Kenneth Goldsmith

Battle of the Titans

05.27.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (2)

Kwame Dawes

CALABASH–IMAGINE–2008

DISPATCHES
Saturday Part 3
Very early on in the life of Calabash, we decided that it would be a good idea to partner with organizations and entities that had something to do with authors. We had thought about deeding out some curating and programming to some individuals, but it seemed to make better sense to think of book agencies, publishers, arts organizations and other entities that seemed to have access to writers, and still had a solid sense of style and engagement that worked well with the basic values of Calabash: daring, earthy, diverse and inspirational. It has amazed me how these words, (at least one that seems rather overused–“inspirational”) conjured up by Colin Channer, with a briefing to support and define each of them, have come to represent a splendid litmus test for what happens at the festival—and here I mean EVERYTHING that happens at the festival. Over the years we have sought partnerships with a handful of organizations, and one of the most productive of partnerships has been with the independent publishing house Akashic Books. This year, Akashic joined with us again and helped us program an eclectic and sophisticated readings that took place late afternoon into the night on Saturday, when the cool air off the sea wafted around us, skirts flicking in the breeze, bodies relaxing with the calming of the sea rhythm, and the moon dangling overhead. The audience had spent a few hours resting, eating, taking a swim, showering, and getting dressed for the evening activities. Where the anticipation for the Walcott session created a frenetic kind of energy, the evening mod was more laid back. Three Akashic published authors would read. Juan de Recacoechea, a Bolivian fiction writer; Nina Revoyr, a Japanese American novelist; and Abraham Rodriquez, a Puerto Rican descent American living in Berlin who writes novels. They would then be followed after a short break by three other novelists, Margaret Cezair-Thompson, a Jamaican living in the US; Gerard Donovan, an Irish novelist and poet; and Lawrence Hill, a Canadian essayist and fiction writer.

05.27.08 PERMALINK | NO COMMENTS

Kwame Dawes

CALABASH—IMAGINE—Festival Dispatches

Saturday Part Two
The sky is clean of clouds. Standing on the stage, the sea stretches out towards the horizon, a sheet of turquoise with the interruption of surf a hundred yards out where the reef breaks the waves. Treasure Beach’s coastline is rocky, with the occasional scraggly tree—these biblical structures of gnarled branches and sparse fat leaves—they are made to silhouette artfully against the blue. In the early morning at Calabash people sneak up on you. Jamaicans move with the slow casualness of tropical people who have learned how to conserve their energy in the sun. The empty tent area will slowly fill out—one minute you are looking at the cool insides lined with white plastic chairs and only a spotting of people, and then you look away. When you look inside again, there are a hundred bodies, calmly fanning, sipping drinks, eating fruit. The audience, as Valzhyna Mort, the waif-like Belarusian poet would announce on Saturday night, is so sexy. She is talking about the way the bodies, move, the way clothes flow on these bodies, the complete sensuality of the laughter and the quiet in the audience. It is a spiritual thing, actually, and you watch as these folks, dressed for comfort, dressed for style, and dressed to please the body, walk under the tent that now smells of heated crushed grass, take their seats and speak softly to each other. By 9:45, the hundred or so people, has miraculous multiplied into nearly a thousand bodies and you still have the sense that the place is not crowded, that this is a church picnic, that there is enough space for all these bodies to enjoy their own personal space.

05.26.08 PERMALINK | NO COMMENTS

D.A. Powell

Lost in Translation

I was visiting a creative writing class last week, and students were asking questions about craft, process, etc. A young woman raised her hand: “where do your words come from? Do you spend a long time figuring out what words you’ll use? Because they always seem so precise.”
Her question was both simple and complex, and I perhaps gave the simpler answer: words are the most fundamental tools of poetry. I spend hours putting words into poems and taking them back out. I gather words the way a landscaper might gather plants, and I look for the ways in which they can fit together, sustain one another, complement each other, create larger areas of meaning and image, be of use, be striking, be organic to the world they inhabit.

05.26.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (7)

Linh Dinh

Khóc

khóc (v) to cry or weep.
khóc âm thầm (v) to cry or weep almost silently, (fig) in secret.
khóc dạ đề (n) the infant proclivity for crying at night.
khóc dai (v) to cry for an impossibly long time, stubbornly, with determination.
khóc dở mếu dở (fig of sp) to half cry, half wear a twisted face, i.e., to be miserable.
khóc đứng khóc ngồi (fig of sp) to cry while standing and cry while sitting, i.e., to cry all the time, to habitually cry.
khóc gào (v) to cry while screaming.
khóc gió than mưa (fig of sp) to cry about the wind, bitch about the rain, i.e., to whine and be a royal pain in the ass.
khóc hết hơi (v) to cry oneself into exhaustion.
khóc khàn cả tiếng (fig of sp) to cry oneself hoarse.
khóc lén (v) to cry while hidden or while no one is looking.
khóc lóc (v) to cry while sniveling and whimpering, (fig) be a crybaby.
khóc mếu (v) to cry while trying not to cry, with face contorted.
khóc mướn (v) to cry for money, be a professional mourner at a funeral.
khóc ngất (v) to cry until one’s nearly unconscious.
khóc như cha chết (fig of sp) to cry as if one’s father has died.
khóc như mưa (fig of sp) to cry like the rain.
khóc nỉ non (v) to cry softly, which, from a certain angle and if the light’s too bright or dim, may not seem like crying at all.
khóc nức nở (v) to cry convulsively, in rapid waves, with hiccuping sounds.
khóc oà (v) to loudly burst into tears.
khóc oe oe (v) to cry or wail while emiting pitiful yet charming oe oe sounds, said of babies.
khóc oe oé (v) same as above, but a bit more shrill.
khóc ròng (v) to cry for a very long time, even intermittently for weeks.
khóc rống (v) to cry while howling.
khóc rưng rức (v) to cry endlessly but without making much noise.
khóc sụt sịt (v) to cry with a runny nose.
khóc sụt sùi (v) to cry while trying to hide grief.
khóc sưng mắt (v) to cry until eyes are swollen.
khóc sướt mướt (v) to cry bitterly and theatrically.
khóc than (v) to cry while lamenting.
khóc theo (v) to cry because others are crying.
khóc thương (v) to grieve.
khóc tức tưởi (v) to cry bitterly and uninhibitedly.
khóc xì xụt (v) to sob with a runny nose.

05.25.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (4)

Reginald Shepherd

Tiene Dolor?

Pain is my constant companion. This has largely been the case for over a year, with all my emergency room visits, operations, and hospital stays. But since my abdominal perforation and the month-long hospitalization and three surgeries it entailed, pain has never left me. Pain that would have seemed unbearable two years ago now often seems merely a baseline level—unpleasant, uncomfortable, but not requiring any extraordinary measures. Only what my oncologist calls breakthrough pain is worth special notice.
Each time I’ve had some episode of overwhelming pain for hours and hours at a time, I’ve writhed around thinking or crying out “I can’t stand it, I can’t take it anymore.”? And each time I’ve discovered that I can indeed bear it, that I can take it. This isn’t a discovery I would have liked to make. All my illnesses, along with the various other crises in my life, have made me realize that I’m a much stronger person than thought I was, physically and psychically. But I would have been happy never to have known how strong I could be, never to have been put to that test, even though it’s a test I’ve passed over and over. One gets no prizes for passing it, though I suppose that having survived this most recent incident when many people wouldn’t have is a reward in itself.

05.25.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (5)

Kwame Dawes

CALABSH 2008–IMAGINE-Walcott

CALABASH 2008–IMAGINE
SATURDAY 1
The hardest thing to do is to find time to Blog at Calabash. All day the audience, true owners of this festival, will accost to ask questions, make suggestions, express gratitude. I can’t bring myself to do stock answers, even when the questions are the same:
“Kwame, Kwame, [fishing into a worn satchel] I have this book, man. This book of poems. I want your critique. Let me read you a poem and I need you to assess it…”
“Right now?” the crowd is thick, people bouncing off us.
“Oh yes…”
I say no, I say it is a bad idea, it is unfair to their poetry for me to try and assess it right now—under these circumstances. Disappointment. But we smile.
Someone has the constant question:
“You, star, you are the man to ask, they say.” I can tell this is an open mic poet. The dread locks, the worn sheets of paper in hand, the pure intensity, the hunger….
“We will announce the open mic in a few minutes check the program.” I say, quickly They smile, nod.
“I just reach.”
“You came for the open mic only?”
“Yeah, I have these poems. I want you to assess them for me….”

05.25.08 PERMALINK | NO COMMENTS

Kwame Dawes

CALABSH 2008–IMAGINE

Calabash 2008 – Friday May 23rd
At 7:30 PM, under a cluster of white tents and in the presence over eight hundred people sitting patiently on white plastic chairs, with the constant moaning of the sea in the background and the distant thump of a the bass coming from sound systems kicking up their Labor Day night sessions on the south-western coast of this island, I introduced three writers whose task it is to celebrate the work of other writers in their capacity as editors. M. Mark, Editor of the Pen Journal, Thomas Glave, editor of Our Caribbean: Gathering of Lesbian and Gay Writers of the Antilles, and Achy Obejas, editor of Havana Noir yet another in the remarkably readable Noir series put out by Akashic Books. Glave has been apprehensive all day. He is a Jamaican who writes and teaches abroad, but continues to spend a lot of time in Jamaica, being a outspoken advocate for gay rights on the island. He is aware that to speak up on these matters is not without some risk, but he also knows that Calabash is a festival that boasts one of the most open-minded and gracious audiences one could find. The best kind–an audience filled with people with strongly held opinions and yet people who understand that when a writer goes on stage, they are taking a risk, and that hospitality is the overriding spirit that should guide their reaction. Glave, despite his nervousness, is cool, steady and begins with a small speech directed at Jamaica’s Prime Minister who recently declared to the BBC that he would not have any homosexuals in his cabinet.

05.24.08 PERMALINK | NO COMMENTS