Many Mountains Moving! :)

Good things sometimes happen without warning. This past weekend, Debra Bokur, one of the poetry editors of Many Mountains Moving emailed me to say she was in town and would like to have tea with me. She also asked if I could bring some of my work. Any poet trying to publish knows it's not supposed to work that way. It's usually all about postage and stamps and cover letters and the whole process can get pretty faceless.

We had the most wonderful afternoon at Zen Zoo yesterday talking about everything from poetry to health spas to Los Angeles. And yes, she wants two of my pieces. I asked why she contacted me, and she said I made a good impression on her at the AWP Conference! Later, she looked at my Web site (which was on the card I gave her), and found stuff she liked. Wow...

Ms. Bokur is the type of poetry editor one hopes is actually reading work. She reads carefully, but with enthusiasm and passion. She has experience both in and out of the poetry community, and looks to poetry not as a commodity or tool, but as a vital art form just as capable as ever of enlightening and healing the reader.

I was thrilled. And yet, I was also proud. Proud because the AWP Conference scared me, but I went, anyway, met some great people and was prepared with cards. Making my Web site current was and is difficult, but I am on it. And poetry continues to be a challenge and often so lonely, but I am writing consistently and also reading great work, working through my insecurity the whole way.

Writing is a journey. Sometimes hard, sometimes cold, always demanding...but just like any journey, occasionally the wind is at your back and you meet people who remind you that you have direction, and you there is nothing you would rather be doing than what you are doing right here, right now, today! :)

Long Poems...Gee...

Well, I am back from the "Sometimes Too Hot the Eye of Heaven Shines" (which will go on sale right here in August) party! It was so wonderful to meet the RADAR staff, and Diane DiPrima, and Justin Chin. I will probably take a little time time to process over the next few entries.

I am trying to figure out how to organize my writing blog and blog blog. I had originally thought to focus this space on writing samples, with my blog blog about everything else, but I think instead that everything about the process of writing or composition will be here, including entries like this.

After coming home, two (of many, but these are the first) things struck me... First, not only how many lives Eli Coppola had touched, but the quality of people... David West, (whom I finally found online,) handed me an envelope with chapbooks and pictures, and an earring... Jen Joseph cried onstage. For all who might have doubts from time to time (put me on this list, especially when my bike gets stolen), poetry matters. It matters a lot.

The second thing off the top of my head is how beautiful the right words can be. Justin Chin. Holy shit, how beautiful is his work. It's so careful and that care is not ponderous or overworked. Its freeing and affirming and so very right. One gets the feeling that Chin tosses away lines many of us would use, looking only for the best ones to serve on his page. The result is that even his lighter verse has this amazing completeness, this seamless engulfing music that fills you with tears and makes you glad for them.

When I came home, I looked at my latest long poem, "As Little as the Things We Be." It's gone through many revisions, but truth be told, I still have some work to do. I have been sort of dreading this, as I there are deadlines and publications and I still want to win a Pulitzer Prize blah blah blah...

But after hearing Chin, I just looked at my latest work and asked myself am I proud to show this? As proud as I was of "Sometimes Too Hot the Eye of Heaven Shines?"

No.

So it's back to the notepad. There is SO MUCH good with this poem; I think it can be something beautiful...  Patience, perseverance...

At the last AWP Dan Albergotti wrote me in his book (his The Boatloads is another book with the same care for detail), "perseverance is omnipotent." After hearing Chin's work, I was reminded that it can also be transcendent.

Time to write.

:)
Ryka

PS--I am always looking for writers to bounce ideas with. :)

If you missed my readings, my chapbook is now at Modern Times! :)

If you missed my readings, my chapbook is now at Modern Times! :)

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 Today at 9:45am | Edit Note | Delete

(from RADAR, Friday, July 9)
RADAR Productions If you missed last night's poetry reading, we're sad for you. But we want you to know you can pick up a copy of the beautiful chapbook "Sometimes Too Hot the Eye of Heaven Shines" by Ryka Aoki at Modern Times Bookstore for just $7. Get one while supplies last.

http://www.mtbs.com/

I love this poem like a drowning girl loves her life jacket. Thank you to RADAR, Inconvenient Press and especially to Eli Coppola.

Death of the Postcolonial Man

The light at my back

            keeps me from whistling at the moonbeams

and her legs. 

The Chinese girl with the waterfall hair

            hides herself behind sleepy clouds.

If I died today,

            my blood would pour into the sea

and the sea would still be clear.

For God filled the Earth with Chinese girls.

The air collapses in a billion

            pairs of hands.  A cup of jasmine tea spills

through a knothole in the floor. 

(This is an older poem I kinda like...)