[Tour] More Interim, Virginia

Today was all about driving. And writing.

We woke up early as ever. Earlier, it seemed, because when I woke up, Bernard and Frank were standing in the room ready to go to breakfast. I had worn ear plugs the night before (I swear though, Bernard, it's really no big deal, but they were free ear plugs!) and it was kind of jarring. No one wants to see Frank that early in the morning. hahaha.

Anyway, I threw on my clothes and walked down to the hotel dining room, where I realized I didn't have my wallet. Bianca wasn't there either, so it was my mission to go get her and my wallet. Turns out, Bianca had overslept too, so I was not alone. Anyway, after it was all said and done, we had eaten a fair breakfast served by a friendly and very helpful waitress and her mad-devil woman boss who would not. leave us. the fuck alone.

Frank must be part Russian because he Tetrised (as Bernard put it) all of our luggage and some camera equipment from Ricardo into our trunk. By the end, the Pluckmobile was a leather glove over the smooth hand of Frank's packing job. Yeah.

We were on the road forever. Frank doesn't turn on the radio because he's afraid of the airwaves transmitting alien signals (I think each blog includes more and more trash talk...). Actually, the radio remains off for us to speak and think easily. Also, it helps when we are actually able to catch one of our conversations. A lot of the car conversation has to do with utilizing technology, something Frank points out a lot of black America doesn't seem to be quite as connected as they could be about. Not in this car. Bianca can whip up a direction in I-Phone minus 3 seconds, Frank can work a GPS like he was trained at Nasa, and if I mentioned how Bernard truly moves behind a camera, he'd have even more groupies than he already does. Plus I'm a member of just about every community online there is. Even the Myspace for tattoo enthusiasts. Seriously.

We had a couple of bathroom breaks, bought some snacks, but most importantly, Bianca had the very strange (I thought at first) request to stop at an army surplus store if we saw one. I thought, "okay, well, what are the chances we find one of those?" 10 minutes later we were in one, looking at a native American crafted choker made from parachute straps, black buffalo bone, and bullets. Which is now sitting beside me; I bought it. Poem to come, I'm sure. Frank also found some buffalo badges and learned about how buffalo bones are burned to get the deepest of blacks. Tell me THAT isn't some heavy shit.

Back on the road, then the hotel, and finally Red Clays, a very modern restaurant with very VERY good food. Try the fried green beans. We're going back tomorrow, and that says something. The service was great too, and we met an Appalachian artist, our waitress.

We came back and considered work shopping, but decided that we need a night to catch up on all this work. Blogs, writing poems, learning to use the cameras (and now I know), updating websites. From the looks of the emails I'm getting, we're writing some inspired stuff.

Appalachian inspired.

The writing prompt: "Write yourself as a super hero of poetry. Include a name and a super
power."

Robotto Mulatto

I am the Robotto Mulatto
the day walker, the glimmer in the night
the shadow of the day
I am the ambiguous apparition
shifting colors like a conch shell
in and out of cultures,
I am the halfrican hulk
the onerous oreo who will not let you know
where these big lips come from

I am the Robotto Mulatto,
I am more than meets the eye
My skin seperates along perfect tan seams
lifts with a hydraulic hiss
flips in on itself
and transforms into something else
controlled like a remote
with the styling of my hair
I shift color circuits
whether mustached mexican, bearded Egyptian,
or a mysterious collage of whatever it is
your half-cousin is

my words are double edged knives,
i have a battery in my back energizer bunny style
labled offense, it has twin meanings.
I can say things that you can't say
because I have one foot in your door
and go go gadget another foot in someone else's
and when all else fails I have a race card
one up each sleeve.

My weakness is the tug of war between
being fully Clark Kent and Superman
don't understand the master/slave jumpers
on my hard drive
can't hug my white motherboard
with this holy red-blue-green trinity
pinwheel spinning like a Mac in my head
my weakness is that people don't learn Linux
with easier to grasp systems on the market
that when people might actually vote,
electrons are so negative
my weakness is that silicon valley
isn't big enough for the idea of me,
and that around here things move so fast
that before the world is ready for me
i'll have become obsolete

[Tour] University of Tennessee

This is the second time so far on the tour that we had more audience members than seats. I swear we're not getting there early just to remove seats. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Woke up feeling, for a moment, fully refreshed. I then found that I had slept about 5 hours, and felt immediately tired again. I took a nap (does that even count as a nap when it's so soon after having been asleep?) and when

I woke up, decided to go down into the lobby and do some serious writing. The whole gang came out after a while and I thought "hey! I have my poems, I don't even need to go back to the room? I am a Mensa quality genius." Turns out that I had forgotten both my chapbooks and the address book we are going to use to allow people to sign up. But I wouldn't realize this until much later.

We met up at a BBQ restaurant overlooking the river with an administrator and professor from UT. We ate and chatted. I ate a BBQ pulled pork sandwich and confirmed some kind of darkly fermented suspicion of everyone that I am too in love with pork. What have I become?

From that point we drove to UT to set up our camera equipment, which we're beginning to be pros at, it would seem. And by we, I mean Bernard, who is like the Jean Claude Van Dam of camera work. Take that as you may. But he's really very good.

Bianca needed her chapbooks, which was apparently a nightmare, but with which she displayed great optimism and non-diva-ness. Ricardo needed a car charger for his dead phone and tapes for his camera. We ran out of time to get my chapbooks. Obviously, by this time I had realized I was an idiot and forgot them. But no one at UT knew that, they just thought I was an idiot who never had any chapbooks.

The reading went very well, I think. Norman drove 5. FIVE hours to read with us, and was as usual a joy to watch. Bianca did that one poem that pretty much makes me want to retreat into my poetry shell it's so damn awe

some. Which one? Buy her book. Coming soon. Bernard was frazzled from having ODed on caffeine, but that only made his blurring image that much more impressive behind those cameras. Ricardo killed it so bad that he had groupies, and Frank was Frank, which is to say he managed to mix the dirty work in gracefully with the entertainment/poetry. This is very much under-appreciated, because you don't want to see the boring black hole that would be created if I was trying to promote Pluck, explain our website, get the fundamentals of our writing group understood, etc.

The real joy of the night was the dialogue. We have done them before, but this was my first real chance to answer a question posed directly at me, which was both terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. Now's my chance to explain my opinion, but also my chance at ruining a poem someone enjoyed by making a fool of myself. But all in all it was really awesome. I spoke with a publisher about his books, a student about how we address sterotypes without catering to them, a grad student about her paper on multiracial affairs (I really hope she contacts me, her paper sounded right up my ally. Or allies, I guess), and a number of other people.

After Frank and Ricardo frightened us with the level

of fanaticism they have over their fraternity (I don't even feel bad about that after the jibing I got at dinner. hahaha) we took photos in the lobby and had a long discussion about the writing process and the reading process. And the dialogue itself. More on all this on my other blog, on our Affrilachian Facebook fan page.

We drove to a pizza place... the Mellow Mushroom. It

was like an acid head's dream in there, giant mushrooms, strange dragon filled wall paintings.... I ordered hummus for the first time, delicious, and an avacado hoagie, double delicious. We left after a while, and I got to the writing. Which brings us to the prompt for the day:

If Appalachia were a person with a family, a personality, the body of a person, tastes, and so on, what would that person be like

?

Good question Bianca... Let's see...

Knowing Your Mother

If Appalachia had one Morehead, it would molt wisdom like feathers

great plumes of it would fold back on themse

lves like tall-tales

and strike the ground running so fast

the news would miss it and act like it never happened at all

or maybe Appalachia is so brittle it would fracture under the pressure

of any more demand, buckle like a can into its

elf.

Or maybe Appalachia would

make with what he has

which is a proud face with freckles he is ashamed of at times

and at times beholds with such fierce pride that they are named,

this one Knoxville, that one Jackson, Berea, Lexington

each one forgotten by the countenance of his w

hole face

by those who are not kin and see in a textured face

ugliness instead of stateliness and in tradition backwardsness

instead of culture.

It is a beautiful face even after what they have done to it

left it in Hazard in the best of times and in th

e worst

the craters of deep pock marks that so severely scar his skin

that he is unable to look in the mirror without remembering

in the back of his mind why it is that tradition withstands

long past the dark dwelling of machinery.

Appalachia is angry sometimes, hurt, bitter, ha

ppy, sweet,

he is all things, his skin bleeds a

ll colors

his hands rough in the winter and smooth in

the spring

or forced to roughness in the spring and smooth despite the winter,

Appalachia is too many facets to describe with a word

too many tones to play on a single string.

because how do you let your children know who your mother was

if you're only given a handful of words

how can they know her in a sentence

when it took you a lifetime of words

to know.

Oh yeah. I got paid!!!

[Tour] The Interim - Knoxville

For a day where nothing happened, a LOT has happened.

Woke up bright and early. 9 in the morning. Before too long, Frank, Bernard, and I were headed to Loretta Lynn's Buffet (she comes there to eat sometimes, they say). Now, I'm ashamed to admit this, but I had absolutely no idea who she was at all until last year. Danny Miller told me about her, and Regan and he were both kind of amazed I didn't know who she was.

If I didn't then, I do now. The place was decked out in all manner of Loretta Lynn memorabilia; tapestries, posters, a Crisco ad (discussion with Frank about how his family just called it lard), all kinds of stuff. But I don't want to get ahead of myself. The bacon was heaven. If ambrosia were a dead pig, this was it. There was also blueberry pancakes and eggs. But let's be honest, you know there's something earth-shattering going on when you mention blueberry pan

cakes in such a terse manner. Earth-shattering is what that bacon was.

We checked out the store some and looked at the merchandise with all the confederate flags on them (yay the South. A little bit like buying an LA Raiders sweatshirt isn't it?). Nothing else happened in the restaurant than that, besides Frank making us feel like asses by first making us honestly believe he was a little bit offended that we would ASSUME he knew who John Colbert was, and then listening to us spend a good 5 minutes explaining the show to him before he chimed in with more information than anyone ignorant of the show could possibly be aware of. Same ol same ol.

Oh. One more thing. Outside Loretta Lynn's is a giant buffalo, our totem animal. It actually looks directly down at the hotel we stayed at. Well, turns out the city we're in? Buffalo. Serendipity at it's best. What's more is that we had stopped (Frank's car AND Ricardos) two separate times, without planning it or knowing it, at this same location earlier in the trip. Ridiculous.

So we got on the road, talked a lot, and watched the country-side pass by; all hills and trees and confederate flags and warnings from God to make sure we don't go to hell.

We eventually made it to a Staples where I bought a super long stapler for making my own chapbooks from scratch to save money. It was Frank's idea, but don't tell him I'm not still claiming it as my own.

We eventually made it to Crowne Hotel. Frank had said it was "Crowne with an e" and for whatever reason, that made me think it was going to be rundown imitation of a real hotel sort of place. Not even close, this place is amazing. Apparently schools have money. My money, in some cases.

We all went to eat at Applebees, then back to our rooms. We

went to a bar called Library within the hotel, and Bernard and Bianca drank a bottle of wine and I drank a Shirley Temple (a man's man drink) and oh how we talked. About everything. One of my favorite moments

of this trip; I learned all about Bianca

being inducted, about Bernard's experiences with the Governor's school, opinions about writing, suggestions for reading (I took notes. Seriously) and everything in between.

We went up, then, to Bianca's room and talked a little more, watched terrible reality TV, and I wrote, while Bianca and Bernard worked on their chapbooks. It's now 3 in the morning and in the past 2 days I've had less than a full night's rest, grand total, but I present to you first Bianca's second day writing prompt and my poem, written today, only an hour ago:

Prompt: Create an Affrilachian (the region, not the poetry group) Genesis story. Include a regional hero. Reference James Weldon's "The Creation"" for an example.

The No. 4

"John Henry's woman heard he was dead,

She could not rest on her bed,

She got up at midnight, caught that No. 4 train,

"I am going where John Henry fell dead." -John Henry Folk Song

In the beginning there was God

we know this much

but there was also the devil

not quite at the start but close enough.

he filled the air like a hacking cough

simmered on the ocean and made it flat

slunk deep into the earth

and taught worms to eat the dead

and before too long he became bored

with breaking his own things,

and got to thinking.

the devil is nothing if not patient

so he waited quietly

before too long God became restless

created children in all his images

turned his face and made more

scattered most like pebbles onto his beach

tilted His head, squinted

then took another handful

pushed the first around,

placed stones in lonely places

matched them like a mosaic

and nearly satisfied saw a bareness

and planted black diamonds in the hills.

he told them about the devil

who was allowed to walk the earth

for his punishment was futility

and all was content for a while

like the scream of a fiddle

rising slow and firm

the devil came out to play

spent time unrushed

listened closely

listened especially closely to the women

who kept their burdens in their bellies

or when they were full on their backs

listened for so long man forgot about him

then waited still longer for women to follow

He came to them in a dream

his breath hot and wet in the air

his body serpentine and shining silver,

he stampeded with measureless speed

came to them first as inspiration and then incarnate

bowed before man as their servant.

the devil bore into the earth for them

hollowed the corpse of it maggot-like

just as he had before their time

but moving now where man gave him road

only followed their trails

for the illusion of being fettered to their will

The devil's plan was to grind clockwork slow

gorge himself on the silt and clay flesh of the land

allow man to see the apple red skin of things

while burrowing ever deeper, eating at the insides.

he had planned for so very long,

tested the waters until they were waters no more

now crawling in the womb of the mountains

where the world pulsed

when like lightning a black diamond fell

from where it lay trapped by great burden

falling now, every face of its maker glittering

like sunshine

the diamond hit the ground of the tunnel

folded out of itself like a cornhusk doll

lifted the hammer in its hand

and struck a fork into the tunnel

which rung as the the devil's first challenge,

scared the devil for the first time

for this man was not frightened himself

had already made much time in his journey

entering the heart of earth

pounding his hammer so hard that the devil was shaken

and for the first time forced into action

stone was beaten until it weapt

each tunnel sinking deeper and deeper into the earth

the devil laughing to himself at his speed.

he thought about those first dreams he had crept into

about how man still dreamt about him

when he hungered to move mountains

how this black rock of a man must dream of him now

even as he must trail behind the gaping wound

left in the devil's wake.

the devil had seen seasons grow old

and water beat stones to dust

had seen all things in all ways but was still

unprepared when he found himself falling

like a star into the fires

the only man who had never shown him fear

falling ahead of him, beating him even now

and laughing the way down.

He had beat the devil to the core

dug into the devil's path and made it a pitfall

all in the time it took the devil to gloat

and as the devil fell to his new home

dreamed not of the devil

dreamed instead, of being free

dreamed he held hands with his wife

never dreaming one thing

that up above on the shores of the land

she had caught the number 4

sharing as she always had in his burden

even now as she raced to catch her husband

in the fires

[Tour] Tennessee

I've been awake since 6 o clock this morning, it's almost 2 now, and I'm running on a total of about 4 hours of sleep. So what's left to do? Blog, of course. Bernard's snores shall constitute my collective muse.

My girlfriend Regan dropped me off at Frank's place this morning. From there we drove to Bernard's place in Louisville. It was my first time there. I got a chance to run out and take some photos of York's statue while we were there though--the one that's on the cover of Frank's book. It was a piece of Affrilachian history; it'll be in our museum someday. Lewis was within gazing distance, looking like a creep. Meanwhile York has a gun, some ducks hanging from his hand, you know, typical pimp.

We began the trip at that point and talked the entire way there, trying to figure out the massive amounts of technology at our disposal, taping some of the conversations, missing many more, and many times taping each other taping each other. But we got a lot of good stuff too, and a decent start, I think. Some of the things talked about, either before or after we picked up Bernard (who I have only had the opportunity to meet because of the tour):

Plans.

My embarrassing mishaps working at White Castle, and the Ricardo-esque statement posed by Frank: 'There's a poem in that.'

Family business that is not to be shared. Except in stories, and poetry.

The abolishmentof slavery as a method to enslave an entire new class of people in a new way.

Bernard and Frank almost got in a fist fight over Jack Daniels vs. Bourbon: Are they the exact same thing?

We ate at the Cracker Barrel. Which, of course was delicious. I got ham, grits, scrambled eggs, a biscuit, potato casserole, and fried apples. Being a poet makes you ravenous. I swear it. We talked business, marveled at the equipment Ricardo brought (mind out of the gutters), and wondered how many government agencies are tracking the group of colored folks with enough electronics to start their own independent enclave.

We got to the library and met with Norman. The whole event was awesome. There were people standing. At a poetry event.

There was also a ton of children, which messed up my game plan. My game plan began as 'choose some poems to read' but suddenly, it became 'don't scar the innocence of a dozen children.' Mission more or less accomplished.

Stumbled over my last poem, but overall pretty good. We watched children get their awards in a poetry contest they had run (out of 5 children recognised for each age group, nearly all of them showed up. The exception being the high school kids, of which, only one showed up. What's up with that, high school kids?)

It was all very nice. Bernard's poem about women's hair got the room rolling, Bianca's arc about violence was extremely poignant and relevant, and Ricardo and Frank's poems about divorce made a woman cry. And of course, Norman's poetry was awesome as hell.

We went to his place after we ate at the West Tennessee Examiner's home base, which was much like a very nice house. Physically as well as in the manner the community engaged with us and one another. Very much unlike the Community Recorder at home.

The

whole community was, though. The audience at the reading was something like 60% black, and the tow n apparently close to that as well, about half. That never hap pens. And they run poetry in the paper. I'm serious, they really do. We talked about a boy who was shot in the back running from the cops for a speeding ticket, or something like that. No matter where you're at, that's happening. It's like a real life archetype.

Norman's house was fun, we got to meet his wife, see the history he's made (published next to Langston Hughes, and he threw the letters away because they had critique about his poetry in them. Amazing). Then we eventually found a hotel, went to Arby's and got some food, and everyone else fell asleep. While I spent the entire night trying to get the files off my camera. Not entirely successful in that respect, but I do have photos, so it wasn't a wash.

I've got tons of ideas for poems, written in my moleskin and any scrap of paper I could find. The next blog will have something of that, maybe. The process itself presents itself tomorrow. Or that's the plan. For now, it's off to write, then sleep, tonight.

Writing prompt for today:

What does the road speak to you?

Dixie Stream

the road yawns before us, its horse whispers

croaking in a crinkling brown paper back in kentucky

trees stiff legged from laying so long.

when the water runs,

the road hums a dixie marching song

and the skin of the confedarcy waves good morning

from a pole thin as a silver switch.

the road nods politely

chatters excitedly with the rusty ribs of land

exposed and stretched away like a hot sweaty quilt.

it whispers something

so that the grass's bourbon cheeks blush again green

and the tennessee trees shake with laughter.

they flutter like soft cotton confetti

and the road smiles across the hills.

its hands shuffle color to color like dice

and pours its evening waters out to sea

leaving us helpless in the red and blue tide

then, it is silent

[Tour] When Winter Come: The Choreopoem

While not a reading, Frank's book-of-poetry-made-play is part of the tour, and an awesome one at that. It really was fun as hell to watch. But I'll leave it up to the audience:

"I thought it was very sensual, very passionate, it left nothing unsaid."

"It was from a very different perspective than you normally get in history. It was a very personal point of view."

"What little bit of research I've done of York, it obviously transcended that. The words he used--making the ash fire again.That's what it was."

"Me being a writer myself, it's just, damn. How do I do that myself?"

Full house, opening night. 'Nuff said.

[Tour] Morehead

Morehead was a blast. Someone said it was like stretching our legs out at the start of our journey and that's just what it was. I opened the night; which always makes me a little nervous because I have nothing to judge myself against (I think that's what's supposed to make it less nerve wracking. Look at me, going against the grain) but it was all good.

I've gotten a chance to listen to Bianca, Frank, and Ricardo a few times, so it was really great to hear Crystal read her stuff. And damn. She says she's not a poet like Frank said once his voice is not an instrument. It was inspiring; the best thing for a writer or any artist, I think, is to be reminded constantly of what art can be, because when you write in a bubble you can't help but forget yourself within yourself.

The drive down was killer. It was only 2 hours, and I love the Kentucky hills more than the landscape of any place I've been in the world, but it was foreign in the same way I don't like taking back roads to get home in Northern Kentucky.

In any case, I got to check out some art at the Kentucky Folk Art Museum. There were so many trees on the hills it was a little spooky; like rigid hair on a great camel's back. I wish I could have seen it in spring.

The room itself was all brick, like a New York Nightclub, very intimate. It was nice, like a slightly more formal Running Word. At the end we closed with questions from the audience; that's always been my favorite part about any reading I attended as an audience member. Someone asked about Affrilachian Poets as a vehicle for giving representation to those with voices that aren't being heard, and that's what it is for me. I didn't write about being biracial, as important as that's been for me, until the Affrilachian poets, and that's heavy. This tour is gonna be great, I'm all kinds of nervous, and that's always a good thing.

Oh, I outsold myself from Chapbooks I brought. You should have seen how fast I ran to that car; the darker your complexion the slower you should be moving in the dark of a parking lot, but I shattered that rule, and probably my own land speed record.

Chicago-style

It's late in coming but I went to the Chicago AWP a few weeks back. It was Valentine's weekend, so love and man purses were floating in the air--both dangerously at crotch level.

I was psyched about the event. I've always loved the controlled atmosphere of academia, and say what you want about the AWP, but even as my first event it is clear that it is all about academia. And all in all I had a great time finding out about artists I had never heard of, learning about grant proposals, and being overwhelmed to the point of helplessness at the book fair. Some of the Affrilachian poets were there full force, and I ran into them, and I also ran into Andy, one of my former professors.

One of the events I got to see was about 'passing.' Passing for white, for straight, and most interestingly to me, a mulatto passing as black. I spoke with the speaker of that particular segment. In reflection I realized that besides being situated in a predominantly white/Latino neighborhood during middle school, and a predominately white High school, the major thing that would have hindered me from 'passing' as black is my hair texture, since this man was no darker than me, and even had blue eyes. This of course over simplifies the entire point of the lecture, the question of whether one can pass as something you half-are, and so on and so on. But on that very basic level, that was the first thing I thought about.

It was also my first time in Chicago. What did I do? Regan and I went to the bean, rode the El Train (or as they call it in Spain, el El Train), looked at the world via the Sears Tower (or as they call it now, K-Mart Tower), marveled at Chicago's martyr-like worship of Dunkin Donuts, listened to Lupe Fiasco ('I'm from a city in the Midwest best city in the whole wide world'), WTFed over the skyline, ate at a legendary blue's bar, and ate Chicago-style pizza.

Before I end this blog, let me tell you about Chicago-style pizza. There are two words for it. And they're both 'delicious.' I afterwards looked up Chicago-style pizza on Wikipedia (because after all, I'm going to forget 95% of what I read anyway, so reliability isn't a factor) and learned that the crust is so thick that it has to be cooked and prepared longer. You will often have to wait 45 minutes for your pizza. This was true. But it was worth it.

I like to believe that God, when he created the crust of the Earth, had to spend an extra 45 minutes heating the whole thing twice. Not often, but just in times where I need a pick me up. Chicago-style.