I think I tend to be [...] an advocate for the invisible. The reason I write poetry rather than fiction is because I don't want to talk about the homicide that's going on in the middle of the room, I want to talk about the dust bunnies underneath the table, because they're what's not seen. So much of the world is not seen, is not acknowledged. And I grew up in a family that for reasons of religion and history and family dynamics, I had a grandfather whose first demand of his grandchildren was that we be invisible so I have a lot of solidarity with dust bunnies and with the gunk underneath my fingernails and the stuff that sort of forms a filter on the windowsill and I really do want to call attention to that over and over again as much as I humanly can because I think of it as being unbelievably important to our lives and our souls, but the only way to get to it is through poetry.

- Ron Silliman at the UCSD New Writing Series: Podcast Available Here


What if the homicide is not in the middle of the room?
The majority of homicides are not in the middle of the room.
Only a rare homicide is in the middle of the room.
Only the rarest of homicides is in the middle of the room.
One lies to say the homicide is in the middle of the room.
One body lies; the homicide is in the middle of the room.
The dust bunnies emerge to dance.
The gunk under my fingernails is still there.
The filter on the windowsill.
And the body was never in the center of the room.
And the body was quickly removed from the center of the room.


I mean this might sound really maniacal or something but I'm not I think there is a sense in which I have to claim Kant as an ancestor but only insofar as the way that that relationship would work is if in the end it would turn out that I'm his ancestor. It seems to me that first of all the Kantian construction of race is important for us to know something about precisely because it is bound up with the very constitution of the modern subject. [...] That moment where one can really see the convergence of the eruption of a theory of modern subjectivity, the emergence of a discourse on race and the emergence of a certain discourse on the aesthetic: that convergence is a fateful moment and I think it's worth paying some attention to. 

- Fred Moten in Black Kant (Pronounced Chant): A Theorizing Lecture at the Kelly Writers House, February 27, 2007: Podcast Available Here


And then I read Samuel Delaney's The Motion of Light in Water. How to chart the progressions, how to make room for change, how to recognize anxiety. How to have a nervous breakdown.

Something about all of these men together clashing up against each other.

Recent Work on the Internets

In the last few months, I've published a lot of new work on the Internets.

I've added links on the Writing page, but I thought I'd mention some of the highlights here:


The Volta/Evening Will Come: "These Little, Little Men"
+ An essay, three poems, a meandering, a wondering, a questioning, a queering.

Hear Our Houston: "That Idea of Everything"
+ An audio-poem made out of a twentyish-block walk with my father from my house to the house he grew up in the East End in Houston.

+ A visual poem built on top of a drawing from Juan Luis Berlandier's journals.

+ A short essay on a weekly street fair in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, Mexico.

+ A review of an art exhibition at the Glassell School of Art featuring the work of three African diasporic women video artists.

Turntable + Blue Light: "Last Lines"
+ A series of poems constructed out of re-, mis- and un- translated final sentences of Pedro Lemebel's crónicas.

Magnitud/e


Announcing Magnitud/e by Marco Antonio Huerta and Sara Uribe, translated by yours truly. 

Published by Producciones Gusanos de la Nada in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, Mexico.

Copies available for a limited time. Send an email to me at plujo7 at gmail dot com.

Eulogies & STACKS



Eulogies by Douglas Kearney at STACKS Curated by Robert Pruitt at Art League Houston

Performance supported by Poets & Writers and Project Row Houses

Here is footage of the entire evening of woodchipping performance:


16 Points about United in Anger: A History of ACT-UP by Jim Hubbard

1. Too many people have no idea what ACT-UP was or why it was important. Read the wiki! Or watch the movie I just watched this weekend: United in Anger: A History of ACT-UP, a film by Jim Hubbard.

2. ACT-UP didn't just fight for people with HIV/AIDS. Almost all of the protests made specific calls for health care for all, for universal coverage. I wonder how much the idea of health care as a right in the United States was born during this era. It seems to be a critical moment in the move towards health care as a human right. I haven't seen any studies of this, but I wouldn't be surprised.

3. ACT-UP was committed to breaking down the cult of the expert, putting the most affected at the front.

4. Live and Love Before Profit said one of the signs at a march.

5. A division arose around whether "Drugs into Bodies" was enough. Another branch of ACT-UP said this analysis was not sufficient.

6. ACT-UP (and the movie) definitely focus on, as someone says in the movie, "the privileged within the margins."

7. Le Tigre's songs seem to have taken a lot from the chant styles of ACT-UP.

8. Just after the invasion of Iraq in the first Gulf War, ACT-UP infiltrated CBS with Dan Rather and got on the air to shout: AIDS is news, fight AIDS not Arabs. I feel like I remember this, but maybe I am inventing the memory.

9. ACT-UP was dedicated to stealing access to the means of production.

10. I need to know more about Gregg Bordowitz. Good thing he's coming to Houston soon.

11. The link between tears, death, grief and activism.

12. At the end of the film, Jim Hubbard thanks the 147 chapters of ACT-UP worldwide. And yet in the movie we really only see the New York chapter. After being challenged on this point by Tish Stringer, Hubbard said there was not an archive of ACT-UP activism outside of NYC. Tish made the great point that the archive produces films like this; prior work to build the archive means the story gets told in a certain way, privileging certain sectors. I can't believe footage outside NYC doesn't exist. Most likely it just hasn't been collected or brought together. Most likely, it's rotting in garages and attics as we speak.

13. I want to know more about Maxine Wolf, an important lesbian feminist organizer who worked hard within ACT-UP and founded the Lesbian Avengers and many other groups. The crucial role of women and people of color in the fight around HIV/AIDS is often overlooked.

14. In the conversation after the movie, Jim Hubbard said that an essential part of gay culture is the juxtaposition of humor and seriousness. I saw a lot of heads nodding.

15. In the film, the story of the break-up or end of ACT-UP is not told. This leaves the impression that ACT-UP never ended. While ACT-UP still exists, I would have liked to know more about the story of its ending (or declining).

16. I want to see Jim Hubbard's experimental films from the end of the 80s and early 90s. If anyone knows how to see them, let me know, please.

Generosity is probably the "route" of all friendships, its first principle and ecological niche.

- Patrick Durgin & Jen Hofer in The Route

Douglas Kearney Live!

Two free events in Houston! 

1)

Douglas Kearney Live!
Friday, November 16, 2012
6-9pm
Art League Houston 
1953 Montrose Blvd 77006

 Rather than a traditional reading, renowned poet and performer Douglas Kearney will be live as part of the STACKS exhibition curated by Robert Pruitt at Art League Houston. The exhibit is a site of transformation addressing themes of Black imagination, creativity, and commodification. 

Douglas Kearney will be joining the artists of STACKS on opening night to participate in their performance. During this performance the artists will deconstruct materials and objects loaded with
 cultural stigmas. Mr. Kearney will provide eulogies for a selection of these materials, contemplating their former usefulness and the world in their impending absence.

 Please come out to see Douglas Kearney and the entire STACKS show. Kearney is an amazing poet, performer, librettist and educator based in Los Angeles who does innovative work with sound, visual poetics, rhythm and more. His interests are broad and diverse—from song lyrics to African American trickster figures, from performance aesthetics to opera librettos, from the L.A. riots to experimental poetry, from innovative visual poetics to text art on walls in galleries.

 More info on the STACKS exhibit is here.
More info at the Facebook event page for the Kearney reading.


To hear Douglas read more and for further dialogue and experimentation, there will be a workshop on Saturday, November 17 from 1-4pm at Project Row Houses. More info on the workshop can be found here.
2)

Workshop on Innovative Poetry
Saturday November 17, 2012
Project Row Houses, Live Oak and Holman
1-4pm

On Saturday, Kearney will offer a free workshop at Project Row Houses (2521 Holman St. 77004) from 1-4pm for all those interested in further dialogue and experimentation. The workshop will explore ways of mixing song lyrics and poetry; so bring (on paper, device, or in your mind) lyrics to one song you love; one song you’re sick of; and one song that reminds you of a struggle in your life. The workshop will be a space for discussion, reading, writing, performing and listening.

More info on Kearney's workshop on the Facebook event page.

Both of these events are supported by a grant from Poets & Writers, Inc.

Bio:

Douglas Kearney's first full-length collection of poems, Fear, Some, was published in 2006 by Red Hen Press. His second manuscript, The Black Automaton, was chosen by Catherine Wagner for the National Poetry Series and published by Fence Books in 2009. It was also a finalist for the Pen Center USA Award in 2010. His chapbook-as-broadsides-as-LP, Quantum Spit, was released by Corollary Press in 2010. His newest chapbook, SkinMag (A5/Deadly Chaps) is now available. He has received a Whiting Writers Award, a Coat Hanger award and fellowships at Idyllwild and Cave Canem. Kearney has performed his poetry at the Public Theatre, the Orpheum, The World Stage and others. His poems have appeared in journals such as Callaloo, jubilat, Ploughshares, nocturnes, Ninth Letter, miPoesias, Southampton Review, Washington Square and Tidal Basin Review. He has been commissioned to compose poetry in response to art by the Weisman Museum in the Twin Cities, the Studio Museum in Harlem, FOCA and SFMOMA. Performances of Kearney’s libretti have been featured in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and Europe and he has been invited to speak on poetics in New York, Los Angeles, Mexico City and Malmö, Sweden. Born in Brooklyn, and raised in Altadena, CA, he lives with his family in California’s Santa Clarita Valley. He teaches at CalArts and Antioch.

For more info on Kearney: http://www.douglaskearney.com/




OUTSIDE THE LOOP Tour

All of you are inside the loop, because if you weren't in the loop, you wouldn't be reading this. But other people from outside the loop might read this. There are two loops: the physical 610 loop around central Houston and the metaphorical loop which you may or may not be in. In any case, I'll be going on a tour of some outside the loop areas in November. So make it a day trip if you live in the loop. Or if you live outside the loop, but near Houston, here are some great chances to see me perform or speak or workshop or to see some textworks made by me. All events are free. So now that you are in the loop, get outside of it. Here goes:


Saturday, November 3 - 2PM
Public Poetry Reading: Jasminne Mendez, John Pluecker, Robin Reagler, Scott Wiggerman
@
Vinson Neighborhood Library/Hiram Clarke Multi-Service Center 3810 W. Fuqua Houston 77045

+

Wednesday, November 7 - 4pm
As part of 3G Gallery Exhibit: Sand in the Line (Curator: Michael Henderson)

 Workshop: How to Cut and Paste Your Way to Artistic Freedom, with John Pluecker 
@
Sam Houston State University (Location Details TBA)

 +

 Thursday, November 8 - 5-8pm

As part of 3G Gallery Exhibit: Sand in the Line (Curator: Michael Henderson)

5-6pm Panel Discussion: Creative Writing and Visual Art
Panel members include: Jen Hofer, John Pluecker and Dawn Pendergast
6pm Gallery Reception for Exhibit


@
3G Gallery, Sam Houston State University 
Exhibit will be open from November 5-29.

+

Wednesday, November 14 - 7:30pm
Indie Penned Events Presents: The Poetry to Portrait Series & Anthology 
@
Independence Art Studios, 419 Janisch Rd Houston 77018


John Pluecker is a recipient of an Individual Artist Grant Award. This grant is funded by the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance.  

A public radio station in San Diego, KCET, is publishing a lot of interesting work from Tijuana; as Josh Kun says:

 Over the next several weeks we'll be posting excerpts from a chapter in our upcoming anthology, Tijuana Dreaming: Art and Life at the Global Border. The book collects writings on contemporary Tijuana, Mexico from a variety of poets, critics, novelists, essayists, and scholars from both sides of the border, many of which have been translated into English for the very first time. "Crossfader Playlist" is one such piece-- a sampler of key tracks (blog posts, essays, digital riffs) from noted Tijuana writer, DJ, teacher, blogger, and after-hours chronicler Rafa Saavedra, whose 1995 book Esto no es una salida: Postcards de ocio y odio has just been re-published by Nitro Press.

 "Crossfader Playlist" was translated by yrs truly so check it out if you have a minute. Rafa is well worth your time. 

"In this book, I finally wrote myself out of my outsiderness," Rubén Martinez says. Though he remains a nomad, at least physically -- he and Angela split their time between Oakland and Los Angeles -- "existentially, my home is all these different places. My home is the West, my home is the desert, my home is the border fence. Wherever I go, somebody could say 'Hey, I have a deed from King Carlos V that says I've been here 15 more generations than you.' And I'd say, 'That's cool.' But I'm still from here." 

 - A fragment from a profile of Rubén Martínez on High Country News.

Is there any way to be in a place for generations and talk about it that generational history without it being read as aggressive and exclusionary and parochial? I'm honestly wondering about this question. I'd love to hear your thinking.

That Idea of Everything

I've made a little audio cut-up piece called "That Idea of Everything" that is now posted on the Hear Our Houston site, which is "a hub of public generated audio walking tours around our city."  I say this about it in an intro I wrote in an open letter to project creator Carrie Schneider:

I think it was November 2011, and you gave me a recorder and invited me to record a walk, and my dad, Tom Pluecker, was in town and I walked with him and my dog from my home in Eastlawn to what was his house (and his parents' house) in Broadmoor. "We're going toward Telephone Road," he says when we set out. We walk through all these memories and all these moments, a million moments he lived and I live now and it all threatens to be full of treacle (according to Dictionary.com, contrived or unrestrained sentimentality). And it was. The walk became an mp3 recording that lasted 37 minutes as we walked out onto Telephone and down the wide Road and then back over to the house he grew up in, the house his parents built in 1928 when the neighborhood was new and there weren't trees and it was the prairie. The full recording I'm going to hang onto, but I wanted to cut this audio file up and work with it. I wanted to see what I could make out of this walk with my dad.

To read & listen, click here.

Here it comes, look it's art!

Sam Houston State University
Huntsville, Texas
November 5-29, 2012

Sand in the Line:

Featuring the works of Kana Harada, Jen Hofer, John Pluecker, and Trish Ramsay, as well as Dawn Pendergast's Little Red Leaves Textile Series

Reception on Nov. 8, from 6-7 p.m.
Artist Talk: TBA
Contact: Michael Henderson, 936.294.1318

I as translator have to recognize my own privilege as an English speaker, a white person from “West” and “North,” a person formed by certain national and post-national discourses (to which I myself contributed in O Cidadán), a person with old allegiances and a settler history, all of which that can blind me to other discourses, impulses. In translating from one hemisphere to another, from South to North (or partly “North”), from East to West, I have to take care that the frames—cultural, economic, historical—which sustain my own literacy do not force themselves on the texts of others, which were uttered from and in a different frame or order, not always easily apparent at the moment of translation.

 - Erin Moure from an essay entitled "Transnational Literacies" in Jacket2