Confessions of a Human Nerve Ending

The Host Summit

2012-02-05T17:32:00.000-07:00

Week 1:
Sunday-Chatter (Every Sunday)                 Feature                                   Don McIver

Spoken Word Hour (Every Sunday)         Feature (Radio Show)          Ijah Umi

East of Edith (Every Monday)                    Open Mike + Feature             Collective

Hakim Be & Friends (1st Tuesdays)         Feature                                   Hakim Bellamy

Poetry & Beer (1st Wed.)                            Open Mike +                          Don McIver & Eric Bodwell

Week 2:
Sunday-Chatter (Every Sunday)                 Feature                                   Don McIver

Spoken Word Hour (Every Sunday)         Feature (Radio Show)            Ijah Umi

East of Edith (Every Monday)                    Open Mike + Feature             Collective
Adobe Walls Open Mike (2nd Tuesdays)      Open Mike & Feature         Ken Gurney

MAS Poetry (2nd Wed.)                                     en Mike & Slam +                  Kenn Rodriguez

Smokin' Slam (2nd Thursday)                          Feature & Slam                          Katrina Guarascio

Week 3:
Sunday-Chatter (Every Sunday)                 Feature                                   Don McIver

Spoken Word Hour (Every Sunday)         Feature (Radio Show)          Ijah Umi

East of Edith (Every Monday)                    Open Mike + Feature             Collective
Fixed & Free (3rd Thursday)                       Open Mike & Feature          Billy Brown

Week 4:
Sunday-Chatter (Every Sunday)                 Feature                                   Don McIver

Spoken Word Hour (Every Sunday)         Feature (Radio Show)          Ijah Umi

East of Edith (Every Monday)                    Open Mike + Feature             Collective
Merimee's Poetry Salon (4th Thursdays)       Open Mike                      Merimee Moffitt

Speak, Poet:   Voz, Palabra y Sonido (4th Thursdays) Open Mike & Feature    Andrea Serrano

Final Fridays (Final Friday)                         Open Mike, Slam +           Jazz Cuffee & Khalid Binsunni

Regular, but not fixed:

Jule's Poetry Playhouse                                                                            Jules Nyquist

Peace Center's Peaceluck Gathering                                                         Zachary Kluckman
Works in Progress                                                                                     UNM

Variety Shows:

V.I.P.
Vagrant Variety
Reptilian Lounge
Encyclopedia Show
Tourette's W/O Regrets
Outspoken

Yearly:

Grand Slam
WOWPS
Youth Slam-Off

Ode to the Stove

2012-01-14T12:03:00.002-07:00

Now I suspect (though I have no method to confirm)

that the reason Henry David Thoreau

wrote so little during those two years outside ofConcord,

hanging out at Walden Pond,

was that he was chopping wood, and starting fires, andtending fires,

and just basically busy with the business of staying warm.

When you are worried about staying warm,

writing just doesn't seem to be all that important.

Writing is pretty sedate,

just you and your own thoughts running out your fingers.

But I admit that when I embarked upon moving the woodpile

so that it was closer to the house and splitting axe and splittinglog,

the moving seemed more important too.

But the words were already coming, spilling out,

running down my muscles into these two hands.

Thank God I learned to type cause the words come so muchfaster now

making it hard for me to keep up.

And I admit I had to hold that first stanza in my head fora bit

as I moved that1/2 cord from one part of my yard to another.

But I did it

(stubborn I suppose),

and now I'm looking

at the fire and how much it draws my eye.

At two in the morning, +

I wasn't thinking about the poem I planned on writingtoday.

No, I was trying to get the fire started again,

so my house will stay somewhat warm

without my paying tribute to the Gas Company.

Now I admit, I admire Thoreau,

and wished he'd managed to stay out there for more thanjust two years.

Just two years of chopping wood, drinking water, burningoil for light,

and thinking about being disobedient.

In my own way, I'm being disobedient too,

but only as much as my fire will allow.

The 4 Stooges

2012-01-03T21:18:00.002-07:00

Greetings.

My name is Jean PhillipeGillespie Nate the III.

And while I am one of three:

my grandfather from a land so faraway

and my father who looked a lotlike me

let me endeavor to showcase toyou

my ruminations, extrapolations, expostulations,affirmations, enunciations, and articulations

on why it was 4 wise men who setout to see what was hanging out

under that big ol' star.

"O' beautiful star of Bethlehem"

Cause you see my gift neitherglittered like gold,

or fragrated like frankincense,

or was as malodorous as myrrh.

My gift was fresh spring water,

that rolled down Mt. Ararat

over gold flecked granite

and watered the Burseracae Tree

but dried up before reaching Commiphora Myrrah.

My water is what made all this possible,

and I was giving it to you.

And during the walk, I lost trackof what was yours and mine, and drank yours.

So I had to go back...and theykept on.

This old wise fool is alwayslate.

And I might've had some questionsI was going to ask had I made it to the church
on time,

Cause, you see, I'm theinquisitive sort

and don't see myself gettingfingers jammed in eyes,

hit below the belt

or my nose tweaked because

I'm .Jean Phillipe Gillespie Natethe III and when Larry, Curly and Moe reached you first,

they gave their gifts and didn'treally understand that the greatest gift is life itself,

and I'd want to know exactly whatyou were thinking.

This shit, this life, iscrazy....

For all we know we're here all byourselves

and there is no one in charge,

minding the store,

behind the steering wheel.

This thing called life is somesick sort of runaway mule heading for that cliff.

No...if you'll forgive me for my protestations butemancipation ain't all its cracked up to be.

Why Larry, Curly, and Moe just want to keep everyonelaughing,

I want them laughing too but I want them laughing becausethey know.

This shit, this life, is crazy....

and its scary and its a bit jacked up

But the alternative?

The alternative to life is....

So, if you'll forgive me, I really, really, want to knowwhat exactly were you thinking?

Were you bored?

Or perhaps, you don't have any answers either...

now chew on that one for a bit.

Mnemosyne Forgets

2011-12-29T10:40:00.001-07:00

The long bowed wood left marks on the hardwood floor,

so we tried to keep the rocker on a rug.

It didn't work and every house would have these streaks

where our rocking had stripped wax off the floor.

On August 9th, 1995, there was no untimely surprise,

intense pain, or deep emotional connection severed;

though it had all those qualities.

And even now, I wrestle with words to fix my memory.

Memory is a hesitant thing, a thing best left on shelvesfor rainy days.

What troubles me is remembering remembering,

when my memory would be all that I had left.

The end of promise, a day to mark before and after.

He wasn't just a guitar player missing the upper digitsof his left index finger.

He wasn't just a singer, who quite often strayed off key.

But I still struggle to write what he really was, andstill is,

some 16 yearslater as I remember that day.

That day was sorting through bootlegs, listening to studioCDs

holding my dogs and crying.

Once a year we'd make a trip, make arrangements to getinside

and observe the chaos:

The knowing look with others as he forgot a verse orteased the next song with a chord.

The whirling line of solo dancers in the breezeway, thelights synced with every song,

the grilled cheese and cheap beers in the after-concertparking lot.

Seeing the Dead live made me feel like I belonged, likethis band of freaks had some sort place for me.

When Jerry Garcia died in rehab,

a part of me died too.

Breaking the 4th Wall

2011-12-25T10:37:00.000-07:00

I'd been promising myself I'd writea poem every day during my too short two week vacation. Most years I'm in Colorado dealing with mymom's inability to do anything quietly or the franticness that my sister approaches buying presents for her husband's side of the family. But, this year, I'm home and really wantingto spend my time writing. Usually thatinvolves poetry, but this year, the essay seemed to tickle my muse and I'vefound myself drawn to the form again and again. So, here I am, Christmas morning and I'mthinking and wanting to get my thoughts down on paper because I don't really knowwhat I'm thinking until I put it down on paper (virtual paper). Thepattern this year seems to be to really break down how art works (or at leasthow I see art working), so after findingmyself talking about my set at the Green Mill and my next morning conversationwith Marc I thought I'd get it down and relate it to Louis CK's show at theBeacon Theater.

WhenI began thinking about my set for Chicago, I knew I wanted to do work that Iconnected with. I also knew that thedeadline of the show would force me to memorize work so I included pieces thatwere haphazardly memorized and pieces that needed to be memorized (for a longermonolog that I want to perform next summer). Here was the list (with notes that I'll talk about):

Setlist for Chicago:

(change to Chi-townreferences-casual intro) Answer me thatJack

(first poetry reading and aboutChicago) When the Revolution Really

Deja Vu

Dear Tom

Underwater

So...what I've really beeninterested in is when a performance start and what constitutes performance in apoetry reading. Now I'm notparticularly fond of the "traditional" way poetry sets arearranged. Most of the time, anexperienced reader/performer will have some sort of anecdote/comment and thensay something like "This poem is called...." or "My nextpoem..." It seems to me to be thisis a rather clunky way of letting the audience know when they should focus andwhen they shouldn't. I, however, wanteda way to hold the audience for longer chunks of time, to string poemstogether. I wanted to take the audienceon a longer journey (20 minutes) not just 2-3 minutes, then a short breather,then 2-3 minutes, etc. So in pickingthe first poem, I decided I wanted to make the poem conversational, so that theaudience wouldn't know that the readinghad started and I'd have to sort of coax them into paying attention instead ofmetaphorically announcing, "Pay Attention." So what I did was take the below poem,"Answer Me That," and change the references so it seemed as if itjust happened. Here's the original:

I’m sitting in a coffee shop onCentral and I’m a little shocked by what I just saw on the walk over. A white truck with a black dog in the bedpulled out in front of this green Saturn and was struck by it and spun aroundninety degrees. The dog became a cartwheeling bundle of black fur and twisted and turned in the air for a goodtwenty feet. None of the people wereharmed, and the cars – good old disposable cars – who cares. But the dog – he trotted back to the truckand jumped into the bed like nothing happened.

Now I can’t get the image out of myhead, this black mass flipping and twisting in the air and I’m almost glad Ididn’t see him hit the pavement, and I couldn’t stop and say I was a witnessand give my name and address because I kept seeing this bundle of black furthat I didn’t even realize was a dog at first flying through the air in a massof legs and paws and I’m supposed to write about Kerouac. I’m supposed to write about the disjointedstyle and verbal barrage of TheSubterraneans when all I see is the black fur flipping and twisting andthat image is juxtaposed against an image of my own black dog running out intothe street and hitting a car and running back inside and dying on my livingroom floor. And I’m supposed to writeabout Kerouac when I can’t help but shake and freak out.

Take this image from my mindJack. Take it with you on the road andyou and Cassidy can mull it over and talk about how grand it is as you plowthrough the eternal present of 40’s America. And I wonder if you could write fast enough Jack. I wonder if the very act of writing iscounter to Zen because you have to absorb the world then spit it back out. Then why write? Why write Jack? Answer me that.

Basically my tone wasconversational and I changed one reference "Central" to"Broadway," because the Green Mill is on Broadway. From my perspective, the audience wasactually sucked in and it worked. Myanecdotes were simple and short between poems: going to hear Peter Michaelson as my firstpoetry reading before a cover of his poem (which is basically set in downtownChicago), talking a little about part of the reason I was in Chicago (whichactually was my nephew's Bar Mitzvah), noting that I still don't have "DejaVu" memorized, and talking about me and Mindy's sort of "PanelDiscussion"/reception with her family to announce our marriage (which wasthe preface to a love poem that I added to the set right before I went up there). And it worked. The crowd listened, laughed, and I got manycompliments after the show.

So,in talking to Marc the next morning, I asked him what he thought of myset--(Seriously. You're sitting in MarcSmith's apartment and have a chance to get feedback why wouldn't you ask forit?). He was generally complimentary butactually surprised me because he felt that I "betrayed" the audiencewith my first poem by starting it that way. Betrayed?

Wow! I didn't feel that. My experience was that the audience was withme the whole time. Marc felt that Ilost them but regained them because the rest of my set was authenticallyme. Interesting. So what I'm left with is this: do poetry audienceshave expectations of the performer? Obviously,a stand-up audience expects to laugh and the lights will dim when the comiccomes out on stage (but they also know to pay attention when the comic comeson-more on this in a bit). And anaudience in a movie theater knows the movie is going to start because thelights basically go to black (even beyond the dimming during thepreviews). But many poetry shows don'thave visual cues, the light don't dim, etc. so the poet has to provide the"roadsigns" so that the audience is in on the act.

When I started my set the way I did, Iactually kept the audience out of the act. They didn't know that my first poem had actually started, but that waswhat I was trying to do. So thequestion really is, "Did it work?" and taking Marc's criticism toheart, I don't think that it did. Hepointed out that for it to "work" I'd have to let the poem be morethan it was....it really is a pretty simple poem. But, I think there's another way to do it andthat would be to really change the poem so that there are no markers to itbeing a poem at all.

Ironically,Louis CK's new special (downloaded off his website) starts with Louis walkingto the Beacon Theater (through the streets of Manhattan-deliberately similar tohis intro from FX show) and then into the crowd mulling around the entrance,people handing over their tickets, taking their seats, etc. Finally as the crowd settles in the camerafollows Louis onto the stage and him explaining he's going to do all thenecessary announcements (turn off your cells, etc). And then he's off. The lights are dimmed (but Louis's alreadyon the stage and initiates it) but there really is no marker that the show hasstarted. And it works. I think part of the reason it works is thatLouis's whole act is sort of "conversational." But can it work with a poetry set?

Bond. James Bond

2011-12-23T16:55:00.004-07:00

Bond. James Bond.

I've been on a bit of a Bond binge,

dabbling round the series,

taking stock,

wondering why the series kept me engaged

for all these years.

Now, I'm not one who'd argue that it was some sort ofpinnacle cinema,

yet, there is something comforting,

something suburban

about seeing them all again.

Back before the VCR, I'd watch them when they aired onABC,

and in high school...I'd make sure I saw them when theycame out,

and now I'm revisiting them again

and strangely intrigued once again.

What is it about nostalgia?

about the romanticized life that my adulthood has neverresembled?

Disposable

2011-12-22T16:59:00.001-07:00

I'm not one to advocate,

nor am I much into prescriptive rules,

and really love language and words,

but a thought occurred to me today

and I want to tease it out.

Let's just eliminate the word "disposable"

in the hope that the concept will be rethought.

Cause you see nothing is really disposable.

Disposable plates, napkins, forks, etc. get put in somelandfill

where at best they're somehow recycled.

Even plastic, given time, will break down into something,

so its not really disposable.

Perhaps relocated.

Now, this poem would take a possible leftist bent if Ipointed out that we really treat people as disposable: forced labor being discarded, but at theirbest their bodies are recycled

if the sentience just sort of disappears.

So, planning a picnic, party, or social get together?

Why not just use cleanable dishes as opposed to dishes tojust pass on to others

whether that be now or 50,000 years.

August 9, 1995

2011-12-21T13:20:00.002-07:00

August 9, 1995

I'm not exactly sure what I was doing, but I know Iwasn't happy.

My first long term relationship was winding down and Iwas restless,

unsure of the promise that it once held,

and ignoring plaintive appeals from my muse to writemore,

get involved in something larger than myself

and lonely.

There were moments that held a clarity for me,

that shifted me off whatever path I'd been on,

and hearing the chorus to "Fire on the Mountain"from outside the amphitheater in Kansas

sparked some weird cognizance in my LSD addled brain andI had to get back in.

The security guard did not agree.

After getting pummeled we came to some measure ofunderstanding

and I passed the rest of that concert --July 4th, 1991--onmy own.

This was a turning point for me Jerry,

and however clichè it may sound I became a"Deadhead," a hippy,

jumping into some other way of being that I stillstruggle to define.

What I was melted away as my consciousness slowlyreturned in Bonner Springs.

Being in Boulder didn't matter and we relocated toAlbuquerque a year later,

made one last trip to see the Dead in Colorado

and just got on with our life.

And then you died.

I remember hearing the news in the morning from somefriend calling me from Colorado

as we roasted in a small duplex in the War Zone.

The prime spot for listening was somewhere between thefloor and the rocking chair

in the middle of the room and I hung out with the dogs onthe floor

sorting through my small collection of bootlegs,

and a few studio CDs that just didn't quite capture whatI'd experienced.

As day rolled into night, I moved up into the woodenwicker rocker

and just let the music wash over me,

and cried.

We'd already decided we were going to make another show,

no matter how far away,

and I was so terribly sad.

I like to think you'd approve of how my life hasunfolded.

I write, perform, think about my impact and how I treatthe ones I care about.

I'm just some fan, Jerry, some random guy from Colorado,

who just wanted to understand what all the fuss was about

and just couldn't possibly understand why so many peoplethat I respected

were drawn to your admittedly bad voice, unpolishedcompositions,

and a catalog that seemed to meander across genres,

never quite fitting in any of them easily.

I still don't get it, but I miss you.

Miss what you said to me, though I'm not exactly surewhat that is.

Addictions

2011-12-20T11:21:00.001-07:00

Just when you think you have it licked,

have it under control and can dabble without fear of itgrabbing you,

can moderates its influence,

it creeps back in

and you're sitting at your computer,

waking up at night and logging in,

using phrases like, "I just messed around on thecomputer all day,"

not really lying but not forthright either.

Addictions take many forms,

and they work;

they mask, soothe, or otherwise disrupt the low levelmalaise

that daily life seems destined to become.

Even poetry is not enough,

a productive day of doing things that seem worthwhile

even necessary to keep your life moving forward,

but it doesn't quite disrupt it in the same way

that addictions do.

What sort of a life have we created?

Is this a life worth fighting for?

Are we just too smart?

And there's only so much living we can actually tolerate?

Surely, my addictions don't have an answer,

but at least they halt these thoughts.

The Great Tomato Massacre of 2011

2011-12-19T08:27:00.000-07:00

The year of the tomato,

and the 3 plants took over a whole section of the garden,

wrapping around and bursting from the conical wire tomatocage

to keep it growing up and up.

Late fall, we had a bumper crop,

more tomatoes than we knew what to do with...

salsa and marinara mostly,

but at a pace I'd never be able to match unless I canned,

which...

So after an early frost, which killed all 3 plants

and left probably 100 fruits unripe and still hanging,

now drooping from the cage

now gallows like

for green-slowly graying fruit,

I pull the spidery plant from the ground,

unwrap arms from around the cage,

and scoop gray-green fruit into the compost bin.

How much life goes wasted?

How much of it is lost, annihilated, massacred by forcesbeyond its control?

And who is there to pick up what's left,

get caught up in the changing of the season andlook down on it from a relative above?

Swimming in Samsāra

2011-12-18T10:37:00.002-07:00

There's a ghost in the natatorium.

I see him when I'm coasting before I tap the wall

and then turn around.

I never mastered the kick-turn

and see no reason to start now

as the ghost keeps pace.

In the blue light of my swimming goggles,

I imagine that it uses its legs a bit more and swings itswaist,

so that its left arm doesn't overstretch for itscounterstroke.

Surely the ghost doesn't take a breath with every stroke,

and never loses count of how many laps its done.

Yet, it never passes me, never seems anything but fixed.

I mark and think in this monotony,

this simple increased heart rate, moving muscles plunge.

Does it too have a roving, yet discrete lecherous eye andtries to check out every woman:

college freshmen to veteran faculty who stop and catchtheir breath before getting out?

No. I like tothink that the ghost is focused, putting all its will into shedding pounds,

toning upper body muscles, and now I've forgotten whatlap I'm on

and spend a half-a-lap trying to convince myself one wayor another.

Counting laps is tedious, much like meditating,

only the stretch between one meditative breath andanother is 50 meters.

And the ghost is matching me stroke for stroke.

Damen Stop

2011-12-17T10:39:00.002-07:00

Comeand show me another city with lifted head singing
so proud to be alive and coarse and strong andcunning.

--Carl Sandburg--

A rickety ride

on a the Blue Line to Bucktown.

Snow falling on the city as we grind up the self-imposedhill

as the train goes from subway to elevated

and the city opens up down below both windows:

small wooden decks with neglected grills,

graffiti only a commuter will see

and no eye contact,

head phones,

small quiet conversations,

people concentrating on books

as each stop is announced

and suddenly its Damen--my stop.

Platform made of steel,

covered in creaky weathered wood

with grey snow pushed up into corners

and the crowd steps off the train into weather,

windy, wet, wintry weather

and we wind our way around an equal number getting on

and we march in asyncopation,

bottled up behind a big, lumbering black woman,

carrying too many bags to make these slip-steel steps

something navigated haphazardly.

She slips...

and the air from the rush hour commuters withdraw in onelong, uniform gasp.

No one,

no one steps around or over,

even people down below her stop and crane their necks tocheck-in.

"Are you okay?"

comes a muted question from someone on the Damen stairs.

She mumbles, then lumbers up,

with the help of some stranger as he helps her down the steps.

Chicago...Carl Sandburg calls you the "City of Big Shoulders,"

and today you showed me why.

Although Of Course You Wind Up Liking Something You Liked Before

2011-12-06T20:52:00.001-07:00

In 1987, I was a small, yet sizeable, group of young men that were drawn to David Foster Wallace's The Broom of the System. I'd devoured Pynchon's V. and The Crying of Lot 49, and really was drawn to frenetic, post modernism but still didn't have the requisite skill to tackle Gravity's Rainbow. So when a friend of mine recommended Wallace's Broom I read it, loved it, added him to a short list of author's I'd keep track of. What that meant was that I'd buy Girl With Curious Hair, read a bit of it; buy Infinite Jest and A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again and give up on the first and devour the second. And then I sort of lost track. As usual with books I love, I loaned out Broom and never got it back (along with Jonathan Franzen's TheTwenty-Seventh City and Strong Motion: A Novel) and just moved on.

So it was on getting ready for a road trip and having some sort of "Free Download" that I downloaded the audio book of Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road trip with David Foster Wallace and then burned some of it onto a CD for a Thanksgiving trip to Denver.

The book was great and though we didn't listen to the whole thing, I ended up buying it and reading it.

David Lipsky was careful to not interject too much of himself in the interview and basically just let DFW roll. And roll he does. The man is thoughtful, thoughtful about writing, promoting, the game, how television works, what good art should be, movies, music, you name it. His thoughts are a great way to get reacquainted with him (in my case) or acquainted with him if you haven't experienced him before. And, as is now obvious by his suicide in 2008, he was way too "heady" to survive for very long. As a lot of intellectuals can do, he could box himself in rather quickly and you could hear the gears sort of grinding in his head and proclaiming the actual futility of it all. Not fun, especially when you know the ultimate outcome of the story. I can't recommend this book enough. If you are interested in a frank discussion about pop culture, art, what success can and can't do for artists then read this book. I'll even loan you my copy... and expect not to get it back (its that good).

For What Its Worth

2011-12-01T09:37:00.000-07:00

Ryk McIntyre and Rachel McKibbens had a lengthy post on Facebook about money and art. In commenting, I kept finding myself going on and on about the subject and felt I should probably just do a long piece about it rather than just keep filling up Ryk's page.

For What It’s Worth

… I am a Poet. My job is writing poems, reading them out loud, getting them printed, studying, learning how to become the kind of man who has something of worth to say. It’s a great job.

Naturally, I’m starving to death….

--Lew Welch--

When I started writing and reading poetry, I didn't even know that it was possible to make money at it. I just wrote, and in 1985 (about once a week), I drove down to Muddy's Java Cafe and read it out loud sitting in a small circle in a back room. I wrote, but outside of a small circle of friends, did almost nothing with it. Writing just didn’t seem to be a viable career option, so I became a teacher. As a teacher I did very little creative writing. I wrote lesson plans and papers, lots and lots of papers. I could write certainly, but write creatively? Maybe not.

Or so I thought.

In the Spring of '97, I started seeing this band, The Withdrawals, on a regular basis. As I got to know them better, I realized that they weren't really waiting for anybody to come and anoint them as rock stars. They weren't really all that different from me. If these guys can do it, why can't I?

I started reading my poems again at the various open mikes, only this time it wasn't in a small circle but up on a stage (a small elevated part of the venue) and was behind a microphone and people clapped when you finished. The feedback was immediate. If it was funny, people laughed; if it was sad, people would comfort me afterwards; and if it was just simply strange, (which it was a lot of the time) they may not know how to react at all. And I was hooked.

By this time, more and more performance poets were getting paying gigs and making money performing poetry. I started to make enough myself that I paid taxes every year rather than get refunds. While writing clearly became my career, I wasn't trying to fit my writing into some sort of institutionally accepted format like academic poetry or genre fiction, yet the motivation was changing my writing. When I started to read my poems at open mikes, I wrote because I had an overwhelming desire to write, to be a vehicle for the poetry, merely a carrier where writing a poem was akin to giving birth. But writing because you have this overwhelming drive to get it out (birth something) is different than writing something that people want to hear.

Art for an Audience

At first, I didn't notice the difference. As I wrote different things, the audience's reaction to my work became more predictable. I started to be able to peg certain poems as "performance" pieces and others as something else. I started winning slams, getting my name out there as a slam poet. My aesthetic was changing, but I didn't necessarily see that as a bad thing. Instead I merely acknowledged that there's a conflict between what is accessible to an audience and what resonates with me. By producing art that was more accessible, I was developing a "feel for the game." Pierre Bourdieu writes, "...a form of the feel for the game, which excludes cynicism, which even demands that you get caught up in the game, taken up by the game to the point of being able to anticipate its future" (148). The influence of the audience was changing how and what I created.

Some poets embrace the change in their aesthetic, and perhaps it is indicative of a change to a more sophisticated aesthetic, but the change is not something that is coming from within. It is change that comes from without. I had poems that went from being longer, more discursive, complicated pieces to shorter, tighter, simpler pieces because I could deliver them in 3 minutes or less. More often than not the shorter version is a better poem, but the process of editing is not one that is arrived at organically but "imposed" from without.

As I made the transition from private poet to performance poet, I became a "cultural producer." Bourdieu stresses the significance of what that means when he writes, "I could say that artists and writers...are a dominated fraction of the dominant class" (145). While he acknowledges we are no longer dominated in the way that a patron dominated an artist in earlier eras, the influence of the market certainly is a "...form of structural domination exercised through very general mechanisms" (145).

So the market dominates, or shapes, how I create. But in what way am I part of the "dominant" class? Again Bourdieu spells it out, "They [artists and writers] are dominant, in so far as they hold the power and privileges conferred by the possession of cultural capital and even...the possession of a volume of cultural capital great enough to exercise power over cultural capital" (145). Cultural capital in artistic endeavors bestows upon the holder a "feeling [of being] authorized to speak about the 'people' or of speaking for the 'people'" (150). It also, as Bourdieu elaborates, means that

the properly symbolic power of showing things and making people believe in them, of revealing, in an explicit, objectified way the more or less confused, vague, unformulated, even unformulable experiences of the natural world and the social world, and of thereby bringing them into existence" (146).

Thus, according to Pierre Bourdieu, a French Ethnographer and Sociologist, artists and writers not only speak for the people but create the world. Heady stuff.

Created Equal?

But not all art is created equally. There is a difference between a writer and a musician or painter. The first difference is that writing (provided we go to school) is something that we all learn. Many of us may have been in band, but all of us studied writing from day one in school until, for many, the last day. So, being a poet is an easy entry art form. That's not to say it's easy. But it is easier to create poetry than it is to create music because most of us know how to write.

The next consideration is the general state of arts education. I know many people were lucky enough to have stellar arts education, but most of us had our first experience with poetry by listening to our teacher read Shakespeare or Poe or Kipling to us. It was a snooze fest.

If we take the general state for funding for National Endowment for the Arts as an indication, Arts funding has decreased. For example, in 2011, the Obama administration requested $161.3 million, which is close to the same as the funding in 1995, but still not quite up to the record high of $176.0 million from 1992. Undoubtedly, the comparable amount in 2011 does not go as far as it did in 1995 (http://www.artsusa.org/ ). And funding from local school boards for arts is drying up as well.

Since poetry is an art form that most people don’t experience casually, how it is taught in schools matters. With music, after school, I'd listen to rock music on my friend's stereo or on a buddy's car radio, so I was certainly exposed to modern music. With poetry, my perception was shaped by my teacher's taste and most of the time his or her taste didn't include anybody actually living. The point is...if we want to cultivate an appreciation of poetry, then our schools (perhaps the only place that we'll hear it) need to expose us to what is being written today. So, if I'm a kid from the suburbs and you want me to develop an appreciation of poetry, then wouldn't I be better served by poetry that understood my experience? Wouldn't I be better served by Shappy or Robbie Q., or Ernie Kline, or Big Poppa E. than by Shakespeare or Wordsworth? But back in the late '70s to early '80s that kind of poetry wasn't being produced. Thus, how could I learn how to examine modern poetry critically if I was never exposed to it?

And I'd argue that our teachers have a similar experience. Most teachers that I met in my education program were the students who loved English, read a lot of books, really dug Shakespeare (I dig Shakespeare, but I certainly didn't in high school). Yet, most of them don't have any idea how to approach modern poetry let alone modern performance poetry.

The Value of Poetry

We argue that poetry should be valued yet we don't even have a well defined criteria for what is valuable. How many slam poems have you read where the poet actually unintentionally misspelled words, didn't know how to use the basics of grammar? Then we ask him/her to come into a school setting and teach kids to write? By all means express yourself, but do your homework too.

I'm not trying to be snobbish about it. What I'm saying is that since the general lack of arts education is not preparing the students who are now the teachers, then the criteria for what is considered good is a really low bar. Thus, the value of poetry is set incredibly low. So why not see if you can get a poet to perform for free (and many of them do) because they pretty much just wrote what he/she is performing that afternoon and didn't bother to try and hone it as a musician would or a painter would?

Now, I know this is an exaggeration, but if we want to be valued as artists then we need to value our art. And we value our art by being well versed in the art form (not just the canon or modern poetry but hip hop, comedy, political speeches, etc.), understanding the basic conventions of the language (grammar and spelling), and talking and discussing it critically. As a poet we have to show we value our art if we expect it to be valued.

And we have to be honest.

I'm not in this thing to make money, so I pretty much don't say "No." But I don't have any issue with any poet asking point blank, "Is there any money available?" It's similar to going to the grocery store and looking at the price tag. No one begrudges a grocery store from advertising their price on oranges or paper towels or tampons, thus no one should begrudge a poet if he/she says, "I need to get paid."

But does my willingness to do a free show work against someone else's wanting to get paid to do it? Perhaps? If a high school teacher asks me to do a gig, I'll more than likely do it for free if my schedule allows it. I won't call in sick or take annual leave from my real job, drive very far, nor put much thought into my actual performance. By asking me to do a free gig, he's getting what he paid for. Now, if someone else comes to me and says, "I want you to come perform at my school and I'll pay you $500." The lengths that I'll go to will be much greater and I'll put on a better show. My point? If you want to get paid to do your art, then you better be great. Cause if I can come in and do basically the same show and do it for free, then why should they pay you?

For What It's Worth

There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
I think it's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

-Stephen Stills-

When we sign-up to be a poet, our motivations may not be entirely clear. Maybe, like me, we just need to get things off our chests? Maybe we're intrigued by the musicality of a particular phrase or have a compelling story to tell? There's, perhaps, a hundred different reasons for committing pen to paper, for taking up the mantle of poet, but realistically making money is never really a consideration. Yet with success comes a desire to do more, and this more requires time; and time requires money. So why not try and do both?

For me, poetry is worth more than the tiny amount I can earn off it. If the muse speaks to me, I don't want to have to listen to it, reflect, and then wonder if what I'm creating is marketable. I just want to write. And I don't want that simple desire to be cluttered up with other considerations.

Work Cited

Bourdieu, Pierre. In Other Words, Essays Towards A Reflexive Sociology. Stanford Univ Pr, 1990.

Status of Arts Funding: “Arts advocates asked for more Tuesday, saying the NEA's funding should be [2007] $254 million if its 1992 funding were adjusted for inflation.” http://www.keepartsinschools.org/News/Materials/Congress%20Tackles%20Arts%20Funding.pdf

NEA Budget this year: “Today, the President released the details for his FY2011 budget request to Congress. This included a $161.3 million request for the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the same level the President requested last year.” http://www.nea.gov/news/news10/budget-request.html

50/50 and the normalization of Marijuana

2011-11-28T11:35:00.001-07:00

I was up at my my sister and brother-in-law's over the holiday weekend.   Good liberals in a small conservative town and we decided to head to the small art-house cinema see a movie.   The movie, 50/50 , is based on a true story of a young man's brush with an unexpected cancer. It's funny; the chemistry between the two main characters: Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Adam) and Seth Rogen (Kyle) was good.   But what struck me and surprisingly didn't strike my brother-in-law, who's a doctor in a medical marijuana state, is how "normalized" they chose to show the pot smoking.

Adam doesn't drink or smoke and his first dosage of medicinal marijuana is in the macaroons offered by Phillip Baker Hall (Alan) to deal with the nausea caused by chemotherapy.   From there, the filmmakers actually show Adam stoned, smoking with Kyle, and even socializing with Mitch (Matt Frewer) and Alan and smoking again.   It was suddenly normal for cancer patients to sit around smoking pot. And the only noticeable effects that it seemed to have were the visual tricks it played the first time Adam ingested it.

Now I liked the movie, and as you know, am an advocate for legalization, but I almost thought that the movie was a tad bit deceptive.   For one thing, it does show that alcohol is bad when it shows Kyle so messed up he can't drive home, yet, it never shows Adam having any sort of detrimental effects from smoking.   You never see Adam stoned at work, or Kyle getting behind the wheel of an auto stoned.   So, from propaganda standpoint, we now see pot as harmless and alcohol as bad; we now see pot as medicine and medicine only.

Now my argument with the movie is not only that it was deceptive in how it showed pot, but it manipulates the viewer. If the audience is anything like Adam (who's never smoked before the macaroons (?)), then don't you think he'd be a little bit more cautious?   Or is this generation (mid-20s) so exposed to marijuana that the scare tactics of DARE just didn't have any effect?

John Prine-Popejoy Hall, Albuquerque 11172011

2011-11-17T17:16:00.001-07:00

I guess I'm glad I don't let labels tell me what I should like anymore.   Of course, I'd be lying if I tried to hide behind the old cliche, "I like what I like" or "I think there's really only 2 kinds of music: good music and bad music," cause I do think labels are important.   Not that I use the label to help me decide if I like it or not, but I do use it to try and understand it.   Thus, even though I've known many of his songs, I probably wouldn't have seen John Prine in concert just a few short years ago.

When I went to concerts, I wanted them to do something different than what I might get from listening to their work on the stereo, and most concerts just simply don't do that.   One of my earlier concerts, The Cars during their Heartbeat City tour reinforced that position early on.   Why would I want to pay to basically hear the album?   So, my choice of concerts was carefully screened:   would they do something different than what appears on the albums? did the concert feel uniquely crafted for that night or are they going through the motions and playing the same set night after night?

But, now that I'm a performer too, I have a more discriminating eye and frankly, "I like what I like."   So, even though I didn't move around very much or John didn't take particular flights of jam fancy, his show had this real sense of introspection, reflection, a deep and abiding affection for the songs that he's created that made me want to cry at times.   I felt distinctively middle aged and whether it was holding Mindy's hand as he crooned, "There's a hole in daddy's arm where the money goes..." I couldn't help but think that John, frankly, doesn't have much longer to do this.

He wasn't frail, but I could sort of feel how hard being on the road must be.   And, for me listening to John Prine, who's probably spent the better part of his career being on the road for the last 50 years, live was a real privilege.   I don't think about it often, but at times, I'm downright thankful for what life has conspired to bring me and last night, up on the Mezzanine at Popejoy Hall, I'm not sure if there was any other path I could've taken that would've put me there. The show felt like mine; the songs written for me; and the night, chilly, but calm, was one I wouldn't be replicating any time soon.

Thanks John.

Thrive: the Movement

2011-11-15T13:35:00.001-07:00

Released via the internet on 11-11-11, I decided I'd sit back and give the movie a viewing.   Foster Gamble (of the Proctor and Gamble fortune) is the narrator and basically walks you through different types of "discoveries" that he's arrived it in his effort to understand what it would take for human beings to "thrive." Of course, what the movie does is package all the traditional conspiracies together:

Nikolai Tesla & Free Energy----------------------------------------------------Check
Alien visitation & Crop Circles--------------------------------------------------Check
The Rothchilds, Rockefellers, Morgans and the Illuminati------------------------Check
Federal Reserve ponzi scheme--------------------------------------------------Check.
Control of food production as population control--------------------------------Check
Eye in the Pyramid on the dollar bill----------------------------------------------Check
Real Purpose of the Pyramids----------------------------------------------------Check
And the nice little wrap-up at the end is that we can all live in harmony.

I know this makes me seem a bit cynical, but the movie wraps way too many "mysteries" in this nice glossy package.

I'm left with a couple of nagging doubts. I'll only touch on a couple of them because I'm not sure I want to sit through the movie again to address all the problems I have with it.

If the Tesla Coil is so efficient and can basically create energy out of the air, then why hasn't anybody created a marketable version?

Now, it may make sense that the oil/gas/coal industry is in collusion with the power companies to suppress this technology, but the level of sophistication and coordination involved seems flat-out staggering.  Solar Power and Wind are also a direct threat but I see windmills and solar panels on a small scale.   Yet, the Tesla Coil powering someone's house?   Haven't seen it. I was unable to find anything on the net on how to actually make one that works.   Bring it on. I'd like to power my house with one.

Why does he hint at the Truther Conspiracy and 9-11 as a False Flag Operation by showing the collapse of Tower #7 without acknowledging that the view that is always shown neglects the actual damage to the building on the other side that basically destroyed the building?

My ultimate criticism is why is it easier to believe in some sort of conspiracy than it is to believe that we are culpable in a really dysfunctional system? If indeed we are on the verge of a great transformation, a great awakening, what is that going to look like?   Am I going to lose my job, my house, actually have to go through a few years of horrifying existence as the system transforms from a "fractional banking" system to something less speculative?   I hope not.

I guess if I want to dream about a better world, I prefer these approaches:

Empathic Civilisation
The Future of Energy

I don't want to live in a world where I'm dependent upon some benevolent E.T. to show us how to live together.   If we've been visited by aliens, then where are they?   How come they don't come and land on the Whitehouse lawn, strike up a position above every major capital until the powers that be have no choice but to acknowledge their existence?   I don't want to live in a world where I have to believe that our elected leaders are stooges, there's a ruling family that is hellbent on keeping its power and resources at the expense of way too many other humans.   It may make for great Hollywood, but it doesn't jive with the people I know.

We, and we alone, have created this mess and its about time we took some concrete steps to reform the system to make it better for all because if we don't we're going to find ourselves living in a world that with every year becomes increasingly less livable and no amount of money, power, or control is going to change the fact that we've screwed this place up bad and we don't have any other places we can go.

He Wrote About Us

2011-11-06T11:34:00.005-07:00

To call Norman Spinrad's He Walked Among Us Science Fiction is really stretching the genre. True, Spinrad is one of the elder statesmen of SciFi, but this work is more important than sadly the genre would allow.

At times a critique on our media obsessed culture, the book deftly follows the trajectory of a comic (Ralf), claiming to be from the future 500 years from now as he rises to become a small time cable television star modified and cultivated by his agent, "Texas Jimmy" Balaban, science fiction author, Dexter Lampkin, and new age networker, Amanda Robin. The book also acts as a critique of the SciFi/Comic Con convention business where hoards of loyal fans dress up as their favorite character from StarTrek, World of Warcraft, etc. and parade in hotel conference rooms hooking up, drinking, and talking all the while thinking that this is all somehow making a difference when they are really only being manipulated by the publishing industry for financial gain.

In many ways the book is not fun to read and Spinrad's humor quite often is not funny at all, but he's not crafting this as a sort of audition for writing for late night. No, he's more appropriately labelled a satirist in the same vein as Jonathan Swift. Is this really the culture we've created? And is it any wonder we seem to be heading for a collision with a bleak, almost unlivable future?

Being a Science Fiction writer, Spinrad deftly wields the technical jargon into the story effortlessly and perhaps adds more fuel to a debate that resonates when looking out on the various Occupy protests even as I write this. Under the guise of Ralf's closing monologue, Spinrad writes, "We are the crown of creation! We are the Giant Turnip God of the Double Helix!....I have seen the Light and it is us, oh yeah! It's time to hijack this crappy old airplane that's auguring in to the toilet bowl and tell the guys in the cockpit to fly us to Tomorrowland!" (343).

Outside of the guise of a Science Fiction novel, the idea that we control our own destiny; the future isn't written and no one is going to come from the future to help us avert a cataclysm or no savior is going to beam down from a cloud to take the reins and create a heaven on Earth would be cause for celebration and discussion. Sadly, this book, along with too many, gets the same sort of promotion and publicity as typical genre fiction and languishes on a bookshelf when it should be read by people, a lot more people.

OWS-A Discussion on Tactics

2011-10-31T16:25:00.000-06:00

On Tactics

I've been wondering why the show of force with the OWS protesters and not with the Tea Party protesters (and many of them had guns), and the only conclusion I can draw is that its not about "being prepared for any contingency" as many of the cops are told, but basically pure intimidation.

The powers that be are afraid of us and want to do anything to disburse us including intimidation, infiltration, and propaganda.

So, my conclusion is simple: the language and tactics of left-leaning activism need to change.

First some visuals:

(Un)Occupy Albuquerque

Thrill the World-Albuquerque

Notice the difference? Not much...except that Thrill the World is a group dance of Michael Jackson's "Thriller."

The other major difference, not pictured, is the police presence. During the OWS march, pictured at top, when the protest was close to the scheduled time to end, a group of cops pulled over at Richmond, started donning body armor, helmets, and riot sticks in plain view of all the protesters, which were congregated at the corners and along the medians. Immediately, the crowd grew visibly agitated, jaywalking by protesters increased, and people started to pack up and leave. After about 15 tense minutes, the cops packed up and left never actively engaging the protesters.

My first premise is that the cop's premise of "suiting up" is not to protect themselves from violent protesters but is deliberately and systematically provocative. Who makes the decision to police protesters that way but dancers another? Is the decision based on how the permit is filled out?

After the protest in 2003, when I got tear gassed by the Albuquerque police, I wrote, "I’m afraid, and effectively silenced," as part of a longer work recounting what happened that day. In essence, what they hope to accomplish is to actually scare people away from protesting. If just donning the gear doesn't do it, then they are prepared to wade into the crowd and win the confrontation by any means necessary.

My sister, a cop in Denver (a Sex Crimes Unit Detective) occasionally updates her status about what's happening in regards to her job and her perspective is usually quite different than mine. Recently, she had a post about the recent crackdown in Denver where the protesters pulled a motorcycle cop off his bike. Here's how she characterized it, "I hope the officer that was pulled off his motorcycle and beat and the others that were assaulted are okay. The protestors attacked a couple of officers and that is what started the riot last night leading to the gas and pepper spray....don't start a fight with the police and expect them to play nice." Now, I wasn't there so I don't actually know what transpired. And when I tried to weigh in, "Actually David, I think they [the police] tend to overreact. From my perspective, the demonstration of force and superior fire power seems to escalate rather than de-escalate, but then again I've only been on one side of this," and didn't get any response. Zero.

My sister's FB friends did not want to engage in any discussion about what appropriate police response would look like. But, in reality, that is not the most interesting thing about her post. What I find the most interesting is this phrase, "don't start a fight with the police and expect them to play nice." What it indicates to me is a sort of mindset, a way of looking at their jobs. Like the military, the police see themselves as a unit so when a member of their unit is "attacked" they respond as a group. Thus, if you antagonize one, you antagonize all of them. For unit cohesion and practicality they aren't taught to look at the situation, they are taught to respond, stick together. In fact, the camaraderie and "esprit de corps" trains them to protect each other above all else. So when a confrontation happens, they are responding the way that they are trained. And they seem incapable of looking at a group of protesters as a collection of individuals, so all the protesters are implicated and punished by the actions of a few.

Thus, the most obvious tactic we need to use is non-violence. By engaging in any tactics that can misconstrued as violent we are playing into their hands. There are reports from Oakland that the reason the police force responded the way that they did was that some protesters were throwing rocks and bottles at the police.

Now don't get me wrong and many people are troubled by the terminology I'm going to employ. But, what is happening here is in fact a "war." Unfortunately, "war" has become so synonymous with violence that we forget that it also means, "...a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties^." Now "armed" suggests weapons but can't it also mean civil disobedience and other non-violent tactics? Yet, some people still may have problems with the term so I'm okay with substituting "struggle" or "confrontation." The problem is that "struggle" or "confrontation" doesn't convey the seriousness of what's at stake here. "War," undoubtedly, does.

Gandhi and MLK didn't avoid confrontation. If they avoided confrontation they wouldn't have been marching to the sea or linking arms and marching down the streets of Birmingham. But what they did do was maintain a passionate and disciplined use of "non-violence." In fact, non-violence may be the only tactic that can also be a strategy. Thus, the strategy of our movement may be to effect change, radical, radical change "non-violently."

My second premise is that we need to police ourselves better.

One of the tactics of numerous administrations was COINTELPRO. Officially disbanded in the 70's, one of their major strategies was Infiltration. Now I wish I could believe that my government no longer engages in those tactics, but it only makes sense. If the government wants to silence dissent and the police are the willing stooges by showing up ready to use force, then how hard could it actually be to instigate a violent confrontation?

Thus, before any sort of protest is engaged the most basic tactic that has to be agreed upon is that all our actions are non-violent. Any protester who engages in activities that can be construed as violent is not a part of the movement. Any demonstration or protest that devolves into a violent confrontation needs an appropriate PR response. We need to make sure we get "our" story out. Frankly, since the strength of the movement is premised on "non-violence" we need to distance ourselves from any show of violence, no matter how justified. My argument is that any sort verbal confrontation is also a form of provocation and should not be tolerated. They want a reason to employ force. If we give them no reason, then they can't employ force and, thus can't intimidate us into being silent. There's a video of an Occupy protest in Berkeley that actually demonstrates some effective strategies. Despite the fact that the protester who got hit first was wearing a bandana, there doesn't appear to be any physical provocation and the police are merely enforcing a "grass is closed policy."

My third premise is the simple recognition that not everyone is going to be actively involved, but can still be supportive. Most people's lives are busy just trying to survive. Thus people should recognize that traditional activism was premised on a time when we weren't all struggling to survive and thus had a lot more free time. Basically, a lot people simply can't afford to be activists in the traditional sense. Nor do people want to sleep out, get gassed, possibly arrested, and spend the day in the jail.

Sounds kind of like I don't have the strength of my convictions, but basically, I don't want to lose my job because I protested about the fact that there aren't any jobs. I don't want to lose my house protesting the fact that people can't pay their mortgage and lose my house because I can't pay my mortgage because I lost my job. We're too dependent on a corrupt system, so show me how I can work to change the system without sacrificing everything I've worked for and I'll be there. And, for the record, I've gone to a couple of general assembly meetings and teach-ins, emceed a teach-in, and written lots of letters to the editor and posts in support of OWS.

The system is now set up to squelch 60's style activism, in my opinion, and thus we need to be a bit more creative. There's certainly a perception (false I might add) that protests in the traditional sense don't work. I've heard many of my students say, "Well the Vietnam protests started in the '60s, but the war didn't end until 75, so protests don't work" or "The protests didn't stop us from invading Iraq."

What that statement neglects is that no one ever said that protests were a "fast and easy solution" nor do we teach that protests actually did work...LBJ didn't seek reeelction because he didn't feel like he had a constituency because of his decisions regarding Vietnam. Nixon was elected (partly) on the premise of getting us out of Vietnam responsibly and when he actually expanded the war into Cambodia the country exploded again. Kent State was in 1970 and many of the protests were protesting into the war's expansion into Cambodia.
As a result the police apparatus learned a variety of techniques including fostering a belief system that protests don't work. I think the police state has learned how to handle, intimidate, and diffuse a 60's style protest movement (took them a better part of 15 years), yet our methods haven't evolved very far. Up until the 2003 protests and the OWS protests there have not been very large protests that challenged the legitimacy of the government (yes there have been protests around Environmental issues, Women's Rights, Gay rights) but those didn't challenge the legitimacy of the system and thus didn't require the use of propaganda, intimidation, infiltration, etc.

I think the system also learned we can't have an "educated" population or a population that has too much leisure time or else we'll get disruptive. Thus, the moves that Reagan largely started in the '80s were moves that largely cut the rug out from any real effort for any real change and now we're seeing the results.

The most basic tactic to employ is to educate people. Many of the 99% don't know that the system is rigged against them. Most still believe the myth that if they work hard, play by the rules they'll make it. And there is enough evidence that that is the case. But trying to change a corrupt system shouldn't be dependent upon people who merely have had rotten luck. We need to actively engage people's lives who aren't that bad. We need to give them a reason to support the movement.

I think we need to change the terms of the debate. What if we stopped calling it a "protest?" What if we framed the discussion as something other than a protest against the system but a rally for a better way? What if we said, the "protest" was actually a "Pro-Democracy Rally?" What if along side of the "rallyers" who are challenging UNM's rules, we actually used the permitting promise they already have? If their permit requires that groups that are larger than 10 people (for example) get an additional permit to use a park, then we break the large group into smaller (10 or less groups). If its the size that creates the restrictions, then we use it to our advantage. If its the hours that create the restrictions, then we set up a system to work around that.

Let's face it, a well worded sign on Central is not going to change anybody's mind. But, perhaps, a conversation over coffee, a small gathering at someone's house might. Let's expand the movement by creating community and create it intentionally.

When we do want to get together as a group to "protest our government for a redress of grievances," we manipulate the permitting by calling what we are doing a "parade?" Is what we are doing any different than the Dia de los Muertos parade? Perhaps, we petition other organizers to let us take part and we play by their rules when we do.

Packin'

2011-10-30T15:29:00.002-06:00

Packin’

Yeah,that's right,
I'm packing.
I am.

I'm packing my wallet, my keys, my watch,
the card key to my hotel,
my PDA ,
and my journal with pen in case I get inspired on the subway.

Yeah,
and when I passed you on the Ben Franklin bridge,
then stopped,
I was only checking out to see if I could make out the hours for the RiversideRink,
lit up,
not thinking you would catch me.

You looked at me as I spun away to follow you down thestairs to Columbus,
and you stopped after 3 steps
and looked at me as I passed you on the left,
my engagement ring 'tinging on the rail.
I'm a guy,
so, by definition, I'm a danger.
So, I don't blame you.

You're a woman,
reading a book as you walk across the bridge,
but you're not sporting headphones,
and you're not afraid to make eye contact with me,
some 6 foot tall,
bulging layers'

long haired,
goatie sportin'

200 pounds of potential menace,
a nightmare that livin' in the city
told you to be on the lookout for.

Yeah,
I'm packing,
I'm packing a string of words and conversations
that I want to direct at you,
for assuming the worst:

assuming I might sneak up,

throw your arm up high and twist,

reach around

and slap my large hand over your mouth to silence you

as I used my 200 pounds and dragged you somewhere

anywhere that was dark, obscure, lightly trafficked.

Cause I know that fear is healthy,
sometimes,
and fear is what keeps you safe,
but I'm still a little shook up
because I'm afraid of the me you saw.
You saw me as some creepy, bearded,

overweight stranger,

eyes perhaps a bit too narrow,

looking at you a bit too long,

hands clenched in fists,

and not talking on a phone or listening to an iPod.

I'd probably not want me following myself either.
It's enough to make my mind spin in all these different directions,
that it wasn't going before this night.
Yet,
I'm not too sure
I want my mind to go there,
to think that in an alternate universe
instead of thinking about being mugged
beat down,
harassed,
I'm the mugger,
junkie, rapist assailant
who women wait for,
standing on the third step,
in the light so that I can pass and put these 36 steps between us
on a busy street at 8:30
on the day after Valentine's day
in Philadelphia-
the City of Brotherly Love.

Intellectual Interests

2011-10-29T10:38:00.001-06:00

As an undergraduate some twenty years ago, I choseEnglish as my major because I liked to read and write. After a few years I left with a B. A. inEnglish and no real clear direction of exactly what I wanted to do withit. I still liked to write, so I pluggedaway at my own very bad version of the “Great American Novel,” the occasionalshort story, and even itinerant journalism. Nothing seemed to be quite the real fit. Meanwhile, I also obtained a teaching license and tried my hand atteaching middle school and high school. I still loved English and wrote, but gave up ambitions of making it as awriter. Instead, I became an educatorand found myself tutoring and finally teaching English at the community collegelevel.

I like teaching, but I was also pursuing a slightlydifferent tact with my writing. In 1999,I became involved in a movement called the Poetry Slam. Started in Chicago, the Poetry Slam is aliterary competition that engages audiences and poets in a randomly judgedevent. From its beginnings in the ‘80sin Chicago, it has spread to well over 500 slams internationally, with at least4 different national competitions. As Igot involved, first as a competing poet, then as an organizer of events, I wasintrigued by slam’s authenticity, explosive growth, and its ability to bring,for what many people is a solo endeavor, writers together. Now for someone whose background is inEnglish Literature, the poetry that is produced by Slam Poets is rarelyinnovative or groundbreaking. Instead,slam’s emphasis on delivery has made modern poetry accessible, brought largerand more diverse audiences back into coffee shops and bars to listen to poetry. With the rise of the internet and thepersonal computer, increasingly poets are no longer reliant on publishing asthe way to further their reputations and increase their rewards.

My interest in choosing the Cultural Studies programstems from my experiences in coffee shops and bars. Specifically, I’m intrigued by what place apoetry reading has in popular culture and how art is constructed, consumed, andunderstood. Generally, I’m interestedin arts place in culture and how it shapes, transforms, and engages the largerculture/society it is a product of.

Whose Side are You On? Part 2

2011-10-12T10:44:00.000-06:00

Despite the danger of turning what should be a debate about the merits, effectiveness, and facts regarding the use of UNM property for the Occupy Albuquerque protest, into a frivolous tit-for-tat, I want to clear up some things in regards to Jason Graves' letter, "‘Occupy’ protesters hinder UNM’s academic mission, violate rights," in the Wednesday edition of the Daily Lobo.

First, faculty is usually defined as "an educator who works at a college or university." So, yes Jason I do teach at UNM.

Second, I want to address this statement, "I get the sense that the goal of the institution is to educate; nowhere do I see anything, read anything, nor was I told at orientation that being a UNM student required tolerating activism or protesters on campus." UNM is a public institution. As a public institution, they are required to abide by the Constitution. Thus, since the Constitution explicitly states, "Congress shall make no law ...prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech...or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances," there is little UNM can do to prohibit it. The Occupy Albuquerque protesters are well within their rights to protest at UNM. So, Jason, get over it.

Third, you write, "the First Amendment as an excuse to occupy and intimidate just to get their point across." I argue that that is exactly why we have a First Amendment. If you feel intimidated by the protesters, then I suggest you talk to them. I believe at its most basic they are showing their displeasure with their Government. If you feel they are brow-beating you into hearing them when you just want to go on your merry way, then I suggest you find another way to class. When did freedom of speech have to be polite, convenient, or comply to everyone's definition? I hear things that make me feel uncomfortable every day, yet I will defend any one's right to say them. Indeed, that you are so cavalier in disregarding the First Amendment makes me a bit worried.

Fourth, I'm amazed that you invoke the Civil Rights Act. Perhaps you should review the conditions that made the Civil Rights act necessary? But if you feel that the mere presence of the protest violates your rights to an undisturbed education, I suggest you really think about what education really is. Education can be disturbing, can force us to look at our own assumptions, can point out how little we do know, and can, at its best, challenge us to engage the world critically. I suspect your professors would argue that being critical of the subject matter, however disturbing that may be, is exactly what you should be doing as a college student.

In fact, I was actually pleased that you were critical of my letter. As part of my lesson for today, I had my students go over some of the issues I found problematic in my own letter. Indeed, I felt sort of hamstrung by not being allowed to go over 500 words and had to take unexpected leaps to get my larger point across.

My larger point was in not in arguing for the merits of the protest, its validity and effectiveness, but in how UNM (by letting it persist for a week) should be called out on not enforcing its own policies if it is going to use those policies as justification for pushing for the protests to end.

Likewise, UNM with its large dependence on tax revenues to fund its operations, should be just as upset as the protesters and at the risky behavior exercised by commercial enterprises that caused our economy to nearly collapse. Every public institution has suffered because private corporations gamed a system for their benefit and basically tanked our economy. Perhaps you should investigate what a mortgage fund derivative is, how hedge fund managers make money, and how higher education is funded? Perhaps then you might understand why the protesters are petitioning "their Government for a redress of grievances?" Perhaps then you might understand why I insist that you are either for the banks or for us. So, whose side are you on?

Whose Side are You On?

2011-10-10T11:54:00.005-06:00

When did UNM become no better than a banana republic hidingbehind the buzzwords of "safety" and lurking behind "properpermits?" Sure, Karen Wentworthcan hide behind University policy as justification for the removal of theprotesters but weren't the protesters camping out on university property thewhole week before? So I guess thepolicy is only there when the University gets tired of the protesters? How convenient. I guess I’m supposed to be soothed by thisbit of “bureaucratese” and disregard the fact that UNM is selectively enforcingits own policy like some sort of banana republic. If UNM is going to hide behind policy thanthey should’ve done it last week.

Now I’m supposed to be soothed by this quote, ““Central(Avenue) is just not a safe place,” she said. Really? Central Avenue is notsafe? Did it suddenly get more safewhen the protesters we’re on the corner of Central and University?

Finally, in what struck me as sort of “Kafkaesque” itsreported, “Wentworth said protesters applied for a convention permit when theyshould have applied for an outdoor activities permit.” Oh my, they got the wrong paperwork? Would they have been allowed to stay hadthey gotten the right paperwork?

Here’s my guess as to what happened. Protesters camp out on University andCentral for what administrators hope is a couple of days. It turns out that it lasts a bit longer sothe university asks if they would be willing to relocate from the pristineenvirons at University and Central to a more trodden location next to thebookstore. The protesters relocate andwhen they don’t disperse after a couple of really crappy, rainy days, theadministration starts to get a bit worried. What if the protesters just don’t go away? Haven’t we humored them long enough? Haven’t they made their point? Okay, well let’s get rid of them. Let’s do it at midnight so no otherstudents/community members see it. Let’shide behind the monster bureaucracy we’ve created and say it’s not “safe,” andit’s not “sanitary.” Really?

So this is how much UNM supports the first amendment? We’re here to educate and help create civilminded citizens but when it gets a tad bit ugly, let’s just dispense withit. Here’s my suggestion. You support the first amendment but you don’twant people defecating on the lawn, put up a Port-a-Pot. You support the first amendment but you don’twant a ramshackle “shanty town” to make UNM look like a third world village,put up those nice, neat Lobo tents so the protesters can be protected from theelements. There are numerous other waysUNM could show its support for the protesters, but as it is, they’ve shown thatthey support the banks, the corporations, the very elements that have caused abudgetary hardship on every department at UNM. You’re either support the protesters or you support the banks. Whose side are you on?

Don McIver

On Community

2011-10-01T11:34:00.002-06:00

Now these two things are related, so you'll have to trust me that I'll pull them together. I promise I will.

1) I was having a conversation with a friend and asking her about what it would take to finish her bachelor's degree.

She stated that she needed one class and around two grand to pay off the university so she could register.

That was it?

That was it. What was holding her up boiled down to having not only enough money to pay for the one class, but to pay off an outstanding debt so she could register for that class.   Now, having taught Freshmen Composition, I understand the bureaucratic nightmare that financing college has become. When I was getting my bachelor's degree, it may have indeed been a little bureaucratic but it pails in comparison to what people have to do to finance their college education today. Yes, many states have gotten better about helping people, but many times the restrictions, the regulations, the sheer volume and complication of negotiating the system means it is actually much easier to screw up.   Yet, the system is set up so that funding it via student loans is ridiculously easy.   In my college days, I actually walked away from a grant to help pay for my senior year because at the end of my junior year, my boss informed me that I had to cut back on my hours because I was in danger of making too much money.   Yet, I could actually handle the workload (about 30 hours a week) and was not really living extravagantly, but for about a month I had to cut way back because my grant (which I got six months before) stipulated that I only make so much. Rebelling, I financed my senior year by taking out a Guaranteed Student Loan.   I was lucky. As the NYTimes noted in 2009, the average amount a student will owe upon graduating is twenty grand, thus many students aren't so lucky and either graduate with a lot of student debt or, perhaps, don't even graduate at all but still carry the same amount of debt as if they had.

In my friend's case, she'd gotten a grant to cover her college expenses, but when she dropped below a certain amount of credits, the grant was rescinded. Unfortunately, she'd already "spent" the money and thus now owed the university.   Now, I'm not some sort of financial wizard, nor am I particularly good at saving money, so for many years I pretty much lived from paycheck to paycheck. Perhaps I could've saved, but more often than not I counted on my regular job to keep me clothed, housed, and fed.   What little was left over kept me from going insane by buying a new book, going to a concert, drinking beer, etc.   So, the daunting task of paying off a large debt just didn't happen.   And university debt, because they always have something you want, is pretty easy to ignore. Yet, eventually, you find that you need your Official Transcript, want to register for a class so that you can explore other possible career choices, etc. and you scramble, beg, plead with family to pay it off.

And maybe you do pay it off, jump back in, move on with your life and everything is hunky-dory? But, I'm beginning to notice a disturbing trend.   What I'm noticing is that too often people's lives get sort of stuck, hung up on some sort of big financial hurdle that lurks, blocks, and sort of prevents people from getting off of the treadmill of bouncing from shitty job to shitty job. And if they finance their college career using student loans, they end up perhaps working jobs that pay well, but make exorbitant demands on their time, their sanity, or both? What happens is extremely talented people get sucked into a system of working jobs because they pay well, offer decent benefits, etc. but don't really fit, yet their stuck because they owe too much to get out and pursue what is their dream.

There has got to be a better way.

2) A few months ago, I was talking with a friend. She was just winding down a several month long poetry tour and was getting ready to head back to school. She was broke because poetry tours, while possibly keeping you alive, aren't particularly lucrative. She needed money so she could continue her studies, so she used the very same network for booking shows and put out a call for people to support her by donating directly or buying her product.

Still another example.   A poet had just finished the pre-planning for a new CD.   To fund the production of the CD, he created a Kickstarter Campaign and asked people to pitch in. After about a month, he'd gotten enough money to produce his CD and is now touring in support of it.

And finally, one last example, an artist has this one-man show that he really wants to perform.   He creates a Kickstarter campaign to defray his travel expenses and asks people to contribute so that he can perform the show without having to dip into his own personal budget.

Now what if we combined the power/energy of a local community with the powerful funding platforms available on the net? Could we create a "foundation" for people who may just need a little push to finish a project, a goal? What would it look like if we, as a community, chose to put our money where our collective mouths are? If the artist I know and love could be supported by like minded individuals but is done in such a way as to not create any sort of financial hardship?   What if, for example, I could give someone thirty bucks towards their outstanding debt at the university and my contribution was, in essence, matched by thirty other people pitching in thirty bucks? That's nine hundred bucks without asking anybody to do anything more than not buy 2 new books, or 2 new cds, or a couple of moderate nights at the bar?

How would that work? How could we leverage the power of our local community and the power of our extended virtual community? I know my answer, but is this something that seems worthwhile to you?

Rendition

2011-09-22T15:46:00.000-06:00

Don McIver

1801 Gold Ave. SE

Albuquerque, NM 87106

Rendition

He never didn't address me as sir.

It was always, "Can you stand, sir?"

"Can you step over here, sir?

"Can you lean forward a bit, sir?"

He was short, stocky, built as if every muscle wanted to erupt from skin,

covered by a shirt whose buttons were decoration,

perfectly creased, not straining but sized

perfectly.

"I'm going to undo this, sir."

"Good...sir."

"Can you sign here, sir?'

"Oh...very well sir."

"That's a very strong hand, sir."

"The rest of this will be more worthwhile, sir."

The room seemed more like a grade school:

a plastic, too small, chair

a lone metal lamp with a 75 watt incandescent

that erupted shadows across the room.

"Sit here, sir."

"Can you drape your arms over this, sir?

"Now where were we sir?"

"Did you know him... sir?"

"He must've had that in the works for a while, sir?"

"Will his mother come and claim him, sir?"

"He will indeed be released, buried according to custom, sir."

The gloves were short, stretched across his wrist by leather that seemed new.

Black leather stretched across his knuckles,

a wedding band pressed up underneath,

a small tattoo hid along his wrist as if whispering lattitude, the longitude by degree,

a marker that made me say,

He was not on speaking terms with his mother.

He wasn't.

Leave her out of this.

Please.

He stopped writing and stood up.

Pulled an oversize smock over his neck,

snapped his hands together like a brief applause,

and stared over the top of his glasses.

"Are those too tight, sir?"

"Can I get you some water, sir?"

"The lights might dim a bit, sir."

"This will feel a little cold, sir."

"The connections must be secure before we proceed, sir."

"This measuring your skin response, sir."

"I feel like I know you, sir."

"So, why would you detonate it there, sir?

September 21, 2011

Poetry & Beer 09072011

2011-09-10T11:15:00.000-06:00

Poetry & Beer: September 7th.

Wednesday marked another PnB, a full year of stirring up the format, trying to add community into the mix. The format was basically an Open Mike, which we split into a group of 4 poets to kick off the show, and a group of 9 poets to end the show. Sandwiched between that we had group reading of Dan Propper's "The Fable of the Final Hour" and a feature of David Rowe.

I'm not sure how I found Dan Propper's poem, but what immediately struck me was how the structure lent itself to a group reading. Since it basically counts up to 60 with the following, "In the first minute of the final hour..." it was pretty easy to divide the poem up into 60 sections and pass out 2-3 slips of paper to everyone in the audience. I screened out people who weren't going to stay for the whole time, so probably had 22+ reading the poem. No one got to see the whole poem. While it was challenging to hear everyone (especially if people couldn't or didn't project) it was a pretty cool way to remember this poem. I don't know if we set any sort of record, which I jokingly said we were doing, but I've certainly never been to a reading where the audience interacted in this fashion. Besides being a neat way to hear the poem, I think it also served a good community function because you had to listen to everyone...the whole reading became something larger (at least for the duration of the poem-my guess was it took about 20 minutes to do it).

We then welcomed our feature from New Orleans, David Rowe. David is touring in support of his book "Unsolicited Poems" from Verna Press. David has a very distinctive reading style..reminding me of the deliberateness of Bukowski mixed with the tonality of Jim Carroll. For the record, that is a compliment. His poetry was reminiscent of Bukowski, Kerouac, Burroughs and the delivery was pretty refreshing. I'm not sure what I expected, but I know I really liked it.

Next month we'll have an Open Mike, a feature of Adan Baca from Espanola, and Haiku Head-to-Head (yes there is a cash prize), so let me or Eric know if you want to sign-up.

Spoken Word versus Poetry

2011-08-29T14:58:00.002-06:00

If you believe that poetry is about the celebration of language then poetry whether written or spoken exists in a multitude of forms. Contrary to many people's view, I believe poetry is a very welcoming, wants to embrace the variety of work being produced in its name, but too often I'm meeting minds that want to be prescriptive rather than descriptive with the term. To be prescriptive with "poetry" is to say, "I like poetry, but what "they" are doing is merely rant, or yelling, or just prose with a lot of bombast," or "not poetry." To be descriptive is to say, "I don't have a definition. If someone wants to call what they do poetry, that's fine by me." To be descriptive is to strip institutions of their power, their cultural capital, to decide how, what, and why artists create. Too often, our institutions (cultural and educational) celebrate the models that conform to their prescribed notions and mock art that doesn't quite fit.

My argument is this rarely has anything to do with art or the creative process. Rather, this argument is really about power. The creation and consumption of art is entirely subjective. Yet, if I'm a creator of art then it is in my interest to have what I do defined as "art" and what you do defined as "not art." Of course, this also has a lot to do with commodification. When art is relegated to a commodity, then some art will have more "value" than other art. And as a consumer, I want to buy the "best art." This also has very little to do with art and reflects on how people see themselves and what group they wish to belong. Saying I like Jazz is immediately different than saying I like Hiphop. While both, in my estimation, are valid forms of art, one has more relative "worth" than the other. Indeed, one may have more marketable worth (Hiphop) and one may have more artistic worth (Jazz). So, by posing the question as I did, I was hoping to get the panelist to wrestle with what their pre-conceived notions of what art are, and by extension to get the audience to see how we all make value judgments about art. Rarely do those judgments come from "absolute value," rather they are merely opinions. Opinions, informed are otherwise, are still opinions.

Letters to Mother

2011-06-03T12:29:00.001-06:00

Addressed as “Dearest” except when young,

at five, from Birkenhead, he wrote.

They were making huts,

“I have got a lantern,

and we are lighting them up tonight.

With love from your Wilfred,

I remain your loving son…”

Six years later he writes again.

“We went to lantern service…

I don’t think I told you Mr. Moore’s text…

It was Pilate’s sermon,

as he called it: `Behold the man,’

He told us a lot about Pontius Pilate,

& then about `The Man’.

The last day of nineteen-oh-eight,

“Dorothy Leslie the Cates & I

took the toboggan to

Peppard Common,”

and simply had,

“a splendidrippinggrandmajesticgloriousdelightfulscrumtiousexquiesitelyexcruciating time…”

Tea will be ready soon.

Dearest Mother.

“My dearest Mother,

Many, many thanks for your long letter.

Do please call upon the Canon

and ask about the fees…

…Very disagreeably as experience is forcing upon me the fact

that money must purchase

even such pleasures as good books…

[I] regard the life whose sole aim

is money-making to be the most pitiable.

Perhaps you think me still hopelessly undecided,

but I hope that the Canon’s advice may clear things up a bit.

Teaching in Bordeaux he writes,

“I must talk about myself

or you will not consider this a letter.”

Funny you asked about my hair,

just last week I noticed grey was cropping up again..

“It seems quite a long time

since I last heard from home…”

Too many wounded I have seen.

Early winter nineteen-fourteen.

“Dearest of Mothers,

Your loving letters never end without a prayer…

Indeed, though I look up and down the world,

I see no man whom I could serve

without a suffocated feeling of captivity.

This may turn out fortunate after all…”

At a woodshop,

trying to save the eight pounds it takes to get back home,

making luggage out of lumber

he talks about the war,

“The beginning of the End must be ended,

and the beginning of the middle of the end is now.”

After Typhoid shots,

“In the night the arm got pretty bad.

I still feel as if a horse had got my arm between its teeth.”

If not fit by Monday then light duty I receive,

“which I believe consist of standing still and staring…

Recruits are very numerous now—17 on Monday last.”

“The sun still shines…

large numbers of wounded were being rushed down the road…

I came, also to see the gentleman in charge…

He has just come in-,

an extraordinary hunch-backed Irishman…”

“This afternoon I went forth in search of adventure,

and took a joy ride in a tank…

Do not inform friends & relations that I pass my hours reading,

sleeping, conversing, & gathering roses from bewildered gardens.

But so it is,

and I’m getting fat on it.”

The last letter of his life.

“I will call the place…

`The Smoky Cellar of the Forrester’s House…’

My servant and I

ate the chocolate in the cold middle of last night,

crouched under a draughty Tamboo…

There is no danger down here,

or if any,

it will be well over before you read these lines.”

A week before the Armistice,

Wilfred Owen died,

crossing the Sambre Oise Canal,

shot at twenty-five.

Rio Chama

2011-05-31T04:16:00.001-06:00

At mile marker six, I spot a raft
hung up, abandoned.
Its gray ends flapping
against the current
like a sweating dog's tongue.

The wind is my only external companion
as I try to remember how to use
all the 24 gears
at my disposal.

Other cars,
most loaded with rafts
overtake me or meet me on the road,
but the SUV with the two kids
waving at me out their back window--
a mixture of awe and revery
strikes me as entirely fitting.

There's so many adjectives that I could use,
and I could load a sentence down with metaphors
yet only create something that while new,
neither adequately describes this area
or soars enough off the page
to make these words more than merely
evocative or imitative.

Words, despite the pretense and lie
of insisting they were the beginning
are just our way of understanding,
piercing our perception of reality
and making it make sense.

If our awakening consciousness
was the "word,"
then the sentence,
the poem--
was "good."

Yet the world that it described was better still
and it was always there
inspiring consciousness
to define it,
and applauding it
and saying, "Almost, but not quite."

May 28, 2011

The Left Handed Journal

2011-04-28T09:40:00.005-06:00

About ten years ago, I came up with the following idea: what if I wrote with my left hand? I suspected my penmanship would improve over time as I became more versatile with it, but would what I wrote and how I wrote about subjects change?

As a general rule, the left hand is connected to the right hemisphere of the brain and the right hand is connected to the left hemisphere of the brain. Would this be noticeable in my writing? I don't know. So in April I begin this rather unscientific study by, most mornings, just simply writing in a big sketch book with my left hand.

April 4th, 2011

The idea that my writing, my penmanship,
will improve is a hopeful one. Another
one is the idea that I'll tap some
otherwise unused portion of my
brain because my left hand is
wired differently than my right.
Science supports the idea
of different hemispheres connected
to left and right, but surely it
it thinks much, much faster. It
might even be faster to just ~~right~~
write with my right hand.

April 5th
There's a clarity at 4 in the
morning that I'm afraid of, as if
I don't deserve it. My thoughts
should be muddy; my heart should
feel the rush of nerves and at
4, that is all gone--my mind
a clear pool; my heart thumping
in my chest like a dripping faucet.

April 7th
They've closed the street
to deal with a water break.
The house across the street
is empty, condemned. I'm
pretty sure it was drugs. The
sun breaks through the gray clouds
that hung over the city like a
wet cardboard box-- rolls, layers
that dropped water some time
during the night like a visit
from the tooth fairy.

April 9th
The muscles still feel as if
I am not in control. I know what
letter I want to form, but
the nerves are just not formed.
This is a stroke victim's experience.
A breeze blows and flaps
the page and I think of my nephew
7 years old and just now learning
the shapes -- How is it we
learn to make shapes then forget
how it happened? Rote?

April 10th
When did I become such a serious
know-it-all? I find myself at
parties and listen in on my
own conversations and I'm so
serious--there is no small talk,
no weather speak, no kid update,
even celebrity dish. It's let me
tell you about publishing, the
finer details about writing bios,
blah,blah, blah.

April 11th
Some mornings I just wake-up
grumpy -- as if my mood is some
complex weather pattern, some
system that is waiting for mood
calculus to be invented. And
then I finish my 2nd cup of
coffee and all seems right
with the world; the stormfront
breaks; the wind dies down; the
sunlight rights the world.

April 12th
My bed is comfortable, yet at about
8 hours my lower back begins the
ache. A strange word ache--it really
does describe what it is. Yes, I
know there is a word for that, but
I don't want to get up and unearth
a dictionary just so I spell it
right.
I'm willing to sit with the left hand
for a bit, pushing through the resistance
that I notice because this is not
the right, write, hand.

April 13th
In the morning, the street revs
up like a 50's James Dean--and
then it's, "Go!" We always hurry;
we spin and have to get where
we have to get. Destination is
the work day; the reason I
am sitting here. Maybe I'd be
awake but without the structure
of the timeclock, the calendar,
I might've drifted back to sleep.

April 14th
I look forward to the
meditative concentration
bad penmanship requires.
As if the lack of facility
is some way of clearing my mind--
as useful as breathing in clear
breath and breathing out
black smoke--in a metaphorical
way--Breath in-smoke out;
breath in-smoke out.

April 15th
At the end of the day, which
is true, on the end of the week,
which is arbitrary--and really is
just arbitrary because I start
my week on Monday. Others
start their week on Friday.
Is it tradition, a throwback
for religion--sabbath for some--another
day makes it Sunday--and we mark
that day for Christ. What if
neither day really matters--
just 2 days off.

April 16th
A par of tiny birds fly
up to the tip-top of the tiny
mulberry tree. I look at its
cacophony of branches, no
dominant stump. By an arborist
friend's best guess, they actually
cut and buried the stump and
the tree the tiny birds chirp
from is just a conglomeration
of growth from one stump.
We're going to have to thin it out
some winter but not right
now.

April ~~16th~~17th
A police car pulls a U-turn
in front of the house, flips his
lights on, and roars down the street.
I look out and now see 3 cars;
their lights--red and blue-- spin
as if announcing, "Lookie here. We
caught something bad." Maybe
they have? How strange that I'm
suspicious and my baby sister--a cop--
probably sees the man walking
down the street and imagines a string
of violations and questions his desire
to be invisible.

April 19th-Tautology
The wind slowly picks up
as the day grows long, but upon
sunset it dies down. Spring in
New Mexico means winds and the
slow climb to hot weather--which
will happen here a month before
Summer officially begins. Calendars
don't make much sense anymore--we're synced
up to some clock that measures time
by watching a chunk of Cesium.
Cesium? Really? We might as
well insist on time by referencing
our cell phones.

April 20th
This is the unofficial pot holiday. I'm
sitting, drinking coffee and watching the
garbage man get as much garbage on
the street as in his truck. It's
hard to think about pot when
you aren't smoking it, eating it, dropping
it as a tincture, smearing it on as a lotion,
but wish you could.

April 21st
The timer on the hose kicks on
and the curled hose resembles a
caterpillar, Mel Gibson's crown of
thorns. The yard is alive; spring
is here, and there is hope--the
Earth returns. I look so longingly
for the months ahead, the longer days,
the return of time. For every car, there
is a forlorn driver, task master whose day
cannot, can never look like mine. I'll
take mine. I say that with conviction.

April 22nd
In the desolate expanse of Western
Arizona, the south wind bucks
and jostles the rental car. The
sun beats down, but the
air is cold. Spring is windy
here too. An omen of change,
transformation, cyclical,
planetwide
exhalation or is it exultation.
Thoughts drift by as well.

April 23rd
The pend flows freely in the
wanton ways of trained,
flamed wordsmith. Arizona,
you lack the willpower
to move-on, so just stop
trying. Leave--you're a wedding
singer hired for voiceovers. You're
a crammed trunk on the freeway.

April 25th
Funny how the week looks like
any other from the Monday morning
perch. And under the guise of the last
outing before reaching Albuquerque, the
Rio Puerco seems so far away. Perspective
is an amazing thing--the ~~signier~~ signifier from
the viewpoint of signed, the hearer's
perspective that says semiotic
construction is insane while another is
mundane.

April 26th
Writing every morning is quickly
becoming a necessity--as much a part
of my daily routine as opening my eyes.
The day just feels different--some
how more complete, yet the day has
just begun. This is a different sort
of meditation. The Dalai-Lama may
prefer one that focuses on breathing,
but I'll take left handed penmanship.
Don McIver

April ~~27th~~ 28th
Because the day started with such a bang, I
never found the time that was quiet
enough to seem right. This practice
is best done in the morning mind, a trickle
on a summer morning, the quiet of a
Sunday morning, the stillness of a
late night graveyard. Quiet, stillness,
defined as much by what it's not
as by what it is. Morning mind awakes.

Left Handed Artistic Statement

When I started this, I didn't really
have expectations. It was sort of an
exploratory hypothesis, a visual
document of my braining learning how to
control muscles in a new, yet familiar
way. What surprised me was how
visually the entries tease and
entice me in thinking I've got this,
I could write this way only to have
the pen suddenly go dry, trip up on
something and I'm trying to retrace a
letter or complete a letter from
where I left off. I can't
remember learning penmanship,
but I now know that it's more
complex than a word would let you
believe. May 1st

On Being a Writer

2011-04-05T16:25:00.007-06:00

On Being a Writer

I’m not sure why, but at an obviously weak moment when I was 17 years old I sat down at my desk and wrote a story. And after no editing, revising, creative writing classes, or real encouragement from any real writers or teachers, no ambition, discipline or any reasonable degree of aptitude announced –to myself mostly –and my best friend, “I want to be a writer.”

I wish I’d never uttered that phrase. Some ____ years later, I’m saddled with the weight of that phrase. I had no idea what I was getting into. I mean, this is America. No one really writes anymore, or at least how I imagined writing to be. Stephen King or Mary Higgins Clark don’t write; they work: 8 hours a day, complex formulas, books out on deadlines, book tours, etc.

I wanted to write. I wanted to sit down at the typewriter and see the words pour from my fingers as if they were a magic spell, as if each word had the marking of genius on it. Surely with enough literature under my belt, I’d be destined for some faculty office at some state university spending my time talking about “Kerouac’s Nation of Underground Monsters” and how they shaped our perceptions of artists today. I wanted to be a part of the literary dialogue.

Now dig this: I’m sitting in a coffee shop on Central and I’m a little shocked by what I just saw on the walk over. A white truck with a black dog in the bed pulled out in front of this green Saturn and was struck by it and spun around ninety degrees. The dog became a cart wheeling bundle of black fur and twisted and turned in the air for a good twenty feet. None of the people were harmed, and the cars – good old disposable cars – who cares. But the dog – he trotted back to the truck and jumped into the bed like nothing happened.

Now I can’t get the image out of my head, this black mass flipping and twisting in the air and I’m almost glad I didn’t see him hit the pavement, and I couldn’t stop and say I was a witness and give my name and address because I kept seeing this bundle of black fur that I didn’t even realize was a dog at first flying through the air in a mass of legs and paws and I’m supposed to write about Kerouac. I’m supposed to write about the disjointed style and verbal barrage of The Subterraneans when all I see is the black fur flipping and twisting and that image is juxtaposed against an image of my own black dog running out into the street and hitting a car and running back inside and dying on my living room floor. And I’m supposed to write about Kerouac when I can’t help but shake and freak out.

Take this image from my mind Jack. Take it with you on the road and you and Cassidy can mull it over and talk about how grand it is as you plow through the eternal present of 40’s America. And I wonder if you could write fast enough Jack. I wonder if the very act of writing is counter to Zen because you have to absorb the world then spit it back out. Then why write? Why write Jack? Answer me that.

I wanted to be Jack Kerouac.

And I wanted to get paid having serious conversations with serious people about serious subjects, and I wanted to bullshit my way through it. I wanted to get paid spouting bullshit. Bullshit has done a lot for me. I basically bs’ed my way through high school, much of my college career, and even a teaching certificate. I’m allowed to teach kids, really. And this doesn’t strike you as strange?

The Joint

Impossible to ignore,
the joint,
perfectly tapered and rolled,
leered at me from behind my wallet
or was it in my wallet?
I'm not sure, and I want to be sure.
Because if its mine,
then I want to spark it right now…,

drag the smoke into my lungs,
dilating alveoli,
galloping blood and adding THC to oxygen
until the world gets...higher
and grays melt into shades of darker gray and hues of dirty whites,
hints of purples, touches of blues
and I'm pulling my car out onto the highway
putting some Pink Floyd, Ozomatli, Robbie Robertson in
and feeling the engine rev below me
like the world has become a cross section
and I'm am looking at it...
sideways.
Unadulterated joy; unattenuated ecstasy; pure bliss.

But maybe this joint, perfectly tapered and rolled, is not mine?
In all my years of smoking
I've NEVER lost pot, marijuana, ganja, bud, dope, reefer.
NEVER.
It’s like the part of my brain responsible

for remembering where my pot is located is cordoned off,
walled in, surrounded by a gator filled moat
with a neon sign bursting from behind the ramparts
and announcing,

"Your pot, marijuana, ganja, bud, dope, reefer is here."
And it’s possible it’s not.
Because this is not my house,
and the bed that I am sleeping on is not mine,
and there's a Bob Marley tapestry hung from the wall
and it includes his name being spelled out in pot leaf configurations.

You see, I'm a traveling poet,
so I go through periods where couches,
guest bedrooms,
carpeted floors,
recliners make do and I'm sleeping in a stranger's house.

I'm in a cluttered house of a four corners poet,
whose teenage daughter is away,
and I'm on the daughter's bed
and I think this perfectly tapered and rolled joint is hers.
It has to be.
And there it is on the nightstand,
as if it was placed there just for me,
yet this poet,
most certainly her daughter,
doesn't know me well enough to know
that a gift joint
would be greatly appreciated.
But the idea that it’s a gift doesn't seem right.

And now I'm wondering if I should tell Mom about the joint.
But I'm not Nancy Reagan,
and telling mom that her daughter smokes pot doesn't feel right
and it also feels like its so obvious that mom has to know.
After talking with her the night before, she's too much the realist not to suspect,
if she doesn’t know for sure,
that her daughter, Bob Marley hung from the wall, smokes pot.
She has to know, and I don't want to tell her.
I don't.
Telling her starts with the assumption that she doesn’t know how to raise her kid

and that I do.

And I don't.

I don’t.

So I leave it, pack my bags, and set out on the road.
Just the thought of pot makes the sky turn a variety of gray
as snow starts to fall and I head up Wolf Creek pass.
My front wheel drive car starts to spin out,

but gets me up and over this nasty road not enjoying the music
but trying not to lose control in a world
that suddenly seems quite hostile
and not at all the kind of world I'd want to be stoned for.

Every time I was up in front of kids, they’d ask me if I smoked pot. And I could lie, bullshit. And they’d believe me. I’m really good at sounding convincing – it’s one of my talents. Hell, I got promoted in several jobs because I sounded like I knew what I was talking about.

Every novel I’ve written, and I’ve written three, is padded with bullshit. My first novel was

about a private detective hired to find a mom who’s skipped out on her marriage for the hell of it:

On the other side of the plate glass a punk gazed out on the heavy traffic.

Perched, like a parrot, on his shoulder a Sony boom-box blasted the latest

popular rap song.

Can you smell that? It’s not like I know any private detectives, so I’m channeling Humphrey Bogart? I saw The Maltese Falcon, once, and now I’m an expert on the “Private Dick.” A novelist? Right?

Not!

Okay. Okay. Maybe? But you can’t write mysteries where things happen for the hell of it. You can’t. That defeats the whole point of the genre. Maybe a real writer could write a mystery where the solution was “shit happens?” But me? I should probably stick to stuff that I know. But, I don’t really know anything; I just sound like I do.

The Blank Page

The blank page
is
undeniably white,
maybe lined,
frayed around the edges
or blue bordered
with common
icons.
But the mass of it is
blank,
like the night sky is mostly empty,
a vacuum,
and the space between nucleus
and orbiting electrons
is empty.
As if it too is waiting
for me
to create upon it.
Nevermind,
that this line
doesn’t use the full margins,
and this font
means that “O”
is set apart
by more
white
than black.
Creativity
needs
empty space,
a hollow chamber,
a background
and a foreground
a quiet house,
with the radio turned off,
the stove simmering
brown rice
and the phone messages returned.
Creating poetry
is
about silence,
not words,
not rhythm,
rhyme,
or conceit,
but listening to silence
and
plucking
the poem
as if it were a blooming dandelion
and blowing parts of it
upon this
blank page
and hoping some of it would grow.

I took a class – only the third time I’ve taken a writing class. And you know what? Real writers, as a rule, are lousy teachers. And I know, after getting my teaching certificate that writing is one of those skills that takes a long time to master and there is not one sure-fire method for teaching it. Yet, I sign up for a class that’s offered in the back of Writer’s Digest or offered through Continuing Education, you know: “Write the novel you’ve always dreamed you’d write!...” and all on a Saturday afternoon. Most of the time these classes were for people who were writing but just didn’t know what to do next. Part of the game is finding your audience, figuring out if the world is going to “reward” you by publishing you. You know my last writing teacher told me this, “You’ve got to write every day.” That’s it, his basic advice.

“You’ve got to write every day.” That’s what I paid for? I just paid three hundred dollars for you to tell me I’ve got to write every day. Maybe you could tell me how to brush my teeth too? “You’ve got to write every day?”

Yeah. I know. Writers write. Yet, I’d go through these spells where I didn’t write at all. And the thought of writing, but not sharing it with anybody is a little frustrating. When I finished my third novel, after 4 years, I never wanted to write again. I’d spent 4 years trying to convince myself that I was a writer, and I didn’t want to show it to anybody. But if I didn’t show it to anybody, what the hell had I been doing with my life. I hadn’t put myself on any other career path. I just wanted to be a writer. And now, at ____________ years old, I’m starting to question the whole idea.

Why couldn’t I have decided I wanted to be a basketball player?

At least by 24 you know whether you’re going to make it as an NBA star or not.

But writing? The world is full of stories of writers who don’t “make it” until after they’re dead: Henry David Thoreau published 2 books by the time of his death and during his life was considered sort of “weird.” Edgar Allen Poe died basically penniless on my birthday in 1849. Emily Dickinson published seven poems in her lifetime, seven. Franz Kafka’s best work wasn’t even published until after his death. There’s a whole website dedicated to “late-blooming novelists.” That’s people over fifty. Over fifty?

The world is full of stories of writers who don’t make it until they’re in their fifties. So if I give up now, then when I hit fifty, I’m gonna start asking myself, “What if I’d stuck it out? Maybe the world just wasn’t ready for my kind of stuff yet? Maybe I just haven’t met the right people?” You can spend your whole life writing and still not make it and suddenly, a week after you die, they discover you. I could die poor, reams and reams of unpublished stories that I cart from house to house, and still not amount to a thing. And then, suddenly, upon my “untimely” demise, I’m found and discovered brilliant. What kind of crap is that?

So you see the riddle I’m faced with in my rapidly approaching middle age? Do I write and hope that someday I’ll make it? I’ll produce something that someone with a little bit of money will buy and invest in and suddenly I’ll be on the career path that I chose? And if I’m never “discovered” do I continue to write even though my teeth are falling out of my head, my finances are burying me under a mountain of bills, and I’m slowly accumulating a long list of ex-girlfriends who hate me because I wrote about our relationship?

You’re Nuts

This one is dedicated to my ex-girlfriend.

It’s called “You’re Nuts.”

When the salted peanuts stale and the cashew and pistachios start to mix and match in the bowl,

I will think of you.

When the soft caress of a female voice starts to crack the shell covering my heart,

I will think of you.

When the Payday starts to sour and the taste of another girl’s kiss reminds me of the late night kisses,

long embraces, times I spent with you, I will remember your hollow shell

and I will think of you.

You’re nuts.

You’re the cashew that cracked upon hitting the floor,

the black peanut on the bottom of the bag,

the pistachio that only opens when bitten between molars,

the brazil nut that is ground up in cheap sorbet,

the rotten walnut that spoils the carrot cake,

the “chestnut roasting on an open fire” that goes up in flames and burns the house down at 5 AM;

you’re the bag of corn-nuts that’s been stuck in a bus station vending machine for 3 years,

the almond in a candy bar named “Almond Pain;

you’re Tom Green’s gonad that’s been removed on live television.

You’re nuts.

You’re nuts!

You really are.

What kind of life is this? What if this is the story I’m supposed to tell? What does that leave? Because you see, I want stuff. I want a new computer, a new stereo, my own house, a Camaro I can trade in on a Corvette. I want a 401K, a retirement plan, a dental and medical plan, a health club membership, 2.5 kids, a riding lawn mower.

And writing, unless I’m sort of inhuman machine and can crank out book after book, ain’t gonna do it. Writing ain’t gonna do crap.

Underwater
I want to write a poem that can be understood under water,
that can be listened to half submerged with just your eyes,
nostrils,
and mouth a part of air.
Your lover holds you
the poem is transmuted through the filter,
the long slow sound waves through liquid
no louder than your breath,
which at times is the loudest sound you hear.
Your skull's an echo chamber
as you realize even your breath carries a tune,
varies pitch and frequency.

I want to write a poem that would announce the coming of a tsunami,
a hurricane of thought as the words lack clarity,
a series of vowel sounds.
In the water, the consonants don't make sense:
a "K" sounds like an "A,"
a "T" is nothing more than an "E."
I want to write a poem that does this,
yet also says, "I love you,"or "This shit is fucked,"
or "Let me tell you about somethin'" under water,
where fish can rise and say, "That is deep," and want to cry.
And may be they do cry?
You'd never know,
cause your bodies submerged in tears as well.

I surrender. I like to write. I need to write. I like to get in front of people and read what I write. Occasionally, I write something that makes people laugh. But, sometimes in moments of distress, like when my teeth hurt, another bill collector gets my new number, or yet another girl dumps me, I wish I’d said, “I want to be a micro-systems analyst,” or “I want to administer Novocain to struggling artists.” But I didn’t. After that story, at 17 years old, I announced, “I want to be a writer.”
A writer.
I'm a writer.
I'm a writer.