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.

Split This Rock, Part 5 — Friday Featured Reading, April 20

Back in the National Housing Center Auditorium for the night’s featured reading, with the co-hosts Sarah Browning & Katie Richey who is the host of the Split This Rock regular series Sunday Kind of Love. The reading began with a recording of gone poet Galway Kinnell reading his poem “St. Francis & the Sow.” & again a one of the DC Youth Poets set the fire under the audience, Mary Camara with an autobiographical “History Thru the Grades.” What a thrill it must be for these young poets to have their moment on the stage with this audience of activists & poets.

Again, all the featured poets were featured in the April Poetry magazine special section on Split This Rock. The first to read was Solmaz Sharif who began with the title poem from her 2016 Greywolf Press book LOOK, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, on military drones & naming, then another on war & death “Defender’s Immediate Family.” My favorite one she read was titled “Social Skills Training” which dealt with how we modify our behavior in the face of power, a similar poem was a conversation with a psychologist on violence & our reactions to it, & her poem from Poetry, “The Master’s House,” was another on the theme of power & violence.

Sherwin Bitsui had read at the NYS Writers Institute back in February 2016, where I was first introduced to his work.  He writes long poems, steeped in his native culture (he is Diné of the Tódi’chii’nii clan & is born for the Tlizillani’ clan). He began with an introduction in his native language, then a long, descriptive section from Flood Song (Copper Canyon). Then he read from a new work, Dissolve, coming out in October, another long piece, richly descriptive, with vivid, sometimes surreal images, including the marvelous phrase “to window the past … to door the future.” The poems were deeply connected to his family, his ancestors & the land upon which they live(d).

Elizabeth Avecedo, from NYC, had been the coach of the Split This Rock DC Youth Slam team in the past, & a National Slam Champion. As a result she was the most performative of the night’s readers. Her pieces were fiercely political, often drawing inspiration from pop culture, such as the poem titled “Self-Portrait of Eve as Cardi B.” or “One-Sided Conversation with Sosa” (as in the major league right fielder Sammy Sosa). Other social-justice themed poems were “Rat Ode,” “Iron” (on the bullet in a shooting), & a poem about teaching creative writing at a detention center. She is also the author of a young adult novel in verse The Poet X (Harper Collins, 2018) from which she read excerpts.

Kwame Dawes was the senior member of tonight’s reading, a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, editor at Prairie Schooner, author of over 30 books. He read in his marvelous deep, accented voice, a series of poems with similar titles, “Sometimes…” as in “Sometimes Prophesy,” “Sometimes a Poem,” (the one exception being “Crossroads” which was a response to August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize winning play Fences).  He continued with “Sometimes Death,” “Sometimes Reparations” (violence), “What God Says Sometimes Mercy” in the wife’s voice), “Sometimes Revelation” (a lynching), & for his wife “Sometimes Love.”

While these readings are part of the Festival, they are also free & open to the public -- what a great gift of poetry to the DC community from Split This Rock.

Writers Institute February 11, 16, 18

The New York State Writers Institute is one of the great literary resources here in the NYS Capital Region, bringing an A-list writers to the University at Albany, & to the community-at-large, for no charge for their readings, seminars, lectures, even movies. This was all seeded by a “genius award” from the MacArthur Foundation in 1983 to Albany Pulitzer Prize winning author William Kennedy, who continues to serve as Chair, ex officio. Each semester there is an extensive schedule of writers & programs & over the years I have seen/heard/met such writers as Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, Ken Kesey, Lawrence Ferglinghetti, Ed Sanders, Nadime Gordimer, Derek Walcott, Jean Valentine, Carolyn Forché, I can go on & on. But the City of Albany & the surrounding area is also the home of other active, dynamic literary & arts organizations that also present events on a weekly, monthly schedule. So there are frequent conflicts among events & I tend to go to the community events where the numbers are smaller.

However, sometimes there is a perfect storm of poets at the Writers Institute & I’ve just got to be there. Such a conjunction included a visit from my 3 Guys from Albany buddy Charlie Rossiter; the celebration of the new New York State Writer & Poet; a poet who had read at my Poets in the Park series; & poet another poet I felt I just wanted to hear, all within a week — whoo - ho!

(left to right) Edmund White, Yusef Komunyakaa, Marie Howe,
William Kennedy, UAlbany President Robert Jones

It all began with a visit from Charlie on the night of the ceremony on February 11 to present The New York State Edith Wharton Citation of Merit to State Author Edmund White, & The New York State Walt Whitman Citation of Merit to State Poet Yusef Komunyakaa, so off went Charlie & I to Page Hall. Charlie & I are both fans of Koumunyakaa’s poetry, & I think that White’s biography of Jean Genet is a model of how to write about an author & their work. It was an evening of accolades & readings &, as happens at these events at the Writers Institute, a chance to speak to to the writers informally afterwards.

This was followed on February 16 with the appearance of poets Randall Horton & Jacqueline Jones LaMon to do a seminar & reading. Randall had been a Ph.D. student here at the UAlbany when I had featured him in the Poets in the Park series in July 2009. I was only able to make the afternoon seminar which was mostly a Q&A with most the questions from students. Both Randall & Jacqueline have been Fellows at Cave Canem & Jacqueline is the president of Cave Canem, & both talked about the importance of the organization for emerging black writers & about the valuing of mentoring of each other.

Then on Thursday, February 18 I attended an afternoon reading by Sherwin Bitsui, whose work I did not know. The event was already on my calendar when I saw a notice on social network sites from Nicole Peyrafitte urging folks to go to this reading.  He read to a packed room in the Science Library (where the Writers Institute is housed), from his books Shapeshift (2003) & Flood Song (2009), as well as new work. The poet is a Diné (Navajo) from Arizona & his work reflects the desert, the geography & the people, with images from the modern world, mixing water & gasoline, wire & sagebrush, engaging poetry with roots in the poetry of surrealism.

Thank you Writers Institute for bringing these (& other) writers here — & thanks for being here.