This is the first mention of Anna Kavan in my writing. During a panel, after a discussion turned to authors and addictions, a student approached the microphone and asked “What about Anna Kavan? She wrote Julia and the Bazooka, which is about her heroin addiction.”  

Or, a person said something. I had never before heard of Anna Kavan. I do not remember what the person really said. But I wrote “Anna Kavan” in my crowded notes. That is where I found her. 

Below is the bibliography in its entirety, a reading list, a beginning. 

Anderson, Eric.  The Poetics of Trespass.

Agamben, Giorgio. In Coming Community. 

Ai. Cruelty/Killing Floor. 

Baraka, Amiri.  Wise, Why’s Y’s.

Burger, Mary.  Then Go On.

Butler, Octavia.  Bloodchild and Other Stories.

Brautigan, Richard.  Trout Fishing In America.

Brent, Linda.  Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. 

Brown, Rebecca.  American Romances. 

Bryant, Tisa.  Unexplained Presence. 

Calvino, Italo.  The Uses of Literature. 

Campbell, Joseph.  The Return. 

Carson, Anne.  If Not Winter, Fragments of Sappho.

Carson, Anne.  Nox. 

Carr, Julie.  100 Notes on Violence. 

Coke, Alison Hedge.  Off-Season City Pipe. 

Conrad, CA.  A Beautiful Marsupial Afternoon: New (Soma)tics.

Cortez, Jayne.  Festivals and Funerals.

Coultas, Brenda.  The Marvelous Bones of Time.

Derricotte, Toi.  The Undertaker’s Daughter. 

Dykeman, Wilma.  The French Broad.

Froude, Richard. Fabric. 

Gladman, Renee.  Event Factory. 

Grinnell, E. Tracy.  Music or Forgetting. 

Halberstam, Judith/Jack.  Queer Time.

Harris, Wilson. The Well and the Land.

Hegenauer, HR.  Sir. 

Hunt, Erica.  Arcade.

Jarnot, Lisa.  Night Scenes. 

Jones, Meta DuEwa.  The Muse is Music. 

Kavan, Anna.  Julia and the Bazooka. 

Kapil, Bhanu.  Schizophrene. 

Kaufman, Bob.  Cranial Guitar, Selected Poems. 

Keene, John.  Annotations.

Kyger, Joanne.  Just Space. 

Lee, Ed Bok.  Whorled. 

Le Guin, Ursula K.  Unlocking the Air and Other Stories. 

Levertov, Denise.  Relearning the Alphabet.

Martin, Dawn Lundy. A Matter of Gathering/ A Gathering of Matter. 

Notley, Alice.  In the Pines.

Osman, Jena.  The Network.

Ping, Wang.  The Magic Whip.

Phi, Bao.  Song I Sing.

Philip, M. Nourbese.  Zong!

Reed, Ishmael.  The Last Days of Louisiana Red. 

Redonnet, Marie.  Rose Mellie Rose.

Rexillius, Andrea.  Half of What they Carried Flew Away.

Saterstrom, Selah.  The Meat and Spirit Plan. 

Sharma, Prageeta.  Undergloom. 

Smith, Tracy K.  What the Body Remembers.

Spahr, Juliana.  The Transformation. 

Szymaszek, Stacy.  Emptied of All Ships.

Torres, Justin.  We the Animals.

Trethewey, Natasha. Native Guard.

Veglahn, Sara.  Closed Histories.

Weissman, David.  We Were Here. 

Waldrop, Rosmarie.  Dissonance (if you are interested). 

Wheatley, Phillis.  Revolutionary Poet. 

Wilkerson, Isabel.  The Warmth of Other Suns. 

Yankelevich, Matvei.  Boris by the Sea. 

Maybe all poetry is a dialogue with the impossible.

***

…Maybe because I write poetry, and believe language can so deeply shape and nuance a speaker’s reality and imagination, the increasing extinction of languages feels so tragic. How do you translate duende into English? Or han (a Korean word for something like deeply regretful, resentful, passive, yet not hopeless sorrow)? And every language and culture has a multitude of words and concepts that are untranslatable into another language. Where does that wisdom, that nuance and beauty, that oral and spiritual technology go when an eons-old culture’s language evaporates? It feels like dreams disappearing. Words are magic-making animators. But we are born into language, not the other way around.

Read the full here.

How can a group of young editors (primarily co-founders Meghan Murphy and Jamie Millard) have such a profound effect on a community, especially one so committed to its print traditions? Over a short span and with the help of additional staff (Courtney Algeo, Holly Harrison, and many other behind-the-scenes contributors), Paper Darts has shown not only the editorial acumen to build and grow a legitimate online and print magazine of literature and art, but the creativity, courage, and ambition to expand their brand into multiple realms of the local arts and culture scene. From its adventurous, performance-based launch parties to its social-hour-esque reading events, Paper Darts brings ingenuity and verve to seemingly every project it takes on.

This is an awesome museum.

Take, for instance, Third Thursday: Art & Lit with Paper Darts, which took place on January 17, 2013.  Third Thursday is an ongoing program run by the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, where the enormous, amazing art museum provides free admission and various themes to attract audiences.  The decision to team up with Paper Darts seemed like an odd pairing at first, but it created some wide-open potential, something with which Paper Darts works well. Early publicity suggested literary-themed activities like writing prompts and art-specific stories. How exactly these activities would be incorporated into to the vast museum space was anyone’s guess.

On the night of the event, streams of young, fashionable folk flooded the entrance. People waited in line for an event about which nobody had a clear idea, other than the fact that it would be stylish, fun, and much-talked-about. Suffice it to say that this event was planned and executed about as perfectly as any event could be. Not only were the activities stunningly creative and entertaining, they were also gorgeously produced with Paper Darts’s trademark flair for graphic design.

Courtney Algeo lays it down.

At the front doors, the Paper Darts editorial staff greeted attendees and explained how the event worked: each attendee chose one of the four packets, each containing the first page of a story by either Ed Bok Lee, John Jodzio, Maggie Ryan Sanford, or Katie Heaney. Printed on a postcard with a clean and classic font, you read the first part of your story and then followed the instructions to find the next card, located somewhere in the museum. Each packet came with a map specific to that story, so you could find your way around the building. I chose Kate Heaney’s story “The Ts,” read my card, and was off.

postcard-sized cover art for my CYOA story

My second card offered a plot choice: if my character acted this way, I had to go to one side of the museum to find out what happened next. If she acted another, I was sent to a completely separate wing. I was choosing my own adventure while also embarking into the far corners of the museum, able to observe world-class paintings and sculptures as I went. Plus, I got to collect a limited edition, multi-card version of a pretty nice short story!

“That’s quite an exquisite corpse you’ve got there.”

Similarly clever ideas included the exquisite corpse–a collaborative work of art, rather than a writing exercise, wherein participants drew on a segment of material and then passed it down for another person to continue the work. The ultimate product was collaged on the wall in the shape of what looked like a dainty leprechaun . . . .  Throw in live music, cool purple lights, buzzing atmosphere, and a bar, and you have some of the best people-watching the Twin Cities has to offer. If you’re ever wondering what this whole “cool” thing everybody’s talking about is, head down to a Paper Darts event. It’s on full display.

Also on full display, and the quiet star of the show, was the amazing art collection at the Institute. It is a museum far too rich to be enjoyed in a single visit. I left knowing it was okay to feel like I hadn’t gotten around to viewing everything. I will return, and hopefully, so will many of the people who partook in the brilliant collaboration with Paper Darts. As for it being an odd pairing, it turned out not to be a stretch at all, and I’m happy to give the MIA staff credit for reaching out to the literary world–maybe some day soon I’ll finally make it to one of their book tours, which has always sounded like a great way to spend a couple of hours.

Any community with the Loft Literary Center, three astounding indie presses, and multiple graduate programs fostering creative writing is going to have a strong, vibrant literary community. I can’t give Paper Darts all the credit, but I’ll give them credit for this: they do what they do with astounding skill, and “what they do” is continually expanding. They are an asset and an ally to anyone in the Twin Cities who cares about art and literature. And boy, can they throw a party.

–RHM

[Author's Note, 1-26-13: I revised a phrase in this piece from the original posting. Formerly, the sentence in question characterized the Twin Cities as "staunchly set in its prim-and-print traditions." This  is a poor characterization, and it  suggests the Twin Cities' attitude toward its print traditions is somehow misplaced. I've revised the piece to more accurately describe my opinion: that without our print tradition, there would be no literary community.]

Were you There? Have something to add, or a different take on this event?  Chime in on the comments below, or send us an email at LitSeen.Mpls@gmail.com! Be sure to check the schedule to the right and the Twin Cities Literary Calendar to be at the next LitSeen.org attended event. See you around!

equal Drawer and Sing
And Island Wood is somewhere Desert Milk
And Berry, elsewhere is a Door
And if you added up all these dying words, and the people who speak them

All their memories, histories, and lessons
All their gods, jokes, rituals, and recipes
If you learned and stirred them, over and again, until
each utterance became a star, a new footprint, the marrow of a poem—

Writers read.  That’s all there is to it.  Reading and writing go hand in hand, literally; pun intended!

So here are the books (via a video blog) I’ll be reading this season with the intention of growing as a reader, writer, and person.

If you are reading some of the same books, or would like to, and want to talk about them email me at blackcoffeepoet@gmail.com.

Enjoy, SHARE, Tweet, and comment.

Subscribe to the Black Coffee Poet YOUTUBE Channel: 129 videos:

Poetry, song, interviews, VLOGs, readings and roundtable.

by Jorge Antonio Vallejos

It’s Year 3 of my website and I want to share with you, my readers and supporters, what I’m reading throughout the year via different lists.  Things will change.  I won’t be strictly sticking to the lists as many books come my way but I will be reading most, and maybe all, the books listed. 

The last list I shared was my summer 2012 reading list.  A friend told me, “That’s an ambitious list.”  Ambition gets me places.  And “ambitious” was the right word.  One of my writing mentors Simon Ortiz repeatedly advised one thing: “Read a lot!”

I listened.

This list is a little shorter than the last but it has just as much substance.  

Poetry

Resistance Poetry 2: International Festival of Poetry of Resistance Anthology 2012

‘Tis Pity by David Bateman

iii by J. Fisher

Viewing Tom Thompson, A Minority Report by Kevin Irie

Hoodlum Birds by Eugene Gloria

My Favorite Warlord by Eugene Gloria

Say I Sing by Bao Phi

Whorled by Ed Bok Lee

Runaway Dreams by Richard Wagamese

Skin Like Mine by Garry Gottfriedson

In Search of Small Gods by Jim Harrison

Short Story

Trash by Dorothy Allison

The Melting Pot and Other Subversive Stories by Lynne Sharon Schwartz

The Shawl by Cynthia Ozick

Best Bondage Lesbian Erotica Edited by Tristan Taormino

Non Fiction

Writers & Company: In Conversation With CBC Radio’s Eleanor Wachtel

Best American Essays 1998 Edited by Cynthia Ozick

Running With The Buffaloes by Chris Lear

Although this list is shorter than the last you might be thinking “That’s still a big list!”

Remember, poetry collections are short and concise.  I read and re-read them fast.  Short stories are the same.  I’m already addicted to Trash and I have a feeling I’ll zip through Best Bondage Lesbian Erotica.

Some books will be carried over into winter.  The Eugene Gloria books as well as Ed Bok Lee, Bao Phi, Jim Harrison, Richard Wagamese and Garry Gottfriedson were on my last list.  Now they are here.

If you are interested in reading some of the same books and chatting about them email me: blackcoffeepoet@gmail.com. If you have any thoughts or comments please post them below, or write me a letter at the addy above.

Happy reading!

Tune into Black Coffee Poet Friday September 28, 2012 for my new VLOG about my Fall 2012 Reading List where I show and discuss the books.

“I am a widow, I am short, ugly, and plump, I have bunions on my feet and, if I am to credit certain early mornings of self-inflicted disgust, the breath of a mammoth.”

“The problem is that children believe what adults say and, once they’re adults themselves, they exact their revenge by deceiving their own children. ‘Life has meaning and we grown-ups know what it is’ is the universal lie that everyone is supposed to believe. Once you become an adult and you realize that’s not true, it’s too late. The mystery remains intact, but all your available energy has long ago been wasted on stupid things. All that’s left is to anesthetize yourself by trying to hide the fact that you can’t find any meaning in your life, and then, the better to convince yourself, you deceive your own children,”

The Elegance of the Hedgehog is a gem of a novel that may take lazy American readers awhile to get used to. Each sentence and page is jam-packed with vocabulary beyond me, commas, and ideas that sometimes went a little over my head. Still, the genuine emotion and feeling that both heroines of the story emanate is enough to keep you turning the page. The story is told by a 12-year old suicidal girl and the middle-aged, self-deprecating concierge of an apartment. They’re both perceptive about life, art, and really what the point of ‘it’ all is. I enjoyed the first half of the book in which they both offer interesting and fresh perspectives of very ordinary events and happenings of a ridiculous bourgeois lifestyle. I particularly enjoyed the precocious 12 year old’s chapters in which, while considering suicide, still carefully preserved a tone of hope for a life worth living. The girl and the concierge divulge their dark and cynical thoughts to their journals until a new resident comes to live in the building. Unfortunately there’s a tinge of exotic objectification of Mr. Ozu, and  I felt that the fascination with the Japanese newcomer was a little contrived. Just because he has different Eastern ideals doesn’t mean it’s necessarily better or superior than French ideals. It was like the author got lazy and used the newness and Asianness of him to spark interest in the entire apartment complex. Madame Michele’s obsession with him is unflattering and I quickly lost interest in her after a couple of chapters of girlish insecurity. Still, the ending is breathtaking and absolutely beautiful. An insightful novel that was a change of pace for me.

The Things They Carried

“You can tell a true war story if it embarrases you. If you don’t care for obscenity, you don’t care for the truth; if you don’t care for the truth, watch how you vote. Send guys to war, they come home talking dirty.

Listen to Rat: “Jesus Christ, man, I write this beautiful fuckin’ letter, I slave over it, and what happens? The dumb cooze never writes back.”

A powerful book about the experiences of soldiers in the Vietnam war. It digs deep into the fear, love, joy, vulgar of what war does to our boys. O’Brien is creative and savvy with his story telling, often retelling the same event from different perspectives or different outcomes. It could be true or not, but you come to a realization that what really happened doesn’t matter. The point is that telling stories is therapeutic for him, and what the truth is is how he felt at that point, nothing more, nothing less. Some stories are so unsettling that I could honestly feel the weight of the loneliness and fear of these boys who had to make these big decisions at my age. I suppose that’s what the point of writing is – to share what they felt so that you never have to experience it for yourself. If you’re still pro-war after this book, you don’t have a heart.

The Picture of Dorian Grey

A sexy book that makes you rethink wishing you could be young forever. Mr. Dorian Grey is a hot young thing coveted by all the intellectuals in the city. The beauty gets to his head, though, and he unknowingly makes a deal with the devil to stay forever young while a portrait his artist friend painted of him ages in his place. As he becomes more materialistic, cynical, and cold-hearted, you realize that it’s already too late for his redemption.Wilde evokes enough sympathy for poor Dorian Grey near the end of a wild flurry of just pure selfishness, but the reader is already aware that he can never go back to being good.  And that’s what made it good – you want him to choose salvation, but you know that there’s a certain fate in literature that you can’t overcome.  I don’t often read books from other time periods, but I always make an exception for Wilde.

How We Do Harm

The book opens with a disturbing story of a woman who walks into the ER with her rotting breast in a grocery bag. From this patient Dr. Brawley pulls back the curtains to take a cold hard look at the failings of the healthcare system. He details history of racism and prejudice of doctors and the struggles of practicing evidence-based medicine. He shows the sensitivity and strength it takes to practice medicine and truly connect with patients in hard times and in the deep south, where memories of the Tuskegee incident are still fresh. His stories show that prejudice and discrimination still play a large factor in the healthcare system. Then he moves on to the culture of clinical-research and the corruption of drug companies and doctors. A good book for aspiring physicians. Dr. Brawley doesn’t hold back on his criticisms and make you realize that being a “good” physician nowadays is a rarity.

Whorled

All Love is Immigrant

There is another other

in the other of every

Another”

Second book of the spoken word performer Ed Bok Lee, title is a play on the word “world”. Writes heart-wrenching poems about globalization and links it to our mixed up, half-awake state of minds when we say things in our dreams. He creates stunning imagery that captures the mixing of cultures in our increasingly diverse world. His stories and poems require multiple reads to capture new threads that you missed the first or second or third time.

Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“‘I’m going to take you home, to the world where you belong, where cats with bent tails live, and there are little backyards, and alarm clocks ring in the morning.’

‘And how are you going to do that?’ the woman asked. ‘How are you goign to take me out of here, Mr. Okada?’

‘They way they do in fairy tales,’ I said. ‘By breaking the spell.’

One labyrinthine story of a passive male who starts out looking for his cat but ends up in all sorts of places looking for his wife. Murakami writes in such a simplistic manner that anyone can connect to Toru Okada’s tedious daily worries. Part of the story can be about mundane tasks, but somehow Murakami’s writing brings the most ordinary things into a fascinating perspective. You just never know where you’re going to end up with a Murakami story. One minute you could be skimming through a seemingly meaningless passage about cooking spaghetti and then bam there’d be this absurdly sexual scene. And it’s all written in the same breath. The effect is that you’re constantly on the edge of your seat, knowing that any moment something really strange could happen. Toru could be at the bottom of a well in the seventh dimension or in Mongolia watching a man getting tortured  - Murakami’s forte is that each story is infinitely interesting despite straying several chapters and time periods from the main story. It’s a long novel with lots of characters and detours, but the end pulls together all the loose ends in a perfect knot of understanding.  It made me think about how each of our lives are just like boring Toru Okada’s, connected to people who are connected to events, who are connected to more people, and if you believe in fate and God and bigger things, you’ll appreciate that somehow it all matters.

Invisible Monsters

Invisible Monsters trumpets that age old theme that is uniquely Palahniuk’s; you can only truly start living after you hit rock bottom. Rock bottom for this narrator is losing her beauty that she realizes was basically a free pass to do anything she wanted in life.  After a horrific accident, she loses half her face and the ability to talk. Brandy Alexander, a Tyler Durden character (or more accurately, Tyler Durden  is a Brandy Alexander character because this is Palahniuk’s first novel) takes the narrator under her/his wing and they zoom around the country stealing drugs from rich people. Palahniuk isn’t afraid to look the reader in the eye and tell us the ugly truths about how we worship beauty. A druggy, fun and gross read, Invisible Monsters is one of Palahniuk’s best. I heard him speak at the Castro theater about it and realized what a clever man he is. Unfortunately once you read one of his novels, they all sort of feel the same.

Norwegian Wood

“At five-thirty I closed my book, went outside, and ate a light supper. How many Sundays – how many hundreds of Sundays like this – lay ahead of me? ‘Quiet, peaceful, and lonely,’ I said aloud to myself. On Sundays, I didn’t wind my spring.”

A muted book about a love that is never actualized between an average boy and an unattainable girl with… issues. In this book I imagine that everyday is grey and depressing. But it’s so on-point with simple observations and insights that you end up taking this somewhat boring story to heart. I remember feeling depressed for awhile reading this book and it was definitely not one of my favorites from Murakami. It unsettled me in a strange way, and I suppose I should give it credit for doing so.

Real Karaoke People

http://www.edboklee.com/stories2.htm

The Man from Guangdong

“Before hosing down the fluorescent-flickering dish room and kitchen floors and half dozen grease grills at Johnny Wong’s Chinese Buffet, the man from Guangdong and I sit out back on overturned five-gallon tofu buckets, trading silences. It is an unusually cool night for mid-summer in Pueblo, Colorado. The Taiwanese management and Mexican cooks gone home. All the broken dishes swept into piles, the small metal dressing cups and silverware hand-dug out of the garbage. Marlboros and Vantages crackle minutely between our lips.”

I had the honor of hearing Ed Bok Lee perform. It is truly a performance. Real Karaoke People is a good hard look into the Asian American psyche, or just about a wandering soul in America.

Bone

“Ona was right about the counting. Remembering the past gives power to the present. Memories do add up. Our memories can’t bring Grandpa Leong or Ona back, but they count to keep them from becoming strangers.”

Fae Myenne Ng was my professor for my Asian American Literature class. This book changed my life. She breathed life into literature and forced us to take a hard look at ourselves. How literature can bring you to tell your own story. How literature can help you avoid awful mistakes. Bone is subtle, elegant, and has what our class liked to say, “swag”. A must must must must must read. One paragraph, one sentence, one chapter had the ability to just destroy me. She has a knack for poetic narrative and I feel so lucky that I had her as a professor.

A feather on the breath of God

“End of semester. It is very late and I am alone in my room. A narrow desk by the window, overlooking the courtyard that is slowly filling up with snow. Books open on the desk, bright lamp, cigarettes, a boyfriend’s photograph. I will sit there all night, I will smoke all the cigarettes, and in the morning I will cross the courtyard to answer questions about literature and the tragic sense of life. The sound of a pen scratching in the night is a holy sound. I want to get down something T.S. Eliot said: Human beings are capable of passions that human experience can never live up to.”

A Feather on the Breath of God answered questions I have been asking for a long time about my identity and how it affects my relationships. Nunez’s writing style beautifully reflects the internal struggle of the narrator in a quietly devastating way. The narrator explores the struggles with her bi-ethnic identity, forever arguing parents, perverse obsession with ballet, and how all this resulted in a very strange love life.  The self-destruction, the anxieties, and the pain that the narrator undergoes is something that hit a little too close to home for me. Her writing unexpectedly cuts to the bone, leaving a ripple effect that has resonated with me in all aspects of my life. This book revealed truths about myself that I was not so happy to realize. And that’s the mark of a really worthwhile book.

Geek Love

A disturbing look into the a freak circus family; hunchback Olympia as the woeful narrator, egomaniac half-fish Arturo, siamese twins, and a seemingly normal little brother. Geek Love turns the disability narrative upside down. In the world of the circus,  disfiguration is a desired quality and the “normals” are pitied. Katherine Dunn is a bold nd funny writer who isn’t scared to go there – yes, with the incest, yes with the circus sex, yes with the casual murders. And yes, a cult in which insecure ‘normals’ willingly amputate their arms and legs to emulate the half-fish Arturo. It all may seem really weird and sick to you at first until you realize that all she did was take our ableism norms and apply it to freaks. The story makes us re-evaluate how we marginalize and treat people with disabilities. A hard to put down read that will gross you out in all kind of ways.

Beyond Victims and Villians

Telethon Director: She’ll go through life scorned by others.

Mother Nature: Whose fault is that? Not mine. No one is outside of Nature. I have a really wide vocabulary, you know. I love variety in people like I love the variety of colors in flowers and shapes in species. Don’t insult my creativity by limiting your acceptance of Human Form. I bet they’ve listening to the Old Boy (God), haven’t they? That’s where they get all this crap about people not meeting minimum requirements. That egomaniacal sun of a bitch thinks everyone’s supposed to be made in His image. Well, I’ll show you ‘image’!

(She raises her arms to reveal four more arms: a Hindu goddess)

A series of smart and funny plays written by and about people with dis =abilities.  One informative play takes you through the history of disability and the progression of moral models (you “deserved” it) to medical models (you need to be cured) and finally, to agency (fuck you I don’t need a special bus). For those who haven’t thought much about disability, it’s an entertainingly informative anthology that will make you look at disability in a new way.

When the Emperor was Divine

A  book written about a time of chaos; Japanese and Japanese Americans get rounded up and sent to internment camps during WWII. Written from the perspective of a nameless family, witnessing the internment camp from the mother’s, children’s, and most hauntingly, the father’s eyes. The detached simple descriptions give a sense of universality to the story, that of normal civilians caught in the circumstances of war. Eerie and a little offputting (true to Japanese writing style) Emperor is a quiet book of endurance and perseverance.

The gangster we are all looking for

by lê thi diem thúy

A dreamy novel told from the innocent perspective of a Vietnamese girl arriving in America. Poetically fragmented memories of her parents and how she learns to cope and survive in a foreign land. My friend says, “I read through some stretches and was bored. Then I’d read one paragraph randomly, and I’d just end up in tears”.
My Hollywood

Documents the invisible side of Hollywood, about the nannies who serve the offspring of the rich and the famous. Written with a true flair for gossip and drama, half the novel is written from the perspective of Claire, the insecure wife of a busy husband trying to write her own symphony. We delve into her hand-wringing anxieties as she tries to balance her music time with her son. The other half is told from the perspective of Lola, the Filipina nanny Claire hires to help with William. I liked Claire’s voice because you could hear the strain and anxiety that was so genuine. But Lola’s voice was fragmented and forced- likely because a white woman wrote it. The story is fueled by gossip and petty affairs insinuitating an undercurrent of  uncomfortable questions; Does it make you a bad mother if you can’t raise your own child? What do you do if the child likes the nanny more than you? How does a working woman cope with work life and raising her child? Why doesn’t a man have the same responsibilities? And most importantly, does Mona Simpson have the right to portray a Filipina nanny using what she thinks is “authentic” somewhat broken English? A book that is too long but full of drama. You get tired of it by page 200 though.

Call me Ahab

“Vincent, who has not been able to scrounge any more money for canvas or paint, a street-corner crazy, perches himself on a broken down chair he has found in an alley and, palette-less, canvas-less, begins to paint in air. He paints the Cafe Terrace at Night, the yellow light spilling out of the bar, the night-blue sky above, alive with the dotted streetlights that glow like fireflies. Holding an imaginary canvas, swiftly painting the black, yellow, orange, and blue streaks that make the sidewalk. How thickly he would lay on the texture of the zinc white that costs $8.58 a tube.”

Anne Finger writes punchy short stories focusing on disability in famous artists or literary characters. In this particular story, she explores what Vincent Van Gogh’s life would be like if he had tried to survive today. Van  Gogh tries to apply for Medicare in a drugged daze when his brother stops supporting him, buys McDonald’s, and ends up being homeless under a bridge. It’s not until the end of her stories that you start to question the logic of our society; one with strict norms that isolates and marginalizes anyone who can’t fit into the productive mold of an able citizen. How many geniuses are unrealized due to our narrow definition of acceptable?

Steer Toward Rock

“I cut meat then and what butchery taught me was that the body was the only truth. As blood flowed, it tracked heat till the veins cooled, till the beat broke. In death, no man is common. In death, every man becomes a god. A simple man claims his boldness by blood but the superior man expresses his humanity with tears.

Would I cry?

Yes

Would my tears stain bamboo?

Yes

Would my heart be cut?

Yes. I never wanted to be the hero but I would pay its price and never enjoy its victory.”

Another poetic bombshell of a story detailing the life of Jack Moon Szetso, who came to America as a “paper son”. Owing his livelihood to the local gangster, he can hardly afford luxuries of love. Yet with the heart of a true romantic, he chances his luck and pays the price. A deep (and painful) look into the psyche of Asian immigrants with their heads in their motherland and their feet in the America. Fae Myenne Ng’s writing crosses all sorts of ethnic boundaries; while it’ll hit home for the Chinese-Americans who understand the historical backdrop of the story, her deeply moving storytelling will capture any reader. A friend says, “It’s like she’s telling my story. How does she know me?!”

My Summer Reading List

By Jorge Antonio Vallejos

Around this time of year lots of media write about summer reading.  They look at the publishing industry and how it changes during the summer and give titles that are normally read during this time. 

Easy reading, portable, and books you might not have read but wanted to are what eyes usually eat up during these hot months. 

With all the stacks of books I have I decided to share my summer reading list with you all. 

Reading lists are something I write down on paper and stick on my wall.  I make them at the start of every season and just before the winter holidays.  Not all the books get read.  My word appetite can be bigger than what I can visually and mentally ingest, but I try.  Each book title on the list that I read is marked by a red checkmark. 

Since this is primarily a poetry website lets start off with collections of poems I’m planning on reading.  Poetry collections are short and I read them fast.

Poetry

Sovereign Erotics: A Collection of Two-Spirit Literature

The Fiddlehaed: Summer 2002  #212

In Search of Small Gods by Jim Harrison

Hoodlum Birds by Eugene Gloria

My Favorite Warlord by Euguene Gloria

The Romantic Dogs by Roberto Bolano

What I Keep by Jennifer K. Greene

Ehecatl/The Wind by Gloria Anzaldua

Say Uncle by Kay Ryan

The Bussiness of Fancydancing by Sherman Alexie (re-reading for the 7th time)

Runaway Dreams by Richard Wagamese

Song I Sing by Bao Phi

Whorled by Ed Bok Lee

Valley Sutra by Kuldip Gill

Next To Nothing by Christina McRae

Skin Like Mine by Garry Gottfriedson

Short stories are the cousin of poetry.  I really like how I can read them quickly and see the similarities to poems.  You’re in a story and quickly out!

Short Story

The Toughest Indian In The World by Sherman Alexie (re-reading)

The Dirt Chronicles by Kristyn Dunnion (re-reading)

Last Evening On Earth by Roberto Bolano

Volt by Alan Heathcock

Skin Folk by Nalo Hopkinson

Novels are books I don’t usually read.  That has to stop.  I do enjoy some novels but my preference is short story and poetry.  Reading these three short novels (not novellas) are me getting out of my comfort zone.  And it’s good to get out of your comfort zone!

Novels

The Fuck-Up by Arthur Neresian

So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell

Chango’s Fire by Ernesto Quinonez

I’m big letter writer.  Real letters.  I love to put pen to pad, share my life, insert the pages in an evelope, lick, seal, stamp, and send!  Reading these small collections of letters will be a blast!  And they’ll help me write better letters.

Letters

Letters To A Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

Letters To A Young Artist by Julia Cameron

The Best Of In A Park Productions by Sarah Bertrand

The Screwtape Letters by C.S Lewis

For the last ten or twelve years I’ve read lots of spiritual and motivational books.  I love them.  The beauty of the books listed below is that they are short and to the point! 

Motivational and Spiritual

Unleash Your Purpose by Myles Munroe

How Successful People Think by John C. Maxwell

Winners Never Cheat by Jon M. Huntsman

Screw It, Lets Do It by Richard Branson

The Gifts Of Imperfection by Brene Brown

Tapping The Iceberg by Tim Cork

The Road Less Travelled by Scott Peck (re-reading)

Essays, interviews, and memoirs are things I really enjoy reading.  You get to see what people are thinking, doing, want to do, and have done.  Essentially, a sneak peak into their lives.

Nonfiction

Ultra Marathon Man by Dean Karnazes

Zen In The Art Of Writing by Ray Bradbury

Roberto Bolano: The Last Interview and Other Conversations

Catalysts by Catherine Owen

The War by Marguerite Duras

You’re probably thinking, “That’s a lot of books!”  Yes it is. 

I’m a bibliophile, a book junkie, a book lover. 

Keep in mind that many of these books are short.  I can read a poetry collection in an hour and a half or less.  Short stories are similar; I work my through them in a couple of days.  Memoirs tend to grab me quick and take me on a ride I don’t want to get off, so they go quick too.

And to be honest, some of the books won’t be read.  They will carry over into the winter.  I’ve got until the end of September to read all these and I’ve already started.  Join me!

If you are reading some of the same books let me know.  Maybe we can talk about them.

Happy reading!

Tune into BlackCoffeePoet.com Friday July 6, 2012 for my new VLOG where I’ll be talking about and showing the books that are on my summer reading list.  

http://www.edboklee.com

Nina’s (named for Madame Nina Clifford who ran a brothel on present-day Hill Street during the prohibition era) is a bustling coffee shop usually filled with regulars. A well-known supporter of the literary arts, Nina’s keeps a sign-up sheet next to the front door where people who have worked on writing books while sitting in the Café can jot their name along with the title of their book. If you’re not too busy authoring the next great American novel, you can always rent a vintage scrabble board by leaving your I.D. with one of the baristas.

When Common Good Books relocated to Snelling and Grand in April, Nina’s handed out survey sheets to customers, harvesting input about the new bookstore that would be opening downstairs. Now, almost three months later, that new bookstore— christened SubText— is all set up and already has two in-store poetry readings under its belt.

Five Minnesota Poets read at the inaugural event on Wednesday, June 13th. An eclectic mix, Carol Connolly (Poet Laureate of St. Paul), Shannon Gibney, Ed Bok Lee (recent Minnesota Book Award Winner), Jim Moore and Juliette Patterson represented the vast array of poetry styles and voices rising the Twin Cities today. Wine and snacks were served from a large red-tufted bar while neighborhood folks and other literary enthusiasts seated themselves on chairs and couches scattered amongst cardboard boxes and half-filled bookshelves. After all poems had been read, Juliette Patterson concluded the event with a found poem made of fragments from every reader of the night scribbled charmingly on a blue napkin.

On Wednesday June 20^th, I wandered into the fully-assembled SubText and stumbled upon an event with poet Todd Boss reading from his book Pitch. A new poet to me, Todd Boss surprised me with his quiet but out-of-the-ordinary style. Musical, effortless and precise, his poetry struck me as almost a little old-fashioned. Boss grew up on a farm, and a good portion of his poetry centers around that part of his life. Touching on a range of subjects and styles with ease, Boss has written a series of 35 short poems (35 words each) about the 2007 35W bridge collapse, some of which are featured in Pitch. The entire collection will appear periodically in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

According to Sue Zumberge, owner of SubText, the bookstore will be hosting a literary event every Wednesday night, though I have yet to find a comprehensive schedule. Word on the street is a grand opening celebration will take place sometime in September.

Bao Phi (left) and Ed Bok Lee (right) read several poems about the Asian-American experience on Wednesday night. Photo by Andi Hubbell for The Writers' Bloc.

By Andi Hubbell

Staff Writer

When Vietnamese-American poet Bao Phi first approached the podium at the Asian Pacific Islander American Poetry event last night in Van Munching, he gave no indication of the fiery, spirited performance he was about to deliver.

Sporting a Knicks cap, jeans and a casual, congenial attitude to match, the poet instead seemed calm and down-to-earth.

He explained to about 50 audience members in the lecture hall that he and Ed Bok Lee, the event’s other featured poet, would perform alternating sets. Phi then said he was going to recite one of his older works, a poem titled “You Bring Out the Vietnamese in Me.”

Phi then instantly transformed from a confident, collected speaker to an impassioned artist as he described a contradictory convergence of American, Asian and Asian-American culture.

“You bring out the refugee in me,” he said, an edge of anger ringing out in his voice.

When he concluded the poem, Phi explained that there is often a misconception that Asian-Americans don’t have anything to be angry about. He attributed this to the model minority myth, which stereotypes all Asians as successful and intelligent.

“Maybe people just don’t pay attention to us when we’re angry,” he said.

Phi and Lee’s poems revealed the hardships of the Asian-American experience, illustrated tensions between Asian cultures and mainstream American culture and depicted Asian-Americans’ struggles as a constructed racial “other” in the United States.

Though many of their works expressed negative sentiments, the poets also demonstrated a resolve to embrace diversity and celebrate Asian-Americans’ identities.

After performing “You Bring Out the Vietnamese in Me,” Phi recited a poem he wrote in response to Senator John McCain’s use of the word “gook” in 2000.

“Dear Senator McCain,” he said. “I am a gook, a jungle spook.”

Phi went on to satirically depict various stereotypes attached to Asians, first describing himself as a barbarian with “my slit eyes fixed on white women” and then portraying the generalization that Asian-Americans are over-achievers. He repeatedly referred to himself as a gook, later introducing other racial slurs.

“Senator, what is the difference between an Asian and a gook to you?” he said at the end of the poem.

Lee, a Korean-American poet, expressed similar instances of intolerance toward Asian-Americans when he performed his first set. He recited a poem from his first book “Real Karaoke People,” which discussed the physical harassment he encountered as a child and teenager.

“Those were the days of stones, hand-packed clay,” he said.

Lee described the disillusion he faced as an Asian-American. He found solace in “another lost, brother-less Asian man” named Andrew.

“Between throwing and flying not everyone comes back,” he said. “I did.”

Lee also recited the title poem of his second book, “Whorled.” Prior to performing the poem, he said every two weeks the last living speaker of a world language dies. The poem, which is addressed to a speaker in a future age, laments the possibility of a future in which only one language has survived.

“I am sure on the other side of the world there is a language I haven’t heard,” he said. “It is beautiful.”

After Phi and Lee each performed an additional set, the poets took part in a question and answer session where they continued to stress the importance of diversity.

“Coming from marginalized communities … our stories sometimes aren’t heard,” Phi said.

Phi emphasized that expanding Asian-American studies is a crucial part of ensuring that the Asian-American experience is understood.

Reblogged from The Clarence White Blog:

The auditorium was filled mainly with very eager-looking middle-aged white people, none of whom we recognized.  We heard from many talented writers, some familiar and many who I had never heard of.  The first up to bat, Ed Bok Lee blew us away once again with the gristly expansiveness, mournful virility and flawless cadence of the title poem from his book Whorled. My vote goes to Ed Bok Lee for the poetry category.

An hour and a half into the event, our meter was about to run out so we snuck out between readers to plink in more quarters and stroll up and down the stone arch bridge. But there is one more author that deserves mention in this post.

Kevin Fenton, advertising writer, creative director and author of Merit Badges apologized for his stammer before beginning with a passage from his novel.  I’ve tried hard to remember the line correctly, and I’ll probably get it wrong, but it went something like, “Niceness is a characteristic of unremarkable people congratulating themselves for staying out of trouble.” A muffled midwestern chuckle passed through the audience, but one woman in the second row let out a deep belly laugh that, spelled out, can only be captured sufficiently with a capital H-A-W. “ha HAW HAW HAW HAW” she crowed, heartily slapping her thigh and looking over her shoulder for approval from the other spectators.

By that point, the diffused communal chuckle had long since died out.  The woman steadied herself and folded her hands in her lap.

It’s moments like these that keep me coming back for more. Thank you, laughing woman. Thank you, Kevin Fenton. I’ll be picking up a copy of Merit Badges as soon as I get my next paycheck.

-by kasey

Fluid borders define Lee’s peripatetic existence: he was raised in Korea, North Dakota, and Minnesota. He’s studied in the U.S., and also in Korea, Kazakhstan, and Russia. All those destinations (and more) appear in Whorled, as if Lee is somehow solidifying those experiences, establishing a permanence on the page that perhaps might not last longer than an elusive memory.

Personal standouts in the collection explore relationships with Lee’s family, especially with his late father. His prose poem, “Mourning in Altaic,” weaves various histories – country, cultural, family (including ancestors who date back almost 1700 years) – in an attempt to understand his dying father in the last month before his passing. Lee’s through a brave new Seoul in “Chosun 5.0″ seems to be almost a companion piece to “Mourning” as Lee returns to a Korea his father will never experience: “What is culture or history anymore, in an age when every year brings that / which is twice as fast & ten times as cheap?”

Closer to Lee’s current St. Paul, Minnesota address (where he teaches part-time) is his shocking long piece, both elegiac and angry: “If in America / Hmong Hunter Charged With 6 Murders /Is Said to Be a Shaman—NEW YORK TIMES” lends voice to a man pushed to violence by both his past and threatening present; Lee’s purposeful, repeated use of ‘if’ demands we question our own possible reactions in such tense, threatening situations.

Like his 2005 debut Real Karaoke People, Lee again provides searing ‘oh-my-gawd’-moments that will rip through your soul. And no, you don’t need to go to Korea to participate and you never need to leave the ground … you just need to open to the first page to get caught up in Whorled.

Readers: Adult

Published: 2011

from Real Karaoke People: poems and prose by Ed Bok Lee

I know men who survive
by their women’s hair; its scent
a force field each winter dawn
shuffling steps at the bustop

In spring, smiles resurface, hands
hungry to unjam storm windows,
re-thread bolts and grease bicycle chains;
clanks under engine blocks
that drive wasps crazy; a dancing
ankle turned on a wine bottle in the grass

Summer evenings around a picnic
table metropolis’d with food and condiments
the man’s fingers sweep the moon
from his wife’s black mane, humming
of lovers in an oarless boat on the East Sea…
while breezes blanket our exhaustion
from an afternoon full of trees

But my favorite season is autumn,
when my father’s evening tea changes color
for all the leaves fallen into the river,
and my mother rests on the sofa
after work and asks
me to remove any silver
from her hair
like sewing in reverse

Lisa Brimmer Ed Bok Lee and Guante

Kyle “Guante” Kyle “Guante” Tran Myhre is a hip hop artist, spoken-word poet, activist, writer and educator based in Minneapolis, MN. He’s been grand poetry slam champion of Minneapolis, St. Paul and Madison, and is a two-time National Poetry Slam champion (2009 and 2010, St. Paul team).

ED BOK LEE is the author of Real Karaoke People, winner of a PEN Open Book Award. He was raised in South Korea, North Dakota and Minnesota, studied literatures and languages in the U.S., South Korea, Kazakhstan and Russia, and holds an MFA from Brown University. Other awards include an Asian American Literary Award (Members’ Choice), a Many Voices Prize, an Urban Griots Best Book Award, and grants from such foundations as the McKnight, Minnesota State Arts Board, Jerome and National Endowment for the Arts. A former bartender, phys ed instructor, custodian, journalist and translator in over a dozen U.S. states and abroad, Lee has shared his poems across the U.S., Europe and Asia, as well as on public radio and TV, including MTV.

His second book of poems will be published by Coffee House Press in Fall 2011.

FACEBOOK INVITATION

Lisa Brimmer is a writer living in Minneapolis. A poet, she has attended the Juniper Institute at U Mass Amherst, in 2009 she was a fellow through the Givens Foundation for African American Literature and in 2010 she received a Many Voices Fellowship from the Playwrights’ center. She works in collaboration with local avant-garde jazz quartet Lulu’s Playground and has performed her poetry in venues across the Twin Cities. Brimmer is also contributing editor for Jassed.com an online jazz magazine. Her poetry has appeared in Konch Magazine and the Summit Avenue. Follow her on twitter @2speakease.

THANKS!!

–@2speakease

In Softblow, eds. Cyril Wong, Eric Low, Gwee Li Sui, Jason Wee and Christopher Ujine Ong:
*Marc Carver – “Chaka”, “Equipe”, “Her” and “Lucky”
Carol Chan – “Cosmos”, “Learning to Leave”, “Miles” and “9.12 A.M.”
Leon Yuchin Lau – “Morning Dances”, “Old Song” and “Smoke”
*Ed Bok Lee – “At ‘Last Boshintang Restaurant’ in Seoul “, “Conversation W/Ozu in Hospital “, “K-Town” and “Several Mountains”

Other magazines/journals

Ian Chung – “Boundaries” in Asia Writes; “Days At The Circus”, “Nights After Eden”, “Stonehenge”, “Tableaux” and “The Unwritten” in Milk Sugar 1
Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé – “: craquelure at the interiors :” and “first falling, to get here, ferric by foot” in Lantern Review 1

Review: “New and Notable Books,” AsianWeek, November 3, 2005

Readers: Adult

Published: 2005