On the Meaning of Community & the Community I Want
Posted some of these post-Kundiman thoughts to Facebook & Twitter, but I’d like to have them all in one place, & also add to them, here.
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Reality is kinda a letdown after the impeccably-dressed queer folk of color radical generosity of #kundiman16. But maybe I've just been deeply reminded that there are other realities I want. Dimensions of loving & sorrowing, holy realms of karaoke & eggplant cooked the right way. Worlds in which language, our ways of singing & making, matter.
Why the fuck is "reality" so often a white straight cis male world? I'm so bored of that shit. I want more spaces made by & for South Asian, West Asian, Southeast Asian, Black Asian, Pacific Islander, East Asian, Mixed Asian, Queer Asian, all Asian & Asian American voices. I want to be lifted up by *our* realities.
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Chosen family is so important. Lifesaving.
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Also realizing how much community making & sustaining are/should be inseparable from my writing practices. I used to doubt that word “community.” Loved my solitude. I still do. I mean. I'm an introvert & I'm certainly ambitious about my writing (both the making of it & the sharing of it). But I know now: poetry without community is misery. Unsustainable. Dulled & not so delicious anymore. It just depends, what kind of community do I want.
Some forms of “community” are not rooted in generosity & listening. Listening, before speaking—that is the root, I understand this now. I need to keep understanding this. Traditional workshops glorify individual talent. I think we can celebrate individuality without buying into the lone genius myth.
A strong community embraces difference, over & over. A strong community practices this embrace, is accountable for this embrace. Responsibility means: how radically & warmly we offer this embrace: ourselves to ourselves, ourselves to others, others to others: only then can a circle form.
Everyone gets to speak. Everyone has to listen. You might get up and stretch. Or sit on the floor for a while. Or hug a nearby balloon. But your body is turned toward the one speaking. & your whole life is that moment of that person speaking in that, their way. Your life is whole because everyone gets to speak, everyone has to listen.
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Maybe the Speaker in a poem is actually more a Listener. The lines are listening to each other. Working on a poem is like that: attuning and re-attuning to sounds.
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I'm reminded of how much I love collaborations, movement exercises, weird prompts. Anything that reminds me I do not live in my head. I live when I learn the names of trees & the names of those who name the trees. I live when I am responsible: for listening & speaking. I live when I am turned towards the trees, the names, the faces. I live in the handfuls of air passed back & forth between bodies that turn towards & into.
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A poem is alive when it listens & its body is turned completely toward the thing listened to.
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A large part of why I haven't planned many solo book readings for next year yet is that I'm getting bored with myself. I'd rather do more joint readings. I’m more excited to read when I also get to listen.
I should also just informally get together with fellow Asian American writers more regularly. I need this.
Together, a new presence forms, & a new space for our together-presence. A bland “multipurpose room” in a school building none of us has ever sat in before—becomes a livable world made by & for us.
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There is probably more than one right way to cook eggplant. But there are too many wrong ways.
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Ultimately, always:
Writing community > Writing career.
Poetry community > Pobiz.