Distractions Toward a Brand New Acoustic

2009-07-13T20:47:00.000-07:00

I'm working on a new poem called "Eschara." * All I can tell you is that I am fully extracting the joy from the summer. * Find me back at my main blog where I will post occasional updates and annoucements. * Thanks for reading here. * Peace and blessings to you *

2009-06-24T20:08:00.000-07:00

Strange how much place and habit fuels or limits our writing. For much of the writing of This Many Miles from Desire, I was traveling and writing on yellow legal pads. I would sit in the largest plazas I could find, and that alone would generate a draft of a poem. In fact, I still have two notebooks of poem drafts I wrote in Honduras and Belize from several years ago. I remember being on a dock on the Honduras coast, in the Caribbean where the water is crystal clear, and five or six dark red flower petals bobbed by my feet. I still want to write about those petals someday. I like reading about people's writing habits. Oliver De La Paz writes often to music. Philip Levine said something about not being able to write by a window with a panoramic, gorgeous view. Keats often bathed, put on his best Sunday clothes, and wrote then.

Since Fresno is my home city, and I like it, I am in a decent writing "zone," if you will, but I am reminding myself (out loud) to keep finding good music, good books, beautiful landscapes and run-down grit (Fresno has plenty of both) to fuel my writing. I also might return to the yellow legal pad for a while. I'm about halfway (30 poems or so) toward the second manuscript, which is still untitled. I have appreciated those of you who have backchanneled me your thoughts about the word "acoustic" and what it evokes. I'm nearing a title. When it comes to me, I will be a happy man.

2009-06-23T21:03:00.000-07:00

I helped Guest Edit this, now available from the University of Texas, El Paso Bilingual MFA Program.

I keep chopping down a recent poem I'm somewhat happy with, "Fire." I took the opening line out, which was not serving the poem but served initially as the poem's trigger. Instead, I moved underneath the title to read "After Alexander Long's 'Still Life with Suicide'." I've also been working on the ending, which was a bit too didactic. I think I've got it ready to go, along with a few others, that I want to send to a few particular journals.

There is some good energy brewing in the Fresno writing community, and I can feel it. Obviously there are many great writers here, but I'm amazed at the younger talent. Looking forward to the release of the first issue of The Packinghouse Review, edited by David Dominguez and Rick Garza. It includes my poem, "Gardening Secrets of the Dead."

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I'll try to write more about specific poems and process later, but for now

2009-06-19T08:19:00.000-07:00

It's difficult to keep this new blog focused on my new poems and the writing process for several reasons---I've been traveling a bit, taking short trips here and there, including a trip to Los Angeles for the weekend to see a very good friend. We're going to the Los Angeles International Film Festival. Can't wait to be down there. I've been up to Modesto a few times to see family, which is always great. My niece is such a cute and active little girl! It's also tough to focus on my writing of new poems because I haven't done much with any of them in the last week. No, check that. A poet-friend has been giving me very good advice, especially with the endings of the poems. The most recent one I'm working on is called "The Choir Sings Arpeggio," which is about a choir that attempts to stop a violent storm with its voices.

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I think it's time I get some poems out to some literary magazines. It's been a while.

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Happy Father's Day to all the fathers!

In the Grove, Issue 17, Summer 2009 Now Online!

2009-06-15T20:16:00.000-07:00

For those of you familiar with the literary magazine I founded in 1996, In the Grove, you'll know we've published some great writers and some great new writers, but that our publishing schedule is very erratic. Over twelve years, though, we have churned out sixteen issues---and tonight, number 17, is now online. It is the first issue we've done online since deciding to make the move from print to screen. A number of factors have made the move appealing---the lower cost, the wider distribution, and the increasing legitimacy of online literary magazines. So, I hope you will bookmark inthegrove.net, link us, spread the word, and most of all, enjoy the writing.

I'm very excited about this issue, and I would like to thank all of our loyal readers over the years. I should thank our patient contributors, as well, and they are an amazing roster. This issue features the prize-winners from the 2008 William Saroyan Centennial Prizes, Chaired by Megan Bohigian. The first place winners are Hal Ackerman, Elizabeth Edelglass, and Bethany Chaney.

The issue also includes:

fiction by Tim Z. Hernandez (excerpt from his forthcoming novel, Breathing, In Dust)
creative nonfiction by Jeff Tannen and Lucille Sutton
poetry by David Campos, Yu-Han Chao, Jennifer Kwon Dobbs, Charles Hood, Sam Pierstorff, Dixie Salazar, Soul Vang, and C. Dale Young.

Lastly, I should thank my good friend Erik Fritz, whose patience, diligence, eye for good writing, and off-the-charts web skills have made the issue possible. I'm certain In the Grove would not have made it to number 17 without him.

2009-06-13T18:47:00.000-07:00

I don't know how to explain the expanse of the poems on which I am currently working, and I do not want to analyze it too much at this point. I have shown them to several good friends and poets, and they've used words like "ambitious" and "expansive" to describe them. It is interesting how life experience during the writing of a book informs its structure. I'll leave it at that. I am also enjoying Mari L'Esperance's The Darkened Temple, which I received in the mail last week. I am also really excited that the next issue of In the Grove will include C. Dale Young's poem "Elegance," which is the last poem in TORN, forthcoming from Four Way Books in 2012. I sent him a message on Facebook inviting him to publish in our journal, and I was thrilled when he sent along such a fine poem. The issue, our first online issue after twelve years of print issues, goes live on June 16.

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Radiohead, "I Might Be Wrong" (Acoustic)

I Don't blog often on the status of my various projects, so here it goes.

2009-06-09T06:50:00.001-07:00

It's a blessing to have various writing projects come my way. As I mentioned recently, I just finished guest editing the Rio Grande Review, the literary magazine of the University of Texas, El Paso, where faculty such as Daniel Chacón, Benjamin Saenz, Rosa Alcala, Sasha Pimentel Chacon teach and write amidst some of the best young talent in the country. Former MFA students such as Javier Huerta, author of Some Clarifications y Otras Poemas, are doing great work, and it was a pleasure to work with current graduate student Lau Ce in arranging the issue. Guest Editing is a strange but ultimately rewarding process, and I am grateful for the invitation and opportunity. The issue comes out soon, and you can purchase a copy and view online samples here.

I'm also wrapping up my work Guest Editing the inaugural issue of Asian-American Poetry and Writing, a great new organization from the Los Angeles area with some of the best young new voices around on its staff---Vanessa Hua, Neil Aitken, Ky-Phong Paul Tran, Margaret Rhee, and Nicky Schildkraut, to name just a few. They've already published articles on reviews on Nam Le and Kundiman, among others, and they offer creative writing workshops in the Los Angeles area. The issue I have assembled should be done soon (in the next few weeks?), as soon as I can put the finishing touches on my editor's note. It will feature Korean Adoptee writers---poets, memoir excerpts, and a play excerpt. It will be a remarkable and eye-opening issue, especially those of you for whom Korean adoptee writers are a new group of writers to tap. You can read about AAPW's workshops, reviews, and more---here.

Third, I am gearing up for work on a celebration of Juan Felipe Herrera's Half of the World in Light. Last year, before his NBCC award, I was invited by poet, editor, tour-de-force Francisco Aragon of the Institute for Latino/a Studies at the University of Notre Dame to head this project, which will feature the work of about 15-20 writers celebrating Herrera's landmark book. I've yet to contact writers for the issue, but I hope that in the fall of this year I can get the bulk of that work done. It will ultimately be published in the superb Latino Poetry Review, whose second issue just went online. You can read it here.

Lastly, I've been working to finish the 17th (!) issue of In the Grove, the literary magazine I founded in 1996. Anyone familiar with our magazine knows we've published quite sporadically over the last decade, and I am excited to announce that we are making the move to become an online magazine. Many factors have made this appealing---the low cost, the relatively lighter workload, the instant and wide distribution possibilities, and the increasing legitmacy of online publications. The next issue will "go live" on June 16, one week from today. It features the William Saroyan Centennial Prize Winners, selected by judges Steve Yarbrough, John Hales, and Steven Church. It also includes a short story by Tim Z. Hernandez's forthcoming novel from Texas Tech University Press, Breathing, In Dust. Poems by Dixie Salazar, Yu-Han Chao, Sam Pierstorff, Charles Hood, and David Campos will also appear. Oh, and by the way, I owe some of you the free copy I said I would mail...I hope to get those out soon. Anyway, thank you to our faithful and patient readers and contributors, and I hope you will make the transition with us as we move online next week. You can visit In the Grove here.

Lastly, lastly...I've never posted on my blog about the Freshman Composition level textbook/reader that I have co-edited with two colleague-friends. It's been a long haul---about seven years off and on working on the book. It's in the final stages of production, and I think it will come out in Fall of this year, if we're lucky. It has readings from Mumia Abu Jamal, Gloria Anzaldua, bell hooks, George Orwell, Anthony Bourdain, Elizabeth Wurtzel, Bakari Kitwana, Alice Walker, and Wen Ho Lee, with poems by Li-Young Lee, Brian Turner, Martin Espada, and Ishle Yi Park. It's called Outside In: Writing to and from the Center, forthcoming from Prentice Hall. All you composition faculty at universities and colleges, I hope you'll keep an eye out for it. You can check out the Amazon page for it here.

Ok...lastly lastly lastly--- I am hopeful that a proposed Literature panel and Reading Gala Event is accepted for the IKAA Gathering 2010. I am part of a proposed reading event in Seoul, Korea that would feature two other Korean adoptee poets from the United States, paired with three Korean poets, Kim Ki-Taek among them. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, as it would be an amazing experience for all involved, I think.

That's a little rundown of what I've been up to, as far as writing goes. I've been working on my second manuscript of poems as well, making good headway these days, as you may know.

Rhythm

2009-06-07T22:17:00.000-07:00

What has me writing a lot these days is a culmination of a very long year and reaching the point where intake must give way to production. Having a lot to say only gets a person so far, though. Here are some things, in no particular order, that have inspired me---yesterday, I received Jane Jeong Trenka's new memoir, Fugitive Visions, in the mail. Jane had sent me a PDF draft of the book months ago, but it's exciting to see the final product. It doesn't happen very often that I open a book and read twenty pages right then and there, but it happened today. I will be blogging more about Jane's book in the near future, I'm certain.

On Saturday in the East Bay, I had a wonderful conversation over a late breakfast with two good poet friends. Every time I see them, I leave inspired and glad that they are in the world. Every minute I am with my beautiful daughter, there is inspiration---not so much to go and write a poem about fatherhood, but about larger and more fundamental rootedness, understanding, and hope that drives or creates the tension for much of what I write. A while back, she was in my arms as we walked up to the front door. It was the middle of the day, and the moon was visible in its distant white way in the blue sky. She reached up, as if to grab it and then clenched her fist as if she indeed took the moon in her hands. She said, "Daddy, it's the moon. Here. It's for you," and then motioned for me to open my hand. I did, and she pretended to plunk the moon right down in my hand.

At any rate, good friends, good books, and loved ones are making for a good summer of writing. I am working on several poems simultaneously, still drafting "Fire" and I have changed the title of "Consciousness as Storm" to "1+1 Equals Everything." I'm sure that title will change again. Titles are difficult, aren't they? Lastly, I have started a new poem called "Paper," so when it's gone through a few more drafts, maybe I'll post it here.

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This is Against Me! live in Los Angeles in 2006, right before they were named Spin magazine's Band of the Year. I saw them live on this tour, and it's true what they say---one of the best live bands around. Sitting in the balcony and singing along with Tom and the crowd is a great experience. This song is called "White People for Peace."

White People for Peace - Against Me!

East and west could not agree
So their generals gave a call and gathered at the border
With guns ready, drawn and aimed
each side was praying to a god
to bless them with strength and courage
it was in his name that artillery lit the sky on fire
the people sang protest songs to try and stop the soldier's gun

Protest Songs in a response to Military Aggression
Protest songs to try and stop the soldier's gun
But the battle raged on

Sirens filled the air and the ground shook with war
Civilian casualties has been a cost that was predetermined
when interviewed for report victims pleaded in frustration
Their claim: That this was a war without reason
Bureacrats enraged in debate to try and reach a resolution
the people sang protest songs to try and stop the soldier's gun

Protest Songs in a response to Military Aggression
Protest songs to try and stop the soldier's gun
But the battle raged on

The Broadcast like their prayers went unanswered and ignored
god, like the rest of the world, just watched in silence
There was purpose to be served, there were fortunes to be earned
before a peace could be called to stop a war

Protest Songs in a response to Military Aggression
Protest songs to try and stop the soldier's gun
But the battle raged on

New Poem Draft, "Fire," to vanish in a couple of days (the line breaks get messed up toward the end but you get the idea)

2009-06-01T22:46:00.000-07:00

"Fire" was here.

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I love this song by Nick Drake, "Pink Moon."

Quick Post after Lunch with S and Dad, Before Our Walk with the Dogs

2009-05-31T15:54:00.001-07:00

I'm thinking more about the width and bulk of my recent poems. Part of the impetus for writing these poems was a long fascination with some of Larry Levis's poems and the muscular poems of David Dominguez, and in the last couple of weeks as I have been drafting them, I just decided to write freely and then work with the enjambment later. I also remember reading Gerald Stern's book Odd Mercy, which I bought when I was in Iowa about ten years ago, and I was fascinated with the scope of his poem "Hot Dog." So in this case, it's almost like an exercise in freewriting that has turned into a series of poems. I am going to ride it out and see how far it takes me, these new wide poems. Maybe I will even send some out to journals, which I've been neglecting for a while now. I've become more of a reader of my friends' work lately, as I am reading several manuscripts and a play by a colleague. But this freewriting will hopefully lead to something. I've thought I should spend as much time writing/drafting poems as I do reading Facebook, which has become far too time consuming these days. There are short trips planned in the coming months, but I have absolutely no excuses to get writing. My writing group will hopefully commence this summer, and I have been invited to join another one this summer, too. I want to keep busy with these activities, but I want to write. It's been a long year of not too much quality writing, and of the poems I wrote on my sabbatical last year, I'd say there are maybe twenty or twenty-five that are manuscript worthy. I laid out a rough table of contents the other day, and I think I have maybe thirty or thirty-five poems toward the second book. That's not all bad, now that I think about it. The title I have in my head now is : A Brand New Acoustic.

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Here is a live video of Led Zeppelin' "Hot Dog," 1979.

Thinking Out Loud about my second manuscript & posting music videos

2009-05-30T14:32:00.001-07:00

So I'm thinking out loud here about my second manuscript, in the hopes that this will give me some motivation to keep going over the summer, when I hope to do most of my writing. My plan is to not edit a single word here, to just type freely, and to have it be a mirror for the poems and process I am undergoing with the manuscript. I'm having to write in California (or, getting to, I should say) as this is the first summer in about ten years I will not be abroad. I've gotten into a decent rhythm writing in the mornings, and I have a few poems I am developing. I've been listening a lot to the poems at From the Fishouse, where the audio is very inspiring for me. I am listening to all of Kevin A. Gonzalez's poems these days--"Cultural Sellout," "Cultural Slut," and "Cultural Stud" among my favorites. I have already used one of his lines for an epigraph for a poem of mine. I am also enjoying Alexander Long's poem called "Still Life with Suicide," written for a friend of Long's whom he names "B" in the poem. What these two poems have given me is a blend of culture and life/death, and somehow the poems I am writing have become full, wide poems (on the page), which I have wanted to do for a while now. The poems stretch almost entirely across the entire page, in one full stanza. One of the poems I'm working on right now is called "Consciousness as Storm." I'm reading Khaled Mattawa's Amorisco to accompany the drafting of this poem, and it is working well.

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This song is loud. One of the bands I used to love and still do, when the time is right. This song goes best driving on the freeway with no children in the backseat.