobaccopicker, grapepicker, lettucepicker.
Obscured in the towering white clouds of cities in winter,
thousands are bowing to assembly lines,
frenzied in kitchens and sweatshops,
mopping the vomit of others' children,
leaning into the iron's steam
and the steel mill glowing.
Yet there is a pilgrimage,
a history straining its arms and legs,
an inexorable striving,
shouting in Spanish
at the police of city jails
and border checkpoints,
mexicano, dominicano,
guatemalteco, puertorriqueño,
fishermen wading into the North American gloom
to pull a fierce gasping life
from the polluted current.
**
plus:
~check out his official website.
~watch a nice interview & reading.
~"i am here to talk about...america with an accent." another talk + reading.
*yay* this is what i so need. so far it looks like (for the fall) i'm taking asian american women writers @ smith with floyd cheung (FLOYD CHEUNG!), asian american history @ mt. holyoke with richard chu (as a foundational course for the APA program), and martin espada's class. not sure about a 4th class. perhaps i should take at least one hampshire class. i'd love to do an independent study with rachel, but she isn't gonna be teaching in the fall; so we'd have to do it in the spring--which would, actually, be a nice 'capstone' div ii project.
well for now, here are some martin espada poems that i like, to celebrate:
Who Burns for the Perfection of Paper
At sixteen, I worked after high school hours
at a printing plant
that manufactured legal pads:
Yellow paper stacked seven feet high
and leaning
as I slipped cardboard
between the pages,
then brushed red glue
up and down the stack.
No gloves: fingertips required
for the perfection of paper,
smoothing the exact rectangle.
Sluggish by 9 PM, the hands
would slide along suddenly sharp paper,
and gather slits thinner than the crevices
of the skin, hidden.
Then the glue would sting,
hands oozing
till both palms burned
at the punchclock.
Ten years later, in law school,
I knew that every legal pad
was glued with the sting of hidden cuts,
that every open lawbook
was a pair of hands
upturned and burning.
*
Sing Zapatista
March 6, 2001
Tepoztlán, State of Morelos, México
Sing the word Tepoztlán, Place of Copper,
pueblo of cobblestone and purple blossoms
amid the cliffs, serpent god ablaze with plumage
peering from the shaven rock.
Sing the word Zapata, bandoliers crossing his chest
like railroad tracks about to explode, rebellion's black iris
in 1910, in his eye the peasants of Morelos husking rifles
stalk by stalk from the cornfields.
Sing the word Zapatista, masked rebels riding now
in a caravan without rifles, tracking the long rosary of blood
beaded and stippled across the earth by other rebels the color of earth,
bus panting uphill saddled with ghosts dangling legs from the roof.
Sing the words Félix Serdán, age eleven when he straddled the horse
to ride with Zapata, witness to a century's harvest of campesino skulls
abundant as melons, twined in white mustache and blanket
beside the comandantes on the platform.
Sing the word comandante, twenty-three of the faceless
masked in black so their brown skin could grow eyes and mouths,
smuggling Mayan tongues to the microphone in the plaza
where the church drowses in dreams of Latin by rote.
Sing the word durito, hard little one, scarab on a banner
draped across the face of the church where bells bang
to welcome the rebels, as the scarab-people cluster below
shouting their vow never to be crushed by the shoe.
Sing the word zapateado, tap and stamp of women dancing in the plaza
to the hummingbird rhythms of Veracruz, guitarist in fedora
watching his fingers skitter like scarabs across the wood,
shawled dancer lost in the percussion of her feet.
Sing the word Marcos, el Subcomandante, and listen
when he says above the crowd chanting his name:
Marcos does not exist. I am a window. I am a mirror.
I am you. You are me.
*
Heart of Hunger
Smuggled in boxcars through fields of dark morning,
tied to bundles at railroad crossings,
the brown grain of faces dissolved in bus station dim,
immigrants: mexicano, dominicano,
guatemalteco, puertorriqueño, orphans and travelers,
refused permission to use gas station toilets,
beaten for a beer in unseen towns with white porches,
or evaporated without a tombstone in the peaceful grass,
a centipede of hands moving,
hands clutching infants that grieve,
fingers to the crucifix,
hands that labor.
Long past backroads paved with solitude,
hands in the thousands reach for the crop-ground together,
the countless roots of a tree lightning-torn,
capillaries running to a heart of hunger,
tobaccopicker, grapepicker, lettucepicker.
Obscured in the towering white clouds of cities in winter,
thousands are bowing to assembly lines,
frenzied in kitchens and sweatshops,
mopping the vomit of others' children,
leaning into the iron's steam
and the steel mill glowing.
Yet there is a pilgrimage,
a history straining its arms and legs,
an inexorable striving,
shouting in Spanish
at the police of city jails
and border checkpoints,
mexicano, dominicano,
guatemalteco, puertorriqueño,
fishermen wading into the North American gloom
to pull a fierce gasping life
from the polluted current.
**
plus:
~check out his official website.
~watch a nice interview & reading.
~"i am here to talk about...america with an accent." another talk + reading.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
I am she: I am he
listening again to pj harvey's first album, Dry(wayyy back in 1993), because of mark mazullo's fascinating article on this album, "Revisiting the Wreck: PJ Harvey's Dry and the Drowned Virgin-Whore." clearly, a sign that i am becoming an academic. as my committee chair (rachel rubinstein!) said today in regards to my presenting at the CISA symposium this saturday: "you're getting a taste of this work as a kind of professional world." kinda scary.
anyway. mazullo begins the essay with a quote from adrienne rich's famous poem, "Diving into the Wreck."
finally reading this poem in its entirety:
rich here reminds me somewhat of the poetry of margaret atwood. i really need to read atwood's 1971 book power politics in its entirety; a book which cuts a similar, confrontational pathway in canada as rich's 1973 book by the same name as the poem above did/does in the states. both authors explore gender and the confusing, conflicting relationships (between 'men and women,' within and without the self) such a powerful concept engenders. indeed, atwood is a fan of rich's book, and this title poem in particular:
and here some lyrics from my favorite song off of Dry, "Sheela-Na-Gig." sheela-na-gig are 'figurative carvings of naked women displaying an exaggerated vulva,' mostly found in Ireland and England, btw.
I've been trying to show you over and over
Look at these my child-bearing hips
Look at these my ruby red ruby lips
Look at these my work strong arms and
You've got to see my bottle full of charm
I lay it all at your feet
You turn around and say back to me
He said
Sheela-na-gig, sheela-na-gig
You exhibitionist
Sheela-na-gig, sheela-na-gig
You exhibitionist
Gonna wash that man right out of my hair
Just like the first time he said he didn't care
Gonna wash that man right out of my hair
Heard it before, no more
anyway. mazullo begins the essay with a quote from adrienne rich's famous poem, "Diving into the Wreck."
finally reading this poem in its entirety:
First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.
There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it is a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.
I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.
First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.
And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.
I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weed
the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and away into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.
This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body.
We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he
whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass
We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.
rich here reminds me somewhat of the poetry of margaret atwood. i really need to read atwood's 1971 book power politics in its entirety; a book which cuts a similar, confrontational pathway in canada as rich's 1973 book by the same name as the poem above did/does in the states. both authors explore gender and the confusing, conflicting relationships (between 'men and women,' within and without the self) such a powerful concept engenders. indeed, atwood is a fan of rich's book, and this title poem in particular:
The wreck she is diving into, in the very strong title poem, is the wreck of obsolete myths, particularly myths about men and women. She is journeying to something that is already in the past, in order to discover for herself the reality behind the myth, "the wreck and not the story of the wreck / the thing itself and not the myth." What she finds is part treasure and part corpse, and she also finds that she herself is part of it, a "half-destroyed instrument." As explorer she is detached; she carries a knife to cut her way in, cut structures apart; a camera to record; and the book of myths itself, a book which has hitherto had no place for explorers like herself.
This quest--the quest for something beyond myths, for the truths about men and women, about the "I" and the "You," the He and the She, or more generally (in the references to wars and persecutions of various kinds) about the powerless and the powerful--is presented throughout the book through a sharp, clear style and through metaphors which become their own myths. At their most successful the poems move like dreams, simultaneously revealing and alluding, disguising and concealing. The truth, it seems, is not just what you find when you open a door: it is itself a door, which the poet is always on the verge of going through.
from the The New York Times Book Review (1973), found excerpted here.
and here some lyrics from my favorite song off of Dry, "Sheela-Na-Gig." sheela-na-gig are 'figurative carvings of naked women displaying an exaggerated vulva,' mostly found in Ireland and England, btw.
I've been trying to show you over and over
Look at these my child-bearing hips
Look at these my ruby red ruby lips
Look at these my work strong arms and
You've got to see my bottle full of charm
I lay it all at your feet
You turn around and say back to me
He said
Sheela-na-gig, sheela-na-gig
You exhibitionist
Sheela-na-gig, sheela-na-gig
You exhibitionist
Gonna wash that man right out of my hair
Just like the first time he said he didn't care
Gonna wash that man right out of my hair
Heard it before, no more
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
when suddenly
thinking about the need to move.
more to the point: needing to move.
moving.
in what direction?
moving on? from what?
maybe needing to move on from some things
dancing?
the new poems i'm working on are moving in/out/around (me?)
talked at length tonight with another classmate from hybrid id's. basically summarized my semester as exhausting...emotionally draining with these recurring instances of trying to talk/write (on? through?) race, identity, personal history, local/national/global histories. how some of my personal relationships are greatly affected. (i'm being intentionally vague bc this space is less a personal journal than an ongoing sharing/creating project...though of course personal contexts are necessary.)
also stumbled onto this cavafy poem:
and i didn't say in conversation how this semester i've been really afraid of change. going back & forth, between wanting some familiar ground to stand on...and realizing how that familiar ground is paralyzing, stifling, too limiting...how i want to move, take off, launch into something new (which is often, paradoxically, about the past...and i suppose i have this great need to think/write the past in new ways).
cavafy isn't getting at precisely the same thing here, but what i see with "The God Abandons Antony" is...well, there's this crucial reminder to listen. listen to the leaving, the moving away, the moving on. and to find some joy in that. "poetry is sweet," polina said. which doesn't mean that all poetry is happy or celebratory. but it's another one of those paradoxes i come back to again and again (border Sisyphus!)--that to write poetry is to love language (and it can be a love of very simple language, as is often the case with cavafy), even when the subject of poetry is painful.
that antony in cavafy's piece is meeting his downfall reminds me of the ending of camus' L'Etranger. greeting those cries of hate...though maybe that's a more masochistic pleasure? or a final, crazy accepting of the universe's alienation? O Meursault. what kinds of responses should one have, in the face of losing (one's pride, one's city, one's life, one's sense of self)? what kinds of responses can one have?
what if i need to break down and cry?
what if i need to tell myself to tough it up?
today in chinese class i learned the words for "natural disaster" [自然灾害] and the main lyric of a pop song, "你伤害了我，一笑而过" [you hurt me, but one laugh and i'm over it].
plus:
~leonard cohen transforms cavafy's poem into a song about losing a lover named alexandra. though i think "alexandria" can mean many different things, including lost love; cohen taps into this particular interpretation. listen to it: here.
~a karaoke-friendly MV of '一笑而过' for all you heartbroken fools out there (the 汉字 are 繁体字 btw, which i have some trouble reading since i grew up on & continue to learn 简体字...but i kinda like the 'traditional' set more, and find some of them easier to remember because they have 'show' more meaning).
~and how could i not think of lily allen's 'smile' too? HOW COULD I NOT.
At first when I see you cry
Yeah, it makes me smile.
Yeah, it makes me smile.
At worst I feel bad for awhile
But then I just smile.
I go ahead and smile.
more to the point: needing to move.
moving.
in what direction?
moving on? from what?
maybe needing to move on from some things
dancing?
the new poems i'm working on are moving in/out/around (me?)
talked at length tonight with another classmate from hybrid id's. basically summarized my semester as exhausting...emotionally draining with these recurring instances of trying to talk/write (on? through?) race, identity, personal history, local/national/global histories. how some of my personal relationships are greatly affected. (i'm being intentionally vague bc this space is less a personal journal than an ongoing sharing/creating project...though of course personal contexts are necessary.)
also stumbled onto this cavafy poem:
The God Abandons Antony
When suddenly, at midnight, you hear
an invisible procession going by
with exquisite music, voices,
don’t mourn your luck that’s failing now,
work gone wrong, your plans
all proving deceptive--don’t mourn them uselessly.
As one long prepared, and graced with courage,
say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving.
Above all, don’t fool yourself, don’t say
it was a dream, your ears deceived you:
don’t degrade yourself with empty hopes like these.
As one long prepared, and graced with courage,
as is right for you who proved worthy of this kind of city,
go firmly to the window
and listen with deep emotion, but not
with the whining, the pleas of a coward;
listen--your final delectation--to the voices,
to the exquisite music of that strange procession,
and say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing.
[Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard translation again]
and i didn't say in conversation how this semester i've been really afraid of change. going back & forth, between wanting some familiar ground to stand on...and realizing how that familiar ground is paralyzing, stifling, too limiting...how i want to move, take off, launch into something new (which is often, paradoxically, about the past...and i suppose i have this great need to think/write the past in new ways).
cavafy isn't getting at precisely the same thing here, but what i see with "The God Abandons Antony" is...well, there's this crucial reminder to listen. listen to the leaving, the moving away, the moving on. and to find some joy in that. "poetry is sweet," polina said. which doesn't mean that all poetry is happy or celebratory. but it's another one of those paradoxes i come back to again and again (border Sisyphus!)--that to write poetry is to love language (and it can be a love of very simple language, as is often the case with cavafy), even when the subject of poetry is painful.
that antony in cavafy's piece is meeting his downfall reminds me of the ending of camus' L'Etranger. greeting those cries of hate...though maybe that's a more masochistic pleasure? or a final, crazy accepting of the universe's alienation? O Meursault. what kinds of responses should one have, in the face of losing (one's pride, one's city, one's life, one's sense of self)? what kinds of responses can one have?
what if i need to break down and cry?
what if i need to tell myself to tough it up?
today in chinese class i learned the words for "natural disaster" [自然灾害] and the main lyric of a pop song, "你伤害了我，一笑而过" [you hurt me, but one laugh and i'm over it].
plus:
~leonard cohen transforms cavafy's poem into a song about losing a lover named alexandra. though i think "alexandria" can mean many different things, including lost love; cohen taps into this particular interpretation. listen to it: here.
~a karaoke-friendly MV of '一笑而过' for all you heartbroken fools out there (the 汉字 are 繁体字 btw, which i have some trouble reading since i grew up on & continue to learn 简体字...but i kinda like the 'traditional' set more, and find some of them easier to remember because they have 'show' more meaning).
~and how could i not think of lily allen's 'smile' too? HOW COULD I NOT.
At first when I see you cry
Yeah, it makes me smile.
Yeah, it makes me smile.
At worst I feel bad for awhile
But then I just smile.
I go ahead and smile.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
maybe three adjectives
writing some new pieces. *excited* having loads of fun with a rather epic piece for the creative final assignment in hybrid ids. kinda getting into my classes now. in mid-april. oh well. i'm having fun.
"he has maybe three adjectives."
"beautiful."
"beautiful."
"old..."
"old..."
"and what else?"
"oh let's say sunny or something dry like that."
~polina & i discussing c.p. cavafy
went to polina barskova's poetry gathering (what else to call it, really...) tonight in FPH. there were only four of us! alas. i love that polina brought up 20th century greek poet c.p. cavafy. "he has his own website," was my brilliant contribution (i.e. http://www.cavafy.com/). also i read a cavafy poem to everyone (see below: "Pictured"). i have a bilingual edition greek/english of cavafy back home--one of my favorite procrastination items. his poems are sexy too.
well i've been toying with a cavafy-inspired piece for ages. i wrote some fragments towards that during the little get-together. maybe those fragments will turn into something...oh and i find it fascinating how cavafy has become 'canonized' into gay male poetry in the U.S. (and perhaps in other places, too). the most prominent example/most famous contemporary lover/appropriator of cavafy would be mark doty...in particular with his 1993 collection, My Alexandria.
for now, some of my favorite poems by cavafy (classic translations by Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard):
Pictured [this is the one i read to the group tonight]
I love my work and I am careful with it. But to-day
the slowness of the composition has disheartened me.
I am influenced by the aspect of the day. Darker it gets
and darker. And ever and anon the rain falls, the wind frets.
I am more minded now to see things than to write. I gaze
upon the picture of a boy lying down beside a spring:
in those green woods beyond he must have tired himself at play.
How beautiful the boy! What glorious noon is silencing
the atmosphere and lowering his eyelids drowsily?...
I sit and gaze a long time... And it is art again that stays
my weariness of the toil in my own art of rendering.
[and actually this translation is by john cavafy...here's the edmund keeley/phillip sherrard version]
*
He had come there to read.
He had come there to read. Two or three books lie open,
books by historians, by poets.
But he read for barely ten minutes,
then gave it up, falling half asleep on the sofa.
He’s completely devoted to books—
but he’s twenty-three, and very good-looking;
and this afternoon Eros entered
his ideal flesh, his lips.
An erotic warmth entered
his completely lovely flesh—
with no ridiculous shame about the form the pleasure took....
*
Days of 1901
The exceptional thing about him was
that in spite of all his loose living,
his vast sexual experience,
and the fact that usually
his attitude matched his age,
in spite of this there were moments—
extremely rare, of course—when he gave the impression
that his flesh was almost virginal.
His twenty-nine-year-old beauty,
so tested by sensual pleasure,
would sometimes strangely remind one
of a boy who, somewhat awkwardly, gives
his pure body to love for the first time.
*
Come Back
Come back often and take hold of me,
sensation that I love come back and take hold of me—
when the body’s memory awakens
and an old longing again moves into the blood,
when lips and skin remember
and hands feel as though they touch again.
Come back often, take hold of me in the night
when lips and skin remember...
*
As Much As You Can
And if you can’t shape your life the way you want,
at least try as much as you can
not to degrade it
by too much contact with the world,
by too much activity and talk.
Try not to degrade it by dragging it along,
taking it around and exposing it so often
to the daily silliness
of social events and parties,
until it comes to seem a boring hanger-on.
*
The Same Space [mark doty riffs on this poem in one of his books...]
The setting of houses, cafés, the neighborhood
that I’ve seen and walked through years on end:
I created you while I was happy, while I was sad,
with so many incidents, so many details.
And, for me, the whole of you is transformed into feeling.
*
Long Ago
I’d like to speak of this memory...
but it’s so faded now... as though nothing is left—
because it was so long ago, in my early adolescent years.
A skin as though of jasmine...
that August evening—was it August?—
I can still just recall the eyes: blue, I think they were...
Ah yes, blue: a sapphire blue.
*
so of course i pick all the sexy ones
but here's one that breaks my heart every time i read it:
Hidden Things
From all I did and all I said
let no one try to find out who I was.
An obstacle was there that changed the pattern
of my actions and the manner of my life.
An obstacle was often there
to stop me when I’d begin to speak.
From my most unnoticed actions,
my most veiled writing—
from these alone will I be understood.
But maybe it isn’t worth so much concern,
so much effort to discover who I really am.
Later, in a more perfect society,
someone else made just like me
is certain to appear and act freely.
**
i also read to the group Midsummer by louise glück (if anyone knows me at all, they know that glück is one of my all time favorite contemporary poets...though her influence on me lately has waned considerably). one person at the get-together was apparently at the reading glück gave last fall (the one at amherst that k.w. and i went to). i read "Midsummer" because it reminds me of cavafy, tonally and thematically -- the dry, plainspoken sensual landscape & the nostalgic melancholy. btw, glück's new book A Village Life is coming out this september. i told the person who had apparently also been to the reading about this...good news, since we had heard glück at that reading say that she wouldn't publish the new manuscript for a while (she doesn't like to be too obviously prolific, although A Village Life will be her eleventh book of poetry).
plus:
~the New York Times article on Cavafy that Polina clipped and saved
~a nice article by langdon hammer on glück's new book: Louise Glück's Italy of the Mind: On a classical stage peopled by workers, wives, and lovers.
And the next day, we were kids again, sitting on the front steps in the morning,
eating a peach. Just that, but it seemed an honor to have a mouth.
"he has maybe three adjectives."
"beautiful."
"beautiful."
"old..."
"old..."
"and what else?"
"oh let's say sunny or something dry like that."
~polina & i discussing c.p. cavafy
went to polina barskova's poetry gathering (what else to call it, really...) tonight in FPH. there were only four of us! alas. i love that polina brought up 20th century greek poet c.p. cavafy. "he has his own website," was my brilliant contribution (i.e. http://www.cavafy.com/). also i read a cavafy poem to everyone (see below: "Pictured"). i have a bilingual edition greek/english of cavafy back home--one of my favorite procrastination items. his poems are sexy too.
well i've been toying with a cavafy-inspired piece for ages. i wrote some fragments towards that during the little get-together. maybe those fragments will turn into something...oh and i find it fascinating how cavafy has become 'canonized' into gay male poetry in the U.S. (and perhaps in other places, too). the most prominent example/most famous contemporary lover/appropriator of cavafy would be mark doty...in particular with his 1993 collection, My Alexandria.
for now, some of my favorite poems by cavafy (classic translations by Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard):
Pictured [this is the one i read to the group tonight]
I love my work and I am careful with it. But to-day
the slowness of the composition has disheartened me.
I am influenced by the aspect of the day. Darker it gets
and darker. And ever and anon the rain falls, the wind frets.
I am more minded now to see things than to write. I gaze
upon the picture of a boy lying down beside a spring:
in those green woods beyond he must have tired himself at play.
How beautiful the boy! What glorious noon is silencing
the atmosphere and lowering his eyelids drowsily?...
I sit and gaze a long time... And it is art again that stays
my weariness of the toil in my own art of rendering.
[and actually this translation is by john cavafy...here's the edmund keeley/phillip sherrard version]
*
He had come there to read.
He had come there to read. Two or three books lie open,
books by historians, by poets.
But he read for barely ten minutes,
then gave it up, falling half asleep on the sofa.
He’s completely devoted to books—
but he’s twenty-three, and very good-looking;
and this afternoon Eros entered
his ideal flesh, his lips.
An erotic warmth entered
his completely lovely flesh—
with no ridiculous shame about the form the pleasure took....
*
Days of 1901
The exceptional thing about him was
that in spite of all his loose living,
his vast sexual experience,
and the fact that usually
his attitude matched his age,
in spite of this there were moments—
extremely rare, of course—when he gave the impression
that his flesh was almost virginal.
His twenty-nine-year-old beauty,
so tested by sensual pleasure,
would sometimes strangely remind one
of a boy who, somewhat awkwardly, gives
his pure body to love for the first time.
*
Come Back
Come back often and take hold of me,
sensation that I love come back and take hold of me—
when the body’s memory awakens
and an old longing again moves into the blood,
when lips and skin remember
and hands feel as though they touch again.
Come back often, take hold of me in the night
when lips and skin remember...
*
As Much As You Can
And if you can’t shape your life the way you want,
at least try as much as you can
not to degrade it
by too much contact with the world,
by too much activity and talk.
Try not to degrade it by dragging it along,
taking it around and exposing it so often
to the daily silliness
of social events and parties,
until it comes to seem a boring hanger-on.
*
The Same Space [mark doty riffs on this poem in one of his books...]
The setting of houses, cafés, the neighborhood
that I’ve seen and walked through years on end:
I created you while I was happy, while I was sad,
with so many incidents, so many details.
And, for me, the whole of you is transformed into feeling.
*
Long Ago
I’d like to speak of this memory...
but it’s so faded now... as though nothing is left—
because it was so long ago, in my early adolescent years.
A skin as though of jasmine...
that August evening—was it August?—
I can still just recall the eyes: blue, I think they were...
Ah yes, blue: a sapphire blue.
*
so of course i pick all the sexy ones
but here's one that breaks my heart every time i read it:
Hidden Things
From all I did and all I said
let no one try to find out who I was.
An obstacle was there that changed the pattern
of my actions and the manner of my life.
An obstacle was often there
to stop me when I’d begin to speak.
From my most unnoticed actions,
my most veiled writing—
from these alone will I be understood.
But maybe it isn’t worth so much concern,
so much effort to discover who I really am.
Later, in a more perfect society,
someone else made just like me
is certain to appear and act freely.
**
i also read to the group Midsummer by louise glück (if anyone knows me at all, they know that glück is one of my all time favorite contemporary poets...though her influence on me lately has waned considerably). one person at the get-together was apparently at the reading glück gave last fall (the one at amherst that k.w. and i went to). i read "Midsummer" because it reminds me of cavafy, tonally and thematically -- the dry, plainspoken sensual landscape & the nostalgic melancholy. btw, glück's new book A Village Life is coming out this september. i told the person who had apparently also been to the reading about this...good news, since we had heard glück at that reading say that she wouldn't publish the new manuscript for a while (she doesn't like to be too obviously prolific, although A Village Life will be her eleventh book of poetry).
plus:
~the New York Times article on Cavafy that Polina clipped and saved
~a nice article by langdon hammer on glück's new book: Louise Glück's Italy of the Mind: On a classical stage peopled by workers, wives, and lovers.
And the next day, we were kids again, sitting on the front steps in the morning,
eating a peach. Just that, but it seemed an honor to have a mouth.
Border Sisyphus
well if i don't start writing in this blog now who knows when i'll actually get around to it...
i love these bits from Guillermo Gómez-Peña's introduction to his 1996 book, The New World Border: Prophecies, Poems, and Loqueras for the End of the Century... (we read a few excerpts from this work for today's hybrid ids class)
**
and swiped off the hybrid ids course website: Check out Guillermo Gómez-Peña's website, http://www.pochanostra.com/,which invites all you hybrid border crossers out there to come in and interact with these living exhibits, which are (in his words): "one quarter stereotype, one quarter audience projection, one quarter aesthetic artiface, and one quarter unpredictable personal/social monster"!
p.s. listening to: the 'fever ray' album
open atmosphere
take me anywhere
take me there
i love these bits from Guillermo Gómez-Peña's introduction to his 1996 book, The New World Border: Prophecies, Poems, and Loqueras for the End of the Century... (we read a few excerpts from this work for today's hybrid ids class)
I am a Mexican artist/writer in the process of Chicanization, which means I am slowly heading North. My journey not only goes from South to North, but from Spanish to Spanglish, and then to English; from ritual art to high-technology; from literature to performance art; and from a static sense of identity to a repertoire of multiple identities. Once I get "there," wherever it is, I am forever condemned to return, and then to obsessively reenact my journey. In a sense, I am a border Sisyphus.
...
What does it mean to be alive and to make art in an apocalyptic era framed/reframed by changing borders, ferocious racial violence, irrational fears of otherness and hybridity, spiritual emptiness, AIDS and other massively destructive diseases, ecological devastation, and of, course, lots of virtual space? ...In a sense, this book is a disnarrative ode to hybrid America -- a new country in a new continent, yet to be named.
...
Since I don't believe in the existence of linguas francas, my choice not to translate (or to purposely mistranslate) the sections in Spanglish, Gringoñol, bad French, and indigenous languages is part of an aesthetic and a political strategy. I hope that this is apparent to the reader who, at times, will feel partially "excluded" from the work; but after all, partial exclusion is a quintessential contemporary experience, ¿que no?
**
and swiped off the hybrid ids course website: Check out Guillermo Gómez-Peña's website, http://www.pochanostra.com/,which invites all you hybrid border crossers out there to come in and interact with these living exhibits, which are (in his words): "one quarter stereotype, one quarter audience projection, one quarter aesthetic artiface, and one quarter unpredictable personal/social monster"!
p.s. listening to: the 'fever ray' album
open atmosphere
take me anywhere
take me there
Friday, April 10, 2009
gimme an intro
ok. hi.
so i thought i was going to come up something super clever and literary for the title to this blog, but it's 3:34 a.m. and this is how i tend to do things--very impulsively. yet i have been wanting to do this kind of public blog for a while...and anyway, i think this title captures my intent here pretty well.
i'm gonna procrastinate here by posting whatever i'm really reading, listening to, watching when i'm not doing my schoolwork. this will include prose fiction, scholarly work i find on my own, youtube videos, links to all sorts of stuff. and POETRY. yes. i want to feature poetry on here, since i (think) i read quite a bit of poetry. it'll mostly be other people's work that i admire, am fascinated by, am inspired by...i'll see how comfortable i get with sharing my own pieces. so yes, poetry...and i especially welcome, encourage creative responses to what i post. gimme more poetry, music, art.
i suppose i could say that i want to do this because i don't want my intellectual and artistic life to be merely dictated to me by the institutions of so-called higher ed. though maybe that's just a fancy way of saying that i procrastinate. a lot. on the other hand, i also want to engage with my studies in a way that takes me in some different, non-strictly-academic directions. because i think it's a fairly common phenomenon that school, that sense of obligation (or boring professors, poorly organized courses or overly organized courses) often render subjects that would be fun absolutely uninspiring. i want inspiration.
so fuck hw gimme poetry.
so i thought i was going to come up something super clever and literary for the title to this blog, but it's 3:34 a.m. and this is how i tend to do things--very impulsively. yet i have been wanting to do this kind of public blog for a while...and anyway, i think this title captures my intent here pretty well.
i'm gonna procrastinate here by posting whatever i'm really reading, listening to, watching when i'm not doing my schoolwork. this will include prose fiction, scholarly work i find on my own, youtube videos, links to all sorts of stuff. and POETRY. yes. i want to feature poetry on here, since i (think) i read quite a bit of poetry. it'll mostly be other people's work that i admire, am fascinated by, am inspired by...i'll see how comfortable i get with sharing my own pieces. so yes, poetry...and i especially welcome, encourage creative responses to what i post. gimme more poetry, music, art.
i suppose i could say that i want to do this because i don't want my intellectual and artistic life to be merely dictated to me by the institutions of so-called higher ed. though maybe that's just a fancy way of saying that i procrastinate. a lot. on the other hand, i also want to engage with my studies in a way that takes me in some different, non-strictly-academic directions. because i think it's a fairly common phenomenon that school, that sense of obligation (or boring professors, poorly organized courses or overly organized courses) often render subjects that would be fun absolutely uninspiring. i want inspiration.
so fuck hw gimme poetry.
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