100 (MORE!) Days

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Winterday 79

An Entry on Process (no product included)

I went to a poetry reading tonight at the University of Arizona's Poetry Center, which would be my church if I had one. Jeffrey Yang & Katherine Larson read. I remember reading Jeff's An Aquarium when it came out a couple years ago and loving the structure the book took, like a bestiary that on the surface seemed very matter-of-fact, a collection of creatures arranged A-Z. Diving in, the murk of saltwater in eyes blurred the stanzas into tiny movements about relationships, mutterances, place.

Katherine I had never heard of, but the pieces she read were sciencey though not sterile, moments depicting the truthfulness that empirical observation lends us through the prism of an imperfect humanity. I love her work, and here is just a tiny reason. In one of her poems, she writes of being in Mexico, and the days start stacking up, and she says something something "emerge from the pale nets of sleep."

Some other words that found their way into my memory and quickly were:
the lawn of my childhood home (KL)
"When I enter a Yang poem, I have no idea how I'll exit it" (JY's introducer)
he could be a thief (JY)
smaller truths disappear against a larger one (not quite correctly quoted) (KL)
babies seasoned in orange spices (KL)
all earthly roads lead to war (JY).

I have many words steeping, waiting for me to nudge them towards some other words, north-to-south attractions dizzy with wordlust. I attended a lecture last night where Jeff spoke of his work as an editor/translator/poet in the publishing world and I was happy to see among the crowd classmates from three past workshop/class experiences. Euphoric might be a better descriptor. Which really oughta tell me something about where my passions point--they point to words, drunken words lollygaggingly staring up at me from the comfort of the floor.

I sat with one classmate/friend for tonight's reading, largely because we're both the sort of poets/observers who write frequently. Like while other people are talking. Like while other people are sleeping. It seemed right to sit elbow-to-elbow, journals flattened on laps, ascribble with both original thoughts and poems of others drifting in at odd angles.

There are some good tangents & possible narratives in the works. I'm going to sleep on them, for the most part, for the next handful of hours. Some more art this weekend, photos and some painting such as I do it. Some poetry, too, maybe a sculpture. Or some effusing about what comes knocking in the dark.