Draft: 10 Minutes

Posted by Yvonne - May 8, 2009

10 minutes

Working comments: While reading Leslie Marmon Silko’s Storyteller, I was struck by her use of line breaks to create verse out of sentences that would otherwise read as prose. I’m drawn to this idea of the use of lines as a pacing device without having to adhere to the conventional standards of what constitutes poetry. The goal here is not to write poetry, per se, but to create a mood, a moment. Along the same vein, the use of the sentence as its own paragraph and introducing some additional space between paragraphs [which isn't working on the blog] also changes the pacing of the story.

The other area I’m experimenting with in this piece is integrating the process of writing with the story itself. “10 Minutes” has its genesis in my attempt to write one sentence for each year of my life. Before making it past “Birth,” I realized that the process of having a long-seated memory interrupted by a recently uncovered truth is as much the story as the original story itself. To tell one without the other would feel somehow incomplete.

Reading Journal: Zami by Audre Lorde

Posted by Yvonne - April 30, 2009

Closing Zami, after the final page, for the second time in my life finds me flooded with thoughts, wide and deep. Thoughts of race, gender, sexual orientation, and the craft of writing. Thoughts of my own lovers, my own survival, my own growth and change in the gap of the twenty years between readings.

My body recognized certain passages — Lorde’s first description of being with another woman — and how it felt to read that for the first time in the late ’80s/early ’90s, a time when I went from being the only gay woman I knew to being a lesbian in language, in community, in identity. A time when I was part of a sisterhood of other women — young, smart, confrontational feminists demanding that the world change — but always feeling on the fringe of the fringe myself, an outsider due to my own insecurities and identity issues.

I ached and angered at the racial discriminations Lorde describes, but always with a layer of guilt for my own whiteness. And then a confusion as to what it means to be a woman of color, a term introduced to me during my studies of feminism in the ’90s. During that first reading, I still considered myself to be Spanish and checked the box for “Hispanic” whenever prompted for race.

Reading Zami now brings up many of the same memories, although this time they are tempered by years and experience and perhaps a bit of softening (or becoming jaded, depending on how generous I feel with myself on any particular day and topic). I consider the craft more, which is to say I never considered it all the first reading. How does Lorde keep me so intently focused on reading when Dorothy Allison’s One or Two Things I Know for Sure did not? Is it content or craft or both? Is it a question of where I am at the moment of reading, much like Gabriel García Márquez’s 100 Years of Solitude (which I could not get into on the first three attempts and then one day found myself absorbed and unable to put it down)? How did that book go from being one I disliked to one of my top five favorites?

A friend suggested to me a few possible traits that, for her at any rate, make an autobiography interesting to read:

- a certain strength of the writer in overcoming adversity
- a connection to humanity
- the wisdom of perspective

When I consider those ideas, along with a couple of the assumptions I came into this semester with, such as autobiography as a way to…

- reflect/represent shared (and possibly under represented) realities
- honor one’s one voice
- create a new paradigm
- understand life better [perhaps the same as the 'wisdom of perspective']

… I begin to remember that autobiography at its most powerful is different from our culture’s obsession with reality television and tell-all ‘memoir.’

Lorde tells her story in a way that is so ‘under-written’ that it is compelling in its humanness, in its individuality amidst a context of culture and society, in its descriptions of anger and injustice without ever becoming an ‘angry’ book.

I’m reminded of something I once believed, something I wrote in my application essay for Goddard just last year:

I must tell my story, not because it is my story, but because the underlying truth of it is shared by others who have not yet voiced their own heartbreaks, abuses, struggles or moments of transcendence.

It isn’t my story, my voice, or my poem. Once I get out of the way, then what is created is a connection to another human being. Crafting those connections is where my interest and my responsibilities lie and what I strongly believe my job is in this lifetime. It is, in a sense, to follow William Stafford’s interpretation of Blake’s Golden Thread–the knowing that every thread, if followed, has a poem at its end. It is those threads that bind us in our humanity.

Zami is one of those threads.

Lorde, Audre. Zami, a New Spelling of My Name. Crossing Press Feminist Series. Trumansburg, N.Y.: Crossing Press, 1982.

Zami is a self-declared “biomythography” of the early part of Audre Lorde’s life, from growing up in a West Indies family to carving out her Independence as a Black, gay woman during the WWII era of the 40s and the Red Scare/McCarthyism of the 50s. Zami tells an intensely personal story of Lorde’s life, and the women she loved, against the ever-present awareness of the political climate through which she had to navigate, even within her own relationships and friendships.

Zami both preserves a historical context for current and future generations to better understand issues of race, gender, and sexual identity in our culture as well as providing a literary autobiography of great craft. Lorde’s sense of poetry interweaves with her directness of storytelling, creating a balance of language and narrative.

Draft: Memories and Myth

Posted by Yvonne - April 27, 2009

I am from sand, rented
Scotty trailers, from fishing
poles and careful walks on salt-
water slicked jetty rocks.

I am from the house with holes
in the walls, fist-sized, knife-
sized, chair-sized.

I am from sugar cane
stalks, grown quickly and cactus
sharpness even when seemingly soft.

I am from pit-roasted pigs in
suburbia and salsa as sound and dance,
from Jose Garcia-Rosario, but you
can call him Joe, from the mother
he gifted me with when I was nine
and from a family that held
my heritage for thirty years
without knowing my name.

I am from working hard to find an easy
way out and dangerous tempers tempered
by time, from always almost making it
big and this time, things will work out.

I am from black magic bonfires, catholic
church hypocrisies, atheism to awakening
with an infinite awareness of awe.

I am from a teenager taken to the desert
when she started to show, German-Scottish
at birth, then Spanish once
the papers were signed. I am
from black beans and rice
plataños fritos y flan.

I am from Frances Garcia, part
Native American part Middle America
100% my mother regardless
of bloodlines or legalities
from Grandpa Jack who crawled
across the floor, looked
back at himself and laughed
from Keven Ann McKelvey, our last
connection carried in my belly button.

I am from obituaries and purple hearts, from hand-
made ‘Good Luck’ tokens and renaissance fairs
from days spent fishing and afternoons spent
searching thrift stores for that special find. I am
from fantasyland and tomorrowland, from memories
and myth and written lines.

Working comments: This is an exercise that has been around for a while and has been waiting patiently in my poetry prompts file. Tonight, I’ve finally taken time with it and enjoyed the structured and somewhat unexpected nudges. It helped me tap into memories and generate ideas that I might have had a harder time approaching head on. This is a very rough first draft but it was such a great writing experience I thought I’d share.

If you decide to give the exercise a try, feel free to post your draft in the comments.

Photo Break: The Thirsty Ram

Posted by Yvonne - April 27, 2009

Dry

Draft: an odd sort of release

Posted by Yvonne - April 27, 2009

Draft: an odd sort of release
It was strange walking into the house again. Full of all the same things — the white couch with my games tucked in the drawers beneath it, my father’s green vinyl recliner held together in places with grey duct tape — yet empty, like an abandoned cathedral empty of both people and faith. My little toy organ that I first played “Silver Bells” on was gone, however, along with the life-size dolls that had always secretly creeped me out.

The last time I had been there, three months earlier, my father had come home from one of his “fishing trips” to discover I had been living alone for three weeks. The woman who was my mother at the time had gone into the hospital and, upon her release, went to live with her mother instead of coming back home.

Now, I had returned from living with other family in Puerto Rico for the summer and we (my father and I) returned to the house together to pick up my favorite stuffed animal and a few other things.

It was on this day that I found out I was adopted.

As Dad filled boxes, he told me to go take a shower. I remember feeling the hot water against my scalp and the trepidation that she would show up. She did. At the time, back when I still called her Mamita (a word I haven’t spoken in thirty years), she was a giant, with her long red nails that often left scabs on my head.

Years later, I was surprised to be face to face with her and discover she was shorter than I am, with thinning hair and very frail looking. The madness in her eyes, however, was still familiar. The same as it was that day, when I was nine and she stormed into the bathroom, cursing at me in Spanish, damning me for ruining her family.

The words that still echo in my mind are these:

…You aren’t even part of this family you were bought like a piece of unwanted furniture and all you have ever done was destroy my life you will never be anyone you’ll end up a whore on a street corner…

I was nine and the truth finally spoken: she was never my mother. We did not speak again for seven years.

Working comments: This story is one I’ve told, with varying degrees of details, for close to thirty years. Until this attempt, I had not written it out in its entirety. While it is a pivotal story in my own life, my own mythology, I’m not sure what it means to present it as a story separate from the context in which it is normally told—as a means of knowing me better. Sharing our histories seems to be pivotal to creating a sense of closeness, of intimacy, with friends, family, lovers. To leave this on a page, with no exchange back from the reader, makes me feel both vulnerable and self-conscious/centered. Is it the story that wishes to be told or my own truths that I need to have acknowledged, validated? Without knowing my intent, I fear that the writing comes across as either too removed or too self-indulgent.

Draft: It sounded simple enough

Posted by Yvonne - April 25, 2009

Draft: It sounded simple enough
I just finished feeding the two doggies, guinea pig, and catfish that I’m co-habitating with at the moment. They have been my only company since getting into my friend’s house Friday evening. It has been quite nice to be in relative quiet; although I could do without being woken up at 5am with a wet nose pressed against mine and a full-body wag happening on the other end of that wet nose.

My train ride from Montpellier to Philly was, for the first time, completely uneventful. We didn’t hit a single car this time and neither of the engines broke down. The taxi ride went fine as well, although I suspect he took a slightly longer route. The GPS told him to turn left; he turned right, mumbling “shit” and then proceeded to ignore the GPS (except for the occasionally mumbled “shut up” when it would tell him to turn and he would keep going). Whatever. At least I got to the right house!

As I unlocked the door, I kept mentally going through the next series of events that would need to happen quickly:

- Get my bags in
- Close and lock the screen
- Go turn off the alarm
- Go back and close and lock the main door

None of those in and of themselves sound particularly complicated. However, did you know that it is physically impossible to fit a suitcase, backpack, computer bag and oneself through a very small door opening while being accosted by a black lab and a wirehaired pointing griffon? Or that adrenaline has an odd way of blocking out the simplest of tasks, such as entering four numbers into a keypad and remembering which button to hit next to get the little red “alarm” light to turn green?

I also discovered that one has to shout the secret password fairly loudly into the receiver for the security company to be able to hear it over the increasingly shrill alarm. And, much to my surprise, said security company cannot help you figure out which button to hit next either. I also learned that house alarms get louder and louder and louder the longer they go off but somehow seem to be in such an octave that not a single neighbor notices it, even after many many minutes. The dogs, however, can hear it quite clearly and respond by running around frantically in circles, adding to the general sense of mayhem.

Thankfully, I was able to understand my friend’s instructions via cell phone, even through her laughter. That simple list of things to do reminded me a bit of a study plan. It sounds so easy but the execution can be a real bitch sometimes.

Working comments: This was a fun write, a release of my odd sense of humor on the written page. Like “an odd sort of release” [which I'll post later], this was also told verbally as an impromptu explanation prior to being written down. The ending was added to place it into the context of the readers I was originally sharing it with — fellow Goddardians. It might be interesting to see what could be done taking it out of that specific context and not wrapping it up so cleanly at the end. On many levels, this felt just like a writing exercise in experimenting with allowing a different part of my personality to come out in my writing. I wouldn’t mind trying my hand at another piece that is stylistically like this again.

Draft: a false start

Posted by Yvonne - April 24, 2009

Draft: a false start

Perhaps a fragment of a dream, an early dream since I’ve remembered it as long as I have remembered. The cushion of the carrier, blue padding seen in the periphery. A white lattice membrane between me and the playground, the smell of damp earth and musty under-building crawl space. I see the see-saw, merry-go-round—although names, like colors, are added in after the fact. An old black and white photograph colored in years later. The red-faced sensation of crying. Loudly. I remember that clearly, as if it all happened. The family mythologies and human biology say that it could not have. Yet bees should not be able to fly. The tired feeling in my tiny chest, exhausted from the screaming. Something has gone wrong. That much, at the very least, is true.

Working comments: An experiment in putting my earliest ‘memory’ into words. Influenced by Lyn Hijinian’s My Life, I went with flashes of sensory impressions and simply wrote in free-association with whatever came to mind. As it stands, it feels like the introduction to a larger piece perhaps. I like the concept of memory being unreliable and yet very real and might play with that a bit more moving forward.

Exploring representation of self - an inquiry

Posted by Yvonne - April 10, 2009

Exploring representation of self - an inquiry

About half way through Dorothy Allison’s One or Two Things I Know For Sure, I closed the book. Having been fully captured by Bastard Out of Carolina many years prior, I thought this book would also engage me, particularly with my focused studies of autobiographical representations.

Yet, despite some beautifully written, haunting passages, I did not feel compelled to read any further. As I put the book back in my friend’s bookcase, I’m surprised at my own thoughts: I’ve heard this all before. Some part of me has grown jaded to the confessional, reality-based approach of books, movies, television that has pervaded the American culture.

The timing is unfortunate since I’m only five months away from beginning my Senior Study Project in earnest, a project whose premise springs from the desire to tell my own story via a collection of poetry. Or at least, that’s what I thought a year ago when I started the BFA program at Goddard College. Now, I find myself questioning the worth of such work.

Why does representing/recreating the self matter in a culture inundated with memoir and reality TV? These are the assumptions I bring to that question and to my studies this semester:

why1

Over the next 15 weeks, I hope to gain clarity regarding these ideas.

Setting the stage: My goals for this semester

Posted by Yvonne - April 8, 2009

The framework for this blog over the next four months is defined by my goals for the semester. This is my final semester before beginning my senior study project, a prospect which both thrills and terrifies me simultaneously.

To help set expectations about the type of information that will be appearing here, I thought I’d post part of my study plan. Part of the inquiry outlined below will include creative work which focuses on autobiography and experimentation with genres.

This semester, I want to explore ways, outside of traditional memoir, in which we (re)create and (re)present our life narratives and why it matters. This exploration will cut across a broad swath of genres, including creative non-fiction, lyrical essays, poetry, performance, and hybrid art.

My goals are multi-faceted:
* To conduct an inquiry into the value of adding to the mass of autobiographical work in a culture already saturated with reality television and memoir;
* To broaden my creative experience in hopes of finding my own voice;
* To re-engage with writing in a manner that challenges the assumptions I have about what it means to be an artist/writer in the world.

I will approach the topic of autobiography and the goals outlined by reading, watching, and viewing autobiographical works, as well as creating short pieces within each of the genres mentioned above. My ultimate goal is to set the foundation for my senior study project next semester. I hope to gain clarity regarding the content and format of that project.

As always, discussion is encouraged!

More soon,

Yvonne

Another semester, another iteration of the blog

Posted by Yvonne - March 29, 2009

This week I’m on campus, enjoying the energy of the residency.

In a short two days, I’ve already realized that the direction in which I am heading requires a visually clean slate as far as this blog is concerned.

To that end, I’ve deleted all of the previous posts (which focused primarly on tanka and photography). I’ve left the photo galleries intact via the links at the top of the page. The photo365 project has been abandoned for numerous reasons, the most critical perhaps being that it took the joy out of photography for me.

Within the next two weeks, Daily Notebook will re-emerge as the conduit for my current creative project. I welcome you to come back and explore and engage in the dialog then.