November 15, 2009
November 06, 2009
While at Jena's I realized I was sleeping near Ubu and the Truth Comission by Jane Taylor. So I read it.
November 03, 2009
I had to introduce and then ask questions of Jonathan Skinner at a reading at the U of Arizona, Tucson Poetry Center.
Introduction:
I sort of want to introduce Jonathan Skinner by talking all about myself. But narcissism is not my motive. I feel that he is exemplary as an example of how one can be a poet in the world and I have learned a lot from him about this work of being a poet and I think I am not the only one who might tell this story. The story goes like this… I was for many years a poet who was well schooled in experimental traditions. I barely thought about any sort of poetry that wasn’t written in the modernist tradition. Which meant I didn’t think much about nature poetry. If I had, I probably would have thought that it was not of my concern; that this sort of content was better left to those beats influenced by the eastern traditions, like Gary Snyder, or the lyrical poets of what I probably would have dismissed as suburban pastoral. I was two things that I felt had no use for nature poetry: I was rural industrial by birth and I was urban by choice. But one thing that Jonathan’s work as both a poet and as an editor of the journal Ecopoetics did was insist that the planet needed the attentions of all sorts of poetry. That this issue—the environmental collapse that so defines this time—needs all of our attention, needs all of our brains, needs all of our poetic forms. Jonathan is well aware of the special status that the natural world has to poetry. That its traditions have long held irreplaceable knowledge of plants and animals and winds and currents. That it has often held within it systemic and ecological representations. And his own poetry acknowledges this as it is attentively listening to the quiet an the loud, refusing the divides between nature and culture, full of clash and meditation. Please welcome him.
Three questions:
You somewhat “own” the term ecopoetics. And yet, as a student pointed out to me the other day, you are constantly disowning it. Or complicating it. I am thinking here of your piece “Statement for ‘New Nature Writing’ Panel at 2005 AWP” where you come up with four very complicated and multisyllabic terms. And the journal itself is relentlessly inclusive. At moments almost puzzling so. Talk some about this strategy.
We’ve been emailing a lot and we keep talking about this issue of inclusivity. About how an ecopoetry should do all sorts of work and also some about when it isn’t doing any sort of work at all, or what I want to call the “March of the Penguins” problem, where something might seem to be deliberately covering over or ignoring something crucial about environmental crisis. Are there limits to your inclusivity? And if so, what are they? Is there a bad ecopoetry/nature poetry?
Composition. You are always telling us to get out. You tell us to visit the wetlands in your Katrina poem. And yet your poetry also often shows its book learning, its reliance on the field guide. Talk some about this.
Introduction:
I sort of want to introduce Jonathan Skinner by talking all about myself. But narcissism is not my motive. I feel that he is exemplary as an example of how one can be a poet in the world and I have learned a lot from him about this work of being a poet and I think I am not the only one who might tell this story. The story goes like this… I was for many years a poet who was well schooled in experimental traditions. I barely thought about any sort of poetry that wasn’t written in the modernist tradition. Which meant I didn’t think much about nature poetry. If I had, I probably would have thought that it was not of my concern; that this sort of content was better left to those beats influenced by the eastern traditions, like Gary Snyder, or the lyrical poets of what I probably would have dismissed as suburban pastoral. I was two things that I felt had no use for nature poetry: I was rural industrial by birth and I was urban by choice. But one thing that Jonathan’s work as both a poet and as an editor of the journal Ecopoetics did was insist that the planet needed the attentions of all sorts of poetry. That this issue—the environmental collapse that so defines this time—needs all of our attention, needs all of our brains, needs all of our poetic forms. Jonathan is well aware of the special status that the natural world has to poetry. That its traditions have long held irreplaceable knowledge of plants and animals and winds and currents. That it has often held within it systemic and ecological representations. And his own poetry acknowledges this as it is attentively listening to the quiet an the loud, refusing the divides between nature and culture, full of clash and meditation. Please welcome him.
Three questions:
You somewhat “own” the term ecopoetics. And yet, as a student pointed out to me the other day, you are constantly disowning it. Or complicating it. I am thinking here of your piece “Statement for ‘New Nature Writing’ Panel at 2005 AWP” where you come up with four very complicated and multisyllabic terms. And the journal itself is relentlessly inclusive. At moments almost puzzling so. Talk some about this strategy.
We’ve been emailing a lot and we keep talking about this issue of inclusivity. About how an ecopoetry should do all sorts of work and also some about when it isn’t doing any sort of work at all, or what I want to call the “March of the Penguins” problem, where something might seem to be deliberately covering over or ignoring something crucial about environmental crisis. Are there limits to your inclusivity? And if so, what are they? Is there a bad ecopoetry/nature poetry?
Composition. You are always telling us to get out. You tell us to visit the wetlands in your Katrina poem. And yet your poetry also often shows its book learning, its reliance on the field guide. Talk some about this.
October 23, 2009
Then right after finishing the Coming Insurrection, I pick up Jordan Scott's Blert. Oh, this one making me so happy also for entirely different reasons. I want to say something dumb and nation state stupid about all the best writing coming out of Canada. I love the move between complication of stutter inducing language and then the pause lines of "What is the syllable?" Keeping thinking of that Green Day song of so many years ago--1996?; I lived in Albany--and how it did this. What is that song? It was super catchy. It had what I can only describe as a pause refrain.
Ok, I confess how susceptible I am to loving the Coming Insurrection. I tell Charles it is written for the unaffiliated. Which is why I feel love and he feels annoyance. Perhaps also because it uses the language of the love poem, or is so attentive to social relations and unafraid of being all sappy about them. I need my insurrectionary texts filled with sap?; I confess.
I am wondering if my depression lately is because the much promised end did not come with the the economic crisis. I am convinced I will find happiness in the end times. Why is that? My depression is what the Coming Insurrection acknowledges and then claims it can cure.
In the revolutionary insurrectionary text generator, Charles points me to this code:
def recognize: "Confronted with those who #{dont_do} to recognize themselves in our #{events} of #{fun_stuff}, we offer neither #{get_along} nor #{get_along} but only our #{go_away}."
The Automatic Insurrectionary Text Generator complains: "The purpose of this little program is to expose the seductions of rhetoric, not to criticize actions taken."
But the writer self in me is all like if not the good line with its seduction, then how?
My list of some of the #{fun_stuff} (aka poignant moving writing that might begin the emotions of motion) from the Coming Insurrection...
terrible bonds: "To organize is not to give a structure to weakness. It is above all to form bonds--bonds that are by no means neutral--terrible bonds. The degree of organization is measured by the intensity of sharing--material and spiritual." p. 15
"How do we find each other?" p. 19 This is throughout the book. The find each other being first part. That is the part that is so sappy lovely.
About November 2005: "The grapevine can't be wiretapped." p. 56
I love the description of the problem: "A graphic designer wearing a handmade sweater is drinking a fruity cocktail with some friends on the terrace of an 'ethnic' cafe." p. 69 And then a few sentences later: "And they are right."
This line about the environment: "And now it's caught up to us, invading the airwaves like a hit song in summertime, because it's 68 degrees in December." p. 73
I am wondering if my depression lately is because the much promised end did not come with the the economic crisis. I am convinced I will find happiness in the end times. Why is that? My depression is what the Coming Insurrection acknowledges and then claims it can cure.
In the revolutionary insurrectionary text generator, Charles points me to this code:
def recognize: "Confronted with those who #{dont_do} to recognize themselves in our #{events} of #{fun_stuff}, we offer neither #{get_along} nor #{get_along} but only our #{go_away}."
The Automatic Insurrectionary Text Generator complains: "The purpose of this little program is to expose the seductions of rhetoric, not to criticize actions taken."
But the writer self in me is all like if not the good line with its seduction, then how?
My list of some of the #{fun_stuff} (aka poignant moving writing that might begin the emotions of motion) from the Coming Insurrection...
terrible bonds: "To organize is not to give a structure to weakness. It is above all to form bonds--bonds that are by no means neutral--terrible bonds. The degree of organization is measured by the intensity of sharing--material and spiritual." p. 15
"How do we find each other?" p. 19 This is throughout the book. The find each other being first part. That is the part that is so sappy lovely.
About November 2005: "The grapevine can't be wiretapped." p. 56
I love the description of the problem: "A graphic designer wearing a handmade sweater is drinking a fruity cocktail with some friends on the terrace of an 'ethnic' cafe." p. 69 And then a few sentences later: "And they are right."
This line about the environment: "And now it's caught up to us, invading the airwaves like a hit song in summertime, because it's 68 degrees in December." p. 73
October 18, 2009
Thursday night, after yoga ("raise the inner lining of your anus and take it into your chest" or something like that) and after frantic conversation about teaching in steam room and while waiting for dbuuck to meet me at bar for something resembling dinnersnack, I was loving Aase Berg's selected Remainland. Buuck was late so I felt desperate for more of the book. More please! All of Transfer Fat please!
Then petulant and stupidly refusing to sleep reading Thomas D. Church, Gardens are For People. So many pools! I keep trying to understand shapes other than squares.
Then petulant and stupidly refusing to sleep reading Thomas D. Church, Gardens are For People. So many pools! I keep trying to understand shapes other than squares.
October 13, 2009
Do you really want to say “rubbing my chest”?
Is this the right gesture to remind a lover of his/her beloved?
Why not just say “last month” or “last week”?
What do you mean by the mist spreading?
What does it mean that the lover is illuminating?
Why does illuminating mean that one cannot see the beloved?
How can the lover read love letters while walking in the rain?
Why was the love bought by money that separates?
What does “it” refer to?
The sky?
Love?
Why does it pour rain of desertion and dreariness?
Is this the right gesture to remind a lover of his/her beloved?
Why not just say “last month” or “last week”?
What do you mean by the mist spreading?
What does it mean that the lover is illuminating?
Why does illuminating mean that one cannot see the beloved?
How can the lover read love letters while walking in the rain?
Why was the love bought by money that separates?
What does “it” refer to?
The sky?
Love?
Why does it pour rain of desertion and dreariness?
October 03, 2009
Jerome McGann, "Pseudodoxia Academica"
Frances Ferguson, "Planetary Literary History: The Place of the Text." Super useful old skool style discussion of the dialogue that the Moretti and Casanova works are creating (both of which I plan to assign next semester).
Two by David Larsen...
"Precedence and Innovation in the Bilingual Nabataean Inscription at 'En 'Avdat." Which is fascinating for how far it feels from the sort of literary criticism that I'm used to reading. Detailed discussion of a few lines that read something like "And he acts neither for benefit not favor. And if death claims us let me not be claimed. And if affliction seeks, let it not seek us. Garm'alahi wrote this with his own hand." Although that is just one possible version. And the point of the article is to suggest some others.
Then, LRSN-voice returns, in "Translation as Conceptual Writing." Which made me love his Names of the Lion even more. "But translation from the language of the colonized to the lang. of the colonizer's is the more characteristic direction of empire, because it's empire that has the resources and the need to know about its subject populations."
Also in print out, a bunch of work by Jonathan Skinner...includes a really great syllabus on ecopoetics that states "Unless otherwise noted, and weather permitting, we'll hold our classes around the old fireplace at the top of Thorncrag."
"So I wanted to include a lot of information in this poem--to document, as it were, the recent and not so recent history--I needed a new form, something radically more expansive than the lyric condensery of the warblers. So broke into very long, 'landscape'-format lines, three to a stanza."
And yet more in print out... Bea Gates, "DOS."
Brian McHale, "How Not to Read Closely" which is a review of Peter Middleton's Distant Reading and I want to remind self to get this book and to read in particular the chapter on the history of the poetry reading.
Ines Hernandez-Avila, "A Conversation with Juan Gregorio Regino, Mazatec Poet."
"I also wanted to write poetry, because it wasn't enough to say, 'Well, now we have the alphabet.' What is important was to create things, to produce written work. In that momen I thought poetry could be an excellent form of expression, of communicating, and above all to have written material that could help teachers in the process of learning the Mazatec alphabet. That's how I began." p. 122-3.
"to say, 'I recover things,' but through poetry I'm able in turn to transmit it [once again]. So how this is ultimately written is important to me." p. 124
Great conversation over breakfast with Inger Elisabeth Hansen, who works as an editor reading poetry mss, about gender and the interior/exterior and how women are writing now in Norway. I was reading Ariana Reines' Coeur de Lion at same time so I kept talking about it.
Began working my way through Algeria in Others' Languages.
Frances Ferguson, "Planetary Literary History: The Place of the Text." Super useful old skool style discussion of the dialogue that the Moretti and Casanova works are creating (both of which I plan to assign next semester).
Two by David Larsen...
"Precedence and Innovation in the Bilingual Nabataean Inscription at 'En 'Avdat." Which is fascinating for how far it feels from the sort of literary criticism that I'm used to reading. Detailed discussion of a few lines that read something like "And he acts neither for benefit not favor. And if death claims us let me not be claimed. And if affliction seeks, let it not seek us. Garm'alahi wrote this with his own hand." Although that is just one possible version. And the point of the article is to suggest some others.
Then, LRSN-voice returns, in "Translation as Conceptual Writing." Which made me love his Names of the Lion even more. "But translation from the language of the colonized to the lang. of the colonizer's is the more characteristic direction of empire, because it's empire that has the resources and the need to know about its subject populations."
Also in print out, a bunch of work by Jonathan Skinner...includes a really great syllabus on ecopoetics that states "Unless otherwise noted, and weather permitting, we'll hold our classes around the old fireplace at the top of Thorncrag."
"So I wanted to include a lot of information in this poem--to document, as it were, the recent and not so recent history--I needed a new form, something radically more expansive than the lyric condensery of the warblers. So broke into very long, 'landscape'-format lines, three to a stanza."
And yet more in print out... Bea Gates, "DOS."
Brian McHale, "How Not to Read Closely" which is a review of Peter Middleton's Distant Reading and I want to remind self to get this book and to read in particular the chapter on the history of the poetry reading.
Ines Hernandez-Avila, "A Conversation with Juan Gregorio Regino, Mazatec Poet."
"I also wanted to write poetry, because it wasn't enough to say, 'Well, now we have the alphabet.' What is important was to create things, to produce written work. In that momen I thought poetry could be an excellent form of expression, of communicating, and above all to have written material that could help teachers in the process of learning the Mazatec alphabet. That's how I began." p. 122-3.
"to say, 'I recover things,' but through poetry I'm able in turn to transmit it [once again]. So how this is ultimately written is important to me." p. 124
Great conversation over breakfast with Inger Elisabeth Hansen, who works as an editor reading poetry mss, about gender and the interior/exterior and how women are writing now in Norway. I was reading Ariana Reines' Coeur de Lion at same time so I kept talking about it.
Began working my way through Algeria in Others' Languages.
September 24, 2009
On plane ride home, two Berkeley moments…
Richard Kempton’s Provo: Amsterdam’s Anarchist Revolt. Kempton, writing about the limits of Provo, about how it does not extend much beyond the Dutch speaking, also notes: “Self-proclaimed Provos did raise their heads in the United States: Los Angeles, Berkeley, and Davis (on the University of California campuses), among other places. One legacy of this ‘invisible’ heritage is Provo Park (formerly Constitution Square) across the street from Berkeley City Hall.” p. 130
(Once home, I look it up. It turns out it is the park that I think of as the place to take Sasha to watch skateboarding but it is now renamed the Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park.)
Interested in the Provo technique of placing all happenings or protests or whatever at “an appropriate local statue.” p. 129
Then in an old issue of Harper’s (April 2009) an article on payday lending by Daniel Brook. The article ends with this: “Each year, the rest of the country looks a little more like Cleveland [Tennessee]. In 1949, Tennessee’s poverty rate was twice that of California. Today, they are equal. During the civil rights era, when middle-class Californians from Berkeley came to the South for sit-ins and voter-registration drives, they were shocked--and rightly so--by the poverty they saw. But today Berkeley, a capital of our laissez-faire tech and finance economy, was as of the most recent census the second most unequal city in America, right below Atlanta.” p. 48
Richard Kempton’s Provo: Amsterdam’s Anarchist Revolt. Kempton, writing about the limits of Provo, about how it does not extend much beyond the Dutch speaking, also notes: “Self-proclaimed Provos did raise their heads in the United States: Los Angeles, Berkeley, and Davis (on the University of California campuses), among other places. One legacy of this ‘invisible’ heritage is Provo Park (formerly Constitution Square) across the street from Berkeley City Hall.” p. 130
(Once home, I look it up. It turns out it is the park that I think of as the place to take Sasha to watch skateboarding but it is now renamed the Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park.)
Interested in the Provo technique of placing all happenings or protests or whatever at “an appropriate local statue.” p. 129
Then in an old issue of Harper’s (April 2009) an article on payday lending by Daniel Brook. The article ends with this: “Each year, the rest of the country looks a little more like Cleveland [Tennessee]. In 1949, Tennessee’s poverty rate was twice that of California. Today, they are equal. During the civil rights era, when middle-class Californians from Berkeley came to the South for sit-ins and voter-registration drives, they were shocked--and rightly so--by the poverty they saw. But today Berkeley, a capital of our laissez-faire tech and finance economy, was as of the most recent census the second most unequal city in America, right below Atlanta.” p. 48
September 18, 2009
Friday
Jules Boykoff, Hegemonic Love Potion
Also, good portions of E. S. Burt's Poetry's Appeal: Nineteenth Century French Lyric and the Political Space on Thursday. I picked this up at the MLA book fair a few years ago and keep not getting to it. There was much to steal, I mean reference, in the talk of how the lyric intersects with the political space. And convinced that the 19th century in France is a really interesting time for thinking about this. I confess I kept skipping the close readings. Mainly because I am not that familiar with 19th century French lyric and probably am not going to make myself anytime soon. Which made me wonder some about why "close reading" isn't more for its own sake.
Also, and I'm sure I'm the only person in the poetry planet who doesn't already know this, learned that the Tennis Court Oaths is not just a title of a book by Ashbery but an actual moment when some oaths were signed on a tennis court during the French revolution. Feeling super stupid and myopic.
Earl E. Fitz, "Inter-American Studies as an Emerging Field: The Future of a Discipline."
Paul Giles, "Commentary: Hemispheric Partiality."
Jules Boykoff, Hegemonic Love Potion
Also, good portions of E. S. Burt's Poetry's Appeal: Nineteenth Century French Lyric and the Political Space on Thursday. I picked this up at the MLA book fair a few years ago and keep not getting to it. There was much to steal, I mean reference, in the talk of how the lyric intersects with the political space. And convinced that the 19th century in France is a really interesting time for thinking about this. I confess I kept skipping the close readings. Mainly because I am not that familiar with 19th century French lyric and probably am not going to make myself anytime soon. Which made me wonder some about why "close reading" isn't more for its own sake.
Also, and I'm sure I'm the only person in the poetry planet who doesn't already know this, learned that the Tennis Court Oaths is not just a title of a book by Ashbery but an actual moment when some oaths were signed on a tennis court during the French revolution. Feeling super stupid and myopic.
Earl E. Fitz, "Inter-American Studies as an Emerging Field: The Future of a Discipline."
Paul Giles, "Commentary: Hemispheric Partiality."
September 17, 2009
Tuesday
CA Conrad, Advance Elvis Course.
Wednesday
Lisa Robertson Magenta Soul Whip. I am reading this line "We go/Daily to the botanical gardens to witness/Complication" (p. 20) and realize what time it is and walk out of hotel just as Peter pulls up to drive me to the arboretum.
CA Conrad, Advance Elvis Course.
Wednesday
Lisa Robertson Magenta Soul Whip. I am reading this line "We go/Daily to the botanical gardens to witness/Complication" (p. 20) and realize what time it is and walk out of hotel just as Peter pulls up to drive me to the arboretum.
September 16, 2009
Day Three of Together We Will Attempt to Write A Book About Tuscaloosa
The idea was that there would be two groups. And each group would take the material we had generated in the first two classes and then together make a long piece. The groups were to ask themselves this as they did this...
What could this book about Tuscaloosa say?
How could it say it?
What are its alliances? Who is it written for?
And also think about the balance between systemic critique (as distinct from complaint) and celebration/uplift.
And also at some point the long piece should admit somehow who the writers are (we were a room full of people who had spent no more than 5 years in Tuscaloosa and that felt very important to all of us).
I thought this would take an hour. But it took two.
And then we heard the pieces. And that took another 45 minutes. They were great to hear and I really liked hearing them.
And then we discussed what we might be able to do next. But it felt as if time was running out. Actually, time was running out. So we discussed what we might do if we had time. What discussions we might have.
I should also note that the first day of the workshop no one talked. We all just grabbed prompts and wrote.
And then the second day of the workshop, we all wrote on the same prompt together and then heard what the others had written before we went on to the next prompt.
The idea was that there would be two groups. And each group would take the material we had generated in the first two classes and then together make a long piece. The groups were to ask themselves this as they did this...
What could this book about Tuscaloosa say?
How could it say it?
What are its alliances? Who is it written for?
And also think about the balance between systemic critique (as distinct from complaint) and celebration/uplift.
And also at some point the long piece should admit somehow who the writers are (we were a room full of people who had spent no more than 5 years in Tuscaloosa and that felt very important to all of us).
I thought this would take an hour. But it took two.
And then we heard the pieces. And that took another 45 minutes. They were great to hear and I really liked hearing them.
And then we discussed what we might be able to do next. But it felt as if time was running out. Actually, time was running out. So we discussed what we might do if we had time. What discussions we might have.
I should also note that the first day of the workshop no one talked. We all just grabbed prompts and wrote.
And then the second day of the workshop, we all wrote on the same prompt together and then heard what the others had written before we went on to the next prompt.
September 15, 2009
Day Two of Together We Will Attempt to Write A Book about Tuscaloosa
Prompts...
Celebrate.
Add to "The thing to do in Tuscaloosa..."
Add to neighborhood piece by using these phrases as a beginning:
Why should we write this "book", write about Tuscaloosa? Who should we write it for? What are its alliances? Begin though with this phrase: What I want you to realize is....
Two pieces about specific spaces. Such as 17th Street and 34th Avenue or Spring Hill Lake or McFarland Blvd.
I typed up everyone's work from yesterday. Then alphabetized by first letter. The typing took too long and so can't do today's. 20 pages of data on Tuscaloosa.
Found pieces in it...
I’m a crushed can of beer.
I’m a crushed can of beer.
I’m a wet cardboard box in a parking lot.
I’m bread molding on the porch / mustard dried on the front door
I’m chaw spat in a 20 oz pepsi bottle sideways in a gutter
I’m hog waste animal bones.
If blessing fails.
If bombs are clear.
If contact is.
If contact neutralizes.
If failure blesses.
If it all keeps growing and turning and twining then we do not need to keep moving it down despite the rain day in and day out, late in the afternoon, drenching it all so.
If leaves are medium, green deciduous.
If love is a bomb that won’t.
If love is a train that.
If love.
If neutralizing doesn’t.
If play is.
If the branches arch to form a mound.
If the flowers are yellow terminal clusters.
If the fruit is a capsule.
If the leaves are prominent with silvery scales.
If the leaves are simple.
If the margins are sharp toothed.
If the shade is dappled.
If the soil is moist, well-drained.
If the stamens appear evenly.
If the stamens protrude.
If the twigs are silvery brown and scaly.
If there is no clear.
If there is no fruit.
If together our.
If together we.
If turning back doesn’t.
If we fail.
If we love.
If we.
If you are a woman walking with your hand on another woman’s, you will be called names.
If you are heartsick in Tuscaloosa, you drink.
If you do not dress like 2 or 3 you are almost asexual, you are certainly a queer.
If you want to find poetry in Tuscaloosa, drink.
If.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is a fence post.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is a train whistle.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is bite your tongue.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is car body.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is ceiling plaster.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is cicadas, begging the night to expand, to take in their aggressive songs, listen.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is cockroach hopscotch.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is cooked in pork fat.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is count flowers.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is count the seasons by their flowers.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is discuss over beers how the railroad tracks divide the town, how there are storms but not snow, that there is a deliberateness in its insularity and rules to graciousness.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is discuss over beers why the American south is not unionized, is underdeveloped, is low wages and takes it.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is drink.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is drive to a factory and take photographs until security kicks you off the premises.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is explain how the south is sorry for this but not really.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is floor board beneath the shower.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is fruit in the refrigerator.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is let him write their lover back home, let them write, I’m in the American south. Their monuments say things quietly as a footnote, filled with are more like connections than reverence.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is let your body’s water out.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is let your body’s water settle on top of you.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is let your house rot in the humidity.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is magnolia blossoms.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is mattress.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is mimosa blossoms.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is roaches on the window sill.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is rot in humidity.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is rot.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is stay home.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is the skin in the creased part of the body.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is to call everyone a faggot. There is nothing worse. You are a faggot because you are NOT ME, as in your are UNLIKE ME or so NOT LIKE ME that you are “the other”; you have crossed the forbidden landscape of being, at your most cavernous root, so UNLIKE ME that you will never recover. It is the most fear based word. You are also, because of your faggot ways, unwanting of living. You are so different thtan me that WE WILL KILL YOU. Everyone, no matter the gender or actual sexuality, is gay-bashed. You Are All Faggots and We Wish You Were Dead.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is trumpet vine.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is under a bright autumn moon, the plantation style houses, thick white columns, a sense of proportion.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is walk to get drinks and point out the hairline sweat and that it is October.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is watch your ass.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is wisteria.
In a neighborhood on one side of this house: a man and his mother and his lawn.
In a neighborhood on the other side of this house: enthusiastic mother with cigarette, 22 year old nursing school daughter, teenage boy floating up and down the street, up and down the afternoon on a pushscooter with little expression; quiet father.
In a neighborhood, what constitutes class?
In the house across the street, the college age son is going to Bible school to learn what to say to those people who think we come from the monkeys, says the neighbor who smokes.
In the library a land surveyor’s photos from the turn of the century flicker and echo boating parties in the river. In the hundred year old photo, it looks swampy. Family portraits with seated matrons in their frilly whites, handsome sons, even the dogs looking serene and well fed. It is impossible to wonder how people made lives in the heat, the damp, the closeness. The way anyone does, anywhere.
In this house are a couple from the north whose neighbor comes home with plastic bags of soda bottles every weekend, a couple who move from city to city getting educated and not believing in God and trying to avoid 9-5 jobs.
In this house: organic milk milled in state; Alabama’s only dairy, nonhomogenized (is it milk? is that it?)
In this neighborhood, one gallon of the cheapest Winn-Dixie milk available made its way next door, minor gift.
It is difficult to locate canned pumpkin in the grocery store.
It is hard not to get annoyed when your white students in white polo shirts write about their hero General Lee
It is hard to know what to way when your students at the prison all worship the American dream and individual responsibility because they’re right and they’re white and black and yet more of them are black and yet and
It’s easy to think slavery is in the past when a black man is president and
It’s hard not to worry about slavery when you move to Alabama from the north and
It’s hard not to worry when you discuss the legacy of slavery with blackmen in prison you’re not a carpetbagger with good intentions.
It’s hard not to worry when you worry about slavery you’re being patronizing and
It’s hard not to worry you’re assuming a black person checking you out at Winn Dixie or Target is poor because of the legacy of slavery or Reconstruction or Jim Brow and welfare reform or is poor for some other reason or is not poor but earning some extra money for college
It’s hard not worry that you’re all wrong when a white student says reconstruction was the North’s revenge on the South
It’s hard to ask that question because the answer is and
It’s hard to feel okay about a black man twice your age adding Mr to your first name when you tell him your name when he’s pruning and
It’s hard to know whether low wage employment is better than none at all and
It’s hard to know why but easy to assume why every person who comes to your door at your house in the middle class neighborhood looking to mow your lawn or paint your house’s numbers on your mailbox or sell you a magazine or a cleaning fluid and
It’s your yard and it’s only because you don’t know how
Like the train, everything here makes a sound when close.
Prompts...
Celebrate.
Add to "The thing to do in Tuscaloosa..."
Add to neighborhood piece by using these phrases as a beginning:
In a neighborhood, on one side...
In a neighborhood, on the other side...
In the house across the street...
In this house...
In this neighborhood...
says...
says...
says...
Why should we write this "book", write about Tuscaloosa? Who should we write it for? What are its alliances? Begin though with this phrase: What I want you to realize is....
Two pieces about specific spaces. Such as 17th Street and 34th Avenue or Spring Hill Lake or McFarland Blvd.
I typed up everyone's work from yesterday. Then alphabetized by first letter. The typing took too long and so can't do today's. 20 pages of data on Tuscaloosa.
Found pieces in it...
I’m a crushed can of beer.
I’m a crushed can of beer.
I’m a wet cardboard box in a parking lot.
I’m bread molding on the porch / mustard dried on the front door
I’m chaw spat in a 20 oz pepsi bottle sideways in a gutter
I’m hog waste animal bones.
If blessing fails.
If bombs are clear.
If contact is.
If contact neutralizes.
If failure blesses.
If it all keeps growing and turning and twining then we do not need to keep moving it down despite the rain day in and day out, late in the afternoon, drenching it all so.
If leaves are medium, green deciduous.
If love is a bomb that won’t.
If love is a train that.
If love.
If neutralizing doesn’t.
If play is.
If the branches arch to form a mound.
If the flowers are yellow terminal clusters.
If the fruit is a capsule.
If the leaves are prominent with silvery scales.
If the leaves are simple.
If the margins are sharp toothed.
If the shade is dappled.
If the soil is moist, well-drained.
If the stamens appear evenly.
If the stamens protrude.
If the twigs are silvery brown and scaly.
If there is no clear.
If there is no fruit.
If together our.
If together we.
If turning back doesn’t.
If we fail.
If we love.
If we.
If you are a woman walking with your hand on another woman’s, you will be called names.
If you are heartsick in Tuscaloosa, you drink.
If you do not dress like 2 or 3 you are almost asexual, you are certainly a queer.
If you want to find poetry in Tuscaloosa, drink.
If.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is a fence post.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is a train whistle.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is bite your tongue.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is car body.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is ceiling plaster.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is cicadas, begging the night to expand, to take in their aggressive songs, listen.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is cockroach hopscotch.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is cooked in pork fat.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is count flowers.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is count the seasons by their flowers.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is discuss over beers how the railroad tracks divide the town, how there are storms but not snow, that there is a deliberateness in its insularity and rules to graciousness.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is discuss over beers why the American south is not unionized, is underdeveloped, is low wages and takes it.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is drink.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is drive to a factory and take photographs until security kicks you off the premises.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is explain how the south is sorry for this but not really.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is floor board beneath the shower.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is fruit in the refrigerator.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is let him write their lover back home, let them write, I’m in the American south. Their monuments say things quietly as a footnote, filled with are more like connections than reverence.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is let your body’s water out.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is let your body’s water settle on top of you.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is let your house rot in the humidity.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is magnolia blossoms.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is mattress.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is mimosa blossoms.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is roaches on the window sill.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is rot in humidity.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is rot.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is stay home.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is the skin in the creased part of the body.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is to call everyone a faggot. There is nothing worse. You are a faggot because you are NOT ME, as in your are UNLIKE ME or so NOT LIKE ME that you are “the other”; you have crossed the forbidden landscape of being, at your most cavernous root, so UNLIKE ME that you will never recover. It is the most fear based word. You are also, because of your faggot ways, unwanting of living. You are so different thtan me that WE WILL KILL YOU. Everyone, no matter the gender or actual sexuality, is gay-bashed. You Are All Faggots and We Wish You Were Dead.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is trumpet vine.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is under a bright autumn moon, the plantation style houses, thick white columns, a sense of proportion.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is walk to get drinks and point out the hairline sweat and that it is October.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is watch your ass.
The thing to do in Tuscaloosa is wisteria.
In a neighborhood on one side of this house: a man and his mother and his lawn.
In a neighborhood on the other side of this house: enthusiastic mother with cigarette, 22 year old nursing school daughter, teenage boy floating up and down the street, up and down the afternoon on a pushscooter with little expression; quiet father.
In a neighborhood, what constitutes class?
In the house across the street, the college age son is going to Bible school to learn what to say to those people who think we come from the monkeys, says the neighbor who smokes.
In the library a land surveyor’s photos from the turn of the century flicker and echo boating parties in the river. In the hundred year old photo, it looks swampy. Family portraits with seated matrons in their frilly whites, handsome sons, even the dogs looking serene and well fed. It is impossible to wonder how people made lives in the heat, the damp, the closeness. The way anyone does, anywhere.
In this house are a couple from the north whose neighbor comes home with plastic bags of soda bottles every weekend, a couple who move from city to city getting educated and not believing in God and trying to avoid 9-5 jobs.
In this house: organic milk milled in state; Alabama’s only dairy, nonhomogenized (is it milk? is that it?)
In this neighborhood, one gallon of the cheapest Winn-Dixie milk available made its way next door, minor gift.
It is difficult to locate canned pumpkin in the grocery store.
It is hard not to get annoyed when your white students in white polo shirts write about their hero General Lee
It is hard to know what to way when your students at the prison all worship the American dream and individual responsibility because they’re right and they’re white and black and yet more of them are black and yet and
It’s easy to think slavery is in the past when a black man is president and
It’s hard not to worry about slavery when you move to Alabama from the north and
It’s hard not to worry when you discuss the legacy of slavery with blackmen in prison you’re not a carpetbagger with good intentions.
It’s hard not to worry when you worry about slavery you’re being patronizing and
It’s hard not to worry you’re assuming a black person checking you out at Winn Dixie or Target is poor because of the legacy of slavery or Reconstruction or Jim Brow and welfare reform or is poor for some other reason or is not poor but earning some extra money for college
It’s hard not worry that you’re all wrong when a white student says reconstruction was the North’s revenge on the South
It’s hard to ask that question because the answer is and
It’s hard to feel okay about a black man twice your age adding Mr to your first name when you tell him your name when he’s pruning and
It’s hard to know whether low wage employment is better than none at all and
It’s hard to know why but easy to assume why every person who comes to your door at your house in the middle class neighborhood looking to mow your lawn or paint your house’s numbers on your mailbox or sell you a magazine or a cleaning fluid and
It’s your yard and it’s only because you don’t know how
Like the train, everything here makes a sound when close.
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