November 27, 2024 • 32 mins
Valerie Hsiung selects poems that disorient as they open us to the vital, visceral present. She introduces Roberto Tejada and the poem as a breaking fever (“Kill Time Objective”), Jennifer Elise Foerster as a channel for a multiplicity of lost voices (“Hokkolen: I become the canyon, its dreaming eye”), and Mei-mei Berssenbrugge narrowing the senses to expand what remains (“Slow Down Now”). To close, Hsiung reads from her sequence “a-begging,” her voice responding to the room where she’s recording.
Watch the full recordings of Tejada, Foerster, and Berssenbrugge reading for the Poetry Center on Voca:
Roberto Tejada (January 12, 2023)
Jennifer Elise Foerster (April 27, 2023)
Mei-mei Berssenbrugge (March 13, 2010)
Full transcripts of every episode are available on Buzzsprout. Look for the transcript tab under each episode.
Voca is now fully captioned, with interactive transcripts and captions available for all readings! Read more about the project here, or try out this new feature by visiting Voca.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
[MUSIC PLAYING]
JULIE SWARSTAD JOHNSON (00:01):
Welcome back to Poetry Centered,
the show that brings yourecordings of poets reading
and speaking about theirwork, selected and introduced
for you by contemporary poet.
The show comes to you from theUniversity of Arizona Poetry
Center and features recordingsfrom our online archive
of poetry readings called Voca.
(00:22):
My name is JulieSwarstad Johnson.
Thanks so much forjoining us today.
For this episode, our hostis Valerie Hsiung, a poet,
interdisciplinaryartist, performer,
and the author of 8 collectionsof poetry, prose, and hybrid
writing.
Her most recentbook is The Naif.
She teaches atNaropa's Jack Kerouac
(00:44):
School of Disembodied Poetics.
In today's episode,Valerie brings together
poems that disorientus in order to open us
to the vital, visceral present.
These recordings are of RobertoTejada, Jennifer Elise Foerster,
and Mei-mei Berssenbrugge.
Valerie, Thank you somuch for joining us
(01:04):
and for being our host today.
Welcome.
VALERIE HSIUNG (01:12):
Hello, this is Valerie Hsiung.
And I'm recording this at mydesk in Boulder, Colorado.
The first recordingI'd like to share
is Roberto Tejada reading,Kill Time Objective,
recorded on January 12, 2023.
(01:36):
In this poem and inmany of the works
from which the poem arrives tous, which is Roberto's book, Why
the Assembly Disbanded, I hearthe legacies of surrealism,
particularly theinfluence of Aime Cesaire.
(02:01):
There's a diaphoreticquality to this poem,
like it's courting deliriumthe way surrealists often do.
The words seem to be courtingthat breaking point of a fever.
You feel the spasms of language,you feel the volatile oils
(02:26):
of the lines, andyou feel blood coming
to the surface of the skin ofthe lines and sweat breaking
from the skin of the lines.
I think part ofthese effects come
from the desire in thispoem to extend the line
(02:46):
beyond its ordinary limits.
This feeling of beingon a precipice as one
is on the verge oftaking flight soon, soon,
but crucially, has not yet.
This feeling of being ata gathering at midnight
(03:08):
before a kind ofcombat and the kind
of energy that isneeded to gather
the spirits, the kindof energy that must
be so concentrated in its form.
So there's a way thatthis language is also
(03:28):
forming a kind of barricade,a tactical tunnel or armor
or barricade to propel thepoet into the future from night
into dawn into the necessity ofwhat is being called upon them.
(03:49):
So it's a languageof fortification
through the breakingof the fever.
What's even moreinteresting is when
the poem begins to shift withthat repeating phrase, but for,
but for, which to me aretwo words of mourning.
(04:12):
And so even with thisprescient and promising,
soon, soon, there isa bold contradiction
here between the promiseand the sacrifice.
Here is Roberto Tejadareading Kill Time Objective.
ROBERTO TEJADA (04:40):
I will end with a poem
back from Why theAssembly Disbanded, which
truly indulges in the paranoidfantasies of the speaker here.
[LAUGHTER] Kill Time Objective.
(05:00):
"For the sake ofmy acoustic self,
I lead out of danger ananonymous pack from the building
entrampment secured by militia.
First prompted wasthe mouth emission.
Other speciestechniques I thought
would never keep me fromthe village emulation.
Even now, a thirdperson plural to ask
(05:21):
in a chorus concerned with allthe unsanctioned disclosures.
We had expressed in suchadversaries our interest,
we had divined from thema quantum of intelligence.
Soon adjusted of my amplitude,I escape and striving, escalate
the only barrierdividing inside from out.
Thick steel at firsttranslucent, gleaming now,
(05:43):
but with a weathered crackleglaze, suspending the ability
to recognize a likeness.
And I panic,overjoyed or appalled.
Anyway, the baseline exhaustingthe tonal pitch insofar as they
see not my face, no matterhow close they look.
First and foremost,classified chief management
mostly disapproving.
Soon the phonic constellationafter hours of the data harvest
(06:08):
room tone proximity to sourceboredom of the solar system
estuary trespass.
Soon as maps were tothe mirror sequence
by leaning on thepresent, complicity
was to the frenzyof flesh, muddle
of tongues, a ransom note.
But for the sake offighting for breath,
already the instrumentfor transposition
(06:28):
in a parasitic image finallyproper of this place.
I'm the encryption.
I'm the statisticno longer bristling
in the heroics of metaphor.
I'm equipped with artillerythat enables me now
to bullet an opening foreveryone's deliverance.
But for the scene change,lodgings very disinfected.
(06:50):
New cause for residing that Itrace it back to the assignment
room and retrievebecause arson what I am
is placed anew andunder observation now.
Two performers licentious butso approving of the spinal cord
perspective as to marvel atthe sheer outrage and wonder
of the surgical incision.
But for the tangledpurpose of the anatomy,
(07:12):
we take to name eviscerate.
But for the conferencehour this week
with my parishioners inexchange for the motion
in multiple layers, overcoat,many trousers, uniform.
In the process alsoof my ballooning
self into the unprecedentedscales of subjection.
As soon as I recitethe lines that
tell the world of theauthority to petrify,
(07:35):
to touch and be tutoredor otherwise curbed,
but never entirely embraced,no matter the many hours
we waited on ledgewoodto trust the day.
But for the amassing bodyattributes of my contempt
and retribution, but for theever more audacious interference
at the level of my molecularresemblance, but for the album,
(07:56):
now, children, pleaseopen to lesson 32." Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
VALERIE HSIUNG (08:10):
The next recording I'd like to share is
Jennifer Elise Foersterreading, "I Become the Canyon,
its Dreaming Eye,"recorded on April 27, 2023.
This poem reminds methat every poem is
(08:31):
made of a different substance.
This poem and the collectionfrom which this poem is
excerpted, "The Maybe Bird,"seems to me to be made of fog
or some other vaporoussubstance that washes over us,
(08:53):
threatens our clarity, creates asense of psychic disorientation.
And part of that,I think, is coming
from what feels like theeye being both sung through
and allowing itself tocamouflage with the environment
(09:15):
it moves through sothat the eye here
is a channel for a kind ofmultiplicity, a scattering
and gathering of amultiplicity of lost voices.
It is both our guideand it is being
guided in real time itself.
(09:41):
The fog may prevent usfrom seeing too far ahead.
But in doing so, it forces usto look to other signs that
help us follow a path.
It forces us to ask ourselves,do we trust ourselves,
can we trust ourselves, whatdo we place our trust in,
(10:08):
what have we.
Time compresses and expandsthroughout this poem,
like an accordion.
The words situate us in akind of apocalyptic aftermath,
an aftermath thatcame long before us.
(10:31):
I feel the Earth whisperingto us in a low tone.
This is Jennifer Elise Foersterreading, "I Become the Canyon,
its Dreaming Eye."
JENNIFER (10:46):
"I Become the Canyon, Its Dreaming eye."
"In the last days ofmy marriage to God,
I descended theirspiraled library,
relentlessly navigatingstacks of shell tempered
mortuary offerings, sandstonesaws recovered from the caves.
(11:09):
I lingered on histories,worn stone steps
to write these thingsto recollect myself.
What had I unburied,what had I freed,
and what is freedom from thehuman need to catalog and clock
our porous loads?
(11:33):
I gazed, eyes closed atthe moon's cratered walls.
Spiders encircled me,spinning their silks
as I listened to thetuning suspension
of the underground particlecolliders vibrating
between silence and motion.
By midnight, saplings hadsprouted from my hand.
(11:56):
The clouds dissolvedinto semi-colons and I
with them into a new languageof branching gestures.
Airborne spores from oneinfinitesimal thread.
A pattern.
It was my first actof disappearance.
(12:16):
I would return beforeanyone noticed poems
to be found in theforest, not the mind.
There's a canyon betweenthis version of me
and the shadow on thestairs that is mine.
I became this canyon,it's dreaming eye."
VALERIE HSIUNG (12:47):
The third and last recording I'd like to share
is Mei-mei Berssenbruggereading, "Slow Down Now,"
recorded on March 13, 2010.
Like much of Mei-mei'swork, this poem is such a lesson
to me in how poetrycan be a practice of
(13:09):
syncopating with time.
Thinking is ourcollaboration with time,
and Mei-mei's poemsare doing that.
They are giving thoughtspace in the poem to unfold,
(13:29):
and they are focusedso intently that you
see the poem requirewhat feels at times
like selectivesensory deprivation.
Like one sense hasto be obstructed
or turned off for anotherto take on ultra perceptive
(13:53):
capabilities.
And this allowsthe words, I think,
to find 1,000 microclimateswithin the mundane so that
the mundane becomes cosmic.
Conversely, she makes elementsof hard science feel tactile.
(14:20):
This poem is not about thepyrotechnics of language,
the gymnastics oflanguage, but are
interested in the force ofreal poetry, thought itself.
The form Mei-mei has beenwriting in for a long time,
(14:42):
and which she writesin in this poem,
is also a form of chronicity.
And to me, thisholds such gravity
because it asks usto reckon with what
it might mean inan ethical sense
to make a home withinchronic illness
(15:04):
like climate change,which is ongoing, which
doesn't have one terminus.
I think of those whopractice endurance
for the pain that comesfrom chronic illness
like migratory migrainesand how so much of the endurance
(15:28):
training requiresone to get beyond the obvious
naming of certain thingslike pain.
There is a way that Mei-mei'spoem is defying delimitation,
defying the experienceof bodily pain
(15:52):
by choosing to definethe microclimates
and micro gradients of sensationand perception instead.
Here is Mei-mei Berssenbruggereading, "Slow Down Now."
MEI-MEI BERS (16:12):
Each poem is going to get rougher as we go on.
This one is called"Slow Down Now,"
and it's also in four parts.
I was reading.
There are booksthat you can read about how to
communicate with plantsand how to make a relationship.
(16:34):
And my subject was therose, but the plant I found
turned out to be a plantcalled an Apache plume, which
grows in New Mexico.
And it actually is arelative of a rose.
"I've been sitting,looking at a plant
(16:55):
without feeling time at all,and my breathing is calm.
There are tiny whiterosettes, and the whole bush
is a glory of feathery pinkseedheads here in the arroyo.
Even with closed eyes, I seeroses in the center of my sight.
New flowers openingout with pink petals
(17:17):
illuminated by sun behindme and gray green leaves.
There is no stoppingthis effusion.
Looking at the plantreleases my boundaries.
So time is not neededfor experience.
Late afternoon is like a stage,a section of vaster landscape,
(17:42):
and my mood is of a summer idle.
The dry Arroyosparkles all around.
Meaning I come upon onwild land strikes me
at first as ageneral impression.
Then joy suffuses me.
(18:02):
I accept that I've agedand some friends have died.
At first, meaning ispart of the plant.
It has not yet unifiedwith my experience
as a whole, like site openingout to its peripheries.
(18:23):
There's an impassebetween my will,
my desire, and the resistance ofa phenomenon to reveal itself.
My seeing is so slow,it seems to disengage.
It becomes very cloudy.
Then suddenly,meaning as a whole
(18:45):
interweaves with my perception.
Desire was the motive force,like meteorological forces.
I repeat the words freshness,tenderness, softness,
the happiness of birds as ifspeaking directly to a plant.
(19:08):
Sunlight is a profusionof pink plumes, thousands
of feathery seedsalready reaching
into the empty spacewhere I've taken a branch.
That space was left open bythe vision I'm having now.
I hold my first sightof the Apache plume
(19:31):
and the presentnext to each other
and go back andforth comparing them.
I see its multiple aspectsas living representations,
its herbal actions andfragrances, its dynamic
in our ecosystem, itsappearance in other habitats,
(19:52):
symbiosis with birds, medicineadministered by an oracle.
These aspects are notreferred to not associative,
but intrinsic to site.
As I run my perceptionsbackward and forward, gaps
diminish and slowly missingimages appear or experience
(20:15):
fills in.
One transformsinto another along
an extending multidimensionalaxis of seeing a plant.
It's not a metaphor for theflow of our surroundings.
One day, you may needa plant you don't yet
(20:37):
know in order to connect piecesin yourself or in a person you
are trying to be with.
It may be a rose bushat the end of the road,
a summer rose whitishon the outside
of each petal and pink inside,expressing its gestalt visually.
(20:59):
When a plant receives thiskind of communication,
it begins altering chemicals.
Its wavelengths reflectin order to offer itself
to your imaginal sightfor you to gather it.
The plant or anotherperson awakes
from embedding in thelivingness of the world
(21:20):
and takes noticeof your request.
The internal chemistry ofplants is one primary language
of response that they possess.
Through this methodof your perception
of its color, its fragrance,and infusion of its petals,
you not only receive moleculesof plant compound itself,
(21:44):
but also the meaning in yourselfthe plant is responding to.
So there is meaning ina chemical compound.
Even though the rose I wantis in the garden of my friend
I miss, an Apacheplume reveals itself
(22:07):
in late light in theArroyo, when I'm alone.
A wild rose, Delphic.
Illness is not healedsimply by supplying
something rose colored andlovely as a medicinal opiate.
Beauty providesform for meaning.
(22:27):
And though it does helpmy body form to form,
I'm not only whatmy senses perceive,
and my disease is notjust physical absence
of virus fields.
When a plant projects coherentelectromagnetic frequencies,
(22:48):
organisms respond, becomingmore open, animated, connected.
They use this amplified fieldto shift biological function.
DNA alters, there'scommunication across distance.
They can intentionallyinsert information
(23:09):
to strengthen cooperativeinteractions among, for example,
an Apache plume,ants, and an agave
in the riverbedlike human families
whose interweaving, lovingbonds represent the long term
incorporation of supportiveco-evolutionary fields,
(23:32):
continually embedded with newdata to enhance connection.
You and I nest within manysuch fields from a rose."
VALERIE HSIUNG (23:55):
I'll end by reading from a work of my own
called "A-begging."The words you'll hear are
both small standalone poemsas well as sections
of a sequence thatforms a longer poem.
I always find it alittle untrue when
(24:19):
poets know exactlywhat they're going
to read before they seethe people in the room,
before they see theroom they're reading in,
before they see how thechairs are situated,
how the space is configured,what the lighting is
like, whether there are windows,how high the ceilings are,
(24:43):
what color the walls are.
I do think that the poet's roleis as much to be a performance
artist and a sound artistand a breath mover as much
as it is to be alanguage worker.
And I don't thinkwe can say we've fulfilled our
(25:04):
responsibility unless we'rewilling to be
permeable to the spaceswe move through, we bring
our words through, the peoplewe come in contact with, the
people we share our wordsand make ceremony
(25:26):
with our words with.
And that means, to me,discarding our papers and books
from the podium,discarding ourselves
from the podium if necessary,when the time comes.
(25:48):
So as I sit down to recorda poem for you today,
I am aware that Ican't see any of you,
and we aren't sharing oxygenor a room, at least not today.
So instead, whatI have to respond
(26:08):
to is the room I am in aloneright now, the microclimates
around me, the season ofthe moment of this day,
the light outsidemy window that's
filtering onto my desk,the busyness and quietude
(26:32):
of the life I findmyself in today.
And of course, the veryfact of our distance
and the intimate distancethat this medium allows us.
From "A-begging.""Like news thatwaits for me, treat
(27:00):
today just collecting firewood.
Take plant into the showerwith me after constipation.
A basic standard of living.
I am happy at 15.
Walk back within myfriends clarity in a way
(27:23):
I can lake down with me intoafternoon button, down, button,
down.
I am happy as long as you are.
To stabilize thestaircase side to side.
The people who loveus suffer the most.
(27:47):
Hath stabbed me not seldom,not from your instruction.
Halo of control.
The sunlight in 1,000 splinters.
Antlers of another's.
Classified like night vision.
(28:08):
O fair maiden, instinctivelyin my self centredness.
Like an animal,afraid in the woods,
alert in the turmoilof my selfishness.
I say to you now froma sublunary vest,
leaves the rest ofthe world to copy.
(28:34):
We are not far from themoney isn't heads I'll go,
not a man who smiles withthe eyes seesaw from left
over would dress up the woundagainst invisible walls.
I am close to everyone.
(28:56):
I am a prisoner.
Moodless in a painting ofa road, yet called a liar.
Back to laundry fortin mint condition.
I walk us back on horsebackfor a bib without breakfast.
(29:18):
Someone with their stolenparts offers rainbow on a knife
by doing it again.
When I ate the wrongthings, a snake
in my belly and the drawingto recognize what I am
(29:38):
is having, keepingtheir eyes as keys.
People are lookingfor questions to shout
into the sky to get the rubberbands out of their quests.
Miss levitation, you'll wanderthe hell's halls, wages or not,
(30:02):
dragging trunk along,vending machine spirit,
such weathered outskirtswhere there is no clean toy.
Two-headed guardian willparalyze a useful figurehead.
The wind is comingfrom the airport.
(30:26):
The conductor isdrawing loyalty to him.
Drinking, swimming water."JULIE SWARSTAD
JOHNSON (30:43):
Valerie, thank you so much for
speaking to each of usand bringing us into this
space where you're recording.
You definitelygave me new things
to think about with yourreading, especially that idea
of the poet as the breath mover.
Listeners, thank you forbeing part of this space.
We recently passed 25,000downloads of Poetry Centered,
(31:04):
which is mind boggling.
Thank you forbeing part of that.
It's a gift to know thatyou're out there listening.
In two weeks time,we hope you'll
listen again, joining usfor a new episode hosted
by Diego Baez.
In the meantime,you're always invited
to check out pastepisodes and explore Voca.
(31:25):
Thanks for beingwith us again today.
ARIA PAHARI (31:28):
Poetry Centered is a project of the University
of Arizona Poetry Center,home to a world class library
collection of more than 80,000items related to contemporary
poetry in English andEnglish translation.
Located on the campus of theUniversity of Arizona in Tucson,
(31:48):
the Poetry Centerlibrary and buildings
are housed on the Indigenoushomelands of the Tohono O'odham
and Pascua Yaqui.
Poetry Centered is the workof Aria Pahari, that's me,
and Julie Swarstad Johnson.
Explore Voca, the PoetryCenter's audio visual archive
online at voca.arizona.edu.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
JULIE SWARSTAD JOHNSON (00:01):
Welcome back to Poetry Centered,
the show that brings yourecordings of poets reading
and speaking about theirwork, selected and introduced
for you by contemporary poet.
The show comes to you from theUniversity of Arizona Poetry
Center and features recordingsfrom our online archive
of poetry readings called Voca.
(00:22):
My name is JulieSwarstad Johnson.
Thanks so much forjoining us today.
For this episode, our hostis Valerie Hsiung, a poet,
interdisciplinaryartist, performer,
and the author of 8 collectionsof poetry, prose, and hybrid
writing.
Her most recentbook is The Naif.
She teaches atNaropa's Jack Kerouac
(00:44):
School of Disembodied Poetics.
In today's episode,Valerie brings together
poems that disorientus in order to open us
to the vital, visceral present.
These recordings are of RobertoTejada, Jennifer Elise Foerster,
and Mei-mei Berssenbrugge.
Valerie, Thank you somuch for joining us
(01:04):
and for being our host today.
Welcome.
VALERIE HSIUNG (01:12):
Hello, this is Valerie Hsiung.
And I'm recording this at mydesk in Boulder, Colorado.
The first recordingI'd like to share
is Roberto Tejada reading,Kill Time Objective,
recorded on January 12, 2023.
(01:36):
In this poem and inmany of the works
from which the poem arrives tous, which is Roberto's book, Why
the Assembly Disbanded, I hearthe legacies of surrealism,
particularly theinfluence of Aime Cesaire.
(02:01):
There's a diaphoreticquality to this poem,
like it's courting deliriumthe way surrealists often do.
The words seem to be courtingthat breaking point of a fever.
You feel the spasms of language,you feel the volatile oils
(02:26):
of the lines, andyou feel blood coming
to the surface of the skin ofthe lines and sweat breaking
from the skin of the lines.
I think part ofthese effects come
from the desire in thispoem to extend the line
(02:46):
beyond its ordinary limits.
This feeling of beingon a precipice as one
is on the verge oftaking flight soon, soon,
but crucially, has not yet.
This feeling of being ata gathering at midnight
(03:08):
before a kind ofcombat and the kind
of energy that isneeded to gather
the spirits, the kindof energy that must
be so concentrated in its form.
So there's a way thatthis language is also
(03:28):
forming a kind of barricade,a tactical tunnel or armor
or barricade to propel thepoet into the future from night
into dawn into the necessity ofwhat is being called upon them.
(03:49):
So it's a languageof fortification
through the breakingof the fever.
What's even moreinteresting is when
the poem begins to shift withthat repeating phrase, but for,
but for, which to me aretwo words of mourning.
(04:12):
And so even with thisprescient and promising,
soon, soon, there isa bold contradiction
here between the promiseand the sacrifice.
Here is Roberto Tejadareading Kill Time Objective.
ROBERTO TEJADA (04:40):
I will end with a poem
back from Why theAssembly Disbanded, which
truly indulges in the paranoidfantasies of the speaker here.
[LAUGHTER] Kill Time Objective.
(05:00):
"For the sake ofmy acoustic self,
I lead out of danger ananonymous pack from the building
entrampment secured by militia.
First prompted wasthe mouth emission.
Other speciestechniques I thought
would never keep me fromthe village emulation.
Even now, a thirdperson plural to ask
(05:21):
in a chorus concerned with allthe unsanctioned disclosures.
We had expressed in suchadversaries our interest,
we had divined from thema quantum of intelligence.
Soon adjusted of my amplitude,I escape and striving, escalate
the only barrierdividing inside from out.
Thick steel at firsttranslucent, gleaming now,
(05:43):
but with a weathered crackleglaze, suspending the ability
to recognize a likeness.
And I panic,overjoyed or appalled.
Anyway, the baseline exhaustingthe tonal pitch insofar as they
see not my face, no matterhow close they look.
First and foremost,classified chief management
mostly disapproving.
Soon the phonic constellationafter hours of the data harvest
(06:08):
room tone proximity to sourceboredom of the solar system
estuary trespass.
Soon as maps were tothe mirror sequence
by leaning on thepresent, complicity
was to the frenzyof flesh, muddle
of tongues, a ransom note.
But for the sake offighting for breath,
already the instrumentfor transposition
(06:28):
in a parasitic image finallyproper of this place.
I'm the encryption.
I'm the statisticno longer bristling
in the heroics of metaphor.
I'm equipped with artillerythat enables me now
to bullet an opening foreveryone's deliverance.
But for the scene change,lodgings very disinfected.
(06:50):
New cause for residing that Itrace it back to the assignment
room and retrievebecause arson what I am
is placed anew andunder observation now.
Two performers licentious butso approving of the spinal cord
perspective as to marvel atthe sheer outrage and wonder
of the surgical incision.
But for the tangledpurpose of the anatomy,
(07:12):
we take to name eviscerate.
But for the conferencehour this week
with my parishioners inexchange for the motion
in multiple layers, overcoat,many trousers, uniform.
In the process alsoof my ballooning
self into the unprecedentedscales of subjection.
As soon as I recitethe lines that
tell the world of theauthority to petrify,
(07:35):
to touch and be tutoredor otherwise curbed,
but never entirely embraced,no matter the many hours
we waited on ledgewoodto trust the day.
But for the amassing bodyattributes of my contempt
and retribution, but for theever more audacious interference
at the level of my molecularresemblance, but for the album,
(07:56):
now, children, pleaseopen to lesson 32." Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
VALERIE HSIUNG (08:10):
The next recording I'd like to share is
Jennifer Elise Foersterreading, "I Become the Canyon,
its Dreaming Eye,"recorded on April 27, 2023.
This poem reminds methat every poem is
(08:31):
made of a different substance.
This poem and the collectionfrom which this poem is
excerpted, "The Maybe Bird,"seems to me to be made of fog
or some other vaporoussubstance that washes over us,
(08:53):
threatens our clarity, creates asense of psychic disorientation.
And part of that,I think, is coming
from what feels like theeye being both sung through
and allowing itself tocamouflage with the environment
(09:15):
it moves through sothat the eye here
is a channel for a kind ofmultiplicity, a scattering
and gathering of amultiplicity of lost voices.
It is both our guideand it is being
guided in real time itself.
(09:41):
The fog may prevent usfrom seeing too far ahead.
But in doing so, it forces usto look to other signs that
help us follow a path.
It forces us to ask ourselves,do we trust ourselves,
can we trust ourselves, whatdo we place our trust in,
(10:08):
what have we.
Time compresses and expandsthroughout this poem,
like an accordion.
The words situate us in akind of apocalyptic aftermath,
an aftermath thatcame long before us.
(10:31):
I feel the Earth whisperingto us in a low tone.
This is Jennifer Elise Foersterreading, "I Become the Canyon,
its Dreaming Eye."
JENNIFER (10:46):
"I Become the Canyon, Its Dreaming eye."
"In the last days ofmy marriage to God,
I descended theirspiraled library,
relentlessly navigatingstacks of shell tempered
mortuary offerings, sandstonesaws recovered from the caves.
(11:09):
I lingered on histories,worn stone steps
to write these thingsto recollect myself.
What had I unburied,what had I freed,
and what is freedom from thehuman need to catalog and clock
our porous loads?
(11:33):
I gazed, eyes closed atthe moon's cratered walls.
Spiders encircled me,spinning their silks
as I listened to thetuning suspension
of the underground particlecolliders vibrating
between silence and motion.
By midnight, saplings hadsprouted from my hand.
(11:56):
The clouds dissolvedinto semi-colons and I
with them into a new languageof branching gestures.
Airborne spores from oneinfinitesimal thread.
A pattern.
It was my first actof disappearance.
(12:16):
I would return beforeanyone noticed poems
to be found in theforest, not the mind.
There's a canyon betweenthis version of me
and the shadow on thestairs that is mine.
I became this canyon,it's dreaming eye."
VALERIE HSIUNG (12:47):
The third and last recording I'd like to share
is Mei-mei Berssenbruggereading, "Slow Down Now,"
recorded on March 13, 2010.
Like much of Mei-mei'swork, this poem is such a lesson
to me in how poetrycan be a practice of
(13:09):
syncopating with time.
Thinking is ourcollaboration with time,
and Mei-mei's poemsare doing that.
They are giving thoughtspace in the poem to unfold,
(13:29):
and they are focusedso intently that you
see the poem requirewhat feels at times
like selectivesensory deprivation.
Like one sense hasto be obstructed
or turned off for anotherto take on ultra perceptive
(13:53):
capabilities.
And this allowsthe words, I think,
to find 1,000 microclimateswithin the mundane so that
the mundane becomes cosmic.
Conversely, she makes elementsof hard science feel tactile.
(14:20):
This poem is not about thepyrotechnics of language,
the gymnastics oflanguage, but are
interested in the force ofreal poetry, thought itself.
The form Mei-mei has beenwriting in for a long time,
(14:42):
and which she writesin in this poem,
is also a form of chronicity.
And to me, thisholds such gravity
because it asks usto reckon with what
it might mean inan ethical sense
to make a home withinchronic illness
(15:04):
like climate change,which is ongoing, which
doesn't have one terminus.
I think of those whopractice endurance
for the pain that comesfrom chronic illness
like migratory migrainesand how so much of the endurance
(15:28):
training requiresone to get beyond the obvious
naming of certain thingslike pain.
There is a way that Mei-mei'spoem is defying delimitation,
defying the experienceof bodily pain
(15:52):
by choosing to definethe microclimates
and micro gradients of sensationand perception instead.
Here is Mei-mei Berssenbruggereading, "Slow Down Now."
MEI-MEI BERS (16:12):
Each poem is going to get rougher as we go on.
This one is called"Slow Down Now,"
and it's also in four parts.
I was reading.
There are booksthat you can read about how to
communicate with plantsand how to make a relationship.
(16:34):
And my subject was therose, but the plant I found
turned out to be a plantcalled an Apache plume, which
grows in New Mexico.
And it actually is arelative of a rose.
"I've been sitting,looking at a plant
(16:55):
without feeling time at all,and my breathing is calm.
There are tiny whiterosettes, and the whole bush
is a glory of feathery pinkseedheads here in the arroyo.
Even with closed eyes, I seeroses in the center of my sight.
New flowers openingout with pink petals
(17:17):
illuminated by sun behindme and gray green leaves.
There is no stoppingthis effusion.
Looking at the plantreleases my boundaries.
So time is not neededfor experience.
Late afternoon is like a stage,a section of vaster landscape,
(17:42):
and my mood is of a summer idle.
The dry Arroyosparkles all around.
Meaning I come upon onwild land strikes me
at first as ageneral impression.
Then joy suffuses me.
(18:02):
I accept that I've agedand some friends have died.
At first, meaning ispart of the plant.
It has not yet unifiedwith my experience
as a whole, like site openingout to its peripheries.
(18:23):
There's an impassebetween my will,
my desire, and the resistance ofa phenomenon to reveal itself.
My seeing is so slow,it seems to disengage.
It becomes very cloudy.
Then suddenly,meaning as a whole
(18:45):
interweaves with my perception.
Desire was the motive force,like meteorological forces.
I repeat the words freshness,tenderness, softness,
the happiness of birds as ifspeaking directly to a plant.
(19:08):
Sunlight is a profusionof pink plumes, thousands
of feathery seedsalready reaching
into the empty spacewhere I've taken a branch.
That space was left open bythe vision I'm having now.
I hold my first sightof the Apache plume
(19:31):
and the presentnext to each other
and go back andforth comparing them.
I see its multiple aspectsas living representations,
its herbal actions andfragrances, its dynamic
in our ecosystem, itsappearance in other habitats,
(19:52):
symbiosis with birds, medicineadministered by an oracle.
These aspects are notreferred to not associative,
but intrinsic to site.
As I run my perceptionsbackward and forward, gaps
diminish and slowly missingimages appear or experience
(20:15):
fills in.
One transformsinto another along
an extending multidimensionalaxis of seeing a plant.
It's not a metaphor for theflow of our surroundings.
One day, you may needa plant you don't yet
(20:37):
know in order to connect piecesin yourself or in a person you
are trying to be with.
It may be a rose bushat the end of the road,
a summer rose whitishon the outside
of each petal and pink inside,expressing its gestalt visually.
(20:59):
When a plant receives thiskind of communication,
it begins altering chemicals.
Its wavelengths reflectin order to offer itself
to your imaginal sightfor you to gather it.
The plant or anotherperson awakes
from embedding in thelivingness of the world
(21:20):
and takes noticeof your request.
The internal chemistry ofplants is one primary language
of response that they possess.
Through this methodof your perception
of its color, its fragrance,and infusion of its petals,
you not only receive moleculesof plant compound itself,
(21:44):
but also the meaning in yourselfthe plant is responding to.
So there is meaning ina chemical compound.
Even though the rose I wantis in the garden of my friend
I miss, an Apacheplume reveals itself
(22:07):
in late light in theArroyo, when I'm alone.
A wild rose, Delphic.
Illness is not healedsimply by supplying
something rose colored andlovely as a medicinal opiate.
Beauty providesform for meaning.
(22:27):
And though it does helpmy body form to form,
I'm not only whatmy senses perceive,
and my disease is notjust physical absence
of virus fields.
When a plant projects coherentelectromagnetic frequencies,
(22:48):
organisms respond, becomingmore open, animated, connected.
They use this amplified fieldto shift biological function.
DNA alters, there'scommunication across distance.
They can intentionallyinsert information
(23:09):
to strengthen cooperativeinteractions among, for example,
an Apache plume,ants, and an agave
in the riverbedlike human families
whose interweaving, lovingbonds represent the long term
incorporation of supportiveco-evolutionary fields,
(23:32):
continually embedded with newdata to enhance connection.
You and I nest within manysuch fields from a rose."
VALERIE HSIUNG (23:55):
I'll end by reading from a work of my own
called "A-begging."The words you'll hear are
both small standalone poemsas well as sections
of a sequence thatforms a longer poem.
I always find it alittle untrue when
(24:19):
poets know exactlywhat they're going
to read before they seethe people in the room,
before they see theroom they're reading in,
before they see how thechairs are situated,
how the space is configured,what the lighting is
like, whether there are windows,how high the ceilings are,
(24:43):
what color the walls are.
I do think that the poet's roleis as much to be a performance
artist and a sound artistand a breath mover as much
as it is to be alanguage worker.
And I don't thinkwe can say we've fulfilled our
(25:04):
responsibility unless we'rewilling to be
permeable to the spaceswe move through, we bring
our words through, the peoplewe come in contact with, the
people we share our wordsand make ceremony
(25:26):
with our words with.
And that means, to me,discarding our papers and books
from the podium,discarding ourselves
from the podium if necessary,when the time comes.
(25:48):
So as I sit down to recorda poem for you today,
I am aware that Ican't see any of you,
and we aren't sharing oxygenor a room, at least not today.
So instead, whatI have to respond
(26:08):
to is the room I am in aloneright now, the microclimates
around me, the season ofthe moment of this day,
the light outsidemy window that's
filtering onto my desk,the busyness and quietude
(26:32):
of the life I findmyself in today.
And of course, the veryfact of our distance
and the intimate distancethat this medium allows us.
From "A-begging.""Like news thatwaits for me, treat
(27:00):
today just collecting firewood.
Take plant into the showerwith me after constipation.
A basic standard of living.
I am happy at 15.
Walk back within myfriends clarity in a way
(27:23):
I can lake down with me intoafternoon button, down, button,
down.
I am happy as long as you are.
To stabilize thestaircase side to side.
The people who loveus suffer the most.
(27:47):
Hath stabbed me not seldom,not from your instruction.
Halo of control.
The sunlight in 1,000 splinters.
Antlers of another's.
Classified like night vision.
(28:08):
O fair maiden, instinctivelyin my self centredness.
Like an animal,afraid in the woods,
alert in the turmoilof my selfishness.
I say to you now froma sublunary vest,
leaves the rest ofthe world to copy.
(28:34):
We are not far from themoney isn't heads I'll go,
not a man who smiles withthe eyes seesaw from left
over would dress up the woundagainst invisible walls.
I am close to everyone.
(28:56):
I am a prisoner.
Moodless in a painting ofa road, yet called a liar.
Back to laundry fortin mint condition.
I walk us back on horsebackfor a bib without breakfast.
(29:18):
Someone with their stolenparts offers rainbow on a knife
by doing it again.
When I ate the wrongthings, a snake
in my belly and the drawingto recognize what I am
(29:38):
is having, keepingtheir eyes as keys.
People are lookingfor questions to shout
into the sky to get the rubberbands out of their quests.
Miss levitation, you'll wanderthe hell's halls, wages or not,
(30:02):
dragging trunk along,vending machine spirit,
such weathered outskirtswhere there is no clean toy.
Two-headed guardian willparalyze a useful figurehead.
The wind is comingfrom the airport.
(30:26):
The conductor isdrawing loyalty to him.
Drinking, swimming water."JULIE SWARSTAD
JOHNSON (30:43):
Valerie, thank you so much for
speaking to each of usand bringing us into this
space where you're recording.
You definitelygave me new things
to think about with yourreading, especially that idea
of the poet as the breath mover.
Listeners, thank you forbeing part of this space.
We recently passed 25,000downloads of Poetry Centered,
(31:04):
which is mind boggling.
Thank you forbeing part of that.
It's a gift to know thatyou're out there listening.
In two weeks time,we hope you'll
listen again, joining usfor a new episode hosted
by Diego Baez.
In the meantime,you're always invited
to check out pastepisodes and explore Voca.
(31:25):
Thanks for beingwith us again today.
ARIA PAHARI (31:28):
Poetry Centered is a project of the University
of Arizona Poetry Center,home to a world class library
collection of more than 80,000items related to contemporary
poetry in English andEnglish translation.
Located on the campus of theUniversity of Arizona in Tucson,
(31:48):
the Poetry Centerlibrary and buildings
are housed on the Indigenoushomelands of the Tohono O'odham
and Pascua Yaqui.
Poetry Centered is the workof Aria Pahari, that's me,
and Julie Swarstad Johnson.
Explore Voca, the PoetryCenter's audio visual archive
online at voca.arizona.edu.
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