Author Archives: Oscar Bermeo

Scenes from the Watershed Poetry Festival

Yesterday Barb and I hit the Watershed Poetry Festival for the first time. A stellar line up, gorgeous day and attendance credit for my poetry class made this a must-attend for us.

We missed out on the Strawberry Creek Walk but got their in time for the Open Mic and got to enjoy almost all of the day’s features. Almost because the allure of the Berkeley Farmer’s Market was way too strong,  I had to return a book to the Berkeley Library, and (on the real) the day was just way too hot.  Next time we hit the Watershed, we’re coming armed with blankets, umbrellas and picnic food. Believe that.

Some highlights of the festival:

  • David Mas Masumoto is a brilliant storyteller with such vivid details, rich history and intense nature imagery that I was shocked to find out he is a novelist and not a poet.  His “Sweat” story had a great refrain that channeled all the energy and traditions of the finest Fresno literary traditions.  He also displayed some fine oratory skills with his call-and-response story, “Buddhist Tractor.”   Masumoto also spoke of the backstory behind his latest work, Wisdom of the Father; where he helps his father recover from a stroke by reteaching him how to farm, reversing the roles of father/son, master/student and (in my estimation) historian/audience.  I can’t wait to jump into Letters to the Valley, Masumoto’s pastoral epistles that we happen to already have in the Sexy Loft Library.
  • Carol Moldaw presented a beautiful set of poetry directly referencing various definitions of watershed.  Her work balanced a fine line between high academic diction and accessible locales.
  • Not only would this be my first Watershed but also the first time I hear Kim Addonizio read.  She read mostly from her latest work, Lucifer at the Starlite, both off-page and with musical accompaniment from the guitarist of her band.
  • The youth poets from Poetry Inside Out, River of Words and California Poets in the Schools really brought their A-game.  All of them had strong poetics that clearly came from some clear poetic form instruction with the favorite seeming to be personification poems.  All of the poems stayed true to their poetic intent and allowed the various poets to really enter into the text which showed in their strong presentation skills as well.
  • Marilyn Chin started off her set with some off-page work which, I gotta say, surprised and delighted me before moving onto some newer prose work. Good stuff.
  • I really wish that Arthur Sze had some more reading time because his work was so multi-layered that I’m not sure I got all his nuance and references.  I did appreciate his command of language and how he weaved so much nature into his poetry.
  • Robert Hass not only closed out the reading with a wonderful reading but also led all the reader through a group reading of Brenda Hillman’s “Berkeley Water,” a poem celebrating the neighboring Berkeley Farmer’s Market.

If there was one thing that had me scratching my head, it would be when Poetry Flash host Richard Silberg was promoting the upcoming Individual World Poetry Slam and then presented performance poet Chris Olander, a poet whose work embodied all the techniques and tools of a typical slam poet.  It’s not Olander’s performance I’m questioning but the fact that Berkeley has an abundance of poets who not only self-identify as slam or performance poets but have also excelled in local, regional and national competition.  Why not choose one of those poets to help promote the IWPS?  It just felt odd that the person who was being presented as an example of slam poetry isn’t a part of the upcoming national slam competition.  Makes me feel that if you present yourself as a page poet, you have to have a set degree of credentials before you can be taken seriously but if you present yourself as a performance poet, then set standards go out the window.

Other than this one ciritique, Silberg and the rest of the organizers did a great job of bringing poetry out into the open field of MLK Park.  This was my first Watershed but I’m sure I’ll be back for the next one.

I Speak of the City: Lawson Fusao Inada


Originally uploaded by Ric e Ette

Sometimes I forget why I write poems.  Sometimes I think it’s to be able to read out loud, for a little bit of spotlight.  Sometimes I think it’s to be a voice, to be heard in a room I was never supposed to enter.  Sometimes, I think it’s to become a place, to go back and forward in time–imagine the stories of my different homes or reimagine this house around me.

I forget that poetry is really about listening, about listening very intently so when you do reach the rooms you were told you weren’t able to access, you can actually bring back something very intimate and private.  I forget that a voice is nothing if there is no one to hear it and we can only be heard if we take time to listen.  I forget that the only reason I can tell the story of place is because I’ve listened to things like the metal click that goes off inside the base of an intersection light, the way it turns like the second-hand on a clock right before the light changes green.  How that click is much harder than the soft click from when the light turns to yellow.  And that when the lights goes red, everything stops: the clicks, the traffic, the sense of safety and something else takes over.

I’m only just remembering this after I read through this wonderful Inada poem.  If anyone can imagine and reimagine a place in the same line, then it’s Inada.  A true Fresno poet, he is able to inhabit the dust of Fresno’s air–equal parts land and industry–and sculpt that dust into its own place.  Maybe that’s why this particular City poem speaks so much to me because its not about his Fresno but Sacramento.  An entirely different city from Fresno but one that the poet can be see better for having known it from far away.  Maybe that’s why the poet sees things in it no one else can see.  Or it might just be easier to listen from a distance.

The Grand Silos of the Sacramento

From a distance, at night, they seem to be

industries–all lit up but not on the map;

or, in this scientific age, they could be

installations for launching rocket ships–

so solid, and with such security are they…

Ah, but up close, by the light of the day,

we see, not “pads” but actual paddies–

for these are simply silos in ricefields,

structures to hold the harvested grain.

Still, they’re the tallest thing around,

and, by night or day, you’d have to say

they’re ample for what they do: storage.

And, if you amble around from your car,

you can lean up against one in the sun,

feeling warmth on your cheek as you spread

out your arms, holding on to the whole world

around you, to the shores of other lands

where the laborers launched their lives

to arrive and plant and harvest this grain

of history–as you hold and look, look

up, up, up, and whisper: “Grandfather!”


©Lawson Fusao Indada from Drawing the Line: Poems

Thank You and You’re Welcome: The Party Game

The rules are simple: Gather a group of friends, if some just happen to be award winning poets, oh so much the better; engage in discussion regarding all things literature and pop culture, a stretch but a good game should have some element of difficulty; and (here’s where the fun kicks in) have them open up to a random page in Kanye West Presents Thank You and You’re Welcome. While you never know what exact crossroad we are at in life, we can be sure Kanye can help us locate the profundity of our distress (last four words stolen from the Millennium episode, “Jose Chung’s Doomsday Defense“).  Finally, be sure to have camera in hand cuz after reading some of Mr West’s deeper prose–I can’t read all of the “Missing Bannister Theory” without a deep eye twitch overtaking me–your  friends may not come by your home again.  Good times!

Love your haters...

Kanye West’s Thank You and You’re Welcome

Thank You And You're WelcomeThank You and You’re Welcome by Kanye West
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Just the kind of book you’d expect from an author who “doesn’t read.” On the plus side, it is brief and direct especially the sections where Kanye speaks on his own arrogance and how he never censors himself. (Prophet!) On the down side, his mantras can be contradictory, one paging refuting the other but that’s Kanye for ya.

Gotta say, I am having way too much fun pulling this book out at parties and having people pick a random Kanyeism and see how they can apply it to their lives. Hence, the one star.

(Props, kudos and shoutouts to Sunny Vergara who lent me his signed copy of Kanye’s book so I could finally read this seminal text. You didn’t think I paid money for this, didja?)

I’ll leave the final word to a friend who I showed the book: “Is this a joke? C’mon, dude wears $2000 polo shirts with a platinum watch and that ridiculous fade while sayin’ ‘I’m real. I’m real!’ Please.”

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