Back in Action

 Have I been a lazy culture blogger? You betcha, as we say here in Minnesota. That's not to say I haven't been taking in lots of plays, concerts, readings, etc. The Loft Literary Center's annual Wordplay event was a treat. Tremendous productions of Hamlet and Into the Woods at the Guthrie Theater. And Mu Performing Arts impressed again with a premier of Kung Fu Zombies Saga: Shaman Warrior & Cannibals, presented at the Luminary Arts Center in the North Loop neighborhood of Minneapolis. And since it's summer, there have been lots of outdoor concerts, many free in our excellent park system, including performances by Barlow, Machinery Hill, and Old Guys Play the Blues. I also heard the Minnesota Orchestra's season sampler opening performance and got to hear some of the best local performers and singers participating in the Source Song Festival. But I've been lazy about chronicling these adventures. 

In terms of reading, I'm currently enjoying the novel Black Cloud Rising by David Wright Falade, and I've returned to reread one of my all time favorite poets, Thomas McGrath (there ought to be a memorial to him someplace here in Minneapolis). And I'm also delving into poet Chris Santiago's collection, Tula. 

I'm grateful that both of my cities, Minneapolis and New York, offer such exciting cultural offerings. Hopefully I'll do a better job of reviewing some of those experiences here in the future. 

Trip Shakespeare's New Standards

 Well, it's been a minute. I'd like to publish a list of best theatre/music/books I've discovered this past year, but it seems like too much work. Instead I'll just recommend that you spend sometime this winter listening to The New Standards cover of "Snow Days," a Trip Shakespeare song that they do really well in their annual holiday show. The song's a kind of melancholy celebration of winter's wonders. Recordings of it can be found on various online streaming video and music platforms. 

So now you know how I spent much of my afternoon, listening to The New Standards and Trip Shakespeare. I've got many books to read before I sleep, much to read before I sleep. 

In the new year, I hope to spend more time keeping this blog up to date with reading/listening/viewing suggestions and reflections. Happy New Year. 

It's Been a Minute

 As the kids say today. I've sort of neglected this blog, but I think I should return to it. Perhaps jotting down some occasional thoughts bout literary and cultural events and such will force me to be more disciplined to read works and attend events that enriched my cultural life. The pandemic has been a bit of a downer, as they say. I'm reading Anthony Veasna So's much praised debut story collection, After Parties, feeling sad that this auspicious beginning is by nature a capstone on his career as well. I'm reading an anthology, A Garden of Black Joy, which is introducing me to many Black poets I hadn't encountered before and also includes some beautiful and insightful essays by the editor, Keno Evol.

The old keeps spinning, and I'm still looking for opportunities to jump on the carousel. Hopefully I'll have more to share soon.

Once upon a Time in Minneapolis

 Well, the pandemic has left me suffering from ennui, and not reading or writing as much as I should have. It's a beautiful day for a walk in Minneapolis, which I did this morning (we get excited by temperatures approaching 40 degrees Fahrenheit here at this time of year.)

I'm reading Jill Lepore's "These Truths," a one volume history of the United States, and Jeanette Wilkerson's Caste, which has enlightened me about the roadblocks Black Americans face in this country. I've also been making my way through an enlightening collection of Black poetry, interspersed with some essays and interviews, "A Garden of Black Joy." It's edited and includes essays by Keno Evol, who founded Black Table Arts for Black writers here in Minnesota. 

And of course social media keeps a slew of mostly contemporary poetry before my eyes on a daily basis. I'm particularly fond of poetryisnotaluxury's feed on instagram, as well as Forgotten Good Poems on Twitter. 

Well, time to get back to reorganizing home library shelves as I continue to procrastinate on my backlog of reading. 

Orwellian, Autocratic Times Call for Poetry of Resistance

 I read an Audre Lorde poem earlier today, part of the Academy of American Poet's daily poetry feed. It's determination, resistance, and outrage seemed to speak to the moment we are experiencing in what I hope are the waning days of Trumpism in the United States. 

The poem, one of her most famous I believe, is "I Must Be a Menace to My Enemies." Here's the poem on the Academy of American Poets website. 

Enemies does not seem, at first glance, in an emotion reflected in tranquility kind of way, like a suitable muse for poetry. But injustice anytime is an injustice to all, and a call to action must start with a naming and confronting of the enemy. With American democracy under attack, the late Audre Lorde's poem resonates today just as it did during her turbulent lifetime. 

As a white person reading a Black poet's work, I'm forced to confront my own fear in this poem. And I'm also invited to feel for a moment that measure of anger that someone Black feels when their very presence is considered cause for fear and unease. 

With white nationalists storming the US Capitol, incited by a deranged and dangerous president, becoming a menace to our enemies is essential work. 

Wishing for More Good News from the Supreme Court

In recent years, it's been difficult to find anything heartening about news coming from the Supreme Court. But for as long as I've been involved in gay rights and queer liberation movements, one of the holy grails that seemed almost within reach but just unattainable for now was a national prohibition on discrimination in the workplace.
ENDA -- the Employment Nondiscrimination Act -- floated around Congress for decades. Each time Democrats controlled both the House and Senate, it seemed close to getting a fair hearing and maybe passing. Then "religious exemptions" would be inserted in the bill that created such wide scapegoat loopholes that even LGTBA+ leaders felt compelled to abandon it. And then, as has been the case most of the time in recent decades, Republicans would reclaim one or both houses of Congress and the lid was slammed shut on any talk of protecting queer people from discrimination.
So now the Supreme Court has ruled that Civil Rights legislation passed decades ago does in fact protect us from workplace discrimination. I'm not an attorney but I'd love to read about the legal reasoning that led to this ruling, with the support of two conservative justices. Hats off to the attorneys who brought and prevailed in this case. And if let's hope the two conservatives who sided with the majority, Roberts and Gorsuch, might show more affinity for progressive legal arguments. The conservative Supreme Court has been a thorn in the side of progressive governance for too long.
On unrelated news, a few weeks ago Jericho Brown won the Pulitzer Prize for his latest poetry collection, "The Tradition." He's the seventh African American to win the Pulitzer for poetry (and the first openly gay one). He's amazing, and he's created a new form, the duplex, which is spreading in popularity among contemporary poets. His poem, "After Essex Hemphill," might be inspired by a park in D.C., that was always known as Malcom X Park when I lived nearby in the early '90s. (It's official name was Meridian Hill Park). I find Brown's work brave and seductive, righteous and adventurous. From the aforementioned poem:

"...As we kneel illegal and
Illegal like Malcom X.
This is his park, this part
Of the capital where we
Say please with our mouths
Full of each other, no one
Hungry as me against this
Tree. This tree, if we push
Too hard, will fall. But if
I don't push at all, call me
A sissy...."

And it ends:
                     "The night
is my right. Shouldn't I
East? Shouldn't I repeat,
it was good, like God?"

If the poem is set in D.C., that's the closest tie-in to the Supreme Court decision that I can think of. At any rate, buy "The Tradition", go hear Jericho Brown read, and rejoice that people can no longer be fired for being queer or transgender.

Zoom in on Me (or on Other Poets, Preferably)

Well, Zoom has allowed me to hear a number of writers who I probably would not have seen reading together at a traditional bookstore, academic auditorium or arts venue reading. Five famous poets! All together on one night. And you get a vicarious, voyeuristic glimpse into their living quarters.
Still, I'm longing for the real thing. One or a handful of poets in the same place at the same time, their voices or the voices of people reading their work unamplified and undistorted by electronics and technology. How about a reading sitting around a fire pit in a public garden in New York City's East Village (social distancing style, of course). Ah, those were the days.
Still, I appreciate the online alternative. The Quarantine Reading series organized by Aurielle Marie (and featuring headliners Phillip B. Williams and Justin Phillip Reed on successive nights) was perhaps my favorite Zoom reading room lately. And I'm grateful. Two nights of wonderful poetry by some of today's most vital voices -- who could ask for anything more?
But I'm longing for the olden days, as they say. I was walking through Boom Island Park in Minneapolis a little over a week ago, before the city fell into grief and outrage, and I ran across a man  sitting on a park bench playing the saxophone. I told him what a relief it was to hear live music (he demurred, insisting that what he was doing was practicing, not playing music) but to me it was music. Coming from a real musician with a real instrument within my hearing distance. Those were the days.
So, I'm looking forward to hearing all the poets I've been listening to read again soon -- hopefully as a member of a live audience.