Mexperimental

POETRY IN A TIME OF CRISIS

a talk with a few comments

First I would like to say two things:
      One, I believe poetry exclusively occurs when it is discussed. [i.e. “Poetry” as a privileged structure is an anachronistic notion. I can only stand poetry in the context of prose].
      Two, Americans should leave Afghanistan and Iraq so writers and clerks can move to more boring topics.
      I’ve learned something over the years. [I noticed how my English derives from clichés, as if I was writing from the debris; what Eileen Myles said at the conference after telling her story reading in English at Russia and the reaction of the audience, “Writing with a filthy language”].
      “I I’ve learned something over the years”. The instant we’re talking about a crisis we are hidings ours.
      [This comes from my Mexican background and my training in Gestalt psychotherapy; the projections we make, how to recuperate those projections in order to reorganize the self, to not impose on the world was it ours. It also comes from Guangfan’s “There is nothing in the whole universe that is not you”; the basic Upanishad teaching “Thou are you” and Hegel’s comment at his Phenomenology of Spirit regarding philosophy starting only once we recognized ourselves in/with the absolute other. Mexican popular culture says: “No the hagas pato” (lit. Don’t make yourself a duck, meaning, don’t pretend you are not you, don’t turn into a third person in order to not assume the responsibilities of knowing you are the person you accuse, don’t become 3 in order to not accept you are both 1 and 2].
      [I take “crisis” as a crisis I too am provoking. At the same time the victim and the agent of imperialism in every case. Something I share with Americans].
      Iraq, for example, is Bush’s way to hide he is the crisis itself.
      Bush is our way to hide we are Bush.
      It’s easy to blame governments when they in fact do represent awfull societies.
      I only can call poetry the most critical voice against every order, including its own.
      I suspect as poets we take advantage of times of crisis to try to offer poetry as part of the solution. Maybe to hide poetry is part of the problem.
      In saying “Poetry in a time of crisis” I certified poetry.
      I certified it as part of a time.
      As part of a time of crisis, which is something really good for poetry.
      Poetry in a time of crisis must be useful. At least in that phrase.
      That phrase is optimistic.
      It makes poetry look good.
      Part of the solution. Not part of the problem.
      But I think poetry is part of the problem.
      In a way Bush does poetry too.
      I may say his poetry is pretty bad but it’s poetry too.
      Bush tries to cling meaning. He tries to make the audience feel the ecstasy of words. He performs.
      The president behaves similarly to poets I know.
      I am now doing what Bush does much better than me.
      No wonder why poets decide to be poets. They become Bush.
      There’s only one step from the blank page to the White House. I’m in it.
      I am Bush.
      Poetry in a time of crisis can also mean poetry is an emergency measure.
      Poetry as something you reuse or return to when things get worst.
      For example, if you’re depressed. Or there’s a war down there in Iraq.
      You can make an anthology out of emergency poetry like this.
      Poetry is part of the problem.
      Emergency measures follow a psychology of panic.
      Red or yellow alerts.
      Put some poetry into the dying nation, into the dying discourse.
      Poetry in a time of crisis. Poetry in yellow alert. Or red.
      How can poetry help?
      Somebody may offer this clue: poetry can help not getting in the way. For example promoting the end of speeches. A country where every politician that tries to give an speech –especially a speech to the nation—is killed.
      [I liked Walter Lew’s approach, ‘talking again’ about Spirit as something you need before doing poetry. And after. No spirit, no poetry. What he meant by “Spirit” I think was the beyond-deep-cultures-are].
      Yet that clue would only be a pretty bad joke.
      The way poetry does not help.
      It’s not part of the solution but just part of the laughter.
      México and the United are nations that resemble each other too much. They should be completely different, so different that they would go on war every two or three months. Instead they go to bed every four years.
      Countries that laugh too much. Part of the problem is laughter.
      How come you laugh when a political joke is done?
      Why SNL?
      How did we get to this point?
      Because poetry worked.
      What poetry aim at, building the common I, the Nosotros, the We / was achieved.
      Homer wanted to praise the heroes. He did. The heroes were praised.
      Whitman sang America. He achieved his goal.
      Poetry is full of successes.
      Poetry has been historically linked to war.
      Poetry is always trying to put an end to a war that continues wars that poetry helped to instigate.
      Whitman is full of bullshit American poetry hasn’t get rid of.
      Whitman was very American. Free verse means having no meters. No limits. Respecting no borders. Free verse breaks the territories, makes it bigger. Free verse was how poetry materialized on the page the imperialism of the United States. Why being American was the best thing that could happen to the rest of the continent.
      Free verse explains how Mexico was stolen of half its territory through a take over, an expansion of the map of the United States.
      In fact, Whitman supported that war.
      Whitman wanted to construct a space-time where/when everything fitted. That’s why Whitman broke the conventions of how much text could be written, how long could the line be. That’s why Whitman wrote so much. Wrote those heroic lists, those listings. Groceries of History. The many landscapes. The different peoples. Every thing: America.
      [I am here trying to start a discussion on how from Whitman to Stein, the way “America” writes reflects/refracts the imperialism this writing is developing under, developing in its own structures. Acker would have agreed on this I think].
      So, from this point on we are going to call “America” the image of a space-time where/when everything is there/then. The containment of All. What Pound called “Vortex” and Borges “Aleph”.
      What we forget conceiving such a total-time/space is that a system of simultaneous realities taking place at once would make all of them absurd.
      “America” is a comical nightmare.
      Viewing poetry in a time of crisis doesn’t help to put an end to the crisis, it only helps to make poetry (again) a possible solution, a praxis that can really mean something good for the culture it belongs to; viewing poetry in a time of crisis puts the emphasis on the time of crisis, erases the fact that the institution of poetry is part of the crisis, that poetry is in a crisis itself.
      [My reading of Efraín Huerta, Nicanor Parra, Renato Leduc, etc, gave me this ideas from the start: we received literary ‘poetry’ from the Western tradition, at one point we dominated that and even contributed our own thing to It, but let’s not forget ‘poetry’ is part of the Western colonial heritage, a post-colonial self-critique stand implies a going beyond ‘poetry’].
      Times of crisis help poetry hide its own crisis. I think instead of thinking how can poetry help in a time of crisis, think how poetry has collaborated for the production of a crisis, how that production of a crisis makes a culture risks itself, and thus having to strengthen the strategies to perpetuate itself using the institution of crisis as an excuse.
      To make poetry a possible measure. To make ourselves forget we live in cultures that are dying, cultures that want to kill.
      I think poetry is part of the obscurity.
      I think poetry is the place where people go when they want to miss therapy.
      The place people go when they are to snob to go to the movies but they still want to pretend their life can have meaning as their moon, an elevator to acquire more power or at least meet the readers.
      The readers, that group of people who want the same stuff poets crave for, but don’t have the courage even to write.
      Or to corrupt themselves in order to publish.
      What I am saying is I don’t believe poetry can fix.
      Nor I believe poetry should be saved.

      (How much more I would have enjoy 9-11 if the twin towers had been full, completely packed, with poetry books].

      I think Wittgenstein was right when he realized he should concentrate on proving philosophy could do basically nothing.
      When crisis arise I’m one of those persons that think words can help prevent the catastrophe. This is one of the reasons I consider myself a poet. I believe in alerts. I’m part of the problem.
      Poetry should not look for ways to survive. But the poet, at least, should make an effort to disclose all the information she or he has historically used to gain authority.
      Show even a dying cultural practice like poetry can be more honest than usual politics.
      Poetry should unveil where its authority comes from. Should push its own contradictions, let them come out of the closet. Should push the crisis further until the authorities that created it to remain in power are remove by the continuation of the crisis until nothing remains.
      I came from all the way from Mexico, made lines, ask for a permit, say hi to American Immigration agents, lie in the airport, ate peanuts, had a ride, I came all the way from Mexico to basically accept I have nothing to say.
      I only come here to do what I think poets should do every opportunity they have: contradict ourselves all we can right in front of the audience we once tried to convince poetry was something good, something we should share, something that helped. Publicly and very openly contradict ourselves until the laughter stops, until there’s no credibility left in the authority we inherit or won ourselves, until it is made clear those who have authority have stolen it.
      The function of poetry is to lose its function. The function of poetry is to diminish the general notion of authority.

TIJUANA / SAN DIEGO

"Tijuana and San Diego are not in the same historical time zone. Tijuana is poised at the beggining of an industrial age, a Dickensian city with palm trees. San Diego is a postindustrial city of high impact plastic and despair diets. And palm trees. San Diego faces west, looks resolutely out to sea. Tijuana stares north, as toward the future. San Diego is the future—secular, souless. San Diego is the past, guarding its quality of life. Tijuana is the future... Taken together as one, Tijuana and San Diego form the most fascinating new city in the world, a city of world-class irony"

Richard Rodríguez, Days of Obligation. An Argument with my Mexican father

SANTA CRUZ 1 & 2

Santa Cruz. The Arcade.
Santa Cruz Arcade has a section on the Classics. Pac Man. Donkey Kong. Space Invaders. Nobody there. But the presence of that Corner is important. The Arcade is the representation of videogame’s History. From Kung Fu fighter to [ ]. They haven’t changed that much. The other sections: take your turn at the bat (virtual baseball), machines wars (really disturbing ones), dance or music playing machines. The Santa Cruz Arcade, small, corny, contains the History of videogame. The space is very conscious of this function. Shops that sell “The Ice Cream of the Future” (The Future Now, i.e., no future anymore); and please don’t leave the place without your Old Portrait or your old car classic card. A place where representation is the issue. NEW videogames, they look old. The Videogame is over. From it’s beggining the videogame’s destiny was to repeat another media's visual history. That’s why videogames had a very short history. The genre had to stop soon. The reason is obvious: videogame would stop once it look pretty much like TV, preexistent cartoons, movies or Reality itself. Videogame could only be hyperreal. No more. It’s last resource, once its image resembled other previous media (TV/Movies), was the interactive mode. But that came soon to an end. Graphics and resolution couldn’t surpassed but only go as far as other monitors and visual technologies. Interaction can't go further than cars and planes. A videogame is a dream or the promise of a plane that is not, that's why from the videogame to the army there is only a step, the videogame directs us to hiperreal action of the front, the hiperreal life of the navy, of how we imagine killing the Other to be. The videogame is now part of a nostalgia. This Arcade is all about the past, how it only has quoting repercussions, how this representation’s only chance is to interact with its History. Playing there means we are now playing after Game Over. The End already happen. We are the boring after-party. Again Sunday. Nothing new is going to happen. Don’t worry. We arrived to the future yesterday. Hiroshima? Auschwitz? Vietnam? Done! Done! DONE! History has already happened. Even the Soviet Union and Al Qaeda is part of the Reagan era. Our latest war? Irak! The Second Part. Are only chance to experience is sequals, ph.D.'s, revivals, make overs, remakes, etc. Maybe a third Bush! And what about 9-11? What about it!!! It order to be true 2 towers had to be built, one wasn't enough!, and both had to collapsed, because in America everythings happens, at least, once more. Nobody knows how many Iraqs gonna take to do the job, how many restarts to never arrive to que Finish, or to arrive again and again, or prove we arrive there thanks to steroids or rewinds. Even war is now safe. Interact with it. This and that, revisited from the start. Videogame, the recreational and pre-nostalgic reloading of a history that began already finished. Played for the second first time.

Santa Cruz. The Carrousel.
I was watching the carrousel. “round and round”. I even had chills. The carrousel is impressive. Everywhere I see one I need to stop. It’s freaky but at the same time beautifully mythical. “Carrousel” is always part of the past. & Santa Cruz is especially nostalgic [American small town], very interesting place, almost a display. I usually watch Mexican carrousels. “Kids”. Now I was watching American kids, their waves of movement, this continues cycle, the age behind it all… The institution of “Sunday”. The praxis of “Walking”. Does the carrousel portray the way life moves? What do the empty seats transmit? Nostalgia? Samsara? This otherness the carrousel launches, this familiarity. After some time I had this very basic idea on what the carrousel means: of course, the circular structure of life, each of us develops in this circular way, death takes place there, we return seated in a different place, our lives consist in re-appearing in the next cycle seated somewhere else, interacting with the others, almost a ballet, a weird event, a ritual about Becoming. I was almost crying seeing these American kids, seeing their death, their provisional places in this world, seeing myself there, this chapter of a quick trip into California, the on-going cycle of Life! The Continuous Round and Round! EVERYTHING IS A NON-STOP CYCLE! Oh God it was sublime and so fucking Simple…But then the carrousel stopped. I was wrong. Even the simplest technology means cycles came to be provisional. Cycles are now a part of linear fragmentary time. This is why poetical rhythm, its images / mere illusions.

Democracy. A buzz word. Democracy always takes place. D means power-by-the-people. Societies always rule. Every government represents its society. Cada pueblo tiene el gobierno que se merece. ["Every....has...the......it deserves"]. I call this regime. In fact, a dictatorship reflects even better the power relationships that are taking place of that culture, the stage in which a culture is, what it wants or feels it deserves. Dictatorial democracies, electoral democracies. We are always a democracy. We rule ourselves through figures who represent us but we deny. "It's him". The myth of the separation of the Government. 'Democracy' as we understand it is just an excuse to not accept there is no way to divorce a government from 'society'. [I can use Leibniz here in a funny way]. We are all this regime. [Have to insist in this 'concept']. Democracy, unfortunely (sic) always takes place.

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Imperialism. Fill it yourself. The idea is already here. Feel free to feel free.

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The future looks tapped.

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Israel as Lebensraum.

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Counterculture. The eStrategy of the West // Oxidente // to eStole ideas from other cultures once it eStole all the gold, oil or wood.

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I don't like writers. They are just like me.

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Poetry is the power the writer has; the power s/h/e needs to fight, this power within, not the power we invent as not-related-to-me, the power-of-the-other, the one I can criticize to be heroic, to be a Poet. Write against your own act.

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I'm telling you what to do. Writing [thinking] / Fatherly. Or motherly. Poetry is part of my family. Love / hate, 2 words instead of 1. I'm telling you. The reader, this son. Become just like me [wise], your pap mom. Writers are always embedded. Their vision: propaganda for the superiority of their own regime. Propaganda for a regime they don't even like.

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What would I do if I had been born in a time prior to the existence of language? This questions comes when I cannot be sure if I am writing well the question, getting into another language, the suspicion you're not entirely in it yet, you're behind, before, outside?. No. I'm in it in some way. Maybe not in the Way, but in it. What would I have done (?) in a time prior to the existence of language? Dunno. I guess I would only keep silent. Not even an animal. Monk is out of the question. Not even silence. Don't have any idea how would I be before language was. Language can only speak of its own history. It lacks the talent of speaking of the really interesting part.

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If you have no eSpirituality please don't act. Especially if you have good intentions.

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Wizzdom starts with a phrase I don't have.

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Bad-Poetry is the way writing protects itself from a certain epoch, individual or club. Bad-Poetry convinces some to leave poetry alone, to stop trying to do something, even though you-re intelligent is something cannot do. Well. Fuck! That really hurt my feelings! That's why I have so few & cliché of them. I mostly have ideas. I should stop trying to write. Bad-Poetry. Prevents "some" to continue [being bad]. Bad-Poetry is great! It even returns poetry where it belongs. The pEoPlE, that hideous event.

The worst is not that Iraq is turning into Vietnam, the worst is that Vietnam became Iraq.

Some time ago I wrote this essay on María Sabina and Mexican culture:

CLOCK WOMAN IN THE LAND OF MIXED FEELINGS:
THE PLACE OF MARIA SABINA IN MEXICAN CULTURE

Karoake. Karoake represents us as foreigners just learning to acquire the most simple legacy. Karoake means having fun —afterwork fun— repeating the roles, moods and voices that make up our emotional culture, our culture on emotions. We not only sing those lyrics (turn the text into song) but we do it as foreigners. Beginers. The beginer does karoake. The beginner feels she or he arrives to culture a decade after. Culture is to the beginner a karoake. The beginner just came in. What's old is new to him or her. Even him or herself. He or she is innocent. He or she can afford going into stage fright. The karoake makes this possible. A culture that has ended but that we barely know. This is our first time experiencing it or how we show we came to be one with it. The beginner sings, close enough to the real lyrics, close enough —giggling— to the original voice, its harmony. To the beginner culture is pure joy. Karoake helps when we know the culture we live in is no longer ours. We transform this alienation into a fun pain, an adventure into being seen by others, a funny shame or a singer's security; how we perform how we would behave or look life if this culture we live in was ours.


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Data gets lost in memory.
Info gets lost.
We forget images.

Content merges into form.

Looking for masks. Looking for them. Not remembering the most important mask is not visible. This mask is a sound.
      Voice, main mask that is not seen.


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I haven’t written in English for some months. But last night I dreamt of my mother dying. I was in an airport. My mother hasn’t taken a flight in years. She’s too old. Has no one to visit in the South. Every member of his family is now in the U.S. She was the only one that stayed. She is indifferent to the States. Last night she died in my head. In that airport people told me she took the flight, and felt sick there, lost control of her hole, and died of diarrhea, and was thrown by a window and became lost in the sea. I think I dream of her death, because yesterday —April 4— I forgot it was her birthday. When I call her in the night, she assumed I knew. I realized oblivion. She too noticed it. We didn’t say anything about it. This is not common. Every year I remember.
      Everyone in the dream explained me how that was good news to me. I explain myself how my mother’s death was good news for me. I had no need to support her anymore. I could go on living my own life, say good bye to Oedipus, farewell mother-son. When I woke up I knew this was my time to return to the nightmare of written in English, the return to a game consisting of writing in English everything that a think of and would write in Spanish. Every note here. No mother anymore. A nice nightmare.

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People like to talk about prophets to separate them from the Now. People —We, Mr. P.— invent the «prophetical» to: a) make people who talk about the present time look anachronistic, as someone belonging to the Past, or b) make the people who talk about the present time are probable right but are someone who is describing what is going-to-come, The Future. We invent «prophets» to not recognize the discourses that describe the present describe the now. The nightmare is us.

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The purpose of philosophers is the detailed planning of utopias. To become part of the history of ridiculous architecture.

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Who’s the sadist. Who’s the masochist. Undistinguishable.

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The world is going to be destroyed through language.

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A little weirdo explains Humanity explaining a movie that other persons are looking right with him. Every 15 minutes he stops the movie. His explanation lasts 15 minutes. The others want to appear as if his explanation tells them something they didn’t see or understand profoundly enough. Interpretation exist because we want to pretend we lack one sense, we only have five. Because we want to pretend just a few understand profoundly enough, they are the circus-of-truth. And those who interpret are nothing but the worst ones: they pretend they have the privilege to Understand and Explain. They are the better ones that see-further, they can tell others what others don’t see, those who interpret and explain describe culture, put Reality to rest, explain what others have agreed just a few see. The Few accept. They accept because they see All, except one fact: All is understood by everyone. They too obliterate.

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The structure of the world is suicide.

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The threes have the form of the wind. The wind has no form.
      You move. You acquired the form of something else. Something with no form. You have something else’s aspect. Your body looks like an unrecognizable force.

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Marriage. “You wouldn‘t last a day living like that”. Not a day! A whole life.

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Line is horizontal. The poem, vertical. That’s why poetry is never going to agree with itself.