A lil break from what I’m currently working on and time to switch it up a bit by responding to a writing prompt from novelist Luis Alberto Urrea: What do your hands remember? Let them tell it–what do they remember?
Here it is…
Ghazal for Hands That Have Never Known Work
[Poem was here.]
Thinking back on early influences, I have to cite Jeffrey McDaniel’s work as one of the first times page really met stage for me with his combination of unique reading style and image heavy poetry that always found a way to tell a moral without ever sounding preachy.
Since I’m trying to find that same balance in my own manuscript, I return to one of my favorite poems from McDaniel, “The Foxhole Manifesto,” and its haunting epigraph: There are no atheists in foxholes. – old Christian proverb.
Here is my riff on that old Christian proverb and how I think it fits into my version of City.
The Manhole Manifesto
[Poem was here.]
I’m still on the Holy Week kick and doing more research on the origins and rituals behind this current feast. Since I already have an “Ash Wednesday” poem, I figured I might as well go all the way and see how much more stuff I can include. Same rules apply as before; keep it City, keep it vibrant, keep it ritual, keep it song.
Once I found out exactly what Holy Saturday was about–anticipation-I thought about waiting on a corner for some late ass bus. Not a bad idea but I already have a poem in the collection where my speaker is speaking to God while waiting for the #4 to come in to the station. Oh well, good idea already done. The poem I came up with is more a combo of Catholic practice and urban vernacular which gives me something fun to play with. Though, come to think of it, somewhere down the road I should switch it up and see what to do when Catholic vernacular clashes with urban practice.
Here goes today’s poem:
Sabbatum Sanctum
[Poem was here.]
One of Anywhere Avenue’s recurring themes is the presence of God in City. As a recovering Catholic, the ceremony of the Church will always be in my head and is one of my initial introductions to poetry as an active communal act. Thinking about it for a hard second, I would even say that it would be my first exposure to performance poetry–the costumes of the clergy, the ringing of bells on the lifting of the Sacrament, the raining of Holy Water, the scent of Holy Smoke and the music that seemed more alive in the Spanish Saturday Night Mass as opposed to the more understated Sunday Morning Mass.
Yes, there is much poetry and art in the rituals of my youth and, to this day, I can participate in just about any Catholic ceremony with an equal amount of snark and distrust alongside a familiarity with the tomes of the Mass.
Here is today’s poem: equal parts prayer and irreverence towards the glorious City.
Good Friday
[Poem was here.]
Last year I was able to come up with 30 poems in 30 days for National Poetry Month. Like the year before it was a great exercise in producing new work, staying focused on one project and still getting on with the rest of my life.
I’ll be going for the 30/30 again but this time I’ll split it up into a couple of different projects
– new poems from my Berkeley City College writing assignments
– continuing last year’s Urban Relación series (previously known as Anything to Declare) which went from poem #26 to poem #32 in the last day of April 2009. It’s going to be interesting to come up with the five missing poems
– putting Urban Relación into a chapbook which I intend to bring with me to NYC for the upcoming Acentos Festival
– continuing to beef up Anywhere Avenue and see if I can add more music, faces and women to my current ms
The last point has become apparent to me when reading through my work. It’s heavily populated by men and the few women who do appear are very sanctified, converted to mother figure in the city and subsequently glorified. This probably comes from my affection to my own mother who passed away when I was young and my protectiveness towards my two sisters and teenage niece. All fine and good emotions but as I was reminded by my VONA Poetry Collection Workshop: “If you’re writing about Anywhere Avenue, then we need to see more of a variety of people in your work.” Here’s my first attempt to diversify the population in my work.
One more piece of background: At my poetry class last week, one of my fellow students did a presentation on Anne Waldman’s “Fast Speaking Woman.” As part of the exercise, we all took turns reading stanzas from the poem, in effect, demonstrating the power of oral poetry and its transformative effects for an individual and group. Our takeaway exercise was to write a poem based on a random line from “Fast Speaking Woman.” Instead of torturing myself over which line to pick, I asked Barb to pick one out for me, and she chose “woman was in the world was walking”
Here goes the poem and, as always, comments and critique are always welcome.
City Woman
woman was in the world was walking
– Anne Waldman, “Fast Speaking Womanâ€
[Poem was here.]
