I’ve been doing events at a more manageable pace these last couple of weeks. Last weekend, I read at Eastwind Books of Berkeley with Maiana Minahal and Veronica Montes. Veronica’s write up is here. I think that was a good event; as she says, there was some nice thematic overlap between the three of us, presenting different takes on our own respective Filipina mythic women figures. In Legend Sondayo, Maiana has queered the narrative of Sondayo, and pulled the stories into a contemporary setting. In Angelica’s Daughters, Veronica moves back and forth between present day and the historical time of foremother Angelica. I am interested in the process of writing dugtungan, how each of five co-authors approaches and treats one another’s text. How to add and elaborate on someone else’s story or developing character. And can you even afford to be of the mindset that a particular story or character is yours (singular) or “someone else’s”? As for myself, I talked a bit about simply making stuff up in these poem-stories, as storytellers do, tell what they’ve been told with some degree of faithfulness, and then straight up invent stuff. After the reading, fellow writer Claire Light, who was in attendance, told me she started to think about Diwata as “speculative poetry,” which is something I hadn’t previously considered.
The other day, I Skyped with two of Oliver de la Paz’s classes, an Asian American Studies undergraduate course, and an Avant-Garde Poetry graduate course; it was something, having two substantial and completely different conversations about the same one book. With the first class, as they’d just read Maxine Hong Kingston’s Woman Warrior, there were a good number of questions comparing the narratives of girls and their societal value. As well, there were some very good questions regarding the natural world, and my poetic speaker’s interactions and place within it. As for avant-garde poetry, whether or not we can even read Diwata in this context is an interesting conversation already. If, as one student said, avant-garde poetry says something new, then what can be considered “new” in/about the oral traditions and, as Oscar reminds me, aural traditions which inspire the book? So that’s another thing I hadn’t previously thought about in great detail; that there are traditions of telling, and there are traditions of hearing.
This week I have two readings, 10/26 Tuesday with Camille Dungy at City Lights Books, and 10/28 Thursday with Javier O. Huerta at Moe’s in Berkeley. Please do come out; I think I’m finally (albeit slowly) finding my groove for taking about this book. I’m still a bit overwhelmed with the world I’ve written in Diwata. I feel like I hit the ground running with Poeta en San Francisco, that I knew how to talk about it in public immediately. Indeed, having workshopped it in progress for three or so semesters in grad school, and then as my thesis, definitely made it feel easier to “pin down” a discussion of it.
All this said, I came to this point recently where I wondered if I was doing enough to “hustle” Diwata. How do I know whether I am doing enough? And why don’t I already know how to answer this question?
Well, I’m working on a review – and I know I have some questions for you. I’ve been trying to hold off because I’ve been personally swamped – and I’m trying to drift towards a longer essay in which Diwata is at the center of a conversation about mythology, history and place in traditional societies – or not traditional societies but today’s societies.
As far as the hustle goes, I think that you never really know. I’m trying to gauge my hustle – and I think I’m going to do it by how many audiences that aren’t filled with poets I reach. I like poet audiences, but I’m reading this Neruda interview (Paris Review has made all of their interviews available on line) and you just get this sense that his world was larger than what we imagine poetry can be today. His first book had over 2 million copies while he was alive – imagine that.
Anyway, I enjoyed Diwata and have read it a few times now. Just looking for a footing to do something more like a blueprint for reading than a review for it.
Hi Dwayne, many thanks for your comment and kind words about my work!
I really do like what you say about audiences filled with non-poets, or how many non-poets you can reach with your work. I definitely get this sense when I am either not in the USA or not surrounded by po-biz folks that poetry really is important, culturally, emotionally, spiritually, to people and entire communities. When I was in Mindanao, a gentleman I met who I was told was one of Davao’s city officials, upon learning I was a poet, responded with so much ebullience and light (I can’t think of another way to describe it), “You are a poet? Well, that’s such a wonderful thing!” Indeed, many of us come from communities who hold poets as their cultural, even political heroes, even prophets, or what their words have given the people. Who knows if we can ever attain that level of “success.”