I was killing two birds with one stone that night,
multitasking, volunteering as an usher, which put me right at the venue where
this would happen and I could hear the new acclaimed Asian American poet.
Ironically, and I can laugh about it but it was unfortunate, in my eagerness to
do a good job as an usher, among all the other early birds, I rushed over the
woman who walked through the door and looked like she could use some help, I
gave her the usual spill, “Welcome, this will be a great reading, please take a
seat towards the front, so others can fill in the back!” She looked at me
funny, took the program, barely mumbled some thanks, and walked on. One of her
eager fans behind her rushed to me and whispered half-indignantly and half
still star-truck, “she’s one of the featured poets!” Oh my face was red. Well,
it had to happen again 15 minutes later, as many came through the door and once
again, I did not know the faces of the other readers, as I really was only
there for the Asian American featured reader. This time, the guy next to the
featured reader said, “He’s a featured poet,” so I could tell him in person,
“Sorry, I do this all the time!” He just waved back distractedly. Anyhoo…I also
greeted poets I took workshops from and poets who came to my reading. The
auditorium was standing room. It was nice, a gathering of poets and poetry
lovers. My commentaries would be:
§
Interesting set of featured poets showing a
range of content: Reginal Dwayne Betts-poems about the self explicitly
referencing the external, Ocean Vuong-poems about the self/the self’s
relationships to others showcasing universal themes, Nikky Finney-poems about
others advocating social justice. The latter would involve a lot of research,
to really capture the person and context and facts. The latter poet was the
most mature and her poetry was more academic, but also was broader than the
guys who are still growing up.
§
Ocean Vuong. Well, that was my current perception,
as he went read through poems with latent and explicit content, including a
piece about his parents’ time of love and sex and I guess what could have been
an attempt at collective orgasm with an Ode to Masturbation. The language was
pretty in some places and intense in some places, but I just wasn’t feeling it.
No offense. J Anyhoo…Li
Young-Lee, he’s still my #1 Man-Poet. However, my take-away from my fellow
Asian American poet is his interesting reading style, soft, breathy and
intimate. I will have a poem set to that tone. This said, Ocean Vuong is the
current rockstar of this young generation of American poets and poetry lovers,
the Justin Bieber of American Poetry. I got his last manuscript (got it signed too!) and will have more in-depth things to say about that later, probably.
§
After listening to all those award-winning stars
of American Poetry, interestingly, I did not feel crushed by the weight of
their brilliance and the impossible task of measuring up to their achievements.
I just felt, yeah, I have stuff I want to write and I think there will be
people who will be glad to see it. But my public reading skills definitely need
lots more work, so, so, so rusty: my accent is thicker and I stumble a lot upon
the spoken words. I’ll be practicing. J
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