kimmchigirl

[II will also try to figure out how to include an audio clip from either Pilote's or Joaquin's CD.]

Because moments iridesce then fizzle as days pass, I tend to distrust moments and wait for solid imprints to form, the ones I return to. The blue seashell, unexpected treasure, washing up at my feet when the kids and I were watching the seagulls. The sound of the waves at night when the only light silvers the crests. I look for what I will want to remember for years to come.

Seeing Marc Smith ("SO WHAT!"), slam pappy himself, perform, reaching out to audience members, reaching them with his inimitable comforting raspy voice opened the night's importance. He walked down the aisles reaching people, touching them. (It reminded me of summer nights in the revival tent in the Community Baptist Church of my Midwestern childhood.)

Steve Marsh is one of my favorites, so warm, so kind, so sharp. He tried to get the camera crew to stop filming when he was on stage. "You don't need to waste film on me." A better administrator you cannot know. The MC developed a call and response for audience members after Steve Marsh's name: "O-KAY!"

The MC for the final bout Saturday, Mike McGee made hosting seem so easy. Humorous, warm, he amped up audience members energy before performances, arranged tight sequencing of performances, and made everyone feel welcome. He engaged us, yes ,with his raucous self-deprecating humor--infamous nipple rub and bouncing belly references in a deliberate slow mo high-five fakeout hug. Political and pop culture jokes as well.  ( Read more... )

I'm looking forward to hearing all the poets, especially two ATL folks, Theresa and Bryan!

Cheering everyone on!

Forwarded from Faith the Poetess with no editing apart from removing her phone number....
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Soul Of Soul Poetry would like to invite you to a night of spoken word on September 21, 2008 6:00 in the evening.  Looking for spoken word artist who are interesting in performing, the event will be held at the Smilin' Dawg 747 Davis Road, Stockbridge Ga (Adjacent to Walmart on Hwy 138).  Nice environment good BBQ & Seafood also drink specials, an event you wouldn't want to miss, If you think you got what it takes come out and show us what  you got.  Please make sure your piece is nice and respectable whether its inspirational, love, passion, motivational etc.  Feel free to express your true feelings by bringing the words to life. Not to exceed 5 Min's come with your best performance for more information contact faiththepoetess@yahoo.com please reply back asap also pass the word along to other artist that you might no who would be interesting in performing the event will be video so come dress to impress DVD will not be available right after the show but will be upon completion of editing for the low low hope to see you there. Brought to you by Soul Of Soul Poetry.

 

Love, Peace, and Happiness

 

FAITH

 

In 2006, Los Angeles and MD was privy to the airing of this S. Korean play, directed by a N. Korean refugee. Set in Yodok, the largest of the prison camps likened often to Auschwitz, the play follows the life of prisoners there. The Boston Globe interviewed the director who likens the play to Korea's Les Miserables.

This trailer was made available by Liberty in N. Korea, a nonpartisan, nonreligious nonprofit whose founder Adrian Hong was jailed in China (and then released) for his Underground Railroad activities.

Here's a current news scan for folks interested in this ongoing story.

From the Internation Herald Tribune, "North Korean Officer Defects to South Korea."

From the UK's Times online, "Refugees shot fleeing N. Korea"

YouTube offers some minidocumentaries from Journeyman, a London-based filmmaker, which I'm only able to embed as clickable links via myspace blog. www.myspace.com/kimmchigirl

One of my best finds while in Korea was growing acknowledgement 
of the need to accept "outside" influences. (Of course, those "outside" influence
served historically as painful reminders of invasion/colonization by other nations)
Above is perhaps the best known female rapper in Korea, Yoon Mi Rae, whose father
African American. I had my kids dancing to her music.

Here's a recent Korea Times article, "New Education Needed for Multi-Ethnic Society."

Of course, there's Hines Ward, who perhaps single-handedly has done more
to promote awareness and change in Korea than any other person. 

Talk about fresh! A group of fellow teachers and friends sojourned to the Ewha University area to eat real, live octopus. 




 

Just outside of the megamall, COEX, is a Buddhist temple which celebrated 
Buddha's birthday despite the rain and overcast skies.

 

I found a memory card of digital pix from my year in Korea. Here are some moments.

Sokcho, a scenic Eastern coastal fishing village
Some fellow teachers and I went during the off-season during February 2007.  Sokcho was a peaceful respite 
full of great seafood and closeby museums.

All right, I've just joined Face Book, back from an action-packed and fulfilling retreat at Kundiman

Having had my fill and then some of the bizarre myspace responses, I'm pleased to see the greater security measures available at Facebook and also looking forward in a low-key way of keeping posted/in touch with folks I cherish and admire.

Would someone like to share his/her most outrageously bizarre, random myspace response? I'm sure you've got probably more than me.

Now if I could only get my lovely sisters to join Facebook, but they're even more gunshy/camera shy then me!

I swear on my mother's soles, the same size as my daughter's, the same size as God's, that nothing aggravates more than waiting for the Gasman, sometime between "8 am and 4 pm."

What kind of "appointment" is that? Even a doctor's appointment where we're usually kept waiting an hour or so bears more pinpoint accuracy.

Where's Didi to my Gogo? We could be waiting for Godot, giving birth astride a grave for all the time it takes. (Actually both my children's births took less time. I gave them both deadlines. "Hurry up, ER's on tonight.").

And then the lighting of the pilot. The last Gasman forgot to put the cover back on so the pilot--that's right--blew out. Like a candle in the wind only not so romantic.

Why? Picture me in 3 inches of lukewarm tub water, trying to bathe; for those who've never met me, imagine a female the weight of a Backstreet Boy. I boiled literally 10 pots of water atop the stove to gain just the 3 inches, mind you. The kids showered at the Y, else I'd still be boiling in more ways than one.

Meanwhile I'm re-watching two DVDs, gained from the library and elsewhere. Of them, the Korean Sundance Selection, 3-Iron by Kim Ki-Duk tops my list, a quirky yet poignant  story told almost entirely without words. Then comes Pedro Almodovar's 2002 Best Original Screenplay Oscar winner, Talk to Her, another bizarre yet moving love story. (Vacuuming and brainstorming and writing, too.)

If the Gasman is *ahem* not unattractive, I may not beat him so badly. This time. I might start boiling him some water. And not for ramen, either, unless you count him.

 

Written with my literature students, this essay places Lorraine Hansberry's play that according to the New York Times "changed American theater forever" (Rich) in contemporary and historical context. How many of you saw P. Diddy's enactment of Walter Lee Younger on ABC late February?

Enjoy!

 

 Yesterday I made the 4-hour drive to ATL to visit one of my favorite open mic venues: Java Monkey Speaks hosted by the richly voiced and warmly inclusive Kodac Harrison.  Though I was only able to stay until 9:30 pm, given the 4-hr drive back before a school night, I was witness to some highly enjoyable performances.

Of special note was Mr. Sugar's paeon to his new love interest; rhymed abab stanzas, the poem's impassioned introduction and delivery made for an engaging, memorable event. The poem itself was dedicated by a poet he met at Mocha Match, a Saturday venue located in cha Match, 627 E College Ave, Decatur., and titled "Come Back, My little Black Sheba," if my memory serves.

Reinforcing the humor and fun, Rupert Fike's creative non-fiction piece on Ireland and Toast roused and warmed audiences as well as Teresa Davis' response to insomnia.
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Last year, All Walks of Life, Inc (AWOL Inc) received a city grant; a non-profit with formal 501c3 status, AWOL has staged some spoken word workshops at the Public Library throughout the fall, I noticed. WIth their youth intervention angle, no public youth rec center, and the city crime rate escalating, likely they will continue receiving funding.

This year, Spitfire Poetry Group presents the third annual Spoken Word Festival; their new myspace account is a bit more interactive and posts recent and upcoming events. I have to say it's great to see that the 3 different spoken word poetry entities co-sponsoring this event: AWOL Inc., Frantic Rabbit at the Sentient Bean, and Spitfire. In the past, there's been some competitiveness and communication gaps that pulled away from an effective community scene.

Even SCAD is starting to recognize spoken word as an art form; yesterday's (Jan 6) featured performance via the Student Activities Council was Paul D.

Having missed last Wednesday's Club Tropicana open mic (snow flurries on my 13-hr drive back from OH), I plan to make it out this week.

Like many profs, I don't have the chance to do much writing during the school year: 60-70 hr weeks prevail with grading, preparation, conferences, and conducting actual class. Given my evening shifts of teaching, I cannot attend the poetry events around town, nor can I sacrifice precious family make-up time on weekends or breaks. One ongoing challenge that I hope to meet even more so this next quarter beyond the many powerpoints created for students are learning disabled and dyslexic student needs in a text-based class. So here are to my goals for this Xmas break

* Club Tropicana, Broughton Street. Wednesday open mike night with live music starting at 8:30 pm. Thank you, Mr. Freddie from AWOL Inc, for cuing me about Tantra Lounge whose open mic apparently ends in 2007 while as Mr. Powell from Spitfire Poetry Group related, Club Tropicana will be ongoing. I hope to make it first week of January. 

* Special call for submissions from Java Monkey in ATL, Dec. 31. I hope to make a trip the first weekend of January before SCAD's winter quarter begins.

* Crazyhorse Poetry and Fiction Prizes [something to aim for]
Two prizes of $2,000 each and publication in Crazyhorse are given annually for a single poem and a short story. Submit up to three poems or a story of up to 25 pages with a $16 entry fee, which includes a one-year subscription to Crazyhorse, by December 15. Send an SASE, call, e-mail, or visit the Web site for complete guidelines.
Crazyhorse, Poetry and Fiction Prizes, Department of English, College of Charleston, 66 George Street, Charleston, SC 29424. (843) 953-7740. Garrett Doherty, Editor.
crazyhorse@cofc.edu
crazyhorse.cofc.edu

So I asked my students to translate their favorite color or sound in terms of images/textures or a physical art object/sculpture as a color/image to unleash new trains of thought. Synaesthesia, as most of you know, is describing one sense in terms of another--some folks do it naturally, seeing colors and shapes when they hear music or vice versa.

This is one 5-minute freewrite, cleaned up for viewing, I had written in class worth salvaging this past quarter. 2 are worth saving while all have shreds of something. Not sure at this point what it may become. 

Meditation on Miles Davis' "Blue on Green"
The arabesque of the Miles’ trumpet spirals into black sky, the inside of his mouth studded with stars. Open wide the black cavern that stirs and murmurs with the rush of each breath. Draw in the ribbon of sound, pull it down the throat to the split between channels then narrowing lung tunnels diminishing into blood. Imagine one note clinging to one red cell’s curve, a drop on a lip’s edge. Spin down a thinning red river a fragile raft. Hear a ribbon spindled down into thread: A mosquito’s whine fading around the bend into a crawl space then gone. Another long drawn breath funnels a spill of grace notes, silver flecks glittering down into the black gape of this one breath right now.

 

 

Of the audio recordings of authors' reading their own works, few hold the delight and fascination of David Sedaris' Naked or Dress your Family in Denim and Corduroy, His debut anthology, Santaland Diaries, an autobiographical account of his experience as a Macy's elf, provoked traffic accidents to NPR listeners driving while under Sedaris' influence. 

What may surprise the handful of listeners who have not heard more of Sedaris' work is the utmost care and craft by which he turns a phrase, a bit of overheard conversation that becomes a measure of family shorthand. Having made a career out of personal experience narrative, he iremains to my mind one of the most innovative and accessible creative nonfiction writers among us. 

Naked, the more current of his releases, bears the polish and finesse of a seasoned veteran while Dress your Family in Denim and Corduroy, hold the raw power of interrogating one's own sources, plumbing the depths of one family's eccentricities, more moving with unexpected touches. Here the ordinary foibles and flaws, in Sedaris' analytical lens, achieve an extraordinary delicacy and verse so much so that even multiple readings satisfy beyond what the general public may perceive as self-deprecating punchlines. Who among us cannot enjoy the camp and quiet pathos that can come from family life, vivified by a sarcastic and deeply observant eye. While Capote's In Cold Blood is often hailed as the instigator of the Creative Nonfiction genre, Sedaris has achieved mass audience appeal without sacrificing his distinctive unique vision. All the more invigorating for writers among us with voices that might register, by the writer or listeners themselves, as marginal at best.

On a more traditional literary level, Lorrie Moore's introduction for 2004's The Best American Short Stories reinvents the concept of introduction. Sidney's The Defense of Poesy finds his match in Moore's explication of the short story form. Fighting canonical descriptions of the form which needs no defense, she crafts an antidefinition that illuminates and surprises. Describing the many other theories and their contradictions as a collective stone soup, she adds "to the stew" a momentary container that holds both truth and fire. The selected audio stories in the audio collection hold their own with Moore's introduction, a perfect grace  note to hover in the air of any introductory literarure classes. For readers/writers investigating both traditional narratives and voice pieces, the audio anthology can inform about relevant publications to which to aspire.

Submitted to Korea Times and JoongAng Daily.

[The context for this essay is the extraordinary pressure for students in Korea to excel at school 
in order to secure jobs in a very competitive job market. Suicide barriers in subway stations are 
erected without much stir. A 2007 government campaign was launched against suicide, once 
global statistics revealed that Korea holds the highest suicide rate in the world and Korean teen 
suicide is their 2nd leading cause of death. 
       Along with headlines of Korean students achieving international prizes in physics, science, 
or music are the many unspoken ones. Some desperate students drive the impetus for this 
collaborative essay written with students in MLA style--readers, please be mindful of the fact 
this issue is universal among students. Other nations have also hit international headlines as well--
or should have. 
      I've recently gained the correct transliteration of my former students' names. 
Thank you, Brian, and my students, for your excellent and true work!] 

( Read more... )

 

 I'm not the kind of writer who can afford the luxury (or has the patience) to write a novel that has no market interest, so I'm gearing up to write a book proposal.

Given the collective history and interest at stake in my novel-in-progress, I have to ensure a wide readership for it. At this time, I'm really not sure if Korea is very popular, let alone N. Korea, with US publishing houses. However, in order the give the book a good run, that's my best bet.

Lo and Behold, so many books exist on book proposals. If anyone has a suggestion about the best ones, please share them. I would greatly appreciate it. 

EDIT: My father has final edit--after all, this story has an impact on our family in 2 continents. He's looking the draft over and hasrequested not to release it till we talk.

( Draft: Ariadne's Gold Threads )