Voices from the fringes: A high-end graveyard

Jesús Castillo was born in San Luís Potosí, Mexico, emigrated to California at age 11 and now lives in Oaxaca, Mexico. Along the way at some point, he earned an MFA in poetry from the University of Iowa. I don’t know much more about him. But I very much like playing with his poem “Untitled”, which is today’s entry for National Poetry Month.

Castillo said, about this poem, that the job of the poet today is to have fun and to observe, and to have fun with what s/he observes. So, here we go.

         Dear Empire, I am confused each time I wake inside you.
                        You invent addictions. 
          Are you a high-end graveyard or a child?
                        I see your children dragging their brains along.
                        Why not a god who loves water and dancing
                   instead of mirrors that recite your pretty features only?

          You wear a different face to each atrocity.
          You are un-unified and tangled.
                        Are you just gluttony?
                        Are you civilization’s slow grenade?

             I am confused each time I’m swallowed by your doors.

 

 

Voices from the fringes: Close to the whistling ground

Today’s entry for National Poetry Month is by genderqueer Chinese American poet and activist Ching-in Chen. Chen is currently an assistant professor of interdisciplinary arts at UW Bothell. Their focus is on under-examined lives in communities outside the dominant culture in the US, and I love their approach to making connections across those communities.

The Chen poem I keep coming back to is “South in Hundreds”. I’ve sorted out two narrative lines, but there may be more. It was inspired by the journey they took when moving from Houston to Seattle.

“South in Hundreds”

                 Missing one hundred.

for many leagues, i slept under
surface. couldn’t learn enough
to stay, couldn’t hurt along
midriff, scrum and scrub. see myself
rushing into tomorrow’s wet
world. thin trees almost ferns with quiet mouth
desire. took to cold high plain, only wind and a murdered boy.

started running at the first sign
of breath but there’s only
three yesterday heads speak in these fields.
so much to circle. always asking
to let me repair small chord between us.
you started lagging each step, dragging
the water, stirring up dirt. he still
refuses all nourishment, says everything bad.

an odd man rushes past, asking if
near swamp, still looking for signs
we’ve seen two girls on horseback.
not tired, he says, refusing to go to sleep.
we’ve seen very little all day, close to the whistling ground.
in this family, we don’t count sheep because we eat them.
we shake our heads no
under black light, we’re all deep stream, counting down cows.

as the man points to the tracks, they couldn’t have gone far.
         Still fresh, still fresh. 

 

 

 

Gratitude Monday: Neighborliness

A couple of weeks ago, I looked up from writing a bug ticket because a female mallard duck was peering in to my living room. Ducks tend to be like nuns—they travel in pairs—so I slowly turned my head and, yes indeed, there was her partner. I carefully got my phone and managed to capture this video:

The next morning I saw the back end of the female as she was disappearing down the slope, and then—maybe an hour later—a flash of something at the edge of the patio caught my peripheral vision. I assumed it was the butterscotch tabby that used to stop by now and again, but it turned around and I realized it was a fox.

Well, this is a first.

Okay—the ducks are a first, too. Never seen them anywhere except the ponds over at the corporate headquarters behind my cluster. I managed to toss out some bird food—grains and nuts—which they seemed to enjoy. But, except for the next-day visit, I’ve not seen them since.

However, Foxy has been by every day. But the clever clogs always manages to do it when I can’t get to my phone without scaring him (on the first visit, he stood at exactly the same spot where Madame Canard had been when looking over the living room décor, which is to say: about eight feet from where I was sitting), or at the exact moment when I was talking on a meeting call, or when the phone was charging across the room.

Also, he doesn’t stick around.

Friday, I tossed out the baking paper for an orange-cranberry muffin that I had for breakfast, thinking the birds might like the crumbs.

But blow me, if foxy didn’t swoop by and grab it in his slender little maw. Naturally, that was while I was chatting with a colleague, and I’m afraid that the latter pretty much got dumped for 93 seconds while I tried to get footage of Foxy, but it was crap. Also—I missed the owl that lives nearby, and which seemed to have had words with Foxy about whose turf this is. So disappointing.

But yesterday—triumph! I’d saved the skin from the salmon filet I had for dinner on Saturday, and tossed it out at around 0830 as fox bait. If I could have hooked up a fan to blow across the skin to spread the scent, I’d have done that. But—about 20 minutes later—M. Reynard appeared and snapped it up. I almost missed getting pix, because he’s a snatch and run kind of guy, but someone was out walking a dog on the path behind me, so he stayed in the ivy and ate his breakfast. Viz:

Then he came back to the patio to see if there might be anything else of interest.

So this is my gratitude today: neighbors dropping by to borrow a cup of breakfast and sharing my patio.

Though not at the same time, of course. That would not end well.

 

 

Voices from the fringes: Can these bones walk

When I went in search of poems from Lucille Clifton for today’s National Poetry Month post, I had the worst time trying to pick just one. Clifton, born in DePew, NY, in 1936, was prolific, both as a poet and an author of children’s literature. Her focus was on the African American experience, but so many of her poems resonate with me because they’re about women’s experience. Viz:

“poem in praise of menstruation"

if there is a river
more beautiful than this
bright as the blood
red edge of the moon          if
there is a river
more faithful than this
returning each month
to the same delta          if there

is a river
braver than this
coming and coming in a surge
of passion, of pain          if there is

a river
more ancient than this
daughter of eve
mother of cain and of abel          if there is in

the universe such a river          if
there is some where water
more powerful than this wild
water
pray that it flows also
through animals
beautiful and faithful and ancient
and female and brave

Clifton was Poet Laureate of Maryland from 1979 to 1985. She died in Baltimore in 2010. Her poem “slaveships” makes me think of Phillis Wheatley, as well as the way Christianity was used to keep slaves and their descendants in their (inferior) place.

“slaveships”

loaded like spoons
into the belly of Jesus
where we lay for weeks for months
in the sweat and stink
of our own breathing
Jesus
why do you not protect us
chained to the heart of the Angel
where the prayers we never tell
and hot and red
as our bloody ankles
Jesus
Angel
can these be men
who vomit us out from ships
called Jesus    Angel    Grace of God
onto a heathen country
Jesus
Angel
ever again
can this tongue speak
can these bones walk
Grace Of God
can this sin live

 

 

Voices from the fringes: I,began,to,Grow

Today’s poet for National Poetry Month was born in Manila, Philippines, in 1908. José García Villa’s early literary works got him in trouble with the Philippine government (which is to say: the American colonial government) for being to racy. In 1929 he was both convicted and fined for obscenity by the Manila Court of First Instance, as well as winning a 1000 peseta prize, which he used to emigrate to the United States, where he earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of New Mexico and did graduate work at Columbia.

One of his signature styles was the insertion of commas as an integral part of a poem’s meaning. This is evident in “Divine Poems (134)”, today’s entry.

“Divine Poems (134)”

When,I,was,no,bigger,than,a,huge,
Star,in,my,self,I,began,to,write,
                    My,
               Theology,
             Of,rose,and,

Tiger: till,I,burned,with,their
Pure,and,Rage. Then,was,I,Wrath—
                    Ful,
               And,most,
            Gentle: most,

Dark,and,yet,most,Lit: in,me,an,
Eye,there,grew: springing,Vision,
                    Its,
               Gold,and,
           Its,wars. Then,

I,knew,the,Lord,was,not,my,Creator!
—Not,He,the,Unbegotten—but,I,saw,
                   The,
                Creator,
             Was,I—and,

I,began,to,Die,and,I,began,to,Grow.

 

 

Voices from the fringes: Traffic lights and railroad tracks

Most people outside the Hawaiian Islands probably only know Israel Kaanaoi Kamakawiwo’ole from his mashup of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What A Wonderful World”. But in his short life, he was celebrated in the islands for his artistry on the ukulele and for keeping alive Hawaiian traditional music.

The piece I’m giving you for National Poetry Month today is “Hawai’i ‘78”, a cut from his first solo album, Facing Future, released in 1993. That, in turn, was four years before his death at age . The song was written by a friend of Iz, Mickey Ionane; it speaks to the ties of native Hawaiians to their natural surroundings and the clash with Western modernization. This is a theme well known to native peoples subsumed by white European hegemony.

Here are the lyrics:

Ua mau, ke ea o ka aina, i ka pono, o Hawai'i
Ua mau, ke ea o ka aina, i ka pono, o Hawai'i

If just for a day our king and queen
Would visit all these islands and saw everything
How would they feel about the changes of our land

Could you just imagine if they were around
And saw highways on their sacred grounds
How would they feel about this modern city life

Tears would come from each other’s eyes
As they would stop to realize
That our people are in great, great danger now

How, would they feel
Could their smiles be content, then cry
Cry for the gods, cry for the people
Cry for the land that was taken away
And then yet you'll find, Hawai'i

Could you just imagine they came back
And saw traffic lights and railroad tracks
How would they feel about this modern city life

Tears would come from each other’s eyes
As they would stop' to realize
That our land is in great, great danger now

All the fighting that the king had done
To conquer all these islands now these condominiums
How would he feel if he saw Hawai'i nei

How, would he feel
Would his smile be content, then cry
Cry for the gods, cry for the people
Cry for the land that was taken away
And then yet you'll find, Hawai'i

Ua mau, ke ea o ka aina, i ka pono, o Hawai'i
Ua mau, ke ea o ka aina, i ka pono, o Hawai'i
Ua mau, ke ea o ka aina, i ka pono, o Hawai'i
Ua mau, ke ea o ka aina, i ka pono, o Hawai'i

 

 

 

 

Voices from the fringes: Nothing but dying

Victoria Chang’s poetry is somewhat more challenging for me than previous entries for this year’s National Poetry Month. She uses language fluidly, with repetitions I don’t quite grasp. Especially the series about Barbie Chang, who seems to be eternally hovering at the periphery of the cool kids’ table.

For that reason I was going to give you “Mr. Darcy”. And then I came across “How Alone Barbie Chang’s Mother”, and carried me to being a senior in college when my mom died. So here we are.

“How Alone Barbie Chang’s Mother” 

How alone Barbie Chang’s mother
     must have felt doing

nothing but dying her mother actually
     stopped dying her hair

in January stopped being an actuary
     for her money she

must have known her time was limited
     did the diseased birch

tree know they were going to cut it down
     how quickly the air

around it filled in the space it does no
     good to know a mother’s

face who would have known that a 
     mother’s face could

be erased too at some point we are all
     eliminated from this

earth at some point most of us give birth
     at some point we lose

a mother at some point we are all
     disappointments who

can’t possibly care for others when
     our mothers die we

are all lost and there are no words for
     it some want to

name us as grieving others wrongly
     name us heroes

 

Voices from the fringes: Language lesson

John Olivares Espinoza writes a lot of poetry about his family, particularly his father, who as an undocumented immigrant supported his wife and sons by doing gardening work in Riverside County, Calif. Today’s National Poetry Month entry is about family, but also about language—what we might call Spanglish. The kids I went to elementary school with back in the last century used some of these terms, as you do when you’re essentially living in two universes.

I suppose that technically this is not a poem. I don’t care.

“Spanish as Experienced by a Native Speaker”

A George Washington quarter was a cuarta. Two cuartas bought us una soda from a vending machine. We asked abuelito for a cuarta to play the video game console. No, he said, una peseta. No, una cuarta. Una peseta para la máquina. He called the console a machine. Like the machine (máchina) that dropped a cuarta for every six cans Mother put in. La máchina is what Father had us puchar across yardas on the weekends. At work we ate lonche. At school we ate lunch. At home we ate both. Queki was served on birthdays. It was bien gaucho to have your birthday skipped again. Skipiar was done to the unsolvable math problem, which was never attempted again. Half our time was spent on homework, the other half was spent wacheando TV. Wacha signaled you were about to do something impressive, but foolish, like a bike stunt. !Wáchale! is what your friends tell you when you nearly plow into them with your bike. A bike is a baika. Uncle Jesse peddled a baika to the grocery story to buy leche y cornflais. Leche, not tortillas, were heated in the microgüey. Un güey is a dude. Uncle Beto called more than two people “una bola de güeyes.” I secretly listened to the Beastie Boys in Uncle Beto’s troka because I could turn it up full blast.  Uncle Jesse peddles back from Queimar with two new plaid shirts. Dad’s returning from his trip to the dompe, where he left last week’s garbage. Mother’s fixing Spam sángüiches. Abuelito pulls from his pocket a peseta, but hands me a cuarta.

 

 

Voices from the Fringes: I may be at risk

The day after we hear that a veteran police officer in a Minneapolis suburb fatally shot an unarmed Black man at a traffic stop because she allegedly mistook her service weapon for a taser gun, and after news broke that a uniformed Black National Guard officer—who was pepper sprayed, handcuffed and threatened during a December traffic stop in a hick Virginia town—has filed a federal lawsuit against the two cops at the scene and the town of Windsor…well, it seems appropriate to have “Bullet Points”, by Jericho Brown as our National Poetry Month entry.

Brown won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his collection The Tradition. If it matters, in addition to being Black, he’s gay and HIV-positive.

“Bullet Points”

I will not shoot myself
In the head, and I will not shoot myself
In the back, and I will not hang myself
With a trashbag, and if I do, 
I promise you, I will not do it
In a police car while handcuffed
Or in the jail cell of a town
I only know the name of
Because I have to drive through it
To get home. Yes, I may be at risk,
But I promise you, I trust the maggots
Who live beneath the floorboards
Of my house to do what they must
To any carcass more than I trust
An officer of the law of the land
To shut my eyes like a man
Of God might, or to cover me with a sheet
So clean my mother could have used it
To tuck me in. When I kill me, I will
Do it the same way most Americans do, 
I promise you: cigarette smoke
Or a piece of meat on which I choke
Or so broke I freeze 
In one of these winters we keep
Calling worst. I promise if you hear
Of me dead anywhere near
A cop, then that cop killed me. He took 
Me from us and left my body, which is, 
No matter what we've been taught, 
Greater than the settlement
A city can pay a mother to stop crying,
And more beautiful than the new bullet
Fished from the folds of my brain.

 

Voices from the fringes: Something else like that

You know when you’re in your teens—maybe starting in your tweens—when you’re trying to figure out who you really are, and your body’s doing all kinds of crazy things, and you’re stretching and shrinking, and nothing feels like you can just be? I rather think that trans-gender and non-binary people are that in spades. They must look at the binary-dominant world and wonder WTF all the time.

And then we have Republicans and evangelicals who take time out from their ordinary race and misogyny grievances to become the toilet Taliban. Gawd.

Today’s National Poetry Month entry comes from Joshua Jennifer Espinoza, born in Riverside, Calif., in 1987. Actually, I’m giving you a tweet—which I find both profound and amusing—and “Things Haunt”, which describes that sense of wanting to exist in a world that really can’t deal with those who don’t fit the perceived norm.

“Things Haunt”

California is a desert and I am a woman inside it.
The road ahead bends sideways and I lurch within myself.
I’m full of ugly feelings, awful thoughts, bad dreams
of doom, and so much love left unspoken.

Is mercury in retrograde? someone asks.
Someone answers, No, it’s something else
like that though. Something else like that.
That should be my name.

When you ask me am I really a woman, a human being,
a coherent identity, I’ll say No, I’m something else
like that though.

A true citizen of planet earth closes their eyes
and says what they are before the mirror.
A good person gives and asks for nothing in return.
I give and I ask for only one thing—

Hear me. Hear me. Hear me. Hear me. Hear me.
Hear me. Bear the weight of my voice and don’t forget—
things haunt. Things exist long after they are killed.