Category Archives: poetry

Revisiting the Poetry Manuscript, Balancing the Community Work

rizal manuscript

It’s been a while since I’ve actually looked at the manuscript, and I am ambivalent about what I’ve been doing (and not doing) about it. Indeed, I’ve been busy with teaching, with all kinds of community work, stuff that end up taking precedence whether I want them to or not.

Even though it’s better not to rush a body of work, I am still disappointed with myself, generally, that I haven’t moved it forward, if even in my own mind, with a list of next steps.

I had a moment yesterday morning, while I was on the Mills College campus discussing MFA theses. For me, this is a concrete and empirical place to talk about growing a body of work from scratch to some semblance of completion. Whatever y’all out there think of the Poetry MFA phenomenon, I still believe that the fact of producing a cohesive body of poetic work in a professional environment is indeed that. Not the only fact, but a fact indeed.

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Have Come, Am Here: Proof of Our Literary Existence

I gave my For the City That Nearly Broke Me talk in Filipino Lit class yesterday evening. I’d realized, as I was preparing my presentation, that not only was I (and the collection) asking the more obvious question of “where is home,” for the immigrant woman of color poet, and even, where is home for the exile and/or the expatriate, which I have been asking in my work for a long time now.

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Poem for Neftalí Reyes Basoalto, Disintered 04/08/2013

neruda

[Image source: http://www.dw.de/]

 

the poet’s bones will not warm your bed

vials of spirit, sleeping tea

the poet’s bones will not fill your belly

bitter almonds, devil’s bread

the poet’s bones have sprouted roots

spines and fleshy pomes

the poet’s bones are the color of bones

glimmering minerals in the marrow

Thoughts On Treating Our Own Books As If They Are Not Forgettable Or Disposable Items

Seriously, I think it’s important to ask: how do we as authors experience the book, regard and engage the experience of the book as this thing, body we’ve created, that goes out of our brains and private creative spaces, and into the world?

I am thinking about this now, as I continue to discuss Poeta en San Francisco in classrooms, with students coming into poetry, or coming into critically thinking about their own Filipino American/”ethnic” American/”other” American identities. At first I feared the discussions would be stale because the book is “old.” But the discussions are totally not stale. The book itself, the poetry in it is not stale. I am pleased and relieved this is the case, and I am making all kinds of revelations that I thought should have been obvious, but perhaps aren’t really so much.

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Today in Advanced Poetry Class: Poeta en San Francisco Revisited

A big thank you to Brian Komei Dempster, whose Advanced Poetry course at USF I will be visiting today, to discuss Poeta en San Francisco. I am always honored when educators adopt my books for their courses, and I am more honored when those educators have served as my role models and mentors, which Brian has.

This morning I have been turning over in my head the things I want to talk about, as the book is about seven years old now, and I am about a decade older than I was when I began writing it. Continue reading →

Literary Birthday: Eduardo Galeano (September 3, 1940)

Happy birthday to Eduardo Galeano, one of my most favorite writers ever, someone from whom I continue to learn about the craft, the work, and the life of the writer, scribe, and storyteller. 

Only Human

Darwin told us we are cousins of the apes, not the angels. Later on, we learned we emerged from Africa’s jungle and that no stork ever carried us from Paris. And not long ago we discovered that our genes are almost identical to those of mice. Now we can’t tell if we are God’s masterpiece or the devil’s bad joke.

We puny humans:
Exterminators of everything,
hunters of our own,
creators of the atom bomb, the hydrogen bomb, and the neutron bomb, which is healthiest of all bombs since it vaporizes people and leaves objects intact,
We, the only animals who invent machines,
the only ones who live at the service of the machines they invent,
the only ones who devour their home,
the only ones who poison the water they drink and the earth that feeds them,
the only ones capable of renting or selling themselves, or renting or selling their fellow humans,
the only ones who kill for fun,
the only ones who torture,
the only ones who rape.

And also
the only ones who laugh,
the only ones who daydream,
the ones who make silk from the spit of a worm,
the ones who find beauty in rubbish,
the ones who discover colors beyond the rainbow,
the ones who furnish the voices of the world with new music,
and who create words so that
neither reality nor memory will be mute.

(Eduardo Galeano, Excerpt from Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone)

Reading and Publishing Updates and Thoughts

It’s been another long time away from this blog. I’ve been busy, elsewhere, on Facebook, et al. I’ve been thinking a lot about practicing “community”; there’s that word again. There are the scare quotes, so then, the operative word should really be “practicing.” I am tired of lip-service community, abstract community, community as a threat. I wrote about some issues and complaints I have about community at the Best American Poetry blog for APIA Heritage Month, curated by Kenji Liu. Building upon my last Poetry Foundation blog post, I thought more about my complaints/grievances, what specifically has been eating at me. It’s what I’ve been calling the “narrowing,” and the dividing, both of which occur in place of dialogue. I don’t want to rehash here, as I’ve already written much more than I like to on the subject. So if you want to know what’s eating at me about “community,” please feel free to click on those two links above.

I’ve also been thinking about publishing and productivity. I’ve been kicking myself for my lack of productivity and this unsubstantiated feeling that I am a bit adrift; I’ve been sitting on my book manuscript. I’ve been thinking it’s as done as it’ll get (for now), and so why not send it to my editor, who knows it’s on its way to being done. I’ve also been thinking that I am not in such a rush or race to the next book. Why contribute to glut when space is the more desirable thing. A couple of things: I do want to continue savoring response to Diwata, as response does continue to trickle in, and these are always a nice surprise. Author Noel Alumit will be reading from Diwata for an upcoming Filipinos in Diaspora literary event in Southern CA. As well, I am looking forward to teaching Diwata this coming semester for Filipina Lives and Voices (AKA Pinay Lit class).

In the meantime, I have a chapbook forthcoming and I have been setting up readings. For the City That Nearly Broke Me is due out next month from Aztlan Libre Press. That’s publication worthy of mention, with  booming, shiny blurbs from R. Zamora Linmark, M. Evelina Galang, and Allison Adelle Hedge Coke. I am hoping this chapbook, its production and release, will help me build momentum for the next publication, which will be the full length book.

Speaking of that full length book, I do want to look at it again. I recently read Red Missed Aches Read Missed Aches Red Mistakes Read Mistakes by Jennifer Tamayo, and something about this book — its sadness in places, its defiance, the fact that it’s unapologetic and disturbing — made me think my own next book needs another look see. Indeed, I need to nail down a title. I was set on Chorus, until I was informed that Saul Williams’s poetry anthology has that title. I need something more reflective of collective Pinay body and voice. I’ve been putting off thinking about it, this “problem” with title. I will “fix” this “problem” this summer.

Poet

OK, this here is a brain dump. I just received a comment on one of my recent Filipino American community posts, and to be clear, the commenter is also a Filipino American. This person tells me (I paraphrase) she would hate to see me limited, pigeonholed in my art because of my ethnic identification. If I identify as a Filipino American poet, as opposed to a poet (or Poet), then I am cutting off all kinds of folks from finding and reading my work.

I am terribly refreshed by this comment today.

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Poetry Body Map Influence Community

Blame this one on Rashaan Alexis Meneses and Rachelle Cruz, for introducing me to the idea of “mapping” and “circles of influence.” I thought I would try it too, to see how I’ve grown, and who’s contributed to this, who’s influenced me. Whom have I read, who were my teachers, with whom have I had substantial poetic and academic exchange. And now, who and what are interesting to me, as an editor, educator, as a poet trying to continue growing, producing, and publishing, and with strong consideration to community building (i.e. not lip service, but actual practice). I see now, these days, I have expanded my interested in orgs, to now include the kinds of communities formed via indie publishing, an expansion of my interest in Maganda and KSW back in the day.

Certainly, this “map” is by no means complete; I can barely remember folks from college, and I’ve also just pooped out. Also, to come close to “accurate,” I would have to have multicolored, hand drawn lines and arrows of relation from name to name to org to venue. So anyway, thanks Rachelle and Rashaan. This was helpful in my figuring out where I fit in stuff:

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Process and Form Question: Cento

I have thought a bit about the cento. I read with Maxine Chernoff a few years ago for Small Press Traffic’s reading series, and at the time, she read from Among the Names, (some of) which is written in cento. While I don’t remember specifics (it’s been years), I remember enjoying her reading and her poems. Oscar has a poem which is an elegy to GURU, and this poem is comprised of nothing but GURU song titles. So that’s a cento, no?

I am bringing this up now, the cento, because I randomly received (a review copy of) Noah Eli Gordon’s The Source in the mail yesterday evening, and am thinking about its premise:

“We read these words on page 26 of The Source, Noah Eli Gordon’s strange and haunting cento—a book assembled from thousands of instances of page 26, as found in the volumes of the Denver Public Library, their deployment of our alphabet with its twenty-six letters yielding an astonishing variety of source material that constitutes Noah Eli Gordon’s adventure in numerology.  Language is literally charged with meaning in exciting new ways.” —Marjorie Perloff

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