Poetics: Various

By now, many of you have read that Billy Collins article over at The Normal Transcript, in which he states:

“One of the reasons people don’t read as much poetry anymore is the fault of the poets,” he said. “It’s not the public’s fault. There’s an awful lot of bad poetry out there. I’d say about 87 percent of the poetry in America isn’t worth reading.”

I think a lot of us enter that space of negativity, and say similarly negative things about our genre, rather than underscoring the poetry we think is awesome, laudable, that which we recommend, teach, forward, support in any way that we can. How is such negativity actually helpful for poetry? How does this statement move people to search actively for good poetry? This is something Oscar and I have been talking about, partially in response to this Collins article, and generally because Haters piss me off.

Apart from the obvious problem of negativity, the problem with Collins not telling tell us who (apart from himself) he believes is worth reading, and the problem of apparently not looking for more and different poetry, is that “transparent” poetry, that for which he advocates, is another way of saying “poetry that is accessible,” which I have discussed on this here blog. “Accessibility” is subjective to certain populations and communities. If the poetry written in our communities falls under the Collins’s category of not transparent poetry, then we are counted among the 87% of poetry he believes is  not worth reading. So fuck that, and fuck him. We need other, more constructive, more critical ways of advocating for the diverse poetries we believe is important and enjoyable.

I realize this isn’t very graceful of me to simply say, “Fuck that, and fuck him,” but I am so sick of poets demeaning audiences and readers with assumptions of their stupidity and dullness, and I am sick of poetry having to be this singular, essentialized thing.

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Here is my segue into yesterday’s super dense Pinay Poetics panel at SFSU for the KAPWA Conference. I’m still not sure how we ran out of time, but I am sure each poet who presented did so insightfully, thoughtfully. Some things:

Karen Llagas spoke of coming to identify more clearly the tension of place as experienced and imagined, and then place and self, as an adult immigrant to San Francisco from the Philippines, at the same time that she was learning to identify and cull “poem” from fragments of insight and expressions of angst she’d written in her notebooks.

Maiana Minahal’s second collection of poems, Legend Sondayo (Civil Defense Poetry, 2009) has just been released. Maiana discussed how she wove an autobiographical poetic voice into this folktale of the woman who battled the wind goddess who stole her husband. Subverting the story, Maiana brings it into a queer and urban, contemporary North American context. She describes this as writing from a place of absence or loss of home culture. I hear her creating a new culture or a new place to anchor.

Aimee Suzara spoke of objects or artifacts and complicating their contexts in poetry, how we communicate what is at stake when we write. What is the difference, for example, of writing about a rose, just because that is what poets do, versus writing a poetic voice of one living in a state of war encountering a rose? What is the difference between a poet writing about food which is all around us, versus writing a poetic voice of one who has known hunger or starvation.

Elsa Valmidiano spoke of her advocacy work as a post-abortion counselor, and how this is a topic Filipino Americans of all age brackets cannot publicly discuss. It is her advocacy work here, and that the subject is so taboo for our community which has informed some of her poetic voices. She described how she concentrates on one moment in that experience, and writes that one moment with compassion and humanness.

Irene Faye Duller, in her third of three panel presentations, retracted her opportunity to present as we were running over time, and generously gave her space to Niki Escobar.

Niki Escobar discussed how she always begins with a question, how nothing in our dailiness should be taken for granted. She then went on to discuss gender and poetic voice, mentors and colleagues who are dismissive “girly” or “feminine” poetic voices, and the historical, cultural need for the poet speak clearly, defiantly as a woman, as  Pinay.

Rick Rocamora, the social documentary photographer, well-known for his  photographs of the Filipino WWII veterans among many others, was in attendance, and he told us that his interest in hearing us speak comes from his belief in the importance of our creating documentation of our presence in America. He stressed our own documentation of our own lives and histories, versus others coming from the outside and telling the story of who they think we are.

Estella Habal, who is the author of San Francisco’s International Hotel (Temple University Press, 2007) was also in attendance. She is a professor at SJSU, and wanted to know how to effectively integrate poetry into her courses on Filipino American culture and history. There was unfortunately no time to ask her why she believed this was important, though I suspect this has to do with the same reasons why interdisciplinary approaches are taken in Ethnic Studies courses. So many of our social and political movements are documented in our art.

So this is some of the exciting stuff happening in Filipina American poetry, and as our discussions were bursting at the seams and out of our allotted time slot, I believe more conversations should happen. Now it’s about creating that space for further conversations to happen. I believe we had a substantial, concrete, and constructive discussion on poetic craft and access.