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printable pdf pamphlet of Larissa Pham's Ally Toolkit google document created 7/08/2016. She writes, it is intended as a compilation of ways for allies to...

printable pdf of Larissa Pham’s Ally Toolkit. download, print double-sided, fold, staple, disseminate.

#social justice #anti-racism

Bacterial mother

laboring in the glass of

a garden orb

a vine ropes my ankle

stuck

what is it to really wear

an ill-fitting symbol

like I made that look

a weave is as tight as it is open

as many holes as not

a pattern of my person

distracting body

and the five Is of invisibility

a freak green world grows

a stubborn pink world grows

a popped blue and hot

orange world grows

in a mythic pixel

but there is "no current arrangement

for a better world"

5 roses holding hands

get grandfathered into essence

all the qualities I just couldn't make work

lopsided with zit a thorn

swaddled disappeared parts

could you wear it

would you wear it

and would it fit you

roots sticking out

is common evidence of

outgrowning the pot

a moment may be

made only

of what surrounds it

here some walls you

in a turtleneck threshold

there is a flashing piling squishing

power plant imploding just

close enough to hurt

and if it hurts one

it hurts us all

crimson polka dots

softly bob off the table cloth

we laugh in faux fur

my diva cup

hiccups into place

the beet is here

bright and quiet

a horse with wings

a draped pallor

tea with my girl in another world

tiny rice head band of

seed and kernel Persephone

the palette is called

goddesses gone wild

we can make anything

out of cardboard

look a life

a knot

I go to the bin and pull

elected head of the

eroticism ass foundation

I spilled my heart

in the shoe commercial

thing on face looks like a structure

but you can't live there

you have to squat in all the

peace you've refused yourself

when I comply with the workweek

fundamental woodpecker issues

do you even have time to read

have time for ritual

a bundle of feeling

more human

Ana said a man would never

use a heart in his art not in a serious way

soft pulp of incoherence

Hume Boy said

I could be empowered

to talk about sports

her pattern has a machine

and it might break the nation

gates of hell cast in goo

I need one for my home birth

performing a new flag

put it on put it on a bush

love nature but need another way

to love if sit down sit in

at the foot of a feather

is the only way to write it

and I'm leftover with your tattoo

in the suburbs

I am a bag

bag

bag of persimmons

I bring you a bag

bag

bag of breath

it is useless

you are no tree

but the simplicity of that treeness

carves out

a safe space in a mind

what is the opposite of an idea

a practice

a mind roiling an under-log rainbow

the worminess of mind

could we assemble to

decompose the fuck out of

unfeeling

shape-taking malleable fibrous exile

does the wad of petals have a venue a center a fever

the word beginning with

the world beginning with

not posture not population not power not like that

not progress not public not private not potential

not property not politics not privilege not people

to make the sound /p/

your lips come to together

and a puff of air comes out of your mouth

put your lips together

and let a puff of air

come out of your mouth /p/

use your hand to feel

the puff of air that

comes out of your mouth /p/

/p/

itchy white arm

in the kitchen

wearing is an accumulation

and an attrition

I feel the release when

I hear

the clang the prod my sweater

of a word being asserted alongside another

what does it feel like to be seen

over and over unuttered

to struggle

in the sculpture garden together

we are a kind

a kind of invasion

spirit of eternal repose

it's time to stop

martyring on

nobody knows this little

nose is a nose is

a forced adornment

don't have to feel like I feel

cast in a tangle

great so short and crisp

I bite into it an apple

sustained infinity swipe

of predictive text

language wad

our greatest accomplishment

my awesome and talented friend BIZ MILLER made this apron of a slide of an animated gif I made of some of her knitting patterns. I wore it as I read poems with the gifs for Poor Claudia’s event at the Portland Lit Crawl earlier this month. Of of of. gifs to follow!

Biz, along with her friend Suzanne, makes an amazing calendar each year. photos used to make one of the gifs were from a previous year’s calendar photo shoot. get the 2016 calendar here: http://bizandsuzannecalendar.blogspot.com/ + more gifs!

portlandpoetry-blog

theacebook

Keyon Gaskin: A Dancer, A Performance Artist Speaks

Keyon Gaskin is a Portland, OR based dancer and performance artist from the Midwest: Arkansas, St. Louis and Chicago.

Seeing Keyon perform, it’s not a thing, his latest work one night at Yale Union I had some questions about him as a person, as a dancer and as one of the only black avant guard performers in Portland, OR.

So we sat down on a windy Wednesday to talk about the most pressing things on his mind as an artist: it’s not a thing, Identity Politics and Black Lives.

Kalimah

How did you feel when you were performing your piece?

Keyon

I felt sadness. I always feel sadness when doing it too. I feel super amped and charged up at other times. The piece, it’s not a thing, is about doing things that I have contention about doing as well as the color black period. It’s dealing with blackness in these different ways…the color, in relation to people, abstractly, maybe absence, void, nothingness, death, witchcraft and space. So I’m dealing with its connotations and implications in society in relation to people: historically, culturally, socially and the international perceptions of black people.

One of the contentions is being really wary about presenting my body in this context to mostly white audiences and them framing my experiences. And we see it too in popular culture in how the black body is sourced, how black culture is sourced. It’s this thing of like how much do you get to frame your experience for yourself.

What I’ve seen is, it gets framed as this Black Lives Matter piece when that’s not what I’m doing. And I actually find that even kind of just as offensive in another way…like oh, so anything you see of difficult things I’m dealing with it’s about police brutality. You know? And this idea that, yes, I get that this is the current conversation, but this is not a new conversation.

It’s only new to people who haven’t realized for whatever insane reason, or because now we have video cameras that police have been this brutal to black people since forever. My worry is that folks just stop at seeing me as a black body. You just stop at this like, oh my god your life must be so whatever because…

Kalimah

And then it becomes edgy.

Keyon

Yeah, right. It becomes this other thing…

I’m also very interested in doing things that get people to not just sympathize but find themselves inside of as well. When you just other and say you don’t have access to that experience, it’s that thing of just sympathy and not empathy. Of just like…oh, it must be so hard for you? But no, let’s talk about how it’s hard for you too, and just pain in general. Let’s talk about what this symbol means. Are you finding yourselves in this or are you yet again othering?

Kalimah

It’s interesting because as a black person, how can you not talk about it (police brutality)? Especially as an artist but as you said, at the same time it’s not always about that.

Keyon

And it’s not just that. You know what I mean? Because in a sense we can’t parse ourselves out, especially with art, it shows up in some way.

But what I liked about doing the piece was really having people more in the room than trying to watch me, moving people around and getting away from people. It was a lot of fun dancing really close and having people move around the room.

Kalimah

Yeah. It was totally like forget y’all.

Keyon

Haha. Right?! I wanted to engage and hold space emotionally while also being rigorous around concepts. A lot of what happens is emotionality gets really kind of demonized in a lot of ways in contemporary conceptual art. Not just in art making, but the kind of demonizing of emotionality that we see in professionalism.

I’m a very emotional person. Emotional intelligence is a very valid way of engaging and I think a lot of this world could use more of it. But it’s also nice to talk to people and hear how people engage the work and that feels supportive. It feels like, yeah, this should have happened.

Keyon performing i_t’s not a thing_ at Yale Union in Portland, OR

Kalimah

What is it like being an artist in Portland?

Keyon

I’ve had a lot of opportunities to explore work that I’m actually interested in and opportunities to tour and travel internationally with companies; specifically from a project at TBA called Turbulence. Through that show and those people I’ve had a lot of other opportunities.

I think a lot of it has to do with being one of the only black folks involved in contemporary, experimental, abstract, Avante Guard whatever the f**k sort of work we’re performing.

I’m not talking affirmative action sort of shit. I bust my ass. I love working with people. I love investigating and I’m very curious. Because of all of those things, and my drive to be involved, I’ve had a lot of opportunities.

For a while I was very much not intentionally dealing with race and blackness directly at all, because there’s a lot of things that interest me as a person that aren’t just about being black. We all have things that interest us, and there are so many ways of engaging.

I also did not want to frame myself as just The Black artist. However, being a black person in this world is very much apart of my experience. It’s not something that I’m interested in parsing out or something that I can. But there is this thing now, Identity Politics, and it’s all the rage.

Kalimah

What is Identity Politics?

Keyon

As far as I can tell, when you’re working in something (like art) and dealing directly with your identity and how you navigate the world, that’s your identity politics. In my opinion, nothing that anyone makes is separate from how they navigate this world. Of course genres exist but that’s one way that assists in further othering bodies: black folks, folks of color, women and any othered none white male and it’s highly dismissive.

I think a lot about the neutrality of maleness and whiteness and the neutrality of white maleness. For instance, someone that is part of the dominant power structure or dominant culture explores can be broader and more encompassing of concepts but something that another person explores is directly tied to their identity? How is yours not tied to your identity? It is!

I think it has a lot to do with who gets to decide what work is identity politics work. Are these artists saying that their work is identity politics work and if they are, is that because this is the category they’ve been told it is or that they’ve given themselves?

If we’re talking about academia assigning these things, how are people making these alliances or categorizations, and who gets to make those? These are all apart of this conversation that is not getting had to me.

Kalimah

How do you feel like you’re moving in the world right now?

Keyon

I feel like I am consistently sliding through, doing a get in where you fit in periphery sort of thing. I have had to squeeze myself in without necessarily going through the front door, and the right channels. I think about terrible credit, people not seeing your opinion as wholly valid or valuable, but also thinking about how can I get around that and still do what I want to do. I think about that even within movement. In leaving theater, I began to think how maybe that wasn’t the way that I could really have an impact the way that I wanted to or be saying the things that I wanted to say. So, I went to find a way: ‘wait there’s this dance thing. No wait there’s this weird dance thing…’

Kalimah

It sounds like curiosity.

Keyon

Yes, and very much investigation. I am also interested in moving through periphery and cracks and trying to wiggle my way in and not wholly disturb, but kind of disrupt things. But I think the way things are happening now, it’s getting to a level of doing things more forthright.

Kalimah

Do you feel like, at a certain point it gets tiring trying to wiggle your way through?

Keyon

I think it totally does but I don’t think being here is about it being easy and I’m not saying coming through the front door is easy either. But it’s more satisfying to come at it from the side, and be like Aaaah; rather than, Here I am! You should expect me to be everything. I think coming through the front door is involved in a lot of cultural capital: political, social and economic power. I think about art stars. There’s a lot of weird, f**ked up shit that goes along with that, and that I navigate in some ways but not on those levels.

I’d rather be the underdog. There’s something about being the one whose opinion some don’t immediately respect but have to respect later on. But this is also how I’ve had to navigate the world.

*Photo by Intisar Abioto

theblackportlanders

I’m happy to share Kalimah Abioto of the Ace Book’s interview with Keyon Gaskin. The photograph above is an image I shot of him in poet Samiya Bashir’s piece “Laws of The Black Body” at Portland’s Poetry Press Week.

juliansmuggles-deactivated20161

Why I walked out during Sampson Starkweather

I think there has been an on going problem taking root in Portland that I can no longer tolerate. Whiteness, “Colorblindness”, and racism in the poetry scene.

First I have been going to poetry readings in Portland for over five years, and there have been way more offensive and blatantly racist readers during this time period where I have sat by and later shit talked. I am tired of hiding in the shadows of readings silenced by the whiteness of the community I find myself in.

I have continually been one of a handful of people of color at Portland poetry readings. There has been no effort made to make the space inclusive or comfortable for me or POC ever. In fact most of the time I feel uncomfortable at readings and internalized these feelings as anxiety. It is not my anxiety. It is the whiteness of the space making me uncomfortable.

During Starkweather’s reading, he was referencing people who “wear fur coats and gold chains.” Everyone in the audience laughed. Who is he talking about when he makes these comments? Who is he exactly talking about? He is referencing people of color, and why is this funny. I wear gold chains. I am a person of color. I don’t think I am a fucking joke. I am not a punch line in some white dude’s poem.

I don’t know who Starkweather is and am sure many people will come to his defense. I don’t give a fuck, make excuses. I felt uncomfortable by his poetry and the way Starkweather makes references that signify people of color. He is not explicitly saying POC or paying tribute/homage, but rather appropriating, stereotyping, and making fun of people he has no understanding of. Starkweather is no different from any other reading I have been at, I had just reached my limit. The fact that I feel the need to defend my actions or sentiments says a lot to the state of things. I am tired of white men making fun of me. I am tired of white men on the microphone. I am no longer going to sit by and let some white man’s poems make me feel shitty about myself, make me feel like a joke, make me feel unwelcome in the community I have spent countless hours supporting.

If you do not have people of color at your reading you are part of the problem. If you don’t have woman at your reading you are part of the problem. If you don’t make these people feel safe at your reading you are part of the problem.

I am going to start calling everyone out every time. I thought the longer I was a part of the community and the more people I knew, the more people would stand up to the racism/injustice in the poetry community but it is obviously not the case. You, as a community, have driven me to this point. Sitting idly by and letting this happen. What are you going to do about it? How are you going to change things? Do you even really care?

laruoff

J smuggs!!

theparisreview

Long Story Short: In the Studio with Aidan Koch.

laruoff

love this

poetrypressweek

Poet Spotlight: Stacey Tran

We like to ask the current season’s poets about the conversation between their work and the process of creating a runway show. Here’s what Stacey has to say:

How are different elements of your work (subjects or forms) showing up in your stage concepts?

Prompting. Parsing. Assembling. Breathing. Generating. Weaving. Layering.

Jeanne Claude & Christo’s “Wrapped Trees” in Riehen, Switzerland are these huge time-based and temporary filters of light. Cy Twombly’s immense gestural strokes the size of a room evoke the sense of looping, repetition, collage. Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit is a metronome. Hans Haacke’s “Blue Sail” at the Venice Biennale is a reminder that the conjugation of simplicity and complexity is a necessary balance. Kengo Kuma’s tea house architecture and Grimshaw Architects’ Cutty Sark Enclosure are examples of human-made environments for preservation and ceremony. Troels Sandegård’s “Bodies and Bodies” translates as a lung, an inhalation of breath.

Keep reading

laruoff

Seams! Excited to be working on this [thing] w Stacey