Genre: Spoken Word

Poet Sueyeun Juliette Lee reports on her P&W–supported reading and workshop with the experimental Houston collaborative Antena. Lee is the author of Underground National (Factory School Press, 2010), That Gorgeous Feeling (Coconut Books, 2008), and Solar Maximum, forthcoming from Futurepoem Press. In addition to her writing, Lee publishes innovative work by multiethnic authors through Corollary Press. She also edits for The Margins, the web magazine of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, and EOAGH: A Journal of the Arts.

Antena, made up of Jen Hofer and John Pluecker, is a language justice and experimentation collaborative, currently in residence at the University of Houston’s Blaffer Art Museum. In addition to curating an immense exhibition of book arts and small presses from the Americas (North, Central, and South) alongside text-based visual work by eleven artists from Latin America and the U.S., they also pulled together artists, small press publishers, and writers to convene this past February for a weekend of workshops and dialogues about community and art in a multi-national exchange. I was one of the invited artists.

In order to facilitate this cross-cultural exchange, Antena utilized real-time interpretation, which required all participants who weren't comfortable in both English and Spanish to wear headsets and radio receivers. Bilingual interpreters were present at each event and interpreted live for the participants by broadcasting on different radio channels. Though it was often challenging to listen through the headset, the experience underscored and manifested the obstacles we must wade through if we want to have a true encuentro, or encounter, with difference.

The workshops ranged from creating language-oriented artwork together, such as making a massive collective block print with Nuria Montiel of all of our favorite phrases, or participating in performance experiments led by Autumn Knight, who invited us to engage each other in playful new ways. The evenings were devoted to performances of all the featured artists’ work.

I was incredibly impressed by the audience’s diversity. There were of course many undergraduate students there, since we were located on the University of Houston’s campus, but Antena’s commitment to community and access was evident in the range of other workshop participants and attendees from all walks of life. One older woman approached me and told me she was not a “poetry type,” but was profoundly moved by all the things she had heard that night. She was clearly deeply affected. Isn’t that the greatest feat we can hope art will accomplish?

I was astonished by the cross-arts resonances that emerged between us. For example, I met Guatemalan visual artist and indigenous activist Benvenuto Chavajay, who asked me about the kite I had made for the exhibition. His country has an annual kite celebration, and we discussed the ways that kites impact national and cultural identities. Though I am a Korean American, raised outside Washington D.C. by immigrants, and Chavajay is of Mayan descent, we had very similar understandings about the kind of transformative work we wanted to accomplish through our art, and the way that we understand our relationship to our heritages and histories.

There are many moments from the Encuentro that I will never forget—especially watching Stalina Villarreal toss her “bouquet” of poems into the air and hearing Ayanna Jolivet McCloud’s skin as she rubbed the microphone across her body.

Top: Encuentro participants; credit: Pablo Gimenez Zapiola. Bottom: A collaborative block print; credit: Sueyeun Juliette Lee.

Support for Readings & Workshops events in Houston is provided by an endowment established with generous contributions from the Poets & Writers Board of Directors and others. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.

Cati Porter is a poet, editor, and community arts facilitator. She is the author of Seven Floors Up (Mayapple Press, 2008), as well as several chapbooks, most recently The Way Things Move The Dark (dancing girl press, 2013). Her work is included in the anthologies Women Write Resistance, White Ink, Letters to the World, and Bedside Guide to No Tell Motel–Second Floor. The recipient of poetry awards from So To Speak: A Feminist Journal of Language and Art, Crab Creek Review, and Gravity & Light, she is founder and editor of the online journals Poemeleon: A Journal of Poetry and Inlandia: A Literary Journey. She is executive director of the Inlandia Institute. For many years, P&W has supported Porter's events as both a poet and presenter.

What makes your organization and its programs unique?
Based in Riverside, California, and beginning in partnership with the City of Riverside and Heyday Books, the Inlandia Institute as a regionally focused independent literary nonprofit is unique. Of course, we do everything that you might expect: We publish books, host author events and book signings, and offer writing workshops and other related programs. What it is that sets us apart is our dedication to Inland Southern California, defined as much by the people as by the geography, and the broad range of programs that we offer.

In addition to literature and literacy, we also take on cultural and environmental projects that are of significance to our region. One example of this is Women Making Waves. This project recorded the oral histories of women activists who were integral to the preservation of our region’s open spaces, like Sycamore Canyon Park and Santa Rosa Plateau. The project was later integrated into our website as an interactive permanent exhibit and resource. Another is an upcoming publication of memoirs centered around the burning of Lowell School and the subsequent desegregation of the Riverside Unified School District, the first large school district to voluntarily do so, and which will include interviews with former Lowell students, community leaders, and others who had insight into that tumultuous period.

What recent project and/or program have you been especially proud of and why?
We’re proud of all of our programs and projects, but we were thrilled this past fall when Inlandia had the opportunity to partner with Poets & Writers to present Sal y Muerte, a day-long workshop and reading project held at the Salton Sea—such a heartbreakingly beautiful and desolate location, but completely ripe for creating art. The project included workshops in poetry and prose with Sandra Alcosser, Brandon Cesmat, and desert natives and inveterate Inlandians Maureen Alsop and Ruth Nolan. The workshops culminated in a reading by campfire accompanied by Cesmat’s guitar. This is the sort of workshop that embodies what Inlandia is all about—bringing people together where language and landscape intersect.

And I would be remiss to not mention that we are also extremely proud of our new Inlandia Literary Journeys project, in partnership with the Riverside Press–Enterprise. ILJ includes a weekly literary column, video interview series, and affiliated blog.

How has literary presenting informed your own writing and/or life?
The first literary event I ever hosted—eight years ago, back in 2006—I was petrified. Above all, I am a writer, and I have an affinity for hiding behind a monitor or a book. But now, through the Inlandia Institute, I host events on average of once per week, so while I do still get butterflies, it has become much easier. I admit that I began presenting literary events out of the largely selfish motivation of wanting to attend more readings closer to home. It has enriched my own sense of what is possible, both in literature and life.
 
What do you consider to be the value of literary programs for your community?
I have watched as the Inlandia Institute has built a solid community of creative thinkers, writers, and readers, rising up out of common interests—in this case, language, self-expression, and an appreciation for this place that we call home. In the last few years, other groups have risen up here too—I'm thinking specifically of PoetrIE and the Wild Lemon Project, whose missions are similar to our own. Organizations like these and the cadre of literary-minded folks that run them are what help to forge this region’s literary identity and put it on the map, so to speak. Literary programs encourage engagement with our humanity and with other human beings, something as necessary as air, but not necessarily as easy to come by. The Inlandia Institute is helping to change that.

Photo: Cati Porter at an event at Cellar Door Books. Credit: Matt Nadelson.

Major support for Readings/Workshops in California is provided by the James Irvine Foundation. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.

P&W–supported writer Asia Rainey is a spoken word artist, vocalist, actor, and educator. She is the author of the book Soul Chant (2005) and a poetry CD compilation, No Rainbows for the Colored (2007). She premiered her one woman play, "Shut Up and Fly," to rave reviews in 2010, and has been welcomed as a speaker/performer at numerous events and educational institutions. Rainey has produced poetry events from spoken word open mic nights to the Write, NOLA Poetry Festival and the New Orleans Youth Slam Festival (NOYS Fest). She is presently working on her first novel with Chin Music Press and is working on a new CD, which will include her original music and spoken word. She continues to broaden her role in education as a Master Teaching Artist with Young Audiences Charter School, an innovative arts integration academic program in New Orleans.

Can you tell us about your organization WordPlay?
I adapted the model and curriculum of a sister organization, WordPlay Baton Rouge, in 2007 after returning to the city post-Katrina. When I came home, I saw a need to help rebuild the spoken word community and support the next generation of poets.

WordPlay New Orleans became the vessel for that work via workshops, connecting with schools, community events such as the Write, NOLA and NOYS (New Orleans Youth Slam) festivals, and poetry open mics. Working with libraries in New Orleans, including the P&W–supported workshops at the Algiers branch, was a natural part of that work, as they provide safe spaces for people of all ages to be exposed to spoken word poetry.
 
How do you get shy writers to open up?
My belief is that no matter how shy or lacking in confidence a person may be, we all have something to say. I have done my best to first help people connect with themselves and find the voice within them that needs to be heard. Once that first step is made, there is something that compels a person to move past fear and finally be heard. The freedom and connection felt from sharing that writing makes most people open, even anxious, for the experience.

What is your writing critique philosophy?
If you are writing to simply express yourself, and you are giving your truth, who am I to say that it is wrong or not good enough? After I have given the tools I can to improve that writing, my "critique" becomes the questions: "Have you said what you need to say?" and "Is this the best way you feel you can express it?"

If you are writing for an audience (even if that reason is coupled with the first motivation)—meaning you want to move into paid performance, publish, or even compete as a slam poet—I believe the writer is asking me for a different mode of feedback. Then I am looking for form and flow, the way the work engages and connects, and the development of strong performance.
 
What do you enjoy most about teaching writing?
That moment of self realization, when a person of any age finds the power in their own voice. I love to see the beauty that comes when someone of any age is transformed by their own writing. It is a blessing to play any small part in that.
 
The piece “Shotgun” on your website reminds one of Gil Scott-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” and the bluesy “Fiyah,” melds spoken word and song. Who and what are some of your influences?
Music—from the strings of a symphony performing Scheherazade to the earthiness of India Arie—can make my pen move. My writing is influenced by poets from Gil Scott-Heron to Sonya Sanchez, Harlem Renaissance to the Last Poets, MC Lyte to Common, the vast number of phenomenal spoken word artists I've met across the country to the youth poets, who've taught me I still have much to learn, to the poet who poured her heart out on stage for the first time.

How does teaching inform your art and vice versa?
Teaching is part of understanding what I have learned. Breaking down what may come naturally or intuitively to you into learn-able parts brings greater understanding. The teacher becomes the pupil.

Additionally, your pupils, and their successes or setbacks, are your constant mirror. One of the young poets I worked with struggled to find his voice, telling us what he thought we wanted to hear. I called bull****. He was shocked that I would say that about his work, but I told him that I needed him to find the truth in whatever he had to say, and if he could do that, he would get where he wanted to be. He did it and has written beautiful work since. I have called bull**** on my own writing many times since then, simply because I have to practice what I preach.

Photo: Asia Rainey. Credit: Gus Bennett Jr.
Support for Readings/Workshops events in New Orleans is provided by an endowment established with generous contributions from the Poets & Writers Board of Directors and others. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.