It’s late Sunday night in Honolulu. We are night sky, dark ocean, and a poetry of lights from here to Waikiki. Writing a blog is a little like writing poetry, songs, stories, or anything creative. You set out with stars, wild trust, and more than a pinch of fierce spark. Tonight a few trade winds join us. They all have names in Hawaiian. I don’t know them yet but I recognize many of them. Some of the winds are predictable, reliable, and familiar. Others are strangers, travelers. One night a lost, young male wind rattled, pushed and blew at the house, this side of the mountain, before careening away, out over the Pacific. Just a week ago about this time, I was winding down from a performance for the Taos Summer Writing Program at my room in the Sagebrush Inn. Pam Houston’s Irish Wolfhound Fenton remembered the prairie dog town from the year before and placed her dignified paw on the door as a definite signal for: “I want to go out now and shake up the town.” Pam let her out. “She doesn’t eat the prairie dogs. She just likes to chase them.” I would love an Irish Wolfhound or two as muses, guardians, or friends. They are real dogs and would never be mistakenly stepped on as house slippers. But I travel too much—even my late pet angelfish, Anela, made it clear that leaving her was unacceptable. She would drop her fins every time I pulled my suitcases out to the living room. She sulked. It took time, and a few frozen shrimp snacks to snap her out of her mood, which she always held until a day after I returned. And she was characteristically moody, a fish diva, who loved to be admired. She also suffered from horrible PMS. Yes, a fish with PMS. That’s another story. **** I have many topics, possibilities, or paths in mind for the week. They include: 1) How to stand up in front of an audience and perform poetry after a couple of nights of jetlag insomnia, a long drive, and a loss of faith in poetry, performance, and national leadership. And more. **** Good night or good morning. And, a P.S./disclaimer: this is a journal, only. Forgive the rough. **** And for good measure, from one of the real poets of our times, Stanley Kunitz: “When you look back on a lifetime and think of what has been given to the world by your presence, your fugitive presence, inevitably you have to think of your art, whatever it may be, as the gift you have made to the world in acknowledgement of the gift you have been given, which is the gift of life itself. And I think the world tends to forget that this is the ultimate significance of the body of work each artist produces. It is not an expression of the desire for praise or recognition, or prizes, but the deepest manifestation of your gratitude for the gift of life.” I am up early, my shoulder scraping the dawn, just in time for the arrival of the drilling and sawing workmen next door. They have been at it for two months. Non-stop. Every day they arrive a little after 6:30, except for Sunday. There is no shutting off the racket. Our houses are open up here in Alewa Heights and the acoustics excellent, especially at night. I hear geckos, spates of coughing, and when the Korean speaking-in-tongues people behind us used their house as a prayer and singing camp, I was a reluctant participant. Their entreaties rolled through the house. Then they would eat together on paper plates, sitting all through the yard within a few feet of the back wall of my house. I could hear their turns at the toilet and once someone’s quick and passionate tryst. That house has been sold and torn down. Now a developer from Hong Kong who has become known for tearing down the local-style houses and building monstrosities has torn down the house, concreted the over-an-acre yard and is building two ugly houses that will tower over the neighborhood. The workers she’s imported from China, who work from sunup to night in their white pajamas and coolie hats, and even on Sundays and holidays aren’t here yet. She moves them back and forth to different properties. The overseer carries a mobile phone and wears designer glasses over his sneer. When the workers speak, the intonation sounds strangely like the Mvskoke/Creek language spoken at ceremonies, and when they’re working and speaking I am often suspended on an aural track between here and the ceremonial grounds in Oklahoma. Now the generator next door is fired up, there’s hammering, and I don’t know how I’m going to write. When I write I depend on silence to reveal the poem. I am not like Leslie Silko, for instance, who makes a wall of music that allows her entrance to the other side, into the story. I need silence. Any woman writer who has raised children has learned how to make a “room of her own”—under a tin roof, trees, or at the kitchen table. When I started writing poetry in my mid-20s, with small children in student apartments, I grabbed writing time whenever I could. Usually it was between the children’s bedtime and three in the morning. Often it was in scraps during the day, while they were playing. Try researching the condition of the soul as it is revealed in the song of a cricket serenading from the corner where the broom hasn’t reached dust and cookie crumbs. I’d have to get up and sweep. Then feed the children. I learned that crickets are good barometers of weather. Their art was in rain songs. I managed to write a few good poems. **** Instead of writing poetry I worked on this blog, wrote a letter to my son, I revised a lyric, recorded a podcast of a new poem, “I Will Get My Subterranean Back,” downloaded an Indie Band Manager Program, took the trash down, went to the Kapalama Post Office to mail out a piece of music equipment I sold on eBay, listened to interviews with Leonard Cohen and Truman Capote, and watched a Humvee blown up in Iraq on Google Videos, went to Star Market because I was out of fruit and bought a bag of lychee, talked with a couple of Cherokee friends of mine who were having lunch in downtown Tahlequah, began reading from my back up stack: Rakish Paddy Blues, A Macaronic Song by Gearoid Mac Lochlainn and John B Vallely, an exploration of Irish language and music. “The poems are inventive bi-lingual or ‘macaronic’travelogue that journey through song, dance, revolution, freestyle recitation, rap, blues, and the suppression of the old harpers, pipers, and poets to arrive at today’s sessions and the multi-cultural music mix of present day Ireland.” (I look forward to listening to the CD.), worked on revamping my Web site, studied three pages of instructions forwarded to me from Hewlett-Packard on how to make my scanner work on my three-in-one, practiced two songs I’m writing on saxophone, read Lorna Dee Cervantes’ blog, despaired at my over 200 emails that need to be answered, and various other tasks that needed to be done—wrestled with a few demons. **** From Blackfoot Physics, p. 5, “Western education predisposes us to think of knowledge in terms of actual information, information that can be structured and passed on through books, lectures, and programmed courses. Knowledge is seen as something that can be acquired and accumulated, rather like stocks and bonds. By contrast, within the Indigenous world, the act of coming to know something involves a personal transformation.” So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about his or her religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, and beautify all the things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give a word or sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respects to all people and grovel to none. When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and nothing for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of vision. When it comes your turn to die, do not be like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like the hero going home. **** From notes written the morning of July 8th, Albuquerque: I wanted to ask her, where did the bruises really come from? There’s something about nines. I look forward to nines, the ninth of months, the eighteens that add up to nine, as do fifty-four and forty-five. Today is the 18th. So far it’s the same: hotter than usual, construction noise, and projects spread out in front of me next to my saxophone. And every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday during regatta season, it’s paddling practice. Yet, the day fits smoother. Do I know why? No. For much of America I am a ghost. I learned this first several years ago when I was invited to perform at Auburn University in Alabama. The university is located not far from the historic grounds of the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, at a bend in the Talapoosa River. My several-greats-grandfather, Menawa (we spell it Monahwee) fought Andrew Jackson in a last attempt to hold onto our homelands in the East. Monahwee’s band of Red Stick warriors were slaughtered. They were outnumbered by troops and firepower. Monahwee survived though he had seven bullet wounds. He was forced to go to Indian Territory, which eventually became Oklahoma. He lived to be almost a hundred. (One of my cousins promises to show me where he is buried the next time I’m back there.) We still have many stories of him. Even after the reluctant move to Indian Territory he once again became a fugitive. He dove between a woman and the husband who was beating her, on the streets of Okmulgee. He had to go into hiding. Justice has both global and intimate implications and is a familial theme. After I walked the grounds of the battle I began to get sick. And just before the reading I had acquired a terrible case of bronchitis. (I’d never had bronchitis before and never had it after.) The lungs energetically process grief. Still, I had to perform. When I stood up to read I introduced myself as Monahwee’s granddaughter. The audience gasped. I was a ghost. According to American and Alabama state history, we had all been destroyed on that day in March 27, 1814. (Twenty-seven is a nine.) Most of America still believes this and suffers affront when we step outside of our place of silence in history and walk into a classroom, show up in textbooks, or start casinos like Mr. Trump. My grandmother, Naomi Harjo, the daughter of Henry Marsey Harjo and Katie Monahwee, played saxophone in Indian Territory. My great-aunt Lois who made art, even had a BFA in art, and supported my path as a poet told me that because her family dressed well and had cultivated European manners (their allotted land was on the largest oil fields in the country) most people took them for Jewish or Chinese. How could they be Indians? Cotton Mather may not have originated the deceitful conceit: Indians are demons, not human beings, but he imprinted that into the atmosphere at the birth of the American imagination. Words are powerful and even have their own lives, make families, after they leave our mouths. Words spoken at the birth of anyone or anything are some of the most potent. In 1967 one of my high school classes at Indian school took place in a classroom set up to teach us how to cook and clean for the townspeople. By then this was no longer part of the curriculum, yet the classroom was still set up this way. Many of us read and wrote poetry outside the classroom. We found and shared it on our own. I loved Thomas Hardy— I am always aware of working against denial in this country. Most of the time I just play music, write, and move forward with the intention of making art that is both stunning and useful. Useful. Now that’s an outrageous concept when considering postmodern criticism. **** I make it a practice to ask myself now and then, whether I dead or alive. If I am one or the other does it make a difference? I still have to move with integrity whatever the country. **** In these times of fierce patriotism I note that the mood follows in poetry. There’s always a schism between the poetry fundamentalists and those of a different path. On the first day of a new job at a respected university one of my fellow poets marched into my newly assigned office to greet me. His greeting was this: “Some people are Jacob poets and some are Esau poets. I’m a Jacob poet. I’m civilized. You are an Esau poet, of the wilderness.” That was the last time he ever addressed me directly. I wonder about the correlation between voice and poetry and a kind of warfare in which there is no personal contact, rather smart bombs that do the work. Someone pushes a button. Their hands appear to be bloodless. **** Actually, I get up, check planetary aspects, go out and talk with the sun, play music (unless I'm writing), pick up my mess and settle in to see what will happen—and when I'm not doing that I deal with family dramas, go to the gym or outrigger canoe paddling, read, watch movies, listen to music (online and in real time)—or if I'm on the road, there's more to contend with, and I’m constantly searching for meaning in each small piece of the vision—and connecting it all back to the heart **** This was from a letter to a friend who called to tell me he lost his mother in June of 2004: Tonight a crow dressed in sadness guffaws from the garage roof. Here’s a mostly final draft of the poem: GRIEF Tonight a crow dressed in sadness cries from the roof of the sky c Joy Harjo July 13, 2006 Today I got to listen over the phone to the calls and cries of the blanket toss competition at the Eskimo Olympics, going on right now in Fairbanks, Alaska. Tug-of-war is another of the events at the Eskimo Olympics. The tug-of-war between white men and native women is a recurring event. The women have always won. Some tug-of-war games I’d love to see: academic poets versus slam poets, novelists versus poets, East Coast writers versus West Coast . . . **** I agree with you Paul. Poems can exist as shimmering entities, in their own right. Can they exist without a voice? Even if they are on paper or the screen there is a voice we hear when we read. Where is that voice located? In the head, heart, belly, or somewhere else in consciousness? Is it our own voice? Is it an imagined voice, or parent’s voice, or teacher’s voice? Or is it the imagined voice of the poet speaking directly to us? **** It can be disconcerting to hear someone else speak or sing your poems. “Eagle Poem/Song” has been licensed and recorded and performed in many different, mostly classically European styles. The poem is transformed, becomes something else. The other recordings or performances become stepchildren of a sort. They make a new life for themselves in the arms of someone else’s music. It’s always a little strange. The words are the constant, yet the context changes. The poem goes from wearing red cowboy boots and jeans to wearing furs, a glint of diamonds and heels—and hangs out in different company. **** Each poem exists within my imagination differently than it does each reader’s—yet there is some sort of commonality or dare I say, spirit? A poem has to have integrity of architecture and voice to stand. What is it about Robert Frost and “Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening” that sticks to the American imagination? Rhythm, sound, image, voice, and feel all converge perfectly. And then there’s the horse. A horse ups the ante. The horses in James Wright’s poems are still there, giving a sense of vulnerability, nobility and grace. **** Yet poetry, music, and dance came into the physical world together and they feel lonely when they separate. Most poetry of the world is oral, doesn’t appear in books of poetry. Hula was not invented as a dance to entertain tourists though a branch of it became just that—it’s dance that’s done to epic poetry. Most indigenous people’s poetry isn’t separate from music or dance. It was when I returned to the poetry of my father’s people, that I began my own experiments and practice of bringing back together poetry and music. My first experiment was with some of the best jazz musicians in Denver. The poetry was flatly read (those readings sound really flat, in retrospect), and recorded. Then the musicians came into the studio and added in selected places. Laura Newman, a fine jazz saxophonist held it all together with soulful riffs. Around that time I started playing saxophone, started with a G blues scale. Mvskoke people were there when jazz was invented. Congo Square in New Orleans was on the site of a Houma ceremonial ground. If you ever hear Mvskoke music you will hear one of the important components of the American music that rose from those sacred grounds. We were part of that amalgamation. When I was in junior high my stepfather forbid me to sing. It was also in junior high that I wanted to play saxophone. The band teacher refused. “Girls can’t play sax”, he said as he dismissed my request. I walked out of the band room and away from music. Though not really, because it was rhythm that drove the poetry I started writing in my mid-20s. And then in my late 30s I finally started on the sax, and eventually put my first band(s) together to put together poetry and music. At first I read—then the reading became more melodic, more integrated with the music. I had poems, and the music stood across the practice room in its own form and I had to figure out a way to get them together. Both had to make concessions in form and shape. Letter From the End of the Twentieth Century was the result of that experiment. Jayne Cortez, who I heard in New York City in the late ‘70s, blew me open. And Linton Kwesi Johnson, who I heard perform in Amsterdam at one of those wild One World Poetry events in the early ‘80s, inspired me. Ginsberg was the King of poetry there. Now I’ve started singing and singing makes other demands on poems that become songs. Phrasing changes. The singing voice is an additional carrier of meaning. I’ve written some lyrics and hold them to the same standards as my poetry. At first it was difficult to do so—because we hear so many song lyrics, most of us, more than fine poetry—it’s difficult to transcend the hardened ruts. For awhile I got stuck in between the territory of demanding poetry and freewheeling songwriting and couldn’t write a decent poem or a good lyric. **** I’m babbling and it’s late. And it’s finally cooling off and the incessant drilling and sawing that went on from 7 AM to 5:30 PM has mercifully stopped. At about four after I worked valiantly to record and arrange a poem, “Sunrise” that is now a song (with heavy cutting), and practiced sax, I couldn’t stand the racket anymore. I went outside to talk with the workmen. I couldn’t tell them to stop but I could ask them when the hell was going to end. Just knowing there will be an end gives the mind some sky blue to hang the frustration on. It turns out one of the guys is a trance medium. (I first heard it as “trans-medium”….hmmmmm….)He was asking me for “Indian” words as his guide is Indian. There are over five hundred tribes and nearly as many languages. **** And, Paul, remember T.S. Eliot’s poems make the Broadway CATS production. And **** Here is a Web site for one of my favorite poets, the Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish: http://www.mahmouddarwish.com/ Mahmoud Darwish wrote "A Soldier Dreaming of White Lilies," one of his best known poems, just after the 1967 war. Darwish tells of an Israeli friend who decided to leave the country after returning home from the front. I want a good heart Not the weight of a gun's magazine. This poem was very controversial. To allow the enemy humanness is radical. What happens when you and the enemy become one? What happens when you become absolutely fearless? **** I was disturbed and in a terrible funk yesterday with the weight of the ongoing news of wars, fires, heat and other intimate familial destructions. Drove to the other side of the island for an outrigger canoe paddling practice. Getting into the water, and practicing racing sprints helped ease the anxiety, the pain. Water soothes grieving. There’s a reason most of the surface of Earth is water. **** Evening Song I failed a little **** Good night. First sounds this morning: my soul finding the body, a phone message from Alaska of the “Airplane Song” being sung at the opening of the Eskimo games last night, and the calling, calling of doves. **** Inspired by the gift of Eleanor Wilner’s exquisite poetry this morning. (Excerpted from “High Noon at Los Alamos”): As if compelled to repetition **** This body is something I’ve put on with breath. I slip it back on every morning. At night I leave it and go traveling, both vertically and horizontally. I will discard it when that opening beckons in the Milky Way. And who or what or how is “I?” Meridel LeSueur was at work on three noun-less novels when she died literally with a pen in her hand. She had become flow, the essence of clouds, earth and sky, not the things themselves as they are named by human names. Yet she so honored and admired this rough and beautiful planet. She was earth in that chaos just before spring, as she leaned over the sky. She didn’t look back. The English language is noun heavy. Dineh, or Navajo, Mvskoke, or Creek are predominately verbal. And in Hawaiian there is no line drawn between the ocean, earth, and humans. **** This last entry will not be personal; rather it will be the mist who is in love with the Ko’olau’s. Last night at the end of the evening rush traffic in Honolulu, heading makai, the mist floated tenderly next to the shoulder of the mountains. It was around this image that the evening arranged itself. **** No, I am not going to analyze poetry here. I’d rather be poetry. **** From a beloved Hawaiian song: “Hi’ilawe”: Kumaka ka ‘ikena ia Hi’ilawe Ka papa lohi mai a’o Maukele Pakele mai au I ka nui manu Hauwala’au ne puni Waipi’o (And so on—This is a classic Hawaiian tune and includes many more verses. These are the first three. From He Mele Aloha, A Hawaiian Songbook, Karen Wilcox, Vicky Hollinger, Kimo Hussey, and Puakea Nogelmeir ‘Oli ‘Oli Productions, Honolulu, HI 2003. One version of the song is credited to a Mrs. Kuakini, and another to Martha K. Maui.)
Honolulu Dusk Painting July 19, 2006
I blog and podcast regularly at www.joyharjo.com. See you there. |
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