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.

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.

Castrati

It dawned on me that a poem I recently published has to do with a fetish. Castrati were around for centuries and, despite relative acceptance in public and, in many instances, downright exaltation, they were examples of fetishes gone too far. I'm making a judgment here because this was done to children. They had no say in something that would change their bodies forever.

Someone decided long, long ago, to suspend--in time--a boy's prepubescent voice so a man's throat could grow around it and create an otherworldly sound. I dedicate my poem to Alessandro Moreschi. You can hear him.

Breath

Someone I interviewed recently sent me this about David Carradine's death and the larger implications of shame and danger in acting out fetishes. I'm fascinated by the phrase "erotic breath play." It's voluntary strangulation.

In the wake of Carradine's death, another interviewee ("N") recalled how a guy mistook N's solid grip (around his shoulders near the neck) as N's attempt to strangle him slightly. N wasn't trying to do that at all but the guy asked him to "do it harder...and use both hands." I could make the transition cleaner here but how close is breath play to wanting to be called "nigger" while you're fucked or wanting to fist someone until there's blood on your knuckles?

Celibacy

Before yesterday's interview, I NEVER thought I'd run across anyone celibate. This youthful 20-something Asian, whom I prejudged to the hilt, has been through a lot. Being from an extremely rigid Christian family, when he came out, he came out hard--in all the unhealthy ways. There were drugs, excessive sex, drinking...we know the drill. Once, he awoke from a drunken stooper to discover he'd been raped by two guys he'd turned down earlier in a bar.

I have a lot of respect for this guy. Being celibate for anyone, especially in this society, is a major accomplishment. But to be celibate, conventionally attractive, gay, and in your 20's? That's serious shit.

Here's some of what he shared: "When I came out I went crazy with trying to find an identity...[sex] isn't something you should let overcome you...I masturbate all the time...white men think all Asians are bottoms...they see me on Facebook and think I'm just this dumb, easy person..."

We need these stories.

The last few days have been miraculous. Men from Maryland to San Francisco have talked to me on the phone and in person about their fetishes. We've all made discoveries. The song lyrics are coming along, too. I'm looking for a cute guitar player.