Word from my publisher and Ernest Dempsey, editor of the new journal RECOVERING THE SELF, http://www.recoveringself.com/ regarding speaking your poetry on the Web. Here’s an opportunity to get your poetic voice heard:

From Ernest,

You know I am omniscient and always go where no one has gone before. So let me surprise you with my audio poem at a new site that hosts audio poems. Mine is from my second poetry book Two Candles. The link is http://thepoetspeak.com/. If you would like to get your audio poem posted, feel free to contact the editor.

Wishing you all well,

Ernest

Look for Minnesota writer Theresa Crushon in current issue of RECOVERING THE SELF!

“A Decade of Asian Am Spoken Word” Bai Phi, YourVoices, January 4, 2010

Check it out! This is the site I almost wrote for, but I had a change of mind (as you know, I may have a lot to say, but I don’t get it down in writing to say it very often). When the contract came back postage due, I knew I had made the right decision! But, now, Bao has started writing for YourVoices–yes, he used to skateboard in my neighborhood/my front yard with my sons–that’s what he told me–memory fades!

Is it too late, am I too old to become a Spoken Word Artist? Yes and no. How to memorize my own words? I ask students to memorize a poem, they sigh. I used to say, when I memorize my poems, I will know I am a poet. I’ve been writing poetry since second grade. This month I will be of social security age. I have only memorized one five line poem of mine. It’s enough. No pressure.

But, I do admire Minnesota’s Spoken Word Artists; I do appreciate Bao Phi’s work as an artist, and an activist–keeping Asian American voices visible and heard (what’s the antonym for silent? seriously. visible and loud? this is why I don’t blog often. wordsmithing? i get caught up in language. what words am i supposed to know and understand and use correctly? a topic for another blog entry. lunch is over. extended actually. another time)

Sherry

http://www.startribune.com/yourvoices/80632997.html?elr=KArks47cQiUdcOy_9cP3DiU47cQUU

‘”You could write about this,” I suggested, ever the believer in the healing power of words. 

No, he said, no — he’d never write about it — …” ‘ –Catherine Watson, MinnPost, Dec.14, 2009

I haven’t written a blog entry in weeks, too many weeks. But I am constantly thinking about writing a blog entry. The longer I don’t write, the more I think about what to write, and the more I know that I want to write—but I just can’t get started. 

Mostly I write when something triggers my emotions.  It can be a book, a movie, a news event, something a friend said, something a stranger said.  I don’t only respond to things that anger me, though often that is the case. But, I also respond to things that move me to think, be sad, to laugh, to cry.  It could be something I fervently agree with, or something I fervently disagree with.

Catherine Watson writes for Minn Post   http://www.minnpost.com/catherinewatson/2009/12/14/14240/my_conversation_with_a_young_soldier_who_had_an_old_face  She also teaches for the Split Rock Arts Program  http://www.cce.umn.edu/Split-Rock-Arts-Program/

(I work for the Split Rock Arts Program and am happy to say Catherine Watson will be teaching “Into the Country of Memory:  A Retreat at the Cloquet Forestry Center”, July 11-16, 2010.)

Today, at lunch, I read Catherine’s recent MinnPost post “My conversation with a young soldier who had an old face.”   I believe, as Catherine, “in the healing power of words.”  But her story of a young man home from war, made me think about what we can’t write, what we don’t want to write, and why.  Catherine wrote what the young soldier couldn’t.    I believe this is the responsibility of a writer.  To tell the stories of those that can’t.  To give voice to those who don’t have a voice.   And, to tell “the worst stuff.”

“The things we ask them to do, I kept thinking. The secrets we ask them to keep. The memories we ask them to carry for the rest of their lives…”  Catherine Watson

Thomas Lux wrote the poem “The Voice You Hear When You Read Silently.” Here’s a short excerpt of his poem.

It is your voice

saying, for example, the word barn

that the writer wrote

but the barn you say

is a barn you know or knew. The voice

in your head, speaking as you read,

never says anything neutrally – some people

hated the barn they knew,

some people love the barn they know

so you hear the word loaded

and a sensory constellation

is lit:

The word “barn” likely means something more (or less) to the reader than what the writer wrote.  Catherine’s words for me were “loaded”.

My “barn” conjured stories of slaves.  What they were asked to do?  The secrets they were asked to keep.  And, Native Americans, Asians, Mexicans—people of color who cooked and cleaned, built railroads, picked crops—were raped, were murdered–atrocities/ secrets left out of history books for how many years?

Catherine Watson listened to a passenger on a plane sitting next to her.  She listened.  And she remembered.  And she shared.  I believe everyone can write and should write.  Catherine reminded me there can be obstacles.  It’s not always possible or easy to write.  It’s also not always a person’s choice to write.  Does that make their stories less important?  Does that mean if we tell their stories healing is not part of the equation? Do words have to be written down on paper to be powerful?  Is just listening enough?

I belong to a writing group.  We seldom sit down and write.  Sometimes, we don’t even talk about writing.  But, we tell stories.  Perhaps, eventually, we will write these stories, our own or each other’s.  Perhaps we will fictionalize them or not.  Although we are not strangers and we know we will see each other again, we are not so close we can’t tell our stories to each other.  We feel safe with each other. 

Although my life is mostly an open book, I think about the stories I don’t tell and the people I don’t tell them to.   My secrets.  The worst.  Or, what I am most afraid to tell, or even what I am afraid to ask.

Sherry Quan Lee

December 14, 2009

I approach writing as a community resource and as culturally based art of an ordinary everyday practical aesthetic.

“The topic of suicide can quiet a room and makes many people fidget. Often when you hear someone speaking about suicide it’s most likely within the confines of a psychology lecture hall at a university. However, in every day society it’s something we’ve been told we’re not supposed to talk about because if you speak of it, someone might get the idea to follow through with it. Sadly, this is often why this serious topic is never broached upon teenagers and young adults across the country.”

Breaking the taboo of suicide

Quetzalli Castro

Issue date: 10/12/09 Section: Pulse

http://media.www.chicagoflame.com/media/storage/paper519/

news/2009/10/12/Pulse/Breaking.The.Taboo.Of.Suicide-3799873.shtml

Castro’s recent article helps to break the silences that are being broken around the topic of suicide.  My own book of memoir/poetry, How to Write a Suicide Note:  serial essays that saved a woman’s life, has been used in a college classroom, and in community writing workshops.  I was worried, though pleased that a college professor would make my book required reading in a literature class, but afraid the message would be misinterpreted.  That said, the evening I spent listening to the students discuss the book, I was profoundly moved by their stories, their experiences dealing with suicide, whether their own suicidal thoughts or those of someone near and dear to them.  Almost everyone in the class had a story!

Yes, they were nervous when they purchased my book.  The word “suicide” in the title made them nervous.  But, they had much to say, and questions to ask after thoughtfully reading the book.  I explained that the message was both literal and metaphorical, but it was a positive message about using writing to “kill” the things in my life that were keeping me from living!  

However, as Castro writes, opening a dialog about suicide is “controversial”—will it encourage suicide, instead of discourage.  How to Write a Suicide Note was target for a review that argued with my belief that “writing can save lives”- a quote from an interview by Ernst Dempsey, in response to his question regarding what feedback the book has received, follows:

“There have been reviews of How to Write a Suicide Note that didn’t capture the theme of it, or even attempt to discuss the craft of it. Others, like your review, didn’t miss a beat. However, the most challenging review was a review printed in Multicultural Review, Volume 17, Number 4, Winter 2008, by Lori Tsang. She disagreed that writing could save lives, saying, “as if you could will yourself not to be depressed.” Depression was the word that caught my attention. Were my suicide attempts caused by depression? The review caused me to re-view my work, and to question whether I had inferred that depression was the reason for my suicide attempts, or if I had slighted any of the writers whose suicide notes had not saved them. Was Tsang saying depression, along with being a writer/writing leads to suicide?

Tsang’s view challenged me to think outside my experience and opinion. In re-reading my book, I realized I did use the word depression or some derivative a few times, but overall I didn’t emphasize a theme “trying to encourage and support others struggling to survive depression.” What I had hoped to convey was that by killing off parts of myself that were killing me, I could live.”

http://www.bookpleasures.com/websitepublisher/articles/941/1/Meet-Sherry-Quan-Lee-Author-of-How-to-Write-a-Suicide-Note-serial-essays-that-saved-a-womans-life-Reflections-of-America/Page1.html

Tsang did admit that writing worked for me because, obviously, I am still alive.  We can only write from our own experiences, our own understanding.  I am not a therapist, but, yes, I am willing to tell my story of overcoming “death” to live.  I cannot write your story, but I hope you will write it because as Castro has written,

“Suicide is definitely not a laughing matter, but that shouldn’t keep us from being able to discuss it in an open forum. Speaking out about mental illness, as in the case of Bryce Mackie, can save a person’s life and bringing this out into the open will save even more lives. Be aware of the warning signs of Suicide, be well informed, and always be ready to help a friend in need.”

How to Write a Suicide Note includes the phone number for the suicide hotline.  It also has a blurb by a healthcare professional confirming the importance of such a book to the healthcare community, in particular for women of color.  Literature is associated with beauty and pleasure.  I think it is necessary, also, that within literature’s bookshelves, meaning/understanding, such as how to survive in tumultuous environments, can be discovered and shared.  A writer, I approach writing as a community resource and as culturally based art of an ordinary everyday practical aesthetic. 

Sherry Quan Lee

October 14, 2009