THANK YOU

Richard for THIS.

And to Mark for accepting and publishing [FROM] 147 MILLION ORPHANS: A HAYBUN

***

The universe of [147 million] "orphans" is a complicated environment -- just witness how I can't just say 147 million orphans without the caveat of brackets and quote marks; no one really knows how many orphans exist  worldwide, and "orphan" is now applied to not just kids without parents but kids whose families are mired in poverty and therefore are "orphaned" into scenarios that might improve their plight (e.g. placed in orphanages for feeding programs or for adoption).

Of late, I've been concerned about a real life situation of an orphan aging out of orphanages. In Colombia (to cite just one example) studies show that many of the children commit suicide before they reach age eighteen, and of those who survive, as much as 60% of the girls become prostitutes and 70% of the boys become hardened criminals.

When I was last in Bogota, I had the chance to visit a group home set up for orphans who'd aged out of orphanages with nowhere to go.  These folks had to have a job or be continuing their education in order to get basically a dorm-room in this shelter.  It's a great idea (we have a similar facility here in Napa Valley).  But more such facilities are needed.

I'll leave it there for now. Except to note (more for moiself than anyone else) that Poetry, that hard taskmaster, is more than words.  Perhaps because actions, too, as a matter of technique, are tough to beat for powering up words.

THE INTERNATIONAL FEAST THAT IS OTOLITHS!

OTOLITHS, edited by Mark Young, is fresh. And FRESH reading it is! It's certainly enervating my still pre-java morning!

As Mark says in his Announcement:

When I started Otoliths seven years ago, I wondered if it would grow, if it would survive. That wondering is now far behind me, & even a cursory glance at the lineup ... indicates how wide-ranging the journal has become in literary & artistic endeavor & scope, how truly international it now is.

Given this issue's company, I'm honored and humbled that it also includes a haybun folio I curated -- which is also part of "my" manuscript-in-progress that is exploring the expanse of the self (authorial and otherwise): 147 MILLION ORPHANS: A HAYBUN. This unique (if I say so moiself) folio can be accessed HERE, and features the contributions of Eileen R. Tabios, Tom Beckett, j/j hastain, John Bloomberg-Rissman, Aileen Ibardaloza, Thomas Fink, Sheila E. Murphy, Michael Caylo-Baradi, Jean Vengua, William Allegrezza, & Patrick James Dunagan & Ava Koohbor. My deep gratitude to the participating poets who allowed their wonderfully complicated minds to expand the expanse of Moi who would attempt to address such a HUGE complicated topic as all of the orphans in the universe.

But do GO HERE for the entire issue, which features the lovely texts and art of the following: Mark Cunningham, Susan Lewis, Aditya Bahl, Jal Nicholl, Andrew Topel, Pete Spence & Andrew Topel, Julian Jason Haladyn, Ed Baker, John Ryan, Francesco Aprile, Unconventional Press, Kyle Hemmings, Philip Byron Oakes, Marco Giovenale, Sheila E. Murphy & John M. Bennett, Jim Leftwich & John M. Bennett, Thomas M. Cassidy & John M. Bennett, John M. Bennett, John W. Sexton, Louie Crew, Sy Roth, Jack Galmitz, Anthony J. Langford, Mark Melnicove, Yoko Danno, Pam Brown, Eleanor Leonne Bennett, A. J. Huffman, John Veira, Maria Zajkowski, Camille Martin, Wayne Mason, Bobbi Lurie, Darren C. Demaree, Michael Stutz, James Mc Laughlin, Howie Good, Reed Altemus, Tammy Ho Lai-Ming, Johannes S. H. Bjerg, Vernon Frazer, Jeremy Freedman, John Pursch, dan raphael, Sheila e. Black & Caleb Puckett, Ricky Garni, Jack Collum & Mark DuCharme, Kathryn Yuen, Tim Wright, Mark Reep, Gary Barwin, Taylor Reid, harry k stammer, Marcia Arrieta, Anna Ryan-Punch, Katrinka Moore, Neil Ellman, Sally Ann McIntyre, Jeff Harrison, Joe Balaz, Boyd Spahr, Tony Beyer, Jim Davis, Chris Brown, Sam Moginie, Lakey Comess, Alberto Vitacchio, Jorge Lucio de Campos translated by Diana Magallón & Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino, Rebecca Rom-Frank, Craig Cotter, Javant Biarujia, Carla Bertola, Iain Britton, Anne Elvey, Bob Heman, Donna Fleischer, J. D. Nelson, sean burn, Spencer Selby, Charles Freeland & Rosaire Appel, Paul Dickey, Michael D Goscinski, Kathup Tsering, Miro Bilbrough, Chris Holdaway, Samuel Carey, Paul Pfleuger, Jr., Michael Brandonisio, Willie Smith, Mercedes Webb-Pullman, Bogdan Puslenghea, Andrew Pascoe, Scott Metz, Marty Hiatt, Eric Schmaltz, Sam Langer, & bruno neiva.

As Mark encourages, "Enjoy. Be amazed. Be delighted. Be entertained."

And THANK YOU, Mark!

ANOTHER HAYBUN

from moi manuscript, 147 MILLION ORPHANS: A HAYBUN, has surfaced at On Barcelona.  Thanks to editor Halvard Johnson!

I miss Barcelona ... will visit soon.

MARSH HAWK REVIEW IS FRESH!

Delighted to have a poem from manuscript-in-progress 147 MILLION ORPHANS: A HAYBUN in the just-released Winter 2013 issue of the Marsh Hawk Review, edited by Thomas Fink. You are invited to access it at http://www.marshhawkpress.org/Review%20Frame.html. The editor says, "This is the largest and most stylistically diverse issue of the Review to date-- an auspicious beginning for the new year."

Here are the diverse and stylish contributors:

Vincent Katz
Jane Augustine
Christopher Schmidt
Natsuko Hirata
Daniel Morris
M.D. Johnson
Paul Pines
Kate Lamberg
Susan Terris
Mark Young
Eileen R. Tabios
Jack Lynch
Carole Stone
Lisa Kremens
Mary Mackey
Alan Ramon Clinton
Basil King
Stafford Gregoire
Harriet Zinnes
Raymond Farr
Thomas Fink
Charles Borkhuis
Thomas Fink and Maya Diablo Mason
Stephen Paul Miller
Sheila E. Murphy
Andrew Levy
Hank Lazer

Obviously I'm biased but this is one of the best reads of literary e-zines I've experienced in recent times...

THE POETICS OF EDUCATING "SHIH"

This photo of Filipinas and an American Soldier (from Univ. of Wisconsin Archives)

is a provocative illustration to a fabulous presentation of "Pinay Poets" at The Bakery, curated by Barbara Jane Reyes.  I'm honored to be part of the group: Joi Barrios, Arlene Biala, Sasha Pimentel Chacon, Rachelle Cruz, Luisa A. Igloria, Karen Llagas, Melissa Roxas, Melissa Sipin, Eileen Tabios, and Jean Vengua.

"Pinay Poets" is The Bakery's monthly feature and as part of such, poetics essays by the participants also will be featured throughout the month.  So far, two have appeared: Jean Vengua's "Notes on a Poetics of Individuality and Community" is over HERE, and my "Educating the Shih: A Filipina Poetics" also just appeared HERE. 

My two sample poems (on boxing, haha) are from a manuscript-in-progress that could be my first long-poem book, 147 Million Orphans: A Haybun.

And as my poetics essay moves from Sun Tzu's The Art of War to Michael Gerard Tyson (of the recent menage a troi Brad Pitt and Robin Givens fame, sigh), it seems appropriate to me that the poetics statements are featured on The Bakery's "Dirty Pans" Blog ... coz if your poetics don't get dirty, it ain't particularly ... tasty.  

MUHAMMAD ALI'S FIST, AUTHENTIC SPARRING, AND MIXED MARTIAL ARTS AS POETICS

Notes (Gleaned Specifically for Poetry) from April 18, 2012 Boxing Session:


--on Authenticity. Julio, my trainer, sets up sparring sessions where we practice combinations, e.g. Jab and Cross, Hook and Uppercut, or Jab, Cross, Hook and Uppercut. Apparently Julio set up combinations that are realistic in terms of how the punches might play out in the real-life boxing ring. He doesn't have me do a whole series of Cross, Cross, Cross and Cross, for instance, as it's unlikely a boxing bout would unfold that way. Such would contrast with how, if a Jab is successful then a Cross is a logical follow-up, and same thing with Hook and Uppercut or Jab, Jab, Jab, Jab. Practice, practice, practice, indeed. But one needs to practice where one desires to go. Relatedly, this makes me wonder about where writing a lot ultimately can fail (and I am nothing if not prolific) if one doesn't have some scaffolding of what type of writing one wishes to create. For most of my years as a poet I believed in just writing and letting the poems fall or soar where they may. Now, older, I have a goal for the whole point of the writing (what's that goal? a story for another day). I don't wish to write poems that would generate a response of unrealism, so to speak. Of course, I'm also still figuring out what this means.

--Related to above, Julio says you need to visualize a reality that you are practicing.  The importance of imagination in poetry.  Except I can't usually visualize a poem ahead of its finish; I can sometimes, however, visualize a (desired) effect of a poem.  I suspect this relates to how I privilege the poetry to the poem.

--Muhammad Ali. He was so self-confident that he at times would drop his hands to his sides, thereby exposing his face and body, and even lean his head in tauntingly to the opponent. Such was his self-confidence about being the greatest boxer ever. Mike Tyson, however, would bulldoze right into his opponent's space (I first typed "face"). The self-confidence versus the brutish offensive. Most orphans (and this, after all, is all research for my manuscript 147 Million Orphans) are made insecure by their circumstances and it can take years (if ever) for them to regain self-assurance/self-confidence. Mike Tyson was an orphan. Muhammad Ali was not. Form befits content...?

--Muhammad Ali adopted a child.

--Jab! The jab is a feeler-touch, more of a slap than a punch. It's made to feel out the opponent or distract the opponent in readiness for a stronger punch. The jab is usually made by your weaker hand while the stronger hand awaits for the opportunity to deliver a stronger punch. I am making jabs here with these notes, feeling out what boxing (and poetry) is about. The punches, hopefully, will be the poems themselves.

--Most (all?) boxing punches rely on the four-fingered front-face of the knuckles, e.g. this Ali fist.

But that's just boxing technique, versus that any other part of the fist would be less-effective. A karate punch, for instance, relies on the other side of the knuckles, the back of the palm. This has led to mixed martial arts where the fighter adapts his fighting technique from many disciplines depending on the actual unfolding of the fight. Poets, similarly, may benefit from being open to writing across genres and forms. Trans is a logical position for poets...

--Speaking of Ali-fist, in that image the punch is bigger than the boxer. Ted Berrigan's The poem is the poet's best self...

MIKE TYSON: A POETICS (#1)

Notes (Gleaned Specifically for Poetry) from April 13, 2012 Boxing Session:

-- Jab, Cross, Hook. Julio (moi cherished trainer) notes, I signal my cross by always doing a tiny fist-circle prior to unleashing (hah) it. Moi replies: "But that fist-circle feels good!" Okay, he says, because it's not like you're training to be a real boxer. Doesn't sit right with Moi as she thinks, "Nah. Still gotta do this thing as if it's for real -- as if I'm going to enter the ring soon..." So must stop signaling my intent ahead of the actual event.

-- I spar with Julio with moi gloves (in my favorite color blue) and he wearing pads with these arrowheads in the center as targets. Julio notes, I have to make certain hits as if my fist is going through the pads instead of considering the pads as walls before which I (unconsciously) pull back my punches. Exactly! I think: No walls! Go through those walls!

-- Jab, Cross, Hook. Julio makes me go slowly through the motions first. In that way, my body gets accustomed to, including up building physical memory, of the motions. When we start that way and then increase the pace to how fast I can then throw the combination, the result is more clean, more finished, more effective, more what the combination is supposed to be. Learn the form before you start breaking away from it. Know the language before you disrupt it. (Is this the difference between language-disruptors and those who "coincidentally" disrupt by being second -- or third -- -language speakers. But what if language is inherently impure; how do you disrupt the impure?)

-- Julio tells me to focus on the pads, their alignment. The pad's alignment will signal what type of punch you're supposed to throw. For example, if the pad is horizontal to the floor, you don't throw a cross but might choose an uppercut instead. When I start paying attention to the pads -- which are metaphors for the real-life boxing opponent -- I notice that I suddenly stopped doing that fist-circle that signals my crosses. I take from this that I become more effective because I have gone beyond myself (who cares that the gloves are in my favorite color? Who cares that a teeny fist-circle feels good (and I think it feels good because it is an opposite motion to the wrist-position I favor when I'm writing and I'm always writing)?) By focusing away from moiself and onto the opponent, I am more able to do what it takes to be an effective boxer.

-- When you're short, you go in closer to the danger. If you back away from your taller opponent, you are giving your taller opponent an advantage due to reach. If you cannot reach something, get closer to it. The more intimate you are with a subject, the more effective you will be -- this is where imagination may be just a starting point in art-making. Imagination as a tool, a starting point, versus the raison d'etre for that poem. Knowledge matters, whether it's research or the literally bodily investigation.

-- Hadn't known Mike Tyson was an orphan until Julio mentioned it. This synchronicity Wows me even as it doesn't surprise Moi as poetry, I've learned, is inherently synchronistic. And this synchronicity is about how I was researching boxing for purpose of a manuscript on orphans. And something I learned as soon as I began researching Mike Tyson (from “Tyson Projected” by Avi Steinberg, n + 1, 29 June 2011):

As an earnest young man, an orphan, [Mike] Tyson was preoccupied with origins and authenticity. Unlike Muhammad Ali, the young Tyson never staked any claims to radical American individualism. He didn’t boast of being “the greatest ever.” Even late in his career, after his crack-up, when his once-great skills had been replaced by threats to eat his opponent’s children, Tyson tellingly qualified his boasts: “I’m the best ever! There’s never been anyone as ruthless,” he said but then felt compelled to add, “I’m Sonny Liston! I’m Jack Dempsey!” He recognized his place in the hierarchy of tradition: an excellent copyist, not an original. At best, a perfect imitation. As he later put it, in an interview with the New York Times, he was resigned to be “a fake somebody” rather than “real nobody.” To Tyson, the prospect of becoming a “real somebody” was never a possibility.

Exactly. If our childhood gods determine much of what we become, it's the same as saying our childhood demons are also determinative. Then, Orphans...what forms their roots?

Mike Tyson as a Child

--And what does it mean to train to become someone you know you'll never become? Like me(?), training to be a boxer but not to be a boxer. Poetic authenticity--that most seductive paradox: being authentic for the goal of being an effective reproduction .... as Mike Tyson ("Beyond The Glory"), once put it, ""I have a Catch-22 within my own identity"

Or is it just something else Tyson said--ye ars poetica or arse poetica:

"I'm just going to extremes...[but] I don't know..."

BOXING POETICS: A SWEET SCIENCE

Our Own Voice recently did a special themed issue on food.  As a rare Pinay who doesn't cook, I insisted on participating.  So I sent them a Manny Pacquiao poem.  That poem, as both a food poem or a boxing poem is pretty lame.  But it was the best I could do (so far) precisely because I had not invested the body (that is, moi bod) into either cooking or boxing.  (I couldn't have written NOTA BENE EISWEIN, for example, without having once tortured a flamenco teacher by taking her classes.) Well, cooking continues to be a long shot for me.  But for that "Sweet Science!," CHECK OUT MOI NEW TOY!

Love it!  I am taking to it quite naturally!  And it's all for poetry -- not just for Manny Pacquiao Poems but I can see how its elements can enervate my ongoing manuscript, 147 MILLION ORPHANS.  For example, (I'm blogging it to file it here) these two boxing-related elements (from http://boxingkent00.tripod.com/id4.html) are sure to apply:

Fight or flight sydrome
This is the most common feeling the boxer will experience leading up to a fight, it is the brain telling you to run away to survive or stay and fight. It would rather you don't face the fear because survival is it's main aim and there is more chance of this if you don't hang around. Adrenalin is released into the blood stream getting you ready for action (this makes you stronger), you will sometimes feel sick and need to go to the toilet, you will get the shivers and sometimes stutter. Another name for this is FEAR.

Eustress
This is a type of stress that has a positive effect, the boxer will actually seek the stressful situations and thrive on the feelings associated with them, they will get fight or flight but they use it to their advantage.

Form matches content--I find myself boxing with this manuscript; the problem is that, as a poet, I shouldn't do that basic boxing stance of having my strong arm covering my face...in the making of the poem, you see, there should be--ideally--no walls between the author and the text.  No wonder I'm beginning to look like Mike Tyson; he was fearless in going in close to his opponents ... partly because, like Moi, he is short (oh yeah the significance of the body) which resulted in shorter reach:
 
 

 
Off to take some hits ... so that the poems themselves will contain the possibility of, Dear Readers, knocking you all out later!  KA-POW!
 
Those poker-playing poetry angels are always making mischief over Moi.  Who'da thunk that, as a boxer, I would be Mike Tyson.  C'mon, Fallen Angels -- I gotta get y'all for this one!

ONWARD!

Although I am excited about my book-length haybun-in-progress (excerpts HERE and HERE), I haven't done much work on it in months. Then, this morning, for some reason, I thought to return to it. I looked up the file, did some formatting, printed out the draft so far, then wrote a new poem. Then I went to check the mail.

Guess what arrived in the mail!

Yep, my copies of the relational elations of ORPHANED ALGEBRA arrived!

The poetry muses don't want me to breathe; rather, they wish me to save my breath for the poems. I can barely eke out the minute (well, I stubbornly eked out five actually) to savor my new book. I'm now in-to the next one. Sheesh. Nothing like being fruitful and multiplying. (As I understand children are now reading my blog, I won't post the joke that just came to mind about condoms and poetry-writing...) To wit:

Yep, 147 MILLION ORPHANS -- I'm bookin' and moi gaze is on you!

YOU'RE INVITED TO PEEP AT THE SECOND PUBLICATION FROM 147 MILLION ORPHANS!

I'm grateful to Lynn Behrendt and Anne Gorrick for asking me to participate in their latest "Peep Show" issue #4 with the theme "ABOUT WOMEN 2"! Said theme is timely given the VIDA reminder of how counting occurs to note who counts, note the curators.

Anyway, I'm delighted to have in such a venue some excerpts from my ongoing project, "147 MILLION ORPHANS: A HAYBUN". Do go HERE to peep at what I'm currently exploring through poetry. Other excerpts from the same project are available at The Brooklyn Rail. I am loving this project because it's very close-to-heart, per the project's "Notes":

"147 million" is a common estimate for the number of orphans worldwide. A “haybun” is a combination of hay(na)ku and other text. The hay(na)ku is a 21st century diasporic poetic form whose core is a tercet-based stanza with the first line being one word, the second line being two words, and the third line being three words. Each word forming a hay(na)ku in “147 MILLION ORPHANS” is listed chronologically from an 8th grade project by the poet’s adopted son, Michael, to learn English by studying 25 new words a week.

VISUALIZING 147 MILLION ORPHANS (PART 2)

Some more shots for the 147 Million Orphans project. Part 1 is HERE.

So, this was another emotional day. We visited Michael's former orphanage. It was so emotional to see how the staff reacted to Michael's visit; as the hubby later told Michael, the orphanage staff lives for moments like what Michael gave them: to have a former orphan visit and show that he is now in a happy, stable, supportive family. Almost all exclaimed at how tall Michael had grown in the past two years ... yes, of course, I saw children looking as much as half their biological ages -- institutionalization, even when food is available, stunts development on so many levels. Here are some photos from our visit; the first is Michael with the orphanage director by where Michael slept for years...in a large room that contained perhaps a hundred boys:



Here's a shot of the babies' bedroom -- so many cribs, too many cribs!



Here's a shot of the orphanage director with a 13-year-old orphan. The director says she just turned 13, which means she's running out of time to be adopted. And "she's such a sweet, lovely girl who so longs for a family! Any family who adopts her will never regret their decision!" The director added, "I have so many in her position of wanting a family..."



The next shots are focused on orphaned toddlers. I am only showing four shots, but I actually took a lot with my Iphone as I was besieged with young uns clamoring to be seen. So I'd take their photograph, then show them their image on the Iphone -- for all, it seemed to make their day. Well, yes: most of us want to be ... seen, to have our selves acknowledged...









Michael hasn't discussed his feelings at having visited his former orphanage. No doubt, it's a lot to process ...

VISUALIZING 147 MILLION ORPHANS

Yay. Got internet access. In a few hours, adoption proceedings will commence. But, meanwhile, chatted with the hotelier who runs a small hotel catering to adoptive families. 'Twas interesting to discuss what she's seen in the over 20 years she's been running the place, including the effects on adoption of the Great Recession, the control transition from drug lord Pablo Escobar (which made people, including potential adopters, leary of visiting Colombia) to former Pres. Uribe's administrations, and the increase of adoption interest from Europe which is experiencing negative population growth unlike the U.S. These, and other matters, ran through moi mind as a, for now, abstract soup ... but I suspect will all relate to my ongoing 147 Million Orphans project. Here's some related visuals of adopted children over the last two decades from our hotel stay which I did not expect but which obviously ... resonate:











This manuscript could be my most powerful project yet, if I'm willing to say ... certain things which I might not be able to say (1) for childrens' privacy reasons, and/or (2) for fear of jeopardizing possible improvements to the (or an) adoption system and/or orphan care. As I've said before, Adoption is like Poetry: complicated.

FIRST PUBLICATION FROM 147 MILLION ORPHANS

Deep gratitude to Anselm Berrigan for asking me for poems for Brooklyn Rail, whose poetry section he edits. Anselm's solicitation had an exponentially huge impact in that, by soliciting, he encouraged me to finally start writing poems from 147 Million Orphans, a poetry manuscript which I'd conceptualized but not yet began manifesting through poems. The first poems then from 147 Million Orphans (title is after one of the estimates of the number of orphans worldwide) are published HERE in the June issue of Brooklyn Rail, one of my favorite online journals.

I notice I'm in good company with poems this issue by Jennifer Moxley and Brenda Coultas. THANK YOU, Anselm.

147 Million Orphans is in the form of a haybun, with each section's impetus a hay(na)ku formed from one of Michael's 8th grade projects: a vocabulary notebook from having to learn 25 new English words each week during the schoolyear. Here's a photo of the first page from Michael's now quite dog-eared 900-new-word vocabulary journal:



Yes, I'm a poet and thus know words are not mine...and that poems surround us and my job is simply to discern them into existence.

ONE OF THE 9 BILLION PEEPS SPEAKS! WITH A POEM!

I received a poem -- a hay(na)ku! -- this week from someone I've never met but is a Peep who reads my blog. As far as I know, Amanda is one of those came across my blog for other reasons besides poetry, in this case, as an advocate for orphans and someone currently in the process of adopting a Colombian orphan. I'm going to share her hay(na)ku below, but before I do so --

receiving this hay(na)ku from Amanda Mason is so precious to me. For many reasons. One is my interest in making poetry part of the everyday lives of anybody and everybody (not just the lovely choirs already singing poetry's songs). I blog in part to add poetry content to the internet in the hopes that said content becomes relevant -- and thus Poetry become relevant -- to someone who just might e-stumble moi way. It's also why, though this is a "poetics blog," I don't separate out my other interests from this blog (and not just because my poetics is all-encompassing over my interests). So when Amanda's reading of my blog led her to use the hay(na)ku to renew her interest in poetry, I feel so blessed and grateful. I've always considered the hay(na)ku an inviting form, as well as a form of invitation to Poetry. How lovely to see it play out through the following --

Spanglish

Mamå
Tengo hungry
Feed me words

Thank you Amanda! How wonderful to speculate on this hay(na)ku tale's role in your adoption of Jhonatan! May that go well...!

...and Jhonathan would be one more chipped off that estimate of orphans worldwide: 147 Million.

MOI FIRST BOOK-LENGTH POEM!

Michael's humanities teacher had assigned the students to write fiction. Michael wrote a five-chapter novel entitled FITTING IN, which is especially brilliant, not because he happens to be son of a fiction writer but, because he's been learning English for less than two years.

But everyone in his 8th grade wrote fabulous work, such that the humanities teacher recently set up a "Reading Tea" where parents were invited to hear everyone read their favorite excerpts and then have a Q&A. What a fabulous way to give affirmation to the students' hard work!

I walked into the classroom where the reading was to be held. There was a table by the door with some cookies and hot water and tea bags. Suddenly, my son -- MY PUBERTY-RIDDEN SON! -- was greeting me at the door, guiding me to the table, and asking if I'd like some tea. Startled --THEN AMAZINGLY GRATIFIED OVER SUCH CIVILITY THANK YOU GOD! -- I eked out a "Yes." And I watched my son awkwardly put hot tea in a cup, put in a tea bag and give it to me. Then he led me to a chair where I could sit for the festivities.

THERE IS LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL! My son will yet grow up to be a gentleman, transcending recent knucklehead behavior! YEAHHHHHHH!

Never has tea tasted so delicious!

I am not a tea-drinker, by the way.

Anyway, he read his short story which was about the experience of a newly-adopted boy throwing a party without his parent's permission. It mentioned a hard-working Dad who often traveled away on business -- just like, ahem, the hubby! So the story was actually good in becoming a door to discuss how the hubby doesn't like traveling away from the family but it's his responsibility etc etc.

When you adopt, especially an older child, the "files" you get about their backgrounds are never complete. I've learned things, horrific things, about Michael's past from reading various stories he's written as class assignments. Horrific things ... that become yet part of the steel underpinning to my work-in-progress 147 MILLION ORPHANS. This manuscript also made major progress this week -- I think I figured out how it can become my first book-length poem (in the haybun form).

I've tried writing book-length poems before and failed miserably. And I've been affectionately egged on by my long-time editor Thomas Fink to do this form, in part because...I've never done it! Well, looks like I'll soon be putting a check-mark in that box! When it happens, I shall drink tea to celebrate the successfully-earned intimacy with such an alien!

Poetry is so mischievous with me -- of course that book is likely to be longer than my COLLECTED NOVELS. But, of course....!

Speaking of which, SILK EGG only been out a month. But it's already worth $149! Well,in Hong Kong dollars, that is. THIS IS AMUSING -- love that book description they chose. Guinness Book of World Records, Moi awaits you!

"POET" DEFINED

For the first time in 16 years, I am not a poet. Let Moi explain: my long-held definition of "poet" is someone with at least two unpublished manuscripts in hir drawers (desk drawers, not the ones down there ... or, well, maybe down there as well).

I woke up this morning and realized I don't have an unpublished manuscript. O MOI GAWD: not acceptable! So, in the past hour, I put one together. Its working title is

147 MILLION ORPHANS

a number which happens to be the estimate for the number of orphans worldwide.

Now, at the moment, the manuscript is 147 million pages long. So, that's the end of my coffee break when I thought I'd bludgeon share the news of new manuscript with you. I now gotta go and edit...

...because after said editing, I still gotta muster at least one more manuscript so that I can become a poet again!

Well, yes, this is a poetics post. Because I'm really talking about momentum. As an old mentor frequently ended his posts to Moi: Forward!