An Evening of Asian American Poetry

With Meena Alexander, Regio Cabico, Luis Francia, and Kimiko Hahn

June 13th, 2002

[Photo by Antony Wong]    Poet Meena Alexander organized the evening of poetry reading by the Asian American poets.

Aftermath

There is an uncommon light in the sky

Pale petals are scored into stone.


 

I want to write of the linden tree

That stoops at the edge of the river


 

But its leaves are filled with insects

With wings the color of dry blood.


 

At the far side of the river Hudson

By the southern tip of our island


 

A mountain soars, a torrent of sentences

Syllables of flame stitch the rubble


 

An eye, a lip, a cut hand blooms

Sweet and bitter smoke stains the sky.

 

By Meena Alexander

(New York City, September 13-18, 2001)
Copyrighted Meena Alexander


 

[Photo by Antony Wong]   Audience at the poetry reading.

Invisible City

Sweet and bitter smoke stains the air

The verb stains has a thread torn out


 

I step out to the linden grove

Bruised trees are the color of sand.


 

Something uncoils and blows at my feet

Sliver of mist? Bolt of beatitude?


 

A scrap of what was once called sky?

I murmur words that come to me


 

Tall towers, twin towers I used to see.

A bloody seam of sense drops free.


 

By Liberty Street, on a knot of rubble

In altered light, I see a bird cry.


 

By Meena Alexander

(New York City, October 17- November 3 ,2001)
Copyrighted Meena Alexander


 

[Photo by Anna Lai]    Poet Meena Alexander cited the hazards of poetry writing.  She was known among her children's friends as "the mom who kept talking to herself".

Pitfire

In altered light I hear a bird cry.

By the pit, tor of metal, strut of death.


 

Bird song yet. Liturgie de cristal.

Flesh in fiery pieces, mute sediments of love.


 

Shall a soul visit her mutilated parts?

How much shall a body be home?


 

Under these burnt balconies of air,

Autumnal duty that greets us.


 

At night, a clarinet solo I put on:

Bird song pitched to a gorge, a net of cries.


 

In the news, a voice caught on a lost line:

`We’ve even struck the bird’s throat.’



By Meena Alexander

( New York City, November 20- Dec 5, 2001 )

Copyrighted Meena Alexander

Note:

The poems `Aftermath’ and `Invisible City’ first saw the light of day on December 7, 2001 when I took part in the panel discussion `Artist in a Time of Crisis’ They are part of the exhibit `Time to Consider: The Arts Respond to 9/11'

In the poem `Pitfire’ `Liturgie de cristal’ is Olivier Messaien’s phrase. I have taken it from his preface to Quatuor pour la fin de temps, Part 1. The clarinet solo is Part 3 (abime des oiseaux).

 

[Photo by Anna Lai]   Prof. Betty Lee Sung asked about the craft of poetry writing.

Coup D'etat

Think of your lives as leaves,

    One life, one leaf

Each death a fall off a tree.

Ponder your veins, the network

That feeds you.  One day the

Roads will be blocked, traffic stopped

And some voice will shout above the din

Or whisper, elections are over,

    The state dissolved.

No one's in command now.

The guards will come down

From the watchtowers, officers

In backrooms will shred the files,

And all the citizens of you

Will know it's time to go,

    In quick or slow

Exodus, in graceful fall

Or plummet plunge-

A furious leavetaking.

Partaker of what soil had to

Offer, the soil now offers you.

Be neither happy nor sad, 

All of you, though some should

Rejoice, who will for once be of use:

Mulch, grub to the tiny and the many,

Those whom you buried will now bury you.

Luis H. Francia

Copyrighted by LH Francia

[Photo by Anna Lai]    Poet Luis Francia compared poetry writing to love making, that it took patience and practice.

WHAT PICASSO AND GAUGUIN WOULD HAVE SEEN ON THE SEVEN TRAIN

                        I.

Throughout its steely length an empire

crowds together, the globe circumscribed

in those odd miles from Flushing to Times Square:

Morning, mobile and marching.

Wired on dreams, through

the stitch and thread of fabulous rags,

They ready themselves for 

offertories of bucket and wastepaper basket,

search computers for signs of the sacred, 

and look upon the cursor as

the god of invisible things

                        II.

In those packed cars he would have

cut them all, arms lifted from shoulders,

curves angled to grasp the skull.

A nose looks, eyes listen, ears perch like birds

At Grand Central, Times Square, the crowd

alights, lines explode in search

of history, mass and tauromachy in motion:

The canvas according to Pablo.

The canvas according to Paul:

He casts the Seven,

roaring to a halt where he sits,

as an isle afloat in a 

constellation, skyscrapers a row of palm

trees, bull's head now a livid moon

dusk face, sun limb, flowers of

women's bodies, reassembled, whole:

Histories condensed in search of line.

                        III.

From canvas to canvas the

Seven winds its way, iron artery 

bearing the city's red blood cells,

each worker a secret Moctezuma

bent on retaking the New World,

enduring Manhattan's scrutiny that

each day memorizes and each night forgets their faces.

Burnished, murmurous, ever since first

foot fell, fled, forced out of place, O voyager

fierce, fed on desire, turn your ploughs

into shares, your lives into knives

compacted and diffuse.

Always your dead are never far

remembering, and never letting go of the night

Luis H. Francia

2001

Copyrighted by LH Francia

[Photo by Antony Wong]   Poet Kimiko Hahn invited questions from the audience

[Photo by Anna Lai]   Poet Regio Cabico reciting his poetry.