The Identity Complex of a Poet

[sexbeat_go]

I've only been published in one journal. My poems have been rejected by Poetry and by the Omnidawn Press poetry competition. This shouldn't make me feel like less of a poet, but it does. I've read the Language poets, studied with Charles Bernstein, I know all about "official verse culture" and it's trappings, and yet I can't help feeling like a

Comments

[vidyarajah]

Keep writing. That's all I can really tell you.
Keep laying it down, line by line, breath after breath.

When I was "on the scene" in the 90's, I hit a shitload ton of open mikes--eventually, I wound up getting asked and paid to do readings in all sorts of places, asked to submit stuff to anthologies and journals, etc.. The longer I've stayed away, the less I've gotten those requests--but it wasn't super hard, really--as far as I know, you just have to keep writing and keep putting yourself out there.

That said, I'm a street poet, kinda in that Beat-influenced "griot" style--I never gave too much of a fucking damn about academia, or any sort of attention from the mainstream. Never thought my work would shift the culture in any way, it was just more about catching moving thoughts, getting a moment or a space in my head and heart down on the page with some amount of integrity, and with as much craft as I could summon. For me, it was more about expression and catharsis, and straining towards basic human sanity...

Doubt is eternal in our world.
So is hunger, disappointment and frustration--and that's ok, really.

Just keep kicking at that wall, my friend.
Keep kicking.

I have faith in you. :-)

L.

[sexbeat_go]

With me, it's more a matter of acceptance and recognition by people I see as my peers. These people are ardently anti-academic and doggedly unmainstream (like Charles Bernstein who I have some contact with, K. Silem Mohammad, Ron Silliman, Christian Bok, Bruce Andrews, etc). I mean they think the academy can be used as a tool, but the academy and writing programs as currently composed are anathema to them and they see value in some "mainstream poets" (the eternally controversial John Ashbery, Ann Lauterbach, Muriel Rukeyser for instance), but for the most part are more interested in more avant-garde and experimental and culture-fucking and subversive tendencies. The problem is, they've become so distrustful because of the attacks from the mainstream and academy, from the Right and the Left, it's hard to gain access. They've become protectively insulated I think. The thing is if you can catch their eye or ear, they're incredibly generous. Its just they find themselves on the defensive so often, it's difficult to be open.

[sexbeat_go]

Another thought. ALOT of these people are NY based. And I am in Philadelphia.

[vidyarajah]

Sometimes, in order to be seen as an up-and-coming peer, you really do have to be *seen around*.

It's a matter of talking with and physically hanging with folks...I guess that means "networking", but for me, it was really just being hooked in with people I trust, and folks I learned from. Things flowed from that...the initial thing was just being seen around. I suppose since I was moving in AAWW (Asian American Writer's Workshop) circles, that wsn't too hard for me. The Nuyorican was also a place I used to drink at...it was a neighborhood bar for me, in many ways. I'd kick in a few bucks at the door to help with the rent, and drink and hang out, taking in the performers for the evening. When I was really broke, I'd sneak in a pint of something, and hang out upstairs, only getting beers as chasers downstairs every so often...but that's how I did it, I guess.

So, yeah--Philly. Hrm...

Dude, why don't ya set something off over there?
Create your own crew of crazies?
There must be someone you can vibe with there!

If you can set something in motion--folks WILL notice.
It's really only a matter of time...

I like your "spam haiku", BTW--and hey, I'd take a class you were teaching!
(as Blogger will not let me leave a comment over there)

[sexbeat_go]

There's this group called the Philly Sound Poets that try and set some stuff off, and they're sort of seen as young up and comers but the Bob Perelman (who advised my thesis) comment about "all young poets writing the same" referred, I think, in alot of ways to them. And he's right. And they're not very good. And I'm not sure how I feel about being associated with them. And I have a crew of music crazies I run, but the literary scene in Philly can struggle sometimes. There's alot of slam poets and performance poets. There's alot of poetry going on, but everyone sorta looks out for themselves. It's like, if ya get in good with the folks at certain bookstores, like Robin's, it clicks. The things is, since I'm sort of a snotty elitist, I'm often wary of having my name and work associated with some of the people necessary to make those connections. Like this guy CA Conrad, one of the Philly Sound folks. Google his stuff sometime. Some of it is putrid, procedural stuff that I'm just plain suspicious of. I've also had a long conversation with the fellow and while a nice person I'm sure, I sort of found some his comments and views on poetry a bit, well, typical. His "somatic poetry", in his first chapbook revolved around eating foods of a certain color all day, a different color each day, and subjected himself to the influences of the colors and writing under these procedural constraints. So the white day he at turnips, white bread, milk, and subjected himself to the influence of his boyfriend's semen writing a word on his forehead and wrote all day. To me, that seems a bit, well...I guess if you have to TRY so hard to be shocking or controversial, it's not shocking or controversial is it? I mean, is this really about the procedure? But then consider his CHOICE of procedural variables. The semen for instance. Is that choice really so shocking? Isn't a bit contrived? I mean, it riles up the squares and hints at a certain deviant influence, but what is it compared to Rimbaud who probably wrote countless poems covered in various lovers bodily fluids and semen not as a matter of procedure, but simply as a matter of living. It's not that I'm opposed to procedural poetry. I employ procedural or conceptual methods myself. I just sort of question and am suspicious of the artifice of Conrad's particular procedural strategy. And I hesitate to associate myself with his group for that reason.

[vidyarajah]

My thinking is...in terms of the networking thing, you have to ally yourself with folks that you can be okay with, *overall*, on a very general level. Matt, were there people I did readings alongside that I was much better than? Sure, definitely! In turn, I was able to share both stages and pages with people who tower over me as a writer...it's like that, it goes both ways. Hell, I fell hopelessly in love with a girl once 'coz she was (is) a better and braver writer than myself--and braver, I mean bolder and more pure and true...

This Conrad guy, I agree--he sounds like a gimmicky fuckin' twerp.
So don't hang with his closest crew.

That said--if you can, *poach* people from other crews you can kinda like and/or get along with for your own projects--you can pick and choose folks after all.

Pick folks with potential, then: as subtly as you can--*guide their aesthetic*.
Go run a writers' workshop--shit, what do you think happens at some of these Loisaida gatherings, dude? You find an active aesthetic that folks are being urged to champion, at each and every one of these things--so, for yourself, invite folks that *you* can *work with* (and ON), not losers that write about bullshit in a shitty fuckin' manner. If some lame dude is obsessed with smearing his own sploodge all over himself, and writes bad, cheesy couplets about sticking Crayolas inside his yowling cat in heat--that's not the doggerel scribbler for you, my friend!

In short, you wanna teach poetics from your POV? Then, do it this way! It won't be academia, but you might be more free to try wilder shit because it's not in that setting, you dig?

See where it takes you. I guarantee it WILL be a learning experience! :-D