No. 2 (Margaret Emma Brandl) - Exchanged for a Pocket Broadside at AWP 2012
The second of the pieces that was given to us in exchange for Pocket Broadsides at AWP—a short poem by Margaret Emma Brandl—is now posted on Tumblr! Click here to read “February Sweet.”
To see all of the Pocket Broadsides that have been posted on Tumblr thus far, visit the project’s main page at pocketbroadsides.tumblr.com. To read each new piece as soon as it is posted, follow us on Tumblr, or subscribe to the RSS feed.
CONTINUOUS FRIEZE BORDERING RED
Continuous Frieze Bordering Red by Michelle Naka Pierce | Fordham University Press 2012 | $19.00
Michelle Naka Pierce’s Continuous Frieze Bordering Red is made up of five lines spanning sixty-eight pages. Read the first line of the book all the way through, and then the second line, and so on. Pierce conceived of this project during the study of Mark Rothko’s Seagram murals at the Tate Modern in London. She writes a room with sixty-eight sides. We are surrounded.
Pierce chooses to begin with an epigraph by Rothko, the ending of which leads us not toward the grandiose, but toward the uncomfortably intimate: “However you paint the larger picture, you are in it.”
At first I wanted to see Pierce’s text installed, each page depicting a scene in a sequence of discrete panels. I wanted to see the breadth of such a room—I wanted to be inside of it. Then I realized—I’m in it. Pierce is in it. This sixty-eight-sided room is the spectral polygon we inhabit. read more…
"translation" (Click to visit the download page)
This week’s digital broadside download is actually two designs in one. Designer Kenji C. Liu has created two separate visions for Kimberly Alidio’s poem “translation” (from LR issue 2): not only has he designed a beautiful desktop wallpaper, featuring an image of a boat, but he’s also conceived of the printable version in such a way that it can be cut and folded into a miniature chapbook. Kenji (who’s a poet and past LR contributor himself, in addition to being a crackerjack graphic designer) had this to say about his decision to create a printable that requires an element of DIY:
The reason I decided to make an “interactive” broadside is I’m interested in making bookmaking as accessible as possible. The broadside is a great tradition that makes writing easier to distribute. I just wanted to take it one step further and demystify the book. This mini-chapbook is more in the DIY “zine” tradition but is also inspired by pocket poetry and “poems for all“. It is extremely easy to make, reproduce, and distribute. I hope others will use this format for their own poems, and leave them everywhere.
In the spirit of making it even easier to spread the poetry love, we’ve created a video tutorial demonstrating how to turn it into a book:
Both of Kenji’s beautiful designs can be downloaded at our “Digital Broadsides” page. Where will you leave a copy of your “translation” mini-chapbook? As always, we would love to see a photo or hear a story. Tag us on Facebook or on Twitter, leave a video response on YouTube, or send us an email at editors [at] lanternreview (dot) com.
Pocket Broadside #4 - Ocean Vuong
Issue 1 contributor Ocean Vuong‘s Pocket Broadside, a miniature poem called “Mother Tongue,” is now on Tumblr!
To read all of the Pocket Broadsides that have gone up so far, please visit the project’s main page at pocketbroadsides.tumblr.com.
As always, we’d be grateful if you helped us spread the word by following, reblogging, tweeting, or Faceb00k-sharing.
Panax Ginseng is a monthly column by Henry W. Leung exploring the transgressions of linguistic and geographic borders in Asian American literature, especially those which result in hybrid genres, forms, vernaculars, and visions. The column title suggests the congenital borrowings of the English language, deriving from the Greek panax, meaning “all-heal,” and the Cantonese jansam, meaning “man-root.” The troubling image of one’s roots as a panacea will inform the column’s readings of new texts.
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Bad Hong Kong Movie Subtitles
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When I spoke at the “Speaking in Tongues” panel for AWP in Chicago, organized by Sandra M. Yee, I found myself taking issue with the panel’s description:
In this panel of rising young artists, each writing inside two or more languages and/or cultures, we examine how we see ourselves pushing against literary and cultural traditions. How do we challenge our assimilation into the English language? To whom do we owe our allegiance as writers? Who is our audience? Whether code-switching or speaking in ancestral tongues, how do we act as representatives of our cultures? And in an increasingly globalized society, how do we embrace or shun these roles?
In my talk, I questioned the idea of writing “inside” two or more languages and cultures, because that “inside” presupposes an “outside.” Prepositions in English—at, on, into, through, from—tend to be physical or directional. In the grammar of other languages, such as in Chinese, prepositions are largely nonexistent or based on context. But in English, to write “inside” a tradition is to situate that activity within space, and to define a space is to define its boundaries.Since, despite my complaints, I am still bound to the grammatical strictures of English,) I would prefer to say that rather than writing “inside” languages and traditions, we write “across” them. One example I provided in my talk was a recently published short story by playwright and author Rosebud Ben-Oni, to whom my talk was dedicated. I wish to comment more at length about the story here.
"Memory" (Click to visit the download page)
This week’s digital broadside features Neil Aitken‘s poem “Memory” (from Issue 4), and was designed by Melissa R. Sipin, who’s a poet, a cofounder of TAYO, and a past LR contributor herself. We asked Melissa if she would share some of her thoughts about her choice of Neil’s poem and how that led her design process, and here is what she had to say:
I was led to design Neil Aitken’s “Memory” because of the poem’s vivid play on the concept of memory and its correlation with “the sum of mere data.” It awoke something nostalgic in me, and I was organically drawn to these lovely lines: ”What is memory? / And who is it that slips in at these odd hours … / Who is it that stirs upstairs in my mind … / Here, my father is alive again, once more…”
In the same breath, after learning the intent of Aitken’s poem and its connection with Charles Babbage, I researched the life of Babbage and began to design the poem organically. Designing tends to be a visceral experience for me, and as a result, the visual themes of absence and gradient holes took hold. I hope I designed a broadside that is pleasurable to Aitken and the heart of the poem.
I think it’s safe to say that Melissa has successfully captured at least our hearts with her gorgeously illustrated design!
Melissa’s lovely interpretation of “Memory” is available in two forms—as a printable .pdf, and as a desktop wallpaper—and can be downloaded at our “Digital Broadsides” page. We hope that you’ll download both—and that, especially if you hang or leave a copy of the printed version in a public space, you’ll share a picture with us (on Facebook, on Twitter, or by email), and tell us about any stories that might be generated when others encounter it.
Pocket Broadside #3 - Aryanil Mukherjee
We’re pleased to announce that a Pocket Broadside by Issue 2 Contributor Aryanil Mukherjee—an excerpt from his book-length poem, “Dead Fish Buoy”—is now on Tumblr. Please help us spread the word by following and/or re-blogging!
To see all of the Pocket Broadsides we’ve posted so far, please visit the project’s front page, at pocketbroadsides.tumblr.com.
Garrett Hongo
Garrett Hongo was born in the back room of the Hongo Store in Volcano, Hawai`i in 1951. He grew up in Kahuku and Hau`ula on the island of O`ahu and moved to Los Angeles when he was six, much to his everlasting regret. He complained so, his parents sent him back when he was nine, where he lived in Wahiawā and Waimalu with relatives who so hated him, they stuffed him on a plane back to L.A. when he was ten. He grew up fighting from then on, all the way through Gardena High School, where he encountered Shakespeare, Camus, and Sophocles in English classes. They convinced him to try higher education, so he went to Pomona College, managed to graduate, still fighting, and found poetry there under the tutelage of Bert Meyers. He wandered Japan, Michigan, and Seattle thereafter, supporting himself through wits and lies, directing the Asian Exclusion Act from 1975-77, becoming poet-in-residence at the Seattle Arts Commission in 1978. He then gave up wit and went back to graduate school at UC Irvine, studying with the poets Charles Wright, C.K. Williams, and Howard Moss, all of whom averred he deserved hanging. Hongo has subsequently taught at USC, Irvine, Missouri, Houston, and Oregon, where, fool that he was, he directed the MFA Program in Creative Writing from 1989-93. He has written three books of poetry, including Coral Road (Knopf, 2011), edited three anthologies of Asian American literature, and published a book of non-fiction entitled Volcano: A Memoir of Hawai`i (Knopf, 1995). Not among the falsehoods on his resume are two fellowships from the NEA, two from the Rockefeller Foundation, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Lamont Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets. He is now in semi-retirement and fights no one, having lost all his teeth and suffered from tapioca of the hands. He plays with his daughter, scolds his two grown sons, and loves his wife Shelly Withrow. He is presently completing a book of non-fiction entitled The Perfect Sound: An Autobiography in Stereo. In Eugene, where he lives, they call him, among other things, Distinguished Professor of the College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Oregon.
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LR: As a longtime professor of creative writing at the University of Oregon, what has the relationship between academia and poetry been like in your life?
GH: Academia has provided a space for poetry, actually. We can pursue it seriously this way—in formal classes and workshops. I didn’t fully and consistently connect with my own poetry until I got to an MFA program—at Irvine—where I studied with C.K. Williams, Charles Wright, and Howard Moss. They each gave me something different that I desperately needed—C.K. a big push and a challenge, Charles subtle and constant support and a craftsmanlike approach in answering my own inspirations, and Howard amazing formal wit and geniality in working with my own poetic structures. Since then, as a teacher myself, I try to do things similar for my own students. The poetry workshop has been a haven, though, a place to put the busyness of the world aside and concentrate on poems, poetic thought, the imagination. Academe has been the environment that has supported this most consistently for me.
No. 1 (Carolyn) - Exchanged for a Pocket Broadside at AWP 2012
Happy Monday! We’re pleased to announce that the first of the short pieces that were given to us at AWP in exchange for Pocket Broadsides is now posted on Tumblr. Click here to view this miniature poem by Carolyn.
To see all of the Pocket Broadsides that have been posted on Tumblr thus far, visit the project’s main page at pocketbroadsides.tumblr.com. To read each new piece as soon as it is posted, follow us on Tumblr, or subscribe to the RSS feed.
"Vanitas" Broadside (Click to visit the download page)
Happy Friday, everyone! As we explained in our update on Monday, we’re celebrating National Poetry Month this year by offering a series of free Digital Broadsides, designed by Asian American designers (many of whom are poets themselves), and featuring poems from past issues of LR. Today’s broadside, which showcases R.A. Villanueva’s “Vanitas” from Issue 4, was designed for us by the talented Debbie Yee, a poet, Kundiman Fellow, and print artist who lives and works in San Francisco. Debbie’s design for “Vanitas” is available for download in two formats—as an 8.5″ x 11″ printable .pdf, and as a desktop wallpaper (in three different sizes, to fit screens with 4:3, 16:10, and 16:9 aspect ratios, respectively). Click here to visit our new “Digital Broadsides” page, where you can download the broadside in your format of choice.
As a multi-disciplinary artist, Debbie often combines her interests in the visual with her writing and knowledge of bookmaking in order to produce beautiful short-run chapbooks and other pieces of literary art. For her latest project, which is funded by a grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission, she has committed to giving away 100 copies of her own handmade chapbook, Handmade Rabbit Society, in exchange for each recipient’s sharing the name of a self-published or small- or micro- press chapbook that he or she has purchased in the last 18 months. The goal of this exchange project, Debbie writes on her web site, is to turn more “people on to the chapbook format and [introduce] the work of emerging poets and writers.” You can read more about Debbie’s project and find out how to participate on her site, Linocat.
We hope that you’ll take a moment to download, print, and post Debbie’s beautiful interpretation of “Vanitas” somewhere where others can see and encounter it—perhaps a bathroom stall, a classroom, a bulletin board, a door, a refrigerator. If you post a copy somewhere public or have stories to share about what happens when you do, we’d love to hear about it. Send us an email (editors [at] lanternreview dot com) with a photo and an explanation, or, if you’re on Facebook, upload a picture of where you hung the broadside, and tag us! (@Lantern Review). When National Poetry Month is over, if we gather enough stories and photos, we’ll do a little feature post highlighting some of our favorites here.
