feti(sh)ame FEEDBACK

If you're reading this, you probably attended the event tonight (feels strange creating this entry hours BEFORE the event yet speaking in the present perfect and past tenses:).

Please go here and complete a BRIEF survey. This will REALLY help me and other emerging artists in SF. I'm serious.

Thanks for your support. It makes me better.

And do check in with me here, at Red Room or kevinsimmonds.com, which will, if I get some grant money, not be so modest.

<3<3<3<3

k~

Tonight

Tonight's the big night. I've been so busy I didn't have a moment to say how wonderful UNLEASH at the Sangati Center was. All those voices. Cave Canem and South Asian poets. All the browns and sweet cadences. The shared chakra. My girl Samantha Thornhill.

I read a few of the feti(sh)ame poems. There were nods and laughter and vocalizations. It all meant something.

I'm excited about tonight. I will sail ashore in my body, all my body.

Not in the Chapbook

I've been compiling a chapbook for this project and it's tough because I have the makings of a book, not a chapbook.

Here are excerpts of poems I had to leave out (but will read this Thursday):

Thick-dicked twink,
twenty-seven inch waist,
prefers stubble,
muscles on motorcycles,
legs spread by revving machine,
buttocks high and upsetting...

(from Verse)

***

I was asking for it:
Daisy Dukes with boots.

White men think all Asians are bottoms.
I see where they get that:

FOBs seem effeminate because Americans
have this hypermasculinity.

(from Jesus Christ Non Sequitur)

***

The fantasy white man
whispers nigger
as he slams into me
or wagers it against his dignity
as I slam into him.

(untitled)

***

We are woodwinds,
our music of erotic conclusions

not every two bodies
will create children

Without string, key or hammer,
just openings for breath

(untitled)

***

I'd call the phone booth on 21st Ave.
by my dorm and if the stranger’s voice
sounded good,
I'd tell him what I wanted to do.
There were many bible-belt hang-ups
and faggot!
till one day a warm black skillet baritone,
Ok, come over.

(untitled)

Sangati Center

I'm reading some feti(sh)ame poems at the Sangati Center Tuesday, July 14 at 7 pm. Think I'll try some of the "funnier" pieces to see if they're actually funny. I'll be joined by other Cave Canem folks like Samantha Thornhill and some South Asian writers organized by Neela Banerjee

Healthy people shouldn't talk about shame

A few days ago, I sent a follow-up question to an interviewee and he responded, "Healthy people shouldn't talk about shame." I considered this rather odd since he'd already spoken variously about the ugliness his shame created when he finally came out.

I'm still mulling over his pat statment but, for now, here's an excerpt of my response--harmonized with a story from another interview:

Healthy people shouldn’t talk about shame

Did theirs loosen and pull away
like baby teeth?
Can they run tongues across
where hollowed sockets have grown over,
now smooth with flesh?

Or if they open wide enough,
cutting through insistent and sharp,
are the terrible tearing crushing teeth
that bite down
as any must?

I.

At the coffeehouse,
Jason and I sat drinking and joking around.
Mama shot me an ugly look
from the next table.

What?

We’ll talk about it when we get home.

Spanish, always the rope between us,
tightened,
tugged against my 12 year-old body,
cut into my hands.

II.

Why were you looking at him
that way?

What way?

Like you should be looking
at a girl.

III.

Tell me now
if I’m going to have a son
or not.

Disappearing

Foremost in my mind right now is how telling interviewees the topic before the interview can ruin the journey. I intend these interviews to be journeys. When I simply picked up the phone, called unsuspecting friends and said, "Hey, can I talk to you about something," we went on a journey. They didn't have time to think about how to answer, what to say, or how far to go. No time to finesse. With one exception--a poet--everyone has agreed to participate in this project. No one's balked.

Every "artist" type has given me stylized versions of their stories--except one generous guy who shared still-jagged stories about his father and sexual practices that emanate from those childhood memories; he also taught be about chainmail. Today, I interviewed a poet. His stories were compelling but I felt he was holding back a lot, delivering his stories a little too pat, formed, precise. Perhaps it's because he's a poet and has had years to find and hone the right language and cadences to sound so assured. What kinds of poems can I write given such assurances? What inspires me is uncertainty. 

A qualitative research class I took in graduate school serves me some in all this. I learned strategies to, more or less, remove or diminish the researcher's presence in the field. While I don't want to do that with this project completely because I NEED to be in conversation with these men, the less space I take, the more their stories fill the frame.

Queer Open Mic at Modern Times

Tonight, for the first time in many years, I read at an open mic. The queer open mic at Modern Times bookstore was laid back and cordial. I went first with "Salvation," inspired by a tender man whose leather play and light S&M flow from the various distances between he and his state trooper father. The cheerfully distracting Trans March passed outside as I read but, according to someone in the audience, the poem still made an impact.

The featured poet was the award-winning Lucky 7, a slam poet based in the East bay and the captain of the Berkeley Poetry Slam team.

Baruch Porras-Hernandez (who would later read a poem that opened the floor) asked me to read a second time (considering the distraction earlier). I read my newest work from feti(sh)ame, "Question for Dolly Parton" (working title), a meditation on the gay men I admired growing up.

I'm looking forward to connecting more with these folks.