Where has your second throat gone?

     I did not quite fully grasp the circuitous roots, the continuous appeal, and the credible chaos of slam poetry until I read Patricia Smith’s essay “The Second Throat: Poetry Slam” in Blueprints: Bringing Poetry into Communities (Poetry Foundation/University of Utah Press: 2011), which you can read as an e-book at the Poetry Foundation website here.  The 300-page tome includes essays by established poets and rising stars who discuss the programs they've introduced into diverse national and international communities. The book also includes a toolkit that pulls strategies discussed in the essays and encourages people and organizations interested in bringing poetry into their own communities at various levels and through various means.

     But back to Patricia. In the context of slam poetry, she describes our anatomical throat thus: "Our first throat is functional, a vessel for the orderly progression of verb, adjective, and noun.  It's the home of our practiced, public voices." This description makes me think of my left brain, grammatically correct verse, and clear, organized, well-lit thinking. But it is Patricia's description of our second throat that slams the nail on the head, so to speak. She says our second throat is a "raw and curving parallel pathway we use to sing the songs, tell the stories, screech the truths that any fool knows should be kept silent."  Aye, there's the rub--sing, tell and screech.  Now I know. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but it's second throat of stage poetry that wins fans. It also picks up detractors, those that do not like screeching, I am guessing.

     Most people, Patricia says, live all their lives without discovering the second throat. Do you know where your second throat is? Have you discovered it yet? Do page poets want a second throat? Do stage poets abandon their first throat? Why make the distinction between page and stage? Is there a need or desire to bridge the two? Is reading your poetry well an indication of a poet's literary talent? Do stage poets want to be page poets? And what of page ones? Do they tend to raise their eyebrows at the the stage ones? Do these questions matter, as doesn't the world need all the poetry it can get to enrich people's lived realities? 

     Singing the song. Poetry is an oral art, no ifs ands or buts or stage or page poetry about it.  Poets must sing. Sherwin Bitsui notes in his essay contribution, "Converging Wor(l)ds: Nizhone Bridges and Southwest Native Communities,"that in Navajo thought, language is sacred. A poet's words offers a voice where poems "might fly free from their interior lives to astonish, astound, surprise and emerge from years of silence." That sounds a lot like slam poets who tend to be confessional. Can slam poets sing away tensions and conflicts, sing the good language found in poetry or prayer or chant, sing so that language is "in alignment with a deeper cosmological and spiritual knowing" as Bitsui states language should? Bitsui speaks of youth defining daily realities for themselves and hints at how to do so by quoting Joy Harjo, who asserts that poetry must "reinvent the enemy's language." Certainly, slam poetry does that. It sings the cage away.

     Telling the story. Does poetry change anything in the telling? Anna Deavere Smith worked in diverse neighborhoods in New York City and Los Angeles with Jews, Koreans and blacks, turning her oral history interviews into theatre. Has telling their stories changed the way they perceive each other culturall? If, as Deavere Smith believes, "that deep, deep, deep inside our culture we profoundly desire to remain separate from those we perceive as different," then what good is telling the story? Deavere Smith is adamant in the importance of telling. She notes "language is the way in, telling our story and listening is the most important." It appears enough to be able to declare spaces to tell our story to foster further conversation down the line. If there is no possibility of community without collaboration, then slam poetry is at best a public sphere. It is a collaborative community space where people can come out of their safety zone and tear down the walls that separate us through identity, intellect, art, or politics.  Slam is where the telling is more important than the outcome. 

     Screeching the truth. The truth comes in all forms, so why shouldn't it be delivered in every form as well? But screeching like an owl is different from screeching like a banshee. They've both got their rightful and effective purposes. Screeching is an act of defiance, and sometimes histrionics or trendy wordplay is what the stage poem is about. Smith notes that her four-time slam poetry champion title mattered in that a roomful of strangers invested in her story. It mattered in that the slam environment helped [the strangers] find ways to tell stories of their own. And for that alone, slam poetry has changed the face and throat of poetry.

So Local, Yeah? Or Not?

The questions “What high school you went?” and “What was your first encounter with Bamboo Ridge?” served to sort and place each reader at Sunday’s Bamboo Ridge Issue #100 book launch.  Before reading his or her story, each reader was asked to answer those tell-tale questions. Some refused to disclose their alma mater, saying it was top secret or responding with a “yes, I went to high school.” Others launched into semi-nostalgia or apologist-tinged conversation.  Only in Hawaiʻi can a high school alma mater serve as ʻohana identification or neighborhood bragging rights.  Inevitably, the high school connection can lead to conversations that go something like this:  “So you know my cousin, den? Oh yeah, my ex-wife is one Menehune. Oh, nah, what year you wen grad? Aww, shoots, I get plenny family ovah deah. My neighbor’s uncle’s friend’s sister wen grad dat year, too. You know her husband, we went to da same elementary school.”

And so it goes.  So local, yeah?

Just like the latest Bamboo Ridge issue that contains the work of 70 authors, with a portfolio of artwork by Cane Haul Road artist Grant Kagimoto, along with selections from its100-Line/100-Word Online Contest, as well as a special tribute to Hawaiʻi’s own Beat poet, Albert Saijo.

So local, yeah? Or not?

The book launch and reception featured 14 of us, and it was marvelous to hear, see, touch, laugh, gasp, raise eyebrows, emote, ponder and wonder at the variety of literary work that Hawaiʻi produces. From the two Lees—Lee Tonouchi and Lee Cataluna; to college professors Susan Schultz, Gail Harada, Brenda Kwon, and Ann Inoshita and scholar Sylvia Watanabe; to neighbor island school principal Darlene Javar to retirees Moriso Teraoka, Michael Little and Beryl Allene Young. And then there was one of my favorite Filipino poets, Elmer Omar Pizo, whose work received the Editor’s Choice Award for Best Poetry. He talked about the hazards of composing poetry, the divinity of a trapped dead rat, and the plight of butchering a young goat. Darlene Javar read a powerful poem about the death and subsequent unclaimed body of a transgendered person. What binds locals also separates. What identifies locals also blurs.

So local, yeah? Or not?

            The readers and their works made me wonder, what does it really mean to be local? For all intents and purposes, is the word a primary referent to ethnicity and functions as such to identify certain racial? Sometimes is seems like it, but more often than not, it speaks to a shared experience of a group delineated by geography, social class, culture, social mores.  For real? Or not? What does a local writer write about? What does local poetry look and sound like? If “locals” don’t act like “locals” are they still “local”? Don’t erroneously call a Hawaiian local because you could be majorly offending them by lumping them in with other immigrants and settlers.

So what does it mean to be local, really? What does it mean to be a local writer? Is being a local writer a step down from just writer? I’ve been called a local writer, an immigrant poet, a Filipino writer, an Ilokano writer, even a Pacific poet. I guess I’m all that at simultaneously and at differing times with various audiences.

            Well, here’s an example of what it means to be local. After the reading ended, a woman approached me to comment on a line in the “Apo Baket” poem I had read. She began to share her experience with her immigrant grandparents, their hand rolled tobacco toscanis, and other cultural accoutrements. She asked me how I came to know the historical roots of putting the lit end of a Filipino cigar in one’s mouth while smoking—the stanza is:

I watch from inside the screen door, her profile puffing

That familiar Ilokano toscani, her cheeks sucking air,

The tabako’s fiery end insider her mouth, a habit of survival

To withhold any glowing red light from wartime Japanese.

I told her I wasn’t exactly sure if that was why old Filipino women put the lit end of a cigar inside their mouth to smoke it.  It was true of my grandmother, but since it was poetry, I didn’t exactly lie because someone told me (I think) about the peculiar practice. She seemed a little disappointed. But after an animated discussion about higher education, poetry and local literature, we discovered that she is my older sister’s friend’s sister, who went to the same high school as I did. Somehow my transgression was minimized and all was well.

Only in Hawaiʻi.  So local, yeah? Or not?

Poetry Makes Nothing Happen

Does poetry make anything happen?  According to W.H. Auden, poetry makes nothing (my emphasis) happen.

     You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:
     The parish of rich women, physical decay,
     Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
     Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,
     For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
     In the valley of its making where executives
     Would never want to tamper, flows on south
     From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
     Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
     A way of happening, a mouth.

                -- "In Memory of W.B. Yeats" by W.H. Auden

So then, according to Auden, poetry just survives. Hmm. Is that all poetry is and does? But Auden was referring primarily to Yeats and Ireland, right? IDK, after a poetry performance last week featuring Donovan Colleps, No'u Revilla, Moi Self, I got to thinking and asking--primarily wondering--

• Why do I write poetry?
• For whom do I write poetry? Is it for me, for others and, if so, how many others?
• What do I want my poetry to do?
• Is my writing intended to show or to enact? If so, what am I hoping it to do?
• Can language affect and effect the world? (I know for certain the answer is yes to that question)
• Or, does poetry merely survive like a super-resilient, antibiotic-resistant, bacterial-infection-spawned bug?
• Should survival, aka publication, be the pragmatic end goal of poetry? My gut says no, but my brain leans yes on that question.

But back to Auden.  If poetry makes nothing happen, the underlying premise then is that poetry should make something happen. On the level of an action or an event, I concede that poetry is rather passive.  Although some of the poetry readings, (i.e. poetry slams) are not passive, most poets are not stage poets or actors or performers, and I don't fault page poets for that. Some of us are just not ham-it-uppers. If poetry makes nothing happen, where is all the action situated? In prose? In film? In interactive art?

A blogger, sarangij, notes the distinction between prose (active) and poetry (passive).  He states, "This is a distinction that we have made normative--the contrast between the narrative schema of prose as opposed to the associative and relatively a-logical schema of poetry. Meaning in poetry is less ideologically contrived and more of a fluidity. Poetry is less causal and thus more eventless compared to prose."  A-logical? What? Poetry has a lot of logic and purposeful craft!  Sarangij needs to go see a poetry slam, preferably a youth poetry slam, specifically the poets at the Hawai'i Youth Speaks event if he thinks poetry is passive.

Which brings me to the categorization of poetry.  Lately, I've been obsessed with a quirky desire to label, box in, categorize and sort my and others' poetry.  My latest need was to try to categorize Terrance Hayes' Lighthead.  I think this desire began when I first encountered William Blake in a Romantic poetry class 32 years ago.  I had the hardest time reconciling him with the other Romantics, nor did he fit neatly with the preceding period's neoclassicists nor the following era of Victorians in the sub-category aestheticism and decadence. As with other passive aggressive tendencies and ADHD proclivities, I will get over my categorization phase.  But for now, I want to categorize last week's poetry performers and poetics. If you missed it, then hey, you missed out. Take a look at the flyer to get an idea of what we tried to do with our poetry.

I have great admiration for the work my Documentary Poetry classmates, No'u and Donovan. Every time I hear Donovan's sea horse poem, I find something new and inspiring. Donovan's poetry makes me want to be a better observer and listener.  No'u is such a cerebral poet, brave in pushing boundaries and bold in her creativity in  abstraction and honesty. Her work is a poet's poetry. Then there's Moi Self.  In our eros statements, the first interweaving of our poetry which addressed what we tried to do with our words, I said I wanted to "gather the all the pieces, throw them up in the air and see how they landed." I was referring to words I found in statistics, newspaper articles, first person accounts from inmates and correctional officers and bureaucrats,and my attempt at using the poetic language of transcendence.  I knew what would land; I wanted to see how the words would be received.  I couched the impersonal with the personal by giving statistical contexts first.  Here are the numbers that I hoped the audience would find not only informative, but resonant in a political way.

In addition to the demographics, I wanted to show that Hawaiʻi has been exporting inmates, like many other states, to the detriment of families and communities and budgets.  99% of inmates will serve their sentence and return to the community.  Why are we sending them out-of-state in increasing numbers and eating the social and economic costs.  If a child whose parent is incarcerated is 3x more likely to end up in prison, aren't we encouraging the intergenerational cycle to kick in by further separating the families? Aren't we also sending away jobs that could be kept here?  I wanted my poetry to do something, and these were the kinds of questions I hoped my words would engender. 

Yeah, yeah, some of you are probably saying, "Good. Exile them. Banish them and throw away the key."  To that, I respond with, "You probably already know them--they are your neighbors, your relatives, your high school classmates, your co-worker's cousin.  What good will it do for them to come back and be [re] leased without any transitional programs or ties to the community?" 30% of the population sent away?  No other state has that high a rate.  I wanted to use the poems to show that we cannot operate in a vacuum when it comes to Hawaiʻi's incarcerated population.  $66 million spent sending them away just last year alone.  And sent to small towns in the middle of nowhere, in the heart of the boonies. They have been sent to:

Below are some demographics of the female offender population. I'll give you one guess as to why the numbers almost tripled from 1990 to 2000.  Hint: drugs.

So I read a poem called "I Name Myself" as the final attempt to humanize, historicize, contextualize, put a face on it because they are just not numbers approach to my poetics.  Yeah, okay, so I wanted to appeal to not only women, mothers, children, I wanted to the audience to see their place in the scheme of the prison industrial complex.  You know, like in terms of Althusser's ideology and State apparatuses, Marx's means of production and commodification of goods, and to rethink how we treat each other as human beings. I forget who said this, but I also had this quote in mind while creating the presentation, "It's hard to think out of the box, when thinking is the box."

And finally, the cover of my chapbook below.  At the end of the reading, the founder of the Brown Bag biography series George Simpson asked if he could have a copy of my chapbook.  I told him I had only made one chapbook and I had given it to my teacher Susan Schultz last semester.  But I said I would gladly make one for him just because he wanted one.  In conclusion, I want to tell W.H. Auden that in this case poetry made something happen, so much so that someone wanted to have a book of these poems.

3 Ps: Poetry, Pinays, Politics

Aloha.

Kumusta.

Howzit.

Hello.

This is florentinapoet@gmail.com coming at you. Leona Florentino, from whom the florentinapoet blogger identity is inspired, was a 19th century Ilokana poet I am reading for an Ilokano Literature in Translation class this semester. She is considered by some scholars as the "Sappho of the Philippines" (Why do we always have to use a Western standard? Don't answer. That was a rhetorical question.) For all intents and purposes, Leona was the first national female poet of the Philippines.  Her poetry was exhibited in Spain and France in the 1880s. She also gave birth to the illustrious Don Isabelo de los Reyes, a scholar, writer, activist and sometime Spanish-ass-kissing author better known as the Father of Organized Labor in the Philippines by some. "Don Belong" established the first regional periodical called El Ilocano that published fiction and poetry. So enough of Poetry, Pinays and Politics--the 3Ps of some of my P passions. This blog will explore those 3 Ps, as well as formulate an evolving poetics that looks at gender, culture and representation.

I'm a publicist by day and student by afternoon and evening.  I returned to higher education in the fifth decade of my life to pursue a graduate degree in English, specifically creative writing, and more specifically, poetry.  I'm in my third semester, which means if I start and finish my thesis next semester, I will graduate in May 2013.  I am producing work now that I plan to shape into some sort of coherent, organized form of a serious kind next year.  I am thinking it will be multi-genre. I am thinking.

Amnesiatic

It is the age of amnesia.  I used to have a blog called Book Book Pinay that I now can't access. Why? You guessed it. I'm at the age of amnesia. I didn't migrate something in the hawaii.edu realm, thus rendering something non-existent and something else invalid. So while Book Book Pinay is there lodged in cyberspace, my knocking at the "write new post" door goes unheard. Not to worry, you can still access Book Book Pinay here.  In the meantime, the infamous poet CSP has required us to have a poet's presence on social media, i.e. blog.  Yikes! I am continuing the formerly defunct life of Book Book Pinay into this new blog, Pinay Book Book. Thanks for reading. Stay tuned. More later.