Poetry Quote of the Day: Sherman Alexie

"A really good stand-up comic is a poet; it's about the use of language"— Sherman Alexie, as interviewed in the Iowa Review

This quote explains why I'm a big fan of both Alexie and Shakespeare: neither poet is afraid to make you laugh. (Here's a professor who apparently agrees with me.)

Furthermore, in a satisfyingly serendipitous moment, I just googled "Alexie" and "Shakespeare," to see if anyone else had mentioned the two online in the same breath--- and found out that Sherman Alexie is accepting his 2010 PEN/Faulkner Award at the Folger Shakespeare Library here in D.C. on May 8th.

P.S. If you want more quotes from Alexie, I also saw this at his website:

"A new book, Conversations with Sherman Alexie, edited by Nancy Peterson, includes interviews - ranging from 1993 to 2007- that feature Alexie speaking candidly about the ideas and themes behind poetry collections, short story collections, novels, and screenplays."

This post is part of a month-long celebration of not-quite-daily quotes about poets, poems, and poetry. For more quotes, see the archive of the Poetry Quote of the Day. There are many more National Poetry Month celebrations across the Kidlitosphere.

Poetry Friday: How to Create an Agnostic

I dare you to open Sherman Alexie's new collection of poetry, Face, to any page and not be yanked in by your neck.  I love many things about Alexie's work, but prime among them is that he bangs open the door of each poem and invites you in straight away.

Take the direct address of the opening of "War Stories":

"I've got an uncle who punched a man's eye
Straight out of his skull. My uncle died
Young, but the one-eyed man turned eighty-five"

Or the titles which are as inviting as flashing FREE FOOD signs:

"Naked and Damp With a Towel Around My Head, I Noticed Movement on the Basement Carpet"

or the one below, "How to Create an Agnostic"

How to Create an Agnostic
Sherman Alexie

Singing with my son,

I clapped my hands
Just as lightning struck.

It was dumb luck.

But my son, awed, thought
I’d created the electricity.

He asked, “Dad, how'd you do that?”

Before I could answer,

Read the rest here

For more about my reaction to hearing Sherman Alexie speak at the Fairfax Fall for the Book Festival, see my post from yesterday, Worked Over and Messed Up.  For those not disturbed by profanity, see his website, Falls Apart, for more poetry.

Poetry Friday is hosted today by poet Susan Taylor Brown at SusanWrites

Worked Over and Messed Up

I went to hear Sherman Alexie speak this week,* and it messed me up.

During his talk, he acted out a scene in which his dad gets drunk and tells his seven-year-old self and all his gathered young friends about how women. . .  NO, can't write that here on the blog.

Okay, he talked about giving President Clinton grief for his "my grandmother was Cherokee" attempt at empathy, and then, later, he describes Clinton embracing him with "Big-Mac breath," leaning in to whisper in his ear "Alexie, you're----"  NO, can't write that here either.

Maybe, maybe, I can tell you about his description of President Obama's inauguration on TV, in which he noted the huddle of emaciated, hippie vegan white women with ugly shoes swaying arm in arm with the Aretha-sized, fur-coat-wearing, Baptist-churched and well-heeled black women, one of whom had a fox head dangling off her wrap---which kept hitting a vegan woman in the head.  Okay, I got through that one. But it was way funnier when he told it.

Alexie is as profane, achingly hilarious, and fearless in his public presentations as he is in his fiction. As a huge fan of his, I listened with alternate awe, discomfort, and glee. I bought a book of his poetry, FACE, which I hope to feature tomorrow for Poetry Friday.  I had to drag myself away from his autograph line, which was at least a hundred people long, by doing the mental math (100 people x 1 minute each = 100 minutes/over an hour-and-a-half wait.)

But when I attempted to get back to my own work the next day----THUD. I realized how badly he'd worked me over.  I'm not fearless. I'm not profane. (Sometimes, I'm funny. I give myself that.) But all I could write in my notebook was: nothing I write really matters. Why should people care? BLAH.

Has this ever happened to you? Not jealousy, but a realization of your limitations as a writer?

I got over it, first by realizing that writers have different roles. Some are here to blurt out the truth. To overwhelm you with a barrage of jabs to your prejudices and fears.  Others tread on little cat feet. They are stealthy. The potions they administer flow through your veins slowly and when you wake up a little more beautiful than you were the day before, you never trace it to their subterfuge.  Either is good. Change happens.

The other thing that helped is that I went back and re-read his poem, "Water," published in his collection, One Stick Song.  It ends with the phrase "two parts heartbreak and one part hope." I realized that is exactly what fiction is. I dove back in to my revisions, looking for both the heartbreak and the hope, but more willing to allow the heartbreak in. Thank you, Mr. Alexie.

*Mr. Alexie was accepting the Mason Award at the Fall for the Book Festival at George Mason University.

Sherman Alexie at the Fall for the Book Festival

In the "how did I miss this????" category:

Sherman Alexie is going to be near D.C. next week! He spoke at the SCBWI Conference in L.A. this year, but I couldn't go, so this is my chance. Anyone want to join me?

From the Fall for the Book website:

Mason Award Winner Sherman Alexie

WhenTue, September 22, 7:30pm – 9:00pm

WhereConcert Hall, Center for the Arts, George Mason University, 4400 University Drive, Fairfax, VA (map)

DescriptionNovelist, poet and filmmaker Sherman Alexie, author most recently of the National Book Award winning young adult novel "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian," will receive this year’s Mason Award and read selections from his work.

If you need an enthusiastic Alexie introduction, I blogged about him three times. I'll be bringing my copies of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Reservation Blues, and Flight. And hoping that they're selling all his poetry books.

What I'm reading now

It occurs to me that the "Read" part of Read Write Believe has suffered lately.

So here's an excerpt from my current good read, Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie:

"Thomas Builds-the-Fire's stories climbed into your clothes like sand, gave you itches that could not be scratched. If you repeated even a sentence from one of those stories, your throat was never the same again. Those stories hung in your clothes and hair like smoke, and no amount of laundry soap or shampoo washed them out. Victor and Junior often tried to beat those stories out of Thomas, tied him down and taped his mouth shut. They pretended to be friendly and tried to sweet-talk Thomas into temporary silences, made promises about beautiful Indian women and cases of Diet Pepsi. But none of that stopped Thomas, who talked and talked."

Here's the soundtrack that was recorded for this novel.

Poetry Friday: Boxing, Poetry (and Water Afterwards)

I had a joyous day earlier this week, donning my boxing gloves and pounding away at the heavy bag in the back corner of my gym. Bad Moon Rising was blasting from my iPod; I was wearing pink and feeling strong; the more I hit the bag, the more I felt as if I was going to lift off the ground and fly.

For those of you who've never boxed, let me say that it isn't about anger. At least not for me. It's about rhythm and control, and that sound...the thwack of my gloves popping against the bag. It's also about getting my whole body to work together, so I can put every bit of my strength into one concentrated punch. Focus and power---that's what boxing means to me. (I love this essay, too, by Robert Flanagan, "What he learned in boxing," in which he says "gym work -- skip rope, medicine ball, light bag, heavy bag -- was like saying the stations of the cross, a penance for weakness, yet giving you hope of being redeemed.")

So what does this have to do with Poetry Friday?

I wanted to find a poem about boxing that expressed what I felt. I haven't found one yet. (I may have to write it.) Most of the poems I found were about blood and being in the ring, something I've never experienced, and might never want to. (Big conflict avoider, that's me.)

But I did run across something amazing that I wanted to share: the World Heavy Weight Championship Poetry Bouts. It's just what it sounds like---two poets enter the ring and duel with poetry, until one is declared the winner by the judges. Poems instead of punches. Cool. Wait until you hear who was competing not too long ago.

Here's the scoop:

The Taos Poetry Circus ended its run after 22 years in 2003. The World Poetry Bout Association, which ran the World Heavyweight Championship Poetry Bout ("The Main Event") during the circus, disbanded. But remnants of the circus exist, including video footage of the 10-round bouts, and this archived article from the NY Times: Bouts of Poetry (the Stress is on Beat,) published June 21, 1994.

"...the circus included readings by several American Indians, like Sherman Alexie, a 27-year-old poet from Spokane, Wash., of the Coeur d'Alene tribe. In a bout on June 9, he read several works, including "Song," which speaks of adolescence on the reservation:

I remember all your names, Indian girls I loved, Dawn, Loretta, Michelle, Jana, Go-Go, Lulu, all of you Spokane Indian princesses who never asked me to slow dance

To the music

That always found its way

Into the tribal school."

Four years later, in 1998, Sherman Alexie won the World Heavyweight Championship Poetry Bout, and went on to win three more times, until he "hung up his gloves" in 2001. Here's a picture of him with the trophy.

No wonder he wrote about fighting in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. And even though he's won other major grants and recognition over the years, I still marvel that it took from at least June, 1994, when he was reciting that poem, until last November, 2007, before his work about the exact same subject---adolescence on the reservation---won another championship bout, the National Book Award for Young People's Literature. (Read more about why he decided to write for young adults here.)

I'm seriously thinking of springing for the $29 it costs to buy a video tape of one of his bouts. Or maybe I can get a motivational tape of his voice to listen to while I smack the bag and compose poetry, punch by punch, line by line, at the gym and in that fighting corner of my soul.

Now for the water I promised you when we were done...

From his collection, "One Stick Song":

Water
by Sherman Alexie

I know a woman
who swims naked
in the ocean
no matter the season.

I don't have a reason
for telling you this (I never
witnessed her early morning
dips into the salt) Read the rest here.

Poetry Friday is hosted today by its founder, Kelly Herold, at Big A, little a.

These Facts are Absolutely True

There is nothing like the vague, puffy language that describes some self-published books:

This (historical) picture book is a "charming mix of fact and conjecture."

The author is "world celebrated."

The illustrator is "award garnering" and the art is "delightful."

The age range is "2 and up" (if they'd said zero and up I wouldn't have been surprised.)

The promo copy reads "Awards: Check back often!"

Contrast this to the facts about The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian:

The author is: Sherman Alexie, a poet, filmmaker and established author of adult fiction. Real words he wrote: "All my white friends can count their deaths on one hand."

The illustrator is: Ellen Forney, who teaches at Seattle Cornish College of the Arts, and her art is better than words can describe: see for yourself

The age range is: anyone who reads the first page, because after that, you're a goner.

The promo copy (here) reads: This National Book Award Winner was read by Sara Lewis Holmes BEFORE it won the award, a first for her. She wishes to congratulate Sherman Alexie on winning that very cool statue and thank him for writing one of the few books she's kissed this year.

For more absolutely true things, see Sherman Alexie's recent interviews at Finding Wonderland and Interactive Reader.