[Some revisions below.]
A couple of things here. Since Oscar recently blogged about why he blogs, I am reminded to revisit that same question. In addition to grappling with the questions of poetics and politics in a public forum, where dialogue may actually happen, I too am interested in tracking my progress on certain specific projects, whether it's in the intellectual work/thinking out the details of the project, or in the actual concrete and nitty-gritty work of editing, revising, submitting, publishing.
Certainly the public aspect of this progress tracking has to do with holding myself accountable for actually working rather than merely talking idle empty talk. I mean, everybody has a plan.
I had also always hoped I would find like-minded poets and writers who were handling and grappling with similar poetics and politics questions, and also living that same editing, revising, submitting, publishing rigmarole.
Since deciding on what internal deadline (what cushion time I'd give myself) to read work for the issue of Ocho I am guest editing, and as I started combing very finely through the work that's been submitted from poets from whom I'd specifically solicited work, I realized only very recently that I had space for one more poet's work. And that in order to fill that space, I'd have to do it very swiftly.
I narrowed it down in my head to two poets, based upon purely subjective criteria (as editorial criteria is frequently subjective): Poets I haven't seen a lot of in print, and who I would like to see more in print. Women of color poets, APIA women, Pinays who are producing work I find interesting.
The poet Sasha Pimentel Chacón and I recently came into e-contact with each other, via the usual follow the link thing. I wasn't previously familiar with her name, then I thought: A Pinay poet in Texas. A Pinay poet working on a full length manuscript. I started to read a couple of her poems which are published online. "Abaya," is the first poem I read. Upon my preliminary read, I decided I admired her line breaks and what these were doing to the poem's "meanings."
I had already written the backbone of my introduction to the issue, which includes the following:
Consider the work contained herein a cross section of my poetic interests: Poetry descended from oral and musical traditions. Poetry of place, of migration and transience. Poetry on and about the body. Poetry concerned with fracture, disruption, sprawling, spanning. Poetry that is political, both covertly and unabashedly. Poets that seep, branch, launch into other forms and genres.
The above themes were emerging and recurring in the work submitted to me. I like to think of it as simpatico, although it really is more of a function of the poets from whom I solicited work. But back to Sasha, who was able to very quickly compile and submit poems, for which I believe I owed her equally speedy response. I selected three of her poems. We did this in seven very efficient emails over the course of two days. Now she's showering me with Pinay Poet love over on her blog.
In the course of our seven highly efficient emails, I told her that when I am in a position to do so, I am more than happy to forward the work of Pinay poets.
That said, I now have e-versions of everyone's work, excerpts of long poems, poetic novels, theatrical performances. I am experiencing mild anxiety over the formatting of some typographically precise poems. I'm thrilled to have over 100 pages of new work from fifteen poets:
- Tara Betts
- Brian Dean Bollman
- Sasha Pimentel Chacón
- Ching-In Chen
- Linh Dinh
- Sarah Gambito
- Jessica Hagedorn
- Jaime Jacinto
- Nathaniel Mackey
- Craig Santos Perez
- Matthew Shenoda
- Jennifer K. Sweeney
- Truong Tran
- Dillon Westbrook
- Debbie Yee
I am now deciding on some cover art from Oakland based visual artist, Juan Carlos Quintana, who also very swiftly emailed me eight images based upon some relatively rigid criteria. [Addendum: Bay Area based visual artist Carlo Ricafort as also sent me work, so I have a wealth of art to choose from here.]
