Poetics, Supporting Other Writers, and the PAWA Arkipelago Author Workshop and Reading Series

[Edit: additions to our PAWA reading schedule!]

It seems my recent Billy Collins post has garnered much interest and discussion, so thank you all for your comments. I am always glad to have these conversations, though I am interested in folks’ responses to my Kay Ryan post. I am trying to stay in a positive space, and I think the poetic openness discussed in the Ryan article is a good impetus to reassess what I am doing. The Pinay Poetics panel at KAPWA, for example, reminded me that some of my most important work is to remain concrete in my support of my Pinay, API, and writers of color colleagues and emerging writers.

My concern is how we practice and maintain community in such an apparently competitive field, whose monetary rewards are non-existent, and whose resources are already apparently stretched thin.

This is an excerpt from my response to Lee Herrick’s comment on the Billy Collins post:

I really do believe in supporting my colleagues and community members whose work I really do admire, and I believe very strongly in encouraging and mentoring emerging writers. I am pretty selective though, given my limited time and energy, and my selectiveness is based on having read their developing work over time, and that they have demonstrated to me their level of seriousness and commitment. i.e. anybody coming at me telling me they are a poet, but have very little work to show for it, or are still reading the same poems they’ve been reading for the past many years, or whose writing appears not to have developed or grown over time, or who are resistant or closed to criticism, editing and revision, I’m not going to expend much of my energy to support.

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For me, concrete support comes in forms including but not limited to: reading their work when asked, and providing suggestions for edits,  revisions, and further reading; writing letters of recommendation for emerging writers applying to various writing programs and other positions in arts or education; providing writers’ and authors’ names to editors and readings curators for suggestions of poets to include in their journals, anthologies, and reading series; soliciting work from writers when guest editing publications; including their work on my syllabi when teaching, and providing suggestions to other educators; reviewing their books for review venues if I have time, or in the very least, on this here blog; helping publicize their events and recent publications in my various literary online venues; and inviting them to participate in any readings or panels I curate.

I realize many of us feel guarded; we need to conserve our energy for our own writing projects and hustling. The Poetic Industrial Complex is tough and many times unkind. I actually believe, however, and have experienced, that our acts of concrete support are returned to us in different forms. This, of course, is different from enbitching others, or being enbitched by others.

That said, here is the developing schedule for our PAWA Arkipelago Literary Series, in which we are trying to mix it up with local and national writers, emerging writers and established authors in different genres, Filipino Americans and more:

07/11/2009: Randall Mann, Kristin Naca, Debbie Yee, and Mariano Zaro. 2 pm @ SFPL.

08/23/2009: Penélope V. Flores, Joaquin (Jay) Gonzalez, Kevin Nadal, and Benito M. Vergara, Jr. 2 pm @ the Bayanihan Community Center (Mission @ 6th), SF.

09/19/2009: Oliver de la Paz, Joseph O. Legaspi, Mari L’Esperance, and Theresa Calpotura (guitar). 2 pm @ the Bayanihan Community Center.

10/17/2009: Writing Workshop with Luis Francia. 10 am @ the Bayanihan Community Center. Reading with Neela Banerjee, Luis Francia, Jean Vengua, and other TBA. 2 pm @ the Bayanihan Community Center.

11/07/2009: Justin Chin, Sarah Gambito, Maiana Minahal, and Marianne Villanueva. 2 pm @ the Bayanihan Community Center.

All readings are free and open to the public.

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Interested in folks’ input.