E-Poet E-Resolution

Every year I try to resolve not to get pulled into, not to get weighed down by other people’s po-biz drama, and every year I fail at this. I try to stay focused my on work, believe I am doing some good, and then one kvetching individual just works his or her way under my skin in the worst way. In my best moments of clarity, I know it’s really a waste of my energy, fixating on the kvetching individuals, on who’s hatin’ on who, who’s beating their chests, what is fucked up about individuals who represent or claim to represent Poetry when really they are just little people who seem to have forgotten that this is about writing very good, even great poetry, and getting it into the world via live readings and performances, via print and e-publication.

At the emerging writers’ panel at SFPL, an attendee had asked whether wanting status was enough of a reason for pursuing the MFA. This is a totally legitimate question, as po-biz is so caught up in the status game that people forget this is supposed to be about producing great work and sharing it with others. It seems it’s those MFA’ed poets who get everything — the book contracts, the sexy prizes and awards, the teaching gigs. (Certainly, the college and university teaching positions require or highly prefer the terminal degree MFA over the MA or other master’s degree.) One of our panelists, Rashaan Alexis Meneses responded by cautioning against participating in that status seeking game. If you pursue the MFA as a status symbol, then after you earn it, there will be another status symbol just beyond your grasp, and another, and another.

Alas, let me not end the year on a sour note. This post is not about the MFA.

I don’t want to think it’s too simple, too idealistic, to think of focusing on reaching our intended audiences, affecting them in some way, seeing the beginnings of dialogue which result from working to set our art into the world, how this indeed grows readership, audience, and community. I have to come back to this belief, when po-biz is out of control, when the negative, desperate energy, neuroses, and flippancy of others starts eating at me, when there’s more gossip and bullying than poetry and poetics being discussed.

I have been working, albeit sidetracked, bogged down by other people’s drama. I am writing this post to remind myself that while the work of poetry, of publishing, of promoting the good work of others, of leading and maintaining community is hard, the work is ultimately rewarding.

I continue to have a lot of work to do, including but not limited to:

• Finalizing my syllabus for Filipino American Arts at USF. I will be focused on contemporary artists in visual art, film, literature, and performance, and as with this past semester’s course, using the remix as my overarching theme.
• Finalizing Diwata details: I have been in positive contact with two possible “blurbers,”to whom I’ve sent Diwata, and am awaiting word back from a couple of others, and my editors and I are generally agreed on the cover art, which would be produced by a local Filipino American artist.
• Creating the PAWA Reading Series line-up for 2010, which I believe should include less mashing together of disparate readers, and more substantial focus on combined readings and talks, on process, genre, cultural, historical, and political issues in our art.
• Writing new poems.
• Submitting poems and essays to more journals and anthologies.
• Reviewing more books of poetry.
• Restarting my two poetic projects which have since fallen by the wayside: (1) Pinay narratives, and (2) Manila/city narratives.
• More active mentoring of emerging writers.
• For real, launching our small press.

Happy Winter Solstice. I wish you all much creativity and clarity.