passing through Hot Springs
wondering if a sign for "Woo Pig Sooie"
refers to Chinese BBQ
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Was shocked to learn of the death of art historian and curator Robert Seydel. While at AWP this past week, I saw promotional materials for his forthcoming book from Siglio Press and thought to look him up again after many years. I worked with Robert at the Photographic Resource Center at BU during my undergraduate years - he was down to earth, kind, and genuinely interested in the lives of students - strikingly more so compared to other staff during my generation of the PRC. His first book will be published in April. He died in January of a massive heart attack at the age of 50.
Tienanmen Square Souvenir, May 2009
Chinese teens beg
a snapshot w/ my travel
companion who is British-
born, ten years after
the uprising, Yan
whispers to abstain from
using
the word
massacre
images that circulate
beyond the borders,
the northern Gate
of Heavenly Peace
Chairman Mao’s picture
wheatpasted & replaced
after every incident of
destruction, depletion
of a backroom stuffed full
w/ stock replicas
Chinese teens beg
a snapshot w/ my travel
companion who is British-
born, ten years after
the uprising, Yan
whispers to abstain from
using
the word
massacre
images that circulate
beyond the borders,
the northern Gate
of Heavenly Peace
Chairman Mao’s picture
wheatpasted & replaced
after every incident of
destruction, depletion
of a backroom stuffed full
w/ stock replicas
Beginnings - spring nijuin renga (19 more verses to come)
bears emerge from
winter sleep, rousing from lairs
dug out from under trees
let's plan Zen poetry
oh when the Grass Sprout Moon turns blue
some see the face of
man, others report seeing
rabbit shadow
that's how the old ones tell it-
don't think I made it up
winter sleep, rousing from lairs
dug out from under trees
let's plan Zen poetry
oh when the Grass Sprout Moon turns blue
some see the face of
man, others report seeing
rabbit shadow
that's how the old ones tell it-
don't think I made it up
Wednesday, February 09, 2011
AWP Redux
I was in DC this past week for the Associated Writing Programs Conference. AWP is a weird animal and a full debrief with my husband was helpful in moving towards some sort of clarity around specific kinds of interactions that pervade my experiences at this annual industry event.
The Bookfair, while being a great opportunity to check out new books and authors is also a place of hunger and economic transaction, and a place of presumed connections, power relationships, and deep assumptions that makes it difficult to bring authentic interactions. People read nametags and treat one another accordingly to name/face recognition. Going from a week at the Naropa Authentic Leadership program to AWP was a mindfuck. Opposite ends of the human spectrum.
While standing at a friend's table, several writers came up to aggressively market their manuscripts and make editorial sales pitches.
Do you take bilingual work? No, I don't mean translation work, I mean work that incorporates both Spanish and English. You're not the publisher? When are they coming back?
At more than one table, the initial greeting went like this:
Are you a writer? Well we have a contest, let me tell you about it...
And still worse - at one small journal's table that devotes each issue to a different geographic region and/or country, the pitch went like this:
We sell subscriptions. Let me show you our Asia issue...
At one small press journal the interaction went like this:
Oh, we published your work in our first issue.
That was 2 years ago and I didn't even submit that poem - my collaborator did and the issue showed up in my mailbox which is how I learned about your xeroxed zine. Context, yo!
And at another table, where I got hustled into buying at full price on Day 1(and regret it b/c I like the performative interaction of the haggle and give-and-take) - the interaction was:
Oh yeah, I read a manuscript from you.
That was 7 years ago and a lot has happened since. Ultimately the only item I paid full price from at the fair was from this particular vendor. Not because they read my manuscript 7 years ago, but because we shared friends in common and I wanted to offer my economic support of their project by not being a hardass about retail price, and the editor of the book I purchased is a colleague from Seattle with an incredibly bright mind and innovative sensibility. But writers know the real cost of printing a book and what constitutes mark-up and profit. That's why everyone waits until the last day of the Fair to purchase or collect freebies. One partner in the pair who was not making the sales pitch said "Oh, poetry, that's discounted." To which the other partner said, "NO. It's an anthology. No discount."
The best moments at AWP for me were hearing and seeing John Wesley Harding and Josh Ritter read from their new novels and perform folk songs. Kay Ryan is a laugh riot - skillful and cutting with her humor, as in cutting through. I loved her and her work and more poet laureates should be like Kay Ryan. I also deeply enjoyed the multimedia doc poetics program with Kwame Dawes and Natasha Trethewey who are, as always, doing incredible work. Their cohorts on the panel, I was less interested in for their limited stakes in the communities that they are studying and working with.
I also went on a tour of the Library of Congress and saw where the Poet Laureate offices.
The building itself was incredibly rich with literary thought and intention.
And DC in general is an interesting literary town. The conference, and my hotel room were based at the Marriott Wardman Park - the same place that Langston Hughes once worked as a busboy and was discovered by Vachel Lindsay. Elsewhere around town, the monumental presence of Walt Whitman in Dupont Circle.
And what was Naropa like, you ask? Like going home.
The Bookfair, while being a great opportunity to check out new books and authors is also a place of hunger and economic transaction, and a place of presumed connections, power relationships, and deep assumptions that makes it difficult to bring authentic interactions. People read nametags and treat one another accordingly to name/face recognition. Going from a week at the Naropa Authentic Leadership program to AWP was a mindfuck. Opposite ends of the human spectrum.
While standing at a friend's table, several writers came up to aggressively market their manuscripts and make editorial sales pitches.
Do you take bilingual work? No, I don't mean translation work, I mean work that incorporates both Spanish and English. You're not the publisher? When are they coming back?
At more than one table, the initial greeting went like this:
Are you a writer? Well we have a contest, let me tell you about it...
And still worse - at one small journal's table that devotes each issue to a different geographic region and/or country, the pitch went like this:
We sell subscriptions. Let me show you our Asia issue...
At one small press journal the interaction went like this:
Oh, we published your work in our first issue.
That was 2 years ago and I didn't even submit that poem - my collaborator did and the issue showed up in my mailbox which is how I learned about your xeroxed zine. Context, yo!
And at another table, where I got hustled into buying at full price on Day 1(and regret it b/c I like the performative interaction of the haggle and give-and-take) - the interaction was:
Oh yeah, I read a manuscript from you.
That was 7 years ago and a lot has happened since. Ultimately the only item I paid full price from at the fair was from this particular vendor. Not because they read my manuscript 7 years ago, but because we shared friends in common and I wanted to offer my economic support of their project by not being a hardass about retail price, and the editor of the book I purchased is a colleague from Seattle with an incredibly bright mind and innovative sensibility. But writers know the real cost of printing a book and what constitutes mark-up and profit. That's why everyone waits until the last day of the Fair to purchase or collect freebies. One partner in the pair who was not making the sales pitch said "Oh, poetry, that's discounted." To which the other partner said, "NO. It's an anthology. No discount."
The best moments at AWP for me were hearing and seeing John Wesley Harding and Josh Ritter read from their new novels and perform folk songs. Kay Ryan is a laugh riot - skillful and cutting with her humor, as in cutting through. I loved her and her work and more poet laureates should be like Kay Ryan. I also deeply enjoyed the multimedia doc poetics program with Kwame Dawes and Natasha Trethewey who are, as always, doing incredible work. Their cohorts on the panel, I was less interested in for their limited stakes in the communities that they are studying and working with.
I also went on a tour of the Library of Congress and saw where the Poet Laureate offices.
The building itself was incredibly rich with literary thought and intention.
And DC in general is an interesting literary town. The conference, and my hotel room were based at the Marriott Wardman Park - the same place that Langston Hughes once worked as a busboy and was discovered by Vachel Lindsay. Elsewhere around town, the monumental presence of Walt Whitman in Dupont Circle.
And what was Naropa like, you ask? Like going home.
Mush / Cull
One hundred
dogs put down
during the slow season
a mass grave of huskies
malamute & utanogan
stiffen under feet of snow
thirty-five exotic animals
freeze in Juarez at
the Serengeti Zoo
Berto Hernan cites
fourteen parrots
thirteen serpents
five iguanas
two crocs &
one capuchin monkey
dead during power
failure in Aldama
twenty-one lechuga ponies
collapse before a match
their bodies shot through
w/ vitamin injections
a dead rabbit arrives
in the Chinese mail,
an eel is inserted into
the asshole of an unconscious chef
disemboweled alive; both man
& moray die
at new year,
men buy up birds
determined to do
good deeds
catch & release
the catch w/out release
the catch
the release
One hundred
dogs put down
during the slow season
a mass grave of huskies
malamute & utanogan
stiffen under feet of snow
thirty-five exotic animals
freeze in Juarez at
the Serengeti Zoo
Berto Hernan cites
fourteen parrots
thirteen serpents
five iguanas
two crocs &
one capuchin monkey
dead during power
failure in Aldama
twenty-one lechuga ponies
collapse before a match
their bodies shot through
w/ vitamin injections
a dead rabbit arrives
in the Chinese mail,
an eel is inserted into
the asshole of an unconscious chef
disemboweled alive; both man
& moray die
at new year,
men buy up birds
determined to do
good deeds
catch & release
the catch w/out release
the catch
the release
Saturday, February 05, 2011
Monday, January 24, 2011
I am delighted to announce that Longhouse has published a new chaplet of haiku poems, nearly invisible, that spans 2003-2010 and poems written in Boston, Seattle, Peterborough, Port Townsend and Taiwan.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Graceland
We went to Graceland.
To see how Elvis lived.
It was very yellow.
With lots of texture:
Including shag:
To see how Elvis lived.
It was very yellow.
With lots of texture:
Including shag:
Friday, January 14, 2011
I am very pleased to announce that I am now represented by The Lecture Bureau: http://www.thelecturebureau.com/speakers/shin_yu_pai.html
Monday, January 10, 2011
a poem on bears
mountain uncle
were you a god
your vital fluids
would turn to poison
killing those that would
drink of your bile
mountain spirit
ursa major
crescent moon
bear drained of bile
from a gall bladder
milked of medicine
cold & bitter – uncloud
an old woman’s eyes, dissolving
stones, arrest the body
from convulsion, cure
the temper of patriarchs
by clearing the liver of fire
in forests, colliers still
revere you, cover wood
in mud & brick, burning
branches until turned
to carbon, porous
light, transmuted
the artist roughs out your form
in charcoal, the alchemical,
dear animal-uncle
* The ethereal fluid that is the Greek gods’ blood.
were you a god
your vital fluids
would turn to poison
killing those that would
drink of your bile
mountain spirit
ursa major
crescent moon
bear drained of bile
from a gall bladder
milked of medicine
cold & bitter – uncloud
an old woman’s eyes, dissolving
stones, arrest the body
from convulsion, cure
the temper of patriarchs
by clearing the liver of fire
in forests, colliers still
revere you, cover wood
in mud & brick, burning
branches until turned
to carbon, porous
light, transmuted
the artist roughs out your form
in charcoal, the alchemical,
dear animal-uncle
* The ethereal fluid that is the Greek gods’ blood.
Sunday, January 09, 2011
Renewed reading interests
I've resolved to read more poetry, within my specific field of interest - in part to renew my own commitments and to imagine a more emancipatory poetic project. Finished reading this week Kaia Sand's Remember to Wave (TinFish, 2010). This is a thoughtful and reflective collection that contemplatives the invisible and forgotten histories of Portland, Oregon - via the histories of its minority populations which experienced unspeakable violence - the internment of Japanese-Americans and the deaths of African American laborers caused by poor urban planning and flooding.
Sand includes in the collection an interesting meditation on POD structures, wooden shipping containers, that post-Katrina have developed into temporary/emergency housing structures. When Kort and I left Dallas for Boston in 2001, we shipped our belongings to Brookline in a standard POD that was deposited in front of our apartment building on Beacon Street. We unloaded it and it sat on the street for a week before it was removed. I don't know if it was removed by the city, or the POD people - but in that week that it sat occupying prime parking, we heard people slam in and out of the structure, found trash and other debris, and the space took on quite a social life of its own. Sand's book caused me to think quite a bit and I have picked up her guerrilla poetics book with her husband Jules Boykoff who's research in politics interests me.
Over the years, my reading interests have seemed to focus more on prose, unless I'm in the process of reviewing a poetry collection. I'm reading poetry much more selectively now and hope to read a book of poems every week. A reasonable goal.
Sand includes in the collection an interesting meditation on POD structures, wooden shipping containers, that post-Katrina have developed into temporary/emergency housing structures. When Kort and I left Dallas for Boston in 2001, we shipped our belongings to Brookline in a standard POD that was deposited in front of our apartment building on Beacon Street. We unloaded it and it sat on the street for a week before it was removed. I don't know if it was removed by the city, or the POD people - but in that week that it sat occupying prime parking, we heard people slam in and out of the structure, found trash and other debris, and the space took on quite a social life of its own. Sand's book caused me to think quite a bit and I have picked up her guerrilla poetics book with her husband Jules Boykoff who's research in politics interests me.
Over the years, my reading interests have seemed to focus more on prose, unless I'm in the process of reviewing a poetry collection. I'm reading poetry much more selectively now and hope to read a book of poems every week. A reasonable goal.
Last Sunday, we got together for brunch with friends and talked about individual new year's resolutions. Our friends Jim and Pamela approach the idea of making resolutions for the new year in terms of giving up 3 things and inviting or welcoming 3 new things into their life. Makes sense - to make room for the new, we must clear out some of the old. Jim is giving up frustration - a good quality to renounce.
Three things I aspire to give up:
- grudges
- over-attachment
- sloth
Three things I welcome:
- renewed health
- joy
- new life, in whatever form
Three things I aspire to give up:
- grudges
- over-attachment
- sloth
Three things I welcome:
- renewed health
- joy
- new life, in whatever form
I was featured this past week on the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day website.
The poem is also available through the Poem Flow i-phone app.
The poem is also available through the Poem Flow i-phone app.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Please help the Montreal Zen Poetry Festival
At the end of the year, pre-tax season, my inbox is filled with capital requests from presses, nonprofits, and organizations whom I don't remember signing up for. These are hard economic times. And so, I repost a worthwhile request from friends at the Montreal Zen Poetry Festival. Please support the festival and/or the publication of the Forget the Words anthology.
Subject: Support for the poetry festival at year's end!
A short note at the end of 2010 to ask you to consider a contribution to the Montreal Zen Poetry Festival, the next to be held this coming March 10-13.
Enpuku-ji/Centre Zen de la Main organizes the festival and, as a registered charity, is able to issue tax receipts for Canadian gifts.
You can contribute via CanadaHelps by following this link, choosing "Donate Now", and choosing the "Zen Poetry Festival Fund". CanadaHelps will provide your downloadable 2010 tax receipt.
You can also contribute to the publishing of our festival collection, forget the words!, and receive copies of our past collection, broadsides, tickets to the upcoming festival and more, by following this link to our on-line Indiegogo page.
For our American and European friends of the festival, we would like to send you either a lovely broadside or a book of poems of past or future invitees for a contribution of $100 or more.
Thank you for taking a moment to read this on the last day of the year. Really, any day is a fine one for supporting this unusual niche festival and we appreciate the support we have received in the past and that which will come.
Warmest wishes for the new year,
Myokyo
Subject: Support for the poetry festival at year's end!
A short note at the end of 2010 to ask you to consider a contribution to the Montreal Zen Poetry Festival, the next to be held this coming March 10-13.
Enpuku-ji/Centre Zen de la Main organizes the festival and, as a registered charity, is able to issue tax receipts for Canadian gifts.
You can contribute via CanadaHelps by following this link, choosing "Donate Now", and choosing the "Zen Poetry Festival Fund". CanadaHelps will provide your downloadable 2010 tax receipt.
You can also contribute to the publishing of our festival collection, forget the words!, and receive copies of our past collection, broadsides, tickets to the upcoming festival and more, by following this link to our on-line Indiegogo page.
For our American and European friends of the festival, we would like to send you either a lovely broadside or a book of poems of past or future invitees for a contribution of $100 or more.
Thank you for taking a moment to read this on the last day of the year. Really, any day is a fine one for supporting this unusual niche festival and we appreciate the support we have received in the past and that which will come.
Warmest wishes for the new year,
Myokyo
It's the last day of 2010 and the last day of vacation. I resolve to reclaim this space in 2011 and say more, or to say less more, etc.
After 7 years of booking my own readings, I've decided to reach out to a few speaker bureaus and a solidify a partnership in the new year so that I no longer negotiate my own reading contracts. Promoting a book is time-consuming work - I'd just as soon spend that energy on writing, cooking, or doing nothing. Think less about the writing business and get on with life.
I did not get any writing done over winter break. There were good reasons for it. I read Norman Schaefer's new book and wished that I could write poems like Norman. Today, Lisa Gill's Dark Enough arrived. I revisited several White Pine titles to help a friend develop a container garden display for the Northwest Garden and Flower show and had the delightful occasion to contemplate the microcosm and space of a container garden as a field of elegance and refinement, akin to a bonsai tree or Japanese rock garden. I hope to build some poetry gardens in the future - branch out into living environments, much like a hero, Robert Irwin.
Planning two trips in the spring to Boulder - to attend two 1-week residencies for the Naropa authentic leadership program. Short trip in early February to DC for AWP, and to Seattle in March for 8 days. My criteria for a vacation used to be the proximity to a beach. But there is nothing I'd like better than to chill in the PNW. And technically there are beaches.
This time of year, I get reflective and often compile elaborate lists of goals and resolutions for the impending year. This year, on the heels of a visit with my parents who visited last week - my thoughts turn to the following: that a purpose in life might be framed around removing suffering and making life better for others.
That said, there are unwritten lists and the childhood BF in Austin and I unhatch plans that our husbands would likely balk at or question if they knew the nature of such plannings. Perhaps we will resume our blog swapping.
Out of the tiger year and into the rabbit. The year of my birth totem. May 2011 and the rabbit bring balance, renewed energy, and deep connection to our best and brightest being.
After 7 years of booking my own readings, I've decided to reach out to a few speaker bureaus and a solidify a partnership in the new year so that I no longer negotiate my own reading contracts. Promoting a book is time-consuming work - I'd just as soon spend that energy on writing, cooking, or doing nothing. Think less about the writing business and get on with life.
I did not get any writing done over winter break. There were good reasons for it. I read Norman Schaefer's new book and wished that I could write poems like Norman. Today, Lisa Gill's Dark Enough arrived. I revisited several White Pine titles to help a friend develop a container garden display for the Northwest Garden and Flower show and had the delightful occasion to contemplate the microcosm and space of a container garden as a field of elegance and refinement, akin to a bonsai tree or Japanese rock garden. I hope to build some poetry gardens in the future - branch out into living environments, much like a hero, Robert Irwin.
Planning two trips in the spring to Boulder - to attend two 1-week residencies for the Naropa authentic leadership program. Short trip in early February to DC for AWP, and to Seattle in March for 8 days. My criteria for a vacation used to be the proximity to a beach. But there is nothing I'd like better than to chill in the PNW. And technically there are beaches.
This time of year, I get reflective and often compile elaborate lists of goals and resolutions for the impending year. This year, on the heels of a visit with my parents who visited last week - my thoughts turn to the following: that a purpose in life might be framed around removing suffering and making life better for others.
That said, there are unwritten lists and the childhood BF in Austin and I unhatch plans that our husbands would likely balk at or question if they knew the nature of such plannings. Perhaps we will resume our blog swapping.
Out of the tiger year and into the rabbit. The year of my birth totem. May 2011 and the rabbit bring balance, renewed energy, and deep connection to our best and brightest being.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)