tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57960658245379016732023-11-16T00:00:44.719-08:00Lyz SotoTalking Story in the PacificLyz Sotohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016962204900040764noreply@blogger.comBlogger51125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5796065824537901673.post-30204866577499880532014-11-03T12:48:00.000-08:002014-11-03T12:58:15.255-08:00All About the Love<!--?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?-->
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaLSK8Z_8kmF6BEfZqTyYvQn_rwbZANa7cdQo3XeKHRdAsxn9XXLdjNa07t59QUIIX4B7W6INaOPgkygw0VSzBxVDMz69KdxcagXvsRVhLIr91fcyNwh1qEpDU7zBXY2mqxv8qLB188xGt/s1600/DSCN4436.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaLSK8Z_8kmF6BEfZqTyYvQn_rwbZANa7cdQo3XeKHRdAsxn9XXLdjNa07t59QUIIX4B7W6INaOPgkygw0VSzBxVDMz69KdxcagXvsRVhLIr91fcyNwh1qEpDU7zBXY2mqxv8qLB188xGt/s1600/DSCN4436.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">If I really think about it, I have been writing love poems for the last fifteen years, but they all belong to my son, who has been the brightest experience of my life. But for the last twelve years I have pretended I don’t write love poems. I don't read love poems— I shun them. Heartbreak, Hollywood, and being forced to endure hundreds of horrendous love poems could do that to a person, right?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">But about six months ago, I broke my boycott and started writing a series of love poems. —See prior blog entry for a bit more info on that...
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">This poem is the first in that series and it's for Aiko Yamashiro, who is one of the best and most generous people I have ever known. Aiko has reminded me that letting people into your heart is as joyous as it is terrifying— that love is supposed to be difficult and beautiful and fierce— that love is an act of faith leaping into the unexplainable space between— that in this day of cynicism and sound bytes, love is an act of revolution. </span></div>
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<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Love One
</b></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>for Aiko
</i></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Seven years four months and fifteen days ago
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">we read love as a hopeless practice.
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We defined affection
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">as horizontal alignment when we slept
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">and memories of good sex.
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In our arms we cradled fear
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">as a twin to love
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">and confused them with towers.
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Today love wrings us dry. We
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">blink too often, but finally sit, a table between us.
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Between four hands rests courage
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">on a platter, an offering we cannot pass off
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">as jackass punking or chalk down to artless youth.
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Five years ago
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">we called love stupid.
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We thought scaling the ragged peaks of mountains
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">in a hail storm
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">the smarter choice
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">as if thinner air and falling skies might
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">make our grief weightless, but without gravity
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">our hearts became spherical as satellites,
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">peripheral to our bodies.
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Inside us we shrank our wishbones to nothing,
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">jumped on heady winds and forgot
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">about landing.
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Three years ago
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">love was still stupid
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">still commitments to badlands,
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">foolish dives into mirages
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">or battles against uninhabitable masses.
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Two years ago love
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">was a rose by any other name
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">and red for the first time.
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Yesterday
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">almost happened
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">between our four fists
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">on a platter when we stretched our heart globes
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">to elliptical shadows
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">--risked holding hands
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">with the wounded
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">and called them namesakes.
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Yes, we are large enough
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">for this table sitting among white beards
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">who confuse faith with invasion
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">and sanctuary with anxious greed.
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Yesterday
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">we put naive on a table
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">on a platter
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">between hands
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">placed closer to hope
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">than to fear.
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We promised to be naive
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">to be sweet
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">so we might hope
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">we could be better
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">we could do better
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">than we have done.
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Today love wrings us dry
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">after almost drowning.
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In a mouth of water we drink salt
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">and dare to imagine the brackish
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">without suffocation and homelands
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">without fear. </span></div>
</div>
Lyz Sotohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016962204900040764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5796065824537901673.post-11759255678281799432014-10-30T16:22:00.001-07:002014-10-30T16:22:33.165-07:00Writing LoveSo I've been avoiding the blogosphere...prepping for area exams for my PhD has dominated my world for more than a year....or maybe I should say anxiety about taking these exams has dominated my world for four years.<br />
<br />
Both statements would be accurate.<br />
<br />
Now that I can see the light at the end of this tunnel, writing seems like less of a burden and once more an expression of joy, but I don't know what's gotten into me, because I'm writing love poetry, which is usually a genre I avoid in favor of anger poetry.<br />
<br />
I've been reading the poetry of Sonia Sanchez as part of my preparation for an exam in 20th century poetry in English.....don't ask. In her writing, I found love poetry--radical love poetry. And I fell in love. Sanchez wrote about the beauty of black men and black women. She wrote about the beauty of black women and black men and love. Radical. Beautiful. Love.<br />
<br />
So I'm writing love poetry for moana nui, for kahakai, for 'aina, for beautiful radical people, for my family, from my friends, for another day living.<br />
<br />
Please check out <a href="https://rajivmohabir.wordpress.com/2014/10/30/love-seven-by-lyz-soto/" target="_blank">Love Seven</a> which was written for Rajiv Mohabir and you will find it posted on his blog. And while you are there you should check out more of Rajiv's work, because he is an incredible poet and translator.<br />
<br />
In the meantime, me ke aloha...Lyz Sotohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016962204900040764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5796065824537901673.post-31200408415912297882012-10-19T02:35:00.003-07:002012-10-19T02:37:45.334-07:00In Brief: 10/18/2012 - ʻAha Moʻolelo Hawaiʻi<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgycFTkolFoGdz_9ekXBn7TN5sXy6aGzHhawcZEVTRML-T_acztjUOw8w8vOjC0LN4cNDOEjQqDZ10FvEqpxbiRic3aTopr2UQvE2tsptpPI7YV7ua0QmkBOXD9i8Su4MWBoFq8_NLCOxWp/s1600/photo(7).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgycFTkolFoGdz_9ekXBn7TN5sXy6aGzHhawcZEVTRML-T_acztjUOw8w8vOjC0LN4cNDOEjQqDZ10FvEqpxbiRic3aTopr2UQvE2tsptpPI7YV7ua0QmkBOXD9i8Su4MWBoFq8_NLCOxWp/s320/photo(7).jpg" width="320" /></a> </div>
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The ‘Aha Moʻolelo Hawaiʻi conference started today. The
English Department at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa played host to a
series of lectures and panels that began at 8:30 this morning and took a
breather at 4:30 this afternoon. Can I say, holy moly? </div>
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I apologize my eloquence has left me. And if you, dear
reader, are mumbling disparaging remarks under your breath, ‘Aʻole! I’ve been
stretching the grey matter into all sorts of uncomfortable positions for hours
in response to the questions posed by the panels I was able to attend today,
but it was well worth it. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Aaron Salā, Raukura Roa, and Keawe Lopes, the panelists for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mele Maoli, Mele Māori</i> didn’t just talk
about cultural relationships to music in Hawai’i and Aotearoa; the performed it
into a boisterous treat.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy_V4Rf374gS-1ipnsf-OCTL_HUrgjNJiwyyj7Ry4c81o3Vmdx8NrhYJkkNtfnzsJekO1w7e4akKw_zOY7QIOnSf7d6RbjDjDdmY5BS0vYpz2GIxF9JnQwJmh00DSEq76laO8wZd0vqk7-/s1600/photo%25289%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy_V4Rf374gS-1ipnsf-OCTL_HUrgjNJiwyyj7Ry4c81o3Vmdx8NrhYJkkNtfnzsJekO1w7e4akKw_zOY7QIOnSf7d6RbjDjDdmY5BS0vYpz2GIxF9JnQwJmh00DSEq76laO8wZd0vqk7-/s400/photo%25289%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Leilani Basham, Keao NeSmith, Renee Pualani Louis, and Marie
Alohalani Brown were the speakers for the panel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What is Moʻolelo?, </i>which discussed the intricacies of moʻolelo from
multiple directions that ranged from linguistic to formalistic to cartographic,
and emphasized the fact that “direct” translation is not only impossible, but
often undesirable.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Chadwick Allen discussed his newly published book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Trans-Indigenous Methodologies: Reading
"Across"</i>, and encouraged the pursuit of indigenous collaborative
conversations with the hopes that such an endeavor might open additional spaces
for indigenous voices and methodologies in an academia that continues to
marginalize non-western non-canonical work. Alohalani Brown and Nālani
McDougall offered Kanaka Maoli interpretations of Professor Allen’s colloquia
talk.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh17QfKISomaWpDVhit7Ldog8BSbzL3xsVrvLcYgAo0Nbvj7Zi_fUFCdPrdC0KV7cxmicGybrun0SHv33_t39uc8Zu7fBiY5ivaKY6BEI9NW9W3ySIKePMQg5vkn44FF-pn-NzVyKBO_Sac/s1600/photo%25288%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh17QfKISomaWpDVhit7Ldog8BSbzL3xsVrvLcYgAo0Nbvj7Zi_fUFCdPrdC0KV7cxmicGybrun0SHv33_t39uc8Zu7fBiY5ivaKY6BEI9NW9W3ySIKePMQg5vkn44FF-pn-NzVyKBO_Sac/s320/photo%25288%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Blurry, yes, I know. iphone proved inadequate to the task.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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It was a full day that was beautifully rounded out by
performances of storytelling, theatre, and mele at the Halau o Haumea with “I
Lohe ʻia ka Puana,” Hawaiian 684 Mele Analysis and Performance class with Kumu
Keawe Lopes, Haili‘ōpua Baker's Hālau Hanakeaka Hawaiian Theater troupe, and
Lopaka Kapanui. </div>
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This last portion of the evening was delivered predominantly
in ‘ōlelo Hawaiʻi, which really stretched my grey cells, because my
comprehension is shaky at best, but what a joy to see nā haumana so comfortable
and fluent with their performance expressions in ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi!</div>
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In brief, this is why we do what we do.</div>
Lyz Sotohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016962204900040764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5796065824537901673.post-53235518780770496152012-10-17T23:38:00.000-07:002012-10-17T23:38:09.630-07:00The Epistolary Blues
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My parents are moving. </div>
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When I went to help them, I knew that house held most of our
recent familial history, but I had forgotten how much of my own youth I
abandoned there in shoe boxes and in plastic bags, pushed to the back of closets
and shoved under furniture. Admittedly, I am not known for my fabulous sense of
recall. But I had forgotten about all the letters, written to me by friends and
family, who wanted to stay in touch, even when we were thousands of miles
apart, and phone calls were too expensive. </div>
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There are hundreds of them. Small units of memory.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCExtiecQ7fO4udGHjBv3EvfnqmrsOZFvNJDSLYqP69tLXo2Q4FJSkoTZAiNG54sCwYsGouSVyesgRD9R7SesgO4i_0oRMkI4r3IljdZFkxGLpNZWHTf9VSJi2dRFxe5aK2ponid5BTkn6/s1600/photo%25286%2529Letters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCExtiecQ7fO4udGHjBv3EvfnqmrsOZFvNJDSLYqP69tLXo2Q4FJSkoTZAiNG54sCwYsGouSVyesgRD9R7SesgO4i_0oRMkI4r3IljdZFkxGLpNZWHTf9VSJi2dRFxe5aK2ponid5BTkn6/s320/photo%25286%2529Letters.jpg" width="239" /></a></div>
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It’s funny to think about aspects of my own life as
artifact, yet I could not help but view these papers, still nestled in their
envelope homes, as remnants of a bygone era. My bygone era, when the sight of
par avion thrilled me to my toenails. So romantic, no? And so sad...</div>
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We don’t write letters any more. Today, I dread checking the
mail. My mailbox is nearly a mile away from my house, and usually, it’s limited
to advertising junk and bills.</div>
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No letters.</div>
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I, unlike most of my students, can recall when email became
the new thang. I think I remember some people predicting the loss of letter
writing (and please forgive my faulty memory and my lack of motivation to do
any research), but I’m pretty sure I remember other people saying that letter
writing would remain and poliferate, but in an electronic form. I may have been
one of those people.</div>
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Twenty years later, I think it’s safe to say that those who
predicted the doom of the correspondent letter had the right of it. No one
writes letters anymore. Unless they are form letters, business letters,
political campaign letters, or advertisements that are pretending to be
letters.</div>
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Lame.</div>
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Yes, I’ll say it again. Lame. Which is funny, because I was
never a fabulous letter writer, even when it was the done thing. Most of my
long distance friends, I’m sure, will attest to this fact, but I miss the post
box visits, and the hoping that something would be there waiting to be read. I
miss the tearing of the envelope and the slow unravel of pages. I miss reading
someone else’s hand and knowing them a bit better for that mess on the paper. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKlUBFMeRvCES_o-wAIa0jpC5a03YxFgz0NW25jnWV7IoY7-VH1sdV6waVPFfhl3t3vsUC7qkMYeVegIgE5fjkR9zmMYxxaTEc8BF52WTreDa9wnGOm8VM_OirhvYcEfNckxWVByvKinS5/s1600/photo%25284%2529letters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKlUBFMeRvCES_o-wAIa0jpC5a03YxFgz0NW25jnWV7IoY7-VH1sdV6waVPFfhl3t3vsUC7qkMYeVegIgE5fjkR9zmMYxxaTEc8BF52WTreDa9wnGOm8VM_OirhvYcEfNckxWVByvKinS5/s400/photo%25284%2529letters.jpg" width="298" /></a></div>
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Letters brought me the sure and concrete knowledge that my
father loved <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and missed me when I
was thousands of miles away. Many of the letters I saved were in his hand, and
once I saw them, I remembered how they chronicled bits and pieces of his day,
and how I straddled ten time zones towards home everytime I read them. </div>
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<br /></div>
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I also remember how I took them for granted. </div>
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Isn’t hindsight such an ass?</div>
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<br /></div>
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But now I have these relics, evidences of my youthful
travels and the loved ones, who, in some measure, followed me wherever I went. The
internet has made this even easier. I can keep up with my friends’ lives
without exchanging a single word with them. Ever. Oh boy.</div>
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<br /></div>
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For this reason, email and internet social networking has
lost its gleam for me. Yes, it is massively convenient. Yes, I can easily
contact friends, who live twelve thousand miles away from me. Yes, my entire
life has some sort of foothold within this morass of terabytes and codes. But
in the long term I would save very little of it. I will not find these messages
tucked away twenty years from now, because so much of this information has
devolved into manufactured sound bites and conscious reality production. Watch
us dance on our public newsfeed! Listen to me I have cool things to say! No. I
mean it. I really do have cool things to say. But if you want to be real, you can
backchannel, which is now a verb, because so much of our correspondence is now
done in the electronic town square, so we need a new verb to describe an action
for private interaction. Wow.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Back to the letters and why I was lousy at it: looking back,
I realize I did not understand the performance of letter writing. Partially,
because I had not yet been introduced to the idea of different writing for
different occasions and/or different audiences (woo, shocker), but also because
regular communication through snail mail was already on its way to becoming a
rarified practice, so I didn’t really have many examples, and I love learning
by example. I have thought a lot about this genre of performance, and I have since
realized that the best letters <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">might</i>
contain details of the outer life of the writer, but <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">definitely</i> chronicle the inner lives of the writer. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1ts_IbkvrGtOpwoDOlmKrKaWcWjA9XQh4QhFc3xWXsEC-wkA6QQNGXpakTejUMkTnn02_uckTJV6ILLbPr6NSdssegYWTJNHVp4l4YEmjTkJ2KtGohzb-OSeste2GB_gDCRYkhyphenhyphen5CCZIj/s1600/photo%25285%2529letters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1ts_IbkvrGtOpwoDOlmKrKaWcWjA9XQh4QhFc3xWXsEC-wkA6QQNGXpakTejUMkTnn02_uckTJV6ILLbPr6NSdssegYWTJNHVp4l4YEmjTkJ2KtGohzb-OSeste2GB_gDCRYkhyphenhyphen5CCZIj/s400/photo%25285%2529letters.jpg" width="298" /></a></div>
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The best letters </div>
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are soundboard discussions </div>
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that ruthlessly tear apart </div>
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our self-narratives and gingerly </div>
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piece them back together. </div>
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The best letters ask questions </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
that expect answers, </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
maybe fifty years from now. </div>
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The best letters arrive </div>
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when we most need them.</div>
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The best letters ask </div>
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to be read out loud.</div>
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The best letters offer </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
brief suspensions </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
of electronic noise </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
and windows into silence.</div>
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The best letters </div>
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have yet to be written.</div>
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The best letters call us </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
into computerless minutes </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
ruled by ink and paper, </div>
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and don’t we all need a whopping dose of those?</div>
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<br /></div>
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So join me in a new dawn of snail mail mail and write me the
best letter.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I promise.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I’ll write to you, if you write to me.</div>
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<br /></div>
Lyz Sotohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016962204900040764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5796065824537901673.post-7616281726204078942012-09-27T00:59:00.001-07:002012-09-27T00:59:50.366-07:00Ruminations on Dystopia from Hawaiʻi
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Have you
noticed the proliferation of futuristic post-apocalyptic dystopic narratives?
Perhaps it’s just me, because I am a self-identified science fiction fan – not
an expert by any stretch of any social construct, but a definite fan of the
genre, so maybe the pervasiveness of this type of narrative is all in my
imagination, but humor me, and please deliberate on the following list, which
are in no particular order: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Zombieland, 28 Days Later,
Afterworld, Resident Evil</i> (x infinity)<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">,
The Book of Eli, Captain Planet, V, Total Recall</i> (original and remake)<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, Twelve Monkeys, Knowing, Independence Day,
Daybreakers, Alien Resurrection, Blade Runner, Terminator</i> (x4)<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, Signs, WALL-E, Firefly, Serenity, City of
Ember, 2012, Children of Men, Sērā-fuku mokushiroku, I Am Legend, Jericho, War
of the Worlds, Madmax </i>(x3 with number 4 in production)<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, AEon Flux, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, The Day After
Tomorrow, Battlestar Galactica </i>(original and remake)<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, Dune </i>(x franchise)<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, The
Matrix</i> (x3<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">), Le Temps du Loup, Judge
Dredd </i>(original and remake<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">), Terra
Nova The Hunger Games, Revolution, and Falling Skies.</i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ48RwtTx9f-iwdX4GYojB7VgFytZ336EZV0YwDnCT36EyVLPNEJyqNg_bFO8nfqoauom857085fjg0IkD1Q8gHCR0QV9eO5EhNRKqJxJB6NQ__ylzsliQ2CUaRiwSXC9i8A0U-olyjITZ/s1600/photo-7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ48RwtTx9f-iwdX4GYojB7VgFytZ336EZV0YwDnCT36EyVLPNEJyqNg_bFO8nfqoauom857085fjg0IkD1Q8gHCR0QV9eO5EhNRKqJxJB6NQ__ylzsliQ2CUaRiwSXC9i8A0U-olyjITZ/s320/photo-7.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
list scratches the surface of productions from the last thirty years, because the
only criteria most of these have in common is that they are reasonably well-known
films or television shows. Authors, Ursula LeGuin, Margaret Atwood, and Stephen
King seem particularly obsessed with this sub-genre, considering they’ve all
written several novels that are set in dystopic worlds. E. M. Forester flirted
with this topic with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Machine Stops</i>.
Almost a hundred years later, David Mitchell wrote <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cloud Atlas</i> and once again envisioned a world were technological
supremacy fails to solve all problems and ultimately gives way to the natural
world.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>End of
the world, general states of global misery that exist beneath the thumb of a
tyrannical super government, or fragmented police states surviving in
conditions of environmental degradation are also settings frequently employed in
graphic novels, manga, and anime. Consider <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Vampire
Hunter D</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Y: The Last Man</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Walking Dead</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jyu Oh-Sei, Darker than Black, Nausica of the Wind Valley, Cowboy
Bebop, </i>and<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Now and Then, Here and
There</i> names but a few.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So why the fascination? Why the regular return to
narratives that predict the end of our existence, or at the very least the end
of the current existence we so decadently enjoy? I think some of this stems
from fear, and the possibility that we are but a mere blink away from the end
of all we hold dear and comforting. But let me get a bit more psychoanalytical
and hypothesize that the attraction lies not in our world laid to waste, but in
the possibility of surviving that destruction, the illustration of what that
survival might look like, and whether it is truly worth considering. </div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know more than a few, on my island home, who hold
fast to the belief that we would be one of the first to go in nuclear conflict,
and that we should be grateful for this particular outcome, because we would
not be around to muddle through in an unrecognizable and inhospitable environment.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuu_Wwijzy2prv8YqY273WKlhmlBwTwnl079NN1xxpTMuhmGkwiMPh9jGGZSV8jJ7AAGVWKiksPG7tUh8WT0Wd_FmMeQMBjZsCBbxixon-zRR2EdEXt0TJmxL7osAqE8WtaFaV-CH-vw6s/s1600/photo-8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuu_Wwijzy2prv8YqY273WKlhmlBwTwnl079NN1xxpTMuhmGkwiMPh9jGGZSV8jJ7AAGVWKiksPG7tUh8WT0Wd_FmMeQMBjZsCBbxixon-zRR2EdEXt0TJmxL7osAqE8WtaFaV-CH-vw6s/s320/photo-8.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of the
storylines, of the works already mentioned, do not describe total oblivion, but
stay true to the speculation/hope that the human species does, in some way, go
on. And this is comforting. Maybe. Consider this: would you want to survive in
the un-survivable? Is continuation necessarily the ultimate goal? Biology holds
the easy answer. The need to survive is inextricably bound to our genetic
selves. But if survival holds such a powerful drive over our species, why is it
that we are equally skilled at bringing ourselves to the edge of annihilation
at increasingly regular intervals? When we look at our relationships with each
other and our environments, questions and theories testing evolutionary
assumptions, based on biological imperatives, become more complex and tangled.
For example, which matters most, the continued existence of a single person, a
few dozen people, a few thousand people, a hundred thousand people, a million
people, or a billion people? Now, decide which people should survive. What if
that single person is you?</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 140.65pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These fictional visions, and the conjectures they provoke, call
us back to the philosophies of manifest destiny and infinite growth (code name
globalization), and demand a reevaluation. How can any of these ideas work when
we have already found the edge of the world and discovered the foreseeable end
to our infinite resources? </div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These questions seem particularly pertinent, if you live, as
I do, in a geographically isolated place (2500 miles from the closest land
mass) that is criminally reliant on external food sources. We import
approximately 85% of our food, so at any given time, we are equipped with a 7
day food supply. In other words, if the shipping lines and air traffic were to
stop tomorrow, our population of 1.3 million could survive for 7 days, yet our
islands are home to some of the most fertile lands in the world. For more than
a century, most of these lands have been dedicated to mono-crops, like
sugarcane and pineapple, products that may have been profitable, but crippled
our ability to build sustainable agricultural models. Most of these lands have
yet to be used to feed the people living in Hawaiʻi. E komo mai, to the Zombie Apocalypse.
Imagine 1.3 million people suddenly without food.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrdrjx2PtXhVN_LdQKFSCmTsWr8dUL3WaTQrkqJ3J0GTzX1qE2kWOR04Z0qokGCo-VGtpqMhWCqElNbZ9sig6pAdaz1Wiqiqa3d1iDMbjlLF_34DcfONu27LiPHnLCXGjEBtSJ4OBUMEfi/s1600/photo-9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrdrjx2PtXhVN_LdQKFSCmTsWr8dUL3WaTQrkqJ3J0GTzX1qE2kWOR04Z0qokGCo-VGtpqMhWCqElNbZ9sig6pAdaz1Wiqiqa3d1iDMbjlLF_34DcfONu27LiPHnLCXGjEBtSJ4OBUMEfi/s400/photo-9.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These are the legacies of colonialism, imperialism, and
economic expansion, which all seem to rely heavily on the idea that problems at
home can be solved by going somewhere else, but what happens when there is
nowhere else to go? This is the fundamental question that serves as the
foundation for these post-apocalyptic dystopic literatures. What do we do when
we have existed ourselves into a corner, and our failures have piled so high,
we can no longer climb over them to find a new territory with more resources
than what we have left behind? What do we do when there are so many of us disease
is uncontrollable; food and fuel sources cannot keep up with the demand; financial
machines and governments collapse beneath the weight of their over optimistic
debt; once habitable environments are unable to support human populations; and we
fight each other over the scraps that are left? Perhaps herein lies the answer
to the question of why we return to these rather depressing storylines, because
really, there’s nothing futuristic about them, and their settings are
recognizable as today, or a tomorrow that is not distant, but sits just around
the corner.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 140.65pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But what does this have to do with poetry, orature, or
literature? Much as I love dissecting the ends and outs of the work I call
home, I must also acknowledge that limiting myself to these discussions is an
irresponsible luxury. Yes, I do embrace art for art’s sake. Why the hell
wouldn’t I? That is what I call fun, which is a necessary piece of the
lifestyle equation, but as an artist, who also works as an educator, and gets
the occasional opportunity to speak with communities beyond the realms of art
and academia, should I not use my toolbox to engage the questions and answers
that impact the place in which I live? In this post-apocalyptic, dystopic,
zombieland frame, restricting my conversations to investigations of metaphor
and process feels elitist, naïve, and even spoiled, so rather than considering
only if we should eat the peach, shouldn’t we also be asking where it came
from, how did it get here, and whether it should be here at all?</div>
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Lyz Sotohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016962204900040764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5796065824537901673.post-85430260252092359652012-09-24T16:19:00.000-07:002012-09-24T16:19:04.512-07:00This is what we should talk about...page to stage.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPgol5pH8oW5ozLdzG1DSjk_7dQ_BmfRUIbuC1vMD_7iAdnDjUoMIR3dmrURYHR9DcTvxvlI81qNoGD5mdJ3f-xdZ97-fA-kEsmCqXZ4sKZNNThjhG6CR8hGrD5ERRNjrARwRSPL-MwIro/s1600/Screen+shot+2012-09-24+at+1.09.42+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPgol5pH8oW5ozLdzG1DSjk_7dQ_BmfRUIbuC1vMD_7iAdnDjUoMIR3dmrURYHR9DcTvxvlI81qNoGD5mdJ3f-xdZ97-fA-kEsmCqXZ4sKZNNThjhG6CR8hGrD5ERRNjrARwRSPL-MwIro/s320/Screen+shot+2012-09-24+at+1.09.42+PM.png" width="255" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
last Thursday, I was fortunate enough to attend a poetry performance by Amalia
Bueno, Donovan Kūhiō Colleps, and Noʻu Revilla titled, “Interventions of
Experience and Memory: When Poetry, Life, and Documents Collide”. This
presentation was part of The Center for Biography Brown Bag Series, which has,
apparently, been running for around 22 years at the University of Hawaiʻi at
Mānoa (Bravo!). Together Noʻu, Donovan, and Amalia delivered a reading that challenged
my idea of the typical structure of an academic poetry presentation, which is
usually cerebral, often stimulating, but rarely emotive. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
three poets began by standing in a line running parallel to the front row of
the audience, and in turn announcing that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">they
wanted</i>..., which brought so many of my conflicting thoughts on poetry
swirling to the surface.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How do we
acknowledge that our poetic excursions often revolve around desire? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg-CtF4HSKq5AzJSU58IFw_01HMgwNzoiPzq3m8QVcU4YgfmnCXj5NPLRz0oQx_-pFGTDGMc9U9IZ5mgUJ1o4-NITC0yYPJ27c77qW03clz1KzVTPU1TpD44488LRUnViwchs5xAfCbJY2/s1600/Screen+shot+2012-09-23+at+11.27.33+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg-CtF4HSKq5AzJSU58IFw_01HMgwNzoiPzq3m8QVcU4YgfmnCXj5NPLRz0oQx_-pFGTDGMc9U9IZ5mgUJ1o4-NITC0yYPJ27c77qW03clz1KzVTPU1TpD44488LRUnViwchs5xAfCbJY2/s400/Screen+shot+2012-09-23+at+11.27.33+PM.png" width="400" /></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Donovan
wanted to know about the stories of his grandfather. He was particularly
interested in those stories as they intersected with the file cabinet his
grandfather left behind, which was full of documents that chronicled various
aspect of a long and varied life.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amalia
wanted to share some of the stories of women incarcerated in the prisons of
Hawaiʻi, which was, of course, also linked to story of prisons in Hawaiʻi. Amalie
gave us an effective mix of personal narratives and the statistics that may
inform us of the broader picture, but often fail to give us the human face
behind the numbers. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Noʻu wanted to
investigate the town of Kahuluhi on the island of Maui, where she grew up. She
also wanted dig through the genealogies of the maternal line of her family. She
did this through a combination of interrogating her childhood memories and
researching documents related to the conception and creation of Kahului.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps
you’ve noticed the common link between these three readings? All three poets
were students in Professor Susan Schultz’s class on documentary poetry, which
challenged participants to find the poem in the everyday document. These
documents could range from photographs, to blue prints, to certificates, to
advertisements, to instruction manuals, which makes for interesting aesthetic
possibilities, particularly as the presentation is related to the written word.
How then, did they transition their compositions from the page to the stage? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
translation of works written to be read into something performed is often taken
for granted and/or ignored in the literary world. I can recall more than one
occasion when I have gone to a book reading with every intention of buying the
book, and then decided against it after the author read their work. Why?
Usually, because the writer was so obviously under prepared and appeared to
lack any sort of commitment or connection to the piece of writing they were so
laboriously reading. If they’re not committed to their work, then why on earth
should I be?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Callous and
unfeeling, am I? Maybe. Probably, but I’m not completely unsympathetic. Except
for the rare souls among us, who are gifted with a tendency towards unabashed
exhibitionism, most of us find it difficult to reveal ourselves in front of a
room full of people, for understandable reasons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The performer, inevitably, feels judged by the audience,
which is usuually an accurate assessment, but it does not necessarily follow that
these judgements run toward the negative. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So if we
are presenting our poetry to the attending masses, how should we overcome this
obstacle? Perhaps flipping that emotional script could help sooth the worst of
the jangled nerves. What if the performer stops worrying about what the
audience thinks of them, and instead worries about what they think and want of/for
the audience? What if the performer considers the welfare of the audience,
irrespective of their designated relationship perimeters? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps
this turn in perception is a no-brainer for some areas of the performing
community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Been there, done that.
However, I rarely hear this addressed in literary circles. My guess is that
most writers do not consider themselves as performers, but if you ever have to
get up in front of people to peddle your wares, you should be performing. After
all, you are asking them to invest something of themselves in you. You owe them
an intentional and practiced performance, so I ask these questions, in part
because I think it is imperative that performers consider their positions, and
take the welfare of their audiences into consideration whenever and whereever
they perform, but also because the performers I witnessed this past Thursday
embodied this approach. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Donovan,
Amalia, and Noʻu decided to perform their investigations, they gave a gift to
their audience. In their turns, they confronted us with their considerations,
their vulnerabilities, their indignations, their sorrows, and their dreams. Yes,
they asked us to think, but they also invited us to feel.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They added
access points to their performances with powerpoint presentations, which defied
the bullet point stereotype. No’u, Amalia, and Donovan integrated technology
into their readings, but they did not allow it to become their readings, which
is always a danger when you invite a projector into your lineup. Donovan used
the layering images of his grandfather’s life through documents as a rhymic
counterpoint to his poetic re-visioning of the instructions on how to use a
nebulizer. Amalia gave us the statistical story as a visual backdrop to her recounting
of stories from some of Hawaiʻi’s incarcerated women. Noʻu, whose pieces often
flirted with abstraction, used powerpoint as a way to ground her poetry and
concretize her imagery. These three writers wanted to give us an experience in
memory through poetry and performance.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I
go to a poetry reading, I want to be moved and inspired, and I’m happy to
report that last Thursday that is exactly what happened.</div>
Lyz Sotohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016962204900040764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5796065824537901673.post-47498195757548770062012-09-18T21:17:00.000-07:002012-09-19T19:17:44.030-07:00Ekphrastic in Your FACE<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
I performed at the museum the other day. I yelled at people.
Got all up in their faces. Made them really uncomfortable and then made myself
really uncomfortable too. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<br />
Several months ago, I was invited by Jaimie Gusman, founder
of MIA and poet extraordinaire to participate in a group experiment of ekphrastic poetry at the newly christened
Spalding House <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">nee</i> The Contemporary
Art Museum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Aaron Padilla, Curator
of Education at the Honolulu Museum of Art, Spalding House, extended the
invitation to Jaimie, with the request that MIA (for this performance this included Jaimie Gusman, Evan Nagel, Donovan Colleps, Tom Gammarion, Scott Abel, Noʻu Revilla, Serena Simmons, and me) produce poems that respond to
the exhibited artwork and offer a dynamic and interactive presentation. These
are dangerous words to be delivered into the hands of a poet. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<br />
I felt this truth a hundred fold as I marched into a crowd
of unsuspecting art lovers turned hijacked audience screaming about Goya and
all his fantastic perversions. When people backed away from me, looking more
than a little worried, my anxiety barometer soared. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<br />
Oh no, I thought, I’m just terrifying them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<br />
And then I thought, but isn’t that exactly how we wanted
them to react? When I write we, I mean Noʻu Revilla, Serena Simmons, and me. Months
earlier, the three of us decided to collaborate on a spoken word griot and we were
all drawn to the dark, anguished, and often-misogynistic illustrations of Goya
that are part of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Thousand Words and
Counting </i>exhibit at Spalding House. The goal of our text, and subsequent
performance of that text, was to capture some of the visceral and disturbing
imagery found in the Goya exhibit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<br />
I was functioning as the icebreaker for that griot, which
meant I had to grab the attention of a potentially wandering audience, until
Serena and Noʻu joined me, so I yelled in a performance space that resembled an
echo chamber.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<br />
I am not a stranger to yelling at people. My experiences as
a slam poet have left me well equipped for such an endeavor, but I found there
was a significant difference in the space of that performance when I, by
necessity of choreography and the chance behaviors of people, had to advance in
a fashion dripping with verbal violence on a group of unsuspecting spectators.
Another significant difference: they could run away from me (a seated audience
is far less mobile), and a few of them did, not hysterically, but with decided
trepidation.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<br />
Yes, because we were channeling an interpretation of Goya’s
work, we wanted to spice our performance with discomfort, but could we have
achieved our aims in another way? I found out later that our audience had actually enjoyed the confrontation, but what if we had walked among those
museum-goers and whispered our poetry? What if we had kept our distance and
adhered to audience expectations? What if we had walked up to them and just
started speaking conversationally in a normal tone, at normal levels, about all the perversity
we excavated from a few illustrated panels?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<br />
These questions are not intended to condemn the method we
chose. I know Noʻu, Serena, and I enjoyed ourselves, and I think we got as much
pleasure from the process as we did from the performance. However, if we want
to continue pushing at the boundaries of where and how we perform our poetries,
we need to ask these questions. We need to create a long list of what, why, and
how. We need to speculate on what will happen if I’m in your face and what will
happen if I’m whispering to you lying on the floor.</div>
Lyz Sotohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016962204900040764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5796065824537901673.post-6830373627285356222011-01-11T11:14:00.000-08:002011-01-11T11:35:50.537-08:00Psychosis<div class="MsoNormal">I wrote this poem when someone I loved was psychologically drowning, and no matter how hard I tried I could not save them. I nearly lost myself in their downward spiral. This was one of the worst periods of my life, but in the midst of so much that was heartache and pain I could not bring myself to give up on living. In recent weeks, I have spoken to number of people (whose presence I treasure), who are going through difficult times. I wish I could wave a magic wand and make it all disappear. Instead, I offer this small token....for everyone, who has known this struggle...for everyone, who writes to survive.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal">Not too long ago to remember </div><div class="MsoNormal">I was sitting on the periphery of insanity</div><div class="MsoNormal">I found myself locked in rock</div><div class="MsoNormal">rigid with what comes next</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I knew if I dropped my vigilance </div><div class="MsoNormal">for even a second</div><div class="MsoNormal">I might uncover me on the opposite side of this galaxy</div><div class="MsoNormal">exhaling sulfur visions</div><div class="MsoNormal">of a world ruled by fractures and fissures</div><div class="MsoNormal">seismic tremors tearing reality into split personalities</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">and I see you in splintered shatters</div><div class="MsoNormal">down abyssal trenches swallowing psychosis</div><div class="MsoNormal">like sugared water sweetness</div><div class="MsoNormal">but not enough to disguise bitter signs posted</div><div class="MsoNormal">by enemies real and imagined</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Because this is a sliced out section of space </div><div class="MsoNormal">where reality lies in scattered flickers</div><div class="MsoNormal">bytes and bits of chance and choice</div><div class="MsoNormal">so terrible and terrifying </div><div class="MsoNormal">you would shut down your mind’s madness</div><div class="MsoNormal">and it doesn’t matter if that means </div><div class="MsoNormal">you must clip your own wings</div><div class="MsoNormal">at least then you can’t fly blind</div><div class="MsoNormal">but open your eyes wide and fall fast</div><div class="MsoNormal">to feelings of vertigo turning</div><div class="MsoNormal">the whole world upside down and inside out</div><div class="MsoNormal">and you have still got your heart hanging</div><div class="MsoNormal">on the outside of your chest</div><div class="MsoNormal">so someone meeting you for the first time</div><div class="MsoNormal">knows what color you bleed</div><div class="MsoNormal">and sees you’ve got scars </div><div class="MsoNormal">carving your body more than skin deep</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But the worst part of these wounds</div><div class="MsoNormal">is knowing when you look at everything</div><div class="MsoNormal">between your thumb and your index </div><div class="MsoNormal">you’re looking at the hand that did this </div><div class="MsoNormal">whittling your own flesh </div><div class="MsoNormal">with razors and words built for waging civil war</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Because I see you swimming in a straight jacket</div><div class="MsoNormal">with weight in your back pockets praying </div><div class="MsoNormal">the next time you breathe will be the last</div><div class="MsoNormal">and when you take that gasp</div><div class="MsoNormal">all these fractures and figments will settle</div><div class="MsoNormal">into a film flashback</div><div class="MsoNormal">a montage of moments that mattered </div><div class="MsoNormal">in each second you and I talk</div><div class="MsoNormal">I have to wonder</div><div class="MsoNormal">which one are you running faster from</div><div class="MsoNormal">the death that inevitably someday must come</div><div class="MsoNormal">or this life you have with a gun in your hand</div><div class="MsoNormal">aimed in a thousand different directions at once</div><div class="MsoNormal">like you can turn annihilation </div><div class="MsoNormal">into some kind of map</div><div class="MsoNormal">that might make sense someday</div><div class="MsoNormal">but that’s after everything in your path </div><div class="MsoNormal">is blasted or burned away</div><div class="MsoNormal">because your side of the galaxy </div><div class="MsoNormal">is so far from where I am</div><div class="MsoNormal">as I stand right next to you in this ten by ten room</div><div class="MsoNormal">so scared your predictions are a taste </div><div class="MsoNormal">laced with some mad apocalyptic truth</div><div class="MsoNormal">as if in your delusions </div><div class="MsoNormal">you have drunk the fruit nectar of providence</div><div class="MsoNormal">dined on a divine destiny of destruction</div><div class="MsoNormal">inextricably coupled with love</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So how do we finish this</div><div class="MsoNormal">because now I’m caught up in knots tied so fast</div><div class="MsoNormal">I can’t loosen</div><div class="MsoNormal">tearing them with teeth so desperate </div><div class="MsoNormal">I might dine on my own flesh escaping</div><div class="MsoNormal">this prison </div><div class="MsoNormal">where you are the warden the guard the keys</div><div class="MsoNormal">the walls the catcalls calling echoes </div><div class="MsoNormal">through blacked out halls</div><div class="MsoNormal">playing connect the dots with bullet shots</div><div class="MsoNormal">aimed at strategic places mapped out across me</div><div class="MsoNormal">wondering which bulls-eye </div><div class="MsoNormal">will make me bleed the most</div><div class="MsoNormal">and now I see me breaking free</div><div class="MsoNormal">throwing myself in a thousand directions at once</div><div class="MsoNormal">because I’m a ricocheted prayer </div><div class="MsoNormal">falling down to my hands and knees</div><div class="MsoNormal">begging you to please breathe</div><div class="MsoNormal">because maybe just maybe </div><div class="MsoNormal">tomorrow you’ll be able to say to me</div><div class="MsoNormal">and anyone else who can listen or pay attention</div><div class="MsoNormal">today I did not find joy bliss or happiness</div><div class="MsoNormal">but for one second I knew I’d miss being alive</div><div class="MsoNormal">and baby sometimes that’s the thought </div><div class="MsoNormal">you need to survive</div>Lyz Sotohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016962204900040764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5796065824537901673.post-88423203166710617482011-01-06T13:14:00.000-08:002011-01-06T21:55:55.166-08:00Genesis<div class="MsoNormal">This was written ages ago, but given that I was recently told that men prefer women to be weak and unsubstantial this seemed an appropriate response.</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">May we learn from our creations....</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When adam gave his ribs for me</div><div class="MsoNormal">He left the left side of his chest defenseless</div><div class="MsoNormal">His flesh like drum skin stretched taught and delicate</div><div class="MsoNormal">A finger pressed could bruise the rhythm of his heart</div><div class="MsoNormal">I have wondered what he wished for</div><div class="MsoNormal">When he surrendered sanctioned cages for me</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I know he found a sparring partner</div><div class="MsoNormal">Because I was born from a rigid bone protection</div><div class="MsoNormal">I do not know how to yield </div><div class="MsoNormal">I was made to walk through fire without melting </div><div class="MsoNormal">They will model skyscrapers from the formation of my skeleton</div><div class="MsoNormal">Built to withstand tidal forces born in abysses cracking the center of the world</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">For a thousand millennia I remember life as a speculation</div><div class="MsoNormal">A hypothetical conundrum </div><div class="MsoNormal">We talked for hours about every possibility just out of reach</div><div class="MsoNormal">Philosophy has no teeth when there is no risk</div><div class="MsoNormal">When every fall lands soft </div><div class="MsoNormal">When wounds give no pain</div><div class="MsoNormal">When love is effortless</div><div class="MsoNormal">Even the sacred is a prison when you cannot leave</div><div class="MsoNormal">When each step is a delivered diagram drawn by divine intervention </div><div class="MsoNormal">This was not living</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When time wore mere existence thin </div><div class="MsoNormal">Transparent to the naked eye </div><div class="MsoNormal">I wanted to break bones </div><div class="MsoNormal">I wanted to rub nerve endings raw with need</div><div class="MsoNormal">I wanted to discover gravity when I fell</div><div class="MsoNormal">No caution to catch me short</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I bit into rebellion and its taste was sweet</div><div class="MsoNormal">A perfectly ripened fruit</div><div class="MsoNormal">So succulent I could not hold it all to myself</div><div class="MsoNormal">This was my gift to adam</div><div class="MsoNormal">He could not say no</div><div class="MsoNormal">He too saw the other side of paradise</div><div class="MsoNormal">We saw together </div><div class="MsoNormal">Destruction yawning wide through its middle </div><div class="MsoNormal">And even the harbinger of a wild grief did not diminish her beauty</div><div class="MsoNormal">Untamed </div><div class="MsoNormal">Unfamiliar</div><div class="MsoNormal">Forbidden</div><div class="MsoNormal">Knowledge</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This was the first time I looked on my lover</div><div class="MsoNormal">This was the first time I saw him </div><div class="MsoNormal">Lucid </div><div class="MsoNormal">Exquisite</div><div class="MsoNormal">And I ached defenseless on the left side of my chest </div><div class="MsoNormal">As I gave up my rib for another</div><div class="MsoNormal">There was a new life cocooned and aflame in my center</div><div class="MsoNormal">This was my genesis </div><div class="MsoNormal">The bare foot hills to a zenith only imagined for ten thousand centuries</div><div class="MsoNormal">I see it now before me</div><div class="MsoNormal">Here are the endless generations it will take to reach the summit</div><div class="MsoNormal">I am terrified and it is glorious </div><div class="MsoNormal">And this is only the beginning</div>Lyz Sotohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016962204900040764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5796065824537901673.post-26713563356723906632011-01-02T20:25:00.001-08:002011-01-02T22:05:54.431-08:00Chimera<div class="MsoNormal">There are legends written along the concave curve </div><div class="MsoNormal">of a newborn’s cradled ribs.</div><div class="MsoNormal">They are prophecies.</div><div class="MsoNormal">like this one:</div><div class="MsoNormal">I will love my son so much</div><div class="MsoNormal">I won’t be able to let him go.</div><div class="MsoNormal">I will carry his cellular traces in my streams</div><div class="MsoNormal">as his shadows sewn to my limbs become</div><div class="MsoNormal">constant companions long after his birth.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Years ago </div><div class="MsoNormal">I read </div><div class="MsoNormal">doctors discovered mothers</div><div class="MsoNormal">can carry the genetic material of their children </div><div class="MsoNormal">for a lifetime after birth.</div><div class="MsoNormal">They call this a chimerism.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Definition chimera:</div><div class="MsoNormal">A mythical, fire-breathing monster, commonly drawn</div><div class="MsoNormal">with a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This is my future.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Picture me a Frankenstein of genetic tissue.</div><div class="MsoNormal">I become a fire-breathing monster</div><div class="MsoNormal">a pieced together patchwork of biology</div><div class="MsoNormal">so thankful </div><div class="MsoNormal">I might still have him with me</div><div class="MsoNormal">even if he is on the other side of the world.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So maybe this doesn’t matter when doctors ask,</div><div class="MsoNormal">why do women, more often than men, develop autoimmune diseases?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In fetal microchimerism<br />
they think </div><div class="MsoNormal">they found an answer.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Children’s cells left behind in mother’s blood</div><div class="MsoNormal">might be mistaken for genetic guerrillas </div><div class="MsoNormal">so her body turns on itself. </div><div class="MsoNormal">Immune defenses destroying indiscriminate </div><div class="MsoNormal">and ruthless</div><div class="MsoNormal">I glimpse a possible future.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When my son is born</div><div class="MsoNormal">I will not see where I end and he begins.</div><div class="MsoNormal">The slow severing of this umbilicus will be excruciating</div><div class="MsoNormal">a premeditated amputation that must come I know </div><div class="MsoNormal">I will still reach to hold his hand when he is not there…</div><div class="MsoNormal">the reminiscent shadow of a lost limb.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When he wants to go</div><div class="MsoNormal">for the first time, to a friend’s house</div><div class="MsoNormal">without me.</div><div class="MsoNormal">I will let him </div><div class="MsoNormal">imagining every worst case scenario.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Scenes filled</div><div class="MsoNormal">with matches, lighter fluid, aerosol cans, </div><div class="MsoNormal">swimming pools, and second story balconies.</div><div class="MsoNormal">When he comes home</div><div class="MsoNormal">I will be hiding relief in my back pockets.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When he falls in love</div><div class="MsoNormal">I will not ask him to stop</div><div class="MsoNormal">even if I see heartbreak following.</div><div class="MsoNormal">But every time he hurts</div><div class="MsoNormal">I will find my own body embattled with his aching.</div><div class="MsoNormal">I will wear wounds</div><div class="MsoNormal">as deliberate decorative laced scars.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Here is a monster in the making.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But doctors offer another possibility for the chimera.</div><div class="MsoNormal">These left behind strayed cells </div><div class="MsoNormal">inside a mother might become warriors.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Her children’s DNA remnant ribbons running<br />
through capillaries to veins</div><div class="MsoNormal">might fight to repair her damaged body.</div><div class="MsoNormal">This is a son making good at the molecular level.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This is my foretelling.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I will love him so much</div><div class="MsoNormal">I will be afraid to take pictures</div><div class="MsoNormal">celluloid stealing moments too precious for permanence.</div><div class="MsoNormal">He will be beautiful with small things.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Like breathing when he’s sleeping.</div><div class="MsoNormal">The only time in 24 hours he’s quiet.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Like running beside my car.</div><div class="MsoNormal">“I am happy to see you” drummed out in every full throttle footprint.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Like wearing chocolate as war paint.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Like patting my hand gentle</div><div class="MsoNormal">When I can’t talk, because life</div><div class="MsoNormal">has gotten bottled and stoppered </div><div class="MsoNormal">at the back of my throat. </div><div class="MsoNormal">I can’t breathe.</div><div class="MsoNormal">And my son will whisper,</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Mommy, it’ll be okay.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">These moments will be butterfly dust </div><div class="MsoNormal">caught in whorls of fingerprints dissolved to</div><div class="MsoNormal">universal matter blown away with a breath.</div><div class="MsoNormal">I will barely notice as they leave me just </div><div class="MsoNormal">a bit lighter<br />
running him banner streaming </div><div class="MsoNormal">through chains and ladders and spirals in</div><div class="MsoNormal">links and pairs and unraveling predictions.</div>Lyz Sotohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016962204900040764noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5796065824537901673.post-47390436707278236372010-12-22T12:48:00.000-08:002010-12-22T12:52:33.930-08:00For Jakob<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQZK6Wd6Ub6taQcf4On-IdizCTCQZXFVBQ-08jH5iEmLdvWBFxkTUygGdoJBbahwhZgOqatPNCQ2W4NLziMrqP13bg07d6cVeU2HIuFxyIClr0ov_996pdCVO52xNjZ-PF00K6yBR3xceT/s1600/Yes_Page_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQZK6Wd6Ub6taQcf4On-IdizCTCQZXFVBQ-08jH5iEmLdvWBFxkTUygGdoJBbahwhZgOqatPNCQ2W4NLziMrqP13bg07d6cVeU2HIuFxyIClr0ov_996pdCVO52xNjZ-PF00K6yBR3xceT/s640/Yes_Page_1.jpg" width="492" /></a></div>Lyz Sotohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016962204900040764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5796065824537901673.post-2596968456937128132010-12-22T12:43:00.000-08:002010-12-22T12:43:10.227-08:00Happy Birthday<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>HE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/> <w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:Word11KerningPairs/> <w:CachedColBalance/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Sum is not a homonym</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt;">of sun.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt;">but rhymes with my son</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt;">greater than all my parts</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt;">beloved</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt;">numbers</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt;">divided</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt;">multiplied to a son</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt;">with his own sum,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt;">equated.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt;">molecular markers give him</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt;">a few symbols</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt;">not seen by me</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt;">not predicted blond</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt;">fair skin</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt;">black eyes, but</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt;">this is how 3,000,000,000</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt;">=1>2, where he started</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt;">in 2, who didn’t see 1</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt;">as possible.</span></div>Lyz Sotohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016962204900040764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5796065824537901673.post-15145532618768782502010-04-30T17:34:00.000-07:002010-04-30T17:34:03.312-07:00NaPoWriMo Number ThirtyTranslate who<br />
we are behind big questions where<br />
the answer under the sun is<br />
always 42. Let’s talk<br />
science where<br />
life is probability paradox or equation where<br />
we can guess if we happened before or<br />
if we could happen again in<br />
N=R*x fp x ne x fe x fi x fc x L<br />
or<br />
talk to Fermi and add in the variables, but<br />
ask<br />
how many knowns are known where<br />
we don’t know primordial planets scattered<br />
passed the speed of flight. Let's light<br />
another match in the darkness.Lyz Sotohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016962204900040764noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5796065824537901673.post-16341261375114158322010-04-30T16:16:00.000-07:002010-04-30T16:17:38.387-07:00NaPoWriMo Number Twenty-NineHabilis, erectus, neanderthalensis <br />
before sapiens, did they<br />
see pantheons in night skies? They did<br />
not see the sun as middle ground. Can the star<br />
imagine himself as modest, rather they would<br />
make him hierophant and order. They would<br />
look up in the sky; find the reason<br />
for everything; dissect<br />
the universe into explanation strings; and try<br />
to become singular beings. <br />
Lyz Sotohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016962204900040764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5796065824537901673.post-60001657915601101932010-04-30T16:09:00.000-07:002010-04-30T16:09:13.962-07:00NaPoWriMo Number Twenty-Eightgive me asylum <br />
make this space fetal<br />
as i describe almost insignificant<br />
percentages to guesses there<br />
are no tests to assess risk but <br />
trace this gambit in twists<br />
and ladder shoots and shifts<br />
a gap in ropes and molecular <br />
strings predicting his <br />
grey matter waves safe<br />
and stable not chemical branched<br />
unbalanced or environmental<br />
triggeredLyz Sotohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016962204900040764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5796065824537901673.post-31031095556328586562010-04-29T22:48:00.001-07:002010-04-29T22:48:26.064-07:00NaPoWriMo Number Twenty-SevenThree hundred years back tracked<br />
there was no sleep without sleeping<br />
there was no anaesthesia. No word for<br />
no feeling. only speaking in Greek. When medicine<br />
cut you they wanted you screaming even<br />
when you were tired.Lyz Sotohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016962204900040764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5796065824537901673.post-64528121699955831682010-04-28T01:39:00.001-07:002010-04-28T01:39:54.383-07:00NaPoWriMo Number Twenty-Six<meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"></meta><meta content="Word.Document" name="ProgId"></meta><meta content="Microsoft Word 12" name="Generator"></meta><meta content="Microsoft Word 12" name="Originator"></meta><link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5CLYZ%7E1.LYZ%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link><link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5CLYZ%7E1.LYZ%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx" rel="themeData"></link><link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5CLYZ%7E1.LYZ%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml" rel="colorSchemeMapping"></link><style>
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<div class="MsoNormal">And yet another translation of Jeanette Winterson's Written on the Body: </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Winterson Ritual</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">1. Don’t let it rain. </div><div class="MsoNormal">2. Send tree roots into deep ground.</div><div class="MsoNormal">3. Grow them fingers.</div><div class="MsoNormal">4. Give them razors, and find a water-fat artery.</div><div class="MsoNormal">5. Find a secret code written on the body.</div><div class="MsoNormal">6. Adjust the light so you can see.</div><div class="MsoNormal">7. Build a rocket, or a digger and go two hundred miles from the surface of the earth.</div><div class="MsoNormal">8. Suspend the laws of gravity.</div><div class="MsoNormal">9. Read this story.</div><div class="MsoNormal">10. Blow up walls.</div><div class="MsoNormal">11. Polish windows into telescopes.</div><div class="MsoNormal">12. Bring the cosmos into a small room.</div><div class="MsoNormal">13. Decorate with walls with solar flares.</div><div class="MsoNormal">14. Read the world one wall to the next.</div><div class="MsoNormal">15. Pack up the world, so that it fits in a satchel with the sun.</div><div class="MsoNormal">16. Hurry.</div><div class="MsoNormal">17. Try to find happy.</div><div class="MsoNormal">18. Try to find endings.</div><div class="MsoNormal">19. Find an open field.</div><div class="MsoNormal">20. Strip and split loose here.</div>Lyz Sotohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016962204900040764noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5796065824537901673.post-66092664845340474792010-04-26T02:35:00.000-07:002010-04-26T02:35:14.870-07:00NaPoWriMo Number Eleven<span style="font-size: x-small;">Yet another Winterson Translation.....and yea!!! I'm caught up! </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Acrostic: Hanging on Comfortable</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Water runs away from our razor limbs grasping through hard pan</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">In secret codes and calligraphed pictorials we are searching through</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Nothing to find lemon ink over a blue flame. In parchment, we find</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Time and life after life after life starting two hundred miles from</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Earth’s surface. This is where the story begins, in threadbare</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Rooms with sledgehammered walls, and wide eyes turning outside to</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Stars and moons swinging orbits in this room. The sun is</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Our lamplight, our bedtime story hanging on a comfortable rung, but</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Nearsighted fingers are archaeological brushes reading</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Our past as a foreign country. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Now open doors to burst wide where rivers break dams and roads</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Turn in spaghetti twists of unexpected directions</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Here, you will find us with the big earth </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Expanding to a star under the half moon of our arms</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">But don’t stop running. It’s late</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Outside. Something expects us, and I</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Don’t know happy endings, or what they look like together, but give me</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Your hand and grasp here we are let loose in a field.</span>Lyz Sotohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016962204900040764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5796065824537901673.post-7341186532385919622010-04-26T02:06:00.000-07:002010-04-26T02:06:46.885-07:00NaPoWriMo Number TenAnother translation of a passage from Jeanette Winterson's Written on the Body<br />
<br />
Ghazal: Quenched<br />
<br />
We opened limbs and tap to tap, we foot danced under a big sky.<br />
We could not say happy even with the sun in our fingers.<br />
<br />
There are rivers and roads beyond the lintel and swung hinges.<br />
We will be at the grass plain, because we belong to the wide open.<br />
<br />
This room is too small to hold the galaxy, or even a small world.<br />
If we stand, spread our arms corner to corner, we trace Braille bitten walls.<br />
<br />
Celestial suspensions hang above us and grow to solar systems.<br />
The story starts as worn and unraveled and frayed to ragged.<br />
<br />
On this earth, Newton is forgotten as a temporary oblivion.<br />
In droughts, we become trees and tap roots prospecting for an open fist.Lyz Sotohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016962204900040764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5796065824537901673.post-33677618973129329832010-04-25T21:25:00.001-07:002010-04-25T21:25:22.686-07:00NaPoWriMo Number Twenty-FiveWe drive combustion on seven dollars a day<br />
rigged to a sand bottom this flare<br />
is only a candle lit by a small flick quick guess<br />
is there a BP exec holding the matches and did<br />
he light another when the first one didn’t<br />
catch it? <br />
At five thousand feet deep we bleed<br />
black and wax about mass destruction worry<br />
about how far the car goes with tar spilling<br />
across April drilling this blown up rigging left<br />
eleven uncounted and thought dead.Lyz Sotohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016962204900040764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5796065824537901673.post-12121897078366581322010-04-25T20:55:00.001-07:002010-04-25T20:55:28.577-07:00NaPoWriMo Number Twenty-FourGive me an encyclopedia draw me animals <br />
I’ll name you Gessner and give<br />
you a tail maybe a monk’s hood maybe<br />
canines you can lick <br />
before barking you show me<br />
the splinter of a unicorn and etch<br />
the possibility into vellum you describe<br />
camels and whales illustrate a walrus<br />
so many dragons <br />
a chameleon a knighted rhinoceros from<br />
a comfortable seat in a<br />
well lit room we imagine the large world<br />
around us think how fantastic <br />
to guess at the thought world living <br />
just beyond the doorLyz Sotohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016962204900040764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5796065824537901673.post-19257257611052919062010-04-25T20:09:00.001-07:002010-04-25T20:09:58.247-07:00NaPoWriMo Number Twenty-ThreeA bitter angel kept me in a small minute<br />
he said only the gall matters trimmed thin by<br />
this blade he took a picture of sadness gave <br />
me a slide show sitting on Phoebe you are<br />
just another impact insignificant as Iapetus he<br />
said you are cracked like Enceladus he said brushed<br />
my hair behind ears you could be Hyperion <br />
or Titan or Mimas or Dione or Tethys but<br />
no you are Pandora with a glory box you<br />
cannot shut your hand your eyes too opened too<br />
wide to unfold your letter your <br />
alphabet too large and sharp if we cut curves<br />
from your mouth if we slice away smiles <br />
into mineral into rock his granite feathers<br />
carved me a glyph named me grief fed me<br />
empty made me open my glory box open me<br />
unlocked find me nothing but lost.Lyz Sotohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016962204900040764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5796065824537901673.post-46542592519052637472010-04-25T19:19:00.001-07:002010-04-25T19:19:03.997-07:00NaPoWriMo Number Twenty-Two<meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"></meta><meta content="Word.Document" name="ProgId"></meta><meta content="Microsoft Word 12" name="Generator"></meta><meta content="Microsoft Word 12" name="Originator"></meta><link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5CLYZ%7E1.LYZ%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link><link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5CLYZ%7E1.LYZ%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx" rel="themeData"></link><link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5CLYZ%7E1.LYZ%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml" rel="colorSchemeMapping"></link><style>
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<div class="MsoNormal">I begin as a body cell chained and holding we</div><div class="MsoNormal">permeable tissue fattened we on outside systems</div><div class="MsoNormal">in composite honey combs</div><div class="MsoNormal">in solid ordered </div><div class="MsoNormal">in filaments contracting </div><div class="MsoNormal">in covered vessels becomes this body fingers to this</div><div class="MsoNormal">neck into fanned irises to inhaled pupils I imagine</div><div class="MsoNormal">a body as mine this born</div><div class="MsoNormal">body I imagine cannot be severed served on</div><div class="MsoNormal">bio platters bring me a tissue to solve</div><div class="MsoNormal">the whole world’s problems to eradicate </div><div class="MsoNormal">in a test in a needle in a slide genetic I become</div><div class="MsoNormal">we not belonging me not anything but</div><div class="MsoNormal">molecular I end as a body cell unchained</div><div class="MsoNormal">and prisoned. </div>Lyz Sotohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016962204900040764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5796065824537901673.post-36442823791770583322010-04-24T22:42:00.000-07:002010-04-24T22:46:41.278-07:00Interview by Craig Santos Perez (author of Unincorporated Territories)Craig was kind enough to interview me about my book Eulogies blog style this week. You can find the link to that interview on the Poetry Foundation website here.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2010/04/poet-spotlight-lyz-soto/">Poet Spotlight: Lyz Soto: Craig Santos Perez</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2010/04/poet-spotlight-lyz-soto/"></a>Lyz Sotohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016962204900040764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5796065824537901673.post-9531075031900699082010-04-24T14:54:00.000-07:002010-04-24T14:54:13.603-07:00NaPoWriMo Number Twenty-Oneplaying catch up as fast i can...<br />
<br />
Memory<br />
<br />
we live as someone as<br />
long as someone remembers<br />
in burned glass optic mass blinking<br />
to synapse lashed into twine vines<br />
from my wrist my stories braided<br />
twist to my toes I am foot bound<br />
to neck rings shifting my clavicle<br />
to my rib curved to clasp this cup this <br />
spoon please feed me a history and breath<br />
I am suppered in a task of remembering<br />
me masked in a stranger’s past unhinged by<br />
estranged genetic codes breaking bread<br />
to halves to quarters to eighths <br />
to quantum drops which skin should I slip<br />
in today when they can’t find me<br />
a blood match with my metal splintered<br />
from land mass to land massed<br />
fortunes from passing wisdom to this<br />
aerial root swinging from dislocated<br />
trunks asking is she still living in me<br />
remembering her body ashes that were <br />
milled as a last trashed task of lifeLyz Sotohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016962204900040764noreply@blogger.com0