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| LLF Fellows reading (L-R) Miguel M. Morales, Rachel L. Pepper, AJ Reyes, Nina Packebush, Christina Clover, Bridget Birdsall. Photo courtesy of Rachel L. Pepper |
For the past few days the YA group sat for three hours each
day for intense manuscript critiques and very little writing. The critique
sessions starting to get tiresome. Maybe it was just me. I got feedback on my
work earlier in the week. But everyone deserved to get proper feedback and for that
feedback to be as fresh as it was on the first day. That’s what I tried to
offer. I also took notes on the other critique sessions. Some of it made sense for
my manuscript or for my writing in general.
After the usual round of feedback, we worked on a handout
from our faculty mentor. It felt good to do some writing and to focus on exercises
that allowed me to learn more about the characters I’ve created and the world
they inhabit.
After lunch part of the YA group had decided to visit the
Getty Museum which was just a few miles away. I really wanted to go but I
decided to stay and work on my revisions for the LLF fellows reading that
evening. The first part of the week, LLF faculty mentors read their work in a
stunning display. Well, it was our turn. This was the first of two days where
LLF fellows would read. A few of the YA fellows signed up for the first day
taking various spaces in the top 10 slots. I signed up with them just to get it over with and to have the comfort of reading in the company of
my cohort. We learned about the reading a few weeks before the retreat so I made
sure to bring some of my poems. I’d never read from my manuscript in public and
I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
At lunch, I sat at a table with the incredible Jewelle Gomez
and she asked me what I planned to read. I know. Let me stop there because
you’re probably like, “Wait, wait, wait. Jewelle Gomez talked to you and she asked
what you were going to read?”
Uh, yeah. She did. And I think I know why:
The previous day Jewelle and I had a fun conversation over
lunch or dinner (I can’t remember which) about being poets of color poets and about
our activism. I don’t know how the conversation started because there’s no way
I would have kicked it off. I think maybe she mentioned something about Latinos
and I just jumped into the conversation. Anyway, everyone at the table was just
quietly listening to us. Someone would chime in every so often but mainly it
was just the two of us talking. I tried be cool about it but in the middle of
the conversation I thought, “Ommagod! I’m having a conversation about activism
with Jewelle Gomez and I am totally bringing it!!” Looking back, maybe I was
just making a fool of myself and that’s why everyone at the table was quiet.
OK so back to Jewelle asking me what I planned to read. I
told her I brought a few poems from home but I felt like a different writer
than I was a few days ago. I thought I might read a section of my manuscript I’d
expanded and rewritten at the suggestion of my YA cohort. I told her time was
running out and it’d probably be safer for me to read my previous work. Jewelle
looked into me, not at me but into
me, and said, “I know I don’t have a say and it’s your decision but I’d like to
vote that you read your rewrite. It doesn’t have to be perfect or even
finished. I would like to hear it.”
As each reader took the podium, I tried to pay attention but
my pen kept making changes to my document. I came up with an ending. But my
paper looked like a tattooed prison bitch. It had arrows, circles, stars, scratched
through lines, underlined words. It was a mess. Finally, I just had to surrender
to the document and put the pen away. I knew if I continued editing, I’d ruin
it.
Dorothy Allison sat a few seats from me with a bag of
M&Ms. I thought of her reading, well, it was more like a performance, a few
nights ago at the faculty mentor reading. I wanted to read as she did. She
transported the audience with her words and body. I couldn’t just stand at the
podium like a pendejo trying to read my work. I needed to read from my soul. I
closed my eyes and remembered back to the boy I was working in the fields. I
remembered it being so hot that it was difficult to breathe. I remembered the
sweat that continually flowed down my back or into my eyes. I remember the
sweat bees that would come buzzing around my face and would sting my lips. My friend, Nina, finished her reading and introduced me.
I walked to the podium and I
remember looking out at the audience but not really seeing anyone’s face. I
opened my mouth and that boy inside me, the boy working the fields, told his
story. When he was done, I looked out at the audience with a relief and they
applauded. Normally, at readings I shake off applause because it feels awkward
for me. But this time, I stood in it. I took the applause because, well, I
worked hard on that piece. I also stood in that moment for all the migrant
farmworker youth and child laborers who remain unacknowledged and whose stories
never earn applause. It felt good.
I returned to my seat and took a deep breath. That’s when Dorothy
Allison leaned over and said, “Hey! Hey, you.” Oh, I should go back and explain
that from the first day of the retreat I’d been scared as hell of Dorothy Allison.
I mean, seriously, I was scared of her. When we did the introduction/sharing
circle thing on the first day (you know the one where I cried), she said very
clearly that she was here to kick some ass. I just knew she was talking to me.
I also knew it was simply a matter of time before she’d be walking around
campus with me holding her white outturned pocket. Either that or I’d wake up
to a knock on my door in the middle of the night to learn she’d traded my brown
ass for a pack of cigarettes. As the days went by, I felt a little more
comfortable around her but I still didn’t want to challenge her by looking
directly into her eyes.
So, yeah, I great after my reading and
that’s when Dorothy leaned toward me and said, “Hey! Hey, you.” Oh jeez, this
was it. How could things have changed so quickly? I was so happy from everyone’s
response to my reading but now Dorothy Allison was about to give me a beat
down. I didn’t want to look over at her. I knew she was probably dragging her finger
across her throat in a cutting motion letting me know that I’m dead meat. I
didn’t turn my head. Instead, I looked out of the right corner of my eye and
there she was, Dorothy Allison, stretching out her hand to offer me some of her
peanut M&Ms. And best of all, she was smiling at me. I immediately knew I’d
been an idiot for being afraid of her all that time. I smiled back at her and
my body visibly relaxed. I reached into her bag of M&Ms for my reward and enjoyed
the rest of the evening.
LLF recorded the faculty mentor readings and the two nights of LLF fellow readings. As soon as they go live, I'll repost. In the meantime enjoys these:
