Tag Archives: Anthem Salgado

Work: Ethic and Well Being

[I've made a couple of minor edits.]

I would be remiss if I did not once again shout out Anthem Salgado for his recent posts over at Art of Hustle, where he’s always posting helpful things and common sense about being working artists, and about living as working artists.

Of course, I remember being a broke young person, aspiring to be a poet. I composed spoken word when I could; I did this in flashes of inspiration. I worked on instinct; I rarely edited or revised, for those things represented the opposite of purity in art. I rejected criticism, for I believed one could not judge true art.

I resented my day job, and I resented that it was becoming obvious that I needed to finish college. I resented my mother for always insisting that I finish school. In my mind, all those things were an impediment against my being an artist, in which artistry was all about flashes of inspiration, being moved by something otherworldly, moved by the universe. I convinced myself that my family would never understand or accept my being an artist.

With my circle of friends, fellow aspiring artists, we talked all kinds of talk; we had dreams. I suppose we all envisioned or hoped to have recognition someday, to be bad asses and divas and rock stars, to be envied. That all seems like such a long time ago. For myself, I didn’t know exactly how I would be getting there, wherever “there” is.

I also didn’t know if I’d ever make the rent. I was not born to wealthy parents, and I did not marry into wealth. I did, at one point, live with a boyfriend on whom I was so financially dependent, that his misogyny, his simultaneous neglect and power turned me into a shell of myself.

I don’t dwell on that, but it’s worth mentioning now, because this post is supposed to be about my work ethic and well being. Perhaps this is where I mention Woolf’s room of her own, and what it means to me — financial and emotional independence, something like a blank slate, fresh sheet of paper, and no kind of fear or barrier to hold you back from doing what you will to it.

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Poetic Industrial Complex: POC and Publishing Anxiety

Continuing on with what is now looking like a series of blog posts on submissions and publishing, I want to reiterate that I’m writing all of this to think out loud about my presentation for the PAWA 07/30/2011 workshop. I am anticipating a relatively specific community of writers, most likely emerging local writers of color who participate in local and grassroots arts orgs, and who have limited publishing experience.

As well, and again, back to author and friend Sunny Vergara’s blog post on self-promotion, as well as thinking back on so much of the writing I do here, as well as thinking about my recent conversations with Anthem Salgado including the Art of Hustle podcast interview, I believe there are cultural and even political reasons for the reticence I see in this community.

A friend of mine, a fellow writer, recently held a women writers submissions party somewhere in the Bay Area. I did not attend, but it was interesting to see the comments thread on Facebook. There really was a lot of articulated and admitted fear. I don’t know anymore what this fear is about; it’s no longer my experience. Maybe it once was. But the very reason why I am offering this workshop is because of those kinds of articulated and admitted fears.

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Poetic Industrial Complex: Promotion and Submitting For Publication

I have been posting calls for submissions like mad, over at the new and improved PAWA blog, and have been a little surprised at the non-response to them. I know; just because I’m not hearing any feedback does not mean folks are being unresponsive. It’s just that I have been trying to gauge community interest in submitting work for publication.

Here is what befuddles me: There’s so much dialogue over our invisibility and non-presence on bookstore shelves and on course syllabi, coupled with reticence to put work out there in a major way. As well, there’s so much interest in self-promotion, in being recognized, so much desire to be given props and praise for being poets and writers, coupled with reticence to put work out there in a major way.

What gives, with the contradictions? I am interested in untangling that, and giving substance to the picture of “poets and writers,” and the necessary work to make it so.

As my friend and fellow author Sunny Vergara has recently blogged, it’s loaded, “self-promotion,” and the term, “shameless self-promotion.” Submitting work is part of the work of self-promotion. With every cover letter we write to accompany every submissions packet we send out, we engage in self-promotion. We’re submitting to the possibility that our work is good and/or interesting enough to warrant publication in a potentially competitive field. He’s listed some truths, which I believe are important to arrive at on our own schedules, after going through our own processes:

  1. You cannot sit on your ass and hope to be discovered.
  2. You cannot sit on your ass and hope to be invited to speak.
  3. You cannot sit on your ass and hope to be published.

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Art of Hustle 1: Work and Generosity on the Eve of Destruction

First, we must always practice generosity. Few things piss me off more than folks who take, who always want stuff from you, who are always, “Look at me! Look at me! Me! Me! Me!” and who offer nothing in return. There are many of these folks crowding my inbox, and I can’t tell you enough what kind of off-putting, bad etiquette this is.

So that is my Golden Rule: Practice Generosity. In fact, considering the impending Rapture (see Gustav Doré’s beautiful “Four Horsemen” above), isn’t it even more imperative that we practice Hesukristo’s Golden Rule (minus the piss off part):

And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise (Luke 6:31).

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Life in Po-Biz

[November 9, 1948: Gotham Book Mart, NY.]

Can you find the Filipino in this picture? Look harder. He’s not quite blended into the background, back against the back wall. That’s our kababayan, Jose Garcia Villa, the Doveglion, model minority among the literati/culturati, Gore Vidal, Tennessee Williams, Marianne Moore, WH Auden, et al.

Not to be denigrating, of course, but rather, empathetic, compassionate. I am a big fan of the Doveglion, or of the poet who comes from Doveglion, the “strange country with no boundaries,” the country “that moves to follow fire.” I don’t know what he thought of being Dame Edith Sitwell’s exotic “magic iguana.” Then again, I also don’t know what it’s like to be published by James Laughlin on New Directions.

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Po Biz and Hustle: Asking and Giving

Anthem Salgado’s got another good post over at artofhustle.com. He’s talking about asking, and how artists need to be better at this. My response to him is that I have come to know not to take anything for granted — publication, honorarium, transportation costs, handling book sales, etc. So yes, it’s better to ask than to be disappointed that something you’d hoped for did not materialize.

Another thing he and I are talking about (in the comments section) is the possibility of a “no,” which may tend to stop artists before they even ask. Anyway, “no” happens and that’s a fact. But yes happens also. I think a “no,” is a good opportunity to learn to negotiate a conditional yes, or to revisit, reword, tweak the spiel. And to revisit the work, revisit whom you’re asking. Isn’t that what a rejection letter is, a “no,” that gives us the opportunity to rethink whether we’re sending our work to fitting venues, or whether the work needs revising or editing before being sent out again.

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Po Biz and the Art of Hustle

I have been peeking in on Anthem Salgado’s posts over at the Art of Hustle website. Anthem’s posting up some helpful and practical stuff there. I was going to say it’s helpful stuff to emerging artists, but I think also a good, healthy reminder to more established artists about the hustle. This is good for me to revisit; I tend to wonder how effective my shameless self-promotion is. Is it? How do we measure effectiveness?

So, rather than stump myself on these questions, I wanted to go back to the basics of professionalism Anthem’s outlined in his most recent post, materials to have on hand at all times — a straight forward bio, CV, work samples, et al., and proper wording and formatting of these. I think these are things we do take for granted; a fellow Pinoy author once told me he regretted some of his old bios/contributor notes, for their lack of professionalism or lack of relevance to his art. I thought about some of these old contributor notes of his and it dawned on me how clever he’d tried to be in those. Made me think, well, that’s what the actual work is for, no? Or if not the art work, then the non-fiction, critical essay work.

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Writer E-Presence

What does it mean to have an effective writer e-presence? This is one thing I’m constantly thinking on, and then this weekend, Lisa Hsia, one of the participants of Anthem Salgado‘s “Art of Hustle” wrote this in her PAWA blog post: “How can I consolidate my scattershot online presence into something coherent that has a following?” I was really glad to read this, and of course, her entire post. She also wrote, “it’s only recently hit me that if I don’t pare away the inessentials and focus on the core of what I’m doing, I risk mediocrity at everything.” And this is great, and totally worth another separate blog post. Sounds like Anthem’s workshop is a necessary eye opener.

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Hustle Generosity Gratitude

Thank you to Bernice Yeung, a San Francisco based journalist; she’s just interviewed me for San Francisco Magazine, and we had a really intense conversation yesterday regarding my growth as a writer, my politics and work, Asian American literature since Any Tan, and many other things. In fact, we had a good conversation about Amy Tan, the icon we have created of her, and why we are still hung up on The Joy Luck Club when Tan has moved on. More on this soon. Thank you to Joseph Legaspi for passing my name along to Bernice, who was looking for Asian American authors to interview.

Thank you to Oliver de la Paz, who will be teaching Diwata this coming fall semester. We’re planning to Skype, his class and me, which ought to be interesting; I’ve never Skyped before, and I certainly appreciate the opportunity to interact with his students. This is really a sorely belated shout out; Oliver has previously taught Poeta en San Francisco, and I’m really grateful that he continues to find my work teachable.

Thank you to Peter and Melissa at BOA Editions, Ltd.; my copies of Diwata will be ready to ship to me BY THE END OF THIS MONTH. W00t! Thas right son, around the end of this month, my books will be in my hot little hands.

Thank you to Anthem Salgado, for his write-up on “The Art of Hustle,” which is his upcoming workshop at KSW. I’ve posted this on the PAWA blog. An excerpt: “Art school is wholly focused on craft and rarely, if ever, on the practical application of this craft in the outside world: in finding gainful employment, developing partnerships and apprenticeships, securing grants and residencies, and strategically promoting, marketing, and showing your work. Instead of giving instruction on this all-important grind, professors enable a lot of damaging fairytales around starving artistry, getting discovered by wealthy benefactors or adopted by the guards of high art, and most harmful, that there is any career to be had in the arts. There isn’t.”

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