My Appearance on State of the Arts NJ

Last fall, Susan Wallner of the wonderful TV program State of the Arts New Jersey contacted me about possibly producing a short clip about my work and me. I am always a bit wary about such efforts, as I would always rather have my work do the speaking for me, but since there was a possibility that SOANJ would feature my students, teaching and Rutgers-Newark, I thought I'd go along with it. The filming occurred in early November, and again in late February, and I can say without hesitation that Susan and her crew were a pleasure to work with, from start to finish.

Many, many thanks to them and everyone at State of the Arts New Jersey who made this possible. Many thanks also to superb critic and writer Julian Lucas, and to Poet Laureate of the US, Princeton professor, poet extraordinaire, and my former Dark Room Collective compatriot Tracy K. Smith for their kind, insightful comments on my work and me. Also a very hearty thank you to my MFA students, who agreed to be filmed, and sparkled (as they always do) on camera, and to everyone at Rutgers-Newark who greenlighted the filming. 

I am so shy and self-conscious I could not initially bear to look at it (I needed but did not get a haircut before the February filming), but C told me it came out very well, and pointed out that Susan and her team had even threaded a Bob Cole tune through the video, a lovely touch, of course, and tribute to one of the artistic figures I explore in Counternarratives. The show aired last week, and though we've been DVRing the episodes and keeping an eye out for it, we also missed its debut airing! Here, for those who do not regularly watch State of the Arts New Jersey, is the short video. Enjoy!

Orlando Watt's Recital of "Words" Excerpt

Many years, shortly after I first discovered YouTube, which probably would have been not long before I began blogging here, I had the idea to begin posting short clips of myself reading poems by other poets that I loved. Then clarity struck and I realized that this would mean that I'd have to film myself reading the poems, and my naturally shyness, technical ignorance and concern for violating unknown copyright strictures got the better of me, and that idea remained just that. Of course countless other people decided to do something similar, as well as recording their own poems specifically for a YouTube viewership, so I would have hardly been alone in this project. Not long after Seismosis, my collaboration with poet and artist Christopher Stackhouse, appeared, someone named Kinomode created a lovely short video, inspired by the book, that I deeply enjoyed. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, inspiration drawn from a pre-existing work is one of the finest tributes. When the Black Poets Speak Out movement, organized by Ebony Stewart and Amanda Johnson, began, I originally planned to contribute a video, but shyness overtook me, and so my support was with them, but in the realms of concept and affect.

Fast forward to recently, when I received a request for a list of YouTube URLs to videos of me reading or discussing my work. There aren't many, but I dutifully compiled what existed, and sent them along. (There is or was one on Vimeo, I think, pairing Chris and me as we read from Seismosis; I still had dreadlocks then, and over the years I periodically have encountered younger poets who found the recitation in unison thrilling. That was directly inspired by one of my dazzlingly smart former Northwestern undergraduate students, Tai Little, who wrote a senior thesis novella that included a double-columned passage that she invited classmates to perform live; it was thrilling to hear, and in fact embodied the disorientation she was aiming to convey in her narrative.) At any rate, in my YouTube search I came across something I had never seen before, which was someone reciting one of my poems, and I have to say, I love it.

I do not know the performer, a young man named Orlando Watt. But he takes my poem "Words," which appeared earlier this year on the Academy of American Poets Poetry Daily website, and brings it to life in his own distinctive way. I have read the poem a number of times, very differently from, but it was a delight to see and hear his take, using a brief excerpt of the poem as a monologue, perhaps for an audition. His accent and the way he paces the words and shifts the emphases got me to think about what I had written and how the music in my head transferred to and was transformable on the page. Now that I am posting the link to the video here, I also will post a note of thank you below the video itself. And maybe, if I can find the time and now that cellphones are much easier to handle than the older digital video cameras, post a few videos of myself reading poems--by others!

Image Text Ithaca: Photos of Alex Haley's Memorial & Birth HomeThe

As I mentioned in my previous post, on one of my first afternoons in Ithaca, as a group of the faculty walked to Jason Livingston's car, parked on Cascadilla Street, to head out to the rural barn where the creative seminar took place, Jason pointed out to me one of the town's mostly hidden monuments: author and cultural icon and activist's Alex Haley's birth home, which features a memorial stone and garden right outside. I mentioned in the earlier post that Haley, co-author of The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965) and Roots: An American Family Saga (1976), was born in Ithaca during the period when his father, Dr. Simon Haley, a noted professor of agriculture at Alabama A&M, among other historically black institutions, was enrolled in a master's degree program in agriculture at Cornell University, one of the northern universities that admitted black students in small numbers before the wide-scale US college and university integration of the 1950-1975 period.

I visited the site several times and took a number of photos, thus the repetition in some of the shots. As I also mentioned in my earlier post, the tall stone detailing Alex Haley's life was almost completely obscured by plants, as was the little brick patio and bench; had Jason not pointed it out to me, it would have been easy to walk right past it. It wasn't clear to me whether the homeowner or the city was responsible for maintaining the site, but as things stand, neither was doing much at all even to clear away the branches. Had I more time, I would have rung the bell of the homeowner for a chat; perhaps on another visit.

The memorial stone

The house on Cascadilla Street

The Black Lives Matter
sign in the window

The stone up close

Branches obscuring the memorial stone

The stone up close

The overgrown mini-patio

The bench

Another view of the garden

The patio 

The bushes near the memorial 

The patio up close 

The bench

The stone from another view

The stone buttressed 

Another view

Yet another view

Cascadilla Street

Daisies near the bench

The daisies up close

The stone up close

The memorial stone

Cascadilla Street

Image Text Ithaca 2018: Photos II

Here are more photos from Image Text Ithaca. Enjoy!

A mural in downtown Ithaca

The rest of the mural

A box of clippings

The worktables during a break

Clippings for a collaborative book 

Work tables

One of the printers 

Different projects (including
some of the scores I brought)

Nina Strand (at right) in the midst
of one of her projects

Participants taking a break

Materials for use

Luke working on another project

One of the exhibits 

Jason and a student looking at the
 marvelous pop-up gallery

John at the pop-up gallery 

Outside the downstairs
darkroom

A downstairs photo studio

Looking toward the
outdoors

One of the downstairs galleries
based on rocks 

Tisa looking the photos 

Catherine and Stephanie
in the gallery 

Final presentations

Viewing the final projects 

Viewing the final projects

The Uranus planet marker, part
of the Sciencenter Sagan Planet Walk
(Carl Sagan, the astronomer,
taught for years in Cornell)

Image Text Ithaca 2018 (+ Photos)

The barn, a/k/a art-space

I recently returned from Image Text Ithaca (ITI), the superlative art-text program at Ithaca College organized by Catherine Taylor and Nick Muellner, that I attended in 2015, and which is now a thriving MFA program. I once again participated as a Fellow, and so was only on campus for the first half-week, before the seminars began. As was the case last time, I was in perpetual creative motion the whole time I was there (sleep not included), so I once again had no chance to post about the projects I got involved in, initiated by the students, faculty and fellows, and interns, but suffice it to say that I think I did more in that week than in the previous six, so it was a fruitful mini-sojourn, to put it mildly. This time I presented on only one project, a "handbook" of "unusual emotions" that had begun as a list poem, but which came to involve a lively cast of those present.

The chickens who were present
while we were there

The chickens often
came to greet us

In addition to Nicholas and Catherine, also present as Faculty or Fellows were Stephanie Barber, Nydia Blas, Tisa Bryant, Jason Livingston, Luke Stettner and Carmen Winant, and Nina Strand. Heading up for the seminars the following were are Melissa Cattanese & Ed Panar, Bruno Ceschel, Tonya Foster, Emma Kemp. Elana Schlanker, and Jo Ann Walters. Bruno and Tonya attended back in 2015, and Elana was the designer of what became GRIND, my collaborative project with Nicholas. The amazing students included (and I will inevitably leave someone's name off the list, so my apologies in advance) Justin Audet, Matt Baczewski, Andre Bradley, Mel Collazo, Edith Fikes, Hugo Gallo, Marcella Green, Jeewon Kim, Pablo Lerma, Carla Liesching, Jason Lipeles, Melani Lopez, Martha Ormiston, John O'Toole, Laura Pierson, Nicolina Schonfarber, Nina Perlman, John Rufo, Kirslyn Schell-Smith, Amy Schuessler, Janet Solval, Kesley Sucena, Grant Willing. This year's interns were Sophia Feuer, Eadan Halloran, Maxwell, Innis, Tyler Macri, and Shane Reynolds. My heartfelt thanks to all of them!

Cascadilla Creek

On one of the first afternoons in Ithaca, as a group of faculty walked to Jason's car, parked on Cascadilla Street, to head out to the rural barn where the creative seminar took place, Jason pointed out to me one of the town's mostly hidden monuments: Alex Haley's birth home, with a memorial stone and garden. The co-author of the Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965) and the force behind the cultural phenomenon book and landmark series Roots: The Saga of An American Family (1976), Haley, a distant relative of mine whom I, like many people, tend to associate with Tennessee and the South, was born in Ithaca during the period when his father,  Simon Haley, a noted professor of agriculture at Alabama A&M, among other historically black institutions, was enrolled in a master's degree program in agriculture at Cornell University, which did admit black students in small numbers before the wide-scale US college and university integration of the 1950-1975 period.

Socializing in the barn

The stone detailing Alex Haley's life was almost completely obscured by plants, as was the little brick patio and bench; had Jason not pointed it out to me, it would have been easy to walk right past it. I revisited the site the following day, and snapped a number of photos, which you can see in the next post, and collected notes about Haley's life, for a short piece I began--but have not finished--titled "Unremembered." (At least that's the working title.) It wasn't clear to me whether the homeowner or the city was responsible for maintaining the site, but as things stand, neither was doing much at all even to clear away the branches. Had I been in town for an extended period of time, I might have done it myself. Additionally and interestingly enough, while Haley's birth memorial and the house next door (which even had a Black Lives Matter sign in the window) do not appear on maps, there is an Alex Haley Pool, just a few blocks away on North Albany Street. I did not have the opportunity to visit the pool, but perhaps it featured information, somewhere onsite, about the birth house and memorial stone. At any rate, Haley, and Malcolm X, whose autobiography's history I discussed with Jason, were with me throughout my short visit.

The view looking out toward the road

Here are photos from the stay; just imagine constant movement, numerous collaborative, simultaneous art, video, performance, and writing projects, intent visages and whirring printers and lots of laughter, as well as delicious meals punctuating everything, and you get a hint of what ITI was like. If you are interested in the program, please click on the link above or this one to learn more.

The beginning of Melani Lopez's
haircutting performance

During the performance
(Tisa in the foreground)

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Melani Lopez (in t-shirt), beginning her
ritual performance

The performance

During the performance

Melani Lopez

Andre Bradley cutting
Melani's hair

A photo shoot involving
getting up (as opposed to falling) 

Nicholas taking a picture

Sketches 

Responses to one of the prompts

The tent behind the barn

Nicholas, looking from above