I was talking to another writer the other night and he was saying how important the reading, gathering information, research section of writing was for him. I feel the exact same way- i compared it to the way they make astronaut food on cartoons. They jam a ham and a turkey and a bunch of vegetables and a dessert into a machine and out pops a little food cube. the product seems much smaller than the sum of what went into it, but as homer noted, "i only eat food in bar form. when you concentrate food, you unleash its awesome power, i'm told." (of course then he finds out that the powersauce bars he's been eating are made of old chinese newspapers instead of apples. maybe this cultural reference falls apart here.) (of course, he then also learns from his powersauce bar that deng xiaoping died, so maybe it works after all.)
i've talked about this research as part of my process before, but i'm really thinking about it for this poem because ezra pound keeps appearing in my life. (not in a ghostly way- in a referential way.) this jenkins piece has a definite political undertone for me and i keep weighing how much to foreground that and how much to swallow it inside the poem. part of the tension is because this is a performance piece- read aloud with no written text for the audience to refer to, there's room for only so much subtlety- and i also want it to work as a poem on a page as well. so the balance is hard with those 2 requirements.
but i also wonder about the political requirements of a poet. i'm not a march around on the streets activist. i'm a writer and i see part of being a writer is uncovering or revealing, helping folks unpack a situation, telling stories that otherwise get lost. and i also believe this is very important political work. so for me, this piece is also a commentary on the iraq and afghanistan wars. to me, that is also a crucial part of resistence and the way i choose to participate.
Pennsound just made available their collection of pound's stuff http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Pound.html. a lot of it's very poor quality and hard to understand and apparently mary derachewiltz, pound's daughter, is unhappy about that. she makes the argument that the middle of a war might be the most important time for folks to hear an anti-war poet loudly and clearly. i also read the interview with ferlinghetti in poets and writers in which he argues for pound as a poet persecuted for speaking out against war. http://www.pw.org/mag/features.htm
i'm fascinated by this new take on pound ( i also learned last night while watching a new orleans documentary that pound was in new orleans for awhile. didn't know it and that was my 3rd pound exposure in one day. a little strange.) and it made me wonder why we don't have any poets dangerous enough to be detained. are there no speeches, poems, or other activities we could take dangerous enough to worry the powers that be? it made me scribble a couple of notes in my notebook about st. elizabeth's and the guantonamanian cantos and makes me thinking about how to gracefully foreground the current war connection with the jenkins piece.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
After Rehearsal
I met with the Choreo dancers last night for a little over an hour. I brought in the poem I posted yesterday to rehearsal. I talked a little about what I saw as the consistent ideas in the poem and how their movement to the idea helped bring me to this stage. I read the first section and talked about what I saw as the center action for the other three sections and just talked about Jenkins's story in general.
The only section I didn't "see" yet was section 2, so they did some movement in response to that section, simultaneously, but separately. I was amazed again at how much it helped. Section 2 is about his crossing over to North Korea and 2 of their movements really struck me. One was a dancer lying on her back on the floor, but doing occasional 180 degree spins by crossing her left leg over her right and pulling herself in a slow half-circle. The other was a sort of dis/un- jointed movement with the left arm while the dancer was standing. The first movement helped me think about crossing boundaries, the importance we place on this type of change (or not), while the second helped me focus on the process that boundary crossing requires, whether enforced by an outside agency or by the self, the steps we take in decision making.
Thinking about these aspects for the second section helped me also see how they re-emerge differently in the 4th section and I feel much more hopeful about the whole poem now, both finishing it and making it good. I also started thinking about the poem less as a poem that lives on the page and more as a part of a performance. Not a spoken word piece exactly, but as a section of a performance. That seemed to free me as a writer a little as well.
We ended by talking about how we would move from this to performance in June. The dancers recreated one movement from the earlier exercise alone on stage and then paired themselves according to those movements. They then did those movements again with the other person/people on stage, which brought out entirely different aspects. These group movements were filmed.
We also talked about how we envisioned the piece, whether there would be a reader, would the reading and the movement happen simultaneously or separately, how many dancers would be on the stage at one time, would they all be moving, would they move together or separately, etc.
The thing that shocked me the most was how many opinions I had about the choreography and what the final performance should look like. This is exactly the kind of work that Choreo does and they are very good at it, helping people who aren't dancers see and work with the dance that is already present in their own life. They jokingly suggested that they could offer a writer's block service, but it's actually very true. Not only does it help you "see" the poem's possibilities, but it also helps you "see" movement on the page and off and how that shapes the poem.
It was really tremendous and my job now is to work on the poem, get it to a draft stage.
The only section I didn't "see" yet was section 2, so they did some movement in response to that section, simultaneously, but separately. I was amazed again at how much it helped. Section 2 is about his crossing over to North Korea and 2 of their movements really struck me. One was a dancer lying on her back on the floor, but doing occasional 180 degree spins by crossing her left leg over her right and pulling herself in a slow half-circle. The other was a sort of dis/un- jointed movement with the left arm while the dancer was standing. The first movement helped me think about crossing boundaries, the importance we place on this type of change (or not), while the second helped me focus on the process that boundary crossing requires, whether enforced by an outside agency or by the self, the steps we take in decision making.
Thinking about these aspects for the second section helped me also see how they re-emerge differently in the 4th section and I feel much more hopeful about the whole poem now, both finishing it and making it good. I also started thinking about the poem less as a poem that lives on the page and more as a part of a performance. Not a spoken word piece exactly, but as a section of a performance. That seemed to free me as a writer a little as well.
We ended by talking about how we would move from this to performance in June. The dancers recreated one movement from the earlier exercise alone on stage and then paired themselves according to those movements. They then did those movements again with the other person/people on stage, which brought out entirely different aspects. These group movements were filmed.
We also talked about how we envisioned the piece, whether there would be a reader, would the reading and the movement happen simultaneously or separately, how many dancers would be on the stage at one time, would they all be moving, would they move together or separately, etc.
The thing that shocked me the most was how many opinions I had about the choreography and what the final performance should look like. This is exactly the kind of work that Choreo does and they are very good at it, helping people who aren't dancers see and work with the dance that is already present in their own life. They jokingly suggested that they could offer a writer's block service, but it's actually very true. Not only does it help you "see" the poem's possibilities, but it also helps you "see" movement on the page and off and how that shapes the poem.
It was really tremendous and my job now is to work on the poem, get it to a draft stage.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
First Draft of Poem
I've been really stuck on this poem. The version I have now is very wordy, very talky, which may work for this particular assignment, but I don't think will work ultimately as a stand-alone poem. I guess I did have the goal of this being both a poem that could work with the dancers, in performance, on the stage, and all by itself on the page, but I am doubting that a little more now. Oddly, that does seem to open up my writing a little more, get me past the block of actual words on a page.
I am always a pen-on-paper drafter. I don't think I could name any piece I have written in the last few years that has started on the computer or on a typewriter. After I get a written draft done, then I move to the computer and start the word processing version. That's when I really start to think about line breaks and the like, the rhythm of the lines as presented, whether the repetition is working or not. From there, I usually take a piece to the Black Socks, the poetry group I belong to. I take that feedback and keep revising, back to the pen, but this time on the typed out version. Then I put the changes into the saved draft, get rid of the previous version (I really do hate clutter, even in my computer files), and repeat the process until it's done enough.
For this project, it's a little different. Added in there is going to dance rehersal and watching the group move to the words or the ideas, taking some notes, and writing in response to that. Tonight I will visit the Choreo practice with the below in hand and tomorrow I'll write a little about their responses and what effect it had on my thinking about the poem.
Those That Don’t
I. Rich Square, North Carolina Juche 47 (1958)
Boy, I best not catch you up at that school today.
There’s tobacco to be topped and the south field needs wormed.
That’s the most Daddy had said at once in a month
and it’s the last words he ever spoke to me.
I was carrying hornworms to the turkeys
when I found him laying half in, half out
of the barn door. That was the end
of me and the eighth grade.
When I would get caught up in my head, Daddy liked to say
Son, there’s those that do and those that don’t.
Which are you gonna be? I believed then Rich Square
was the loneliest place in the world, so I figured
to join the Army and find me something to do
and some folks to do it with.
Alone and alone and alone.
That was North Carolina for me.
II. DMZ, South Korea Juche 54 (1965)
III. Pyongyang, North Korea Juche 69 (1980)
IV.Camp Zama Penitentiary, Japan Juche 93 (2004)
I am always a pen-on-paper drafter. I don't think I could name any piece I have written in the last few years that has started on the computer or on a typewriter. After I get a written draft done, then I move to the computer and start the word processing version. That's when I really start to think about line breaks and the like, the rhythm of the lines as presented, whether the repetition is working or not. From there, I usually take a piece to the Black Socks, the poetry group I belong to. I take that feedback and keep revising, back to the pen, but this time on the typed out version. Then I put the changes into the saved draft, get rid of the previous version (I really do hate clutter, even in my computer files), and repeat the process until it's done enough.
For this project, it's a little different. Added in there is going to dance rehersal and watching the group move to the words or the ideas, taking some notes, and writing in response to that. Tonight I will visit the Choreo practice with the below in hand and tomorrow I'll write a little about their responses and what effect it had on my thinking about the poem.
Those That Don’t
I. Rich Square, North Carolina Juche 47 (1958)
Boy, I best not catch you up at that school today.
There’s tobacco to be topped and the south field needs wormed.
That’s the most Daddy had said at once in a month
and it’s the last words he ever spoke to me.
I was carrying hornworms to the turkeys
when I found him laying half in, half out
of the barn door. That was the end
of me and the eighth grade.
When I would get caught up in my head, Daddy liked to say
Son, there’s those that do and those that don’t.
Which are you gonna be? I believed then Rich Square
was the loneliest place in the world, so I figured
to join the Army and find me something to do
and some folks to do it with.
Alone and alone and alone.
That was North Carolina for me.
II. DMZ, South Korea Juche 54 (1965)
III. Pyongyang, North Korea Juche 69 (1980)
IV.Camp Zama Penitentiary, Japan Juche 93 (2004)
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Beginning Writing
So this writing project started for me with some research and reading. I'm an academic, so research is a part of most of my poems, but it takes two very different forms. Sometimes, like for this Choreo piece, I do research on a specific subject. So for Jenkins, that meant a lot of internet database research, so i read a NYT article on his return home, a Far Eastern Economic Review interview with him, a 60 Minutes interview with him and some other pieces I found online that told parts of his story.
I reviewed the stories online and printed off the ones I liked, took them home, and read them again, this time underlining and taking notes. I keep a research notebook for both my academic and creative work. I find it a great way to organize both thoughts and quotes and it works very well for me. Everything is together and I always know where something came from.
Lots of times though, I'm just reading and researching in general, just looking for things that interest me and making connections between things. For example, my nephew (he's 5) and I were reading a book about alligators together. This was probably 4 months ago or so and he asked me if he ate alligator and when I told him he probably hadn't, but some people did, he responded that he could be an alligator scientist then. His theory was that you couldn't be a scientist of things you ate.
I love this idea and have been carrying it around with me. Last night, I woke up at 2:30am and had that racing brain thing (we all have this right? brain spins and spins at some ungodly hour? tell me you know this too.) so I turned on the radio. The BBC was all about the sailors coming home so I turned it to AM, where Coast to Coast was playing. http://www.coasttocoastam.com/ (Never hear it?? It's all about supernatural stuff, occasionally brilliant, mostly full of drunk and mentally ill callers.) There was a cryptozoologist on and I probably fell asleep after 30 minutes or so of his talk about lake monsters and Bigfoot type creatures.
This morning I wake up thinking about Nicholas's scientist theory and this guy as a scientist, put them together and come up with the draft of the poem below.
This usually how my writing process goes- I cram more and more stuff in my brain and my notebook and carry it around until 2 or more things touch and connect for me. So, I've been carrying this Robert Jenkins stuff around for awhile now and I'm still not sure what it's connected to. I think it's important to ground each section in specific an incident as possible, but I haven't settled on the incidents or their focus yet. As I come to them, I'll write them down and start to work on the lines, but as for now, I'm stuck on the big picture of the poem. I know I want to work with a North Korean official telling Jenkins on the sly that the US landed on the moon, I know I want Jenkins telling his wife goodnight in Japanese and she telling him goodnight in English while they were in North Korea. (I'm thinking of making this the end of the poem as well, the reversal- he now says good night in English, she in Japanese, their daughters in Korean. We'll see.) So I sit with these things for awhile and see what happens.
I reviewed the stories online and printed off the ones I liked, took them home, and read them again, this time underlining and taking notes. I keep a research notebook for both my academic and creative work. I find it a great way to organize both thoughts and quotes and it works very well for me. Everything is together and I always know where something came from.
Lots of times though, I'm just reading and researching in general, just looking for things that interest me and making connections between things. For example, my nephew (he's 5) and I were reading a book about alligators together. This was probably 4 months ago or so and he asked me if he ate alligator and when I told him he probably hadn't, but some people did, he responded that he could be an alligator scientist then. His theory was that you couldn't be a scientist of things you ate.
I love this idea and have been carrying it around with me. Last night, I woke up at 2:30am and had that racing brain thing (we all have this right? brain spins and spins at some ungodly hour? tell me you know this too.) so I turned on the radio. The BBC was all about the sailors coming home so I turned it to AM, where Coast to Coast was playing. http://www.coasttocoastam.com/ (Never hear it?? It's all about supernatural stuff, occasionally brilliant, mostly full of drunk and mentally ill callers.) There was a cryptozoologist on and I probably fell asleep after 30 minutes or so of his talk about lake monsters and Bigfoot type creatures.
This morning I wake up thinking about Nicholas's scientist theory and this guy as a scientist, put them together and come up with the draft of the poem below.
Coelacanth Mothman
His career report reads Scientist of animals I don’t eat.
Superhero if science is done.
We discuss our superhero desires. Him- Fight like Batman
but have eyepowers. Me- live underwater like Aquaman
and talk to the animals.
I buy him a book on cryptozoology; we discuss how some animals
lose their questions mark, there lie monsters
into gaint squid preening for their first photo.
The book says Yeti, Sasquatch, and Bigfoot are all different species;
lake monsters it believes are all the same. Maybe I will solve
Nessies when I get big. We agree not to eat one. It’s a plan.
Tomorrow morning I will listen to the radio, hear what has been found,
rediscovered, turn to a new page in my notebook,
write Colecanth and Mothman at the top.
His career report reads Scientist of animals I don’t eat.
Superhero if science is done.
We discuss our superhero desires. Him- Fight like Batman
but have eyepowers. Me- live underwater like Aquaman
and talk to the animals.
I buy him a book on cryptozoology; we discuss how some animals
lose their questions mark, there lie monsters
into gaint squid preening for their first photo.
The book says Yeti, Sasquatch, and Bigfoot are all different species;
lake monsters it believes are all the same. Maybe I will solve
Nessies when I get big. We agree not to eat one. It’s a plan.
Tomorrow morning I will listen to the radio, hear what has been found,
rediscovered, turn to a new page in my notebook,
write Colecanth and Mothman at the top.
This usually how my writing process goes- I cram more and more stuff in my brain and my notebook and carry it around until 2 or more things touch and connect for me. So, I've been carrying this Robert Jenkins stuff around for awhile now and I'm still not sure what it's connected to. I think it's important to ground each section in specific an incident as possible, but I haven't settled on the incidents or their focus yet. As I come to them, I'll write them down and start to work on the lines, but as for now, I'm stuck on the big picture of the poem. I know I want to work with a North Korean official telling Jenkins on the sly that the US landed on the moon, I know I want Jenkins telling his wife goodnight in Japanese and she telling him goodnight in English while they were in North Korea. (I'm thinking of making this the end of the poem as well, the reversal- he now says good night in English, she in Japanese, their daughters in Korean. We'll see.) So I sit with these things for awhile and see what happens.
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