Dark Matter

http://geminipoet.blogspot.com/2008/11/patricia-smith-for-inaugural-poet.html

Go, read, and get cracking!

Just home from a whirlwind trip to Ohio, where I featured at the annual Writer’s Block Awards Night. 

I love the Writer’s Block scene even after one visit — it’s a community, a family, full of in-jokes that they’re willing to let you in on the moment you show up; full of good-natured ribbing that simultaneously reveals and conceals deep love; just a great space. 

My set:

Breathe
Theology
I Need A Guitar (Or Something Like It)
Total Recall
Americanized
Buried (Patricia Smith poem from "Blood Dazzler")
Radioactive Artist
Mission Statement (with a lot of improv moments thrown in)

Loved meeting people I only know through here or who I’ve only met briefly before: louiserobertson ,nobleds , chaptal ,tericol , vernelljb , smallfrenchman , Donielle Monique, Kim and JJ, Gina, Joanna, Zak Houston, Kim and Jason Brazwell, Tyrone, and a host of others (including "Rio" from Gotpoetry.com, who was attending her first ever poetry reading and drove 2.5 hours to be there with her husband Steve).

Special thanks to Dave and Louise for good conversations and excellent hospitality, and of course to scottwoods for fostering a scene that welcomes and honors poets of all styles, shapes, and callings…thanks, bud, for having me.  I hope you’ll have me back again sometime.

Thanks again.  I’m still working off last night’s wings, so I’m gonna sit back and veg for a bit…

PS:  how the HELL does campana manage to win three awards in Ohio while sitting in Mesa???  I mean, I knew he was loud, but…

Seriously, curmudgeons represent…all it takes is one feature to have a lifetime’s worth of impact, right?  Congrats, Bill.

PPS:  I guarantee that this is the first time I’ve ever typed the words "thank you, Columbus" in my life.  Somewhere in New Mexico, my ancestors’ bones are spinning.  😉

If you saw ME in a police car, what would you think I got arrested for?

Answer me, then if you want, post to your own journal and see how many crimes you get accused of.

Can’t wait for this one. 

EDIT:  Wow, lots of responses.  Boy, you guys can’t WAIT to accuse me of stuff, can you???  😉

Tonight at GotPoetry Live, 300 Thayer Street, Providence, RI, we’ll have our usual open mike plus Write Bloody Press author Lea Deschenes.  You need to be there…

Their myspace:
http://www. myspace. com/kafekerouac

Who’s coming to either or both?  Drop me a line in the comments…

http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Music/11/10/obit.makeba.ap/index.html

Yeah, I know.  A lot of you have never heard of her.  For those who have, I think we’d all agree that the fact that she died on stage is only fitting.  I saw her once, maybe twenty-five, thirty years ago, and it was an exuberant, uplifting, amazing moment.  I regret that I never saw her again.

who came out to the show last night at the Asylum; we had a good time.  Premiered a new piece –" Get Up" — to open the night, the first piece from a suite of bass tracks that Faro wrote and recorded; I wrote the poem to match them after the fact, a big departure from our typical more loose "let’s see what we’ve each got and see what works together" process.  It was a struggle to work that way, I’ll confess; I think it worked out well, considering we’d never played it live before. 

The set:

Get Up
Celia
Adolescence
Jim Hangs On
Interrogation (the torture piece, considering it’s all about Faro tapping on the pass for the whole piece)
Breathe (just me)
Classic Rock
"Cappricio d’Arabe" by Francisco Tarrega (Faro’s solo, obviously, on classical guitar)
Name
Where Do You Live?

Prior to the show, we spent a fun afternoon with Faro, Capri, Lea, Victor, and Mike McGee eating pizza, drinking REALLY good Scotch (Macallan 1851) and weird peppermint tequila, watching "Reefer Madness: The Musical."  A good time was had by all…

Next, I’ll be at Kafe Kerouac in Columbus OH on Wednesday night, so if you’re around, come by and say hello!

Rehearsed with Faro this AM and early PM; got a brand new piece for the show at the Asylum tonight!  Expect also some not-often played pieces…

Then, home; ferret cage care (always fun); shopping, printing chapbooks, burning CDs (which I’m still doing right now). 

Maybe a little writing before sleep…we’ll see.

Faro and Capri are coming over early and we’re gonna just relax before the show.  (Hey, Asylum folks — remember, we’re bringing our own PA and mike.  No need to schlep anything…)

Kings of Leon on SNL tonight…not bad.  I’d never heard them before, which reminds me how out of it I am on a lot of music right now, although I’m enjoying the hell out of the latest TV On The Radio album so I guess I’m not all that out of touch…am I?

See you at JJJ tonight!

This showed up on my friends’ list a little while ago from ziasummer , and I’m not sure how many of you are also on her list…please keep an eye peeled.

—————– Bulletin Message —————–
From: shorty
Date: Nov 7, 2008 11:41 AM

Most of you may already know by now that my daughter, Morghan Roberge-Bernard, is missing. I am frantic to find any information about her and her safety.

If you want to do something to help, then call every person you know and ask them if they’ve seen Morghan.

If they have then get the date, time, location and the name of the person to me or the people listed below ASAP!

If anyone has any info.

please call:

APD Investigator Spratley @ 924-6047
Case # 08-191655

I-800-THE-LOST
This is a 24/7 hotline that can take anonymous calls from blocked numbers.

Case # 1109533
When calling give them her name and case # then ask to speak with Maura or Charles.

Morghan Libby Roberge-Bernard
Age 17
height: 5 foot 6 inches
weight: 115 lbs.
ethnicity: white

description: She is a very pale skinned girl with blue eyes and glasses. Her hair is blond w/ brown streaks. She was last seen in blue jeans and an oversized hooded sweatshirt that is dark gray w/ colorful clown logos all over it. Morghan has scoliosis that has resulted in a small outward curve by her right shoulder. This is usually only noticable when she has a t-shirt on. She has no tattoos, piercings, scars, or other markings.

She was last seen downtown on 4th and iron Tuesday

Please help me find my daughter!

Most Sincerely,
Melissa Roberge

Sunday night, DUENDE at the Poets’ Asylum.

6-9 pm
Jumpin’ Juice andJava
335 Chandler Street
Worcester MA

Wednesday night, me solo at Kafe Kerouac
Columbus (shouldn’t that be Kolumbus?), OH

Duende will be doing it up music and poetry style.  Already working on "editing" the text for the room (note to poets who think that’s censorship: frig you).  So sorry, gang — no "Last Word" this time. 

I won’t be editing for the Ohio show, though.  😉

AND!!!

tonight, I’ll be on The Eclectic Word , participating in a panel discussion on two topics:  "Is American Poetry Too Insular?" and a discussion of the relationship of poetry to current events.  8 PM EST.  Always a stimulating time!

I’ve decided against posting the larger part of what I’ve written about the election and the current political situation.

I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut about certain things over the years, especially where it comes to politics and political action.  I’ve learned that you can get a lot more done under the radar than above it. 

When I looked back on what I’d written, I realized how much more of my own beliefs and actions I’d revealed than I am comfortable with revealing.  So — into the vaults it goes.

All I’m going to say is this:

I will not de-emphasize the importance of Barack Obama’s election to this country.  On so many levels, it represents an evolution of mass consciousness that is critical to our well-being and continued heatlh as a culture. 

But I will also not de-emphasize the fact that it represents a continuation of the status quo in a lot of other ways.  I’ve never been comfortable with the compromises, secret promises, and covert winking at corrupt practices that it takes to be a major party candidate on either side of the aisle.  While I have some hope that Obama may indeed be the kind of transcendent figure that can move beyond that, I will continue to be skeptical about that until I see some proof. 

In the long run, the single greatest issue this country faces is not terrorism, ecological degradation, economic meltdown, or the inequality of opportunity and rights for all.  Those, to me, are the symptoms of the larger issue, the Great Issue: that we regard the world as a choice between "either" and "or."  That we have reduced our own interpretation of the ideological spectrum to "pro" or "con," "left" or "right," "liberal" or "conservative," "Democrat" or "Republican." That we look at the positions of Obama and McCain and see them as being far apart, when in truth they each represent tweaks to our current ossified and crumbling processes without examining the fundamental concepts behind them to seek  opportunites for true and necessary change.  Our actions and policies, no matter which party is in power, have been dictated by a narrow band of possibility that never truly discomforts those who benefit from our timidity and reduced vision;  it is killing us, and because of our tremendous stature and influence, it has sickened the world as a whole nigh unto death as well.

I do not see the current definitions of "right and left" as being accurate.  To me, it’s as if we were to look at a rainbow, ignore the existence of all the colors except blue, and then define the ends of the rainbow as being the right and left ends of the blue band.  So much is left out in that perception; so many possibilities are available to us, and we don’t look beyond for them.

Some of you are going to read this and attack me, here or in your minds, for being impractical and idealist.  I don’t care, and I’m not going to respond to an awful lot of what I expect to appear here — not because I do not wish to engage you, but because I am concerned about revealing too much of what I alluded to earlier.  But I will say this in advance:  I know we are all committed, or at least many of us are, to true change. To improving our world and our country and to make them over into a true home for all.  In order to do that, we must move beyond our narrowest perceptions of what is possible and engage the impractical, the idealistic, the frightening things that lie beyond our current conceptions of what is possible and appropriate.  I hope that Obama is in a position to do that, and his election gives me the sliver of hope that that is indeed possible because of the apparent character of the man.  But I am not excessively hopeful.  May he prove me wrong, over and over again.

I’m out on this.  As I said, I won’t be engaging much in the discussion here, if it indeed ensues.  But have at it, and at me, as you will.

I’ll have more — much more– to say later on, maybe not even today.  I have a big letting-off-steam post to get to, and I’ll probably work on it for a day or two before I post it.

So I’ll recap here quickly:

— I sat with my ballot for a long time before filling in the circle for Obama.  I broke a 28 year tradition of working against the two-party system, which I abhor, to vote for a major party Presidential candidate yesterday.  I second guessed myself all day. 

His victory speech made me glad I eventually decided to have faith that the character of the man might, in fact, transcend the evils of polarization and either/or.  (Yes, I wept.) Whatever the next four years bring, I will not regret the choice to honor faith and hope over logic for once in my life.

Good luck, Mr. President-elect.  You’re going to need it.

— In Massachusetts, all the ballot measures I wanted to pass passed.  This pleases me. 

— California:  wtf???  But I’m wondering:  can a state constitutional amendment a) be federally unconstitutional and b) negate established contract law?  If either of those is true, I wonder if the ban will stand, and if b) is challenged successfully, won’t the existing marriages be left intact?  I know that in Massachusetts when we were dealing with the effort to rescind gay marriage, it was made clear that contract law would have preserved the existing marriages regardless of the ban’s passing or not.  I’d look these up, but I’m off to work shortly. 

As I said, more later.

PS:  GotPoetry last night was quiet — 8 reader/listeners; we did a fun and interesting round robin on the porch because our stage had become a screen for election returns.  Back in force next week for Lea Deschenes, so please come back, k?

T

As my friends’ list is already becoming clogged with various iterations of the phrases "I voted" and "Get out and vote,"  I’ll be taking the rest of the day off from here.

See you tonight at GotPoetry Live.  Tell me all about it then.

😉

but I will say this, and am willing to stand behind it:

Regardless of who wins, there will be some violence in our streets over this vote before the week is up.