DeLana R.A. Dameron

2009

2009-12-21T12:37:00.002-05:00

Dear All,

Since today is my last full day in the city in 2009, I wanted to think through some things, if you'll allow me. Wow! What a wonderful year this has been, what a ride! Some recaps:

This spring, around March, was exciting because I had what I called a "life transplant". I remember sitting in my first apartment in Harlem and trying to find a new apartment, and I received a phone call from an unknown number, and it was NYU telling me that I got in to the MFA program! The next week, I received my keys to my first studio apartment -- in Harlem. It was a dream of mine to have my own apartment, much less in Harlem. A few days after I moved in, I got a box at my door: first prints of my new book.

What follows is a whirlwind of a year: book tour with Raina Leon including readings in Chapel Hill (where I got to watch the NCAA basketball championships with some old classmates. a plus!), in Raleigh, NC, in Washington DC. And about 15 other readings in the New York City area. Summer came and I still had readings and chances to meet beautiful people along the way. Then a month in Ithaca just resting and thinking and dreaming about the projects I will write and want to write. I came back from Ithaca and hit the ground running again:

Book Launch party in Columbia, SC. This was especially great because I got to share my poems with my family -- the people that comprise 75% of the subject matter of my book. Then school started, and I was back down to SC to do the South Carolina Poet's Summit with Sharon Olds and Rosanna Warren -- a treat!

The rest of the fall was a blur with MFAing and working part time and interning at the New Yorker Magazine! I'm so grateful for solid friendships and companions that helped me stay grounded and sane in a potentially crazy period. Moreover, I'm super excited about my new poetry project, and can't wait to see what happens with it next.

So. 2010 has some big shoes to fill, but that's part of the excitement, right! Seeing what bigger and better things come around.

On the plate right now: I've been commissioned to write some poems for the Ackland Art Museum. This spring they're hosting Jacob Lawrence's "the Legend of John Brown" series. They want me to compose some original pieces and come back and give a reading and possible workshop. I'm excited for this exposure and opportunity.

other events in 2010:

Feb 21
Reading in South Brunswick NJ with Metta Sama

Feb 26-28
South Carolina Poetry Book Festival

April 16-19
Alabama Poetry Book Festival

April 23
Syracuse YMCA Reading

and sometime after that:
Reading and Workshop at the Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill, NC.

Hope to see you around!

xoxo

It's been a while

2009-12-17T11:29:00.002-05:00

I've been a bit busy with life in New York to post. I would look at my blog and think: man, I haven't posted in a long time....and then go on to do the various things that someone going to grad school and working two part time jobs and internship and fellowship has to do. yes. busy.

That is also to say, save for my two pretty big readings earlier this semester in South Carolina, readings in the city of my poetry have also come to a stop.

Just some information to pass along:

Constance Saltonstall Foundation: www.saltonstall.org for NY residents. A four week residency in bliss. Really.

First book prize for Asian American Writers: www.kundiman.org

Give to Soul Mountain: http://www.firstgiving.com/smretreat a residency in Connecticut, with the lovely, lovely Marilyn Nelson

And, I suppose, because I am an author, I must support giving books for Christmas presents. They're great ideas, really. You should do it. And gift my book. hehe.

Look for a better update soon. On the horizon. Also, maybe some glimpses at some writing and audio recordings!

Radiator rattles in the corner

2009-10-14T13:55:00.002-04:00

Today, I was sitting in my apartment by my window that overlooks Saint Nicholas Avenue. Beside the table where I do some work, I heard a hissing noise. My window is open behind me -- I'm actually not facing the window, as sometimes I get too distracted by the goings on in upper Harlem. The cars and trucks and people provide an interesting background soundtrack to my work. The noise is unfamiliar to me. I realized, my radiator started emitting heat. I moved into this apartment in Spring, so I've never experienced the radiator music. But it is saying: Fall is here. Fall is here.

I want to write a more writerly post here, since that is what I sort of started this blog for. I mentioned last blog that I started this bigger project at school, and I'm most excited about it. Books I'm reading that are inspiring me:

Lorca's Poet in New York (and indirectly, Reyes' Poeta en San Francisco)

Rita Dove's Thomas and Beulah (most of all the books)

Sanchez's Does Your House Have Lions?

I've done probably more prose writing around this project than I have poems. Here's a list of poems (titles are stand-ins, maybe. I might keep them.)

Gryphon's mother makes a promis to God

Gryphon & the flashing flames

Gryphon as a young boy

Gryphon's mother: dream one

Gryphon & Toby & Tutu

I recognize that these titles mean nothing to you right now. Who is Gryphon? He is a young boy coming of age in Charleston, South Carolina. He and his mother are fighting this battle, concurrently, against each other, with and against the world. It is about a house and a turtle and a young boy and his mother. The rest of the family is second to this storyline.

About the prose writing: I'm finding that because I sort of have a larger story that I'm trying to break into smaller poems, I do a lot of thinking. I decided to do my thinking in one journal, the same journal where the poems originate. So I have one journal that has my notes, my thoughts, my connections, my questions. It is serving very helpful to my busy lifestyle, also. This new life I've been given has forced me to stretch myself in new ways. No longer does my muse speak to me in whole poems in one sitting -- as it once has! -- rather, I am never really sitting around in one space long enough (in truth, I called out of work to have a few moments to sit down) for a poem to come. So I get glimpses and snatches and write them in this one journal. So all of my thinking that I would do in one sitting, I sort of dump into my journal and then when I sit down the night before my class to write the poem, I don't feel overwhelmed at the blank page, rather, I find I have pages and pages of notes to cull from, and starts and images. And a poem soon emerges.

Columbus Day

2009-10-12T11:21:00.003-04:00

Today is a little bit of a holiday for me because my part-time work is so closely related to NYC Public schools. The students get the day off; I get the day off. So, I'm taking the little bit of time I have to update a bit on my life.

NYU -- I started the Master of Fine Arts Creative Writing program this fall. It's been an interesting ride. I came to the program on the heels of a month-long residency in which I sort of rested a lot, edited...and just dreamed about what I might start writing at school. I got in my workshop - working with poet Sharon Olds - and between being in her space and talking with a friend, I started this project I've been dreaming about for years. Years. I'll just say, it's about creating a family myth...and a turtle. and a little boy named Gryphon.

How God Ends Us -- the book is out in the world and circulating. Last Monday, I visited Adelphi University's Creative Writing program because one of the graduate classes read my book. It was my first time doing that sort of thing. Just the month before I flew down to South Carolina to give a talk on "The Art of Risk in Poetry" with poets Sharon Olds and Rosanna Warren. It's been interesting that my position in the poetry world is shifting: to one of teacher, to one of I have something to say, and folks want to come hear my say.

Internship -- so, as if I were not busy enough, I took an internship at a really cool New York magazine. I don't want to put my whole business out there, but it's a pretty big deal. I get to sit hours and hours and read slush and hope to "discover" a poet...although, who knows.

Gym & Life -- I am finding that the busier I get the more I need something to stabilize me. I've turned to the gym. I find a time to go at least 5 times a week, and that has been an important component to my survival -- just giving myself an hour at least to just do things for myself, where I don't really have to think about much except for maybe counting numbers of repetitions for crunches, or turning up the resistance knob on the spinning bike. Also, another mainstay for my stability is Sunday. I get up and go to the gym, then church, then come home and cook a Sunday dinner. Most times, I invite people over. Come and eat and break bread with me, and let's usher in a whole new week.

Updates!!

2009-08-13T13:56:00.002-04:00

Hello out there in TV Land....

I am currently right in the middle of my residency here. Here are some pretty cool happenings:

Here's a review of my book by the SC Poet Laureate Marjory Wentworth.

Metta Sama interviewed me for the Torch poetry blog.

ESSENCE Magazine published my poem "Lament" from _How God Ends Us_ in the September issue.

Upcoming: The State Newspaper will run a small story about me & the book & the official book party August 28 in Columbia, SC.

Forced reprieve

2009-08-10T09:54:00.002-04:00

Last night I dodged a thunderstorm in the mountains. I heard stories from a friend who was here before I was who lost her laptop to the thunderous rains. She was trying to wade out the storm on her laptop. Her laptop is dead.

Thinking that I was smarter than that, I unplugged my laptop from the wall the two hours that the storm was passing through. You should know that my AC adaptor, for whatever reason, was already on the outs and I knew any extra electricity could possibly kill my computer or worse.

So, I tried to move my computer to a different part of my studio. This meant unplugging then re-plugging the laptop. My ac adaptor made a hissing noise then stopped working. Luckily the residency has a group computer for printing....but as of right now my computer is out of commission. I guess I am just blessed that it wasn't my hard drive.

30 days

2009-07-28T11:25:00.002-04:00

Today is my first full day at the residency: The Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts. I left almost immediately after I finished my summer program for my regular job. It was a whirlwind, really. And a lot of debriefing that needed to be done, but I couldn't really do because I was trying to pack and clean and get ready to uproot myself for 30 days.

I have no phone reception here. That can be either good or bad.

I've decided to not stress myself out on starting new things. But I am also not closing myself off on the possibility of something new. However, I've come to the conclusion that I need to really dedicate some time to revision, to re-visioning certain things: namely my two manuscrips of poetry...and I would like to see a more solid "draft" of my novel. So I will have my editorial hat on for the next thirty days.

Look for minor updates here and there.

Best,
DeLana.

_Cartographer_ edit #1

2009-06-26T23:30:00.003-04:00

While my mom watches the MSNBC tribute to Michael Jackson in the background, I'm going to update a bit bout my progress on Cartographer.

I had two epigraphs. I cut one. I believe this one standing alone will mean more. I then proceeded to read each poem out loud in the coffeeshop, listening for wording and phrasing. Trying to capture line-breaks in the right places as well as punctuation.

Here's the breakdown of the manuscript so far. There are four sections in the 4 cardinal directions. One section is a long poem (hence the big difference between page count and number count):

Page count: 51 pages.

# of poems: 31.

I didn't take any poems out this round (that happenened in the previously mentioned post about manuscripting). I have one poem that I re-made drastically, I believe in an attempt to salvage it...to keep from cutting it.

Here's a look at an evolution. I'm still undecided if it's going to keep its place in the manuscript, however, I'm enjoying taking the stretch...recycling, if you will

draft (a)

A quarter's worth
"Let me say this to you before my quarter runs out" - man in nyc

It is dusk when I pace Broadway -
Spanish a backdrop of syncopated noise.

I curse myself for having no desire
to learn, yet yours is the first distinguishable

voice, inflected English a torch
against midnight. I see you, duffle bag

slouched over your shoulder, back arched
into the cubby-hold of the telephone booth.

Such urgency in your ocmmand. I pause
to let you speak - I want to know what

you can say here and now. What do you have
to say from a payphone where passersby

can eavesdrop, stop and listen? You slam
the phone down, let curses slip from your mouth.

I try to imagine myself in your place, try
to think how much time, how many words

can a quarter buy you after all?
------------------------------------------------
draft (b)

Analog

Your cell phone is lost and you dare search your purse for a quarter. Spanish a backdrop of syncopated noise, his inflected English your only torch against the night. Despite his huddle, you hear threats from the body of the blackened phone booth that holds the man like a hug. He screams into the receiver for his quarter's worth of time. You wonder how many words the silver coin can purchase. Evolution: You divvy up your allotted minutes among your dearly beloved; text messages taught you economy of language: fifteen taps to get the point. And the mouth never utters a word.

Manuscripting

2009-06-26T17:37:00.002-04:00

I'm in Columbia, South Carolina. I've reached a place where I no longer refer to it as "home"...rather, my parent's house. Whenever I do come to South Carolina, I find being uprooted (interesting, returning to the South is now an "uprooting") from my dailyness of New York City life (or lack) gives me a certain perspective, and allows me to do a certain work. I came down with some goals in mind: editing.

I've got two "complete" drafts of things I wrote in 2008: my novel, a second book. I've spent a lot of time on others' blogs where they discuss their methods of revision. A lot to soak in; a lot to learn.

So. A couple of weeks ago, out of frustration and maybe a little bit of insecurity, I moved around my manuscript, Cartographer. I moved poems from the front to the back, from the back to the front. Took some out. Then, I let it sit. Now, I want to believe I'm ready to go back to it with a different eye.

Reading this book, is also helping me in a lot of ways.

Maybe, too, I'll chart my progress here.

Saturday afternoon musings

2009-06-20T15:10:00.003-04:00

It's raining another day in New York City. I am a bit upset. I need sun, people!

So I've been thinking a lot about poetry lately. I suppose it's because I'm not really writing poetry, so I'm thinking about it at least, believing that I'm still being productive. What am I thinking? I'm thinking about several conversations I've had with other writers...most who are where I am, with one book out and another in-tow...and trying to figure out this world of book publishing in a world (the US, really.....why can't we be in the forefront here?) that could care less, really. But anyways, on more than one occasion have I heard someone say they were trying not to write the same book twice. One writer even went so far as to say he was holding his manuscript from publication because he doesn't feel he's been changed enough by it, or that it is different enough. I've been fighting with this. I have one full manuscript, and one that I believe is almost done, and they were all written in and around each other. In truth, some poems that appear in How God Ends Us could very well be poems that could work in this other manuscript. So, what does that say? That my writing hasn't changed enough? That I am writing the same book?

So then I'm thinking about the positives and negatives about this idea....I think a look at music could give us bigger ideas as to why this approach (changing our poetry game each book) could hurt or help us. Erykah Badu could be a good example. She came out with two albums that were similar in feel -- Baduizm and Mama's Gun. Though, without a doubt, in Mama's Gun, she had hints at a change, at something coming -- take the opening cut "Penitentiary Philosophy"....hard core jamming on the drums -- several levels up from "Rimshot", right?

But she still had some of that familiar. Some of that slow groove that everyone liked. Quite possibly my favorite song of hers, Green Eyes contains a lot of everything -- more bass & kick, slow and mellow....great vocals. Something for everyone.

She came out with World Wide Underground and folks were grumbling and mad and about ready to kick her to the curb. Folks bought it out of faithfulness, but I know many folks who don't know the album as they could talk about her live album or any of the other two. It was definitely a change, something different. She definitely didn't "record the same album" again. But at what cost? Folks just coming to her at this album would be taking a risk. Do they love it? Do they want to go back through her discography and see what else she does? If they love it and go back and want to hear more of it, they would be disappointed to find that because she changed her game so, she is not the same artist they fell in love with. Folks coming to this album from the start with E. Badu and with support for her growth would maybe understand that it is a door opening, that maybe, just maybe, whatever comes after this would be a nice balance. She was just going through musical puberty....

So then you get New Amerikah. And I think without songs like "Telephone" -- it would still be unbalanced...very much like a "better" World Wide Underground with heavy background stuff and not as much of Badu's vocals. She found her balance. A balance I think could only have happened because she remembered this past musician she was and gave herself room for this new musician she wants to be. I think if folks come to E. Badu with this as their first album and go back through her discography, they would not be alienated.

Back to poetry and writing and books, now. I am thinking about poets like Lucille Clifton. I am thinking about older poets, poets that we love, poets that we use to build canons and create syllabi for writing courses and literature courses and write whole theses about the arc of their work charting from beginning to end. I think the love of Ms. Clifton's work comes from this unchanging simplicity in her language and poetics...the constant that stays from book to book. Would we still love ms. Clifton as Ms. Clifton if she changed her game up every book? Would we still have the same feelings for her as we went from book to book, looking for those short, imaginative narratives, if she, say, were to switch it up and become a language poet? Would she still be Ms. Lucille Clifton? In name, yes. But maybe that's all.

Not to say something is wrong with becoming a language poet. I'm not going down that road. I've been reading some interesting poets as of late, trying to stretch (read: not change) my own strict-narrative bend. Matthea Harvey's Modern Life has been an interesting read, and only because I am coming to it with this open-mindedness about really trying to figure out what she's doing has it spoken to me in a most real and quiet way.

So there is this tug between wanting to do something different. I feel like I've told most of the stories I have to tell in my life, and find myself writing some of the same things in different ways. That is something I do not want to get locked into...There are some poets who tell the same story from collection to collection. That I am trying to avoid. But why re-invent myself each time I come to the gathering table for a collection or manuscript? What will I prove?

Any thoughts?

The Rest of My Yesterdays..

2009-06-14T22:46:00.003-04:00

I'm listening to Alana Davis and trying to get motivated to start my week with a clean apartment.

I bugged my friend Mitchell Douglas to do a poetry challenge, thinking that I would be up for it -- that I would want to write a poem a day for a week and found that not to be the case. I wrote two and a half poems. The challenge ends Monday. I have been reading furiously. Does that count? Thinking about poetry instead of writing it?

My friend said something profound today that sort of eased my "I'm not doing anything productive" anxiety. The conversation went something like this:

Friend: i'm so not in the right writing space.
5:37 PM me: yeh, i hear you
5:38 PM Friend: lol
you hear me?
me: yup. loud n clear. i've not in the right anything space right now
6:07 PM Friend: maybe this is a season in which you are supposed to enjoy life & what God has already done
6:08 PM "How God Ends Us" really is a lovely, palpable, quietly powerful piece of work.
Bask in it!
6:09 PM Don't sweat the next thing. God will bring "Cartographer" and your Palestine project to pass. & whatever you're to do after them, well, it'll come, too.
Who knows how they'll coalesce & evolve at NYU.
Feel me?

--------

So that calmed me down a bit. And I should not feel like I'm not doing anything. I mean, since March 29, I've participated in 14 readings. This Wednesday will be the last appearance of the Spring and will top me off at 15 readings. I've been busy. It's been exhausting. But still, a part of me, the busy-bee part of me, the worrying-because-I-feel-like-I'm-missing-something part of me still feels unease at the pending lull in activity.

Here's a preview to the Fall, however: (this is in addition to going to school and working!)

**August 28, 2009 -- South Carolina -- South Carolina Poetry Initiative will host my SC Book Launch
**Sept 11, 2009 -- New York City -- Bryant Park Reading room with Cave Canem's Nehessaiu DeGainnes and Charles Lynch
**Sept 19, 2009 -- South Carolina -- SCPI Poet's Summit with other poets: Sharon Olds and Rosanna Warren
**October 15-17 -- Lowell, Ma -- Mass. Poetry Festival

I'm hoping to get a few more readings for the Fall and Spring.

Book Opening

2009-06-03T12:15:00.003-04:00

May 31, 2009, I had a reading/celebration/opening for my book *How God Ends Us*. It was fun and nice and elegant. It was at this place called the cell in Chelsea. I had a friend from middle school and high school visiting and it was great to have new and old loves gathered under one roof.

I started the night with the poem by lucille clifton: "won't you celebrate with me". It is - as with a lot of other people i know - a favorite poem. Also, because I believe in the spirit of celebration, I wanted to open up my reading with these words:

won't you celebrate with me
by Lucille Clifton

won't you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.

I had a chance to be a bit vulnerable at the reading. I talked more than I normally would have...but I knew without a doubt that those people in that room were there to support me.

What was really cool was several people came in off the street. Some women immediately bought the book.

Other people who celebrated with me on the mic: Roger Bonair-Agard, Patrick Rosal, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, and John Murillo.

Here's a link to some photos:

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2357310&id=2702460&l=ba30dc00a0

Also, my friend Saeed Jones did a little write up about the event, too: check it!
http://saeedjones.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/on-delana-damerons-book-release-party/#comments

Broadside!

2009-05-22T22:29:00.003-04:00

Tonight was a reading with Matthea Harvey. The reading was organized by Thomas Sayers Ellis at the Center for Book Arts. The series is called the Broadside Reading Series. The Center brings in poets and they choose artists to create original broadsides of a selected poem. My poem, "Knowing the limits of the earth" was put into another art form, a beautiful broadside.

The picture does not do it justice. Eventually the broadside will be on sale on the website. It's 10 bucks, I believe, and worth it. You can also look at other poets featured in the series.

Exciting, indead.

Next up: Book Party/Launch on May 31!!!!!!!!

Then three more readings and my Spring/Summer schedule is over. Then, summer?

The reading, a poem.

2009-05-10T20:29:00.003-04:00

Pictures from the reading.

a poem: (previously published in Inch magazine)

Oyster and Pearl

I am trapped

in my mother's house.

She cannot dislodge me

but finds ways to smooth over

the friction between us.

------

The set:

Opened up with Lucille Clifton's poem, Quilting.

Some Beastiaries (with regards to Ms. Anne Sexton)

1. Small-mouthed Bass

2. Io Moth

3. Oyster and Pearl

4. Beetle

From Cartographer

5. Knowing the Limits of the Earth (soon to be released as a broadside!!!)

6. Respect the Spaces

7. Palinode

From How God Ends Us

8. Ode to the Camel-Hair Brush

9. Closer to Knowing

10. Diving

11. The Last Touch

12. Backseat Savior

Mother's Day and a Reading

2009-05-09T20:45:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow is Mother's Day. Again, another Mother's Day that I'm in New York City, and my mother is in South Carolina. I hope she gets what I sent her.

Also, tomorrow, I have a reading. It's in a garden. I'm praying for sun and flowers abloom. And, of course, poetry.

If you're in New York City, come, check it out!

http://www.6bgarden.org/

4pm.

Happy Mother's Day; Happy May

Come what May --

2009-05-07T23:10:00.002-04:00

I realize I sort of sprung the essay excerpts on my readers. That is, if there are any readers out there! Allow me to explain a bit -- only a bit.

I haven't been writing poetry for a while. That's partly a lie. I was in a workshop with Tracy K. Smith, and it was hard to put myself in a position of both writer and promoter of my poetry/self when the book came out, and so I decided to let my promotion self step forward. However, writing largely focuses for me as a place I go to (it is a place in my mind) when I am dealing with difficult things, when I want to be in a different world for a while.

In tradition with a lot of events in my life, the last couple of weeks everything sort of came crashing down on me at once. And I had to (continue to) keep up this public persona, and I needed somewhere to escape, because there were little places to escape. Too, I've been wanting to write some of these essays for a while, and had been spinning them several different ways in my head, this way and that, and decided: what time is better than this to just write them? I wasn't interested in journaling the week's events. That becomes tired an old. I just wanted to not think about them, brood over them, so I do what I do in times of crisis: give myself a project.

The essays, even though excerpts only are presented here, are largely still unfinished. What I hoped to do was get to at least the heart of what I wanted to explore, to give myself a good running start for several essays that maybe can work their ways into something grander, can maybe even live together. What I discovered in the process is I am most ready to embrace my southern self than ever before. Maybe because I'm an ex-pat of sorts? I can't say that I don't ever imagine myself living in the South ever again, but I know there is a longing in this distance that is finding, sneaking its way into my writing -- an identity that I didn't have when I was in the South.

In other news, it's May. It feels like Seattle in New York -- it has rained consistently for the past week. We have seen a bad winter, one or two really good days, and now lots and lots of rain. I'll be happy for consistent sunshine. For walking the city streets without a jacket. Even -- gasp! dare i say it? -- a little humidity and heat. Oh, summer. Be with us now.

Writing, day 6

2009-05-02T07:56:00.002-04:00

an excerpt:

Just black, then

An overheard conversation of three of my students:
A: Where are you from?
B: My family is from Ghana
A: Nigga, you ain’t from Africa – look how white you are! Really, where are you from?
B. Ghana. (he looks to the third boy) Where are you from?
C. America
B. No, dummy, where are your people, your parents from?
C. Down South. I’m not sure exactly where.
B. Oh, so you’re just black, then?

I am afraid that since I have moved (or escaped from) the South, that most of my stories begin or end or travel through there. Even when I don’t want them to. Even when I try to forget it, the City puts a mirror to my face. There it is.

I wanted to start this essay with this conversation I overheard while chaperoning middle schoolers Upstate to pick apples. This was to avoid starting with an obvious statement like I’m from the South or to start again the endless cycle of comparison between the City and what I am calling home.

Back home, we are not so much occupied (that is, anymore. It is the New South) with this idea of ethnic identity. Blame it one its history. I do. Rather, we simplify into broad categories capable of containing many exceptions. We identify as either: white, black or mixed (added post-Jim Crow to accommodate an idea of the “other”). You can tell a non-southerner by their need to create sub-categories to this filing system. They’ll say: “I’m white, but my mother’s family is from Ireland )or England – whichever European country will allow such classification),” or they’ll say, “I’m mixed: my father is Indian and Black; my mother is German.”

If I was in the conversation with those boy’s I’d be just black, then. I learned this label several ways: first, upon playing on my daycare playground and being told that I couldn’t play games with them because their parents said they weren’t allowed to play with “Blacks.” Another time I learned was when we were vacationing in Washington, DC and my father was looking for a parking space, and we had entered into this battle with someone who claimed to have seen it first, and my mother leaned out the window, and the woman leaned and said we should take our black asses back where we came from, and my mother – self-identifying for the woman – said we were taking our black asses and parking there. So the woman did not get the park. We were just black asses and the woman had said it and my mother confirmed. There were no other questions.

writing day 5

2009-05-01T10:01:00.000-04:00

who knew i could keep this up?

an excerpt (it's not titled):

Though I hated it then, the best thing my sister could have done for me was assume her elderly sister’s role and pick on me. She took advantage of every opportunity – once I lost both bottom baby teeth while trying to pull a too-small thermal shirt over my head so we could play in the once-a-winter South Carolina snow. They were already loose, but in keeping with my tradition of holding onto things for too long – way longer than they should be held – I refused to let anyone pull them. I have a constant reminder of this truth every time I offer a wide-mouthed smile: one tooth is exceptionally higher than the others because it refused to wait for the dead tooth to dislodge itself from my gums. I remember specifically during those times of no-bottom-front-teeth that my sister would sit at the dinner table and laugh as she watched me negotiate an ear of corn my mother had prepared.

Too, around the same time, I was her maid. We inherited an elaborate kitchen set, complete with stove, silver (not plastic) pots and pans. We were playing house one day and it was tea time. I was to set the table, including getting water for the tea. I approached the bathroom and noticed the missing footstool I used in the mornings to wash my hands. The sink was too high for me to reach then. Perhaps I could have tried the bathtub. Instead, I reached into the toilet bowl with the silver kettle and returned. She took a sip. Maybe it was because the water tasted weird, or because she had not heard any water running at all yet I had come bearing the thing she sent me after, but she asked me where I got the water. Because I still had not mastered the art of lying with a straight face, I had mastered the art of delaying consequences. I told her simply: the bathroom. She asked if it was from the sink and I said no, I couldn’t reach it. The tub? No. Not the tub. House was over. She loves to tell this story as an example of how evil I am, but I defend myself and say resourceful. I was using what I had to get what I was supposed to get.

Writing, day 4

2009-04-30T12:06:00.002-04:00

an excerpt:

Epistolary to the Woman Across a Continent

Dear Eula,

You should know that we do not know each other. Perhaps you know it. Still, I am writing with the best wishes for your well-being. I am well.

I am writing because I want to know if you believe in fate. I need to know this. Often, I find myself sure of this idea that we are locked in life like a maze and there is only one correct path, despite the allusion that we have choices.

Allow me to explain. Once, my sister and I were riding in my grandfather’s green station wagon. He had picked us up from our house so we could spend the weekend with him. It was one of my favorite things to do. Anyways, we were riding in the car and I noticed that we were not taking any of the routes I’d known to get to the cul-de-sac on which my grandparents lived. I inquired our destination from the back seat. My sister, older and up front, said nothing – seemingly annoyed she’d spend another weekend on my grandparent’s couch.

I asked why we were going this way, and my grandfather said something to the effect of there being multiple ways to skin a squirrel (maybe I’ll tell you one of the ways I know in my next letter), and that all roads lead home. My sister told him she was familiar with this route, and that he was going the wrong way. Imagine that: two girls having never held the steering wheel of anything giving directions. We reached a stop sign and my grandfather acquiesced – she said fine, which way should I go? We’d look left, look right, and chose a path. He listened. We’d hit several dead ends and would have to turn around, return to the point we went astray. He’d go back to the last turn, and we’d choose another path.

I don’t remember how long this went one or if we finally found our way on our own, or if Grandpa gave up on the game we were playing and just drove us to this house. It was kind of like that maze I mentioned, like life, wouldn’t you agree? We think we should go one way and we do and then we reach the dead end and either choose to cast down our reigns and give up or we turn back.

Writing, day 3

2009-04-29T13:33:00.001-04:00

an excerpt:
--------------------------
Believe

I admit, I am more gullible than most. I am a cynic and skeptic, too. I don’t know how both sides of the dichotomy exist within me without some internal combustion, but they do. Most times, I believe what I am told.

I only knew my grandfather as a retiree. I’ve heard stories and seen pictures of when he was in the army or when he sliced open the dead bodies of mental patients. Maybe, looking back, these are selective memories, what I choose to remember or file away in the card catalog of memories and deceased family members. I am guilty of that. Choosing things I want to remember: mostly the positive things. Once, my family was reminiscing about him – noting his absence – at a cook out. Everyone was throwing around a series of “do you remembers” followed by nothing that sounded like the man I knew. I refused to believe that. Here is where my skepticism kicked in. I refused to believe that he was a drunk, or that one time he set his Monte Carlo on fire while driving down South Carolina’s I-20.

The James – we called him Papa James – I knew spent his afternoons turning his suburban backyard into a farm. For me. Everything he did, he professed, he did it for me.

In my grandparents’ back yard, around the magnolia that is positioned right in the center, were the following (not all at once, but some permeation of the following based on the season and availability): chicks; ducks; a pond with carp, goldfish and two small turtles (my sister named them Thelma and Louise; I named them Felix and Otis); rabbits; a “jungle gym”; a picnic table and grill made of cinderblocks; a storage shed; a green house; a house where he put a TV, bed, and rocking chair; cats named Tom and Jerry – none of the animals except the finches were allowed inside; Iguanas; a small garden with various fruits and vegetables; a barrel opened on its side filled with a strawberry patch.

Over the summers, I would spend weeks at a time there; my grandfather and I both needed something or someone to occupy those empty days. My grandmother was still working and would be up and out of the house before I woke up and I would hear in my sleep the faint sounds of some lawn mower or gardening appliance. I’d wake up and make my way to the kitchen where a ritual breakfast of fried eggs, grits and sausage were waiting.

Eventually, I’d make it outside. By then the sun was up and out and my grandfather was done with his work for the day. He’d come inside and take a nap. I’d romp around from sprinkler to greenhouse to chicken shed to rabbit cage to the strawberry patch.

It wasn’t until I entered the house one day – my fingers and face marked – to find Papa James reading his Bible, preparing for his Sunday school teaching. He looked up and asked me what I had gotten into. I was sure that he’d still be napping and I could wash my face and hands and settle down to whatever lunch he had fixed. I couldn’t lie; I told him I tasted some of the strawberries. That was a lie. I had picked all of the red ones and eaten them right there, hovering the barrel.

He closed his Bible and began to fix my lunch. I rushed to wash up. He entertained my desire to watch cartoons, and I remember this particular cartoon was an episode of Rugrats. The trouble-maker girl – Angelica (of whom I related to most at times) was tormenting one of the younger kids because they had eaten the seed of some fruit. Watermelon, I believe. She told them that they should know you never eat the seeds of anything. Ever. That to eat the seeds of something would surely mean that you’d have the whole fruit growing inside of you. And you’d die.

Papa James took this opportunity to tell me that it was true. You never, ever eat the seeds. You could die. He then asked me if I ate the strawberries. I said yes. He said, soon there will be a strawberry patch growing in my stomach.

Scared of what that could mean – that my small frame would expand to explosion – I wanted to give every strawberry back. It was too late he said. We sat and watched the end of the cartoon, and he cleaned up and went outside to tend to his garden.

How did one avoid eating strawberry seeds? They were outside of the fruit; countless numbers embedded in the red flesh. I contemplated the thousand seeds I had consumed. How each one would grow and grow. I hadn’t believed the cartoon. It was a bunch of moving pictures and voice-overs and extreme scenarios enlarged by childish imaginations. But my grandfather had confirmed its truth. I believed. I was going to die.

Writing day 2

2009-04-29T10:11:00.001-04:00

an excerpt from yesterday's offering:

-------------------

Commitment Phobia

After the men delivered and assembled my bed in my first Harlem apartment, I sat on the bare mattress and cried.

Earlier that day I deflated the air mattress that I slept on for fifteen months: almost five hundred days sleeping six inches above hardwood floors. I had deflated and packed away this air matter my mother gave me when I left South Carolina for the Mid Atlantic. She asked me what I was going to sleep on. I hadn’t thought that far; most of my other housing situations came with some sort of sleeping situation already figured out. The day she gave me the air mattress, I had already packed my books first into my two-door Honda Civic; whatever room was left then got filled with clothes, my guitar and flute. I had no money to buy a bed as soon as I got there, so the air mattress would have to do for a few weeks or months.

I never owned my own bed despite having moved four times between two Carolinas over the course of two years. Priding myself on the knowledge my father bestowed me to be independent, I set out not to burden or inconvenience anyone. To acquire real furniture would be to have to coordinate and pay for movers. The easiest fix would be to keep my worldly possessions at a minimum. Could it fit in my car should I need to move tomorrow? I awaited the imminent possible displacement like some await the apocalypse, and like the believers, I had to be ready to go.

Writing

2009-04-28T13:25:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I set out to write an essay, and got it done. A first draft, at least. It's an idea I've been swimming around in my head for a while -- this idea that I do not have a history of oral tradition in my family. Being from the South, it is expected, almost -- at least outsiders expect it. But what I've discovered from writing and being able to write and be creative in that writing is that I have the freedom and the ability to create my own narratives based on the fragments of information I've collected along the way.
It felt good to write something. Even though it wasn't a poem. I haven't really been producing anything as of late, and I felt backed up. I can't really think of a poem to write, but I do have this desire to write a collection of essays, so I figured why not try that? At least, I mean, an essay.
Here's the first part: (there are 4 short sections) Oh, and the title is a working title.
------

Southern enough

“My family believed I’d have words for others.” Elizabeth Alexander

I.

I only know the truths they told me. My family isn’t particularly big on secrets, but hierarchies, we’ve got hierarchies. Age determines the amount of truths you get; I was a child when all of the good stuff happened.

I should clarify. By family, I largely mean my mother’s side. Most of my truths are one-sided.

When I was young, I never thought the truths I carried were sufficient. But because of the hierarchy, I was unable to ask questions for clarification. I was expected to take what I was given. But I was curious, and always found myself on the perimeter of adult circles snatching pieces of gossip or stories until I was discovered, admonished and told to go play. Even now, as I write this, I do not know if anything I have just revealed – that I used to snoop around like a truth-detective – is one-hundred percent truth, but I know I received information from somewhere and at some point. Perhaps they have told this to me too, and that is how I’ve come to know what I do – not experientially. I do not know which is true.

A truth I know: I’ve come to realize people in New York City expect me to have folklore ready on my tongue. This is outside of the fact that I am a writer – but maybe it is magnified because I claim to be one – but more because of the fact that I reign from the South. Upon identifying as a Southerner, the interested party will ask: “Will you tell me about The South?” And I suspect they want what I cannot deliver: some complete fable, rife with spirits and back roads, moonshine in mason jars, Klansmen and burned crosses, “For Whites Only Signs” above water fountains, a rural and backwards south, some romantic other-world.Most of these stories they expect to have been passed down orally from generation to generation – all the way back to Slavery. I tell them I can’t get my family tree past Georgia. Only four or so generations.

But I do give them the fragments that I have: my paternal grandmother attested to having seen several ghosts while working as a domestic on the waterfront mansions in Charleston, SC; my maternal grandfather performed autopsies on the mentally ill and would bring whole brains home in jars; my maternal grandmother washed and styled her dead mother’s hair the night before my great-grandmother Georgia Mae’s funeral.

Back in NYC

2009-04-19T02:42:00.003-04:00

I'm back in New York, and not a moment too soon. Today it was so beautiful outside. I broke out the sandals and dress. I had some work that I had to do that was due today so I decided if I was going to have to work, that at least I should look cute. So, I did. I went to a coffeeshop to grade papers. I ran into a friend there and chatted for a bit.

Another friend of mine had a BBQ in Brooklyn, and I was determined to make it, so that gave me some incentive to get everything done and in early so I didn't have to worry about anything later tonight. So I went over to brooklyn for some Uno and grilled veggies and meats and then another friend called for a movie tonight, Sugar, about a Dominican baseball player. It was a good movie, but I think a little too much to see late night, b/c it was all in subtitles. Then we walked around the city to grab a cup of coffee and then walked back to the train and headed home. I was surprised when I walked into my apartment and my clock said 2am. I'd had a full day: running, grading, bbqing, movies, etc.

Monday I have to enter the world of reality again. I've been off from my regular jobs for two weeks. One week was my tour, the other week my students were on vacation and I had the DC reading anyways. I don't know what I did with the days inbetween, but they passed. Now I have to figure out how to have the book in the world and be a regular citizen. A whole new game.

Right now I'm working on some interview questions for a friend. It is interesting to think about my work in a critical way. I never really thought about my work in these ways, but it's healthy and good. It gives me insight. It opens me up and opens my eyes. Maybe we can land the interview in a magazine. If not, look for links to his blog, soon.

In other news, I'm interested in seeing reviews/comments/etc about the book. I'm a bit anxious, to tell you the truth. It scares me a bit that people are out there formulating their own opinions about my work, and I cannot defend it. Not that I should have to, but you know.

I'm all over the place. Maybe it's because it's 2am and I had coffee all day. I doubt that I'm going to be able to run in the morning. Maybe walk to church. I haven't been there in a few weeks, and I find myself excited to get back there, as well.

More thoughts on my take on religion and writing later. A question for the interview got me to thinking. It might be a separate essay all together.

On the Road, again

2009-04-15T10:28:00.002-04:00

Today I got two phone calls almost in quick succession from two friends who teach full time down south. Being that I work part time, I definitely do not have to be up as early as they were calling me (first phone call at 7:30am) but, I got up and talked and figured it would be good to get an early start on my day.

When I got off the phone with them, I decided I needed to get my endorphines going, and decided to go for a run. There is a park about a mile long 2 blocks from my house, and if you run along the perimeter, the sidewalk is consistent, and there are no street lights. It's quite nice, to have almost like a track to run down. So I ran down and back. Two miles this morning.

Now, I face a day of grading and errands and getting things done. Hopefully. That would mean getting out of the house within the next hour for me to have enough time to do anything that means something for the day.

Tomorrow I head to DC to give a reading and have a discussion about the book. I am working on an interview for a friend, which is good, because it's giving me time to really sit down and think about these questions and formulate some answers that I had never really been forced to do. So it's good practice.

Too, I received a box from the press yesterday. It turns out they give you 500 postcards with the cover of the book. What on earth does one do with 500 post cards? Let me know!

To get from here to there

2009-04-13T23:21:00.002-04:00

While on the road, I forgot to mention that I definitely bought loads of books. Too many. I bought them like I was buying souveniers. "Here's a book I got from Quailridge Bookstore" or "Here's a book I got from Busboys and Poets" or "Here's a book I got from the Bullshead Bookshop".

Here's the final count:

Elizabeth Alexander's "Power and Possibility"
Anne Carson's "decreation"
Saadi Youseff's "Without an alphabet, Without a land"
June Jordan's "Affirmative Acts"

Elizabeth's and June Jordan's books are strictly essay books. I am wanting to get back into essay writing. I would like a book of essays soon. I bought Elizabeth's because I admired her book "The Black Interior" and because (despite the fact that it worked out she chose my book!) I secretely want to be her in a way. This was pre-inaugural fame. This was pre "How God Ends Us" -- I just always liked her historical take on poetry and how history informed her poetry, etc etc. So now I'm looking at her critical analysis of poetry and people.

I bought June Jordan's book "Affirmative Acts" strictly because I knew it contained her essays on Palestine. I've been reading and enjoying all the other essays, but I remember encountering a few people who mentioned it, and I had the hardest time finding the book (even in NYC!) and when I walked into Busboys & Poets and it was just right there on the shelf, I had to take it home. Look for more essays and greater writings on Palestine and abroad.

Anne Carson will be teaching at NYU now. Many friends told me I should be most excited to work with her; they think we can be a good fit. I figured I should pick up something by her. Too, I've been looking around NYC bookstores casually, and have turned up empty-handed. What DO we have here?

Saadi Youseff was a purchase continuing in the tradition of buying non-western poetry. It feeds me.

This was supposed to be a post about what else I've been reading. Namely, this memoir: "Bitter is the New Black" I think I have 10 or so pages left. It's my subway reading. It what I do to create a buffer between home and work, work and home. It's like watching a soap opera. I get on the train and enter this world. It's pretty entertaining. I don't want to say it's "mindless", but it is, sort of, for me, because it's the only thing lately I've found that I can read without thinking it or making it feel like work. I've decided, I think, to keep this tradition up. I need to find the next book.

I almost forgot

2009-04-12T11:46:00.002-04:00

my book is being featured as the book of the week on Kathryn Stripling Byer's (NC Poet Laureate) website. Check it out here.

How God Ends US

post-road update

2009-04-12T10:48:00.003-04:00

I won't take the time to update you all on every single step of the rest of the tour, but I will say that I went on to perform at UNC's Bullshead bookshop, which was probably one of my favorite readings, and then to Quailridge Bookstore, then swept up to DC to read at Busboys and Poets. I had great, great food all around. Especially of note is the Ethiopian restaurant in DC - Dukem - that my friend from High school, Zemar, took us to. The lamb tibs were/are to die for!!

I'm back in NYC. It's Easter Sunday. I am thinking about John 3:16, and thinking about the capacity to love so hard. I'm a bit exhausted from being on the road, but I'm going to try and make it to the church I've been attending the past couple of weeks. I was supposed to play flute today, but I wasn't sure that I would be back in town.

But not for long. I have another reading in Washington, DC on Thursday night. I just booked my tickets for the bus ride down. This will be my first time traveling (outside of my train ride from SC to NYC) outside of the city on my own without my car. I'm a bit.....scared, to tell you the truth. I think it's a control thing. I cannot control a bus. I cannot say, "I will get off on this next exit and take a break, get something to drink or snack on". Either way, I'm thankful for the opportunity to share my words with others, so I'm going. I'm adventuring out.

So upcoming readings:

April 16, 2009
The Charles Sumner Museum School (Washington DC)
6:30-9pm
Reading/Discussion/Question and Answer

May 1, 2009
Adelphi University
Cave Canem Workshop Participant reading
7pm

May 20, 2009
Center for Book Arts
Reading with Thomas Sayers Ellis and Matthea Harvey
6:30pm
(there will be broadsides for sale for a poem that is not in my collection How God Ends Us).

On the Road

2009-04-08T10:18:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was my first stop on the book tour with Raina J. Leon. It wasn't Raina's first stop. Sunday we were at Penn State. Monday morning we left to drive 8 hours to Chapel Hill. We got in just enough time to hang out for a bit. Raina had a reading. I still have some friends living here in Chapel Hill, so we parted ways and I was able to watch the Championship game with old friends. It was quite good to be home.

Yesterday I slept in late and did some grading. Raina had to be on campus, so I decided to go onto campus and walk around and continue to miss Chapel Hill. I made sure to stop at Cosmic Cantina (oh, oh oh), then the Daily Grind, then I went around and looked for my friend working at the Student Stores and we chatted for a bit, and I sat in the bookshop (the site of today's reading!) and read.

We got to Southern Village really early (if you know Raina, you know this is her style...like, hours early)...but that gave me an opportunity to figure out my set list and time some poems and chill out a bit. A lot of friends came. It was great.

Here's a set list (I suppose if you have the book you can "read along", haha)

1. It is Written
2. The body as a House
3. Body, an elegy
4. All Hallows Eve
5. Lament
6. Underneath the Brown
7. Backseat Savior (which is becoming everyone's favorite, I'm told)
8. This Sacrifice, This Love

I also read some poems from Cartographer. But those are top-secret now.

Today I read at the Bullshead Bookshop....so great to be back on campus.
Tonight in Raleigh at Market Steet Books

Tomorrow we leave for DC and read at BusBoys and Poets tomorrow night.

Cooling board: a long playing poem

2009-03-31T20:20:00.002-04:00

Sunday I got to hang out with Mitchell L.H. Douglas for the day. He had a reading early in Harlem, which I had to miss, but he was really close to my place so I met him at the end of his reading and then we walked over to The Perch and hung out for a bit. We opened up some spirits and toasted our new books, and exchanged books.

It's been exciting living since my own book was released. It is even more special that I got to share the debut of my book with Mitchell, because I remember the night I sent it in I e-mailed him (or was it Myspace? ....oh how times change!) and told him about the prize I entered my manuscript in (he read an earlier version of the 'script) and mused: wouldn't it be cool if our babies were published in the same year??

And here we are!

Today I packed his book with me and read it on the way to have coffee with a new poet I met through the publication of my own book. That is probably the most exciting thing -- meeting new people. Mitchell's book is a long poem (a series of smaller, connected poems a la Kevin Young or Martha Collins) about Donny Hathaway. It's an engaging read. I'm always interested in projects and the long poem. I'm sure I'll be visiting the collection over and over.

Other than that...work and work. Sunday I leave for my spring tour!! It's so scary how quickly things approach. Look for details here later.

Bowery Poetry Club

2009-03-29T23:46:00.003-04:00

Today/tonight was fabulous and amazing. I cannot say more about it. Well, I will. Just not now. I have to get ready for work. Thank you, NYC. Thank you Mitchell and Red Hen Press!

Here's my set list:

1. Lament
2. Backseat Savior
3. Underneath the Brown
4. To the Black Girl in Charleston, SC, Waving the Confederate Flag
5. The Body as a House
6. All Hallows Eve
7. It is Written
8. Meditation
9. Flame
10. This Sacrifice, This Love

Hopefully pictures soon, too.

In a week, I start my tour with my beloved friend Raina J. Leon!

Exhaustion

2009-03-28T22:40:00.002-04:00

I can't remember if I've said it here, but I was talking to a dear, dear friend just the other day. They asked how I was doing, and not being one who simply says "fine" and leaves it at that (I mean, you did ask, didn't you?), I proceeded to tell them how I felt like I'd just had a life implant.

Let me explain: the beginning of the month all I was really expecting to happen in March was to hear from the grad school I applied to, and to hopefully get my book by April 1. I knew I had a reading at the end of the month, but that seemed so far away that it didn't register.

So then March 15 comes around and I get keys to my very own apartment. The same week I hear from NYU and my books come in the mail. When it rains...

Too, I think along with the analogy that I feel like I've received a life transplant, there's always this adjustment phase after the body has received the new organ. There could/can be rejection. There is change to the body because of the trama and trying to fit this new thing in. Not that I expect my body to reject this new life, but I can definitely feel the effects of the "transplant" of the "newness" -- all of this among an already pretty busy life with juggling two jobs.

Tomorrow, though. Tomorrow I officially debut my book to the world. I am not sure about my set list, what I'm going to say, etc etc. Maybe I'll decide on the spot. Maybe I'll wing it. Although that is not my nature....this is new territory -- holding a book up there in front of people, reading from it, saying, this is my work, this is my baby....take it or leave it. Somehow none of the poems feel sufficient, feel enough to be read aloud. And I know a lot of folks coming to support and i'm 100% thankful and grateful...but at the same tme, maybe I'd be more comfortable reading in front of complete strangers. And if I thought that was bad -- in a few weeks when I do my mini book tour with friend Raina J. Leon in PA, NC, and DC....that will be almost all friends and loved ones. Yes. It's pretty crazy to think.

Anyways. I'm going to go read a bit and think a little about possible poems. etc.

Subway reading

2009-03-22T22:23:00.002-04:00

Alexandra Cespedes took the picture. She is also the artist.

I thought this picture was interesting to use for this post. This thinking about writing, and sending your words into the world. The yellow behind the book is the subway platform. The silver is a train. Which train? Who knows. I just know that my words are traveling, traveling into the world. It is a very humbling and vulnerable position, to think that my life is in someone's hands. That it can be in anyone's hands. Who knows who has bought the book and will pick it up and read it, and carry it with them in their bags, in their travels, to read while getting from here to there.

In other news, I am taking a writing workshop with Tracy K. Smith. Her workshop is titled: "Writing Across Cultures" -- it was supposed to be a cross-cultural writing workshop with poets from the Asian American Writer's workshop, but it's a nice colleciton of women of color who meet on Friday nights to read and talk about other people's poetry as well as our own. I am resistant a bit, if only because I haven't really been writing lately, but I hope the resistance wall will break open and I can take advantage of this opportunity. This week we're writing ghazals. I have a love/hate relationship with ghazals. I love the idea. I love them when they're done correctly. I don't always love the "write your name into the last couplet" section, as for some people with certain names can alter their name and not be so...obvious.

Okay...I'm trying to do too many things now. I hope your week ahead is fabulous!

Spring in New York

2009-03-20T08:23:00.003-04:00

Today I woke up and looked out the window and saw snow. I should tell you that the past two days the most I've worn outside was a jean jacket. And now there's snow?? For real? I'm a bit upset. I'm ready to put winter and my heavy coats behind me. I've been excited to bring out my spring clothes and colors -- my bright pinks and greens and so on. This is not to say that I haven't worn them in winter. In fact, my favorite thing to do is wear spring colors in winter, because I believe people wear colors too dark and depressing.

I'm getting ready to head out into this snow, however. I need to go to the post office. Yes, I'm sending off 4 books into the world. My books. They came yesterday. Well, I almost missed them, but they came. I've been parading them around ever since.

One thing that I was very adamant about after a longish search for artwork for the cover was that I wanted a living artist. I wanted it to be a true-to-life collaboration. For multiple reasons: it would be fun to live and talk and laugh about the book with someone who is equally excited about its publication and because I'd have the chance to reach an audience I never would have touched before. Here's proof:

Alexandra Cespedes (the artist) -- photos up on her blog!

She was the first person I signed the book for. I was a bit nervous. You can tell in the way I was holding my pen. I went on to sell a couple more books that day and made plans for other sales.

Then I met up with a friend for lovely late night tirmasu and coffee (he had a canoli and cappuccino) in celebration of everything. I'm so blessed. And thankful.

You should help me get rid of these 50 copies in my studio. You can order through my website.

Special Delivery

2009-03-18T22:55:00.003-04:00

Today I was informed that I will be receiving the advanced-ordered copies of my books in the mail tomorrow. I'm excited about that. I've also been told by other authors that the protocol for receiving one's first box of books is to open with friends/loved ones and a bottle (or few) of spirits. I've got the spirits -- my wine rack is generously stocked for such surprise occasions! -- now, I just need the friends/loved ones willing to come uptown and gather in/on The Perch (yes, capital T and P) with me and help me open it. Being the overly impatient one, I realize the last minute thing is going to be hard to coordinate, and I'm one to open immediately upon receiving....maybe it will be a solo celebration and bigger, better celebrations later.

I've unpacked practically everything except for my books. That is because I don't have real bookshelves yet. Those will be my next purchase.

I still haven't written my poem for this week's workshop. Maybe tomorrow the poem will come. I forgot how it feels to have deadlines that are not self-imposed. I forgot what it means to write under pressure. A lot has been going on in my world this week that, sadly, a poem is the last thing on my mind (although, apparently, updating my blog is not)....well, this is my unwinding. I'm going to settle in my bed in a few and read for a bit this book, "I was told there'd be cake" and then maybe dream a little more about my furnished apartment...and the box of books that will be arriving by the UPS fairy tomorrow. It's like Christmas, really. I'm anxious and can't sleep, but know that the sooner I go to sleep, the sooner tomorrow will come!

100th Post...

2009-03-14T21:34:00.002-04:00

Who knew? I've seemed to keep this blog for a good minute. Not that 100 is particularly big, but yeh. Here I am.

I am sitting in a room of boxes and packed up things. Who knew that a tiny box could hold so much? Right now I've counted 5 boxes (though, surely one box should be split into two) of books. Books, books. They are usually the first things I pack when I'm moving. I have to ensure they have a place in my new life -- everything else follows. Is that sad? Perhaps. I'll give away three huge bags of clothes (I had to carry them on the train to the Good Will) before I'll give away books. Something should be said about that, I think.

Today I got my keys and signed my lease. Tomorrow, it's church and then the movers come at 3:30pm to transport this life into my new one. It's quite exciting. Exhilarating, even. After I got my keys, I went to the store to get cleaning materials (one should note: every apartment I've moved into, someone was already living there for a while and had everything I should need. I've only needed to take my own belongings, so buying cleaning materials should be documented, haha) and went back to The Perch to scrub everything down. I now have shiny hardwood floors, a sparkling kitchen and bathroom. Before I moved in, there was apparently some work done in the apartment, and so between that and just settling dust, it needed a good wash down. I was happy to do it (One should also note that I have a reputable hatred for cleaning). It is, after all, my place. I smiled before I closed the door and thought that in a few more days I'll be settled down and in. Somewhat. Then there's the unpacking packed boxes...which is the stage of moving I always hate. Once, I was so sure that I wasn't going to stay in the place that I moved into that I lived out of boxes. I unpacked one box of poetry books and hung up my clothes. Everything else stayed boxed up.

So now I'm down to the final stretch. I have some misc things that I have to find some way to put into a box for easy carrying (though we're not going too far!) and lifting.

Okay, I've taken enough time off....more news and stuff later.

Oh, yesterday was the first day of the 8 week workshop with Tracy K. Smith. More thoughts later.

Master of Fine Arts

2009-03-11T08:11:00.003-04:00

Hello world.

I took a gamble and only applied for graduate school to the one place I wanted to go. Everyone who knew this gamble said it was a hard gamble to win. Oh well. I always go for the hard game. It's how I do.

I found out yesterday that I was accepted into NYU's Creative Writing Program.

Don't know that I can handle any more good news right now, but I'll certainly take it.

P.S. Book in 3 weeks!

www.delanadameron.com

Take the A Train

2009-03-10T11:44:00.003-04:00

*hums the tune of the piano at the beginning of that song*

I get a lot of lip about not having a TV. From my students. From my friends who come over to visit. Too, I get lip about my music. For someone without a TV the second assumption would be that I *must* have a lot of music. While I have a good bit, I find myself listening to the same songs over and over. And I'm content with that.

I don't know what that has to do with anything.

Yesterday it hit me. The area of Harlem I'm moving to is called Sugar Hill. Everyone always talks about Sugar Hill, and of course there's the famous Sugar Hill Gang (Rapper's Delight)...and so on. There's even now a Sugar Hill Beer, which I have yet to taste. But it hit me what I will be living in, what tradition. There are variations of where the name Sugar Hill came from, but of course the most positive connotation is it was a place for the black middle class and artists during the Harlem Renaissance, referring to the sweet life they had above Harlem proper (namely, 125th Street) My building was built in the late 18, early 1900's so it's very well that some artist, some writer, some singer lived in my very same building!

Here's a list of some folks who lived and wrote and loved here:

Duke Ellington
Ralph Ellison
Zora Neale Hurston
Jacob Lawrence
Nella Larsen
Paul Robeson

Of course the story goes, someone asked Ellington for directions to Harlem, and he simply said, "Take the A Train" -- yep. That's how you can find me :). Writing and living. Maybe, loving.

the perch

2009-03-06T23:14:00.002-05:00

So when I took the summer of 2008 off to write, I went to this residency called Soul Mountain. The room I was in was on the second floor of one of the wings, and it overlooked the pond out back. It was a nice view. In the room, the desk was situated right in front of the window that overlooked the pond. It had two windows, but only one over looked the pond, and that's where the desk was. I called the room "the perch"...because that is where I spent a lot of time those days writing and thinking and such.

I just got a new apartment. It's on the fourth (top) floor of a building. It's got four large windows overlooking Harlem. I believe I'm going to call my apartment The Perch. Yep.

I get my keys on the 15!

life comes at you fast

2009-03-02T14:40:00.002-05:00

So here's the last month before the book is released. If you've pre-ordered it on Amazon, it should be shipped out no later than April 1. I should -- if everything is going to plan -- get early copies before then. Which is exciting.

I found out this week that the party I was planning on having on May 3 can't happen. That's a bit discouraging, but I believe it, like everything else, will work out.

I'm also in the middle of figuring out another move...I'm staying in New York City, but I have to move...probably also close to the end of this month.

Then....I am also waiting to hear from my grad school about their decision. All big things.

I have some really great, really big (for me, anyways) news...but I'll have to wait a while before I can share it. Keep an [eye] ear out!

What's going on in your world? Tell me good news!

Fat Tuesday

2009-02-24T22:28:00.003-05:00

I suppose today is the only day that Tuesday has any meaning (ask me another day to talk to you about why I think Tuesday is pointless). But for me, in NYC, this Tuesday meant that I stayed at home in my pj's, mostly in my bed under cover.

I did engage some poets via g-chat in discussions about poetics and formal poetry (Pantoum vs. Villanelle or my hybrid form...). I submitted to some literary magazines thanks to the Submission Manager and online submissions, and created a flier that announces some of my 2009 upcoming reading dates. Don't ask me what I'm going to do with it. I guess it's just sort of confirmation that I'm capable of doing it. It looks quite nice, I must say.

What I'm reading

2009-02-22T15:58:00.002-05:00

"The Simple Truth" by Philip Levine

I think this might be a close favorite poem, ever.

(this is an excerpt. the whole poem is mightly long)

Everyone knows that the trees will go one day
and nothing will take their place.
Everyone has wakened, alone, in
a room of flesh light and risen
to meet the morning as we did.
How long have we waited
quietly by the side of the road
for someone to slow and ask why.
The light is going, first from between
the long rows of dark firs
and then from our eyes, and when
it is gone we will be gone.
No one will be left to say,
"He took the stick and marked off
the place where the door would be,"
or "she held the child in both hands
and sang the same few tunes
over and over."

......and it continues.

Ipod Touch

2009-02-20T13:00:00.002-05:00

Maybe this is writing related. Saturday - oh, doomed Valentine's Day - I went bowling and to play pool with a pretty good friend of mine. It was fun to just sit back and relax and just kick it for a bit. After that, I decided that I deserved to get myself a birthday/Valentine's gift. I wanted an Ipod Touch. I've been wanting one for a while. I don't care for my phone to be connected to everything like that, but I did just want an upgrad on my iPods (the last two I've had were hand-me-downs from a friend...) and I wanted to do something nice for myself on the day that someone else should be doing something nice for me (haha). So my friend and I pop into Best Buy. You should know these types of purchases cannot happen alone for me, nor can they be planned. I just have to be like "I'm going right now into the store to buy it". The end. If I'm saving up and saving up, then I'll talk myself out of it. I just have to go without for a while, then decide on a whim that I should have it. Best Buy was taking too long, and I was talking myself out of it. I waited in line for like 20 minutes for a manager to come and unlock them. The manager never came, and so I left. No Ipod.

After that, I met up with another friend to see this show at the Blue Note. It was all right. I probably won't ever consider buying the artist's stuff. Then........on the transfer platform at like 3:30am, I run into a friend from High School. He was just in the city and visiting...and we found each other in the middle of the night on a subway platform. So, we ride the train (going in the same direction, one stop after mine!) and talk, and decide that we need to meet up for brunch the next day. We do, and have a lovely time catching up. And then I say, on a whim, that I want to go to the apple store to buy an Ipod. He says he's down for riding with me....then we get there and he rememberes that apple gets a military discount, and so he buys it for me!

Anyways. So, I've been playing with my new gadget all week. It's a good diversion from work. It's a good diversion from life changes that also happen this week -- that will not be charted here. Today I downloaded a podcast "Coffee Break Spanish". I've decided that since I live really close to Washington Heights, that I should finally learn spanish. It's something that I'm putting on the list of things to do in 2009. Not that I expect to have it mastered, but I believe, knowing my capacity for languages when I really just immerse myself, that I can have a pretty good start by the end of the year. Plus, my kids -- so many of them are Spanish speakers. They can help me as I help them :).

Other things? I bought Phillip Levine's "The Simple Truth". I'm still believing in investing my money in what matters to me the most. I'm not "buying into" (no pun) this idea that the world is going to shambles on its own. I believe our fears and what we do with our fears (hoard our money or spend it lavishly) is also contributing. And I do believe - a small amount - in retail therapy. And well, life has been pretty crappy on some fronts lately.

Today it is 29 degrees in NYC. I am ready to peel off all of these layers. I'm ready to wear my summer dresses that make me so happy. Get me out of winter already!

Galleys!

2009-02-14T12:12:00.002-05:00

This week I received my galleys from the press. It was a smallish envelope with two perfect bound galleys -- a little taste of what the book will feel like in my hands. It's all so exciting really.

A conversation went like this:

me: look what I got in the mail!
friend: wow! it's like giving birth to a baby, your very own book baby
me: yeh
friend: how does it feel?
me: I've decided I'm going to let it live in the world a few more hours bit before I start judging it
friend: I think you and it deserve more than a few hours
friend: congrats!

I carried one copy in my bag every where I went. It was a bit sad, to think, really. Then, a friend who is at AWP called me -- I missed her call -- and left a message saying that she was in the bookfair and had just walked past the South Carolina Poetry Initiative (the group that sponsored the prize) table and saw the poster and fliers about my book. Hopefully it will generate interest and people will buy the book.

I know that when I received the galleys, something felt different. It's something totally different to hold your poems in your hands and they're on something other than an 8x11 sheet of paper. It's an interesting feeling when you see a poem and it's split between two pages, and - because the galley looks almost exactly howt he book will look - you find yourself physically turning the page in order to finish reading a poem. It's interesting. I can't wait until people can hold all of this in their hands.

Magazine Watch and the Economy and writing

2009-02-11T11:09:00.003-05:00

Rattle Magazine will be putting out a special African American poetry issue in June 2009. I just got word that a poem of mine "Cartographer" was accepted for publication. This is exciting news, because it is the title poem of my new manuscript....my new project. I am hoping to actually send it out today for the National Poetry Series competition.

I know of some really good poets who will be sharing the pages with me :). Be on the lookout for this zine.

In other news....all of my loves are gearing up (or have already arrived) for the AWP conference in Chicago. I decided to forego this year. I might have felt a little better about this decision if the weather was a blizzard and everyone was stuck in the airport or stranded, then I could think: "I made the right decision in staying home". However, it's supposed to be in the 60's...everyone is meeting up...and I'm missing all of it. But oh well.

I want updates from those of you out there who are going! If you ARE going...look for information about my book in the bookfair. The South Carolina Poetry Initiative has a table. On the table should be a poster and flier!!! Pick one up. Take a picture with my poster :). It's definitely sexy enough, haha. The cover art for the book, that is.

Any other writerly things? More layoffs in the publishing world. This makes me sad. But I'm still optimistic that we will persevere. We have to. I'm not saying that I'm concerned with the economy going as it is. But I am saying that it's not stopping me from investing in the things that I believe in. Like poetry and the arts.

This was a conversation I had with a friend, Aracelis Girmay (author of "Teeth"). We were talking about what we "need" and what we "want" and how we determine differences between the two, and how these two things should (or will or do) govern how we spend our money. This was an interesting list. I started thinking about "food" "transportation" -- you know..the basic needs. She began saying "I need to go to shows and cultural events". She said, "I want to eat out, but I don't need to eat out." And that put everything into perspective for me. I began to alter my list:

Needs: (and how I budget my time and money)
-Bikram Yoga/some exercise
-Poetry Readings
-Books
-Music (live and albums)
-things that make me feel good like cupcakes.
-Cultural events: museums, art shows, good indy films etc etc

Wants: (They can wait...my quality of life will not lessen because of this lack)
-new furniture
-trips outside of the city (Like Chicago for AWP. That was a want. I could not find a need.)
-new clothes

Of course food and transportation and rent and bills are necessities. Why should we list them off? What we should be thinking about is investing in what we need to keep us sane. To keep our heart going. To keep our mind above the valley of depression.

This week I went to see Medicine for Melancholy. I went on Monday. After a long day at both work places. I treated myself to spicy shrimp fried rice and diet ginerale. I walked over to the theater and bought the ticket and went in. This was a need. I needed some sort of creative stimulation that allowed me to rest a bit, while taking in beauty...in other creative acts. It was a good choice...and is keeping me going this week. What would I have done without it? Who knows. I just know that I can deny myself certain things (these shoes i really really _want_ that I walk by almost everyday) in order to provide myself the necessary things: a book for train rides, a movie, maybe a music show. And not only, do I believe this move keeps my sanity, keeps me alive....if we all invested in the things we "needed", and adjust the need based on what will keep us happy, then I think a lot less loss would be happening in the world. Writers would understand they need books. And would continue to invest some money there. Readers would understand that they ened books and continue to buy. Bookstores wouldn't see big losses because people wouldn't be scared to invest in their life, and layoffs wouldn't happen...and so on and so forth. Maybe this is widly optimistic. But, I can say that Strand and Barnes and Noble and Borders won't go under by my hands....

Writer's block (revisited)

2009-02-08T21:22:00.003-05:00

I explore this a lot. This idea, this belief. I've argued with some who believe that writer's block does not exist. I believe it does, in some way, but it's what you do with the "block" that determines if the time off from writing was positive or negative. I think it's all about perception and frame of reference.

Outside of the two poems I wrote this week in rapid succession (Tuesday and Wednesday), I went several months without writing a poem. Now, this is significant for someone who rallies the troops for week-long poetry-writing challenges, or took three months off last summer just to write, and came out with 90 poems...so you see, to go several months without writing a poem could be considered writer's block.

I don't think I considered it a block as much as I considered it a Winter season of my writing. This is, of course, thinking in retrospect, and finding that the words come when they're ready, just as the buds come back to the bare limbs of the trees, and the flowers begin to sprout from the soil. (I assume. There is little soil here in NYC) What I did do during those months, however, was a lot of reading and preparing. Last year I wrote a first draft of a novel just because I had decided that I wanted to know what writing a novel felt like. Once I finished the draft, I was encouraged by some friends to think about next steps. I read this book, "the Artful Edit" and decided that I was excited to get the first draft done, b/c then I could begin editing, and watch it evolve into a real thing, perhaps a real book. So then I read a lot of other books --I spent 3 weeks in South Carolina during those months, and I also woke up every morning to read -- about drafting and editing novels. I bought these books about writing....and it felt kind of like a productive procrastination. Like, I wasn't writing, but I felt all right about it, b/c I was reading and meditating and thinking about writing.

I have noticed, though, that my writing productivity changes when my schedule changes. And my schedule has been afloat for the past couple of months as well. And not only that, a lot of things that were a constant in my life: Monday's = poetry reading, Wednesday = cupcake and jazz, Thursday = Ugly Betty and Grey's Anatomy, have been a bit disrupted, and so I find that my productivity is most comfortable in stable pockets of time. Like, I knew that I could write when I went to the Jazz spot on Wednesdays, or get some inspiration from the poetry readings on Mondays. So it's no surprise when some semblance of that balance came back to me this week with a poetry reading/conversation and a Jazz show, and I produced two poems on those days. You have to feed the muse in order for her to work for you. I guess that's my take home idea with reference to writer's block. The more creative energy I have around me, in the air, in the atmosphere....the more inclined I am to write.

February in full bloom

2009-02-04T19:18:00.003-05:00

I am counting down the days until the book is published. April 1, here we come.

The other day I walked outside into the city, into my day and the sun was out. It was nice for NYC, for the winter we've had so far. I remember thinking: "Man, winter might finally break" and then, yesterday we got hit with a full day's worth of snow. Yep. And high temperatures this week won't even get near freezing. Thank goodness for crocheted scarves and hats and good coats. Thank goodness for hot drinks.

I have been on a hiatus as of late from most of my normal doings. Blame it on a boy. Blame it on the cold. Whatever. I finally stepped outside yesterday to see a friend, Myronn Hardy, read with Cathy Park Hong --who I saw read at Cornelia St. Cafe (where I hope to read, soon) back in 2007.... What a day to finally step out of a shell! Snow packed into my scarf, onto my coat. But alas, it was warm inside, and they had wine and cheese and crackers and fruits. It's the little things. Anyways. So the reading was this Cave Canem sponsored event called "Poets on Craft" where the poets do a short reading and the rest of the time is a moderated discussion and then Q&A. I felt like...the reading should have been a bit longer, the moderated part a bit shorter, and the rest of the time for audience engagement. Not like I was going to ask any questions. I know Myronn and his work. I know the answers he would like to give if not shy. Cathy's work is hard to hold onto in the ear, and I've not gotten her book(s)...so it was tough, really, to ask questions on her work, although she gave insightful answers during the discussion.

It made me think, though, about how I would answer some of the questions. Thinking about theory and poetry. Thinking about intersections of genre, genre-bending if you will, or what should come first the music/language or the meaning -- the famed chicken and egg quandry of the poetry world. And of course, the infamous I, and how the I factors into poetry...and what should the reader do in response to the I?

Now. Maybe it's because I read a lot of Sharon Olds when I first started out. Something about the poetry as confession helped me reach into a space for words to say everything I wanted to say. Then I turned to other conventions: musicality, form, line breaks, etc, to do the other work. With the exception of projects (say, Palestine, say the Ackland Art Museum works...) and maybe attempting to tell someone else's story, I find that poetry exists for me as an artistic expression. Read: the I is not collective. Now, I just wrote a review of a book where I felt that the I was....singular, that it belonged solely to the poet. And in that collection, I believed it, because the experiences were so...cyclical, so....circular. The experiences revolved around one or two incidences that connected a life-time of stories: a mother's death, a father trying to raise a daughter. I felt that the I belonged only to the poet, and we as readers could only read the collection as belonging to another voice. This is not to say that it is bad that the collection did that or to say that it was inaccessible, or that I couldn't enter into the work as an outsider. It was sort of just stating fact. I don't know where I'm going with all of this, except to say that I am almost sure that any "I" I write has some connection to me. The story the "I" is telling might not be mine. But the sentiments, or maybe, how I would deal with it -- because in truth, in writing from this "I" perspective, we as poets are imagining ourselves in that situation, no? -- so the actions given the situation are mine. And I'm all right with that.

The other question is on influences....how people expect you to just list and list and list poets for days, and your ability to list and name as many (famous) poets as possible shows that you're well-rounded and gives you credibility. Granted, I just said "maybe I read too much Sharon Olds" and that could be considered an influence, but she does not influence my current work, and didn't really influence my work when I started writing. I lived with a writer before I considered writing like I do now, so I spent days and nights reading and reading. I couldn't come up with a "standards" list. Instead, I'd argue that History is my biggest influence. That harkens back to my decision to major in History in Chapel Hill despite the fact that my career is largely literature and English-writing related. However, I believed that reading and re-reading the same British Literature models would do nothing for providing me something to write about. I did take the introductory-level survey to British Lit classes, and could have an intelligible conversation about major american authors and so on and so forth, but I think on a working, everyday level what matters is history, is current events, and if you can spin that into a poem, into a conversation, your ability to connect -- because isn't art about communication, about connecting? -- is that much higher.

Poetry Writing Workshop!

2009-01-21T23:03:00.002-05:00

I will be leading a midday (for those slackers out there like me who don't have a day job, this is perfect!) writers workshop in a couple of weeks at The Cell Theater.

The Cell: http://www.thecelltheatre.org/?p=projects

Fridays, 2-5:30pm.

A description of the workshop:

Workshop Location: The Cell Theater, NYC
Workshop Dates: February 20, 27, March 6, 13, 20, 27 *
Workshop Time: 3-5:30 pm
*Final reading featuring participants from the workshop to be announced later

About the workshop:

This poetry workshop is designed to facilitate creative thinking about our own lives in a historical and cultural context. Our today is history, tomorrow. Participants will be given select poems each week and asked to react to each piece through annotation, notes, or by beginning to compose lines for their own poems. Each meeting we will discuss artifacts (documents, pictures, music, artwork, etc) brought in that speak directly to the week's topic. There will be occasions to take the workshop out of the meeting space and into the rich cultural and historical surroundings, and use the observations as a springboard for creating and writing poems. In addition to making several nods towards writers long ago working in this art form, participants will be introduced to several contemporary multicultural poets who deal in and out of form, who write poems that rhyme or are far from it, but whose focus is to tell a story for tomorrow. We will consider the role of poetry as not only a vehicle of expression, but of impression – how one can allow a piece of creative writing to make a personal (or global) cultural and historical statement.

The purpose of this workshop is to garner a critical and creative lens towards writing and reading poetry, with the hopes that it will push the writer/reader to demand more. The space created by workshop participants and leaders will be one of comfort and safety – no attacks made on an individual person, culture, heritage, orientation will be tolerated.

Structure of the workshop: The first half of the class will be spent in discussion. We will discuss artifacts, poems, history, culture, etc. The second half will be spent workshopping and offering constructive critiques to individual poems brought in. Participants whose poems will be critiqued must be e-mailed to the instructor on _______________, prior to the workshop meeting.

Not a poet?! Not a problem. This workshop is to use poetry as a tool, a way of seeing. It is for all levels of writers – beginners to advanced. Our aim is to build an appreciation for poetry – by both reading and writing poems – while enriching our literary lives together. Some techniques discovered in the workshop will be able to cross over into fiction, non-fiction/personal essays/memoir and playwriting. Come and build with a community.

Participants will receive copies of the selected poems.

Guidelines:
E-mail five pages of poems (or five pages of your own writing if you do not self-identify as a poet) along with a very brief statement (in a single Microsoft Word document) about what you plan to accomplish in the workshop. Include contact info. Deliver to: delanaradameron @ gmail.com

DEADLINE: FEBRUARY 15, 2009 11:59PM

Workshop Leader
A native of Columbia, South Carolina, DéLana R.A. Dameron is the author of How God Ends Us, a collection of poems chosen by Elizabeth Alexander for the 2008 South Carolina Poetry Book Prize (University of South Carolina Press, 2009). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South, PoemMemoirStory, 42opus, African American Review, Pembroke Magazine, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review among others. She is the recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem and Soul Mountain, and is a member of the Carolina African American Writer's Collective. A longtime lover of the intersections of history and literature, she holds a B.A. in History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dameron currently resides in New York City.

Amazon Pre-Order!

2009-01-21T16:55:00.001-05:00

Google Alerts helps those who feel guilty about googling themselves do it hassle-free.

I got this updated link in my inbox last night.

http://www.amazon.com/Winner-South-Carolina-Poetry-Prize/dp/1570038325/r...

It's pretty cool. Some friends have already told me they pre-ordered the book. It's so amazing, this process. A little more than two more months!

Book Review & Updates and Links

2009-01-19T14:04:00.003-05:00

A book review I wrote on Janice N. Harrintong's "Even the Hollow My Body Made is Gone" is up!

Check it and let me know what you think --

http://www.postnoills.com/main/?p=106

I'm also up on this site where you can list book tours:

http://www.booktour.com/author/delana_r_a_dameron

And while we're listing places you can find out about me....check the Red Room:

http://www.redroom.com/author/delana-ra-dameron

finally

2009-01-16T23:57:00.002-05:00

This week has been amazingly great. Filled with good news and cool things to celebrate. Today I had cake in celebration....of everything.

Let's see -- Monday was really good because I got a lot of things organized and put together in my life. Which was necessary. I've been slowly plotting to transform my room into something that is functional and livable and workable (yes, i'm trying to bring my work into my living space..........i know. that's another post). This includes organizing. This included a trip to Staples and spending almost 50 bucks in office supplies. I still have more I need to spend. This weekend I'm supposed to buy a shredder and waste basket (don't ask how i've gone this long without either in my room).

Sometime soon I'm plotting on a new desk. Right now I'm using a card table, which, is actually pretty good as far as space given on the table top, but not so cool as far as space in my room goes.

Also necessary are bookshelves. Serious bookshelves. I've got books for days. Yes. That needs major work and organization.

Other good news this week -- Tuesday I got offered a free housing situation at AWP. Which I was plotting for and really really wanted. However, I cannot still afford. But it's nice to be given what you ask for, right?

Also on Tuesday I received, in my inbox, a jpeg of the cover of my book. It's becoming soo real now. Like everything is coming together so smoothly. That same day I was notified that a stack of fliers and two stand-up posters were going to be sent to my house this week. I've also been working on trying to figure out things for readings and creating a good path for my book to walk through, and in that -- talk about timing -- I scored a reading at the Center for Book Arts in NYC. Thomas Sayers Ellis is curating. More on that later. The reading is in May.

Anything else? I've been pretty busy with my two jobs. That is good...I am making a bit more money, getting some comfort and space between me and some things i want to do in the future. Learning my financial literacy, and finally stepping out of the summer deficit. and into a surplus.

Glamorous!

2009-01-15T09:45:00.003-05:00

So. I must share with you here. The cover of my book is in. I hope you'll celebrate with me, and thank, too, Alexandra Cespedes for the amazing, stunning artwork.

Updates soon!

Back in the NYC

2009-01-08T11:36:00.002-05:00

After a 16 hour train ride yesterday, I am back in New York City.

I think it's good to be back. I haven't decided yet. I left my car in South Carolina, and that was an important move for me, leaving something I became so attached to that it took a year and a half to decide I could survive without it.

Some interesting developments this new year/week: I received my foreword from Elizabeth Alexander for my book, my book now has an ISBN number and is already posted on Amazon.com and places like it...

I've also dusted off some of my short stories for a friend who said he'd love to read more of my writing. So I thought I'd give him some short stories. Which meant that I had to go back and look at them, and I found some gems that I had forgotten about. It's crazy, the body of work I have created in such a short time.

In a sense, part of me would love to see all of what I have right now that is publishable out in the world within the next five years...certainly before I'm 30 (which is not the same number :-p).

I have to venture out of the house in a few. Hit the ground running type venturing. Yep. Grades due Saturday and a lot of writing needs to be done between now and then.

happy Thursday!

Thinking, always, about Palestine

2009-01-06T15:51:00.001-05:00

I want to start a conversation, please.

So I started this body of work about the Palestinian struggle back in early 2006. Some of you have heard or read snippets of this work as it has developed over the years. A friend of mine told me he has been thinking about me and Palestine over the last couple of days with the atrocities that are happening in Gaza/Israel.

Some background: the project is completely complied of persona poems in the "voices" of Palestinian civilians in occupied territories of Israel (Gaza, West Bank, East Jerusalem....). It is a continuation, of sorts, of my historical research paper at Chapel Hill based on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. (My degree is, after all Third World/Non-Western History) From there, I decided to explore how Palestinians portray themselves in Palestinian feature films based on the history of the conflict. What I discovered through this journey was that, given a chance to tell their own story (not filtered through "objective" media), Palestinians show an attempt to give light to the whole struggle. Namely, they are interested in showing the world that they, too, are humane, are civil, are.....people.

I had all of these narratives swimming in my head. Four films I used in my research are: The Tale of the Three Lost Jewels, The Roof, Wedding in Galilee, and The Olive Harvest. All are great movies. Mostly told around the two intifadas. There are other movies worth noting (Paradise Now)...however, I did not have a budget, so I was limited to what was available in the UNC Undergrad Library. If you're interested in reading more, I'd be more than happy to share my paper, or my bibliography.

For more personal and real stories, I became a constant reader of Palestinian blogs. It is as close to personal experiences and "chances to tell their own stories" as you can get. It is scary. There are pictures that the media won't show. It is life changing.

What also happened was this need to figure out my place in support of the conflict. How could I decide to hold someone else's story in my mouth, in my mind, in my hands? This is something I am still considering and will probably write more on later. But for right now, I want to remember the **people** of Palestine.

You can find some of my poems published online here:
http://www.thedrunkenboat.com/dameron.html

Here's 2 poems from my manuscript. Currently titled, "Casting stones". The first poem, "Gaza Ghazal" I wrote last spring. "Kites Court in Gaza and Rafah" I wrote Fall 2007.
----

Gaza ghazal

who lives in this prison, in this city under siege?
my mother, my father, my brother – all under siege

there is imminent, everlasting darkness, never light
your are paralyzed this way: under siege

children cry, their dry mouths, their empty hands –
they learn to live in sustained hunger under siege

the risks you take for your blood bound beyond the wall:
you crawl, snake through sewers, even those under siege

I long to touch the sea, to reach up and hold the last sky
only dreams – only dreams are allowed under siege

salaam to the birds, salaam to the clouds
salaam, I say, from the ground under siege

our fields have been razed, this harvest yields empty urns
no fruit – even our olive trees are trapped under siege

look the empty gravel streets – no one drives
these lonely roads through the city under siege

at the checkpoint, at the border, we are herded, held
we are cattle crowded in barbed-wire fences under siege

no medicines, no work, just humming fighter jet planes overhead
we are people prohibited from their freedom, living under siege

grandmother wants only to die in her home, with family
even if it means in her beloved city under siege

artillery shells cascade nightly in thunderous rain
don’t say it; don’t tell us to be patient here. Gaza’s under siege

(c) DeLana R.A. Dameron
-----

Kites court in Gaza and Rafah

The sky opened its mouth
to the noonday sun suspended

above us like a golden uvula.
We gather and the children bring

handmade kites – weightless shifters
of paper and string – to signal hellos

the way our faces cannot, dammed
behind this twelve foot wall.

The kites serve as an extension
of our bodies. They can kiss,

and touch. It is a privilege
our flesh yearns for – the warmth

of family, of love as an intimacy
not granted in war. We come

and forget the night: the qassam’s
percussive nightmares lighting curtains

with each blast. We remember
the limitations of iron walls

between our bodies and the exit wounds
of shrapnel shards from Merkava tanks

are gateways for the children’s’ fragile bones –
brave and small enough to slither between

the worlds we cannot see – making
the impossible crossover to Rafah and back.

Cousins, their laughter makes irrelevant
this barrier while, still, the roar of fighter jets,

the loud sputter of machine guns
echo around them.

(c) DeLana R.A. Dameron

End of the Year

2008-12-22T11:43:00.002-05:00

I was supposed to be driving down the Eastern Seaboard today. But the potential threat of ice and the fact that my car is still covered with snow is keeping me here. Hopefully I will be out and about and on the road headed south tomorrow.

So I figured I'd spend today thinking about this year, this 2008. This is possibly my last day in New York City in 2008, and what a ride it has been.

Because I'm a dork and like reviewing things, I'll do a bit of a recap:

January -- I remember coming back from my Christmas holiday in SC and sitting with my old friend in her Brooklyn apartment, and saying, "I feel like I need to celebrate this new year." They looked at me crazy. I said, "I mean, I feel like this year is going to be big." So we celebrated. I started a new job teaching high schoolers and mentoring and educating learners in NYC. AWP was in NYC. I celebrated my birthday with a huge Cave Canem reading. I remember folks seeing me there and multiple times people telling me, "You have this glow about you", and one friend saying "After all you've been through, you must be about to be handed something big."

February -- I don't really remember much about February. I was hanging deep with this fellow that I liked, but probably shouldn't have liked. But I was living and working. The end of February, I got this call to put my manuscript back into the world.

March -- The end of March I hit a valley. Progress happens like that. You get knocked down so then you have nothing else to do but to build yourself back up. I remember having a conversation with a friend. I was in tears. But I said -- "I have this feeling in my gut that after all of this, I'm about to be handed something great"

April -- Rough patch coping with the fellow. I remember feeling underappreciated at work. I remember resigning and preparing myself to head back to South Carolina. I was building a life there, getting ready to abandon the Northeast and all of it's issues. Then I had my review, and realized all of my hard work was being recognized. I got the raise I desired. I went home for a week, and the prize announcement for the competition my manuscript was entered into was the same week I was home. I was able to go there and be in the presence of Elizabeth Alexander when she announced that she picked my book as the winner.

May -- What I remember most about May is the euphoria of knowing my writing will be in the world in a big way soon. I remember thinking, maybe I should stick NYC out. I remember writing in my journal: "I want to conquer NYC"...and I changed my mindset of being on the defense to being on the offense, and a whole world opened up as soon as I changed my mind about how I would be interacting with this city.

June -- I moved into my "impossible" apartment in NYC. In a conversation I had with a friend last week, he commented, "You sure have a lot of boundaries for things you want." And it was sort of off-handed, like, how dare you keep saying "I don't want this" etc etc. And then I thought about it, and I agreed. And I said, "That's the only way I get exactly what I want." I remember thinking, "If I were to move into NYC, I want to live in Manhattan, I don't want to pay a certain amount of money, I don't want to live with a complete stranger, I want to live in Harlem, and I don't want to look for the apartment." I call it the impossible apartment, because that seems like an impossible feat. A friend called me to ask what would keep me in the city. I told her exactly what I wanted and didn't want. She said, "My roommate is moving out, and I wanted you to be the first to know." So I moved into my impossible apartment...which had everything I wanted.

Also in June, I started Bikram Yoga, which, changed my life. I finished my last year as a Cave Canem Fellow. And walked into the world.

July -- All of July was spent in isolation. I spent the month in Connecticut at the Soul Mountain retreat, writing and sleeping and dreaming.

August -- was interesting because I was in this weird place where I wasn't sure when work would start back up, and I had just taken two months off without pay and was still paying to live in a NYC apartment. I spent a lot of time in my apartment writing and sending work out and preparing myself. My wise friend said, when I was worried that I was deteriorating, that, "I think it's smart. You are resting up before your book comes out. I wish I had done that."

Sept--October. I don't really remember too many specific things about this period except, I decided that I needed mini vacations away from the city. I spent many sundays upstate or away or just out and about not really worrying or doing anything of any importance. Getting to know friends on a deeper level. There was the Election frenzy and worry about the results, and getting frustrated at "friends" comments and postings and trying to figure out how they will factor into my life after November. I bought a bed in October, and realized that act was prooving that I was settling into, taking on the city. A lot of things went crazy for a bit after that.

But maybe I should take my lessons from Bikram Yoga. It's the only yoga I've practiced, really. But I remember when I first started and committed myself, there were positions that I could not do, indeed, they were painful. But you're taught to breathe through the discomfort, and soon enough your body will adjust and you'll feel this click, and somehow I can make my forehead touch my knee while standing up, or make my body bend in almost a 90 degree angle to the right or left. So. What I mean by all of this, is that, I had to breathe through the hard, uncomfortable stuff. And here I am, doing what I thought I never could do.

November -- election, thanksgiving. I met a new friend, which caused me to stretch my boundaries, and apply what i want and don't want to personal relationships. I decided in that month, too, to stop self-sabotaging my life, and get my act together and apply to grad school again. I spent that month still in tears, still trying to wrap my mind around this life I'm in right now, and prepare for my book in the Spring.

December -- I decided that I don't have time in my life for sadness. Again, taking the offense on your life totally changes your perspective and how you deal with things. Immediately I found some happiness. I did much celebrating before I turned in my application to grad school, and that took away some of the edge, some of the fret. No matter what happens, it's the offensive play that makes me proud. And here I am, at the end of the year, and so excited...sooo excited about 2009, I can hardly contain myself.

The Alchemist

2008-12-17T12:45:00.002-05:00

After Sunday's celebration, I decided on Monday that I still needed to celebrate. That is, the day before I take the GRE. I went to my friend's house (the person who I started these "celebrations with") and we ate dinner then popped a bottle of champagne and toasted the things we want to see happen soon.

She has been reading Paulo Coelho books for some time now. You should know this is significant because she is not a reader! So anyways. This other book I've been reading mentioned "The Alchemist" a couple of times and then someone else around me talked about it, so I figured it was time for me to check it out. That's how I discover some things -- if it is brought to my attention from separate worlds, then I figure there is some importance on it in my life and I should investigate it. So I asked my friend while I was at her house if I could borrow her book. She agreed. I rode the local train from brooklyn to harlem and read. The next morning I had to go back to brooklyn for the GRE. I read the book down, and back up and finished it last night. So basically a day and a train ride later.

It's an interesting book. It's called "a story about following your dreams" and in a way, that is exactly what it is. It was perfect for me to read it at this juncture in my life....in this cross between straddling uncertainty and just flinging myself into the wind and see what happens. Or, like an earlier post, taking to the sky and taking my traveling hints from the birds. Animals seem to know much more about life and living than I think we give them credit for. The Alchemist highlights that same sentiment -- showing that we over look the powers in the natural world to teach us what we need to know about living and life.

Won't You Celebrate With Me?

2008-12-14T12:15:00.002-05:00

Won't You Celebrate With Meby Lucille Clifton
won't you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.

This is an oft-quoted poem. But I never get tired of it, ever. I believe in its message. Especially the end "come celebrate/with me that everyday/something has tried to kill me/and has failed." Considering the last couple of weeks, considering the last couple of battles I've had with self and career and purpose...Those words really hit home.

There's this thing I started at the beginning of the year. I had just come back from a couple of weeks at home and felt a little weary about my future in the Northeast, and what work I was going to be doing, and about writing and life. I decided that in 2008 my motto would be "It's a new year and I'm a grown ass woman." I also remember this one night at a friend's house in Brooklyn, I got this feeling to celebrate. I was like, "I feel like we should celebrate in advance what this year is going to bring". They kind of looked at me like I was crazy. And nodded their head. I said, "I think this is going to be an amazing year and I should just celebrate in advance."

So, that's what I did. I celebrated. And things in a lot of ways just sort of fell into place. So I continued that tradition and found reason to celebrate, and often...and blessings just kept coming.

Today I'm having some friends over to "celebrate"....sort of close out the year, celebrate people in my life...celebrate the gifts we're about to receive and open up the new 2009 year, which I feel is going to be even more amazing than this one. Yep.

Won't you celebrate with me today?

final stretch

2008-12-10T16:28:00.003-05:00

these next two weeks will test me in many ways. i am planning on sending off my packet of stuff for grad school tomorrow. next tuesday i take my GRE exam. i am supposed to be grading 32 papers of high school persuasive essays and prepare to head south - finally - for the winter. it's like i'm migrating or something

maybe i am. maybe we should take our living and movements from the birds. they move on instinct. they move when it's time to move. i like watching bodies of birds fly. in the city, it's an interesting thing to watch. the high buildings create this kind of circular air, and sometimes, you'll find the birds moving and switching left and right, gliding and switching between the buildings above the streets. they turn and turn and don't run into each other. they turn and turn and at some point there is a movement and they fly out and on and still together, still in formation.

or like how they know when to go south when the north gets rough, and so on. they just know. they don't have books and timetables to follow. they can't get weather forecasts on their mobile devices. they just feel it, in the air. and they move accordingly.

i used to say my own movement was like a dandelion spur/spore. the kind when the dandelion changes to the white ball of seeds. i used to make wishes on them. i don't remember any of the wishes, but i knew that if you picked one up and blew it and could blow the whole thing off in one breath, your wish would come true. my life was one of those spores blown into the world by someone else's wishes, i used to think. but now, i like the idea of the birds and their intuition. their movement...how the gull comes inland when a storm approaches. how they pick up disparate parts to build their nest. innovative and knowing. they do it by feeling.

i would like to live less calculated like that. just feeling my way through.

Workshop

2008-12-02T10:18:00.000-05:00

Saturday a great friend of mine celebrated the launch of her book, Canticle of Idols. You should buy it on Amazon.com right now.

I read Saturday with other poets to help push the work into the world. It was a great time. A new friend came and was able to see what I do. I was able to be who I am becoming.

Also on Saturday night I was asked to lead a workshop on Sunday. The Acentos Foundation holds these weekly workshops in east Harlem. They are free and open to the public. They have some amazing people coming through weekly. The person scheduled for Sunday canceled and I was asked to fill in. I agreed.

This meant, however, that I had to come up with a 2 hour workshop. I didn't make it home until 1:30am and needed to leave my apartment by 10:30a to make it to the east side by bus with a few minutes to prepare. Lucky for me, I bought this book on a whim. It's called "One year to a writing life". Granted, it doesn't have the kind of words I need at this juncture in my career, it did, however, have snippets here and there that I could splice and mix into a workshop.

I couldn't decided between Odes or Prose Poems. I printed out poems for both. But I decided to go with a workshop on Odes. I wrote down my plan on the bus over there, and said a little prayer that it would go over well, and my! The poems produced in those 2 hours were amazing. I was so happy to be a midwife to these babies.

I came home and decided I need to start building more. My empire. I typed up the plan. I will probably type up other plans.

I am also thinking about other ways (like last post) to create my writing footprint on the world. This includes taking a big leap from a former teacher who said that poets can't just be poets in this day. While preparing to send off grad school applications, I have been writing some prose - in addition to the book reviews - and hope to find homes for this new body of work as well.

Book Reviews

2008-11-23T10:18:00.003-05:00

I am learning that the best way to make a poetic footprint in the world is not only through publishing poetry. Well, I knew that a while ago. A mentor said so. But you refuse to acknowledge that poetry cannot feed you. You're like: fiction writers get paid to just write fiction. Then you just sound like a whiny writer who is unhappy with your lot. Maybe I am. Maybe I want the world to be like it was in the old days. When poetry mattered. Not to say poetry doesn't matter. It does. Of course it does. But what I mean is, when people could live off of their poetry. When people were sponsored by the state and governments and monarchies and officials to write poetry...for the people.

Anyways. It's not like writing book reviews is a chore. Well, it can be. Some places want you to be "objective" -- meaning, they want you to find something bad about a poetry book to say. I don't know that I think that is fair...a mentor of mine who writes several poetry books a month says he only writes book reviews for books he likes. Which is fair -- why would you intentionally put bad vibes out into the world? Especially if you are a poet yourself and someone may or will have the opportunity to review your book. Isn't the purpose of book reviews to say: hey, this book is out there...here's my take on it...see for yourself? That's what I believe they are for. They are exposure for the book/author being reviewed, and maybe even the reviewer.

Maybe it's like karma: I review your book and you review mine?

Anyways. I am writing this review....I hope to finish it tomorrow. It only needs to be about 500 words. I have a magazine ready and waiting. Which is, too, exciting.

Onward --

sieve

2008-11-23T10:18:00.002-05:00

i love that word. i don't know why. it sounds almost like it's job.

today, i'm going to go through my poems with a dear, dear friend of mine and figure out which ones i am using to apply to graduate school(s). I need to narrow down about 40ish poems to 10. crazy, huh? that's why you ask a friend to help you.

i am currently re-reading ross gay's _against which_ and honoree fannone jeffer's _red clay suite_. it is here i am learning about rethinking the narratives and stories we tell in our poetry books. i am preparing _cartographer_ to send out again nearing the end or middle of december.

my looming loneliness has served as a sieve to figure out what people i really need in my life. it has been a hard process, filtering. but necessary. some people in your life actually do you harm, i'm learning. even if their intentions seem good. what may feel or what you may think feels good is actually stripping you away, down to nothing, down to the exposed nerve. some people are like candy to teeth. you're happy and happy until you have to get a root canal, and you'd wished you hadn't eaten so much in the first place -- but the damage is too deep, too far gone to take any of it back.

*sneeze #3 in the last hour*

i'm looking forward, i think, to some time away from this schedule i keep. some friends are coming into town for thanksgiving...and we're going to my friend's sister's house to eat and drink and be merry. hopefully things are fine. i believe they will be. but i miss my family. i miss cooking half of the thanksgiving meal myself. i miss eating and sleeping and getting up to eat again.

next thanksgiving i'm not spending it away.

'tis the season

2008-11-20T18:58:00.002-05:00

Winter is a beast. It's not even winter yet. But it, already is a beast.

I'm a little homesick, I'm not going to lie. I've never really been this homesick before. A friend said he never experienced homesickness. I guess I could say that before now. Maybe it is the winter. Maybe it is I do not get enough vitamin D, or essential sun rays on my face and shoulders, because they're bundled up in layers upon layers of clothing.

I haven't really had a reason to get dressed up and go out. I've been a loser and staying inside. Granted, I get sucked into going out after work or a poetry reading, but I've not had a date or a real time set out to go and explore, to live, to just enjoy life and being alive. The cold does not facilitate this, either, as I just want to stay in my bed, in my room. Inside.

On the writing side of things, who are you reading? I realize this is a question I've come to hate. I'm always "reading" someone or something, but I dont really know what this means when folks ask it. Generally, this comes on the heels of me saying something like, "Yeh, I just put together another manuscript" or "yeh, I just did a poetry challenge." or something. I don't know. Do they want to know who is influencing my work?

I came to the conclusion that I read more fiction when I'm working on poetry. I read poetry to pass time on the train. (truth told) I read poetry when I am working on a specific poem and I remembered a poem I read in passing or a poet that I could look at to get my gears turning. But, truthfully, outside of Mahmoud Darwish....who I haven't read in a while, and I haven't even read the one book I have all the way through...is probably my knee-jerk answer, because people look for an answer a name, a book. As if they expect you to have an answer. I don't ever have an answer, but I say Darwish to appease them, to move the conversation along.

Is that bad of me to say? That I don't really read? That I expect people to read, but that I don't read. That's the wrong way of saying what I'm trying to say. I read. I could have a full on conversation about the last books of poetry I've read. I could give you my opinions and such. But it's hard for me to say "I'm reading x" when really what it seems they want is a favorite poet, which I do not or cannot say with assurance that I have. A favorite poet. And this puts me a crazy position. Because I know there may come a time when I will be interviewed or asked questions or people want to know the origins of my genius. And I guess, what I'm saying is that my foundation is not from reading. My foundation is from talking to people. To engaging. To writing and writing and writing. It is in the communities and conversations I build. It is in thinking about history and how to tell history in a poem. It is watching the world outside.

It does not come from a book.

Tuesday

2008-11-18T23:11:00.002-05:00

I'm trying to be a better blogging citizen. I mean, I have people's blogs that I check everyday. Yet I do not update my life enough on this thing. Although, I must admit, it becomes challenging telling the same store several times over. I write most of my life in my journals/moleskins.

Today ends my November week-long poetry challenge. This has been a good one. I believe I love every poem I wrote, although several now I cannot remember.

Let's refresh. Here's the titles, at least, of the poems written this week. Everything is about Harlem.

Wednesday: M101L Uptown Bus
Thursday: P.S. 153 Auditorium
Friday: Bird Song
Saturday: 120th and Morningside
Sunday: Cerebral
Monday: 132nd and Adam Clayton Powell
Tuesday: Saturdays, 125th Street

The last two pieces are in form. Monday's poem is a Pantoum, as said. Today's poem I came and sat down at a cafe with a nice cup of coffee and pounded out a hefty sestina. It's probably one that I'm most proud of, and well, I've written a lot of sestinas. It is my #2 favorite form.

I believe I hit a momentum. I believe the momentum came when I finally let the project be a project instead of a bunch of poems in a folder. So. I think I'm going to try one more week. Or just continue as long as this lasts...as long as I have something. Although, I do believe that my turn to form is saying I am beginning to lose things to talk about. Weird conclusion, for some, I know. But I tend to turn to form when I have a poem I don't know how to shape or get out (my pantoum is about a homeless man & a severed 5$ bill on the ground at his feet)....or when I have a half-realized idea....I sit down at the table with it like a sudoku puzzle and move some things around and turn it and twist it until it fits into a poem. I think that's how my sestina arrived.

I might try a few more forms both to give some "weight" -- as form seems to do that for poetry books -- and because I feel like there are still some things that if I'm writing about Harlem I need to address.

What kind of things would you like to see about Harlem?

Monday update:

2008-11-18T08:47:00.003-05:00

So I've got great news. Be sure I'll tell you all this in a few months, but I'd like to begin to put the energy into the world right now.

May 10, 2009 will be the night of my NYC Book Party/Launch. Yep. At The Bowery Poetry Club. Yep. from 6-930pm.

Other than that, business as usual. The economy being what it is required me to take some time (really, they "fixed" my schedule) off at work, and at first I was totally upset. I was livid. However, I will still make decent enough money to tide me over. I should be thankful, I concluded. For the time. I have this new manuscript that needs to be nurtured. I have a novel that I would like to see finished before the end of the year. I should be thankful that I have these few more hours, these few more days, really, a week to devote to writing. Here, I am trying to channel the positive.

I ordered two books last week. Toni Morrison's _a mercy_ and Jericho Brown's (Hi, Jericho!) _please_. They arrived yesterday. Whenever I work in the Bronx, I have a 45 minute commute from my apartment in Harlem there, and then an hour from the Bronx to my job's office on Wall Street. While I have this "policy" of three takes for music and poetry collections before I come down hard and fast, Jericho's book decidedly kept me engaged the whole ride. Let me just say, "Track 1: Lush Life". And I'm not just saying it because it's the first poem of the book. I mean, there are other poems -- but I remember reading that poem (sometimes I read collections back to front...) and immediately looking forward to the next 40 minute commute.

Last night I did get to see Toni Morrison. For like 2 seconds. Maybe my devotion is not that deep. My best friend called me earlier in the day to say she was in Barnes and Noble and Toni Morrison was giving a reading and immediately thought about me. I didn't know. But I thought how sweet, I just picked up the book today. It's in my bag. Perfect. I had just promised a friend I would go hear him feature. I cursed myself. So, I tried to slip away and gave myself excuses for going to see Toni Morrison at Barnes & Noble. When I got there, I thought, the bookstore was pretty empty to be having Toni there. I forgot about the four floors, and took myself to the top. Before the last escalator, a woman stopped me to ensure the4th floor was my destination.

"You're here for the event?" Yes, I say. Thinking she was going to tell me I needed a ticket or something I didn't have because I had just gotten off the train from work.

"There's like 1000 people up there and it's hot as heck. You have to go up and all the way to the back," she says.

I shrug it off, thinking, what's so bad about sitting on the back row or something. I go up there and it is packed. The air has stopped moving. And there is a low murmur from the front of the room that barely makes it past the rows and rows - and indeed, bookshelves - of people on the fourth floor. I strained to hear her from across the room and between the stacks. I was sweating, and suffocating (in truth: I'm slightly claustrophobic) and after about 2 minutes I got out of there. I love Toni, but the reality of me getting my book signed or surviving that reading was not happening. So, I left and went to Bar 13.

There, I wrote a pantoum. My favorite form. About Harlem, my favorite place.

Make your own luck!

2008-11-16T02:25:00.002-05:00

I don't know or remember where I've heard that quote. But I just thought about it. I suppose it's the moral, or at least similar to the idea that if the world gives you lemons, make lemonade.

This week has been a hell of a week. I will not relive it here. Just know, that I've been pissy and moody.

However, I decided to channel that energy into something productive. I decided to stop saying "I have enough poems for another manuscript" and actually produce it.

Tonight, I put together another manuscript.

A couple days ago, I assembled a chapbook.

Monday, I have to send it off, for a deadline, for the Crab Orchard Open Series. Within the next month, I need to send it to Tupelo for the Dorsett Prize.

Tis the season for sowing. Next season, reaping.

Community!

2008-11-14T11:09:00.003-05:00

I've been so thankful that despite the recent and continual unraveling around me, I have poets and friends for support.

July and August I did month-long poetry challenges. I wasn't working, I had all day to think about my poem. It was an interesting exercise in watching, or monitoring, your process and watching it change. Undoubtedly, if you engage in even just one month-long challenge, your process will change. It's beautiful to watch, really.

Anyways. I don't believe I could sustain another month-long challenge, so I started doing these series of week-long challenges once a month. I use them to write poems for this specific project I'm working on. So it's like, I focus deeply for a week producing the poems, and I read the rest of the month and look for materials.

Here's today's poem:

Bird song

The call nearing 2am can’t seem
to dislodge itself from my ear even

after hours we’ve said good night
and I’ve rolled to the cold side

of my bed looking to fall back
into slumber. Last night I was

somewhere in Harlem, listening
to this bird sing and I know now

where women get the sorrow,
the low, guttural notes

to say You made me love you,
I didn’t want to do it, I didn’t –

and mean it. I’ve seen other sparrow-
women fly around the city with hope

caught in their beak looking to build
a nest. The wind outside sounds

a vortex, and the whistle wakes me
again, and your laughter is unraveling itself

from my memory. There is no settling,
just nights flapping wings outside

windows wondering what ifs, their weary
suppositions. The cup in our hands, unfilled.

(c) delana r.a. dameron

Poem for today

2008-11-13T08:39:00.002-05:00

because i'm trying to be good again and really keep up a blog, yo.

and because i love this woman, this poet. and because i needed to read it myself this morning. happy thursday. (the week is almost over)

Love,

you be the reason why
we swagger & jive,
lift the guitar, & pick up the axe.

when it is i tilt my hat to the side,
wearing colors & perfumes, it's cause, love,
you did it to me. oh,

you do sure turn my tongue to fiddle,
& make the salt taste sweet. man,

i don't need a rooster, or peacock even,
to help me spend my time, nope,
just you, love, right & solid as
a line.

(c) aracelis girmay

Writing Sample

2008-11-12T21:53:00.002-05:00

Not that I have a bunch of poems, but, well, I do.

I've dreaded this moment for a while now. In truth, it was the writing sample that kept me from applying to the appropriate grad schools in the beginning. I mean, how do you narrow down your work to 10 pages?

Anyone reading this -- what are your strategies for narrowing down?

I think I have 35 poems that are, for now, for the first round...musts.

Now. to say to 25 of them... you just didn't make the cut.

help!

i try to keep the walls from falling down

2008-11-12T13:45:00.002-05:00

the title of today's blog is from Tracy Chapman. Beautiful woman. Beautiful song. It is one of those albums (telling stories) that reminds me of a time in my life. a whole time. i listen to this album now, and i am back in charleston, SC. it was the first time that I lived in my own apartment. when i started to work to pay bills to live in this world. it was my first real experience in "the real world".

mind you, i was still in college. i transferred out of chapel hill (perhaps i have a history of being decidedly undecided) to "finish" at the college. big mistake. i was enrolled full time and working two jobs. and loving this man i shouldn't be while crushing on my roommate a bit because he was always around when the other man wasn't.

it was a true situation of me trying to keep the walls from falling down around me. my two jobs paid a buck and some change above minimum wage. basically all of my money went towards rent. luckiy one of my jobs was a coffeeshop, and so I ate their food, drank their coffee. i did homework there. i lived there. i lived off of the 30some dollars i received from tips per week. i would buy a footlong veggie sub from subway and split it between lunch and dinner.

it made me realize, however, that i am a fighter. i made it through. i graduated, and moved up to new jersey only to face harder obstacles. higher rent, a car note, travel money (path, subway, bus...everyday), food, etc etc.

now i'm probably my most stable ever living in nyc. which i find ironic, as it is ont of the most expensive cities in the world.

where am i going with this? well...i'm trying to keep my life together. while i'm stable a bit, financially, i am unstable in relationships. those walls are falling down, down, down.

some of them i have asked to fall apart and away. a week ago i decided what things i wanted to see manifest. i asked for a full ride to graduate school, for a prize for my book, and for people in my life who are harmful to disappear. it's the letting go that breaks up everything that you know. it's why we don't let go. we hold on, thinking we're holding things together, that to let go is to let all the walls fall down.

maybe i need to understand that letting go is keeping the walls from falling down.

November Run-Down

2008-11-11T23:16:00.002-05:00

I am applying again to grad school. It is a pressing time, begging folks for letters of recommendation, etc etc. I am happy that it hasn't been as hard as it could be, though there have been some noted (and perhaps, expected) bumps along the way.

I would like to post the list of potential schools, but I think not only is it dangerous to do so (yes, I said it) but also...jinxing it. Let's just say, I believe that this time around will be a good one.

In other news, the book! "How God Ends Us" is coming along smoothly. Everything according to plan and deadlines. The next step: I receive the typeset pages. I am supposed to send off my acknowledgments page. I promised them that on Monday. Maybe I am behind. Ugh. Tomorrow. That is my plan for tomorrow. While I already have one, I want to make everything is covered. I want to make sure everyone is properly thanked that should be.

Plans are in process for website development. And book party. I plan on having a multi-city launch. Part of the cool thing with the organization, the Poetry Initiative, that sponsored the prize is they put together a book launch. So I'll have a book launch at home. I'm trying to plan a book launch in NYC. Or two. Or several. Is that doing too much?

Other projects/things going on in my life at the moment: I've been doing a series of week-long poetry challenges with friends. It's good because I'm only really responsible for one week of poetry a month. The rest that happens, I'm thankful. Other than that, I don't freak out. And I still have pretty good progress towards things I'm working on.

I've put together a chapbook from my work this summer. I call it "kingdom: animalia". Someone suggested I look for an illustrator. I might do that. It could be a cool project. I'm also going to submit it to a couple of presses, maybe.

What else? I'm writing about Harlem for a larger "project" and in that, too, about NYC. It fascinates me, I guess you could say plainly. I'm taken by the city for reasons unknown. I'm taking that fascination and channeling it. And publishing it.

I treated myself to a poetry book today. It has been a while since I've treated myself to a poetry book. I was looking for Jericho Brown's book (which everyone has been drooling over) in the stores in NYC. Something about ordering books -- I'm so impatient. Anyways. I stopped in Strand and picked up a book since I couldn't find one that I wanted. Not to say the book I chose was a bad choice, it just wasn't what i was going for...but when the poetry appetite is roaring, it cannot go unfed. I picked up C. Dale Young's "The Second Person". I've never read anything of his. Which, this, too, is a treat. Sometimes I go and pick up books that I've never considered on my radar.

I'll post more about it as I read. I'm also reading 2 fiction books: The Secret Life of Bees and Claude McKay's Home to Harlem.

Other than that, just laying low, grading papers, teaching writing...educating the masses. I keep thinking: if I were 200 years removed, what I would be doing would be considered illegal. granted, my own education would be illegal. But just think: my whole being: writer, teacher who is both black and female, who teaches only students of color how to read, write, and articulate themselves...yes. I sort of like that.

Okay -- back to the grad school and work grind.

long time

2008-11-01T10:30:00.001-04:00

I've been away for way too long. My last real post was in August. Since then, my life has been whisked from under my feet and getting from day to day upright is a struggle. A struggle I sometimes lose.

Big news: I bought a new bed. This is significant because I prided myself once in my ability to pack up my life and go...just go away from here. or there. or anywhere I was "living". All of my moves happened by packing up my car. That's it. My life has been able to fit into either a Suzuki Esteem or Honda Civic. Two doors.

So I brooded over it for a week. I shopped over the internet for the perfect bed. I found a place that delivers on the same day and assembles it. Long story short, the bed didn't get put together until Tuesday, which gave me lots of time to brood about how I really couldn't afford the bed, but that I needed it...or how the bed was symbolic for putting my feet into nyc...which is saying that I now have to fight to stay here. This is pure Darwinism right here. It's flight vs. fight. I'm saying that I plan to fight. Because I have roots here. I've bought matching curtains. I am scheming on a new desk and bookshelves. I am scheming on settling in.

Harlem Night Song

2008-10-29T18:35:00.001-04:00

Harlem Night Song

Langston Hughes

Come, Let us roam the night together
Singing.

I love you.

Across
The Harlem roof-tops
Moon is shining.
Night sky is blue.
Stars are great drops
Of golden dew.

Down the street
A band is playing

I love you.

Come,
Let us roam the night together
Singing.

Writing and Risk

2008-08-21T12:36:00.000-04:00

Last Tuesday I had a reading in Brooklyn, Park Slope to be exact. It was at this cute little place called the Perch Cafe. I read with two other women writers Taha Ebrihimi and Hossannah Asucion. All women of color. Taha is Iranian and read from her memoir she wrote when she got a grant to go around the world and observe/write about the Sufis (which apparently they are a private group and do not normally allow outsiders), and Hossannah is Filipino and read some sultry prose poems about the city. I especially liked the line: "The city taught you to love in incomplete parts"

I was excited to read with two new women of color. Not that I don't like to read with familiar women of color, but I was excited, you see, because it was the first time that I read with other genres as well as with people whose work I was unfamiliar with. This meant, undoubtably that I would be reading to an almost all new audience (though, luckily several of my friends made the long trek from Harlem to Park Slope with me!).

So, I am learning now, too, that I have this book ("How God Ends Us") that will be coming out in the spring and will hopefully have a whole list of readings and places to go and people to read to. Before I had this book forthcoming, I used to like to use readings as opportunities to test out new material; I would always read new work every chance I got to get behind the microphone. At first, I was a bit devastated to think that I would have to confine myself to one collection, that I would not be able to read new stuff. But, despite the fact that I'm finding it fun - for now...I suppose this is the honeymoon phase? - to look at my manuscript from different angles and figure out what stories I can tell using which poems and having each reading be a new reading. Maybe it's because I believe every poem can be read aloud (I know some poets who would argue differently and then complain that they are tired of reading the same five poems from their book...and I say to them: you have a whole book of poems to choose from!) Maybe because I believe in taking risks.

Here we are: the risks part of this entry. This reading happened the Tuesday after we lost Bernie Mac, Isaac Hayes, and Mahmoud Darwish. I'm not going to lie, I am sad and feel for losing anyone, but I was mostly sad about Mahmoud Darwish (his collection "The Butterfly's Burden" will forever be one of my favorite books of poetry) and how important his voice was/is/will be to illuminating the Palestinian's history and current state.

So I mentioned this, at the reading, that we lost a lot of people over the weekend, but probably most important to me was Mahmoud Darwish. While planning what I was going to read, I was not planning on reading any of my Palestine poems (of which I have a whole second collection I'm working on...), but I felt I must. A bit of background: I have been working on and off on this collection of poetry based on my historical research in college about the history of the conflict and how Palestinians tell or portray their suffering/story. A way I thought I could get into the personal side of it was to spend time reading blogs and watching films - mostly feature films, I had articles and books for the hard facts. I go to places like the BBC or other less-biased world-news places to get updates on both sides of the story and events that happen, and found this interesting podcast "Crossing the line" that I tune into sometimes to hear accounts when my eyes beg reprieve.

My risk then, was reading these Palestinian-based poems (they are persona...in the voices of Palestinians) to an all new audience, with all new readers, when I should be gathering folks in support of my book coming out. I could lose readers/listeners with a wrong move. I could offend a host of folks with two poems. But that is the risk right? What fun is it to be safe always, to read the same poems all the time?

It was interesting. I was the last reader. I had to close out the evening. I started with the Palestine poems, because I figured I'd have time to redeem myself with other poems later. I started with a poem by Adonis, and said I wanted to read it to remember Darwish. Then I read two newer poems (which I admit, the older me has calmed down on the voices) - one which came out in the latest Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review -- a poem I wrote about this news story I read where two lovers were separated by the wall that severed East Jerusalem, and had to sneak around in order to be together. And then I read this ghazal about Gaza using facts and stories I've collected over time and places. So the refrain, if you're familiar with the ghazal form (composed of couplets, mostly mildly disassociated with the end of the second line containing the refrain), was "under siege" -- and I watched as I went through the 15-couplet ghazal the audience shift. It was heavy in the room for a minute. And I thought -- I am doing my work. I am making these people listen, whether they like it or not. I have taken my risk.

Immediately after (I had three poems I wanted to read about Palestine) I switched gears though. I figured I wasn't going to walk that line too far. I still wanted them to be with me, in some way, until the end. Even if I did shake them up and make them uncomfortable for about 5 minutes of their life.

So I read some poems from the book. I read two new poems. And said thank you. By the time I got to about the middle of the selection of poems from the book, tension shifted in my favor again, and people were smiling and nodding. I had a couple of people come up and thank me for my work, with smiles, saying they really liked it. People mentioned specific poems. No one mentioned Palestine. But that's okay, I did it.

My friend attended the reading and said he felt the energy shift as well. What is advocacy if not risk? What is writing for - if not to illumine?

and i snuck out at the last minute

2008-08-19T00:48:00.003-04:00

So. I was supposed to be on punishment. I told several people I was putting myself on punishment, that I wasn't going to leave the house b/c of my punishment. Then at the last minute, right after I ate dinner, I put on my shoes and left. And went.

And it was like that party you hear about all week and talk to all your friends about and you think how you're going to get there w/o your parents knowing because they've already said no because you're on punishment and you sneak out of the house anyways, knowing that if you get caught the consequences are going to be higher...but you want to go b/c you know it's going to be hot and you don't want to be the only person in the world not at this party

then you get there and you are the only person at this party.

and you're like. i should have stayed on punishment and not wasted the risk.

yeh.

Punishment

2008-08-18T16:37:00.003-04:00

There's a reading tonight that I want to go to. But I'm punishing myself. My punishment should exist in the form of turning off my internet, but I'm not sure I'm that disciplined in self-punishment, but I can make myself stay in my apartment until I write something today. I am punishing myself because I've managed to find so many things to keep me from writing that it's almost annoying. This blog writing is also a form of procrastination.

I'm at a crossroads that I've faced before. A while ago, I read through over and over "The Purpose Driven Life" and worried, because it talks about utilizing your gifts and such to fulfill your purpose in life. Then I was like -- crap! I have too many gifts. And this wasn't me trying to gloat or show off, but I thought, at the time, I had: my music, my writing, my athletics, my crafts. I didn't add to that teaching then, because I didn't know that it, too, would be a gift that I received. But here I am. So anyways, the crossroads that existed then was to decide which was going to come to the forefront. Which was going to get the most focus and attention. Writing moved up. I had to make that decision, and it has been a bit easier trying to figure out how to work my purpose out of that one thing.

So now I'm faced with many many projects that I want to work on right now. I have short stories, plays, a novel, some poetry reviews and essays - all of which are started in some shape or form but need some more attention. Attention that gets diffused into starting a new project. I need to pick one to come to the forefront until it is finished.

Crossing the line

2008-07-30T11:18:00.002-04:00

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

2008-07-26T13:48:00.002-04:00

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

2008-07-25T16:59:00.002-04:00

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

2008-07-25T14:39:00.003-04:00

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?

2008-07-23T10:46:00.002-04:00

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

2008-07-22T10:49:00.002-04:00

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

2008-07-21T02:12:00.003-04:00

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

2008-07-19T11:28:00.002-04:00

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

2008-07-17T15:08:00.001-04:00

Some pictures: ROCKS at the RIVER

Book news

2008-07-16T14:44:00.002-04:00

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

2008-07-15T02:22:00.003-04:00

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

2008-07-13T00:01:00.002-04:00

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.

neruda's questions

2008-07-10T13:11:00.003-04:00

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

2008-07-08T16:52:00.002-04:00

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

2008-07-05T11:02:00.002-04:00

-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

2008-07-04T15:09:00.002-04:00

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

7/3/2008

Invitation to the Game

2008-06-16T08:25:00.003-04:00

In 6th grade I remember reading this book "Invitation to the Game" and discussing it in the "advanced placement" class that I had been in since 4th grade or so. That year, we read several science fiction novels and went to the Kennedy Space Center -- we were all about space and the "final" frontier.

I didn't think how...odd it was, space, until I was riding the A train and the advertisements there are showing this Discovery Channel program about space travel and they've titled it, "When we left Earth" and then it makes me think how...amazing. How...out of this world (literally) the concept that we decided through some efforts and years of being discontent with where we were to leave the place designated for us and venture out.

Anyways. Last night, citing boredom and after I finished my first-ever graphic novel (more on that later) I decided to watch several episodes of Lost. I know. I'm behind. I don't have a TV and the only shows I watched were Grey's Anatomy and Ugly Betty. I remember reading a review and someone was speculating that they were all dead and it was some middle world between Heaven and Hell. Looking at this, though, I thought about this book that I read back in middle school, and how...it reminded me so much of it.

So this book. It's about some kids who graduate either from college or high school. It's set about 150 years in the future so robots are doing most of the work, and so there's little work for humans to do. Kids graduate from school and are automatically entered into the unemployment bucket, and must live in a welfare area. This is the status of most, not a few, people. While here, and living a pretty meaningless existence, they receive an invitation to "The Game". I should also mention that despite being on welfare and without jobs, they were the brightest kids in their class (although, I suppose then, it is only relative, right?). They go to this room where they sit with glasses on that project this world where their only efforts are to survive. Each session it gets harder and harder. If the player should hurt themselves or die, they wake up. Each person is placed in this game according to their worth, where their separate uses can combine. After a while, I forget what event happens that should have sparked the end of the "Game" for that session, but they don't wake up. It isn't until they try to look for recognizable constellations that they realize they're on another planet, in another world. And now they must start all over, using the skills, I guess you could call them, they recognized they had during the simulation.

I dunno. All of this reminded me of Lost. Starting all over, another world/realm/

2008-06-14T13:58:00.002-04:00

I'm sort of using this blog for multiple uses. Mainly, right now, I turn to it to chart how I am coming with yoga.

Today was day 6. It hasn't been straight and in a row, these days, but it was the sixth day that I entered that 105 degree room and stayed there for 90 minutes and asked favors of my body.

There is only one pose left for me to master. Today I breathed through the pain for one that had been bothering me for a while -- one that I knew I should be able to do. I can't recall the pose names, but just know that I hope within the next couple of sessions to be able to walk away saying: I've done all 26 poses. Another difference I noted today was I didn't require or desire as much water as I have in past sessions. I believe that has something to do with hydration before the workout. I'm learning, I'm learning. Today, though. Today in the first backward bend, we're asking our body to bend over backwards in a standing pose, and go as deep and as far back as you can, keeping your eyes open, focusing on the back wall. Something in my back and chest opened up and in the second set, I leaned so far back that I was able to see where the wall met the carpet. I came back up smiling.

I've discovered, though, that I need a new hobby. Something to invest myself creatively in. Well, maybe not invest like do, but participate? I'm not sure -- but yesterday I found myself wanting to get out of the house but not really feeling like writing. And I was at a loss of things to do. Going out by myself is no longer that much of a hindrance. I just need to find places to go, things to get into and enjoy -- maximize my full creative potential.

I leave for Cave Canem in a week. Yep. Exciting.

Then 19 days in the mountains, solo.

seven days to a new me

2008-06-11T14:46:00.002-04:00

today was my last day in the trial period for yoga, and i'm sad. i want to have money that flows and flows so that i can just have this place to go to whenever i want. but i understand that folks gotta get paid. everyone has to get paid. the place has to get paid in order to stay available. yes. i know.

it's interesting to think about the transformation between last week and this week. I don't know what the click was, but I was just ready to do some things differently than I have in the past, and these new patterns are ironically freeing.

Don't get me wrong. I am aware that this honeymoon phase will be over, and there are still some rocky roads coming up, but...i have faith that things will get better and better, and I can resurrect my mantra: every day a little closer.

And it's interesting that mantra that I adopted at the beginning of the year and seeing it put to work. In yoga, especially, I see it in work. I see it in the body, how everyday you ask the body to do a little bit more, to bring your back to curve like a c so that you can bend your torso back over your butt and touch your heels. and you'd never thought that you could bring your eyes to see the back corner of the room while the rest of you is pointing forward. and four days ago you got nauseous when you attempted this, but today, today was the day you get a little bit closer. yep

everyday a little bit closer.

rachelle ferrell

2008-06-09T08:45:00.002-04:00

If I've ever gotten into a music conversation with any of you, you'd know that I absolutely love Rachelle Ferrell. That is interesting for me to admit. Honestly, I can't remember how I got a hold of her. I believe it was my early days surfing the web afterschool, and reading a review of her album. Then, somehow, I was looking for CDs and found hers, and bought it because I remember the review and the rest, is history.

My friend in the city, Jennifer, was walking by the Blue Note on Friday and told me that Rachelle Ferrell was playing there and she remembered how much I liked her. What good friends I have. Granted, I walk by the Blue Note a lot. I do. I even sometimes look in to see what's going on, but I never figured anyone that I'd really want to see would be there. But Rachelle!

I contemplated the next two days if I would go. It was too late for Friday, Saturday I had to work. Sunday was the last day. I decided on Sunday, if I were to go, and even still it was a toss up because I am in no position to splurge on a concert, however, tickets weren't that much if you sat at the bar...

Did I mention that it was my first NYC show? Did I also mention that it was, in fact, my first show going to solo? Yes, I called two people to see if they would be interested in going, but I had made up in my mind that I was going solo. I did. So add that to the list of yoga, bars, concerts solo.

Later on, I'll update with my thoughts about the concert, but let me just say...amazing. I wished she had played my favorite song, but there's (hopefully) other chances to see her, enjoy her.

Cassandra Wilson is playing tonight. I can't afford it. Too bad.

boundaries crossed

2008-06-08T12:47:00.002-04:00

An amazing thing happened today. I went for my third day of bikram yoga (that should say enough..) and got in there and thought, I'm really sweaty and hot (note to self: NEVER stand under the lights, as if the heat of the room isn't enough already) and my tanktop, sticking to me, is getting on my nerves. So. I took it off. I contemplated it for a good first 25 minutes of the set. Then I thought: we're all in here sweating and focus should be on ourselves only and not anyone else. I took off the tanktop and focused my eyes on my body as I watched it go in and out of the poses.

It was an interesting freedom I was afforded just then - the freedom to take off my tanktop in a space where I felt I had room to. It was mostly for comfort - the shirt was soaked through and wet on my skin, and I didn't like the feeling. It was also to see if I would do it, because i could...I could have started with the shirt on and kept it on. I could have started with the shirt off, then I wouldn't have to go through the whole agony of deciding on whether or not to take it off. Still, I decided it's my comfort, my body. No one else should be looking at it at this moment but myself. And I have to be able to look at it.

So, I'm hooked to this bikram yoga. I've gone three times and had three different teachers. I've decided that I like the teacher that talks really fast, that goes through it motorcycle-style and revs up the engine. He, however, teaches at 6:30am on tuesday/thursday. When my trial period is up, I'm going to have to figure out a way to do what I want...so that I can be there like i'd want to be.

Early morning yoga, growing up.

2008-06-06T07:58:00.000-04:00

So Thursday was a day of firsts for me. Yep. My coworker invited me last weekend to try this yoga class that was/is right around the corner from our houses. I agreed. It meant waking up at 6am. It meant going to do yoga for 90 minutes in essentially a sauna, heated to 105 degrees.

I've done some yoga practices before, but not in a studio, not with a real, live person in front of me. There is something to be said about that experience, but I'm not sure what yet. Maybe that, I don't listen well (but I knew it) and need someone to actually do the poses so that I can see it. I have to see it.

I also know it was an interesting experience to look at yourself, full-bodied, in a mirror for 90 minutes. It felt good to sweat though, I love to sweat. It's interesting to watch yourself contort into the various poses, like standing on your right leg while you reach behind you for your left ankle, and you raise your right arm in the air and then charge your body forward and your left ankle towards the ceiling and you see, almost for the first time, the sole of your foot in the air, in the mirror.

Here I am, sitting on my couch, a bit sore, but proud of myself. I didn't know my body could do some of the things I asked it to do. I thanked it for bending my forehead to my knee, thanked it for bringing my hands, clasped around the ball of right my foot, raised in the air while my left leg stayed planted straight into the ground to hold me up. I went again today, and learned that I prefer yoga if there are less people, and already have made in my mind what kind of teacher I like...yesterday, the guy was talking too fast, today the woman was talking too much, too slow. It made the 90 minutes feel like 90 minutes, and what's interesting is that the one today was later, and I was more tired today than yesterday. Tomorrow I rest.

Another thing about growing up and doing things you never thought you'd do would have to be going to bars by yourself. Add on to that, going to bars by yourself in NYC. I set in my mind this week that I was going to go to a bar by myself. Tuesday, my friend was DJing around here and invited me. I agreed. He said he'd be unavailable to talk so I thought, perfect. So I went, his equipment wasn't working and so he was down in the lounge, and immediately I didn't want to be there anymore. I pulled out my moleskin and started writing. Some friends were eating dinner around the corner, and ended up meeting up with me so I wasn't really at the bar alone.

Thursday, after my yoga success, and after work, I decided to go to a bar, by myself. I was tempted to call people. I was, I'm not going to lie. But I wanted it to be a conscious decision that I go to the bar by myself, not for the situation to be that I was going because there was no one to go with. Anyways, I walked a good distance and went to three different places before I decided on a bar. It was a place I had gone to with a friend a few months back. I remember their happy hour being late and nice and so I said I could go there and do my alone bar time with some cheap drinks. And lo, the only seat in the bar available was next to this lone guy with dreadlocks down his back, and I thought, how ironic. I sat down and ordered my drink, and sat. Just sat. Then I was like, this is boring. And I looked at the guy next to me. And I didn't say anything. Secretely I wanted him to notice me and speak to me. He didn't. Finally, halfway into my Jameson, neat, I decided to speak up and say something. I spoke to him, asked him about his locks. We just went from there....I ended up staying in the bar for a couple of hours. It wasn't so bad afterall. I didn't die.

LouderArts

2008-06-04T10:16:00.001-04:00

Monday I had the chance to feature at Bar13, LouderArts. It was fun. I basically had all the poems I was going to read in this green folder with me and I paced around and around until it was time for me to go up. As soon as I step onto the stage, my eye starts to freak out, just one eye, and it waters for a good five minutes. Luckily, God has given me two, and the ability to see without needing both, and so the show still went on.

Before my reading, I was supposed to have a poetry elective class. My student and I were headed to the Starbucks - because it's only appropriate that one should hold a writing class in a coffeeshop - and got onto the elevator at my job and ended up getting stuck. For an hour. Yes. Stuck. Being the traveler that I am, I had plenty of reading material that I needed to focus on to keep from freaking out. I am mildly claustrophobic, and it is sparked when I can't see or feel or hear air flow. So to keep from thinking I was going to suffocate to death, and my last time on earth was going to be in this damned elevator, I decided to read some of the things I had with me. Of them, an essay about the Holocaust and how poetry - the embodiment of poetry - helped some of the concentration camp prisoners survive, how it sustained them. I thought it interesting that I should choose this essay at this time to read, and I pulled out some excerpts to frame my reading. It worked relatively well.

So. I read a billion poems. I don't believe it felt as long as it was. Everyone in the room was quiet and listening. My roommate came and recorded it, and it sounds amazing, and I hope to find a way to get it up here so that others can listen (if only in parts) if they want to.

I have this thing with poetry readings...it's why I like to have a weekly spot to read at, or why I like to do a lot of poetry readings - I want to read new work in front of an audience. New work. But then I realized, this is a prelude into what my own readings will be like when I have my book out, so I figured it only fair most of them come from there. So I did, but I still read new work...and I loved it. They loved it. Patrick Rosal and Aracelis Girmay were there. My roommate and several of my friends were there. It was a nice and lovely and just grand time.

I'll let you know if I get the audio up and running.

process: interviewing poems

2008-06-01T18:49:00.000-04:00

I love reading writer's blogs. I do. I love reading blogs that have some substance. This includes Palestinian blogs, though I haven't read them in a while, but I will return to them as I am about to return to my project of telling that story through poems. But back to my original thought: I've decided to utilize this blog more about process, to start a dialogue about process and what's going on in this mind of mine, and hopefully yours.

There's this thing that I've begun to do with poems as I am starting them. First, I have to have an idea. Once I have the idea down, but not much else, I sit down with the poem and interview it. I write out the five W's and an H. Who, what, where, when, why, and how (sometimes not applicable)...and because the majority of my poetry is narrative, this framework works, because it establishes the story I wish to tell. It helps me get a better view on placement, on characters, on why this event is happening, what sparked this event, etc. It sets up the world for me, this world I will be attempting to describe a little more poetically later. Generally, this is my second-stop approach. If I can't decide how the poem is going to start, then I ask it questions, demand it offer some information if it's not going to give me a first line, and generally from there -- most times a half a journal page or a whole journal page of notes -- I can find an opening to the poem I was wanting to write.

Now, this process only comes when I am wanting to write a poem but can't find a way in. This, I find, is happening more and more as I am working on this novel, but I started this before I started writing my novel. Really, I got it from the summer I worked at a newspaper. I spent my days asking people questions in order to get quotes and ideas with which to find an angle into a story that should be written from the answers provided. How writers find a way out of no way, yes? Who would have thought I could use that summer, now. I thought that was 8 weeks wasted, save for the clips that I have saved, but have not found a job with which to use it yet. Who knows.

Anyways, I always suggest this too, with my writer friends who find themselves stuck. I ask them if they've interviewed their character, or their poem. Have you?

packing/cleaning

2008-05-30T12:01:00.000-04:00

so i am the queen of waiting until the last minute to do something. like packing. like waiting until the day i have to move to get things together and throw stuff away and pack up my life, again, into my two-door honda.

im not moving far. i'm moving across a river, to another state, to new york city. to harlem, to be exact. manhattan. who would have thought? i've lived so close for almost a year, and now i get to experience living in it for at least a year. it sucks you in, i've learned. you get sucked in.

i'm still sort of in transition for a few weeks. then in transition for another few weeks. two months total. this time in august, i hope to be settled down and in my own space and spreading my arms out wide in a room in nyc that is mine. all mine.

but before i get there, i'm going through this life i've piled up in new jersey over the last 10 months. and you make yourself believe that it's not much, that you haven't acquired anything, and then you start trying to break it down and compact it and you realize you have thousands of poems and papers and books....clothes and clothes....and shoes and things here and there. i don't want to have to make two trips. but i might have to. i'm going to try and fit everythinggggg into my car and say there. i'm done.

i'm almost done.