New contact specs:

As of December 26, reach me here:

Taipei Artist Village
No.7, Peiping East Rd.
Taipei, Taiwan
Tel：886-2-33937377; Fax：886-2-33937389

13 Ways of Looking at a Vulture

after documentary photographer M. Keasler


the eye
of the witness
the I of the commentator


grubby children at the rim
of a Guatemala dump
stunned orphans in Russia


lenses thick
as Coke bottles
motherless boy
in yellowed briefs


finding children
easier to shoot
because they let
adults
in


mirror compositions: nineteen
guajeros sorting through trash
eighteen vultures foraging


payment to a Third World host family tendered in Happy Meals


shellshocked
Louisianans housed
at Reunion Arena
survivors – no, refugees


Momma Key in curlers
in the double wide
taxidermied stags and
an uncle’s annual rite
East Texas: guns & boots
propped against the “I love me” wall


on assignment for
The New York Times:
the scorched remains of
a bus for the elderly
incinerated miles
beyond Dallas


documenting failed
economies amusement
parks crushed by Disney


nineteen vultures
to be located within the frame
eighteen visible, and one unseen


Under 25, the years
in which the artist wore
shit-filled diapers -–
Nan Goldin already
shooting junkies


empty love
hotel rooms
“pregnant,”
with “meaning”

Retroactive updates on the blog of the SoCal reading tour now that I have some wi-fi connection. Happy holidays to family, friends, and loved ones. See you at the new blog.

The Sona Books Gift Publishing Project.

Head over to http://myvocabulary.blogspot.com for a the latest edition of My Vocabulary hosted by Matthew Shindell and Michel Cazay.

In the first hour there is a live in-studio reading with yours truly. In the second hour, readings from H_NGM_N #4 with readings by Clay Matthews, Jen Tynes, Jon Leon,Oni Buchanan, Noah Falk and Matt Hart.

Playlist:

brazil- cornelius
tres cosas- juana molina
hangin' round- lou reed
vicious- lou reed
rebellion- arcade fire
sound and vision- david bowie
joy- circulatory system
lo boob oscillator- stereolab
lover's spit- broken social scene
books written for girls- camera obscura
don't you know- pulp
skip tracer- sonic youth
la madrague- brigitte bardot
danzas argentinas- oni buchanan
space patrol- peter thomas sound orchestra
ghost- neutral milk hotel
walkin' after midnight- patsy cline

From : Lacour, Pierrette M
Sent : Wednesday, December 14, 2005 1:24 PM
Subject : Re: The END... A sad day for Dallas and UTD

After a long battle…The UTD/SouthSide Artist residency Program is no more…Please come and join us for a “joyful” wake at SouthSide, Wednesday December 21st from 7:00pm on…There will be wine, thank you for bringing food ….

Sadly,
Pierrette

From : Metz Greg
Sent : Thursday, December 15, 2005 5:47 PM
Subject : Re: The END... A sad day for Dallas and UTD

This is indeed very sad news. The Southside Residency Program has indeed been a beacon for our school and our Visual Arts Program (for those not in the know).
It has put us in touch with an audience, artists and press that we did not have before. More and more programs are creating satellite galleries and residencies to make their programs more viable, with higher visibility and more community based and at the same time nationally connected. The hardest thing about establishing residencies is initiating them into the stream. With 2 years of very successful programming, this hard work has carved a path sure to be funded both privately and through grants. The pioneering work of Rick Brettell, Karen Wiener, and Pierrette and many others has been a hearty accomplishment and it has been well accepted into the Dallas Cultural landscape. I find it almost unconscionable that we have not found a way to adopt this beneficial accessory into our growing program. Using it to embody outside creative talent and to service our graduating students while creating an adjunct conduit for class instructors are only a few of the benefits.

It seems we are struggling with a growing studio program and no studios, not enough space, and aging constricted building, substandard gallery facilities, few if any current contemporary art history courses, declining budgets and little active administrative vision. To lose this program will erase the visibility and momentum we have gained in the Arts Community with this regard and will stiffle some of the active hope that UTD is a player in the increasingly competitive program status of other university art programs. All of the instructors here have contributed greatly to gaining a higher visibility through outside programming at great expense to their own personal work. It seems counter productive to deny this incorporated outreach program that can in turn provide a nutritious source of stimulus development to overcome some of our other deficiencies.

Many thanks to those who have worked hard to keep this visionary initiative alive and active. We should all come toast to their bold pursuit to help make this school a more adventurous program.

Greg Metz
Senior Lecturer
Visual Arts Studio Program,
Gallery Coordinator
University of Texas @ Dallas

From : John Pomara
Sent : Friday, December 16, 2005 5:49 PM
Subject : Re: The END... A sad day for Dallas and UTD

I agree strongly with Greg’s comments. It is truly a loss for Dallas and UTD, especially some of our graduates that have had opportunities there to exhibit their work as well as meet visiting artists from the program. Many of the surrounding Universities were impressed with what we were doing as an out reach in the community and fostering an even more vibrant art community. Rick, Pierrette, and Karen gave so much time and effort into this great endeavor. Many of the faculty here have given their time and support in various ways since Rick first brought this opportunity to the table. It will be a loss for Dallas, South Side itself, UTD, our students and young artists in the region. The public saw UTD as part of this vital energy that was beginning to raise the bar in Dallas with a commitment to the arts in a variety of ways by establishing this residency program.

John Pomara


From : Marilyn Waligore
Sent : Saturday, December 17, 2005 1:34 AM
Subject : Re: The END... A sad day for Dallas and UTD

I believe that all would welcome the expansion of the UTD/Southside partnership. The elephant in the room continues to be funding. Whatever the outcome, I hope that our collective experience may guide the generation of new opportunities for students, artists, and faculty. Given the potential of a satellite exhibition and performance venue/artist residency/student studio space to extend the reach and impact of university programming in the arts, UTD should explore innovative methods in order to maintain its level of contribution, in Dallas and Richardson.

To express gratitude to those who have donated time and energy to makeUTD/Southside a viable reality is both important, and at this moment bittersweet. So, thank you for all of your efforts in fostering the creation of an arts center in Dallas.

Best,
Marilyn Waligore
Associate Professor
Aesthetic Studies / Photography
School of Arts and Humanities / UT-Dallas

Went to the Ahadada reading at Beyond Baroque tonight with Neil. Jesse Glass’s adorable son Yoichi opened the reading with a brief speech on the origins of the press’s name – when he was one-year old, he would say “Ahadada.” Jerome Rothenberg suspects that that he was trying to say “Hahadada” which means “mother and father.” But Daniel Sendecki saw a happy accident in this turn of phrase, relating it to the surrealists, and thus Ahadada was born. The press is run by Jesse Glass in Tokyo and Daniel Sendecki in Toronto. The reading featured Daniel, Bruna Mori, Catherine (Cassia?) Daly, Jesse, and Jerome Rothenberg.

Daniel first read poems from his book Strange Currencies – a travelogue of time spent traveling in the Far East, opening with a piece written upon traveling down the Yangtze River and contemplating the abandoned villages surrounding the 3 Gorges Dam.

Bruna Mori followed with a distracting reading – she got up on stage, took off her full-length coat which she draped over her seat, and rearranged the podium area so she could read while seated on a stool, using a music stand. After a short struggle with the mic, she opened with a Cid Corman poem and followed with homophonic translations of an Argentine poet. She closed with a poem by Corman called “La Bruna” referencing her own name. Bruna seemed to flirt with the audience a bit and to subvert a bit of the evening’s programming – the main event was to be followed by a Cid Corman tribute (which I did not stay for) so her early reading of the Corman work seemed preemptive.

Catherine Daly followed Bruna with a reading of poems from her Secret Kitty manuscript. Catherine is intense – in this particular light, she looked like kari edwards and was extremely serious in her presentation. I was confused by a name change thing, also distracting – she was being introduced as “Cassia” but people were referring to her as Catherine (as on her blog). To write the Secret Kitty poems, Catherine extracted source material from a Hello Kitty coloring book which she then fed into internet search engines like google. She then translated them thru sites like dictionary.com, ask jeeves, and babelfish. Several of the poems were interesting and her turns of phrase even reminded me at times of my own work – particularly my Nutritional Feed poems. But what frustrated me about this work is that in reflecting on my own labor intensive process, I am aware that I work really hard to write poems. It bothered me that the creative process could be so automated/mechanized to remove the energy of the creative process from the making of the poem. In the end, though there were some interesting lines, I felt that Catherine’s longer sequences went on a bit. And apparently, she has more than one project in this vein – perhaps with different search engines/techniques, but the automation of the poem writing process.

Jesse Glass followed Catherine’s reading with poems from his new book – wonderful pieces – a poem after 9-11, a piece on the war in Iraq and a long poem on Phineas Gage, a historical character who was subjected to a horrible, life-altering head injury. Jesse was dressed very sharply and professorial in a grey suit, giving a solid presence to the reading, as did Daniel – I know Mark Lamoureux often wears neckties to his own readings – makes me think of what Chogyam Trungpa wrote about dressing to promote drala and to raise one’s spirit, which I definitely subscribe to.

Jerome Rothenberg finished the set with a performance of a Hugo Ball sound poem and a reading of his own work The Dada Strain – which is derived from a jazz song. After he performed the poem, he read the original lyrics which made for a great performance. Jerome also read from a series of poems written after seeing images of buddhas in the Dong Huang caves of China – the final piece in the sequence he dedicated to Anne Waldman and wrote and read the piece in the style and fervor of Anne’s work. This was a fantastic and diverse reading with Jesse and Jerome giving the strongest readings and a friendly and convivial spirit pervading all.

The Beyond Baroque space itself is an interesting black box theater with a first rate bookstore stocking all sorts of small press publications, and apparently there is also a small press room/archive. Viggo is a member of the board for this little independent space which is located in a residential neighborhood in Venice Beach.

Wrapped up tour of SoCal yesterday with a reading at Tebot Bach in Huntington Beach. Mifanwy Kaiser runs a series based at Golden West College, held in one of the college’s student centers which was transformed from an institutional fluorescent feel, into a salon-like atmosphere thanks to the efforts of the program coordinator Leland. Like most of the other readings I did over the past two weeks, the program kicked off with an open mic comprised of poets from the local community and several college students (many of them students of Mifanwy). James Ysidro read a marvelous poem on the composer Schamburg. Another man by the surname of Bonomo (Italian for “good man”) read with TS Eliot like cadences and presence.

Trip to the Getty Center with my parents and Kort. Weegee exhibition (crime and paparazzi-esque photos) paired with photojournalism images from the Getty’s collections – self-immolating monks and children burned by napalm in Viet Nam. Getty collected mostly European painting and decorative objects, not the most exciting stuff, but the Meier (also built the Rachofsky House) building was worth the trip – the collection split into 4 separate pavilions with several well-landscaped gardens – a cactus garden, and a garden designed by sculptor Robert Irwin, planted with native/desert plants. The Center has a solid rare books collection, only a small fraction of which was on display – worth researching and coming back to visit.Traffic on the 10 was terrible on the way back to Riverside, and it took us 3 hours to get all the way home. I dozed off on the car ride home and awoke to Kort pulling us over to the side of the road with a CHP officer behind us. Kort had gotten in the carpool lane which depending on the time of day allow a minimum of either 2 passengers or 3 passengers. Well, Kort didn’t see the sign until it was too late and by the time he realized it, we had a double yellow line on our right. So it was break the car pool law ($271 fine) or break crossing the double yellow. So he opted for the double yellow and next thing he knew, we were getting pulled over. The officer was really nice when we explained that we were visiting my folks in Riverside and our car was a rental and that we had no idea what the local traffic laws were and were damned either way. He was direct but sympathetic and let us go. Apparently, this is pretty unheard of. My parents drove the 60 freeway and they arrived home after us.

Poetry at the Loft in Redlands tonite. We got bumped from the Mitten building which was double-booked with a holiday party. The curator, Sholeh Wolpe, was able to move us over to the Boiler Room – I had pictured a soggy basement, but the Boiler Room turned out to be the name of a really nice, well-lit bar adjoining the Mitten. The open mic at this event was brief – just 3 readers reading 1 poem each – Neil Aitken, a local student in the MFA program at UCR, read a gorgeous Pushcart nominated poem, and 2 other locals also shared their work. Marie Char, a traditional Chinese musician, played erhu. Check out Neil's blog for a generous write-up of the evening's programming.

Gneiss Series in Palm Desert – past the windmill fields and Palm Springs in the Coachella Valley. Palm Desert has risen to replace Palm Springs – a high-end destination with European fashions and gourmet restaurants. This was probably the most dazzling of venues – the reading was held at the penthouse of the Denise Roberge Gallery, where Kort and I also stayed overnight, surrounded by contemporary art and Botero-esque images. David Dodd Lee, a former painter cum poet from South Bend, Indiana, read poems about fishing, killing turtles and painting. I met poet Louise Mathias briefly, a friend of Victoria Chang and a friend apparently of David’s, who was helping out by selling books. As I approached to say hello/introduce myself, the friendly greeting I received was “Here’s your money.” We headed to a tapas bar post-reading with David, the curator Lori Davis, a painter Walter Lab, Kort, me, and Louise. David, Lori and I talked about poets who “turn things on their sides” for us – David cited Michael Burkhard and Vallejo (pronounced it “Va-le-ho”) Lori cited Transtromer. I mentioned how important Arthur Sze and Mei-mei Berssenbrugge have been to me. Later, Walter the painter told me about an opera that he is working on – five shorts with or without music, yet to be determined. Visual interpretations of poetry. Walter painted stage sets in Hollywood for 20 years, before moving to the Desert to start a business as a mural painter for restaurants and private homeowners.

In San Diego for Matt Shindell’s My Vocabulary on KSDT. Read poems for about an hour interspersed with songs from Broken Social Scene, David Bowie, and other great tunes selected by Michel Cazary. The radio station is on the old student center/campus of UCSD. I’d never been inside a radio station and the musical set-up was interesting – independent bands and labels, the more obscure the better, though I did spy some They Might Be Giants and The Swirlies and some old Pavement.

Riverside Public Library: Despite heavy promotion efforts, only two Chinese-Americans came to the reading. My friend Cindy sent several of her lit students from RCC, and poet Judy Kronenfeld from UCR came out – Judy as it turns out, is the mother of one of my old schoolmates. When we were growing up, I had no idea that her mom was a published poet/scholar. I had been warned that there might be children in the audience or adolescents, but we got mostly adults and seniors which was a least a little bit of a frustration, as I had seriously toned the presentation down to be kid-friendly, cutting most of my recent material. Still, Kathryn M did a fine job with getting a sizeable audience together and also put together a small reception with persimmons, sesame balls, and Oreos. Not sure how the Oreos went with the Asian theme, but a nice lo-cal option She printed out digital pix of my work from the website and posted the images around the room.

Reading at John North High School in Riverside - The kids were split up into two groups of about 100 each. I was able to see my old theater teacher and my senior year English teacher who’s now teaching history exclusively. The readings went well and the kids were engaged, asked mostly good questions with the exception of a few questions that were out of left field – “do you listen to rap?” and “are you rich?” When I told the group that I am more of a folkie and listen to Bob Dylan, this one hippy kid yelled an enthusiastic “YES” complete with arm pumping gesture a la Tom Cruise. After the reading, Kort picked me up and we went to see Walk the Line, the Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash movie. This movie is just amazing.

Recently, I received a very kind rejection note from a publisher to whom I had sent a copy of SIGHTINGS: Selected Writings (2000-2005) - [title borrowed from Jerome Rothenberg, referencing here the visual quality of the poems and their site-specific quality where written for collaborations].

Here's what the editor had to say:

I've read through your manuscript SIGHTINGS with great interest.

I wish we were publishing as many books as we used to; instead of four a year as previously, however, we are down to three every two years.... SIGHTINGS just isn't at the top of the pile, sorry.

But you have lots of talent and you know how to assemble a provocative and enticing manuscript. Your speculations on language, the visual, gender, and poetic lineage show an original and inquiring thrust of mind. Why wait until you're old and gray before putting together a book of selected poems? It may be daring, but in your case, well worth the effort.

Thanks for sending us the portion of the book. I expect that you won't have a lot of difficulty placing it with another firm that is ready for you now.

I have to say, this was the most compassionate letter I've ever received from an editor in my history of publishing. The reality of small press publishing (and the financial resources needed to actually print a book) weigh in my mind lately, as I begin to contemplate the project of partner-based collective publishing and financial investment in my own work, i.e. alternative models to getting the work out there. Why shouldn't I invest in my own work? Why indeed wait until old and gray? What difference do age and experience hold - i.e. what difference do these aspects make in giving me "credit" in the "bank" of poetry? Who is ready for my work now? I am ready for my work now. And where there is will, there is a way.

This blog will relocate temporarily on December 26 to the following address:

73 days in Formosa.

There has been a lot of nice feedback on the new website. I worked very closely with a local Dallas-based web designer on creating the site, on the architecture, design motifs and layout. We copied the layout for the publications section from Oliver de La Paz's site, arranging the journals in a gallery style presentation giving a sense of the funk and aesthetics of small press publications. Ultimately, my hope is that we can find a way to host videos on the site and put up the Hedwig Dances collab that premiered in Chicago in November 2004, as well as video interviews I've done with New Hampshire Public Television and with Greg Metz's Art Admin class from UTD which curated our UTD show this past summer. There are many many negatives and photos I need to scan and upload to the gallery section - photos from Taiwan, photos from night shoots, and from Marfa. This will probably be a long-term goal as the next 3 months are completely tied up. At my students' reading on Tuesday, an audience member asked me about my work and Equivalence, where to get it, etc. Rather than getting into the whole history of my poetics and the evolution of my aesthetics and current body of work, it was really nice to just say "here's my web address."

I walked out the front door of our building this morning to be greeted by an angry mob of all male protestors gathered in front of police headquarters on the corner of Lamar and Belleview. A group of men from various ethnicities, though primarly African-American holding signs and chanting "What about Jesus?" The signs had something to do with Dallas Mayor Laura Miller - and had some references to getting citizens off of drugs - I can only guess that this may be a response to the closing of one of the local homeless shelters downtown (because it's located too close to a public school). I don't actually know if it's happened yet, but know that it's been talked about for quite some time and the treatment of the homeless in this town is somewhat appalling - unannounced police and trash sweeps, seizure of possessions, etc. I was puzzled that the protest was happening in front of police HQ - the news crew (Fox in particular) shoot stories here all the time with the multi-million building as a backdrop - but the environment typically has nothing to do with the story. Why wasn't this group over at City Hall?

Sent in this morning's mail: student portfolios and my application for a PhD program at Goldsmiths College in London. I decided to apply for one school. This could be a setback if I don't get in, but one can certainly hope. No GRE, no subject exam, no dissertation exams, no foreign language, no foreign language exams, no scholarly dissertation - just creative with a critical component.

Entered grades for my students on the automated system - 11 A's and two B's. I was annoyed to find out from the university that at the graduate level, + and - are not accepted in the system, so if I had assigned a student an A-, their grade would have been upgraded to an A. If I gave a B+, downgraded to a B. I find that problematic. In my book, A's are for students who exceed just doing the work, more than what's needed to get by - they show up to every class, participate in discussions, show engagement and generosity with the work of their peers, etc. A- is for those students who say very little and write good poems but otherwise show reserved/controlled engagement, or it is for students who have shown great growth in their deepening of the craft, do not yet quite "get it" but who's radical efforts merit acknowledgement. I gave one B+, to a student whose work changed very little and who when I'd call on him he would blow sunshine/heap praise vs. delivering on a focused critique. This was sadly rounded down in the system. Of course, this is all total bullshit because on the deeper level, I do not believe in grades, I believe strictly in PASS/FAIL with a "grade option" - i.e. if they want the performance measurement for their transcripts, I'll dispense it but otherwise, forget the end outcome and focus on the process.

My author page at MiPo Radio is finally up here. Listen to poems from the Love Hotel series - "Love Train", "Little Chapel, Nihonbashi", and "Star Fleet Log."

Twelve of my 13 students gave an end of the semester poetry reading last night at Paperbacks Plus. As I welcomed the audience and introduced the event, I looked at my students and saw nervousness and excitement in their eyes. They gave great readings and I think they were glad that they did it. Some got flustered and forgot to introduce the reader after them in their focus to get thru it, but everyone read at least one striking poem and the room was full - friends and family, Kort had to bring in extra chairs to get everyone to fit. A few students took risks by reading new poems, and several students read pieces that had been revised in new and wonderful ways that really solidified the poems. One student sang a piece. Our slam poet performed three pieces, preceded by a sparkling and unexpected intro by one of our more serious, philosophical authors that surprised and delighted everyone. Afterwards, about half the group went over to the Tipp for burgers and beer and goofing around - it was a nice opportunity to get to know the students as human beings with rich and complex lives and to feel proud of their accomplishments and growth this past semester.

Site is now launched. Kindly visit. Not sure about how the portfolio section has come together structurally. Leave me comments below.

And we are moving to.... (drumroll)... Plano.

Yeah, we are leaving the city and moving North off of the transit line. Put down a deposit on a Lincoln Properties two bedroom. The apartment is right off of the red line and a straight shot to Walnut Hill where my advertising job awaits me when I return in March. There is a small park across the street from the apartment complex, it's near an authentic Austrian restaurant/bier garten, Film Depot, several antique shops and a Farmer's Market. The space itself is small (1100 square feet), but bright and modern, enough space for a working office for me. Total burbs. Well, not like Brookline and Watertown weren't. Kort's job interview on Monday with a massage therapy clinic seeking to expand its oeuvre. Once again, I have successfully evaded driving. Kort said today that my dearest friends know and accept this personality quirk/lifestyle choice about me, knowing that "the roads are safer without me on them." When I was in the car with Kort's grandparents yesterday, they interrogated me on my diet and driving habits. I gratuitiously threw in that I don't own/watch television, might as well be Amish. Not sure how they took that. That my personality quirks aren't *cultural* so much as socialized.

I will miss about the city Kaladchandji's, Priya Yoga, Paperbacks Plus (too bad Lakewood isn't off a DART line) and the museums, but should I decide to continue teaching, I will finally be conveniently located. A 13-month lease seems like an eternity, but perhaps it will go quickly and I will actually like Plano. On the way back to the car, spying young punkrockers in mohawk and dyed hair crossing the car park.

Kalachandji's (Hare Krishna) Thanksgiving Day Menu:

Tofurkey (tofu served layered in between stuffing)
Sweet potatoes
Wheat biscuits
Cornbread
Stirfried greens
Mashed potatoes
Non-dairy gravy
Pumpkin Pie

After 2 days of not being able to reach my parents in California, a dead cell phone number, and an absentee answering machine, I called up my older brother in NoCal to say, hey, any idea where our parents may have disappeared to? Half an hour after leaving a message, I get a call from my Dad at my brother's number - he decided to drive up to Monterey with my Mom to check out the language school where he's interviewing in Monterey and didn't bother to email or let me know of their plans. He also unplugged the fax machine - their only answering machine because the fax's memory has been misfiring and printing out pages of transmissions. To their credit, they did let one person know of their plans - my brother. Having 4 years ago fallen from the roof of their house and cut his face open severely on a lawn mower to the extent that he landed in the ER with major bleeding and 16 stitches, I think it's understandable that I am cautious about my parents' well-being. On that same weekend, the phone rang interminably and they could not be reached. The language school could at this very moment be calling to say come back for a 2nd interview. A filial and fretful daughter could be calling to say happing holidays and where hell are you. Parents. Got to love 'em.

Pat Morita (1932–2005)

Pat Morita
Originally uploaded by shinyu32.

Rest in peace, Morita-San.

Reading announcement:

Tuesday, November 29, 7 p.m.
Paperbacks Plus
UTD Graduate Poetry Workshop Reading
Featuring Gary Brown, Ambronita Douzart, Diane Walton, GNO, Bill Eldredge, Christopher Manes, Diane McGurren, Tammie Retherford, Patty Hatcher, Christopher Foltz, Daniel Dukes, Naomi Watts

The Farewell to Dallas reading was good fun. Renee Rossi opened with a poem on motherhood, a poem on contemplating cutting open a cadaver while in medical school, and a third piece on the hole in the ozone and her young son. Simone Roberts followed with a beautiful requiem to her grandmother and a few other wonderfully lyric pieces. Karen X went on next with a performance piece on the goddess which began with her dramatically drawing her fingers across her face which were apparently smudged with eye shadow, creating a mask-like effect for the performer during her yogic piece. Tim Cloward arrived mid-way thru Karen's piece and followed with several serious pieces, very different in tone to his Dadaist performance pieces. He closed with reading a tender Rilke poem for his lover. Our MC, Karen was about to break up the group for a 5 minute respite when Bob Trammell asked if he was going to read - as he had been asked. Karen said, I just want to wash my face right now and eat cake - it was just precious. But then she gave Bob a gracious introduction and he read from his Birds chapbook which we had talked about on other occasions and which I absolutely love. Broke for about 15 minutes, Karen introduced me, and before I read, my student Jonathan Stovall from SMU got up and read 2 well-received poems and said some very sweet and tender things to which I responded, "just read your poems!" (but inside I was mush) I read the Love Hotel poems, followed by a few dozen haiku from the haiku project, and ended with the poems from Equivalence on traveling to Taiwan - a type of fish, how to eat sugarcane, transience, dog story, etc. Afterwards, Bob Trammell put me on the spot - the question was first when are you coming back which became why do you come back - a warrior exam, if you will to which I responded, well my husband's family is here - but then I gave a heartfelt answer - Dallas IS a hard place to live, and in other ways extremely easy, BUT having lived in Chicago, Boston, Boulder, it is very nice to be off the radar in a small community where genuine and meaningful connections can and do happen. I've had wonderful support for my work here - the whole crew of WordSpace - Bob, Simone, Tim and Karen, and the crew at Writer's Garrett - Thea and Jack who helped connect me with Renee. It can be hard to see people and get together, but there is such a deep respect I have for the writers here and their work, individual projects and concerns. Some good friends made here.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
Homelands: Women's Journeys Toward Meanings of Home (tentative title)
Edited by Patricia Justine Tumang and Jenesha de Rivera
To be published by Seal Press, Winter 2007

For as long as people have left their homes and returned, there have been stories written about journeying to the homeland. Yet, what does this journey look like when a homeland no longer exists? When its borders are policed by government-enforced laws and restrictions? When the memory of a physical place is too far removed, or possibly forgotten?

Throughout history, the phrase "homeland" has conjured up evocative metaphors and literal definitions of home. For those who have immigrated to new lands or who have been exiled to foreign countries, it often stirs up feelings of nostalgia, sentimentality, and longing. For some, "homeland" can also evoke feelings of displacement and utter loss. Displacement caused by war, natural disasters, occupation, genocide, political struggles, and colonization affects our relationship to our homelands, and oftentimes impacts whether we are able to physically return "home." Homeland invokes contradictory feelings and ideas: rootedness and departure, stability and insecurity, reality and imagination. Whether national or international, domestic or foreign, "at home" or "abroad," the idea of homeland has been branded on our psyches, especially with the establishment of the United States Department of Homeland Security after 9/11. In the United States and the rest of the world, the shifting borders of "homeland" have become blurred, and new meanings of home are continually being traversed upon, reconstructed, and re-imagined.

This anthology will explore women's journeys to their "homeland(s)"—specific geographic locations, an imagined community, part of one's identity/ body, or a memory. The editors are looking for personal essays written in first-person that investigate the complexities of how women experience, remember, or imagine journeys to their homelands. The essays will be told from the perspective of a journey. Essays from emerging as well as established writers will be accepted. We are not looking for submissions on travel adventures abroad. Rather, we are looking for unique, well-crafted personal essays from women of all races, classes, ethnicities, abilities, sexualities, religions, and nationalities, who have been transformed by their journeys—physical, spiritual, political, or imagined—to their homeland(s). We are interested in essays that challenge current and conventional notions of homeland. We welcome and consider new ideas other than the topics suggested below.

Possible topics include:

* The estranged homeland: the experience of living in exile
* The grass is greener on the other side: stories of immigration
* Back to my roots: stories by American-born women traveling back to the land of their ancestors
* Pilgrimages: spiritual journeys to the homeland
* In search of safety: stories of refugee journeys
* The border crossed us: women's lives in and across borderlands
* Not another Starbucks: homelands affected by globalization
* Fragments of home: journeys to homelands affected by war or natural disasters
* Off the map: journeys to a homeland that no longer exists
* This land is my land: struggles over land and sovereignty (including, but not limited to: Guam, Hawai'i, Native Americans,
the Caribbean, indigenous people, etc.)
* Ancestral amnesia: memories that are far removed from the homeland (i.e. African Americans who don't have memories
of Africa, and 2nd/3rd generation daughters of immigrants)
* Fallen walls: journeys to homelands that were once divided by walls (i.e. Germany, China) and
how the destruction of these walls changed the notion of homeland and community
* Divided lands: journeys to homelands that are currently divided territories (i.e. North and South Korea)
* Making a living in a foreign land: stories of women migrating to other countries for work
* Stepping outside the gender box: transgender and gender variant women's journeys

Editors: Patricia Justine Tumang and Jenesha de Rivera are Filipina American lesbian writers, activists, and performers who live in Oakland, CA. Their essays are in the Seal Press anthology Waking Up American: Growing Up Biculturally and Patricia's work has appeared in Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism, and Hyphen Magazine, a magazine dedicated to Asian American issues and pop culture.

Publisher: Seal Press, an imprint of Avalon Publishing Group, publishes
groundbreaking books by and for women in a variety of topics.

Deadline: April 1, 2006

Length: 3,000–6,000 words

Format: Essays must be typed, double-spaced, and paginated. Please include your address, phone number, email address, and a short bio on the last page. No simultaneous submissions. Previously published essays will be considered. Essays will not be returned.

Submitting: Electronic submissions are preferred. Send essay electronically as a Word or Rich Text Format file (with .doc or .rtf extension) to Jenesha de Rivera and Patricia Tumang at homelandanthology@gmail.com. Put "Homeland Anthology" in the subject line. If email is not possible, mail the essay to Jenesha de Rivera and Patricia Tumang at:

Seal Press
c/o Brooke Warner
1400 65th Street, Suite 250
Emeryville, CA 94608.
Please direct any inquiries to homelandanthology@gmail.com.

Payment: $50-$100 plus two books

Reply: Please allow until September 1 for a response. If you haven't received a response by then, please assume your essay has not been selected. It is not possible to reply to every submission personally.

Two jet-lagged Europeans talking about artistic practice:

"I work in installation and video art. My work deals with space."

"Big or small?"

I took my students this morning to the SMU Bridwell collection which has a livres d'artistes selection that included Henri Matisse's Jazz and La Maigre (the waif) by Pablo Picasso. Arion Press in SF is also well-represented in the Bridwell collections, and works here included a delightful collection of SHAPED POEMS and a special edition of John Ashberry's "Portrait in a Convex Mirror" housed inside a large metallic, embossed film cannister. This last piece had sections of the poem printed on circular sheets of paper, interspersed with portraits of the author rendered by artists including Jim Dine, Larry Rivers, and Jane Freilicher. Amazing. It was exciting too to see Matisse's Jazz, only 350 copies were produced, one of which was owned by Stanley Marcus, a generous donor to the book arts collection at Bridwell. But he did not donate this particular edition of Jazz that we were looking at it, because the version he owned, he kept in his bathroom and had *LAMINATED*. Other great works represented in the collection included Jim Dine's Portrait of Dorian Gray and a collection on shape and color by Sonia Delaunay. I could see my French speaking students growing excited, getting all sorts of ideas for translation projects. Another student who's put up something of a fuss most of the semester re: visual/textual may have I think, "got it" - he very publicly announced at the end of the session that while he didn't personally prefer/connect to this variety of work, he could see it inciting and inspiring the group and I think this gave him some newfound respect though he was full of wisecracks this morning. It's kind of like announcing, I don't like Scott Turow but I love Michael Ondaatje. Personal aesthetics. Whateva. I told him he needed to get over Humument.

Found this story about Princess Sayako very touching....

The big farewell reading is Sunday. Friends, students and colleagues, not all of whom have heard me read before, will be in attendance. I had planned on reading just the love hotel poems and haiku from the yearlong project which reflect on my life here in Dallas and the region. But now I am having a hard time deciding as some of these people have never heard me read before and I want to read work that shows a range of sensibilities. What to read, what to read. Any suggestions or votes/requests for favorite works, please send them my way before Sunday morning.

Reviewing resumes for my stand-in has been interesting. I forwarded the freelance post to the administrator at school with a special request to forward to faculty and adjuncts. Apparently, she forwarded it to her graduate student list - subsequently, I have received a flood of emails and resumes from candidates who don't have a matching skill set - theater majors, drypoint teachers and one guy who titled the subject of his email to me "proof read help." I am at least somewhat uncomfortable with MY students knowing my plans to vacate and where I work when I'm NOT at the uni, which is frankly, private. I tend to be open, but have realized a strong tendency towards protecting my interests in the last year. But it looks like reliable help is lined up and will work on coordinating a meeting with these folks, administering a proofing test, and commencing with scheduling for those who perform well.

Booked my air ticket to Chiang-Kai Shek airport this weekend. My travel dates are December 27-March 10. Back in SoCal in early March, then back to Texas. Been leafing thru the Taiwan guidebooks and discovered that the residency on Bei Ping Road is about 2 blocks away from the new museum of paper art, where workshops are given and exhibitions are rotated. The district is the old city center, Da'an, which appears to be fairly close (walking distance?) to Chiang-Kai Shek Plaza and Taiwan Normal University (the Harvard of Taiwan).

Please read this article if you are a MacDowell alum and send a letter to the town council expressing your concerns.

Tax man goes after art colony, MacDowell fights town's effort to yank exemption....

Things to bring to Taipei:

- galoshes
- Brita filter for tap
- Nocturnal Wanderer
- rolls of color film
- notes from 2003 trip
- Lonely Planet travel guide
- i-Book
- digital camera
- USB cable
- phone cards
- English-Chinese dictionary

Talented and esteemed photographer Pedro Meyer had his offer to exhibit work in the Korean Triennial of Photography rescinded. Please visit his site (click on left hand corner of editorial page) to learn more and to show your support by submitting the on-line petition. Pedro Meyer is the author of I Photograph to Remember and many other wonderful, ground-breaking projects, in addition to the founder of Zone Zero.

Having given notice at work yesterday, I am now free to go public.

I leave around December 20 to go here for two months. I had been trying to get into this program for the last three years, and finally, a window. The residency is in the heart of Taipei, at the center of a growing international arts scene. My fellow residents will be art critics, choreographers, installation artists, painters from Australia, Austria, Taiwan and other countries. I will be working on a libretto, a memoir, short stories, and quite possibly, some poems and collage work.

Some upcoming pre-departure appearances in California:

December 10, Riverside Public Library, 3-5 p.m.
December 13, Denise Roberge Gallery, Palm Desert
December 14, Poetry at the Loft, Redlands
December 16, Tebot Bach, Huntington Beach

Hoping to see some good artwork in L.A. during our trip and visit with Michael S who recently located to the West Coast from NY where he is developing Foot Foot - a contemporary performances space in Chinatown.

Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 12:03:14 EST
Subject: Call for Submissions: Hmong Literary Journal
Submissions are now being solicited for the Spring 2006 Issue of Paj Ntaub Voice Hmong literary journal. Please pass this on to writers and artists you know who may be interested. The theme for the upcoming issue is: Spirit.

The word spirit was chosen for its broad, open-endedness. Beyond religion and the soul, “Spirit” also suggests: school spirit, the spirit of capitalism, the spirit of revolution, creativity or even energy, enthusiasm and many other things. The Paj Ntaub Voice is looking for writing and art that addresses any or all of these themes in unique and creative ways from Hmong and non-Hmong writers.

The deadline for submitting work to Paj Ntaub Voice is January 1st, 2006.

Send submissions and questions to Pajntaubvoice@yahoo.com or visit the website at http://www.hmonghail.org for more details.

Texas approved a ban on gay marriages and San Francisco voted to ban handguns. Uh, so where should I be living?

White Settlement, Texas

everyone’s celebrating
the ban on gay marriage

among other state winners
residents hold on

to their heritage despite
hindered economic

development

on election night signs
across town read: “Be

Proud! Don’t Let Them
Discard the Heritage of

White Settlement.”

Voted down, the “they”
muse resettling

in the obscure
township of Poetry,

Kaufman County,
population: 600.

So one of the students who withdrew from my class has decided to withdraw entirely from the university system. Wants a "real" philosophy degree and plans to transfer to the University of North Texas. Apparently, career placement for the PhD alums at the university has been low/non-existent, so the perception is that things will be better over at UNT. To that, I say, UNT has a rep of being rather average and from locals I hear even low-brow and unchallenging. A degree in "environmental" philosophy or philosphy of technology as offered by UNT is a far cry from the philosophical discourses on Nietzche, Deleuze, and Derridas that this student is interested in. I am in disbelief that a fucking book by Tom Phillips drove a student to completely overhaul his academic career. Is it the perception that interdisciplinary/experimental = Mickey Mouse?

For its 25th anniversary, the Center for Translation Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas opens a call for mail art on the theme of "The Art of Translation." All media are welcome, including collage, concrete poetry, and art with moving parts. Snail mail only. No works will be returned. Documentation to all who provide address. Selected works to become part of an exhibition on the same theme. Send work to: Center for Translation Studies, The University of Texas at Dallas, P. O. Box 830688 MS JO 51, Richardson TX, 75083. Deadline: 31 December 2005.

Kort got all Ram Dass on me this morning in the car. "Be Here Now." One would think that this invocation would have some effect on me. I think my recent (ok, so it hasn't been recent, it's been ever since we got here last Fall) irritation has been a gradual awakening to the reality that I am FINALLY accepting (as I prepare to depart on retreat next month) that we will be here in Dallas for an indeterminate amount of time upon my return. Rich Park Cities kids, stabbings in Deep Ellum, bad cowboy fashion, the worst urban planning EVER, very little alternative culture, a struggling lit scene, PhD programs that are laughable, etc. etc. Ok, there are good things like the shop in Snider Plaza where you can buy individual cupcakes and Whiterock Lake and Priya Yoga Studio training and total life cleansing and Belle Invito letterpress studio and a farmer's market where you can get organic strawberries, and people like Karen X, but if only we lived in a bubble which we don't. On the plus side, my best friend's father-in-law lives in Plano and perhaps she can be convinced to relocate. Community is everything.

Hive Management is in the process of building my first website. It will launch in the next few weeks and will include a portfolio of my photographic work, an up-to-date events calendar and new author photos by Kent Barker. Long overdue....

And announcing:

The Farewell Shin Yu Pai Ball
November 20, 7 p.m. at Paperbacks Plus
To include readings by yours truly, Karen X, Simone Roberts, Renee Rossi, Tim Cloward, Chris Murray and music from Chad Evans, and perhaps a few other special guests.

Other models - Kort's mom has taught figure drawing courses for the last 20 years out of their house in Richardson. When I was in Austin last month, I learned that Hoa teaches poetry classes out of her home as well - what is perhaps most inspiring about Hoa's work is that she charges a modest, nominal fee for the once a week workshops - i.e. it's not about a sustainable income but to pass along the teachings and to give to the community. Quite a few poets teach private workshops - Diane DiPrima, Lisa Jarnot, Kim Addonizio, to name a few - open up any issue of Poetry Flash. The benefits here are clear - you screen your own students, there are no grades, and there is absolute freedom. Those who want to study with you will seek you out, as with Hoa. I am thinking about going back to a community model of teaching - maybe working more closely again with the Writer's Garret on their 1-1 mentorship program, leaving academia behind...?

Lesson planning for Tuesday's class - I decide to can my planned assignment which had been to give the students 2 weeks to collaborate on writing poems - whether with one another, with their children, across disciplines with visual or performing artists - some of the students in class also have musical backgrounds and could probably quite successfully collaborate with their peers in their 2nd discipline. But after hearing word that certain students felt that the previous week's altered book exercise (ala Tom Phillip's Humument and Jen Bervin's Nets which were given as direct examples) were "arts and crafts about as useful as making a Martha Stewart table arrangement out of twigs and appropriate for elementary school teaching," I am revising my approach and have decided that these PhD/MFA students cannot handle thinking outside of the box. If this were art school, Chicago in particular, I don't think it would be a problem, but this is Dallas and this is a state-funded school.

Instead of having them discover the fun of intermingling processes and dialogue, I will substitute a far more PRACTICAL exercise for these grad students - one that would ultimately assist them in their goals to be university professors by publishing vs. perishing. They will write proposals for their own literary magazines, including plans from funding to distribution to editorial aesthetic and structure for jurying submissions - getting them into the mind of editor and target audiences. They will also go to the bookstore and research and report on a literary journal of their choosing which they would actually submit work to. No more creative work for these students. Reports and papers seem the way to go. Professional poets, *ugh*. A nice, neutral assignment that will yield no more narratives on rape, child abuse, or Heidegerrian philosophy.

I wish I had been in Boston to see this performance and the ongoing show of Zhang Huan.

In my 13 years of teaching poetry and writing in the community and at the college level, I have had students who were

rape survivors
child abuse survivors
suffer from eating disorders
single mothers
homeless
political refugees
grads of topnotch MFA programs
grads of public school
grads of prep school
philosophers
athletes
frat boys
the illiterate
from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds
in recovery

Who have been the most rewarding to work with?

I am 5 weeks out from finishing the fall semester at the university. This week, 2 of my students informed me that they had withdrawn. This is immediately following their last workshop. Complicated lives and entanglements, yes.

At the grad level, it is the adult/respectable thing to do - for one's sanity, to "preserve the GPA" - a stupid fallacy, because it's not how one needs to be challenged. I remember well the classes from which I withdrew. Why torture one's self - or perhaps we like to think we are ready for a teaching (like I did at Naropa) to find that we are not prepared to set aside ego in favor of honesty. At this level, the excuses become much more complicated - missed classes due to ailing relatives with end-of-life issues, relatives caught in Rita, moving houses, choral concerts for kids, etc. I begin to miss the transparent innocence of my undergrad students - missing a class for a fraternity pledge activity. Excuses are excuses. When I signed on to teach poetry, I never pictured becoming therapist, confessor, witness - I just wanted to teach poetry. Is it the difference between public and private school? I'm finished.

An editor who was considering my book project had to turn it down today because he favors publishing "formally experimental" work. I'm fine with that but can someone explain that one to me?

The Iron & Wine show at the Ridglea in Fort Worth last night was great. We got there as doors were opening and bypassed the hundreds or so deep ticketing line to go straight to will-call and be one of the first thru the doors. The Ridglea is an interesting space - a large dance floor in front of the stage with theater style seating directly behind the dance floor, followed by bars and so on. Edith Frost opened - sort of a Mazzy Star shoegazer sound, nice lyrics, but not terribly precise on nailing the notes - too much scooping to the effect that she said "close enough" during the performance of one of her songs. Calexico from Tucson, AZ followed - I'd not heard of this band, except from Eduardo that they had just collaborated with Sam Beam. So their set came as a delightful surprise - Kort had dismissed them last week as sounding "Mexican", but the mariachi style trumpeteering which are only on a few of the songs reminded me a bit of the band James, but much more developed and drawing from the Mexican tradition - it is definitely the trademark of the band. During Calexico's set, projections of rodeos, horses, canyons and waterfalls were blasted on the wall behind the band. The images seemed to be timed to resonate with motifs in the music, though I wondered if the band actually rehearsed to the images to create the synchronicities. Iron & Wine gave a nice performance with some of the same images from Calexico recycled in the projections - though the backdrop projections also incorporated illustrations of fruit, flowers and stars. After a short set of songs drawn mostly from Woman King, Calexico joined Iron & Wine onstage for a few songs from their new collaborative album. We left after 2 songs to avoid the parking lot rush of traffic post-concert.

Ray Bianchi and Bill Allegrezza from Chicago were in town this week giving a reading for Chris at UT Arlington. Wasn't able to make the reading due to work schedule but headed over to the Lakewood Landing yesterday evening to meet and hang out with the poets. Ray runs the Chicago Postmodern Poetry website and Bill publishes a wonderful e-zine called Moria. It was good to hang out with Chicagoans, for me recalling Fall walks in Hyde Park looking for wild parrots in the tree tops (Bill sees them regularly!), 57th Street Books, and strolls through Osaka Garden. Ray tells me that the Chinatown on the Southside is booming and now borders Bridgeport. Having seen Chinatown in Boston and other cities get downsized and gentrified, this is happy and inspiring news - Chuimei Ho, wife of the curator of Asian arts at the Field Museum, is also building a museum for Chinese Americans and Nancy and Yuchia over at Columbia run the Center for Asian Arts and Media. What is it about Chicago that has allowed the success of the Chinese? I don't know, but I miss the city. And when is Joy Yee's coming to the rest of America?

Walker Buckner at Lori Bookstein Fine Art

Walker Buckner at Lori Bookstein Fine Art
Originally uploaded by shinyu32.

My friend Walker is doing a show at Lori Bookstein which opens on November 10 (click on image for detail). Walker contributed the cover art to Equivalence and is an amazing landscape and figure painter - one of the finest human beings and artists I have ever had the pleasure of calling a friend. Every few years he has a big solo show in Manhattan. If you live in New York and art is your thing - either viewing it or collecting it, then go see this show. If it is like anything like Walker's past exhibitions, the paintings will get snapped up quickly.

Ayurvedic remedy for clearing of the energy field: Draw a warm bath, add juice from one lime and several sprinkles of turmeric powder, until your bathwater takes on a yellowish cast. Tried it on Tuesday night after class with my 15 grad students and felt and slept much better.

Thinking about the PhD program at Goldsmiths College in London. Anyone who knows anything, please back channel.

New issue of Coconut just launched.

Reading books that I have held on to for years and never read as we start moving things into storage. Cathy Song's Picture Bride includes a few ekphrastic pieces deserving of interest - poems on O'Keefe and Utamuro's woodblock prints. Anne Waldman's homage to Ted Berrigan Nice to See You - I haven't read that much of Ted's work, so this collection of friends and poets praising and imitating Berrigan didn't leave much of an impression on me. Going in the stack for Paperbacks Plus. Because I have been reading Margaret Gibson's work again, I was reminded to read her husband David McKain's memoir In God's Country about growing up in Bradford, Pennsylvania, the son of a Christian minister. A tender and sad narrative about the poverty of McKain's childhood and the dynamics of his family, shaped by his father's "spells", or epileptic fits. Leafing too through a copy of Haggard and Halloo, a poetry journal put out by Travis Catsull of Austin (formerly of the Pacific Northwest). Travis does all the collage and visual work for this publication, fantastic and surreal images standing out against a white background. My publisher sent me a couple of books on opera/music and performance several months back, and one of the books is a collection of interviews with artists like Yoko Ono, John Cage, Laurie Anderson and others. Cage has a series of mesostich pieces on mushrooms in this text and Ono assembles together lyrics from her songs and instruction poems. Browsed thru Denise Duhamel's libretto BEE OP as well. I realize that part of my resistance to working on the opera with G.P. was the focus on adapting G.X.'s text which seemed to leave little room for creativity/interpretation. Well, in actuality, there may be room for expansion and development because the characters will need songs and solos and while the protagonist of the play has a few monologues, other characters will need to be able to show off their gifts and abilities as well.

The poetry scene in Austin was amazing - warm and generous as Naropa. For my reading on Saturday with prose writer Rex Rose, 46 people (standing room only) came out to 12th Street Books for the 1st reading of the Skanky Possum season. Many talented and interesting poets in the audience, including Scott Pierce, Paul Foreman, Corinne Lee Grenier of Winnow Press, Susan Briante, Farid Matuk, and David Hadbawnik. Hoa and Dale are untiring in their energy and patience as loving parents of two very active and bright little boys. After the reading, folks gathered at Hoa and Dale's home in East Austin where conversations included giant squids and creative things you can do with apples. Lots of overlaps between the Austin, Naropa, and Bay area communities, poets coming and going. This felt like a good place to be - we missed the bats at sundown but perhaps on another trip - that and a swim at the Barton Springs aquifer which was a cool 68 degrees on this visit and a little too cold for my tastes. What was great about the group in Austin, the mingling of visual artists, musicians, and poets, friends getting together and supporting the work, the passing of the proverbial hat, everyone contributing to making the community the best it can be, a DIY attitude.

The new James Bond is no Pierce Brosnan. Daniel Craig is to be the first blond Bond. I must say that this news comes as a disappointment. It's hard to not associate Craig with his roles in Road to Perdition or Sylvia. Why not Ewan McGregor or Julian Sands or someone handsome and dashing?

Poetry Reading with Shin Yu Pai
Sponsored by Skanky Possum
Saturday, October 15, 7 p.m.
12th Street Books
827 W. 12th Street
Austin, TX 78701

Scott Pierce of effing press is making a broadside from my vispo poem "console" for this event. Stop by if you're in Austin.

And Saturday morning lecture at UTD for one of my grad student's classes of undergrad students. I hear they connect to the Equivalence poems - well, we'll see what they connect to after my talk....

The Story of the Weeping Camel
My friend Gao Ping told me about this documentary film about a year ago and it finally became available in the little video store in Southside's basement. The film is set in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia and follows a nomadic family of herders. Daily life is portrayed - cooking in yurts, preparing for sandstorms, moving from place to place. The story centers on a brown camel who after a long and painful labor gives birth to a white colt which it rejects. Whenever the colt comes near its mother to suckle, she kicks and spits at it and does everything she can to avoid her little one. The herders milk the camel and feed the white colt thru a horn and also at times, tie the legs of the mother camel, forcing her to nurse her son. But the mother camel is unyielding and the colt is abandoned and sickly, its sad cries for its mother are plaintive and heart-breaking, contrasting with the intimate closeness of the herding family and the other camel mother and colt. So the herders send their two sons, Dude and Ugna, out on camelback to Aichen Center where they are told to purchase batteries for grandpa's radio and to hire the services of a violinist who can come and do a special ceremony that will break the mother camel's resistance. Dude and Ugna set off across the dessert, passing thru communities where the residents are obviously better off than the herders - with televisons in their homes, electricity and satellite dishes. The boys make it to Aichen Center where they are taken to the music school to speak to the master teacher who agrees to come. On the way out of town, they stop at markets and local stores for their grandfather's batteries, where they are the only people dressed in traditional Mongolian clothing. Dude, the older boy, buys his younger brother ice cream and an Adidas hat. Ugna longs for the TVs he sees in the stores. They return to their parents' encampment after a lengthy journey, followed by the master teacher who brings his 2 stringed instrument, what appears to be a traditional Chinese erhu (?) possibly. The musician ties the instrument to the mother camel by placing it across her hump. As the wind touches the strings, the instrument plays and both the mother camel and the other camels in the herd stand hypnotized. The musician removes the instrument and begins to play while the female herder, mother of Dude and Ugna, sings a beautiful tonal piece to the mother camel. A tear falls from the mother camel's eye and the white colt is brought over to suckle, at which point, the mother camel begins to weep, finally accepting her child. This is a strange and beautiful movie that had this quality of tearing the heart open. I thought about the connection between having the Mongolian mother sing to the camel and bringing the mother camel back to her basic goodness and essence - two mothers turning back to what they know. In the coda of the movie, Ugna gets his TV and his satellite dish.

I'm in between projects which means that I'm reading more heavily than usual as I try to figure out what the next project will be. Some microreviews/notes:

Silk
by Alessandro Baricco
A "novella" written in 1-2 page chapters, Silk tells the story of a French merchant who travels to Japan on multiple visits to purchase the country's famed silkworms and bring them back to his rural village which depends on the silk industry. Throughout the course of his exchanges, the merchant, who is married, falls in love with a young, mysterious woman in Hara Kei's retinue. She writes him a note on a scrap of paper that he has translated back in his native France by the Japanese madame who runs the local brothel. After which point he becomes even more obsessed with returning. But when he returns a fourth time, he finds a country at war. There are no silkworms to be purchased and Hara Kei, his once benevolent liaison, nearly kills him for scheming to have a relationship with his mistress. Soon after the merchant returns to France, a letter written in Japanese arrives. When the merchant develops the courage, he goes back to the Japanese madame to have the text translated. An erotic and passionate missive, the writer of the note makes love to the merchant on the page, then begs him to forget her. Herve lives out the rest of his mediocre days and his wife passes away. When visiting his wife's gravesite, he notices a wreath of blue flowers that he has come to associate with the Japanese madame who once helped him. He tracks her down and discovers that it was his deceased wife who asked the madame to copy out a note in Japanese which she had written - hoping that her husband would let go of his romantic fantasy. The book relies heavily on repetition of certain passages (the detailed journey from France to Japan) and creates a poetic rhythm to its narrative.

Feast of Love
by Charles Baxter
A former student in Boston gave me this book when I left town, and as with all gifted books (Silk was a 30th birthday gift), I feel compelled to read them - perhaps more so than the books that I personally accumulate, waiting to be read. This book was a finalist for a National Book Award, and I can't say that I can see why - there was one particularly powerful scene/confrontation in the book between 2 of the characters where a young woman almost gets raped by her father-in-law, but other than that, I found it a difficult book to sustain. The story is told thru the 1st person point of view of various characters - a bookstore manager, a barista, a philosopher who is neighbor to the bookstore manager, and the bookstore manager's 2 ex-wives. The bookstore manager is not particularly compelling - the first woman he marries becomes a lesbian and the 2nd woman he marries leaves him within a month to go back to the married lover she was with before and during her marriage to the bookstore manager. The barista and her lover have lots of sex throughout the book and have an empassioned relationship that ends when he abruptly dies of a heart condition while out on the football field. The father-in-law of the barista is a mad drunk who makes a play for her when she is pregnant. I totally couldn't relate to the characters in this book, nor did I find them terribly sympathetic. I almost entirely skipped over the passages narrated by the philosopher who held a great deal of guilt for his son's mental illness, too many high falutin' references to Kierkegaard and such.

a story that won't make
breaking news: 400 migratory birds
killed flying into television wires

I've been rereading Japanese Book-Binding by Kojiro Ikegami and thinking about structures which might be interesting to experiment with for the love hotel poems presentation.

There is a chapter in Ikegami's book on Japanese ledgers - the form used for traditional account books and guest registries for inns. They are typically "oblong books", wider they they are tall." There are also accordion style ledgers, and the daifuku cho is the form that is best known for its use in inns. These editions are typically strung together with a long cord so that "in case of fire, a common occurrence in crowded Japanese towns, they could be flung into a nearby well and later retrieved without damage to paper or ink." The history of these books is fascinating!

In thinking about the sort of form that the love hotels work might take, the ledger seemed like an interesting choice for its functional/traditional purpose.

Other ideas hashed around included a simple accordion, butterfly accordion, and an unbound structure which could be wrapped and "bound" in fabric, referential to Araki photographs/S&M and hand-stamped with the information on the press.

Reunion Tower

Reunion Tower
Originally uploaded by shinyu32.

At the advice of my Tibetan doctor, in lieu of the usual sushi birthday dinner that I partake in every year, I need to be eating lots of hot cooked food. So Kort surprised me last night by taking me to Antares, atop Reunion Tower in downtown Dallas for a special dinner.

Antares is located at the top of Reunion Tower, about 20 stories up. A glass walled elevator shoots passengers up to the restaurant, which is one floor below the bar area. The dining area which is situated around the perimeter of the glass walled geodisic dome turns incrementally, so that at the end of a 55 minute revolution, diners get a 360 degree view of downtown Dallas. From our view, we spotted the neon lights of our apartment building, the West End, the grassy knoll where Kennedy was shot, and the courthouse and prison. Most dazzling was the lightning storm, perfectly timed for dinner, rivaling The Lightning Field.

Someone needs to shoot a short film or video in the elevator/dome of the tower. From the outside, the tower is affectionately known as "The Dandelion." The lights studded across the dome flash/dance in various patterns adding visual interest to the skyline.

While the food at Antares was not quite as delicious as the taste of salmon sashimi, the view was killer and the martinis and margaritas were quite excellent. To top off your meal, they give you special little candies with the image of reunion tower and downtown Dallas painted on the surface of white chocolate.

Manjushri

Manjushri
Originally uploaded by shinyu32.

Kort's birthday gift to me this morning was a deity pendant of Manjushri. Who is Manjushri?

The Sanskrit name Manjushri is variously interpreted to mean "wonderfully auspicious," or "sweetly glorious." However, in Tibetan his name Jampel-yang (contracted to Jamyang) means "gentle friend." In Chinese, he is called Wen Shu Shi Li; in Japanese, Monju.

Manjushri is a Bodhisattva who represents wisdom, and his mantra also symbolizes that quality. He holds a sword in his right hand -- symbolizing his ability to cut through delusion. In his left hand, by his heart, he holds a book -- the Perfection of Wisdom teaching.

I have officially left my 20s. Today, is the first day of being 30.

Just updated my submissions log and realize that the new manuscript, a collection of selected writings related to interdisciplinary collaborations, is circulating at 9 different publishers. One expressed interest, but has no funding, and after getting tied up in other projects which need funding, the prospect of doing more grant writing leaves me feeling tired. They would be willing to do an e-book, but the POD has also provided some interesting experiences. I have to remind myself that the path to getting Equivalence out into the world was also fraught with challenges, before I found La Alameda there were countless competitions (Walt Whitman, Vassar Miller, Copper Canyon...) and bottomless pits of entry fees. I'd like to think that this time, I'm going about this in a smarter way, but looking at the net I have cast, there are no fees this time around, but the response rate leaves something to be desired..

It's fall and I am 5 weeks into a grad poetry workshop at UT Dallas. I long to write and finish projects. Heck, start projects. On the plus side, just wrapped an interview with Tom Morgan for @tached document on the poetic journal. I looked over the body of the interview today and felt that so much of the material felt dated. But then a lot has happened in the last 2 months, and I feel like a very different person.

QUIPU

QUIPU
Originally uploaded by shinyu32.

Arthur Sze's new book is out. A MUST read. Buy now.

Early birthday gift #2: Comet in Moominland.

I wasn't here, but I hear that Dallas didn't have a drop of rain and the hurricane never reached N. Texas. Back to 100 degree weathers, hard to bear after the mild temps of San Francisco. My co-worker's mom was evacuated from her town in South TX and she was on one of two buses dispatched from the nursing home for San Antonio or Dallas. The bus to Dallas exploded into flames killing 24 people. She was on the bus to San Antonio.

I would like to know who is reading this blog from Saksvik, Sor-Trondelag, Norway. I hear that Norway is the most liveable place in the world according to research reports. Skol.

The Canessa Gallery is a 2nd story space in an old building near SF's financial district. The reading space is a large room with hard wood floors, brick walls, and a large desk reminiscent of elementary school occupying the space from which the reader presents his/her work. Avery Burns, editor of 26, host the series and this past Saturday, I read with SF transplant Standard Schaefer who's first book is on the City of Angels. Standard read an elegy to New Orleans, a long poem in progress, and a few from his collection Water & Power which is incidentally the original name of Polanski's movie Chinatown.

Thanks to Morgan, Michael B, Shannon, Michael W, Jon, and Jessica for coming out to support the reading and for making my visit to San Francisco a wonderful one. Had the opportunity to meet some very friendly Bay area poets - Gary Goch, Joseph Noble, and Albert DeSilver. Albert, the nicest poet I have met in ages, is part of the gift project by SonaBooks and his project just arrived in this weekend's mail. Reminds me that I am lagging on producing my gift project for SonaBooks. At this point, it will have to be a postcard piece.

We spent Friday in Calistoga, a quaint little spa town where our friends Sandy and Kris married at the Hans Fahden Vineyards. This place is fucking unbelievable - the wedding reception was held inside the "cave" of Hans Fahden - behind antique wood doors, swing open to an actual volcanic ash cave with medieval wall mounts for candles. Unforgettable.

I HEART San Francisco. More on that soon.

Check out MiPo Radio's weekend podcast which includes a few of the love hotel poems. (Editorial note: The correct title of the poem I read is "Little Chapel Xmas, Nihonbashi.")

Check out also this week's future at www.asianamericanpoetry.com.

Heading to San Francisco tomorrow morning for a wedding at Hans Fahden on Friday and a poetry reading at Canessa on Saturday. If yr in the neighborhood - stop by and say hello:

Shin Yu Pai & Standard Schaefer
Saturday, Sept. 24, 5 p.m.
Canessa Gallery
708 Montgomery Street
San Francisco, CA 94111

Dave's book has had me ruminating on adolescence quite a bit. The fashions and the mindlessness. I remember Oakley sunglasses and Ray-Bans. Chris Avella who wore a trench coat so that his girlfriend and he could put it over their laps and pet. Water polo players in navy parkas with yellow fleecy lining - girls masturbating boys through deep pockets. High school was bizarre and fucked up. I stumbled upon this article yesterday through Hyphen mag on Reena Virk, an Indian American teen who was brutally beaten to death by a gang of teenagers for being different.

Press Lorentz is producing a limited edition artist book of The Love Hotel Poems in early 2006. The press will be sending out comp copies to potential reviewers. If you are interested in seriously reviewing this work, email me.

Dallas has been slowly moving the hurricane refugees out of the Convention Center and they are already gone from Reunion Arena, absorbed by the community or relocated. How will Dallas change with this population explosion? Refugees were turned away from both shelters because the relief effort had been poorly planned and they had overestimated the number of people they could take on. When we drove home last 2 weeks, throngs of people wandering around the Convention Center, a highly visible police presence. I'd see folks getting on and off the train at the Convention Center stop, wearing colored wristbands and lugging 6-packs of high corn syrup content beverages. In the newspaper last week, a reporter wrote about how Dallas is a New Orleans waiting to happen. There are plans to build levees around the Trinity River and it is entirely conceivable that with poor urban planning, the error could repeat itself.

In Taiwan, hurricanes are called typhoons. And they hit often.

Early birthday gift #1:
Soundtrack: Lost in Translation

Countdown to my 30th birthday on Sept. 28, birth day of Confucius....

I have a new neighbor in the Southside program - Kim Sun Doo. We just came from having "sparrow's tongue" tea handpicked by monks in Korea with Sun Doo and his wife. Though their English skills are limited and our skills in Korean are completely lacking, there is great humor in the effort to communicate across cultures. Sun Doo was explaining that he taken a tour on the Silk Road with artists, a cameraman and a "politician." That one confused us, until we realized that he meant "producer." We loaned them our spare rice cooker when we noticed they were making rice on the stove.

My feelings about the res program and the majority of its inhabitants are at this point entirely antagonistic, though the building has been peachy. It was lovely to encounter this piece of yellow journalism in last week's Observer which gives the program a mention. And yet, no one knows quite what to make of it.

Girlfs for Breakfast

Girls for Breakfast
My last summer at Naropa, there were a handful of talented AA writers on campus (we were hard to miss, ethnically speaking), including Dave Yoo. Dave just came out with his first novel earlier this year and it is one amazing project.

The narrative follows the development of Nick Park, a Korean American boy growing up in the white suburb of Renfield, CT, in the era of JimmyZ t-shirts, Haircut 100, and the Kung Fu Channel. Nick's character gradually awakens to being other through his experiences with teachers and classmates (who believe he's a kung fu master and identify him as the "Asian kid") and these formative experiences inform and socialize so much of Nick's adolescent experiences. The portrayal of Nick's parents is a strong balance of criticism of how out of touch they are offset by tenderness for their hardworking and devoted immigrant ways.

It is gratifying to see Nick have the opportunity to come to terms with his identity and overcome some of his cultural self-loathing, thru interactions with kids from the Korean church and how these exchanges and perceptions evolve over time.

Reading this book it was very difficult to not thing back to my own upbringing in suburban Riverside, CA where my family was the only Asian family in our little town of Highgrove for years and years, amongst Blacks and Hispanics. I remember going thru coming into a self-awareness of being other in elementary school and what a shock and puzzle it was for many years. And than being forced to go to Saturday Chinese school where my brother and I were laughed at and teased for not speaking a word of Mandarin (we grew up learning Taiwanese in the household). The alienation from all sides.

Dave does a stellar job of getting down the complex cultural displacement and self-loathing experienced by many American born Asians. Combined with the agony and weirdness of high school and puberty (first sex, hook-ups and beer parties) in general - this is a work of authentic genius.

Favorite moment in the book has to be the prom scene where Nick pulls the scissors kick move on his victimizer and the book loops back to his early childhood lie/illusion of being a kung fu master. But the timing and imagery with which that passage is written - like the mind flashing back on cheesy kung fu metaphysical moments, where time stops, a heightened awareness of nature comes in, and a flash of insight happens, followed by the chorus of Nick's former disciples echoing the name of the move they learned in childhood.

I love this book and recommend it to everyone.

Creole talking teens
board the train
at Convention Center

armed with six
packs of Gatorade –
Katrina's survivors

Coming to the Bay Area during the APAture weekend:

Shin Yu Pai with Standard Schaefer
September 24, 5:00 p.m.
Canessa Gallery
708 Montgomery Street
SF, CA 94111

In Memoriam: Colin Peter Baerman (1972-2005)

Duende Poetry Series
Box 281, Placitas New Mexico 87043

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Duende Poetry Series presents

ROBERT CREELEY MEMORIAL READING
Sunday, September 18, 2005
5pm

Anasazi Fields Winery of Placitas, NM announces the third in its Duende Poetry reading series... to honor and celebrate the work and life of one of this century's most innovative and influential poets & former Placitas resident, Robert Creeley... featuring Creeley's poet compadre Bobby Byrd from El Paso with Gene Frumkin, Larry Goodell, Karen McKinnon, Margaret Randall sharing poems of homage anecdotes favorite Creeley poems open mic for poems about/by Creeley at the end

Please come out to Anasazi Fields Winery, Village of Placitas, to share some wine & poetry & company. The reading will be held Sunday, September 18 at the Winery in Placitas and will begin at 5 pm. Anasazi Fields wines will be available for tasting and purchasing. Poetry books will be for sale. Free snacks. Free admission.

To get to the Winery take I-25 to the Placitas exit 242, drive 6 miles east to the Village, turn left at the sign just before the Presbyterian Church, follow Camino de los Pueblitos through two stop signs to the Winery entrance.

The next reading in the Duende Poetry Series will be in the Winter.

CONTACT:
Jim Fish Anasazi Fields Winery 505-867-3062
Cirrelda Snider-Bryan Duende Poetry Series 505-897-0285, cirrelda@laalamedapress.com

The Newlyweds

newlyweds
Originally uploaded by shinyu32.

Happy newlyweds angling for the getaway car... we were blessed with sunshine during our ceremony though at the break of day the decks at the Bavarian were still slick with rain. By the time of the indoor reception, it had started HAILING outside following a toast by one of our guests wishing us many children. A definite message from the buddhas and bodhisattvas!

Cutting the cake

Cutting the cake
Originally uploaded by shinyu32.

We totally didn't know what we were doing during the cakecutting. Debbe de Taos from the Taos BBQ Co. made our bride's (almond cake with raspberry filling and cream cheese frosting, yum!) and groom's (devil's food cake with cinnamon and cream cheese frosting and choco horns) cake. We had enough cake for 100 people, though only 50 people came!

Rehearsing kata offerings

DSCF0034
Originally uploaded by shinyu32.

On Friday afternoon, we did the dry run through instructing our group what to expect. This is a shot of my mother and older brother going thru the motions of offering katas while Kort helps to explain the ritual.

The Mountain of Burnt Offerings

DSCN0031
Originally uploaded by shinyu32.

Lama Chodrak brought the fire pit, wood, and various offerings for the fire ceremony which lasted about 15 minutes total. Initially the fire pit had been placed in between the wedding party and the audience, but was later moved to behind the bridesmaids. As I stood facing Kort, I could see the puffs of smoke floating over my head. The bridesmaids got one powerful purification! Thankfully, it smelled beautifully of a clean sharp pinon scent.

fire offering

fire offering
Originally uploaded by shinyu32.

Kort making an offering by placing food over the fire.

Homegrown programs

Homegrown programs
Originally uploaded by shinyu32.

Kort and I designed the programs for the wedding using Photoshop Illustrator and thru the great vendor connections thru my ad agency job which scored us gorgeous papers which would have cost us a fortune. We duplicated the basic format from Chris Rizzo's poem pamphlet of Geof Huth's poem - it is a 4 fold brochure, with vellum cover over a metallic paper. Inside the program, we explained the various symbols used throughout our ceremony - the cranes, kata scarves, mantras, flowers, etc. The image coming thru the cover is a painting of the Taos Ski Valley. The programs were hung on rope strung from 2 pine trees near the entrance of the meadow - guests were invited to take a program before entering the space.

Hanging cranes

Hanging cranes
Originally uploaded by shinyu32.

Kort and the groomsmen got up early on Saturday morning to prepare the site in the Ski Valley lands just behind the Bavarian Lodge. This involved attaching metal hooks to the strands of cranes which had been prestrung in Dallas by Kort, Chip, and Ellen, and then hanging them from the pine trees in the meadow. My first glimpse of these decorations was an absolute delight. The preparation had so much been in the spirit of love and offering, that this work set the tone of the entire ceremony.

August 6, 2005

Lama Chodrak
Originally uploaded by shinyu32.

This is Lama Karma Chodrak of the Karma Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. He is standing next to a shrine set up with symbols of the Buddha's body, speech, and mind and several plates of offerings for the fire ceremony which he performed for our wedding.

The origami cranes in the background were hand folded by my mother, who made approximately 600 birds for our special day.

Double Happiness

Kort and I are leaving for New Mexico for our wedding on Saturday.
No blogging planned again until August 16, when lots of photos
and Costa Rica updates will be posted.

the fashion seen

This is an article on the non-Asian guy in the Starbuck's ad.

Reading Naropa grad Sherman Souther's Surgical Bruez (Tinfish Press). Don't have much to say about it other than that the design elements of this slim volume are very interesting. Photographic mages of disembodied flesh act as section breaks (note: the author is a retired plastic surgeon who seems to specialize in breast augmentation). The xxxx design motifs (groupings of 12) read like stitches and the spiral binding make me think of the body's spinal column. Still trying to crack the code of how the book is organized by letters/page numbers.

The Dallas Morning News has published a review of the Conspicuous Production show which closes on Sunday.

"Macaroni."

If you are reading this from the New York area, tune in on on Friday, July 22nd at 10pm on WNEW, Channel 13, the local PBS station in New York, for Simeon Hutner's short film "My Brother Nathaniel." MacDowell alum Simeon is also the maker of "Martyrs & Saints", a documentary on the life of performance artist Ron Athey.

Reb has posted the list of authors who will be included in the No Tell Motel anthology out this fall. Interesting to see the high number of poets with blogs in the group. Glad to be included alongside Denise and Noah, all good company.

Just discovered the blog of Teresa Sparks who manages the Harry Smith printshop at Naropa. Teresa has some notes up on the SWP. Haven't been back in 7 years, and I miss it. Maybe next year... get Kort to teach a tea workshop for continuing ed and I can hang out in workshops. We were there in the last days of the big white tent pitched on the lawn adjoining C.U. Looking forward to seeing Naropa friends Andrew and Jack at our wedding next month.

Last year, on my way out of Boston to Dallas, I applied for a job at the arts organization that I used to work at and was passed over for someone who was more immediately available (already in Dallas, though I was due to arrive 1-2 weeks later), had "more grants experience", and who was also a writer/grad from SAIC, fresh from graduation. I felt like that last detail about SAIC was particularly dangled in my face, as if to say, Ms. Pai, on paper and in person you're no different or more unique than the next candidate. My internal dialogue back then was dude, you're going to hire a novelist who's trying to finish her first novel instead of a poet who could build interdisciplinary programs? And you think that she won't have more commitment issues than me (who had already worked for said organization and proved one's self)? So while surfing blogs today, I discovered, that as predicted and foreseen almost 1 year ago, Yvonne left her job after the season ended and is now cranking on finishing that novel that took the backseat for a year and loving her new job. Sounds like how Equivalence got written. So is arts admin just not a culture suitable for or structured enough to support the needs and the temperament of serious, dedicated artists?