Crossing the line

Something in me snapped and got me wanting to write about Palestine again. I don't know what happened. Maybe I realized that I was just sitting around and not doing anything but writing about myself, which is useless. Maybe I realized that I have a potential -- a real potential -- publisher for it, and I know about being handed a baton and knowing to run at full speed as soon as it lands safely in your hands. I consider the first publication to be the baton handed over to me, and I have some work to do.

I started listening to this podcast. I don't have a TV, don't judge me. Anyways, this podcast is called "Crossing the line" in which it seeks to give voice to the voiceless. You can find it here: http://ctl.libsyn.com/index.php?post_year=2008&post_month=07

Anyways, so something powerful happened to me about 2am while I was listening to this. I was interested in the interview that was going on about al Naksa (or the 6-day war or the war of 1967) and what happened..trying to write a poem about it, right. And at the end of the hour or so segment, they were reporting on the War in Iraq. And it made me think of Aracelis Girmay's brilliant poem, "Arroz Poetica" in which she speaks on the atrocities of war, and how the civilians in any country that is being attacked will never be called out, their names, I mean. And there's this turn that she makes where the poem starts to dig into your center, and she says:

....The radio will go on, shouting
the names &, I promise you,
they will not call your name, Hassna
Ali Sabah, age 30, killed by a missile in Al-Bassra, or you,
Ibrahim Al-Yussuf, or the sons of Sa'id Shahish
on a farm outside of Baghdad, or Ibrahim, age 12,
as if your blood were any less red, as if the skins
that melted were any less skin, and the bones
that broke were any less bone,
as if your eradication were any less absolute, any less
eradication from this earth where you were
not a president or a military soldier.

So anyways. This radio podcast...called out the names of the people fallen that week. Including Iraqis. And I thought, how powerful. How sad. How sad, even, to think of the American soldiers dying -- almost all of them that week (of June, 2007) were between 20-30...many of them from places I've been. And you find yourself listening for a name you recognize, though I know no one in the war. But you still listen. Then you realize some of these people fighting are younger than you are. And I'm not that old. And then you get enraged. And you want to stop listening, but you feel like to turn off would be to disrespect the dead, because they fell and all we got from other news stations was/were/are numbers, and no names. And you listen. And you hear the places they left from, the cities they lived and loved. And the families. And I wonder if the families know that this exists? That there is a place where their name is being called out, and remembered. And people will hear it.

Until the callouses form

My fingertips are sore. Only on the left side. My friend play guitar and came over, and played my guitar (whose name is Olive) and it got me to thinking: I've had this guitar in four years, and you know -- I still can't really play it. I need to fix that. I am blocking it for some reason, and I can't figure it out. I'm not sure what will or can be released once I play it, but I think that ambiguity makes me a little scared to unlock it. Crazy-sounding, I know.

I'm going to play my guitar every day for the rest of my time off. Who knows what will happen?

clearing clutter with feng shui

The longer I have dreadlocks, the more I learn this idea of energy and placement of energy and how energy can get "stuck" places. I believe I have a lot of energy in these dreadlocks...

So anyways. I moved to Harlem a couple weeks ago, but I've been away on retreats and things that I never really unpacked. Today I woke up and tried to write for a little bit, then I thought: I should work on unpacking my things. I bought this book, _Clear your clutter with feng shui_, and i've had this other book, _Organizing for the Creative person_ and I'm putting these two books to use. It's crazy how many books I've accumulated. Really crazy when you begin to unpack them really (I always kept some shit in my car when I was in Jersey) and I've got essentially 3 smallish bookshelves of books. Yep. and this is just my "portable library" -- I still have books in columbia that I don't think will ever make it with me where ever I end up living.

So now I have a work desk in my room. Which is revolutionary. I haven't had one of these since....man. living in the dorm? I always professed that I can't do work in my room, and if work were to be brought back into my room I'd do it on my bed and that would last all of 5 minutes or so because I'd soon just go to sleep. But I think if it's one thing I took from Soul Mountain, it's my ability to do work in my living space...and I don't know if I'm thankful for this ability yet, but it's there, and I have a desk now, in my room and it's got poets and writers magazine and its got a little thing for bills and for writing supplies and some books on there, and a lamp, and my name tag (yes i kept it) from working at the bank. I inherited a wine rack from the girl who moved out of the room I moved into. I'm going to have to fill it. Is it bad to keep a wine rack in your room? Ha. Here it is.

What else? Oh -- I've hung up some pictures I printed last summer. I have to go print out more pictures...and hang them up. I think the pictures and the books make my room feel most like home. Here is my home. My clothes are finally up in a closet again and not in a bag, although on Wednesday they'll be taken back down again, and taken home for about 10 days.

Anyways, come uptown and visit.

Tonight I want to work some on an essay. Maybe a poem. I've done a lot of work today.

school daze

i am finally unpacking and cleaning/organizing my room by way of "clear your clutter with feng shui". upon unpacking, i found this booklet that my ap english teacher my senior year of high school put together. he also wrote on the back which has gone through some water damage. what is most important is this last sentence: "I expect to be teaching your published work in future AP classes." I remember reading that, and thinking *gasp!* what an expectation he wishes to see filled. And now, just think. Next year, it's quite possible!



My teacher wrote:

DeLana,
Thanks for your poetic musings and conversations ...(water mark)
I've enjoyed getting to know you. Thanks too for your athletic contributions and achievements! You are a talented young lady. May your college years be just as ....(water mark). I expect to be teaching your published work in future AP classes.
Analytically yours,


and then my poem.

Lessons

We were strug'ling through these years of schooling,
building, molding a new identity.
Hours drift away while in the school building,
searching for strength from insecurity.

We went through twelve years of conditioning.
Parents stressed college as soon as we leave,
hear, "College! don't negotiate!" wond'ring
when we will leave the shadows of their tree.

Now we find we are ent'ring a new tier
of society, on our own, we tread
using each lesson we've learned through the years
mem'ries in our minds we now embed.

We find: we live, we die, through trials, we learn
through school to reach the dreams for which we yearn.

(c) dd 2002.

People?

So each time I try and venture out of the house to interact with the world that is outside of my window, I get out there and think I should have stayed home. I think this is a result of being so secluded for 3 weeks. I've reverted back to myself, my old self, the self that enjoyed solitude...or rather, preferred it. Then I get into groups of people and go inside myself. Like, I'd rather be looking outside of the window at the passing cars than be active in the conversation. Or, I'd rather be listening than participating. Great. Now I've somehow managed to make myself start over at ground zero. And maybe this is a good thing. Since I'm so used to finding the good in everything, the lesson. Maybe this means that I will remain a bit more focused. I know this will not be possible when I go home in a little over a week. Everyone will want to see me. I will not be able to get away with not talking to people, so I might as well take advantage of it now, especially in this world that doesn't require you to even say much to anyone.

work work work

Yesterday I started and finished Janice Harrington's "Even the Hollow My Body Made is Gone." I am thinking about writing a review. Well, I am going to write a review. This time here in NYC needs to still be spent working, I've told myself. And by working that means, still writing, still editing, still producing. I've got on tap a couple of essay ideas to play around with and hopefully place somewhere soon. I've got some places I need to contact for reading gigs. All of that stuff.

On the flip side of the work....I'm still finalizing dates, but I'll be reading at UNC Chapel Hill in April. Yup. Yup.

Look out!

Passing Strange

I came home early from my residency to see this broadway play, "Passing Strange". My really good friend is in town, and I hadn't seen her for a year (we used to be roommates for two years) and she's staying with me, so I said, let's go and see this. She said, sure. So we got there relatively early to get student tix (what little good school is still doing for me) and had decent seats, considering the price we paid. It was the last day of the show, which had been going apparently for six months, which is long, and they showed out! boy did they show out. I've been singing the tunes in my head all day, and when I get a little bit of money, I'm going to buy the album, I believe.

Then Raina and I met up with Evan and had dinner and then trekked it back uptown for some spirits and some musica nd good times. Yep. More days should consist of this greatness.

Day 19, or so I'm leaving a day early

The time spent here has been glorious. It has given me a chance to really produce a lot of stuff, to push the limits of my writing, to just sit and breathe for a while. I'm not going to lie, part of me is ready to leave the space if only that I need a change of scenery. I mean, I need a little more wiggle room. I mean, sometimes a house can trap you despite the freedoms you find in it.

"Final Count" (as I don't believe I'm going to write anything else today. If I do, I'll update you)

43 poems
10 pages to my novel
a play ("The empty bowl")
a short story ("Some nights, only water")
the beginnings of an essay ("Cultural Amnesia")
and a total makeover of my book that's coming out in the Spring 09 ("How God Ends Us")


Yep. Now, I have to go and pack. I'll be in the city tonight.

Maybe I should be a rock artist, or Day 17 on the Mountain

Some pictures: ROCKS at the RIVER

Book news

So yesterday I woke up to a manila envelope in the kitchen. I usually stumble from my perch (i call the small bedroom I chose with a window overlooking the pond a perch) to fix coffee in the morning.

Kwame Dawes is the series editor for the book prize that my manuscript won this spring. It is exciting because I have always admired his work. It's even more exciting that I get to have my introduction to the world with two of my favorite writers, and with a prize that is connected to home. Interesting -- so many times I thought I was running away from home, from South Carolina. When I left for college, it was a running away from home. But here I am. It's interesting to think -- my first publication was about a home/house/South Carolina. My first book publication is coming out of the University of South Carolina Press (which is in my home, Columbia, SC)...I don't believe in coincidences. I believe in fate, in faith. I believe in "it was meant to be this way" and take things as they come.

But anyways. So this manila envelope. I sent Kwame my manuscript in May, and thought the process would be simply, "here are my line edits" and leave it at that. But no. Now I am considering this book in a different light, thinking of the variations and variations of stories I can tell by just switching poems around, by moving a comma. I spent all of my day 16 thinking about taking poems out and putting poems in and moving poems around and finding epigraphs and words to fit in places where there was a void...and you think the book is done after you write the poems. No so, my friend, not so. The proof is in the pudding, or whatever that is supposed to mean.

So, I did the damage, and shook myself up a bit. I'm going to have to let the new sketch of the book (by the way, titled "How God Ends Us"....look for it in February!) sit for a while before I decide if what I did was good or bad. I have to figure out a way to detach myself from the original version and let this one live in the world a bit before I kill it, or say, no, Kwame, this isn't working for me.

Not that I'd really say it. In a dream world, I'd stand up and defend my poems. But in that dream world, I'd already have five books of poetry published...and well, that dream hasn't come to fruition yet, buttttt I do see another publication soon on the horizon. I do.

changing the changes

this post's title is after Hermine Pinson's CD title. It is also sort of acknowledging another shift, another change, and how, I suppose, the body feels these shifts when it has a time to be still and listen, like when you're up on a mountain top. like now.

Yesterday was wildly productive. Yesterday I sat with some jazz songs and meditated. I have this thing I like to do with jazz songs -- especially ones that either I don't know the words to or that just don't have words to them -- where I imagine the lyrics. So, my friend has a CD out. He has this song that might be one of my favorites...because of this solo that he has that, to me, has so much heart, so much open heart. I play the song over and over, and imagine the words, and in the context of relationships (perhaps ours) I imagine him saying "I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry. I'm so sorry that I hurt you" and it fits. My lyrics, to his playing. So I wondered what a poem written with this feel, this mood would feel like. So I started freewriting. With the song on repeat I freewrote for a couple of minutes. Then I used that material to lift out phrases to build a poem with later. I did this for 6 songs. I got sing poems..each I feel captured the feel of the song.

What was on the playlist you ask? (I'm leaving said friend out of this...so only 5 songs)

Maiden Voyage/Everything in its place -- Robert Glasper
Perazuan -- Esperanza Spalding
Thinking one thing and doing another -- Miles Davis
Days of Wine and Roses --
August Blues --

I forget right now who did the last two ones. Updates later. But it's a nice exercise. If you try it, let me know how it turns out!

I have also been doing some crazy, crazy reading up here. Marilyn Nelson has a biggg library. All you can eat. Plus more. So, I go to the shelves and pick books for the day and then read them. I have this project I started (e-mail me if you want an invite) where I decided to gather some cool poet-lovers and suggested we share our favorite poems, or poems that make us say "Damn" or just poems that we think need to be out in the world. So an online poetry anthology, if you will. "Unthemed" except to say we thought we liked them enough that we wanted to share them with each other. This has brougt up some interesting conversations and interesting moments of, "oh, I've never heard of this poet" or "oh! I like this poem, too!"...surely there can be some misjudgment and people may say "this did not make me say 'damn'" and that's fine too -- this space is just a collection of poems to make us think, because I want to be well-read, but I don't always know what to dip into. I have some new names to check out, recommended by some really great poets. Come join the fun.

What else? Today I only wrote one poem. Which is like....way below record. But I did finish my play, so I'll take that. I also woke up late thanks to this wonderful rain. It happened so, that I thought it was a dream. I woke up to the sound of rain and thought, "I should pull down the window, maybe turn off the fan" and then went right back to sleep. Rain will do that. By the time I actually got up and decided to get on with my day, the sun was out, the deck was dry -- there was no evidence of this rain that kept me in the bed longer. So my schedule was off. So I just read some, and played with the play (my first ever. although i don't think anything will become of it, i can just say that i've written a play now...which i couldn't say before here)...and listened to stories. I cooked dinner for everyone. Then we sat around and had a "reading" -- Hermine and Karma and Marilyn and myself. We all read things we were working on at the moment. I read some of my animal poems, mainly animals inspired by the environment...ones I had actually seen from my room window (badger/woodchuck, small-mouthed bass, io moth, turkey vulture, spider). Then I read some of the poems from the jazz stuff, some other non-related poems (when I broke off from doin the animal poems, I decided to use Neruda's questions to mull over for a bit and maybe inspire a poem in response to the question)....then, I got to read some of my novel with them. They seemed to enjoy it. There were some questions, which is understandable; I still don't have some things planned out yet, nor have I really sat down and said, "I'm going to begin editing," but it was good to get some writerly ears listening, in conversation.

6 days left. I suppose after the week-remaining mark you start counting down? Instead of saying Day 14, I opted to say, "six days left" -- and I can't decide if it is equivalent to the "glass half-empty" or what. Just this fact: there are six days left here. Who knows what or who will come or visit in those days.

day 12

There is something to be said about this experience, the first time around. I have never done a residency like this before. I've done three years of Cave Canem now, three summers, rather, three weeks. Essentially my time here at Soul Mountain is the sum of my time at Cave Canem, except the time passes differently here. It is a different experience, a lonely existence.

Maybe it is I am reverting to what brought me to writing in the first place, loneliness. And maybe it is I am afraid of that space, having felt that I successfully left it for this life of constant people around me, of constant love. I always say of Cave Canem that it is my big family that I always wanted. There is/has been always someone around me from that family..or someone I am trying to get into this family.

There are Cave Canem family members here, but it is different. We are not required/expected to interact with each other. So this voyage is one done alone. As with most things I embark on, I am noticing, I begin a thing with such exuberance, such momentum, such excitement, that I am unaware of the impending danger. I don't see the caution signs or the beware, rocky roads ahead sign. I just keep driving with the wind in my face, the sun on my shoulder, my arm out the window. And then the gas light comes on. And then the wilderness and all I've got with me is a pack of cigarettes and a half-empty bottle of water...and no cars for hours or miles.

It's day 12. I have 8 more days to go. I have reached a wilderness of sorts. Maybe it is because energy has shifted in the house? One of the residents left yesterday, so today was a new day in this same place. It was different. I woke up with a headache that I couldn't explain. I woke up, ate breakfast, finished this book I was reading, and went back to sleep until lunch time. I woke up from lunch time and sat around with a couple of books and beginnings of poems that have yet to formalize into actual poems. All except for one. One about the body. I have tricked myself into thinking/believing the one about solitude is a poem, but it's not, really. I pretend it is. Right now, I have written 32 poems in 12 days. I guess there is a breaking point for the body/mind? Maybe I have reached it. Then, what to do for these last 8 days? Maybe this is opening a space for the novel. Maybe. We'll see what words come to me tomorrow.

More Questions (thanks to Neruda)

from Neruda's "The Book of Questions"

-Tell me, is the rose naked/ or is that her only dress?
-Is there anything in the world sadder/ than a train standing in the rain?
-For whom do the pistils of the sun burn/ in the shadow of the eclipse?
-Is the sun the same as yesterday's/ or is this fire different from that fire?
-Who shouted with glee/ when the color blue was born?
-How did the abandoned bicycle win its freedom?
-Is it bad to live without a Hell:/ aren't we able to reconstruct it?
-Where is the center of the sea?/ Why do waves never go there?
-Yesterday, yesterday I asked my eyes/ when will we see each other again?
-Why did the grove undress itself/ only to wait for the snow?
-And why is the sun such a bad companion/ to the traveler in the desert?
-Was it where they lost me/ that I finally found myself?
-Does he who is always waiting suffer more/ than he who's never waited for anyone?
-Perhaps heaven will be/ for suicides, an invisible star?
-Where is the child i was,/ still inside me or gone?
-Why did we both not die/ when my childhood died?
-Did autumn's hairdressers/ uncomb these chrysanthemums?
-Why do the waves ask me/the same questions i ask them?
-And why do they strike the rock/ with so much wasted passion?
-Don't they get tired of repeating their declaration to the sand?

neruda's questions

i pulled these questions out....

- "am i allowed to ask my book/ whether it's true i wrote it?"
-"is it because i must die/ or because it must die?"
-"do you have room for some thorns?/ they asked the rosebush."
="Whom does the magnolia fool/ with its fragrance of lemons?"
-"why do assemblies of umbrellas/ always occur in London?"
-"why does it not dawn in Bolivia/ after the night of Guevara?"
-"and does his assassinated heart/ search there for his assassins?"
-"will our life not be a tunnel/ between two vague clarities?"
-"What did the tree learn from the earth/ to be able to talk with the sky?"
-"who was she who made to love you/ in your dream, while you slept?"
-"did spring never deceive you/ with kisses that didn't blossom?"
-"what does it mean to persist/ on the alley of death?"
-"at dawn, which smooth syllables/ does the ocean air repel?"
-"with which stars do they go on speaking/ the rivers that never reach the sea?"
-"How do the seasons know/ they must change their skirts?"

LXVII
Can you love me, syllabary,
and give me a meaningful kiss?

Is a dictionary a sepulchre
or a sealed honeycomb?

In which window did i remain
watching buried time?

Or is what i see from afar
what I have not yet lived?

Day 8

So I've been at Soul Mountain now for 8 days. It is easy to count my time here as it passes the way the month of July passes...slow nectar with each rise and fall of the sun.

There is much to be thankful for, this I know. This time, though often I find myself bored and lonely, is something to be thankful for. I am. I was in a rut for a little bit, looking for things to write about, and even still now I find myself looking for the next poem, but know that something magical happens when you allow yourself to stop life for a moment and really just give yourself to your art, your craft. Exposure like this can be daunting. It has been for me, learning things about myself that I was not sure I was ready to deal with. But, I survive.

Over the past few days I've started and finished Claudia Rankine's _Don't Let Me Be Lonely_ and I will say right now, I believe in its brilliance. I want to say I wish I had the capacity to write something equally brilliant. I cannot say that before my week at Cave Canem with her that I would have picked up this book and attempted to read it; in fact, I had the book for a while before I read it. Being on a mountain top affords you a lot of time to read things you never thought you'd give yourself to reading before. Anyways. Read it. Let's talk about it.

Also while here I embarked on a larger project which included investigating animals. It isn't as Discovery Channel as it sounds, but it is a collection of poems in which the titles are different animal species and I have moved on to investigating different landscapes. Of course, they have a specific De'Lana turn. What would a poem written by me be like without it?

What else is there? I started and finished a short story between yesterday and today. I started a play and an essay. I have the desire to write a long poem and I think I have the idea for it. I will spend tonight mapping it out. It will be my endurance test. I think my poems are indicative of my mild ADD. They are short. They rarely - unless a sestina which the form forces its length - go beyond the second page. To think that I could find an idea that could sustain more than say...50 lines, is amazing. and I'm going to try it. I'm going to try and write something or start something while here that is going to be the longest poem I've ever written. What that will do for me, I'm not sure, other than break past this imaginary wall that seems to draw itself about halfway down the page and dares my pen to cross it, and I usually don't. But I'm on a mission to cross that frontier, and to do it with a stunning poem. Watch out now.

notes from Soul Mountain

-I wish I had something profound to say here.
-Today is day 5/20. I have written about 11 animals since I've gotten here.
-I started a play about two artists trying to make life and family work while staying committed/true to their art.
-I started an essay about my ability to re-create my own personal history because of my inability to access my actual personal history and what freedoms or burdens that affords me.
-I've watched fish jump out of the pond that is right outside my window, and written about it.
-an unfinished joke: Why did the turkey cross the lawn? or the woodchuck?
-I've been chased out of the woods by territorial bees.
-I've had the desire to want to write something profound.
-I had dreams about people I never expected to dream about...and those dreams have happened multiple times.

-I've called people despite my day of silence, because the silence was too much.

from Soul Mountain

fish jumping from the pond -
high noon. the writer waits
for the word

7/3/2008