fell asleep with my little boy

I got really into the political intro in Totems and I have to put my son to bed so here is my first part response. I have to revisit the poetry site after he is in bed.
I read this and I got mad quite a few times at Vivian Gornick, Bill Moyer, the "Friends" of the Hispanic student. I was in a class about language that dealt directly examining the problems of with the white, right way to write and my friend kept getting bad grades because her writing had wasn't quite right because of its Cuban undertones. I wanted her to punch that teacher or at least write an essay about how backwards her thinking was.

And then the segregated mass media How the hell do you get to be a commercially successful writer when the mass consumers are white women wearing red on Oprah so they can feel better about themselves and get seen on TV? I have a resentment at Oprah who has the power to change what is read but still prescribes much of the acceptable norm even when she is pushing books of other cultures. Do you have to have the the 60% appeal to get on Oprah. I just got in a fight with a good friend about that topic. I guess I am supposed to love Oprah but I just don't. But don't get me wrong if my books sell I'll sit next to her any day and hoar my stuff. But I hope that I would also have the courage to ask about all the people I see marginalized.

Do white people want or care about dealing with their own white guilt enough to buy and explore text objectively? I am white so I am asking myself too. I am sad. Can I participate in Vona even if I am white? I respect that maybe I can't but if that true I am also equally heart broken about it.

Science discovers the laws of physical nature. Words discover the laws of human nature. Nature is designed to mutate, expand, and grow and boy is that needed!

Ha Ha Sylvia Plath a laid back Valley Girl. I forgot that has been a tag that has stuck. I don't know why, dude I can't figure it out. I love Sylvia the pissed off East Coast insect victim. I really do love her stuff but she was pretty and white enough to publish some harsh stuff and at least they let her get by with just calling her crazy because she was a woman. I relate to Sylvia Plath she was the first poet I read. I kept reading it because I felt like there was a "privileged" white chick that was enraged. The poem "Daddy" made me feel like I had a sister. I grew up with my head in the oven and still the tag crazy is the one that sticks and burns. When I saw people in the class that had tags to painful to speak I didn't realize that "crazy" and " dirty" were the ones that I fight against daily. It's not what you are called its what you continue to call yourself that is debilitating.

Shawn Wong: I met him because I am from Seattle so I heard him read and got my book American Knees" signed I put it away for a long time. I was busy. But finally this summer the quote on the cover got to me, " Finally we have racial issues made racy" --Gish Jen author of typical America. I wonder how he felt about that quote? I want to ask him . He wrote about sex. Oh my god! People of color, writers of color have sex????? and they write about it???? Who knew. By the way I liked that book and from my own baggage I am not to comfortable with sex in writing and he does write about it beautifully. But that was the just a device he used to discuss the bigger issues of race.

I can't help but rant on blogs. I am feeling guilty for not citing text. So on to the question how does history and poetry relate and create each other? Well, I think that poetry, at least my thinking of it, because I have never been in a poetry class that beat the content out of me because it lacked form allows history to be told with out limits. Poetry allows history to be told from the perspective of the people whom have lived it or have been affected by it. History books are designed with an agenda on shaping peoples beliefs about what has happened. Personally most history book I know about are dangerous. I can't stand to think of Native American, Asian American, African American, and all the other cultures of children, people,I haven't even been exposed to being forced to read American history books. It makes me want to cry. And I am grateful that I dropped out of high school before I had to read that s--t.

All I remember was a boy from Israel coming to class in the 9th grade and being allowed to talk in social studied class about watching his home burn after being bombed. He was the only one who made it out alive. He had a story to tell , a poem, and I am grateful for the teacher that let him speak.


I can't find my notes on the website poetry. So what are you gonna do? I can feel that grandma stare already. Because this is already late by 4 hours. But the truth is falling asleep with my little boy has to be equally as important as this.

Suki