The Opposite of the Death of Poetry

Thank you to those of you who came out and supported! Yesterday’s reading with Randall Mann, Kristin Naca, Debbie Yee, and Mariano Zaro was just fabulous.

As Randall noted, he and Kristin are apparently the boy and girl versions of each other, both presenting poetry of torrid love affairs and other deep cutting, concrete and meticulous, unapologetic work. Debbie brought her best work, very particularly detailed, imaginative and full of critters who are aspects of human personalities. Mariano recited in two languages portions of a longer poetry project set in Thailand, paying acute attention and with compassion, witnessing in a language and culture not known to him. Everything sounds better in Spanish.

Actually, for all the poets, I think of the word “recitation,” in its best connotations; each was very poised, very professional, very self-knowledgeable and confident in his/her presentations.

You can find pictures and video, courtesy of Oscar Bermeo, up on the PAWA blog:

http://pawainc.blogspot.com/2009/07/scenes-from-71109-pawa-arkipelago.html

Here is our schedule for the rest of the year:

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 (register). Reading with Neela Banerjee, Luis Francia, Alejandro Murguía, and Jean Vengua. 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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I will be here tomorrow evening, supporting my fellow Tinfish Press authors:

Our Sea of Words: Poetry from Oceania and Beyond

Monday, July 13, 2009
7:30 pm
Pegasus Books Downtown Berkeley
Shattuck Ave. at Durant

Maile Arvin is a Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) poet from Kentucky and Hawai’i. Her work is published in two chapbooks by Kearny Street Workshop, Same Place, Same Time (2006) and 12 Ways: an anthology of the Intergenerational Writer’s Lab (2007). She is also a graduate student in the PhD program in Ethnic Studies at the University of California, San Diego.

Fuifuilupe Niumeitolu is a Tongan American scholar, poet and community activist. Her work has been published in Amerasia, The Contemporary Pacific and The Berkeley Poetry Review. Fuifuilupe is a doctoral student at the University of California, Berkeley and she is on the organizing committee of OLO; One Love Oceania, a Pacific Islander community response to homophobia.

Loa Niumeitolu’s poetry is published in Whetu Moana: Contemporary Polynesian Poetry in English. Her essay “The Route Back to Tonga,” is published in Homelands: Women’s Journeys Across Race, Place and Time. Niumeitolu is a community organizer around issues of prisons and incarceration. She is a founding member of One Love Oceania, a Pacific Island women’s queer support and political group in the Bay Area.

Craig Santos Perez, a native Chamoru from the Pacific Island of Guahan (Guam), is the co-founder of Achiote Press and author of the poetry book from unincorporated territory [hacha] (Tinfish Press, 2008). He is currently a PhD candidate in Comparative Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

Caroline Sinavaiana, Associate Professor of English at UH Manoa, teaches Oceanic and comparative literatures, and creative writing. She has published, lectured, and read her poetry and scholarship in many countries, including the US, China, India, Italy, Barbados, Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, and New Zealand. Poetry collections include: Alchemies of Distance (Tinfish, AA Arts, & Institute for Pacific Studies), and Mohawk/Samoa: Transmigrations (AA Arts). Her book on traditional comic theater in Samoa – House of the Spirits — is forthcoming from the Institute of Pacific Studies. At present, Sinavaiana is completing a new collection of poetry, and a memoir with the working title, Nuclear Medicine.

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Now. Off to Foothill College for my last day of teaching.