The Final Friday

Now for a more coherent look at last Friday: 12 authors, 12 books, 1 night. Here we are:

First, it was very well attended. At least 100 attendees, standing room only and we had set out every single chair. At the program I set my books up on end, next to Anup's store of books. But I took a photo of some of them before I went off to the final reading. I had decided that my books would be for display only. It's not that I don't think no one would want to buy them or that I must possess them all myself. It's just that I had promised most of them away already and some were quite deficient. Turned out that my edition of "fantastic mistakes" was highly coveted. It is the one in the upper left corner of the photo.

My own favorite was the cover with the sting ray spear on the cover. It was tightly stitched and all the pages ended up where they belong and the margins are comfortable too. The wooden frame that was used on that cover was wonderfully aged, dark and worm riddled.
However, Professor Matanle came over and was looking at the books. Since the cornerstone poems of the collection were the work of a class where he was the instructor, I said, "You can have one. If you want it."

"Which one is your favorite?"

He chose my favorite. But not for the sting ray spear but rather for the small moon in the corner. The piece of the sting ray is real. The moon is a bit of discarded jewelry; they are equally valuable artifacts.

So Steve Mandes did a wonderful job at the microphone. He always captures the audience, makes them laugh, makes them cry, makes them hiccup on occasion. His work is audacious. And then there is his book, with a layout nearing perfection (okay, I think it is perfect, he is the one who protests), and his watercolors, and the construction. It is of a piece complete and whole. Steve lives in his works.

Near the end of this semester, the professors asked us what we would do after our MFA, how would we keep the artist's life going? In the nights since my "final" reading, I've stitched three more editions of my book, attended a critique group reading, submitted two poems, and started letting the paint spill from the paint can in terms of writing. I knew I had been an artist when I arrived in the MFA and no matter what comes, artists keep writing, keep painting, keep dancing, keep seeing the world the way that an artists sees the world.

So I introduced my book to the room. A sense of calm was within me suddenly. Moments before, sitting beside my sister, my heart tremored with tachycardia. But then, at the podium with my book in my hands, I felt in the company of comrades. No harm could come to me in that moment. I explained that the constraints of the book: that the cover, the frames, the "artifacts" were all donated, and therefore, to me, true. Here is a strap of panties, a coin, a fortune from a Chinese fortune cookie opened at an Annapolis restaurant and carried in my wallet for a decade. Authentic artifacts in a sense of the theme of the book.

Moments before I had still been trying to decide what to read, but in the end it hinged on who was present. Initially I wanted to read "Lilith" knowing that it was difficult to decipher verbally but "Lilith" was the keystone, the center of the collection, the way I had found the book. But it seems to me, when you have a party, a celebration; that you honor the people "who brung ya." So I read primarily for the family and friends in the room.

First I read "Shallow." I warned some of the younger audience members that I was going to read a poem that is a bit "scary." They were not afraid. It is a poem easily misunderstood, not unlike the author. I can't help that. And a poem that still confounds me. I have written several editions of it. In some ways, I think it is a collection I have yet to write.

Then I read "His Heart" for Julia, who lifted her drowsing head and was astonished to hear her name. This is one of the ways that poetry is birthed. Then "King's Contrivance" for Francesca, a poem that has deeper roots in my own cardboard abodes than in the ones I witnessed her constructing.

Then for Sara, I read "Be Water." If you have met my daughter, if you have read this poem, you know what happens. The breathing poetry, the snapping, stitching, laughing, scolding, raw skin on concrete, endless sea of blue, happens with Sara. That is how a poem comes; uninvited yet completely welcome and absolutely necessary.

As for me; it is difficult to believe I was ever even here. The most selfish, glorious, self-indulgence I have ever given to myself is to attend this program. Even the worst moments held seeds of something fermenting if I will just keep them.

And the people who helped me, who saw what I needed, who held me, who listened to me read my work to them over and over, who vacuumed, who drove, who let me rain my doubts and fears into a poem and smother them; to all of you, I am beholding.