Third Thursday Poetry Night, March 18

A small crowd tonight at the Social Justice Center (where was that tour bus?), but the "hard-core" was there & got to read 2 poems for a change, & to enjoy The Storm -- not the weather which was pretty nice, but tonight's featured poet. & in honor of the Split this Rock Poetry Festival I invoked the Muse of Langston Hughes, reading his poems "Goodbye Christ" & "Big Buddy".

Alan Catlin claimed the #1 spot again with a poem about a Zombie gathering at the bar, "The Circle of Death," then what he called "an imaginary Lark St. poem." Rod Aldrich's only poem was about poetry or rather losing his poems, "I Leak Poetry." Sylvia Barnard brought a painting she had done & written a poem about, "Painting Flowers;" then she dug up another short poem from her bag, about being in Cyprus when the border was opened.

Don Levy's new poem was on the closing of the local YMCA, "Sweating with the Oldie" working out with the mayor, & his old poem, "Je Adore You, Je Can't Get Enough," was from his chapbook of gay fantasy poems How Small Was My Big Eden. Bless recited from memory his poem beginning "I am on the outside of Life looking in…" on how "the pen & the pad are my only true friend."

Moses Kash III read poems that were typed up because, he said, he can "hardly read" his own writing; his first poem "Black Babies" is a favorite despite its grim vision, while his second poem, "Hera's Children," is more hopeful, about "tolerating the madness" to survive. I ended the open mic with my recent piece, "Split this Rock Dream Poem" (posted earlier on this Blog).

Our featured poet, The Storm, began with poems on personal relationships, some based on friends: "I'm Sorry" was a monologue by a beaten woman from beyond the grave, piling up rhymes in "Slaves of the DSS" & looking back to the early, better days of a relationship in "Do You Still Love Me?" Another poem was a meditation on racial put-downs, about changing one "cotton field" for another. Other poems were more about the interior life, what makes a woman a "queen" in "Inspiration," then playing with rhymes in "Image" (of ourselves); & Death follows "A Woman in her Prime." She ended with a poem beginning with trying to unwind at the end of the day, confusion in her mind, then finding solace as she revels in the many roles she plays in her family & her life.

But that was not the end because Mojavi arrived late & I asked him to take us out with something, a poem he pulled up (oh the wonders of technology) on his blackberry, "Life & Times of Pep Roundtree," another image of hope in struggle.

Every third Thursday, 7:30 PM, here at the Social Justice Center, 33 Central Ave., Albany, NY, an open mic with a featured reader -- come & find out who shows up.

Split this Rock Festival, the Last Night (Part 2), March 13

After Sarah Browning's obligatory litany of thank-yous -- it takes a poetic army of volunteers, staff, sponsors, &, of course, participants to make such a successful festival -- & I for one am so pleased & happy to have been here -- on with the finale of the poetry.

Each year, even when the festival is not happening, Split this Rock has run a poetry contest. This year it was judged by Chris Abani, who read the First Place poem, "Prague TV" by Simki Ghebremichael. Second Place was won by Marie-Elizabeth Mali, who was here, to read "Oceanside, CA." I was a little disappointed that the Third Place winner, Sonja de Vries (who had joined me for dinner) did not get to read her fine poem, "A Response to 'What's Your Sexual Orientation,'" but all the winner's poems can be found on the Split this Rock website.

Toni Asante Lightfoot had joined me on Thursday in my workshop, sharing her vast experience organizing poetry readings in Washington, DC, & now in Chicago. She began by pointing out, as she does to her young students, that Power = work over time. She read poems from a series she is writing on about Jackie "Moms" Mabley, the funny, outrageous, (x-rated) comedienne, reflecting the poet's own transformation & her time (including the taking of a new name, as the poet herself).

Martha Collins had been a part of a panel on documentary poetry. She read, again, from her book Blue Front, about her father growing up in Cairo, Ohio & of the lynching there, stringing the poems together. She continued with excerpts from her new work, White Papers, which continues beyond the story of her father with the deeper question of what the lynchings had to do with her, a white woman, exploring racism.

Sinan Antoon writes in Arabic & English, & has also translated Mahmoud Darwish. His mostly short poems included watching soldeirs at El Paso airport, or a homeless veteran outside his office ("A Sign"), or about the street of bookshops in Baghdad that was bombed by the US. One poem ("Phosphorus") contrasted his bike when a kid & the after-effects of the use of white phosphorus in the attack on Fallujah, while "To an Iraqi Infant" could have been written for an infant in Haiti, or Gaza or wherever there is war whose victims are always children. All was not death & destruction, as he included some short, erotic poems.

Chris Abani, the last poet of the festival, began with a joke told to him by the late Dennis Brutus who had read at the first Split this Rock festival, & anecdotes about Darwish, & read one of his poems. He began with what he said was his one love poem, "1971." He read a long series of poems filled with Christian religious images, & meditations on race, & Los Angeles. His reading a quiet end to the festival, like breath going out.

I left with my head was reeling & it was late I couldn't drag myself to the grand party at the end. I needed to be quiet & alone with my notes, my photos, my memories, & my gratitude for being here among so many great poets. Thank you, Split this Rock. I await the next gathering in 2012, deo volente.

Split this Rock Festival, the Last Night (Part 1), March 13

The final evening of this fabulous festival was 2 readings at Bell High School & like the festival as a whole, it was diverse, sometimes pensive, sometimes raucous.  And speaking of raucous, Regie Cabico was the host for the first part of the evening, becoming breathless over the poetry (& from skipping rope on stage).

  Allison Hedge Coke was the first poet up, with a chant, invocation to America, & celebrating herself singing back. A long poem, "The Change," told of working in the tobacco fields, & the takeover of the farms by agra-business & automated machines, a love-lost poem. She read without introducing the poems, letting the stories from rural & working America speak for themselves, direct & rich.

The poems of Richard McCann were personal in another way, with memoirs of growing up in DC. "Crepe de Chine" was about being his mother's companion/her "best friend". He also read sections from an older, long poem "Nights of 1990," the title an homage to Cavafy, a friend dying of AIDS -- quiet, discursive, pensive poems.

Lenelle Moïse comes up out of the Slam scene, but her style is all her own. She began with "Mud Mothers," pondering Haiti, it's "proud, resilient people," & also did an "Ode to Michael Jackson" because Haitian people love Michael Jackson, she said. Her poem about AIDS was a childhood memory of a queer uncle. Her poems were sometime breathless chants, invocations, rants, sometimes engaging the audience with a call & response, & sometimes pooignant memoirs. And I love the line, "Death is the end of percussion," from her final poem on the heart.

I have read Fady Joudah's translations of Mahmoud Darwish, but had not read or heard any of his own poems. He began by announcing that today is Darwish's birthday & read a few pages from a long poem in tribute. Many of his poems were short, meditative descriptions, such as his first poem about a friend in a hospice, often with minimal (or no) introductions. But politics & history were frequent undertones, as in "Still Life" or "A Line for Water" set in the Middle East, or the more obvious "The Security Level is Yellow" that also brought in Facebook & Jackson Pollack. Still another poet of the festival that I want to read more of.

Time for a break so I led my new poet-friend over to Haydee's (again) & was pleased that she liked it too -- good food, relaxed atmosphere, excellent (& fast) service. Then back for more poetry -- stay tuned.

Split this Rock, Friday, March 12, the Readings

There were 2 readings this evening, both in the auditorium of Bell Multicultural High School. Sarah Browning, the first half MC, said how she had originally invited Bruce Wiegel to be a part of tonight’s reading, but that he was ill. Then she & each of the featured poets read a poem by Bruce Wiegel to put his presence in the house.

Arthur Sze began with a poem from his earlier book, Quipu, then read from his latest collection of poems, The Ginko Light (2009, Copper Canyon Press). He reads quietly, some poems set in China, an extended piece “Chrysalis,” a meditation in precise, poetic descriptions, as well as the title poem of the new book, another extended piece in multiple sections.

Patricia Smith, who seems to be at all the best poetry festivals, was there when Slam was invented, when Slam was good poems read well with expression, passionate, but not theatrical. She began with one of those email letters from Nigeria & her response, filled with humor & compassion. A poem about attempting to put her arms around her son after he spent 2 years in jail was a mother’s tender memory of a boy growing up, of a mother’s pain, while her memories of her own mother were the basis of “An All-Purpose Product” (Lysol). She even got “nostalgic” for the former president in “The President Flies Over.”

Martin Espada, who also had read at the first Split-this-Rock festival, read from both the selected poems & from The Republic of Poetry. He read about Puerto Rico & his hometown, Brooklyn, & the death of Neruda, about being at the tomb of Frederick Douglas, his voice rich & deep. “A Playboy Calendar & the Rubiyat of Omar Khayam” is a new poem about becoming a poet, & he paid tribute to his activist father (& other unnamed activists) in “Sleeping on the Bus“. He, & his poems, are an excellent example of the Festival’s subtitle, “poems of provocation & witness.”

After a break for dinner at my favorite neighborhood restaurant, Haydee’s, I was back at Bell for an exciting (even titillating) & varied reading by 4 poets, “expanding the territory of poetry,” hosted by Abdul Ali.

Natalie E. Illum is a young Slam poet (currently 25th in the Slam world, she told us) who was best when not performing in an over-enunciated slam style, even when struggling to read a poem from pages flying off the music stand. Her poems deal with issues of gender identity, ability & politics. She began with a moving family memoir/alternate reality, “Adaptation.” An older piece, “Protest Moon,” includes the story of her brother in an anti-war protest; moving, tender, & touching even when dark.

Jeffrey McDaniel is a product of the Washington, DC slams & of college poetry theater. His work sits on the line of slam poet/stand-up comic, with elaborate metaphors leaning on humor for their effect, sort of like Tristan Tzara meets Jerry Seinfeld. The poems were like the riffs that rise up at late at parties, variations on what God is, a college love poem in war-time lingo, making “The Grudge” a plant you can water; his surrealist over-cooked images worked best on an eerie short poem about being in NYC on September 11, 2001.

Jan Beatty took us on a sex tour of Canada & seedy towns in America. Her work is grounded in working class culture, as a waitress (“Instructions on Tipping”), a social worker in a prison, sometimes grim, sometimes humorous with hard-edged irony. “I Saw One of Blake’s Angels” was set in a peep-show. Others were memories of her adopted family in Pittsburgh, her steel-mill father, the personal (i.e., sexual) as politics in the righteous anger of “The Shooter.”

I first met Quincy Troupe almost 20 years ago when he came to perform here in Albany & his poem to Magic Johnson is a staple in the poetry workshops I’ve done in local schools. Tonight he read 2 poems, the first from 1998, a long lush description of waking in the morning at his friend Peter Schwartz’s house in Spain, watching his wife sleeping; the other, “Switching in the Kitchen,” for the sculptor & installation artist, Mildred Howard, filled with jazz references (from his book The Architecture of Language), both poems ecstatic incantations in be-bop rhythms, the kind of recitation to which slam poets aspire.

A nice mix of the younger & older poets, bouncing off each other – the beat goes on.

Split this Rock, Friday, March 12, Workshops

I really could have just stayed in bed, no one is taking attendance, but the workshop selections are so good, if I could be 2, or 3 people at once, I would be. As they used to say at the school dances, one has got to make a choice. So the first of the day’s workshop was one on teaching creative writing to war veterans, at the Thurgood Marshall Center. The panel members all were involved in running writing workshops for veterans, one was a Viet Nam vet (George Kovach), the others young women (Lovella Calica, Laren McClung) & the moderator, Cathy Che. As at any of these workshops, the involvement of the audience is as important as the “expertise” of the panel members. There was a wide range of ages from 20-somethings up to the grizzled-grey like me, & included therapists & folks involved in all kinds of community literary (& therapeutic) programs. I picked up an interesting journal called Consequence Magazine  & heard about projects like Warrior Writers  & the “combat papers” project.

From there on to Busboy & Poets Langston Room for the panel discussion on Documentary Poetry with Martha Collins, Mark Nowak & Philip Metres. Martha Collins explores racism from the perspective of a white woman in a book of poems about lynching in Ohioi, & a work in progress “White Papers.” Philip Metres read poems using the photos from Abu Gharib; in the discussion raised the issue of “appropriation” of other’s lives/material versus the necessity to get the word out. Mark Nowak had trouble with the technology & couldn’t show his slides, but continued on with poems about the Chinese miners. It was interesting that a couple of the panelists referenced Muriel Rukeyser’s Book of the Dead. Also a pointed quote from the essay, “My Adventures as a Social Poet,” by Langston Hughes that I now must read.

After a wonderful lunch across the street in Eatonville (tender, juicy barbecued baby back ribs), back to the Thurgood Marshall Center for a discussion of contemporary Chinese poetry by scholar/poet Arthur Sze & Beloit Poetry Journal editor, John Rosenwald. The handout included poems from Bei Dao, Xiao Kaiyu, Gu Cheng, Duo Duo, & Shu Ting. The most recent poem was from 1995, while the rest were from the 1970s. Arthur Sze has edited a book of essays, Chinese Writers on Writing, which has just been published & contains rare contemporary Chinese critical writers in translation. Sze quoted Yu Jen, “poetry is not a noun, but a verb” & “to write real poetry is to repudiate all metaphor.” They also mentioned a forthcoming anthology of contemporary Chinese poetry from Copper Canyon Press, edited by Howard Goldblatt.

If you want more information about each of the workshops/panels & the bios of the presenters, go the Split-this-Rock website.

I’ll be posting a separate entry about the readings later in the evening.

Split-this-Rock Dream Poem

It must be something in the air
Just before I woke up, in a dream
the word “Obama” floats through my thoughts
or perhaps it is spoken by others
not in debate or analysis or even a name.
Just the word, a sound
like people sighing
or a runaway metaphor from a poem
what the Metro sounds like when it pulls into a station.
I have heard lots of words spoken, read
here at this festival, but in my dream
this was just another recurring sound
a shifting connotation in a forest of contexts
this word that found its way
into my early morning dreams.
It must be something in the air.

Split this Rock Poetry Festival, Thursday, March 11

I did my workshop, How to Build a Poetry Reading, this AM in the front room of the Thurgood Marshall Center. There were about 10-12 folks, including the late arrivals, many from the DC area, where there apparently are lots of readings/open mics/slams already. Toni Asante Lightfoot joined me in sharing her experience running poetry events.

Hung out having lunch & typing at Busboys & Poets, then took some time off before heading to the Poetry in the Streets event in Upper Senate Park, beneath the shadow of the Capitol. A string of poets threaded our way to the stage to each recite one line of poetry, limited to 12 words, a Cento sending a message of peace & "get off your collective asses & end the war" to the members of Congress. Check out the poem at the Split this Rock Blog. Hanging out with new friends, re-connecting with old friends. My picture ended up in the pages of the Washington Post the next morning. You can also check out photos by the omni-present photographer, Jill Brazel, on the Split this Rock Facebook page & on their website.

Time for dinner & a drink & then back to the Bell Multicultural High School for the evening's reading. Mark Nowak gave a reading with slides, touching on the Sago mine disaster & mining accidents in China, in what is being called documentary poetry. Lillian Allen, who lives in Canada, performed her poems in the tradition of "Dub poetry," reggae rhythms & the early roots of hip-hop. She took on the lingo & dance rhythms of the islands, mixing in sound patterns with the words, in such poems as "Limbo Dancer," poems about women in prison, in housing projects & giving birth, even a love poem ("would love to make a revolution with you").

Francisco Aragon's poem were mostly short, evoked the spirit of Garcia Lorca & Ernesto Cardenal. His poems to us "To Madrid," & Rome ("The Tailor"), & a strange slant translation of Rilke, "Torso." Nancy Morejon is from Cuba (& the Cuban ambassador was in the house).  She read her poems in Spanish, then in translations done by others, often touching on the Afro-Cuban themes of slavery & oppression, but in the rich, colorful images often found in poetry from the Caribbean.

Once again, a wonderful, full night of poetry, but run well, the readings moving along with variety & judicious sense of time. More detailed informaton about each of the poets can be found on the website.