New interview up with Bryan Thao Worra on Unnecessary Roughness and related matters...

My mother and father visited from California this weekend and we had the big talk. At dinner on Thursday after they arrived Kort asked for Dad's blessing to get married. Dad's response, "Wow. It's about time."

The tentative plan is August in Taos at the Lama Foundation with a reception at the Bavarian to be followed in March 2006 by a traditional Taiwanese wedding banquet/celebration planned by my parents in my father's ancestral village of Ching Shui. There is so much planning ahead that I am feeling more than a little bit overwhelmed, but looking happily forward to the times ahead.

I've been doing research into the objects in the current art exhibition at the DMA - Splendors of China which collects together the private art collection of Emperor Qianlong who ruled China during the Qing dynasty. Qianlong is a fascinating figure for me - a devout Tibetan Buddhist, a poet, a visual artist and a skilled politician. Over his lifetime he authored over 400,000 poems which he sometimes calligraphed or more interestingly composed as responses to specific art objects in his collection which he than had artisans engrave directly on to the art objects, a jade boulder, a stone plate, a small jade carving - works of great beauty that the West accuses him of defacing. I have a very different take on the subject - these were works in the emperor's collection that he owned and collected for his own aesthetic tastes. The poems are responses and conversations with these works of arts and their makers, and in incising them into the surfaces of these art objects, this history and conversation is documented for posterity. The catalog for this exhibit does not translate in full any of the poems incised into the art objects and the fragments which are included in the catalog are atrocious in their verbosity and rigidity and kill any hints at the sense of the poem. Why not commission a literary translator to interpret this work? I'm currently working with my dad and a Chinese docent at the Museum to try and get these texts properly translated but they are written in classical Mandarin and for the average joe who reads simplified Mandarin, this requires a lot of research and reference to the dictionary. It seems to me of profound importance that these poems were inscribed on to these objects - the reflections of collector, artist, poet, and aesthete, it seems a shame that this dimension of meaning has been overlooked. Anyways, hoping that I'll have these texts and being to talk about them more when I lead a writing workshop in the exhibition in May.

Weeks ago I went to the curator's lecture on this show which presented the Emperor as a savvy and supreme politician who did not do anything unless motivated by politics - i.e. his embracing of all religions and his choice to have certain images of himself painted. Well any of us who knows Buddhism or the Dalai Lama knows that Buddhism is a faith which accommodates all other traditions, and the allowing of multiple faiths is far from political strategy. The lecturer also left out Qianlong's contributions to cultivating traditional Chinese medicine. The lecturer dismissed the Emperor for being behind the times and naive in his preparations against the West, overlooking his many many contributions to the golden age of culture in China and his accomplishments as art collector and poet.

text on electronic highway sign:

buckle up texas arrive alive

man surfing porn in the "business"
center finally leaves when I clear
the memory of another jam

the cousins swim
in the cement pond
back behind the house

dead leaves of live oak
blown across concrete
patio in March

Visited my Southside program colleague Titus O’Brien’s Creative Process class for non-art majors at UTD yesterday to deliver a talk on poetry and the visual arts. When I walked into the media lab, I felt a bit apprehensive. The class was full at about 30 students, though apparently at one time, there may have been 40 or so enrolled. I will be teaching at UTD this fall and this was my first face-to-face interaction with UTD students. They were great – receptive, engaged, and many had comments and questions about the work – I revamped the talk that I did for Pitt last fall which I’ll do for the MAC in May, and approached the talk for Titus’ class as a trial run. More than a few of the male students had flattering things to say about the sports poems, and many had sharp observations about this work, one student speaking on “and round and round it goes” the roller derby poem and commented on how the language takes on the role of physical characters in a narrative that have violence enacted upon them. Titus did a nice job of slowing down the talk at appropriate moments to elaborate himself on some of the things going on in poems like “De Stijl” – the presence of images like chrysanthemums, the language of “boogie woogie”, all details lifted straight out of Mondrian’s work and art history. Titus has been busy installing his show down here at Southside. The men in our program open a show this week – featuring the work of Titus, Paul Slocum, Ryan Fitzer and Brian Fridge. A very different show than the one that the women put up last month which were all 2d works. In stark contrast, we’ve got video, interactive, sculpture, neon and installation. Should be an exciting show – reception next Wednesday from 7-9 p.m. for local readers – with a performance by Paul’s band treewave.

Went on from UTD to a panel on “poetry and the city” sponsored by the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture near the Routh Street Triangle downtown. This panel/wine-talk was 1 in a series of talks on poetry and the city. I didn’t know what to really expect as no program description was available on the Institute’s website and the details I could extract from others seemed somewhat vague. I’ve heard mostly positive things about the Institute – an older academic set/think tank. Anyways the talk was not about poetry and the city as in Dallas, or “the city” as in New York, but the city as in the Greek polis and the roots of epic poetry and its absence in contemporary poetry. It was a very dry and rhetorical talk where several questionable comments were thrown out there including that poets only write for poets and Walt Whitman’s poetry is hard to access. I believe the film critic on the panel also said that everybody is a poet. And than there was a conversation about “the role of the poet”. Towards the end of the talk, a local poet Barrie Neller raised his hand and spoke up about his failed expectations for the talk and his own confusion about what the topic should mean and talked about the importance of practitioners of the craft being the ones to speak on the work and the issues, vs. scholars and critics. Than another Brit in the back of the room, Jacques, chimed in about the lack of poetry in Dallas. It was an interesting audience for sure, a few women with fur coats, a lovely Katherine Hepburn look-alike who kept trying to push the dialogue further into the present day relevance, Barry, Jacques, and several folks who obviously feel very passionately about what Dallas is lacking and wanting to creatively problem solve to transform the city. However, the think tank may not be the place for such conversations.

I get a little break from presenting work for a few weeks, until March 31 when I’ll read for a program for the Highland Park Literary Festival and teach a few workshops to high schoolers. Michael Chabon, author of the Wonderboys and the Spiderman 2 script, is the keynote speaker. Free event on March 30 at 7 p.m. at HP High School. And Laura Wilson, an esteemed photographer and Luke and Owen’s mom will also teach workshops which I hope to sit in on at the fest.

SUBMIT:

Alimentum: The Literature of Food

New literary journal about food, cooking, tasting, eating. Fiction,
creative non-fiction, art, poetry ñ also, looking for recipe poems.
Submissions under 1500 words accepted by email (when pasted into
message); longer submissions use snail mail (include SASE).

Alimentum
P.O. Box 776
New York, NY 10163
alimentumjournal@yahoo.com

So last night I read at Marquetta Herring's store in Lakewood with Jason Carney and had an amazing time. I am not a huge fan of slam poetry having heard quite a bit of it in Chicago centering around Asian American identity politics, but having just read Beau Sia's delightful work, I approached the reading with a more open mind. Jason's narratives did not disappoint - they were something else entirely, original, unique and heartfelt. According to Jason's bio, "as a young man, he was sent to a juvenile detention center after several violent incidents involving gay bashing and racial intolerance. While in the detention center, Jason was roomed with a young gay male who was HIV positive. A friendship formed from what could have been a volatile situation. The experience changed the way Jason saw people that were different from him. After Jason was released, he tried to look up his new friend only to find that he had lost his battle with the disease. Jason has made it his life work to heal and help eliminate intolerance." Jason recited several narrative pieces - one, an homage/song to the influence his mother has had on his life, another on the loss of the friend he met in detention who tranformed his life, and another piece on the nature of intimacy. A tough act to follow, I read my sports poems, a short sampling from Nutritional Feed, and closed with a few poems from Equivalence written on my experiences at Naropa and read in honor of last night's host, Karen X, yogini and dharma broad, The folks at Wordspace drew out a large audience for this Sunday night event which included students, poets, and artists.

As a very positive aside, La Alameda informs me that of our original 1,000 copy print run for Equivalence, less than 200 copies of the book now remain!

In the office I share with Jack, I discovered a book of vintage Ondaatje, "The Collected Works of Billy the Kid". This is an amazing book that tells the story of historic gunslinger Billy the Kid in photos, poems and prose narratives. Savage in its violence, the poems in this collection amaze - stories that include a tale of a madman eaten by the mad dogs that he has inbred over several generations and a story of one of Billy's victims who as he falls to the ground from a gunshot wound to the chest is accosted by a chicken that sticks its beak down the dying man's throat and pulls out 12 yards of the man's innards. A few other memorable tales include a story about one of Billy's men who gets half of his face blown off when his gun explodes who must than cross the desert to get back to civilization where he can get medical attention for his injuries. When the man takes a drink of water it leaks out of his ear, it is a miracle that he survives. Another personal favorite is a narrative where Billy, hiding in a barn and delirious with fever, is surrounded by drunken rats which feed first on fermented grain and than senselessly upon one another. Terrified, Billy loads his gun and fires round after round into the darkened barn. The overall narrative recounts Billy's relationship with his mistress and friends, his capture by Pat Garrett, escape and death. This is an amazing collection that I have heard talked about primarily as a work of fiction/novel, which is a gross over-simplification of the many strategies employed in this book. Of further interest and exploration is that Ondaatje has also worked on making documentary films.. one of which concerns the Canadian poet bp Nichols.

Broadcast worthy news:

Kort passed the National Herbal Board Examination and is officially on his way to getting certified as a practicing acupuncturing and doctor of Oriental Medicine! Today is a day for celebration!

It's spring break at SMU. Thank goodness.

Taking some time to catch up on reading and applications. A student of mine lent me "Night without Armor II", Beau Sia's spoof on Jewel's book by the same name. I'd heard about this book for a long time and was pleasantly surprised and delighted by the silliness of this collection. Reflections on childhood in Oklahoma, the swim team, fat girls, sex, and ex-lovers, and a few humourous pieces on Goth girls (Sia's sister was apparently one of these). There was also one very tender poem slipped into the series contemplating the life of Sia's parents before he was born. Real or made up, a very different resonance than the other pieces in this collection. Beau's been making his way into film, and has had very small parts in 2 movies that I've seen recently, "Hitch" and "The Manchurian Candidate".

Also received from Mark, the catalog for the Infinity poetry show in Boston. My favorite works in this show are Denise Duhamel's 3D hamster wheel "Working Stiff Cylinder" and the endwar collective's "Reiteration" mobius strip poem. Jeffrey Encke also has a nice piece constructed out of a deck of playing cards, and nice to see Michael Peters' work again who's work I'd seen previously in Michael and Dottie's American Weddings.

Currently reading up on the NZ poetry scene. I am looking for a host...

Next term I will be using a different anthology for my course at the college. The book I have been using has gone out of print which means I'll have to go with a different title... currently contemplating FROM TOTEMS TO HIP-HOP, Ishmael Reed's multi-cultural anthology which has poets ranging from Tupac to Levertov. If anyone has any other suggestions, please backchannel me.

Reading tonite with contemplative slam poet Jason Carney at 7 p.m. at Paperbacks Plus in Lakewood. Free and sponsored by WordSpace.

I just received an email via a SF list serve that Eddy Zheng has been pardoned by Governor Schwarzenegger. Up until Tuesday morning, Eddy was an inmate in a California State Prison, where he was sentenced to 7-years-to-life for a robbery when he was 16 in 1986. He served over 18 years and is now 35 years old. While incarcerated, he learned English, completed his GED, earned a college degree, and worked with at-risk youth. Though he has been pardoned, he now faces deportation because of his status as a non-citizen. Read more about Eddy's story here.

Upsetting: "..poetry as politics, rather than art..."

Dallas was privileged to host the visit of Eileen Tabios and her colleague Sandy McIntosh of Marsh Hawk Press this past week. Both poets traveled into Dallas to see the Southside program and to do studio visits with artists in residence. Then on Sunday, Eileen and Sandy read at Paperbacks Plus, home of the Writer's Garret and an on-going poetry events series curated by Karen X. I'd never been to this space which is located over in the Lakewood area of town where turn of the century mansions are surrounded by more recently built apartment complexes. Paperbacks Plus is run by Marquetta Herring, who was in attendance - a wonderfully supporter of the arts and poetry. The reading space is on the 2nd floor of the space, equipped with podium and a roomful of comfy chairs and sofas to sprawl out and enjoy a good reading, the walls and shelves lined with books and journals. Nice to see Charles (author of the Book of Willie which Eileen writes about eloquently at her blog) and Karen X, who joined us later for an after reading dinner at the Tom Tom Club.

Thanks, Eileen, for making Dallas a part of your stop on your whirlwind tour! Eileen read from the "brick", "I take thee English...", favorite poems read included her Ars Poetica and a Baudelaire collage poem. Sandy read from a long poem in his latest book out from Marsh Hawk, a lengthy piece about a former classmate named "Max" at Columbia University. Nice to see Chris who I hadn't seen in person since my visit to Dallas over a year ago when I still lived in Boston. Thanks for bringing in such dynamic poets to North Texas and for all of your good work in the spirit of community. Check out Texas Heat next season for readings by New Yorkers Shanna Compton and Jennifer Knox! And check out Eileen's blog for her brilliant proposal to implement a line item in city planning/permitting processes that would support the arts...

So glad to see Bino back from his meow-bernation and a total site redesign. Check out the Calzoncillo blog for a brief and interesting history on the Asian American Writers Workshop in NYC.

Congrats to John Dalton, MacDowell alum and author of Heaven Lake for winning the 1st place Discover Fiction Award from Barnes & Noble. John's ambitious first novel is set in the place where Kort and I are heading in early 2006: Taiwan.

Tim Yu signs off of the Buffalo Poetics List. And I can not blame him - in the past years there have been several threads expressive of an anti-Asian sentiment and in all cases, Tim stepped up to bat, challenging several members of the list and calling them on their ignorance. There was one last year about the Taiwanese in particular that was stomach turning... the latest threads debate whether or not using the term "Jap" is socially acceptable.

Paul Westerberg is in town on Monday and in trying to convince Kort that we should go and see Paul at the Gypsy Tea Room, I dug out all my old Replacements tapes and early Westerberg solo albums. Albums I haven't listened to in quite some time - Don't Tell a Soul, All Shook Down, and others, and of course the soundtrack to Singles. Kort made a good point, what's a Minnesotan like Westerberg doing on Cameron Crowe's Seattle project amidst bands like Mudhoney, Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains? I have no idea, but the man writes one damn good pop song. The Replacements were a handful of bands/artists that I followed closely for several years, owning almost all of their music - few bands rank this highly on my list - Smiths/Morrissey and Jesus & Mary Chain, Echo & The Bunnymen/Mac, and James/Tim Booth. That's about it. Bands that got a lot of airplay on KROQ, 106.7 back in the days of the Poor Man, Richard Blade and Lewis Largent. Trying to convince Kort of the merits of Westerberg is a little bit of a lost crusade - Kort points at the album cover for 14 love songs or whatever that first solo album was called and points out Westerberg's white crew socks paired with black shoes.

The vispo show at Harvard opened last night. Here's a link to the on-line exhibition for Infinity. I'd be curious to hear reports from Michael or Roger your impressions of the show.

Congratulations to my man, Kort, who is now a card carrying member of the NCAAOM, registered diplomate of acupuncture, which makes him eligible to practice in Colorado, Arizona, New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, Hawaii, Alaska, Washington, Deleware, Rhode Island, Oregon and just about every state except for New Mexico, Cal, and Texas which all have their idiosyncratic certification processes. Interesting to note, there are no practitioners of acupuncture in either Oklahoma or Alabama which have no standards or state certification agencies, which leads one to conclude that there is no licensed acupuncture happening in these places.