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. :)
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Monday, July 12, 2010
If you missed my readings, my chapbook is now at Modern Times! :)
If you missed my readings, my chapbook is now at Modern Times! :)
Share(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.
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.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
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...)
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
A short excerpt from "Sometimes too Hot the Eye of Heaven Shines"
I am thrilled to have won the first Eli Coppola Memorial Chapbook contest. Please come to my reading and/or release party in July (see "Performances" for details).
Here's a brief excerpt from the chapbook:
Child, I shall never compare you
to a summer’s day.
Sister, I do not commute by Gold Line or Red.
I do not park my Honda overnight, in an indoor lot,
with car wash, security, and valet.
Brother, I abuse a substance from which I never wake.
Restless and empty, when the Black Lite closes,
I chase the dragon in a strange and cold backseat.
Father, the sunrise writhes in the rearview
like the anonymous poet
to whom I kneel and confess I have no friends,
beside the Western off ramp—
sirens, helicopters, drivers waving over here babe.
Mother, I won’t come home tonight
for I am only junk mail and a lost credit card
without the lights, camera, action
Here's a brief excerpt from the chapbook:
Child, I shall never compare you
to a summer’s day.
Sister, I do not commute by Gold Line or Red.
I do not park my Honda overnight, in an indoor lot,
with car wash, security, and valet.
Brother, I abuse a substance from which I never wake.
Restless and empty, when the Black Lite closes,
I chase the dragon in a strange and cold backseat.
Father, the sunrise writhes in the rearview
like the anonymous poet
to whom I kneel and confess I have no friends,
beside the Western off ramp—
sirens, helicopters, drivers waving over here babe.
Mother, I won’t come home tonight
for I am only junk mail and a lost credit card
without the lights, camera, action
Monday, March 22, 2010
Teeny Excerpt from "He Mele a Hilo"
Nona Watanabe stepped onto the stage, all radiant in her purple and orange and green, sharkbait skin and all....
Something about her just stopped everything. Folks actually stopped eating, mid bite, and she paused for a second, looking, it seemed, into each one of them. And then she smiled, and was like one pure hit of aloha...
Just be yourself, Nona, the old lady in red had said. That’s all you ever had to be.
Tears were pouring down Noelani’s face, and she didn’t care. As she watched her dancers working together, Nona Watanabe in the front, she felt all her work, all her time finally being realized, with Ku’uipo, it just hit her Aunty Kahakunoe and yes, even Jesus, who after all this time, she had tried and tried, but never truly either understood or forsook.
These ARE the ancient times---and these are modern times as well. In the sphere of eternity, distinctions between one time and another are arbitrary--even now, Lo’ihi is being born under the sea--who will write the ancient chants for her?
Who will dance the dances that will be remembered only in part, scraps handed down from generation to generation, revered almost as much for what is lost as what is retained?
Are the ships and airplanes now any different from the outriggers in days past? Are the stars not the same, the sunset the same color? Don’t the rains make the same sound as they fall onto the forest canopy?
When the kahiko dances--or the roots of these dances were first composed, were they not science? Weren’t the kahuna the most modern minds of their day? It was not superstition, it wasn’t even religion or mythology. It was science, as real as those damned telescopes up on top of Mauna Kea, which started off so wonderfully--to view the clearest heavens, but now fallen victim to the same arrogance as the astronomers now try to keep the area all kapu to themselves...
One generation’s observatory becomes another’s, as the days and years pass, and parents change like seasons.
And for Nona Watanabe, she understood finally what it meant to simply be. For in her purples were all the colors of the sky and ocean at night. In her oranges and reds, the color of the sun, setting and rising. In her shimmering greens, the color of the forest, and sugarcane, and yes, even more ocean, the honu, and in her smile, the radiance of the sun itself. With the music and the dance, people, every one of them, felt yes, this is our song.
And then it was over. And for a few seconds, the audience was silent, as if it was waking up from a dream...
Then the thunder came....
Something about her just stopped everything. Folks actually stopped eating, mid bite, and she paused for a second, looking, it seemed, into each one of them. And then she smiled, and was like one pure hit of aloha...
Just be yourself, Nona, the old lady in red had said. That’s all you ever had to be.
Tears were pouring down Noelani’s face, and she didn’t care. As she watched her dancers working together, Nona Watanabe in the front, she felt all her work, all her time finally being realized, with Ku’uipo, it just hit her Aunty Kahakunoe and yes, even Jesus, who after all this time, she had tried and tried, but never truly either understood or forsook.
These ARE the ancient times---and these are modern times as well. In the sphere of eternity, distinctions between one time and another are arbitrary--even now, Lo’ihi is being born under the sea--who will write the ancient chants for her?
Who will dance the dances that will be remembered only in part, scraps handed down from generation to generation, revered almost as much for what is lost as what is retained?
Are the ships and airplanes now any different from the outriggers in days past? Are the stars not the same, the sunset the same color? Don’t the rains make the same sound as they fall onto the forest canopy?
When the kahiko dances--or the roots of these dances were first composed, were they not science? Weren’t the kahuna the most modern minds of their day? It was not superstition, it wasn’t even religion or mythology. It was science, as real as those damned telescopes up on top of Mauna Kea, which started off so wonderfully--to view the clearest heavens, but now fallen victim to the same arrogance as the astronomers now try to keep the area all kapu to themselves...
One generation’s observatory becomes another’s, as the days and years pass, and parents change like seasons.
And for Nona Watanabe, she understood finally what it meant to simply be. For in her purples were all the colors of the sky and ocean at night. In her oranges and reds, the color of the sun, setting and rising. In her shimmering greens, the color of the forest, and sugarcane, and yes, even more ocean, the honu, and in her smile, the radiance of the sun itself. With the music and the dance, people, every one of them, felt yes, this is our song.
And then it was over. And for a few seconds, the audience was silent, as if it was waking up from a dream...
Then the thunder came....
Friday, March 19, 2010
Wow. My work was in a sermon.
In my darker times, I wonder if anyone is listening to my words. Then, I realize that these words and this work matters.
This was preached at First Unitarian Church of Toledo on February 6th, 2010.
http://gqminister.livejournal.com/2822.html
Thank you, to Sunshine Jeremiah Wolfe.
*hug*
ryka
This was preached at First Unitarian Church of Toledo on February 6th, 2010.
http://gqminister.livejournal.com/2822.html
Thank you, to Sunshine Jeremiah Wolfe.
*hug*
ryka
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Eli Coppola Memorial Chapbook Contest
I just found out yesterday that I won the first Eli Coppola Memorial Chapbook Contest... I am still in a bit of shock--it has been disappointment after disappointment with publishers, and I have seriously been wondering if I was ever going to get published as a poet again.
Being trans queer is a weird double-edged sword. I have been remarkably fortunate. I have toured and performed and spoken and met some of the best people a girl could ever dream of meeting. I have worked with musicians and filmmakers, and dancers, and wow... I was even picked up for a reading in a limousine.
But, at the risk of sounding ungrateful, I want more than that. I write poetry not just for trans people, but for myself and anyone, trans, or queer, or not. And, I wonder how my work actually fares when placed next to the poets and artists--trans, queer, or not--who inspire me. I want to believe that my work is good on its own, and not just included because I happen to ID a certain way.
Up until now, maintaining that belief has been difficult. As Ryka, I have only been published as a poet once in a non-trans setting, and never in a non lgbt setting. I was doubting myself, and any fringes of talent I was supposed to have retained. But thanks to some weird determination and the help of some very close friends... I have been able to write and take myself seriously.
I was in a 24 hr Post Office kiosk at 2 am to get this manuscript in. I was tired and sad and depressed. But I forced myself to complete the manuscript and put it in an envelope and rewrite the mailing label twice because I kept fucking up the spelling...
When I got an email back, I thought, "great! I wonder who won?" Then I read "congratulations" and I was like, "Huh? What does that mean?" Then I shouted. Then I cried...
Then my friend told me about Eli Coppola, showed me some of her work...and I am even more honored and grateful. Wow.
Being trans queer is a weird double-edged sword. I have been remarkably fortunate. I have toured and performed and spoken and met some of the best people a girl could ever dream of meeting. I have worked with musicians and filmmakers, and dancers, and wow... I was even picked up for a reading in a limousine.
But, at the risk of sounding ungrateful, I want more than that. I write poetry not just for trans people, but for myself and anyone, trans, or queer, or not. And, I wonder how my work actually fares when placed next to the poets and artists--trans, queer, or not--who inspire me. I want to believe that my work is good on its own, and not just included because I happen to ID a certain way.
Up until now, maintaining that belief has been difficult. As Ryka, I have only been published as a poet once in a non-trans setting, and never in a non lgbt setting. I was doubting myself, and any fringes of talent I was supposed to have retained. But thanks to some weird determination and the help of some very close friends... I have been able to write and take myself seriously.
I was in a 24 hr Post Office kiosk at 2 am to get this manuscript in. I was tired and sad and depressed. But I forced myself to complete the manuscript and put it in an envelope and rewrite the mailing label twice because I kept fucking up the spelling...
When I got an email back, I thought, "great! I wonder who won?" Then I read "congratulations" and I was like, "Huh? What does that mean?" Then I shouted. Then I cried...
Then my friend told me about Eli Coppola, showed me some of her work...and I am even more honored and grateful. Wow.
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