clarahsu – Page 12

Submit Submit

“How do you get published?” Someone asked.

“You submit.”

That’s the bottom line. It’s easy to say but it takes just as much discipline to send out a poem as to write one. (Much of the time, writing is easier than sending.) I have failed this particular new year resolution time and again; failed to submit even just once a month. What’s the problem? Submission is not poetry. It is work of the tedious kind: reading requirements, guidelines, following directions, licking stamps, etc. And when the rejection letters come in, they reaffirm my reason for not submitting.

Occasionally I get excited when the ad says contest winner gets to give a reading. I am a sucker for such privilege. It gets me going and dreaming a little. It’s good to dream.

Image taken from: pcmailingservices.com

Eye Contact

Looking at the audience while doing a poetry reading, I saw some of the people have closed their eyes. Were they listening or were they sleeping? It was hard to tell.

I like to make eye-contact when I read. It’s like having a dialogue, you know the audience is listening. But when their eyes are closed I am uncertain. Should I project my voice to wake them up, or should I speak gently so as not to disturb them?

Teaching a piano lesson after a tiring exercise class, I listened to my student’s playing with my eyes closed. When the music stopped, I was so fatigued that my eyes would not open. “It’s nice,” I managed to mumble something to cover my track, but my mind was blank.

“Thank you. That’s it.” I said after my reading. People clapped. Now their eyes were all opened.

Ba Jin and I

Beside the famous Green Apple Books on Clement Street is a tiny Chinese book shop. I walked in and immediately noticed the odor—familiar, even after over thirty years—Chinese books smell different from English books.

An old man sitting at the front desk was speaking Cantonese on the phone. Only one other customer was browsing. At the “Literature” section I asked for the work of Ba Jin. The old man came over and pointed them out to me. The other customer overheard us and laughed, “Wah, reading Ba Jin?” as if Ba Jin was someone unapproachable.

I walked out of the store with Family, first of Ba Jin’s Torrent triology. Down the street was a typical Chinese bakery. They were bringing sweet and savory pastries fresh out of the oven. I bought a scallion and shredded pork roll and a cup of coffee, then sat down to read.

Two guys came into the pastry shop. They sat behind me and started their conversation, yelling, as if they were hard of hearing. Their yakety-yak on food and gossip was juxtaposed with Ba Jin’s thoughtful and elegant prose. He was an author who lived through the Sino-Japanese War and the Cultural Revolution, until well into the 1980’s.

I left the pastry shop when two more men came in and joined the conversation. Ba Jin and I, well, we were outnumbered.

Voices in the Head

He hasn’t heard such beautiful music in years. Since his stroke, his hearing declined gradually, and now he is practically deaf. But the singing! There are solos, duets and choruses performing right at the back of his head. He’s been listening to them all day long.

“Don’t know who the composers are but these guys sing very well,” my father said to me. After he took a shower the music stopped, but resumed again as we sat down to dinner. He asked me to go to the internet and look up: old people hearing voices.

Sure enough there are articles about the phenomenon. They call it hallucination. There might be something wrong with his brain.

“That’s obvious,” said father. “At least the voices are not asking me to go murder somebody.”

“Don’t think you are capable even if they do,” I replied.

Critique and Criticism

Can one critique from the point of ignorance? “When the music (or art, or writing) moves you, it is good.” That is pretty much the basis of judgement. Knowledge changes the level of appreciation. We can criticize from the point of ignorance, but we cannot critique without knowledge.

Listening to a recording of myself reading for the first time was a startling experience. The voice was a monotone, expressionless and boring. My own criticism did not make me a better reader. Rather, it was through realizing the lack of rhythm and tonal variations in the voice that I began to make improvements.

A critic said about Philip Glass, that all his music sounds the same. Glass replied, “You have to listen. You have to pay attention.”

Duino Elegies

The lament of existence? Or the lament of not appreciating one’s existence? The confusion of relationships, society’s mandates, and one’s own conflicting feelings about what’s real and what’s not? On reading the ten Duino Elegies at Jannie Dresser’s salon we were drawn into the complexity of Rainer Maria Rilke’s mind.

Though we were constantly reminded of mortality, in the “short hour” we called “life”—perhaps not quite so much as an hour…the most visible joy can only reveal itself to us when we’ve transformed it, within. (Seventh Elegy.) The astonishment one encounters when being touched by a lover for the very first time—when you’ve once withstood the startled first encounter, the window-longning, and that first walk, just once, through the garden together: Lovers, are you the same? (Second Elegy); Rilke is asking us to take note of changes and change our lives.

There were audible sighs after the last word was read. The afternoon was made heavy.

Two Digestions

There’s something about eating. Besides being a pleasurable experience all of its own, it goes well with other activities, like reading and watching movies. Food seems to double the pleasure and encourages focus. Picking the right kind of food then, is important, so that it might sustain the activity but won’t cause too much bodily harm. Chips of any kind and popcorn are not recommended. If you find yourself digging into the bag more often than turning the pages of your book, it’s a bad sign. A bowl of grains or a big salad is preferred because they can be worked on at a much slower pace. My father used to chide me for eating and reading at the same time, said it was not good for digestion. I think that was a myth.

image from: xelgend.blogspot.com

Homage to Artaud

I fell into French as if I knew the language. I fell into it and at times thought I could replicate the sounds and understand Henri Pichette. He was reading his poem, homage to Artaud. He read the poem sitting down. There was no sub-title and it was not important. Pichette read with such intensity that there was no time to think but to let him take hold of me for the ride. He was a madman raving, gesticulating. He was haunted and spewed forth a whole range of human emotions: cynical, violent, remorseful.

I don’t know this poem, but I will never forget its performance.

(Click image to watch the reading.)

At the Supermarket

Grocery shopping is usually a rush job: grab what is necessary and run. It’s a routine, and we end up buying the same things and cooking the same food. Today I slowed down at the Asian supermarket. Walking down the aisles, taking in the endless variations of noodles, sauces, tofu products, baked goods, teas, meats and vegetables, etc. Why is it, with all this vast selection available, that we only go for the things we know? Maybe because of convenience. Maybe because of fear.

Curiosity made me pick up one package and read the ingredients in another, ultimately taking home things that we have never had before. New ingredients are new toys in the kitchen. I spent a couple of hours playing.

Wandering Nights

Into the world of dragons and monsters, knights and kings, nature and the super natural. These were boyhood dreams and realities. When Lawrence was little, my ex-husband brought home J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit—his favorite when he was a child—and gifted his son with his first fantasy novel.

Lawrence went on to explore that world in video games, a different medium with keyboard and fast thumbs. The fantasy characters have grown to include the Orient and aliens from space.

Only now have I crossed the ocean, from The Monkey King (my childhood’s favorite) to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The medium has also changed, from prose to poetry.