| HEY DEMOCRATS! WAKE THE FUCK UP! |
[Aug. 27th, 2008|11:59 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  aggravated | ] |
Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani are standing outside your little Unity Party and barking up a storm about how you are divided.
Wait, let's rephrase.
The Republican primary LOSERS--one of whom is a pro-life Conservative from the bluest state on the planet and one of whom is the guy whose cops assaulted Abner Louima--are pretending like the GOP actually likes John McCain. And they are calling YOU divided.
If you don't address these nitwits like TODAY, I am going to punch Howard Dean square in the face and vote for my neighbor's dog for President. At least he knows how to make noise. |
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| Burying Her. |
[Nov. 19th, 2006|04:26 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  pensive | ] |
When I was a little boy, I'm saying maybe three or four years of age, I would come home to my parents cleaner than any child has a right to be. My ears were de-waxed to perfection (courtesy of Q-tips), my butt talcumed dry, my hair wet and carrying the scent of whatever bubble gum kiddie shampoo I was digging at that moment. I used to protest these baths, but silently I relished them, because running through a small apartment was much more fun when you could feel the wind rush past your clean, open pores. And of course, my neck and chest were soaked in violeta water...a sweet-smelling, purple cologne made gentle for kids, the Cuban mother's fragrance of choice for her toddlers. This was how my sister Miriam babysat me: never content to send home a dirty little brother, she used to wash and perfume me and my nephew (who was not too far in age from me) from head to toe. It is almost twenty-five years later, and I feel more at home grocery shopping in West Nyack, because I know the store there carries violeta water, in the same shape bottle I remember Miriam brandishing at my bathtime. I smell it every time I see purple.
On Tuesday morning, my sister Miriam passed away. She was 49. The cliche is to say that part of me died with her, but cliches become such because they are rooted in truth. My identity is the sum total of my memories, and a big source of those memories is gone now, so I couldn't help but feel a little dead myself. Of course, memory doesn't fade that easily, so I know I'll be okay. There were parts of this week when I wasn't so sure.
********************************************
My mother never calls me before 9am, because most of my friends and family know it's useless to think I'd be awake. So hearing my cell phone chirp at 7:30am immediately put me on guard. "Home," the call log said. I dialed and my mother picked up. She told me, "I have bad news," which is code in my house for "Someone you know is dead." I would have guessed any number of people in my family, all older, all sickly. Never my sister. But there it was, all too plainly laid out by my mother's even voice to be untrue. My brain immediately expanded in my skull, and a stone grew in my stomach. Both started pounding, not out of grief, but out of the duty stretched out before me.
My girlfriend and I wiped the sleep out of our eyes and hit the road back to Rockland. I tried putting a bagel in me, and my girl tried to cheer me, but I was hearing only my father's low groan, the one he saves for when he has no words to explain things. Miriam was my father's daughter, the one he doted on and tried to save when her life was going badly. She had also called him the day before. Mom and she made plans to see each other for the holidays. But Pop wasn't able to speak to her. I pictured what I'd see when I got to the house: him crumpled in the corner, speechless, drained of all tears. My mother, a flurry of activity, next to her a phone book open to "funeral homes."
I don't know why I pretend to know things. It was my mother who was sitting on the couch, mourning her stepdaughter quietly, face crestfallen and waiting for me to arrive to settle things. Sometimes I forget I'm an adult in this house too. My father was the one moving and talking, firing off commands like a ship captain, pushing the names of funeral homes into my hand as we walked through the door. It was already decided that we'd meet up my nephews in New Jersey, and decide what to do as a family. Which was weird, considering that we haven't been a family in that sense in quite a while. So I packed up my parents and my girlfriend..my family..into the car and moved off to Jersey.
********************************************
Once all the arrangements were done on Tuesday, I sent an email out to some of my closest friends, explaining the stuff I went through. This is an excerpt:
I'm home now, after what has to be one of the longest days of my life.
A word about the funeral business. I no longer think that people who buy their own cemetary plots in advance are all that kooky. That shit gets expensive if you don't plan for it. Also, I was shocked at how much it costs to cremate someone. Initially, we thought this would be
the only option, since my family isn't exactly moneyed up. We found out that it is only slightly more expensive to put in for a full-fledged service and burial; and that Medicaid, for all its woeful record as a medical provider, will actually pay for a decent burial.
Ultimately, we opted for the full-on casket service and burial, out of respect for my nephews' wish to have some piece of permanent, hallowed ground in memory of their mother, rather than spreading her ashes to the winds. My own folks had talked about cremation, but my oldest nephew gave them pause to think again, when he said that he needed a place to visit, something real to look at, and read, and touch, even if it's only a cold headstone. He couldn't stomach his
mother's history being reduced to a 10-line obituary in the Herald and News. My nephew is only slightly younger than me, and though I have to keep reminding myself that both he and his brother are grown men, they earned my respect today.
My nephews, by the way, are both fathers. The older nephew has two boys, ages 5 and 3. My younger nephew has a 6-year-old daughter. This makes my father a great-grandfather, and me, a great-uncle. Without exaggerating in the slightest, today was a good day to be a poet, for it was all about making observations and connections. At the funeral home today sat four generations of immigrant legacy--my parents; myself; my nephew and his wife; and their children. If you'd had the chance to pan around the room, you'd see every complexion of black and white, Cuban, Puerto Rican, and Dominican. Three languages among us, some dominant over others--Spanish, English, French. Despite what some would have you believe, this is the quintessential American family, complete with its stories of divorce, past drug use, jail time, and the love we all felt for my sister--a flawed yet beautiful human being who left us too soon. It is appropriate that her services will be held in Passaic, NJ, where she lived almost all her life, across the street from one of the first homes my father kept here in the States.
Here now on Sunday, I can say without hesitation that I refuse to be cremated. My nephew was right. I've always tried to write my "burial instruction" poem, but I could never do it. Poems bring meaning, and assigning meaning to one's burial means you need to have convictions about it. Watching your sister get buried will give you convictions in a hurry. At 29, I've finally pondered my own mortality enough to think about writing them out.
Of course, that wasn't going to happen immediately after Tuesday. My headache was gone, but so was everything else. It was like slipping into a coma.
********************************************
I don't remember much about Wednesday except that I stayed home and did exactly nothing.
I don't remember much about Thursday except that I prepared myself all day to see my sister lifeless that night. I could have prepared for months. You're never ready. And that's all I can muster to say about it.
But Thursday night?
Okay, so I'll just say. My sister should've been a cop, because that heffa' knew everybody and their mother.
There was us. Her kids and grandkids. The former in-laws. Her housemates. The neighbors. The neighbors from five years ago. The neighbors from ten years ago. The neighbors from TWENTY years ago. The dude who used to rent the upstairs from my father, who introduced my sister to her ex-husband. Her brother's former basketball teammate. All of her son's hoodlum friends from the block. All of her other son's reformed hoodlum friends from the block. My father's friends from work. My father's friends who knew Miriam when she was little. And yes...all their mothers. Literally. My sister was loved by children and old people alike. If her pets had survived her, their puppies and kittens would have shown up too.
How thoroughly I underestimated her. How many elbows I had to toss to move the thirty-deep pile of smoking boys by the door. It cost us sixty extra dollars to transport all the flowers to the cemetary. She was gangster like that. I would not have been shocked for one moment to see Martin Scorsese walk through the door, pissed that he left his camera home.
********************************************
It stopped raining on Friday morning, but there had not been enough sun to dry the mud around Miriam's grave by the time we arrived at the cemetary. Thirty of us stepped carefully around the soft patches of earth, watching the closed casket like a bonfire. They asked me to say a prayer, and I did, my first in what seems like years. We tossed flowers onto the lid. My father cried. My mother cried. I thought I was finished, but not quite. My girlfriend held on to me as I watched the men lower my sister into the earth, slowly, carefully, respectfully. I have never been part of such an utterly human moment in my life. You simply can't see something like that and walk away unchanged.
With mud on our expensive shoes, and a weight lifted from our hearts, we made a bee line to the restaurant in Passaic where we'd scheduled the repasse. This is where you go to eat and celebrate and be together in memory of the deceased. As funeral rites go, this has got to be my favorite. Three types of chicken, stuffed mushrooms, paella, black beans, chicken dumplings, fish. And from the tables: laughter, foolishness, memories, bochinche. My sister was a jodona like that, so I know she would have enjoyed it.
What good comes from death? How can you witness grace from watching over your sister's dead body over two days?
If I could show you all the pictures on my cell phone, the ones of my father posing with his great-grandchildren (the ones he hadn't met until Thursday),
If you could have seen a grown man you used to beat up on as a kid say "Smile, Papi" to his grandfather,
If you had known the love of a loyal and confident woman, who stood by you and gave you counsel and relief when everyone else was gone,
If you had heard Miriam's grandchildren, my niece and my nephews, tell everyone within earshot that their grandma was an angel now...
...I'm thinking you would have witnessed it.
********************************************
I don't have any poems about this yet. A friend of mine tells me they could come in five days or five years, doesn't matter. I guess I need the archive of it, the history, the memory. I know my sister deserves more than a ten-line obituary. I hope I'll be able to share the smell of violeta water with folks. For now, I think I'll be happy just spending some time with my nephews and their families. Funny, I always write about what it's like to have a big close family, but I haven't actually HAD one in quite a while. Who knows what will grow from this? A life, if I'm lucky. |
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| What Exactly Is a Latino Poet? |
[Nov. 10th, 2006|04:16 pm] |
Yes, indeed, there is more to be said on this topic, but I have a concert in Brooklyn to attend tonight, and sorry, but Sekou Sundiata takes precedence over Latino poetry treatises at the moment.
That said, Rigoberto Gonzalez has fired off an exquisite defense of Chicano literature at the Poetry Foundation's blog...at the expense of the term "Latino," an admittedly problematic word that also needs some attention, in my view.
A friend of mine points out: It's interesting that the Poetry Foundation puts people of color on their website, but not in their magazine. In the words of my 7th grade classmates: "Oh snap!"
Anyway, read "On Being a Chicano Poet", by Rigoberto Gonzalez. Then read my limited response below.
More to come.
**************************************************
Vaya Rigoberto:
I am very gratified to see your name and your words on this website. Thank you. May your activism and art continue to lend an eloquent, unmuted voice to Chicano literature worldwide.
I must beg to differ with you on one point.
The designation "Latino," for those of us poets who claim it, is by no means a self-amputating title of defeat. You challenge, rightfully, the notion that those of us with non-Anglo names and surnames can somehow pass through this landscape unquestioned. For those who would do the questioning, I would offer the designation "Latino" to remind them that the creative influences of Latino poets come from sources that do not necessarily originate from the current political borders of the United States. Latino poets living in the United States come together as disciples of Mistral, Guillen, de Burgos, Neruda, and Paz just as easily as they can say "Walt Whitman."
You are 1000% correct about the history of Chicano poetry, and its context within understanding U.S. history. But why can't we understand poetry both in terms of national and supranational poetics and culture? It is important to understand the differences between the Chicano and the "Nuyorican"...but amongst us "younger poets," it is increasingly important to understand where we come together. When we allow ourselves to shape the scope and influence of the word "Latino" as a cross-border, supranational term, then we can engage ourselves wholly into a meaningful conversation about "American" poetry, and what it means to be "American." The more ignorant Anglos among us would prefer for us brown folk to simply go home, but we are already home. Now we need to negotiate that space.
Anyhow. I've been on the soapbox for far less of a time than you have. I hope we can turn these commentaries into conversations in the near future. Looking forward to what we have to say.
Paz,
Rich Villar
NYC |
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| The Day of My Birf. |
[Nov. 7th, 2006|02:06 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | The Ether | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  happy | ] |
| [ | music |
| | "Happy Birthday To You" | ] |
Duh nuh nuh nuh, Nuh nuh.......They say it's my birthday.
Duh nuh nuh nuh, Nuh nuh.......It's your birthday too, yeah.
Yes indeedy, sweeties, today I turn 29. One year shy of three decades. Saturn return. All that good stuff.
My day has already been spectacular. Last night, Guy LeCharles Gonzalez came on to host the second half of Roger's show at Bar 13, and for a moment it felt just like when I started out coming to open mics. I kinda miss that. Early yestermorning (after midnight), a few of the regulars made the trek over to Taylor Mali's house, and The Big Chat session ensued. Subjects covered: poetry (cuz we're boring), movie quotes, yoga (and how my instructor sucked), group dental flossing, the dirty sanchez, and body parts that turn us on. So yeah, your average Monday.
I've always been good at self-appraisal (not necessaily self-esteem), but today I shall attempt to refrain from excessive verbiage about poetics and philosophy. Instead, I shall simply say that today is a good day, and that if 29 years have led me here, then life, with its occasional bumps, is pretty goddamn good.
Let me also state unequivocally that love is definitely good. My life has been blessed with the presence of an amazing woman by the name of Tara Betts. I think this may be the first time I've mentioned her name on a blog (cryptic posts aside). But in any case, I feel for the first time in my life that love is not some abstract concept in my head, some tingly feeling in my feet; but rather a real, bluesy, warm lightness in my chest, a shield, an anchor...and above all, an ACTUAL LIVING BREATHING PERSON. Oh, yeah, didn't anybody tell you that love is only good when there's someone to love you back? I had forgotten that. So yeah, happy birthday to me. The best present I could've gotten is waiting for me somewhere in Brooklyn, and wouldn't you know it, she loves me too.
Folks. For those who have contacted me already, my sincerest thanks and love. For those who haven't, if you have the number, call me or text me and leave a message. Do not expect to hear back from my ass today. LOL I'm gonna go be invisible for a while.
Later, y'all.
p.s. Before I go, it should be noted that I plan to get my happy ass to the voting booth and vote out every motherfucker with an (R) next to their name. I suggest you do the same. |
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| Love and Poetics and Stuff |
[Oct. 20th, 2006|12:56 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Bed-Stuy, Do or Die | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | Punchy | ] |
| [ | music |
| | "When the Shit Goes Down," Cypress Hill | ] |
Ladies and gentlemen, I can feel my abdominal muscles. That's right, you jolly bastards, feel the burn! Well, okay, I haven't exactly lost the weight one could write a Jenny Craig commercial about, but fuckit, everybody needs a dream.
So. Much has happened in the past couple of weeks. I am well on my way toward a project I first thought about three years ago, and I've been doing the talking and organizing necessary to get it off the ground. If it sounds like I'm being cryptic, I probably am. I'm not trying to jinx it before it really gets going. But the project sounds dope, and it's making me feel all grown up. More on that as events warrant.
I attended the Dodge Poetry Festival three weeks ago. All I'll say about that: I am not interested in supporting poets who have a proven track record of shitting on the kind of work I'm apt to do: i.e. identity politics, history poems, poems with "an agenda." I have no time to engage poets in lengthy and often pointless discussions on language if the poets they champion don't intend to have the language in their work speak to people beyond mere technical concerns. When poetry becomes a scientific practice, I'll start writing novels. When we really start having conversations about the pervasive racism present in academia, maybe I'll be more interested in engaging folks in conversation beyond shouts of "MotherFUCK Jorie Graham!" from the expressway.
By contrast, the Cave Canem reunion at CUNY last weekend reaffirmed my belief that poetry can be whatever it wants to be and still be fun. I had a chance to hang with a group of the most serious-minded and dope-ass poets writing today, and even when I told Kate Rushin that I lack some of the credentials of her colleagues, she was positive and affirming of my choices for graduate school. All the elders from the group were just fantastic (including the amazing Sonia Sanchez), and I felt welcome in a circle of intellectuals in a manner I haven't felt in a long time. I can't say the same of certain poetry editors I've had the misfortune of meeting these past few weeks.
What am I saying with all this? I guess I needed to move past the immediate concerns of "Does this poem sound okay?" and into thinking about a larger Ars Poetica. I've been doing so, quite happily at that. Now I need to write the poem.
Other news? Well, shit, y'all. I'm a man in love, and that's a beautiful thing. In fact, I can tell you for a fact that love is stronger than every negative emotion people can toss at you. It gives you power where there is none to be thought of. It guards you from the bullshit, clears your mind for battle. I find my bullshit detector on the highest, most sensitive level, ever since love affirmed my place on earth. Sadly though, I must report that I was fooled: I never really loved anyone this way before, and I can't believe how foolish I was to mourn what I thought I'd lost. No no, love like the kind I have now is the kind of love you don't mourn, it's the kind you celebrate while you have it. I plan on keeping it for a while too. :-) |
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| okok |
[Sep. 16th, 2006|02:26 pm] |
So I'm staying with Livejournal, for those of you that refuse to drink the MySpace koolaid. It's all good, I still love you.
I reserve the right to keep some shit MySpace specific. And I have started a calendar for the few gigs I pick up here and there...including one tonight at the Cornelia Street Cafe at 6pm, right before Ove's little shindig at Club Love.
www.myspace.com/somuchunlearning
Peaces, peoples. |
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| HOT GARBAGE |
[Sep. 16th, 2006|02:16 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | The Cave | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | peeved | ] |
| [ | music |
| | "Living For the Love of You," Isley Brothers | ] |
Wow... am I ever sick of cruising the internet and finding flyers, e-blasts, reminders, and constant spam promoting the HOT GARBAGE that some spoken word fops attempt to pass off as poetry. For real, you'd think I'd have been violently ill by now, but I think I've finally reached my breaking point.
What is hot garbage, you ask?
Well...
If you are still doing the same five poems from five years ago, with the same inflections, cheesy wordplay, and cheap crowd work...
If, when you are asked whose work you've been reading or listening to, you respond with a) "books are obsolete," OR b) "I don't wanna taint my own work"...
If you believe that success in poetry means non-stop touring for little money, or being the youngest/quickest/most meteoric slam champion in the history of mankind...
If you've ever referred to poetry as "this poetry game," (as in "this rap game") or if you believe in such a term as "the poetry business,"
If you believe there is a difference between "page work" and "stage work," or "spoken word" and "poetry," and will argue until you're blue in the face about the merits of spoken word as an actual poetic genre...
If you use poetry as an altruistic gesture meant to assuage your white liberal guilt; or if you think that writing alone will magically convert Neo-Con Republicans into free love hippies....
If you relish "poetry drama" and act like a giant three-year-old at a poetry venue in full view of other poets just to get attention (ooo, that's mighty ugly, and not altogether uncommon)
If you go to an open mic 30 minutes late and get tight because the host has no time to fit your trifling ass on the list...and then you proceed to walk out...
If you are one of these bottom-feeding, gatekeeper-type organizer/poets who will only put on friends or lovers; not actively seeking out new scenes, writers, or trends; solely interested in protecting your "turf" like a professional wrestling promoter...
...then you, my friend, may be knee-deep in some of your own HOT ASS GARBAGE, and you ought to re-examine what it is you do.
BY THE WAY: No level of monetary success, press clippings, media acclaim and access, or slam titles will earn you legitimacy as a poet. Only strong writing can. Short of that, you're simply polishing your turds. |
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| Catching up with the Profelicious |
[Sep. 1st, 2006|06:06 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Nueva Yol | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | pensive | ] |
| [ | music |
| | "Sign of the Times," Prince | ] |
Okay okay, nudgers! Enough! With the...nudging.
So checkit. I know I've been rather distant lately, O Livejournal crowd. It's just that...well...
(sigh)
Okay. I'll be honest.
I'VE MET SOMEONE ELSE.
Don't blame me, it was only a matter of time. You knew it couldn't last. After all, I only started posting here because I was tired of commenting anonymously. Surely you couldn't have thought this relationship had staying power.
All right, all right. Enough excuses. I'll just come out and say it: her name is Myspace. She listens more, she understands my pain. And most of my friends like her more than they liked you! I'm sorry to be so blunt, but it's the truth.
I guess what I'm saying is, I'm taking the kids and moving over with her. If you need me, you can reach me over at blog.myspace.com/somuchunlearning. You might even take the time to subscribe to my blog if you want to keep track of me.
In the meantime, I offer this cross-post from our new blog to whet your appetites a little.
It's been amazing. And...I'll always love you. Just...in a different way. Okay?
************************************************************************
Paper.
(Posted at http://blog.myspace.com/somuchunlearning)
So we watched the HBO documentary on Katrina. Spike Lee is a goddamn genius, I don't care what anyone says. It takes a certain kind of madness to know that the best juxtaposition to George Bush the Shaven Chimp is a little Black boy in front of the New Orleans Superdome telling folks how fucked up things are. Still, the real questions started after we got up from the TV.
The Lady wrinkled her brow at me when I mentioned insurance policies and house deeds. Rightfully so, even though all those papers and insurance are a valid concern for the homeowners of New Orleans; the poor, mostly Black homeowners of areas that are STILL devastated to this day...no FEMA trailers, intermittent utilities, and the single most ass-backward set of government officials this nation has ever seen. Alas, I am a Political Science major. Sometimes I wish I'd never studied it. It's too easy to turn politics into an intractable thing, something easily explainable by studying historical patterns like a mathematics sequence. I caught myself doing it last night as I engaged in my amateur prophecy. For a moment, I questioned my own sanity, and the sanity of others like me. One wrinkled brow, that's all it took.
Years from now, when census takers and political scientists are studying the new populations in the Lower Ninth Ward, the movement through various levels of capitalist progress...I say capitalist progress because there is such a thing as socioeconomic progress without capitalism. How can a human being--or a set of human beings, a race, a nation, a planet--stack the family Bibles of thousands of descendants of thousands of ancestors and file them away in the same small rooms as the tax rolls, the amortization schedules, FEMA flood maps and TRW reports, and call those masses of paper the legacy of a rainstorm. Let us not be fooled: this was a rainstorm. A devastating one, yes, but a rainstorm nonetheless. The land was not destroyed. The people and their families did not disappear, though many did die. But no, the people are still there, survivors--yet, they will scatter. Not because the waters carried them away, but because in this country, we need our acts of God to be placed in filing cabinets. Because we have things like political science.
I always told my professors and anyone that would listen that I would only enter American politics with the intention of destroying it. Can I still do that? Can I still do that with my writing? |
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| Sparkle Tits and the Next Generation of Ballyhoo |
[May. 6th, 2006|02:56 am] |
Don't ask me what the title means, because I just made the shit up. Bet it got your attention though.
So I'm surviving in this melee of poet teaching gigs and readings and my newfound responsibilities as curator of a reading series. I used to think the shit was so easy, but after spending a month or so of juggling schedules, egos, fuckups, and diva behavior, I have a new respect for the shit Oscar did at Acentos. I must admit, I miss the fucker, but he's off having himself a nice little life, methinks.
I'm finally, finally, finally, finishing my fucking degree. As of August, provided I don't fail either of the classes I've signed up for, I will possess that long-awaited bachelors' degree. I swear, I must have a harem of deities looking out for my tired ass, because I'm now on Chance 5 or 6 and it feels like I'm finally doing something right for my life in this department. And what will I do with that piece of paper? Well, aside from shopping MFA programs...it'll probably go right into a frame and hang in a non-conspicuous locale in my basement fortress. All that work just to cover up a nail mark. Ain't that some shit?
Two events have put some joe back in my mojo: Brave New Voices and Day of the Poet. Raina Leon's UNC program (Day of the Poet) expanded this year and brought in poets from literally all over the country to teach a series of workshops to kids in the Chapel Hill area. The kids, of course, were all kinds of cool to work with, very fun, but the highlight for me had to be getting a chance to work with and chill with some of the most jaw-droppingly amazing poets you'll ever come across. They were just so open and generous with their time...specifically, the time we spent together in the townhouses Raina put us up in. The poet nerddom was on full blast, and we couldn't get enough of each other's brain power and spirit. We didn't even want to sleep. That's how it should be 24/7, for real. Well, okay, actually sleep is nice, fuck that.
While in NC, I got a chance to build with the kids at Chapel Hill High School...the ones who headed up to New York City for the Brave New Voices national youth poetry slam. I workshopped their pieces, fell in love with their spirits, and followed their exploits up here in NYC. For their parts, they seemed to love the experience, and we all got to know each other a little better. I must admit, I liked playing the role of Profe, being mentor and quasi-tour guide. Shout outs to my Chapel Hill crew if any of them ever read this shit. And yo...if any of y'all ever resort to the kind of bullshit 3-minute wannabe theater skit that we saw at CBGB's...I will officially be upset at all of you! Yeah. Word. :-) Okay, just kidding. But seriously, fuck that. Poems only, please.
Brave New Voices? Well, simply put, it puts the adult slam to shame, bottom line. I will never look any of these ego-driven, pseudo-network-building, ass kissing slam whores the same way again. These kids got together and delivered some of the most beautifully written and performed work I've ever heard, period. They could teach many adults I know about how to write, and more importantly, WHY to write. And that they do it in the context of slam tells me that there can be such a thing as community building around a competition...a silly one, at that...as long as the focus is on writing. Unreal shit...especially that final slam at the Apollo Theater. I went home happy.
What else is going on? Not a whole lot, really. I do smile a lot lately, and I have many reasons to do so. I'm constantly turning corners, and I'm loving what I'm finding on the other side.
I leave you with this, my fine fuckers. It's the last lines of "Call It Music," by Philip Levine, a poem that moved me like a poem hasn't moved me in quite some time. It's about the poet, it's about Charlie Parker, but it's mostly about the soul of the artist and the essential breath we all draw from to create; and by creating, to live. The "him" and the "he" in these lines refer to Parker's friend Howard McGhee.
....Maybe he'd gotten religion,
maybe he knew how little time was left,
maybe that day he was just worn down
by my questions about Parker. To him Bird
was truly Charlie Parker, a man, a silent note
going out forever on the breath of genius
which now I hear soaring above my own breath
as this bright morning fades into afternoon.
Music, I'll call it music. It's what we need
as the sun staggers behind the low gray clouds
blowing relentlessly in from that nameless ocean,
the calm and endless one I've still to cross. |
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| ATTENTION SPOKEN WORD COMMUNITY |
[Mar. 17th, 2006|01:09 pm] |
Poets. It's not that your work is wack. I just think it lacks a little Kraft, that's all.
Make no mistake, y'all. No matter loud you scream, no matter what shows you've been on, no matter how many college gigs you get, no matter what scores you get from the judges...remember this...in the end, it's all about the Kraft. |
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