Runnin'

    This morning, well, in about 7 hours or so, we're going to "wake up" & ditch this shitty AirBnb. No shower? SEE YA. "It's dangerous to park on the street"? SEE YA. Bugs in my bedroom? SEE YA. Delightful Chinese Man? OK, Him I will miss. The smell of fried fish that's pervasive throughout the house? Not so much. So I'm a stupid bitch, what else is knew. Listen, I'm out, I've already made up my mind, so tomorrow morning as soon as the Red Truck unblocks Betty White (my vehicle) I am going to drive to downtown Detroit, get myself a coffee, wait for the public library to open & then explore & take pictures. Then Betty & I are OUT.

    My tarot card for the day is 4 of cups reversed. That represents boredom, taking things for granted & aloofness. True, true & true. I AM getting bored of my Disaster Road Trip. Yes, I embarked on this journey to save my life, but now that I've saved my life, I'm bored of my life. The card meaning reads "In your search for something meaningful, you have perhaps been lead to ignore the potential happiness that is given to you. So much inner focus has made you lose your way & you have begun to deny the wonders that the world offers. Find Balance. You must look both inward & out."

    So, this is me looking outward. Sort of. I don't precisely enjoy the fact that I'm being a Queen B Diva about this AirBnb, but also, I have a certain standard that I don't think is that outrageous. No fish smell, no constant noises, no bugs, a working shower--these are some of my must haves. BUT I also came to Detroit because I thought, I believed there was a reason for me to be here. By up & runnin', like I'm about to do (To Iowa City, of all places???) then I'm either denying the reason I've been sent here, OR this is the reason I was sent here. To realize it's not going to be all joy & jellybeans, that this journey is going to throw some shit my way. My choices were to accept the situation & make the best of it, or run. I'm choosing to run--that's the choice I always make, isn't it? So, I am about to find out, I guess, whether or not I am making the right choice or the wrong one.

    I haven't meditated since Providence. That's not great. I also haven't written seriously since then either. Why? What's going on with me?

    I randomly opened the Bible app on my phone & today's verse is Proverbs 12:24, "The hand of the diligent shall bear rule, but the slothful shall be under tribute." FUCKING YIKES, RIGHT? Well, that's the KJV version, but the rest are pretty similar:

Proverbs 12:24 — The New International Version (NIV)

24 Diligent hands will rule,
but laziness ends in forced labor.

Proverbs 12:24 — New Living Translation (NLT)

24 Work hard and become a leader;
be lazy and become a slave.

Proverbs 12:24 — The New King James Version (NKJV)

24 The hand of the diligent will rule,
But the lazy man will be put to forced labor.

Proverbs 12:24 — New Century Version (NCV)

24 Hard workers will become leaders,
but those who are lazy will be slaves.

    There are even MORE versions of the bible, but suffice to say--I've been lazy, and that's going to lead to me being a slave. That's in direct contrast to the Rumi quote that took my breath away the other day.

    On the bright side--I still have my sobriety, although that was sorely tested yesterday--as soon as I entered the state of Michigan it was one billboard after another being like "Recreational & Medicinal! Come Get Stoned!" and boy was my mouth watering at the thought. Perhaps that's the real reason I'm running, because I'm afraid if I stay that I'll get high? 

    

    I suppose the first thing I need to do is focus on finding the balance that I'm missing. Between meditation & working, between staying & running, between hope & fear. I won't run down the long list of dichotomies, but suffice to say: I have my work cut out for me. 

  

     So, wish me luck, non-existent readership! Cause come hell or high water, I'm getting the FUCK out of here tomorrow. I've fought hard to get away from an awful situation & a very stupid version of myself that was achieving nothing & losing everything. I'm not going back to who I was & I'm going to keep moving forward--there's something better for me waiting ahead, I feel that to be true. I won't get there high though, and I won't get there if I drench myself in pity & light the match. So yeah, screw Detroit, mama's hitting the road tomorrow, or rather, later today. 

Notes from Virtual Reading & Conversation: Original Poetry & Translation w/ Carlie Hoffman, Rajiv Mohabir, Ricardo Alberto Maldonado, and Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello

 

    Tonight was the second back-to-back event with Four Way Books authors, hosted by Halsey from White Whale. Halsey was rocking a bold dark lip, like can they stop being so iconic already? Tonight's poets were also translators and it was really horizon broadening to hear poetry read not only in different languages but from different cultural perspectives. 

    The strange synchronicity with Jewish themes was evident again tonight. Carlie Hoffman translated the works of Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger, a Jewish German poet who died in the labor camp Michailowka in Ukraine. She was 18, and writing some of the most tragically beautiful poetry. Carlie spoke about how her writing involved dreams and nature, which was in its own way, an act of resistance, since these were traditionally "looked down on" in terms of poetic subject matter.

    Some of the lines that stuck with me were from the piece "Crystal" --again, the things that stayed with me were the most evocative, such as "a flock of fallen leaves,", "frost jeweled flowers," "an eagle floats overhead," and "a patch of grass the sun has chosen to adore."

    Carlie Hoffman also read some of her own poetry, which was just as powerful. There was one poem, "Exoskeleton" that had this line "we grow sick of the prayers we knife into our thighs," which lingered with me. 

    Rajiv Mohabir was next, and he introduced his work as "deviant translations" meaning he was pushing the translated works as far as he could, so that they may not be recognizable "word for word" but were "situational, specific" and had a lot of energetic musicality.  

    Some of my favorite lines from Rajiv's translations were "At night my love sits me in a full moon's light," & "At dawn don't leave behind the thought of me and go." Also there was a really interesting line that was like "swagger man, fly mouth, what is true." And in the second to last last piece he read "Bollywood Confabulation" (a great name by any measure) there was this line "Petals shrivel but thorns stay sharp." The very last piece Kalapani utilized the repetition of defining the word, so that each line started with "means" as a continuation from the the title. So Kalapani "means sea crossers" "means to forget secrets and rituals" "means to mislay your name" "means America" "means voyage" "means planting seeds in your ancestors sweat." And was by far the most powerful piece (in my opinion!) that Rajiv read tonight. 

    The next poet & translator was Ricardo Alberto Maldonado, who was born and raised in Puerto Rico. He is working (with others) on translating a group of Puerto Rican poets whose work goes back as early as 1912. I think it was brave of Ricardo to read his poetry in Spanish--and I wish I knew the language! I did learn from him that Spanish is just as much of a colonial language as English, which is probably obvious to others--but was a shock to me. 

    The last poet to speak was Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello who translated poetry from Korean into English. The book "The World's Lightest Motorcycle" was launched January of this year, and Marci worked on the translation alongside E.J. Koh. The poetry was really fascinating in that it blended "ancient Buddhist traditions" with modern technology. There were lines like "People everywhere walk with plugs extended from their body, charged with the world's rage" which is so amazingly precise in regards to what's happening in the world. Another poem was called "Dark and bulging TV in me" and went back and forth between the poets body being "released" in 1968 & this bulky TV from 1990. There were lines from that piece that stayed with me like "Somehow the TV in my body won't turn off" & "things crouching in the darkness, fluttering things." 

    I also learned from Marci's reading that the Korean language has a "nebulous syntax" because of a lack of punctuation. One of Marci's original poems was just as powerful, in my opinion as Yi Won's, it was called "Origin Adoption" and there was this line that stuck with me: "These days on this other hemisphere, I twist my second mother's words from my tongue, like I do fruit from my neighbors trees." Just stunning & profound imagery. 

    During the Q&A, the poets were first asked "What came first, fluency or translation?" 

    For Carlie, translation, specifically a class she took on the subject while obtaining her MFA was what led her into working with Selma's poetry. She said, "If you're a poet, you live with words and music." 

    Rajiv mentioned how it was traumatizing to lose a language, especially for immigrants as that is a core piece of the past. He described being enchanted by his grandmother's lost language but specifically songs & music. He felt it was a "charge" he was given, spiritually, in this life, to translate the songs & poetry. 

    Ricardo grew up fluent in Spanish & English, so for him fluency sort of came first. He talked about the ethics and responsibility inherent in translation, and also spoke a bit more about the impacts Hurricane Maria had on his life. He also mentioned Beyonce's lemonade, and how she was ethical in her translation. 

    Marci was adopted, but her mother was Korean and she described the language as "the heartbeat of her mother" and how it was the language spoken when she was in the womb. That being said, translation came first since she wasn't fluent, being raised, I believe in America. 

    The second question of the night was the one I submitted, so that was a nice surprise. I asked "Were there any words that were difficult or impossible to translate directly into English? If so, what was the word & what word did you end up using?"

    Carlie spoke about how Selma wasn't writing in "High German" but a "secret language" that was a mix of Yiddish & German and involved a lot of neologisms or almost made up words. Also, Selma's poetry involved a lot of rhyming--& Carlie wanted to honor that, but wasn't always able to with the direct translation. To compensate, Carlie talked about using internal rhyming to honor Selma's original poetic style. The word that she referenced that was difficult to translate directly was "Mutterleib" I think, which meant "mother womb." Carlie talked about how important context became in determining how to translate the poetry, and that she would go back through old journals and memoirs to find other ways to dive deeper into the world & time in which the poet was writing. 

    Rajiv also spoke about the importance of the "Train of Context." He mentioned there were cosmological roadblocks he would run into. He also spoke on the word "juta" (I'm unsure of precise spelling, could be joota or jutaa) which means variously "unclean" or "contaminated" but in the sense that if food has already been touched by someone, or touched their mouth. A good example would be if someone took a drink from a glass & there was "backwash" or if someone ate with a spoon, you wouldn't want to give that used spoon to a guest. 

    Ricardo spoke on how American idiomatic language could be difficult to translate into Spanish, for example fine differences between "take in," "take on," etc--and how important context became in determining how to translate the text into Spanish. He also spoke about how there were some Spanish words that were "reflexive" with the subject proposed within a word such as the Spanish word for "to love myself." 

    Marci spoke about difficulty she and her fellow translator had with a prose poem piece called "Between a Rice Bowl and a Shadow" (I think that was the name) in which a "bell" turned up and seemed really out of place. The poet was still alive, so they were able to go directly to the source, and it was referencing a Buddhist funerary bell, which was contextually specific to a ceremony. Marci also talked about how Korean assumes a pronoun is known--so may not specify "you" or "we" or "I" and that the translator has to make a decision about the subject sometimes. Marci asked, "What does accuracy mean?" Is it more accurate to preserve the original poets lyricism & rhythm, or the visual nature of the line, or the specific word meaning? It is a difficult question to answer, but Marci indicated it was easier when working with other translators on the same piece, and that it was important "not to rush" decisions, but to spend time thinking on the matter. 

    Overall, it was a wonderful experience getting to hear these poets discuss the finer points of translating poetry from other languages, and was a genuine joy to hear them read their original work as well! 

Notes From Virtual Poetry Launch Reading & Conversation! Four Way Books w/ Yerra Sugarman, Cyrus Cassells, and James Fujinami Moore

 

    Tonight I was an audience member for the Virtual Poetry Launch Reading & Conversation! Four Way Books w/ Yerra Sugarman, Cyrus Cassells, and James Fujinami Moore. I did drop off during Cyrus' reading and missed most of James' reading--but the host said they would send me a recording. 

    Initial notes: Both Yerra & Cyrus mentioned or read poems that touched on Jewish themes. For Yerra, her poetry was about her Aunt Bird, who was a holocaust victim. Cyrus' piece "Ready, Aim, Fire" (I believe) included a line about a Rabbi needing to put up signage that said "Firearms not allowed in synagogue pews, nor near the Torah" (I'll need to buy his poetry and come back to revise this if I'm not quoting precisely). 

    How strange, the synchronicity occurring here. The last poem I read at the open mic in Providence (The Smile) was about Majdanek, a concentration camp in Poland, and Yerra & Cyrus both discussed how they visited Krakow. Also yesterday on our walk, we passed the Gates of Wisdom Jewish cemetery with the fallen tree and the gravestones that were knocked over. This in conjunction with me recently finding out I have an estimated 6% Eastern European Jewish DNA (From region of Belarus, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Ukraine) and the message, at least to me, seems clear: I need to work harder to uncover whatever part of my past is connected to my until recently totally unknown Jewish ancestry.

    Anyway--back to tonight's reading. Yerra's poem "I Have Nothing to See Her With" was short, but resonated deeply with me. Her Aunt Bird "whose life is a ripped page"  was someone she didn't have much knowledge about--and the poet described how the information she needed was "accidentally" found or sort of dropped into her lap when she was exploring a repository of information about the holocaust in Jerusalem--I believe Yad Vashem. She also mentioned that she found information unexpectedly about her aunts (plural!) from the DC Holocaust museum. 

    Yerra also read from her 5 part poem, I think it was called "Hampered, Conjured"? or Perhaps "Bone by Bone She Remembered" (My Zoom connection was really cranky tonight) but anyway--there were a few lines that stuck with me, such as "The meat of her voice" (the poet described her aunts life being like a stew in her mouth, a strange but evocative line) and how bone by bone her aunt's body changed into light. Other images "the city's starless womb" & "sonorous with horseflies" -- these are lines that stuck with me because of what they conjured up in my mind--a city's sky darkened by light pollution, the buzzing of horseflies--and I need to inject my own poetry with more of this type of power. 

    Another line that struck me hard was "God was a runaway child who ate the Earth with a spoon." Damn, Yerra, you really hit me over the head with your work tonight! No wonder she has been the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, PEN American Center’s PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award, a “Discovery”/The Nation Poetry Prize, the Poetry Society of America’s George Bogin Memorial Award and its Cecil Hemley Memorial Award, a Canada Council Grant for Creative Writers, a Chicago Literary Award, and a Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Award.

    Guess I'm obsessed with Yerra Sugarman now. I have to mention another line, the last line, that stayed with me, where she was asking "How to turn grief into a green stem sprouting." 

    So, for Cyrus, he mentioned he had an epigraph poem "Dark Fields of the Republic" by Adrienne Rich, which I've never heard of so want to read now. His poem "Ready, Aim, Fire" and his second piece, dealt with timely issues--such as gun control & stand your ground murders in Florida. Right before my internet connection dropped I remembered a line he read that was like "A rushing bullet is not a dream."

    THEN--I lose connection and came back in for the very end of James Fujinami Moore reading. I have to say, James was a real hottie. He had sort of longish black hair pulled back into a ponytail and a white button up shirt that was unbuttoned just enough. ANYWAY, I heard most of his last poem "All I Couldn't Make Beautiful" which was redolent with images--like James as a young man making figures of the virgin Guadalupe? I remember the line where he described it as making "golems out of stolen scraps of clay." Golems--being a Jewish mythological figure, means each poet tonight in some way mentioned Jewish culture. 

    The Q&A was really interesting! The first question was "How do you balance timely events with the timelessness of poetry" and the poets talked variously about "maintaining a balance" that didn't erase specificity but also allowed them the freedom to write on the subject, if, in Cyrus' words "they were compelled to bear witness." Cyrus also said that he told his students frequently that their poetry-writing selves were bound to be 2 years ahead of where they were now. So some of the timelessness is built into the "consciousness" that is writing poetry. I've never heard that before--but I don't disagree with the sentiment. James mentioned how he had submitted his final drafts for his book in 2019, which, being before COVID was "a whole self ago." Amen, James, Amen. 

    The second question was about the poets research process when writing poetry. Yerra talked about her research into Holocaust databases & sources, and how she visited Krakow. Cyrus lived in the Jewish Quarter in Paris, and also visited Krakow. They did want to ensure accuracy of information--but also allowed for "serendipity" to play its role as well. Cyrus especially made a point to say that "messengers and guides came with the information" he needed organically. He spoke about how he felt he was being made a "repository of information" which was necessary because the older generation who was passing on this information was dying out as time went on--and there was a "collective need" for a language that helps us to understand what happened. 

    James' answer to the question about he researched his poetry is most similar to what I do. He agreed with Yerra & Cyrus that there was a responsibility of "truth-telling" but his own approach was "scatter-shot" based on his instincts and involved falling down rabbit holes. He talked about how he would get stuck on an unresolved question or image that needed to be explained, that would "loop" in his brain. 

Tonight was so good, I went ahead and registered for tomorrow's event as well: Virtual Reading & Conversation: Original Poetry & Translation w/ Carlie Hoffman, Rajiv Mohabir, Ricardo Alberto Maldonado, and Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello. 

Hopefully my Zoom will play nice. 

Rumi-nations

    The book of Rumi's poems I have (201-400) starts with an introduction that reviews the author A.J. Berry's life. In it, there is mention of a Renard Alleyne Nicholson, an "eminent authority on Islamic mysticism." He is described as "a very shy and retiring man" so naturally, I'd be desperate to be friends with him if I was a young man at the time. I always think "shy and retiring men" are closeted though, so perhaps I'm making snap judgments. ANYWAY there's a poem by him on xi, which the author presents as an example of the influence Rumi had on this man's way of thinking. I won't quote the entire piece, but some specific stanzas jumped out at me:

        "Deep in our hearts the Light of Heaven is shining/ Upon a soundless Sea without a shore./ Oh, happy they who found it in resigning/ The images of all that men adore." 

    I began this book yesterday evening after the blog post in which I made my metaphor about holding on to a whale in the middle of a vast sea, and feeling that if I let go I would drown but also understanding that if the whale decided it wanted to dive, I too would go down with it. Faith, I believe, is knowing the whale won't drag you down, the whale being this force much mightier than yourself. 

    "Like Harut and Marut, that Angel-pair/ Who deemed themselves the purest of the pure." 

I didn't know who these two characters were, so here's what Wiki tells me:

Harut and Marut (Arabic: هَارُوْت وَمَارُوْت, romanized: Hārūt wa-Mārūt) are two angels mentioned in Quran 2:102, who are said to have been located in Babylon.^[1][2] According to some narratives, those two angels were in the time of Idris. The Quran indicates that they were a trial for the people and through them the people were tested with sorcery. The story itself parallels a Jewish legend about the fallen angels Shemḥazaī, ʿUzza, and ʿAzaʾel. The names Hārūt and Mārūt appear to be etymologically related to those of Haurvatat and Ameretat, two Zoroastrian archangels.^[3] 

There's more digging I would like to do to find out more about these two who were referenced in regards to "Blind eyes, to dote on shadows of things fair/ Only at last to curse their fatal lure."

The poem goes on to state:

"Love, Love alone can kill what seemed so dead,/ The frozen snake of passion. Love alone,/ By tearful prayer and fiery longing fed,/ Reveals a knowledge schools have never known."

"God's lovers learn from Him the secret ways/ Of Providence, the universal plan."

The word Providence jumped out at me, considering my recent stay in that city. The poem continues with this stanza:

"There are degrees of heavenly light in souls;/ Prophets and Saints have shown the paths they trod,/ Its starting points and stages, halts and goals,/ All leading to the single end in God."

A neat stanza, both in terms of "hey that's neat!" and in the sense of being tidy with the rhyming end words of souls, trod, goals, God. The final stanza reads:

"Love will not let his faithful servants tire,/ Immortal Beauty draws them on and on/ From glory unto glory drawing nigher/ At each remove and loving to be drawn./ When Truth shines out words fail and nothing tell;/ Now hear the Voice within your hearts. Farewell." 

This poem by Nicholson is compared to one by Al-Hallaj (or Mansour Hallaj, who was crucified in 922) in which a stanza is quoted on xii:

    "Now stands no more between the Truth and me/ Or reasoned demonstration,/ Or proof or revelation;/ Now, brightly blazing full, Truth's luminary,/ That drives out of sight/ Each flickering, lesser light."

    This is from the Qur'an:

    "God is the light of heavens and the earth;/ the likeness of His Light is as a niche/ wherin is a lamp/ (the lamp in a glass,/ the glass as it were a glittering star)/ kindled be a Blessed Tree,/ an olive that is neither of the East nor of the West/ whose oil well-nigh would shine, even if no fire touched it./ Light upon Light,/ God guides to His Light whom He will." 

    That is from An-nur, verse 35. I'm not sure if I'm referencing the Qu'ran correctly here. 

     From this collection of Rumi's work, so far Poem 208 stands out as particularly resonant for me:

    "Every day I bear a burden, and I bear this calamity for a purpose:/ I bear the discomfort of cold and December's snow in hope of spring./ Before the fattener-up of all who are lean, I drag this so emaciated body."

    This part strikes me as relevant to my situation because I did stop eating before I left Virginia and I have become more emaciated than I would like. I am slowly starting to gain weight again. The poem continues:

    "Though they expel me from two hundred cities, I bear if rot he sake of the love of a prince;/ Though my shop and house be laid waste, I bear it in fidelity to a tulip bed./ God's love is a very strong fortress; I carry my soul's baggage inside a fortress."

     Here I am, travelling around the United States, and I've visited 5 cities so far (including the one I am now, Pittsburgh) and I am carrying my baggage around--both physical and spiritual/emotional. The poem ends:

    "He said, "Will you bear this sorrow till the Resurrection?"/ Yes, Friend, I bear it. I bear it./ My breast is the Cave and Shams-e Tabrizi is the Companion of the Cave."

    First, I didn't know there was a correlating "Resurrection" in Islamic belief, but more to the point--the words, "I bear it. I bear it" are what I must tell myself as I continue my journey into the west. There will be times when I must bear my sorrow--and perhaps I will have to do so until the end of my time on Earth. But having a "Companion of the Cave" will be important--I must find that person, or recognize that I have found them already. 

Struggling to understand

    I did not always believe that everything happens for a reason. It was unclear to me why anything happened at all. The world, it felt to me, was chaos, all parts of it moving at random--just confusion. We were all so desperate to make sense of what happened to and around us that we invented all sorts of wonderful systems for understanding, or making believe, or whatever--and I have been dismissive of most of them. To use the word Ayad employed to describe Obama, I have been "supercilious" but that has changed recently. 

    Maybe I don't see the elegance of the superstructure, or perhaps I am only able to sense that it's there but not yet able to appreciate the subtle grace? Either way, I am beginning to think that everything happens for a reason, even if I have been too dim to perceive what the reasons are. In very short order, I was fired from my job, then went to working all the time to keep up with 5 kids & producing no new writing nor reading anything because of the amount of exhaustion I felt all the time, then my drug use increased to levels that I didn't even think was possible "wee handfuls" of pills (caffeine pills & wellbutrin in the morning, then at night sleeping pills in ever larger doses) as well as more weed than one human should be able to smoke without their lungs collapsing, then in the winter--I got sick, the kind of sick that laid me out and had me coughing up black stuff. I've coughed up a lot of things in my time, but never anything black. And now? I am sober, I am writing every day, I am no longer in the same state as my abusive sister, and I'm following a path that doesn't feel evil. How did I arrive here?

    At my most sick, I felt a hole opening up beneath me & I knew that at any moment I was about to drop into it--whether I committed suicide or I let the sickness take me, I was not long for this earth. I turned to my family for help, but sadly they thought increasing the amount of drugs I was on was the solution. My sister brought me more weed, encouraged me to get out of bed & get back to watching her 5 children. I thought constantly about how smoothly a razor would run up my wrist--how the blood would leave me like a river of silk, and if I had taken enough of the drugs that were everywhere around me--then the end of my life wouldn't even be that painful of an episode. I didn't blame my family, I love them fiercely & still do--they did their best to protect me from the homophobia of North Carolina, tried to help me be more "straight" and to survive the cold, hard Christian reality that I had been presented with. At their core, I know they love me.

    I told my sister and my mom, the two people on earth I knew loved me most, that I was thinking about death all the time. They changed the subject, puffing away at their cigarettes, my sister annoyed that I was being so selfish--why couldn't I continue to stay high & clean/cook/watch her children so she could leave and have fun with one of the men she enjoyed seeing? She didn't care that I wanted to die, nor do I think she really believed me--she thought I was talking about suicide as a way out of doing her chores, but everything I did, I did out of love for the kids. I wanted them to have good food to eat, a nice house to live in, and I wanted to protect them from the worst of what their mother was: angry, violent, abusive, manipulative, but above all: cruel. Yes, I loved her knowing that beneath her human mask was a sociopath who didn't understand empathy. 

    When I realized my sister would not believe me until I actually tried to kill myself--and because I knew in my heart that my desire to die was so real that if I was brought to the point, it would not be an attempt--I would follow through with it--perhaps for the first time in my entire life, I would actually follow through with something, instead I ran.

    I haven't stopped running. I ran from Virginia to Niagara Falls, then to Amherst, then to Providence, and now I'm in Pittsburgh. Each time, I felt I was moving farther from danger and closer to...something. Closer to something I needed to see, or hear, or do--driven not by my own will necessarily, but by something else. Some other force that I began to trust with my life. It's like, I've decided to let Jesus take the wheel, except I'm not sure that after my southern Baptist upbringing that I want to give the force that's guiding me a "Christian" personality or flavor. In Niagara, the falls filled me with awe--a sense of wonder, there were greater things in the world than pain. In Amherst, I picked up a book by Dawn Potter (The Conversation) and my love for poetry was reignited. In Providence, I had my first open mic reading and the other poets called me beautiful and brave, the first kind words I'd heard in so long that I didn't understand them at the time. Now, in Pittsburgh, I am starting to see that America is both less and more than I imagined it to be.

   

     Still, I'm struggling to understand--what is guiding me right now? I know the next two places I'm meant to go, Detroit then Minneapolis, but I don't know why or what's waiting for me there. I think here in Pittsburgh, I was brought specifically so I could stumble upon the work of Ayad Akhtar (who had not even crossed my radar before, but who's lecture was meaningful and who's work I've been devouring voraciously) but possibly it was Sarah, the woman at Few of a Kind, who talked about Rumi with such a light in her eyes that I couldn't leave her store without buying a book--Mystical Poems of Rumi (second selection, poems 201-400, translated by A.J. Arberry) & I have not much knowledge of Rumi but on the back of the book was perhaps the words I was brought to the city to read:

            "You sell my soul for a handful of dust; what kind of bargain and sale is this?

                Give back the dust, and know your own worth; you are not a slave, you are a king, an emperor.

            For your sake there came out of heaven the fair-faced ones, the sweetly hidden."

    I sold my soul, to my family, and was a slave in a household that took nearly my life away. And now, am I a king? Or am I an "urchin" like I call myself, hiding in the balcony of the Carnegie Music Hall, looking down on the author I wish I was? Or am I neither slave, nor king, nor urchin--but something new? 

    Inside the book, Sarah slipped a handout for the Muslim Women's Association of Pittsburgh. This is the organization that I must dedicate my next poem to, I know that with a certainty that is becoming strangely familiar. Just like I knew I had to dedicate "The Smile" to House of Codec in Providence. It's how I know that it's not time for me to meet or interact with Ocean Vuong, but one day--I will have to. Why? To what end? I'm struggling to understand my role in any of this--but I'm desperate to understand, to feel that I'm not losing my mind. 

    Tonight, I came to the realization that I must "scrub" myself out of the book I recently self-published, Psalms for the Queer, and thus make it more universal. I need to make it easier for a wider audience of queer people to connect with the call to action that I'm putting out: we must reform our community, we must come together, there is important work that will require us all to put aside any differences that might exist between us. 

    Whether I am delusional or not, whether I am losing my mind or not--I do feel in my heart that I would die for this quest, for the goal of bringing the queer people of America together somehow. The work that we must do once united will be hard, and there's still a decent chance I will be mercilessly crucified for even trying to do this. Maybe I did die last winter, and this is my afterlife? Or maybe, I started to live last winter, and I am on a path that I long resisted. The whale has spit me out and now I am holding on to it as it swims in the great sea--knowing that I am in the middle of vast waters, that if I let go, I will certainly drown--but also knowing that if the whale decides to dive, I will have no other option but to go down with it--into the dark and murky waters. 

    I still speak in the language of Christianity--but it's the only language I was taught to use when speaking of spiritual experiences. Perhaps I was meant to find this book of Rumi's poetry because I'm meant to learn a new language to describe the mystical experiences that are unfolding inside & outside of myself. Now that I think about it--Rumi was inside Ayad's Homeland Elegies, page 315, I just went back to confirm:

            "I hope you don't have it already."

              I tore off the wrapping. It was on old edition of Rumi's Mathnawi. 

             "I don't. I've always thought I needed to read it."

              "That's what I thought when I saw your play. You know, they did it in Omaha."

              "You thought I needed to read Mathnawi?"

              "You're making fun of him at one moment in the play, and I just thought 'He doesn't know Rumi, because if he did, he wouldn't want to make fun of him..."

    The narrator goes on to say that he was making fun of the guy who "thinks he knows something about Islam because he's reading Rumi" and then Sultan, the character that gave the narrator the book insists that, "But anyone who reads Rumi does know something about Islam, beta. Something good, something important. For me, that book is my Quran." 

       Perhaps, I was brought to Pittsburgh to find Rumi's writings? I will go into the work with an open mind. I must note that yesterday at Ayad's lecture, he mentioned Søren Kierkengaard--making that the third time in recent weeks that Søren's come up--all from radically different sources. The universe nudges me again & again, so I must make the time to look further into Søren. How much time do I have? Certainly all the time in the world. 

Ayad Akhtar at Carnegie Music Hall & his lecture on Homeland Elegies

 

    Tonight was educational, I learned I've been pronouncing Pakistan wrong. My American tongue wants to say "Pack-ih-stan" but Ayad (hard A, A-yadd) pronounced it Pah-ki-stahn. The importance of pronunciation, or rather--the act of pronouncing in and of itself, comes up in Homeland Elegies. When Donald Trump is trying to ingratiate himself with Ayad's father (a cardiologist) by asking him how to say "Akhtar" correctly. 

    The most important lessons I learned from the lecture were:

            1. The importance of the "economic under-girding" when discerning motivation. Ayad's words were, "understanding where & how their bread is buttered." I used to think of motivation as something more ethereal, something akin to "being a good person" as an example of an underlying motivation--but living in America means paying for everything & how do you pay for the things you need/want? 

            2. "The muse needs to know where to find you." Meaning: writing at the same time each day, and if possible, the same place. The writing won't always flow, but the regularity of writing is the crucial element. 

            3. Transmission of knowledge is a sacred thing. I think I felt this when I was publishing Psalms--it felt important that what I was experiencing be shared, to help others avoid my fate. It drove me to rush the book, half-formed into the world--because I thought I wouldn't live long enough to worry about the end result anyway. I'll have more time to bring the actual physical, printed book into the world with more polish--but if it was the last thing I did--I wanted to transmit something of my life, something of myself into the world. I think that was a desire I had because I feel drawn to the sacred. 

            4. Acting -- inhabiting another person's emotional state but more importantly, stepping into "new or different" ideas is connected with Shakespeare, the "greatest author of all time." Ayad made the point that the connection between Shakespeare and his craftsmanship of acting & writing was not a coincidence. Developing empathy as well as being able to "countenance contradiction" will be important for me if I want to be considered a "good" writer. 

            5. "What is ahead of us is so gargantuan" Ayad mentioned almost casually how the future holds this absolutely enormous conundrum that no single human can solve. He mentioned both climate change & artificial intelligence as two problems that would impact either the generation being born in the last 5-10 years, or perhaps a generation not yet born. His point being that right now, we are glorifying individualism over collectivism. Not collectivism like communism, but rather, the drawing together as one people--to face a problem by pooling all of our talents & resources. The last time America even came close to this was during WWII when the whole country turned itself into a machine. Even the children going through the trash for scrap metal were part of it, the women who had never before needed to do men's work stepped up & admirably performed their "duty." To handle what is coming--we will need to move towards this again. A phrase he used tonight--about having the "pessimism of intellect, but optimism of will" stuck with me. It will require planning for the worst of human behavior but hoping for the best from the soul of every human being? 

            6. The most stunning moment for me was when Ayad said it was "pathetic" that America couldn't hold a real conversation about 9/11, even though that was over 20 years ago. He said we were unwilling to address the "genealogy" of what led to the attack. It wasn't an "act of cosmic evil" perpetuated against a "nation of innocents" (I'm not sure I'm quoting him accurately, but no one reads this blog so I think I can get away with it) & I'm wondering if that's part of my purpose here. To incite a conversation that allows us to move past the racial hatred we have for Muslims. On page 138 of Elegies, Ayad & Riaz are talking about a study which explored what the 5 most common words Americans thought of when thinking about Muslims: Anger. Separate. Suicide. Bad. Death. This led to the sociologist Norbert Elias and his quote: 

            "The established majority takes its we-image from a minority of its best, and shapes a they-image of the despised outsiders from the minority of their worst." (pg. 139)

        Am I not guilty of participating in this? I have branded all Muslims as "gay killers," murderers who toss "men like me" off of buildings to splatter on the concrete below. I was 13 when 9/11 happened, but the images of Muslim men were wild-eyed, bearded, fanatical, monstrous. It wasn't until I was in college that I made my first friends who were from Muslim families & this began to change, but by then--the deepest part of me still conflates all of the Middle East as the land where they actively hunt down & kill people like me. Imagine my shock when Riaz, arguably one of the most powerful Muslim characters from Elegies, turns out to be gay. There was a passage that resonated deeply with me, from the footnote on page 156--

            "I would come to wonder if perhaps I'd been an object of sexual interest to him all along, if perhaps he thought I was gay, too, locked even deeper in that closet than he was. Whatever the reason for the brief window of his appealing availability, by Labor Day weekend, it was gone, and that dazzling, ceramic impenetrability was back..." 

        Have I too, not done this to men? Attracted to them, dazzling them with my personality and ability to if not find then make a good time happen, then when it becomes clear that they are certainly straight and nothing will happen, I drop them & move on. I've been intentionally celibate since 2016, but the point is I can't run from my past even if I'm not doing that anymore. At 33, I think "ah how foolish, insincere and manipulative I was at 25" but as I am learning from Sheila Moon's treatise on Navajo emergence mythology--we carry the darkness with us, even as we step into new realms of light. I will "fight" my demons again & again--but I'll lose if I think they are gone forever. No, they will be with me, and I must be vigilant for them. Instead of fighting them though, I must embrace them as familiar--it's only with self-love that I can win against these shadows--what I fight, I strengthen. 

            7. The last and possibly the most important lesson I learned from tonight's lecture is that grappling with the question is the critical thing--not arriving at the answer. There's a lot I have not engaged with because I don't trust that I will arrive at a solution. By not at least engaging with the really tough problems/conundrums/questions, I am playing into my pattern of self-defeating behavior/self-fulfilling prophecy of failure. Struggling to answer the question is more important than arriving at the answer--because even though I am imperfect and won't have the solution, by struggling against the problem I will at least be trying & that act alone may inspire the smarter, wiser person to grapple as well. 

        On a last note, Ayad was very magnanimous tonight. The awkward way he wasn't allowed to finish whatever that last thought was, made me cringe. I don't think the host who was leading the post-lecture questions meant to stifle his thinking--perhaps she was simply delivering on ending the program at the prescribed time--but she talked over him rather than pause to hear what he was trying to say (thus I have no idea what he was trying to say), so if I'm ever up on stage one day & that happens--I must remember that being graceful is more important than being heard. Or, if I'm ever leading a conversation and hosting an author, I must allow them to speak when inspiration strikes them--perhaps they are realizing in that moment something that they believe is important to share, and as long as we're not past time by an egregious amount--there's no harm in letting them speak that thought. 

            I'm glad I went to the Carnegie Music Hall tonight, it was a humbling experience, in the good way. 

From Pittsburgh

 

After a brief visit to Provincetown, I left New England behind & have arrived in Pittsburgh! The first few cities I chose were pretty random (Niagara Falls, Providence, Provincetown, Pittsburgh) but now that it doesn't feel like I'm being hunted or running, I can focus on choosing where I go next. I don't feel as scared as I did when I initially left home so I can share that my next two destinations are Detroit, then Minneapolis. My first stop here in Steel City will be White Whale Bookstore. I'm pretty sure they have a section dedicated to Banned Books! 

Tonight, I'm going to spend an hour working with the Conversation, taking notes & using the revision prompts to try out different ways of seeing poems I've already written. One of them is "Take the last line of your first draft and use it as the first line of an entirely new poem" & I'm excited to try that out. It's easy for me to churn out drafts, but the important part of the process (for me at least) is the cutting & polishing. In Psalms, in the very first poem in the collection I talk about how a new draft is like a rough, lumpish, common stone. I need to take time working with it before it starts to even resemble a gem. They aren't all geodes though, sometimes, it's just stays a rock, something you thought might have a core of crystal but you carve & carve and suddenly you realize you just have a handful of gravel. 

Anyway, learning new techniques for revision will be helpful. Especially since I'm going to be editing the poems from Psalms for the print version that I've promised myself I'll have ready this week. It gives me a chance to clean up the pieces from the digital version that I panic published (I really did think I was going to die!) but I also need to now design the spine & back cover artwork. Should be fun!

Pittsburgh won't be like Providence. Not as many adventures or outings--I think I'll be spending more time with my nose to the grindstone here. There aren't any live poetry readings, or slams or open mics BUT there is one that's on Zoom? So I'll need to make sure I sign up for that if there's time, unless it's a Black History Month focused session, in which case I'll be be an enthusiastic audience member. 

Once I start heading west (San Diego is my eventual west coast destination) it's going to feel more real that I'm putting thousands of miles between me & Virginia. This will be healing (putting distance between me & the dangerous situation I ran from) and also painful--but my best friend told me today: "I wish I had your bravery, genuinely. It's so cool that you're putting yourself out there and on this big gay adventure." They told me this, I think, to remind me that it's going to take bravery to keep up with this journey--and while I don't think of myself as a brave person, knowing that they see me like that? It helps, and makes me feel less like a coward, less like a monster. 

Howl

    As I tend to do when things get bleak, I re-watched Howl's Moving Castle last night. As usual, I laughed, I cried & I felt better for the whole experience. I used to fight hard against how deeply I feel my emotions, but now it's a part of myself that I wouldn't give up for anything. Yes, I've seen this movie a thousand times, but it still touches me. 

    Like Sophie, I was attacked by my very own Witch of the Waste, who's heart had been eaten by a demon of greed. This person shrunk me down & made me feel very old. Now, I'm on my own quest to break the curse I've fallen under & it hasn't been easy. The first & hardest thing I had to do was leave home, yes, very bildungsroman (a novel dealing with one person's formative years or spiritual education) and sacrifice something that I thought was very important to me (drugs) & while I've been sober now for weeks (a victory!) I'm struggling through a strange new jungle trying to avoid the quicksand. 

    Last night, I made the promise to myself that I wouldn't just try to do good things with my life, but be a force for good. The difference being that doing good means seeking out individual actions while being a force for good involves small, conscious, every day actions/behaviors/speech/thoughts that guides how you live every day. Being a force for good means smiling at every cashier, being respectful to elders, but also taking care of myself: eating meals again, showering regularly, taking care of myself is as important as taking care of others. This point was hammered home when Howl wouldn't get out of bed because in his words "If I can't be beautiful, then what's the point of living?" 

    For me, the selfish reason I've held myself back from the world was "If I can't be famous/beloved, what's the point of living?" That's silly, the only way I can be known or even loved is if I take the risky step of putting myself out in the world & actually enduring the mortifying ordeal of being perceived. I don't want to be famous anymore--that road leads to dragons that I'm nowhere near ready to attempt to tame. I would, however, like to read other's poetry & have them read mine in return. I do want to meet interesting, creative, kind people. Maybe I can help someone on their own road, even if it's just by making smile at how much joy I find in the little things. I thought I might be the flamboyant Howl, but there's an equally good chance I'm Turnip-Head the Scarecrow, who was also bouncing around trying to escape the spell he was under. 

    It's not necessary for me to "cast" myself in any of these roles, but it is extremely enjoyable. I try on the different characters like different outfits to see which one helps me see myself better. Before last night, I was positive I was Sophie--a young person living like an old person, so much so that when the Witch curses her making her age to an 80 year old woman, Sophie says "Well, at least my clothes suit me now." Meaning--she had long dressed herself and seen herself as a "grandma" type--which I very much vibe with. I call myself "Nana" all the time, and while I love that about myself (why would I say no to a blanket & a book?) I do get that I'm actually a 33 year old man who doesn't have to pigeonhole himself into the life of a spinster. 

    Diana Wynne Jones, who wrote the novel Howl's Moving Castle passed away in 2011, so I can't write her to let her know how much she changed my life with her book & how much I appreciate what she put into the world. I recently did that with Dawn Potter, I just dropped out of the blue into her blog & reached out and she responded! That's the first time I've ever reached out to an author & had them reply. Previously I had reached out to Tom & Lorenzo who wrote Legendary Children, but they didn't respond--which I don't blame them for--I am nobody. I'm just starting out on my journey & I genuinely have no idea where it's going to take me. No one owes me anything, especially not when I have nothing to offer in return.

    Tonight, I will be reading (hopefully!) at least one of my poems but possibly two if there's time. That's going to be scary, but if Sophie can put on her best hat & march into the palace to demand Madame Suliman leave Howl alone & while she's add it, put an end to the violence of her meaningless war--then I can get up in front of 50 odd Providence residents & read some poetry.

For my first open mic, "The Smile"

This is the poem I intend to read tomorrow, if there's time at the mic. 


The Smile

Against my will,
my spirit unspools
Backwards, backwards
into our bloody past,
as only a soul
can: spectral, dim
absorbent.
I hate this memory,
the smell of blood & dirt,
the taste of iron in the soil,
I feel again
the burning weight
of a Pink Triangle
on my chest.
Distract yourself
by counting your ribs again,
but oh my darling
don’t watch them lead
the love of your life
to be “cleansed” in Zyklon B.
Oh I can’t do this,
please let me forget
this past life,
I don’t want to remember
Majdanek, please stop your ears
from hearing the squelching
sound of boots
as the echter männer
march past you
not seeing another
broken queer
sobbing
in the bloodmud,
they can’t hear
the keening, the broken cries
that escape your throat,
like desperate animals,
killing themselves
to get free.
I lift my eyes
because I love you,
because I must Look
& oh how calm you are
they don’t push or pull you,
no my God
they never
broke you, bless you.
With your head held high
you quick turn away from
the long line of corpses
& I’ll never love you more
because you are using your
last moments on earth
to find me, see me,
so you can smile at me.
& that calms me,
quiets me,
as you knew it would.
You are helping
me to be ready
when they come.
I’ll think of you,
I won’t cry,
I promise you’ll be
so proud of me,
as I stand,
no longer another
emaciated joke
& proudly will I walk
to be with you again.
I miss you so much
I can’t think of eating,
so I give
my bread to Elijah
but it doesn’t matter
because the very next day
they come:
Stern, forceful, blunt.
It is only because of you
that I stand on my own.
I am strong because
I walk with your arms
around me. Outside now,
eyes dazed by the light,
I’m in my own long line
of men & women, many
who are wrong like me.
I think of the moment
I first laid eyes on you,
sipping steaming tea
from a rough clay mug,
reading Fichte with
a faint smile around
the corner of your lips.
I make my way inside
“the place with the showers”
& we are all crammed,
crushed together
for a bath–a bath!
Because suddenly
they care about lice?
From behind me the sound
of the clanging steel door,
& many of us are too hungry
too tired, too weak
to push or cry or scream.
From above now, a rain
of blue crystals.
Time warps,
seconds melt,
then: my God, my lungs!
my lungs, my God!
They are trying to send us
back to Sodom &
I am angry! I am sad,
there’s a taste in my mouth
that I can’t explain,
and a gray light
at the edges of my eyes.
Be brave, love,
brave enough
to realize that
these are your last moments
but you can use them
to be like him.
So turn,
you beautiful wreck,
before your eyes go dark
yes, oh angel, there you go,
look up & across–
now you’ve found her,
the young woman
with the yellow star
who sat with you
as you wept all night,
her skeletal hand in yours,
she didn’t ask, she knew.
Now, David, now, quick!
before you cannot meet
her sunken black eyes–
& oh thank you, thank you God
she’s looking back,
Now, David: Smile
& she can’t ask why
from across the room,
but she knows
because she smiles too
& not just at me, Alojzy
She’s smiling back at you.

From PSALMS FOR THE QUEER

Providence

Providence: the protective care of God or of nature as a spiritual power.

Also, a city in Rhode Island, the one in which I currently find myself. The path to healing starts here, appropriately enough considering what Providence means. I almost died in Virginia, but ran in the night--thus saving my life, but leaving my friends & family behind. To finance this mad dash to safety, I self-published my extremely queer poetry under the title PSALMS FOR THE QUEER, even though I didn't feel ready. Now, it's reached #36 on Amazon:

Tomorrow is my first open mic poetry reading of my life at as220 in downtown Providence. If I get there early enough & get my name on the list. 15 slots for the 3 hour session is lean, so I'll need to slide in like a bandit. The thing is, my poetry is better read aloud I think, there's an element of performance that brings some of the subtleties to life. Here's the event poster:

For about a week, I had a blossoming Instagram account, but it got deleted today (thus my sudden foray into blogging) so, to ensure my content won't get erased with no notice & for no reason--I've bought my own domain, and I do intend on making it my own domain. As to why my account got deleted, I'm not entirely sure, I tried to appeal it but to do so you have to enter your username & every time I did I got a smug little message that said "this account doesn't exist." Like, yeah, because you just deleted it! 

Anyway, gonna shake that off. Zuck just hates to see a girlboss winning. I'll stop saying that when it stops making me laugh, and I'm determined to laugh about this entire fiasco. Well, having a social media account get deleted doesn't really reach the level of "fiasco" but I'm dramatic enough to turn almost anything into a fiasco. Maybe I just love the word fiasco, I mean I did just use it 4 separate times. That's the kind of next level Extra energy I intend to bring to everything I do. 

I did learn a lot about how poets are representing & promoting themselves on Instagram & I can use those lessons to continue hyping PSALMS. I'll need to start recording more of my work & putting it out there, on whatever medium serves my purposes best (YouTube?) & posting content on here regularly in hopes of drawing a regular readership. That includes posting some of my poetry as well as making posts about my journeys around the States. 

SO the adventure starts here!