Split This Rock, Part 6 — Saturday: Book Fair & Panel, April 21

When I arrived back at the National Housing Center Atrium this morning the Split This Rock Social Change Book Fair was in progress, 20 plus small presses were tabling. The last thing I need is more (unread) books on my coffee table, night stand, the table next to my reading chair, my dresser, you get the point. But as Oscar Wilde famously said, “The only way to get rid of temptation is to give in to it” — I picked up a couple of free-bees, bought an edgy zine from Melanationzine.com, &  books by Dan Vera & Sister Sonia from the Busboys & Poets store. Saw Albany poet Dawn Marar struggling with the same book-addiction demons.

Then I zeroed in on the panel/reading/discussion Poet’s Forum: How Political Engagement Affects the Writing Process, presented in partnership with the Poetry Foundation & Poetry magazine. As I think I already said, I had read received & read the April Poetry magazine with its special Split This Rock section before coming to the Festival & was looking forward to hearing the poets read their work & to listening to them talk about it. The panel, held at the Charles Sumner School Museum & Archives Memorial Hall, was moderated by the ever-present (& ever-lovely) Sarah Browning & by Lindsay Garbutt from Poetry magazine. Some of the poets I had already heard read & some I would see & hear again — it was like a gathering of the tribe, including the audience in that term.

Sherwin Bitsui read the selections from Dissolve that were printed in Poetry, rich images glistening from the natural world with “Scalp blood” & “pierced cloud” “crackling in the past tense.”

Sharon Olds read the very NYC “Poem Which Talks Back to Itself” (for Etan Paltz), & “How It Felt” looking back to being 12 years old, both from Poetry.

Paul Tran was certainly the most colorfully dressed, in a bright red dress with black lace trim; they read from Poetry the poem “Scientific Method,” written in the voice of a laboratory monkey.

I remember Sister Sonia Sanchez in a red beret starting off the 1st Split This Rock reading from a table top at Busboys & Poets, & 10 years later her energy was just as inspiring, reading her “Haiku & Tanka for Harriet Tubman” from the April Poetry, using the printed text like chord changes for a jazz tune, repeating lines, titles, singing, clicking & popping — when I grow up I want to read like her.

What followed was a lively back & forth with the panelists, moderated by Lindsay Garbutt, Associate Editor of Poetry, who asked about the politics in the poems coming in to the family thru the mothers. Paul talked about using English as a weapon. Sister Sonia commented that she never knew her mother, that she was raised by her grandmother in Alabama.

Sarah remarked that History is very recent. Sister Sonia said people do change, as time goes on, we do move forward.

Sharon talked about learning about rhythm & dance from inside the mother.

I was most comforted by Sister Sonia’s reply to a question from the audience about struggling to write, that we’re always writing, it’s just not always on paper (I often talk about my writing process being one of composting, or percolating, until the words burst forth on the page).

I was struck by the serious tone of the conversation, but a tone different from the discussion of academics & the vaunting of the role of the “Poet,” here the seriousness was about the issues & the work before us, so very Split This Rock.