POETRY VS. POEM? NOT!

I've long thought this insular poetry-world debate of "Poetry Vs. Poem" is another one of those false binaries (that sometimes come up too often because some poets love to hear themselves talk -- I say that with affection, of course).

Reading now through two books by and on kari edwards, I recall again just how impressed I've always been by kari -- I've always thought kari to be special for, among many other things, making irrelevant this "Poetry vs. Poem" debate, for showing just how small this debate is. kari embodies for me what I strive for in "Poetry as a Way of Life." I suspect I'm preparing a longer essay on this topic, but meanwhile:

I suggest you check out the two books just lovingly released from A Venn Diagram Production between Litmus Press & Belladonna Books:

BHARAT JIVA by kari edwards

NO GENDER: REFLECTIONS ON THE LIFE & WORK OF kari edwards, Eds. Julian T. Brolaski, erica kaufman, and E. Tracy Grinnell (including Cara Benson, Frances Blau, Mark Brasuell, Julian T. Brolaski, Reed Bye, Marcus Civin, CAConrad, Donna de la Perrière, E. Tracy Grinnell, Rob Halpern, Jen Hofer, Brenda Iijima, Lisa Jarnot, erica kaufman, Kevin Killian, Wendy Kramer, Joseph Lease, Rachel Levitsky, Joan MacDonald, Bill Marsh, Chris Martin, Yedda Morrison, Eileen Myles, Akilah Oliver, Tim Peterson, Ellen Redbird, Leslie Scalapino, Michael Smoler, Sherman Souther, Eleni Stecopoulos, and Anne Waldman)

As the saying goes, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

FRIDAY MISCELLANY

Sam Rasnake's reading of Jose Garcia Villa's Lyric 22 is as "lovely as a panther."

I've just discovered this blog whose energy is as beautiful as the poets who make up its community: Upset Press.

Also, I wish I could attend but suggest y'all in the area go to:

Vanitas Magazine Launch Party
Vanitas 3 : Popular Song

Readings by Elaine Equi, Cliff Fyman, Alix Lambert, Charles North, Raphael Rubinstein, and Susan Wheeler
Jack Pierson, Master of Ceremonies
Wednesday, September 10, 2008, 6 PM
FREE
Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery St. (between Houston and Bleecker)

Note that the issue is themed "Popular Song". Which I nota bene for y'all because it contains my first attempt at translation (a numerical poem by kari edwards into Ilokano) and the poetics/translation theories underlying such.

Then, like others, I've been quite moved at reading Tom Beckett's recollections over The Difficulties and how Yale came to get The Difficulties archive. Two things came to mind (well, more than two things but I'll blog about two):

1) The notion that other poets/writers lost interest in keeping in touch with Tom once he ceased to be a magazine editor. This is a topic folks rarely talk about (or that I've observed) but which I'm quite aware of (forced to be aware of) because of my activities as an editor, sometime-critic and publisher. Thinking as I type, now that I've raised the topic, I find it doesn't interest me enough to discuss. Except that, today vs, uh yesterday, I think I'm more Zen about the whole thing -- we're all just lousy humans, after all, which makes those rare ones with authentic empathy more special among us lovely humans. It is best, I think, to approach this topic with ... compassion. (Huh, I guess I did do a bit of discussion...)

2) Ye matter of archives in an e-age. For years now, and because my blather generates so much blather, I've been putting together cardboard boxes in the "garage" labeled by year. Basically, without any atttempt to organize because there's so much of it, I just toss in each box until it gets filled up any detritus, souvenir, hard-copy print-out of anything related to the work I do in poetry. But I don't print-out and archive e-mails or blog posts or most of what I do in the internet (I tried doing so once but there's just too much for me to keep up with such...and I'm not, hard to believe, that fascinated with moiself). And that's fine with me. Rather than bemoan putting my files at risk to the internet's whim, I actually find that it makes more precious to me the objects that do have a physical presence--for example, that someone bothered to hand-write a letter than dash off an e-mail. Besides, it's impossible to archive Poetry.

Last but not least, I just bought Moi sum poetree: String Light by C.D. Wright (University of Georgia Press, Athens and London, 1991)--$4.50 (50% off) from used poetry shelves of the wonderful Main Street Bookstore, St. Helena.

kari edwards WROTE FOR US

There are just so many layers in kari edwards' first posthumously published poetry collection, having been blue for charity (BlazeVOX Books). But when asked to provide a "blurb" by publisher Geoffrey Gatza, it took me literally three seconds to narrow my focus onto one aspect (so compelling is kari's meditation on it, or rather, its absence): Us.

I hope you read kari's having been blue for charity -- here's one reason, one blurb:

"Tell me how connected bodies blinded by remote thresholds, swim in glacial river zones?" kari edwards asks us, and keeps asking throughout having been blue for charity. kari is not asking theoretically. kari's question is a direct address to you and you and me (all of my me's). It is a personal address to us. For in that question and throughout kari's first posthumously published book, kari reminds that "us" is the pronoun too long frozen out in politics, culture and however else we might categorize the unfolding of current events. Thus, too, has this pronoun been marginalized by much contemporary poetry. So let us raise the pickax in a different type of war: let us free "us" to begin thinking about a world inherently interconnected but damaged. Let us think about the question's implications as regards our response-ibility. Start with the "I'--rev up that "I"!--but don't stop there. Us awaits.

"SONG": MOI POETICS

I am so happy and grateful we in the Bay Area had a chance to celebrate kari edwards' life and poetry...

When I translated kari edward's poem -- for Friday evening's memorial celebration (see prior post), it was the first time I'd translated a poem into Ilokano, my first language. I had never thought before to translate something into Ilokano because I don't consider myself fluent in it anymore; I was ten years old when I left the Philippines to become 100% immersed in English. But as I told the SPT audience, I felt compelled to translate kari into my birth tongue because I have always felt inexplicably at home in hir poetry.

The process was revelatory. First, I translated the English to Ilokano -- the text being translated was all numbers (which I chose for numers' transgenderedness). But I could only remember the Ilokano words from 1 to 10. So when I was faced with a number larger than ten to translate, I would translate its addition to that sum. For instance, I would translate "25" into the Ilokano words that meant "ten plus ten plus five".

What this facilitated was a number of repetitions of words -- since the vocabulary being used was only ten words -- that then generated a certain rhythm....that then led to my first poem-as-chant. It's why I entitled the poem "Chant for kari".

I felt aflight as I began reading-only-to-end-up-chanting the Ilokano poem. And winging it as I read/chanted, I began to play with modulations of tone.

I felt the poem as pure abstract sound -- as pure song. It is, I feel, the most pure "song" poem I've ever written.

And that the (Ilokano) texts in it were technically/formally garbled or grammatically erroneous (as well as undoubtedly misspelled) just proved again something that I said, too, in my introduction to the poem-reading when I pointed to a black box scribbled against a page in kari's iduna as my favorite "poem", -- a black box that is illegible -- "Poetry is not words."

Later, Rebecca who was in the audience encouraged me to pod-cast the reading. I, the luddite, just said, Huh? But then Rebecca also suggested something that came to mind as I was chanting the poem -- that the poem for kari would be great with a kulintang collaborator. I appreciated hearing that -- I like the notion of gongs while chanting.

I translated the poem an hour before I left for SPT where I performed it for the first time. This meant that I hadn't yet fully developed the performative aspect of the poem. But now that I see its possibilities, I can see that kari left me with yet another gift. kari is always so good at *engendering* effects. Thank you, kari.

And another effect of the exercise is that, now, I'm looking to translate other poems into Ilokano. But I wish specifically to use my Ilokano to be what words I remember; that is, I don't wish to relearn Ilokano so that I can translate. I wish to work within the limits of, not Ilokano per se, but (my) "diasporic Ilokano."

I think that will work since my aim is pure sound.

And in this process, I also hope to combine two thoughts from Jose Garcia Villa:

young Jose: Poetry is music.

older Jose: I used to think a poem should sing; now I believe, a poem should think.

KARI EDWARDS: THE PURITY OF NUMBERS = LOVE

I hope to see you tonight at this celebration of kari edwards. More details HERE. I will be offering an Ilokano translation of her poem

Y(word)=X,X=Y+Y+Y…
M+M (M+lines_=A
A/(_)=(_)

The poem is on pages 34-35 of kari's book IDUNA (O Books, 2003; you can see my engagement with IDUNA HERE).

The text of kari's poem is all numbers; its first line, for instance, is “1 2 15 24”. I chose this poem to translate because as far as I know, numbers are transgender.