poet – Page 2 – Clara Hsu

A Dreaded Activity

Paying bills maybe the number one dreaded activity. The second is house cleaning. Although many lost things are found this way, the pleasure of having a cleaned space is short-lived.

Growing up in Hong Kong our maid cleaned the house every day. Dusting, mopping, wiping, washing clothes by hands, waxing the floor (that’s about once a month), etc. These activities required a healthy and strong body—or that her body was made strong and healthy because of the activities.

Writing does not make a body strong. When it is required to bend and scrub and lift and put away I feel the strain. And with all the modern appliances they have not made cleaning more enjoyable. The only pleasure—and this be the only one— is knowing that I’ve done my best to keep visiting friends from having an allergy attack.

Collect a Poet

To collect a poet, go to art openings. Stand among the artists and sooner or later a poet emerges. You’ll know them when they recite lines from their favorite poets and talk about readings that they have been to, even if that happened ten years ago.

Or go shopping in the Haight. There are poets everywhere. Some are performing (it’s their day job). Some go to the Goodwill for bargains. They block traffic on the street when they run into each other, rave about salons and people they know and the laborFest and what-not.

Poets like to be collected. They like to jump into the net with other poets. After all they are lovers of words. Bring a few home. See if you like them.

Who Bought My Book?

Clarion carries copies of “Mystique”, my book of poems. I’m always curious when I notice a copy is missing from the shelf. First thought: someone stole it (which has happened before). But when it is clear that there was a transaction, I always want to know about the customer.

Lu, the owner, told me one day: “This guy walked in looking for instruments but ended up buying your book.”

I pressed him. “Tell me more.”

“He kept saying ‘beautiful, beautiful’ and asked me who was the poet.”

“What did you say to him?”

Lu laughed. “How should I know how to describe a poet? I told him she’s downstairs teaching piano.”

“Who was this man, then?” I imagined the man leafing through the pages of my book. Which poems did he read? Which ones did he like?

“He said he’s Italian… how should I describe an Italian?” He scratched his head, “eh, a funny guy.”

Poem Monster

It comes out of nowhere and grows big and bad and soon you run out of space on the page and it keeps spilling and morphing and shaping into something unrecognizable. That’s when you know you’ve created a poem monster. It wants to speak its own language and uses its unique hand writing and it likes to scribble. I have never given birth to one until today and it looks kind of cute in all its rawness. It doesn’t resemble me, at least I don’t think I resemble it but I might be wrong.

What’s IT talking about? At the moment that is not quite important. Sometimes we just like to look at things even if we don’t understand them. I think that’s OK. I have seen other people’s poem monsters and know that they belong to a tribe that doesn’t belong. Just not mainstream, you know, but they don’t hurt anyone, and always wait so patiently for someone to pick them up and give them a weigh on the hands.

Statistically speaking if you keep writing poems you are bound to create some poem monsters. That’s when you know you’ve stepped through a threshold into the unknown and it is WONDERful!

Into The Universe

At the Poetry Salon last night some of us read poems with Halloween theme. It was also Ezra Pound’s birthday. Al Averbach recited a short poem by Pound. Then Steve Mackin read John Keats, whose birthday was today. For poets, we look out into the universe to find these masters. They are our guiding lights. A visual poem came to me and this is what I “saw”:

* keats * * * *joyce * *

* * stein * * * * * basho **

* * * * * * duncan * * parker * *

crane ** * * * * li po* ****

*mcclure * *cummings * Apollinaire

* * * * browning * * *

* *** * * ** smart* *pound * * *

* ** *eliot* * * *** * *yeats ** *

* * * * * ** * *** ** * *

h a n d h o l d i n g h a n d

The Poet’s Potluck

poet picnic — Poets with Trees at Sutro Heights Park

Cooking, like putting carrots and lentils together with purple onions, juxtaposing colors and textures, infusing liquid and spices, gives me immense pleasure. Once a month I get a chance to impose my taste on my friends. Sometimes they have to suffer through failed experiments, but that’s the nature of alchemy.

The Sunday salon potluck is always a spontaneous affair. Regulars like Steve Mackin always brings a fine cake, Stephanie Manning comes with her trusty cheese and crackers, Dan Brady with dips and chips and Carlos Ramirez, fruits, and sometimes flowers. Food appears and disappears on the table. Poets are hearty eaters.

My stepmother came to one of the poet’s potlucks at the Sutro Heights Park in 2006. Being a traditional Chinese woman she wanted to make sure everyone was well fed and made a big tray of soy-sauce chicken legs. She watched with surprise delight as the tray was promptly emptied. She didn’t understand the poems, but she understood the smiles and thank yous and the handshakes she received that day.

The Ineffable Job

A poet’s job is to dream. To qualify, you must start by shedding earthly reality. Only in dreaming does a poet write. Even if one writes about the real world, it has to come from a place that is not.

Perhaps that is why taking drugs is favorable. A little mushroom lets the mind go free into other dimensions. Maybe drugs and alcohol are part of the job description.

To consciously dream without the aid of substance, to will oneself into a trance takes discipline. It’s not an act of clearing the mind, rather, letting the mind wander upon a neuron and allow it to take you where it wants to go. Many result in dead ends. But invariably there is a path unlike all the others. You’ll recognize it because it is energetic. The poet must chronicle the journey in that instance by whatever means. A poem is born.

When confronted by reality poets inevitably strike back, and sadly being mislabeled as lazy or weird or selfish. Eyes glazed, body slumps over books, walking in circles, mumbling, disengaged in social settings—the poet is at work. Do not disturb.

Where The Audience Is

Autosave-File vom d-lab2/3 der AgfaPhoto GmbH — Reading at the Beat Museum

I walked into the elevator with a group of new acquaintances after a class. As we briefly introduced ourselves to each other I told them I was a poet. “Really!” One lady exclaimed, “I didn’t know they exist.”

Even in San Francisco poets are an obscure breed. Unlike musicians who can generate an audience, there is a general lack of interest in listening to words. Few of my relatives have come to my readings. My sister went to one and would not go again. In cafes and restaurants poets read to their own kind. Once in a while we capture a few accidental listeners but we just can’t get people hooked.

Four years ago H.D.Moe and three other poets went to France and Italy to promote the Baby Beat Generation Anthology (published in France). Moe was heartened to find a real audience in the places he read. They came to hear the poets, not to read their own poems. He sold all his books before coming home. A musician friend once said we must go to where the audience is. I don’t think he meant France.

Photo by Steve Wilson.

Tithes For Poets

A friend once remarked that poetry reading is the best entertainment in town because it is free. I’m finding out that may only be the case in San Francisco. In the East Bay and Marin County, a collection is usually encouraged so that the featured poet will walk away with some gas money. When I went to New York last summer all readings there charged a cover.

When Marc Kockinos came to San Francisco he was shocked that poets receive no compensation when they feature at readings. The giving spirit is worthy of praise, but aren’t poets, like all artists, deserve some material recognition? Marc started a weekly reading at Om Shan Tea, a venue at 14th Street and Mission. At the beginning of each reading he kindly reminds people to contribute. “Give as you would like to be given.” The featured poet also receives complimentary tea and meal on the house.

Small gestures can have big impact. I think it does begin with ourselves. Even though we read for reading’s sake, the world has to remember poets pay rent and food just like everyone else.

Photo by Ella Seneres

The Poetic License

Poets and cafes are inseparable. We need the coffee, the table, a little occupied space amid the hustle and bustle to nurture the inspiration. Most of the time we are respectful, minding that the seat we sit on is temporary, and no matter how often we frequent the cafe and buy their coffee and call it our home, it is not. Sometimes, though, we forget. As with any family, poets bicker and quarrel and throw things at each other. When we forget that the cafe is not our living room we run into trouble.

Poets are passionate people with a mysterious mind. It is more of a surprise that we come together as often as we do and only a handful of explosive situations have occurred. This speaks well to the fact that we have basic understanding of our relationship with our environment. When things get out of hand, it is the larger community that suffers. Sometimes individual gets 86’d. Sometimes readings get shut down. But the saddest thing is losing friendship, the lifeline that we all need from each other. The fine prints on the poetic license do not include violence and abuse toward our fellow citizens. Let us use it wisely.