I underestimate the power of fun at times.

Participants and readers (myself included) gorged themselves on a delicious, home-cooked meal an hour or two before “getting down to business.” Which didn’t feel like business. Poetry isn’t business! But it feels this way, before I do a reading sometimes — why?

Jamie Asaye Fitzgerald and I were the featured readers. Prior to our readings, everyone at the event, around 20 people, shared five-line poems at the mic. I dig this kind of community building in a reading format; everyone eating, drinking coffee and sharing their work. By the time I got up to the mic, the reading was among friends, haiku-writers, and brunch-lovers unbuttoning the top button of their pants.

***

I am teaching Introduction to Poetry this coming year. I am trying to remember any “formal” introduction I’ve experienced. In the sixth grade for the poetry unit, I had to interview my best friend as Gwendolyn Brooks who dressed like her (knit cap, large glasses). Does this count?

My first workshop in college wasn’t pleasant. There were little to no poets-of-color on the reading list. I didn’t speak Workshop Language yet. I was skeptical and grouchy, the newness of first winter in New York wearing off.

How were you introduced to poetry? How did poetry introduce itself to you?

“The 10 Commandments of Collaboration”

by Maureen Seaton and Denise Duhamel

1. Thou shalt trust thy collaborator’s art with thy whole heart.
2. Thou shalt trust thy collaborator’s judgment with thy whole mind.
3. Thou shalt trust thy collaborator’s integrity with thy whole spirit.
4. Honor thy own voice.
5. Honor thy collaborator’s spouse.
6. Thou shalt not be an egotistical asshole.
7. Thou shalt not covet all the glory.
8. Thou shalt love the same foods as your collaborator.
9. Thou shalt eat and tire at the same time.
10. Above all, honor the muse.

From “Poetry and Collaboration: Denise Duhamel and Maureen Seaton”

Today, I’m thinking about poetry and collaboration.  Why collaborate?

“The most delightful part about our collaborating is the shared creative burden. Even when we think we are stumping one another, providing lines that seem almost impossible to finish, the other can usually think of something to follow right away. We are open to mess and mayhem. We have found what we believe to be a third voice, a voice that is neither Maureen’s nor mine, but rather some poetic hybrid.” – Denise Duhamel

I find myself in three collaborative projects this summer, and I’m realizing that the “shared creative burden” is not only “delightful” but also less lonely.  There’s a larger vision at stake.

“I’ll post the generative questions or prompt that surface from the previous day’s writing and ask participants to write in response to them. You can answer in whichever way you are moved to — off-the-cuff, improvisationally, in deep meditation, whichever feels right to you. I’ll ask you within your writing response to braid the words of either another participant or writer/artist (other than yourself) in your writing in some way, to honor the collaborative intent of the project, and to credit that other writer/artist by name at the end of your writing (unless that person would rather remain anonymous).” – Ching-In Chen’s call for Collaborative Manifesto Remix

Over at Ching-In’s blog, it’s an incredible process to participate and witness the recycling of words and images in new, unexpected ways.  No matter the repetition, each writer cuts through from a different angle of light and shadow.  The “third voice” which Duhamel speaks of is complicated here; it’s many voices underneath voices and also what isn’t being said.

Fellow Kundiman poet Dan Lau and I begin the day with a collaborative ekphrasis poem on Gmail Chat.  We alternate lines, limiting ourselves to 20 minutes of writing time. It feels more like a sleepover as we play the flashlight game.  A thin beam of light on the bookshelf, on the window, at the crack in the floor, on the creepy clown doll.  We are asking ourselves, what else is here?

“diluvial: of, relating to, or brought about by a flood
I’ve pissed the bed again.

  The stench of new magnolias

weeping in the sea of sheets

collecting into deposits of sweat

  I fold myself into the bathroom

the condensation of wet dreams

the melange of urea and powdered flowers”

I’m loosening my language, opening up to “mess and mayhem,” engaging in dialogue and community (living and dead), facing the darkness underneath the bed with a good friend — these are my reasons for collaboration.

According to Maria Popov who collaborated with Michelle Legro and Wendy MacNaughton on this diagram for Longshot Magazine, Circles of Influences is “a visualization of literary, scientific and artistic influences. It’s designed to illustrate the enormous creative indebtedness that permeates humanity’s proudest intellectual output, while also demonstrating the cross-pollination of disciplines across science, art, literature, film and music.”

***

Below is my Circle of Influence (thank you, Paint!).  Instead of renowned white male literary figureheads dominating my circle, there are writing communities such as Kundiman and the PEN Emerging Voices Fellowship, which have shaken up my world, splashed a bucket of icewater on my head, and said, YOU!  These communities have expanded my worldview, poetics, process, life.  There are teachers, mentors, fellow “emerging” writers (who are the heart/soul of these communities), the first Pinay writers I read, the first writers who I loved first.  There isn’t enough space for all of them.

I’ve linked the different writers and artists in my circle by community: where I was when I first met/read them, who influenced/influences their work, other communities in which they belong and overlap.

I forgot to mention The Blood-Jet Writing Hour, a place where I try to link all of these communities and influences.

Pearl Buck, author of The Good Earth, is here.  She was the one of the first writers who pissed me off when I encountered her in high school.  Her stereotypes of Asian folks, her limited scope, her access to a world and a community that didn’t belong to her.

***

Last night, I met with the former 2009 Emerging Voices Fellows (now MMIX Writers Los Angeles) at Sylvia and Bonnie’s house for our not-so-regular potluck and sharing of work.  We ate our usual Trader Joe’s pizza and drank sangria. We sat on Sylvia’s brilliant red couch to read last chapters of novels and memoirs, fresh poems, a new collection of photographs.  Projects we began at the PEN Fellowship are being revised and close to finished.

I shared poems inspired by Sylvia’s photography collection, “I forget myself (I forget you).”  A true mix.  Many of us have/are attending conferences and residencies frequently, or signing up for the MFA, or getting promoted at work.  This was the first community where I truly found home, and I’m grateful to come back and shake my head and laugh at how fast time flies.

Cristina Victor, an artist friend of mine, drew this incredible aswang a year or two ago, in response to one of poems.

*The Aswang Manuscript

The aswang manuscript is undergoing some radical revision.

The manuscript is organized by the different creatures the aswang embodies:

1.) Weredog

2.) Vampira

3.) Viscera Sucker

4.) Witch

5.) Manananggal

I’ve revisited a number of poems to play with form.  I want the form to reflect the changing, elusive creatures of the aswang, which means working with the fragment and the image even more.  For a long while, I felt tied to the linear narrative of the aswang and her mother, even when it wasn’t working.  I’ve cut a bunch of lines and poems, which was liberating.  I am also letting go or saving some of the world’s fair poems I’ve written.  They just don’t fit right now.

When I sent my manuscript to friends and other poets, the question of my body came up.  Where was it?

I’m interweaving the difficult poems I wrote in Chris Abani’s workshop last spring with the aswang poems I already had.  Poems of trauma, colonization, violence among families and women, violence committed against the body, the Filipina brown body.  Poems of girlhood, motherhood and daughterhood.  Some in persona, a few not.  For a while, I’ve kept these separate, but it’s fascinating to see them in dialogue.  I finally feel like I’m getting somewhere with organizing the manuscript.

During VONA, I spoke with Elmaz Abinader about her thoughts on this project.  She suggested playing with the performance of it, which speaks to the persona nature of the project.

This fall, I plan to stage a section of the aswang poems  in conjunction with UC Riverside’s Golden Mean Theater Group this fall.  If you all know of any Pinay actors, let me know!

*Writings on Filipino Mythology

TAYO founder and fellow VONA attendee, Melissa Sipin and I have been in dialogue about editing an anthology of literature inspired by Filipino mythology.

We found this call for submissions on the PAWA blog, but we want to open it up to other genres, besides fiction, and we want Filipino writers from all over the diaspora to submit.  We’re inspired by the work of Barbara Jane Reyes, Aimee Nezuhukumatahil, Ninotchka Rosca, Noel Mariano, Oliver de la Paz, Maina Minahal, Aimee Suzara and more…

We want seasoned and emerging Filipino writers represented in the anthology (which we want in both print and online venues).

Is there something like this out there already?  Who are other Filipina/o writers who could fit into this project?

Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor

I have been thinking about blogging a lot lately but thinking isn’t the same as doing. Still, here I am.

I want to talk about the past year in the EM-EFF-AY (OH-EM-GEE), my experience at the VONA Voices Workshop, the progress of the manuscript/s (plural maybe?), some projects/goals I am working towards (a YA book, an anthology on Asian American mythologies, fixing up a paper on Lynda Barry and J. Torres for the upcoming MLA Conference)…which I will write about soon.

For now, I leave you with this …

*An incredible manifesto by the fabulous Ching-In Chen on the Doveglion Press website (curated by the equally awesome Barbara Jane Reyes and Oscar Bermeo).  Read it!

And my ever-growing Summer 2011 Reading List:

*Names Above Houses by Oliver de la Paz  — I’m finally getting to Oliver’s first collection, and falling in love with Fidelito, a boy who longs to fly.

*Steady, My Gaze by Marie-Elizabeth Mali — who will be on The Blood-Jet next Tuesday!  I’m excited to talk with her about her first book.

*Sudden Fiction Latino: Short-Short Stories From The United States and Latin America edited by Robert Shapard, James Thomas and Ray Gonzalez — I just read the first story, “White Girl” by Luis Alberto Urrea; explosive, haunting, and I wish it were longer!

*Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor –  I love witches!  And I get so excited about writers of color who write “genre” fiction, especially fantasy and sci-fi.  This YA books is by and about a young Nigerian girl with powers.  Check out this list by Adriel Luis who compiled “The Ultimate 21st Century Guide People of Color List” on Colorlines Magazine.

*and one more (a guilty read)…Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin — Because I loved the show on HBO so much, I needed to find out what happened next!  And then I found out there are 4-5 thickass, 1,000 page books that follow. I don’t know if I should keep drinking the Kool-Aid.

What are YOU reading this summer?

oh, and p.s. I have a poem, “Litany for Silence,” on the Splinter Generation website.  If you wish, please read.

But, I have two upcoming events!

1.) I’ll be reading at the Arlington Public Library for Inlandia Institute’s online journal, Inlandia: A Literary Journey this Saturday, July 16th at 1-4 pm. (Check the flyer below for more information.)

2.) On Thursday, July 21st at 7pm, The Splinter Generation will be hosting a reading at Avenue 50 Studios in Highland Park. The Ladies of Splinter will feature female poets Lisa Cheby, Rachelle Cruz, Lisa McCool-Grime, and Magdalawit Makonnen along with live music from L.A. band Fort King, and Latin rock and funk from DJ Jose Galvan from Indie 103.1. There will also be free munchies and cheap booze for purchase.

The Ladies of Splinter
Featuring Lisa Cheby, Rachelle Cruz, Lisa McCool-Grime, and Magdalawit Makonnen
Thursday, July 21st @ 7pm
Avenue 50 Studio
131 N. Avenue 50, Highland Park
$7 general

Silver Lake Jubilee Presents: “Girls, Girls, Girls!”

Emerging Voices alumnae Natashia Deon, Marytza Rubio, Mehnaz Turner, and Rachelle Cruz will read at this Silver Lake Jubilee promo show. PEN Center USA will curate the reading stages for the evening.

$5 Admission Wednesday, April 27 @ 8 PM
Pehrspace
325 Glendale Blvd.
Los Angeles, 90026

The Silver Lake Jubilee is a two-day music and art celebration featuring more than 20 local music acts, multi-discipline artists, crafters, and comedy acts, with literary performances curated by PEN Center USA.

…to love this turf is love hard and unrequited. Is to be a constant
trick, a constant victim of the dry screw. Is to never be quite satisfied on
deeper levels. Is to always be hungry.
Hungry for the sweet love promised. -Wanda Coleman

More good poetry news!  My love/hate poem to Los Angeles “Unfriend” is featured in the National Poetry Month KCET Departures series.  You can read it here. Wonderful poems by Luis Rodriguez, Mike the Poet and many others are featured on the site as well.

Also, be sure to check out KCET’s awesome and creative programming on the L.A. River.