G R A C E : Best New Poets 2010

Last March, I sat at a table facing the large window at El Beit, a small cafe in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I hadn't written in days, and everything I typed felt like a stale pile of alphabets.

I remember praying. (Praying to what in that state of mind, I can't be sure). Even Mary Karr admits, "I really pray about this shit." Then on a whim, I googled "suicide." Found out, to my horror, that Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse had pointed a gun to his heart that day.

Then the poem came. I pushed his song, "Hundreds of Sparrows," through my earphones. And with that song repeating, I churned out one of the most difficult poems I have ever read aloud—"Every Hair on Your Head"—in which "the speaker" admits to having contemplated suicide and having swallowed pills at age thirteen.

Claudia Emerson and the staff of Meridian graciously chose to include that poem in the upcoming anthology, Best New Poets 2010, available in stores this October.

[Trivia: Todd Dillard, a friend, a vicious poet, and one of the 50 chosen for this anthology, passed on his bedroom to me when I first trekked to New York from California two years ago!]

When I heard about my inclusion in Best New Poets 2010, I immediately contacted my beloved angel/mentor, Laure-Anne Bosselaar-Brown. A few months ago, when we sat inside Starbucks and discussed the poems in my MFA thesis, Laure-Anne paused after she read "Every Hair on Your Head."

She peered sharply into my eyes and said, "Before we talk about this poem as a poem, I want you to know—I understand."

As a poet, and as a young woman, that's really all I ever need to hear.

So much of what I know now, I learned from that gorgeous woman first. She was the one who gave me permission to tell the truth.

H U M A N N E S S : Five Poems

Volume 4, Issue 1 of Relief Journal ["A Christian Literary Expression"] was released on July 1 and is available for sale both in hard copy and as an e-book.

The editors of Relief graciously published five of my poems: "Angel Hunting," "How I Drank Us to Death," "Plastic Continent," "One Foot in Front of the Other," and "Blood, Sparrows and Sparrows."

I submitted these poems to Relief in spite of the journal being a "Christian" publication because Relief Journal is one of the few spaces of faith that actually invites art in its fullness—not the watered down fluff contemporary Christians tend to produce.

In its online call for submissions, Relief Journal claims to seek writing that "reflects reality":

"Not the churchized version, but the real, gritty scripture: Noah drank too much; Moses committed murder; David committed adultery, then tried to put his life back together; David’s daughter was horribly raped; poets expressed real doubt and exhilarating praise in the Psalms; Solomon spoke beautifully and unapologetically about sex; Jesus made fun of religious leaders, faced betrayal by a friend but still spoke highly of friendship, stared death down; Paul and Peter argued about race…"

So it's no wonder that this journal accepted poems in which I cripple a helpless Jesus, admit that 'I don't look for God,' and pit Mother Teresa as a lonely girl in a cot with her hand between her thighs. Relief didn't even censor the word "shitty" in one of the poems. Maybe because the editors also understand that sometimes, "shitty" is the only appropriate word.

Issue 4.1 also marks Christopher Fisher's debut as Editor-in-Chief of Relief Journal. Please read his remarkably honest and intelligent editor's note for this issue—his attempt at defining what Relief seeks to accomplish.

There exist people of faith who pursue religiosity and operate within the confines of black and white rules and traditions. To these people, getting the religion "right" and doing what it purportedly expects far outweighs the act of faith itself.

Then there are others who approach faith with an openness. A humility. With a willingness to experience the unexpected. They grapple with faith as a living organism—something that can alter paradigms and break walls or preconceived notions.

I believe that the only requirement for faith is the willingness to accept our humanness. The ability to admit, "I make mistakes. I don't have all the answers. And I will die." Then also, "But couldn't there be more?"

Chris Fisher writes about this humanness in his editor's note:

For the person of faith—any faith—life is a constant struggle of balancing the hopes of the spiritual and eternal with the needs and limitations of the physical, the temporal. It is—to quote one author in this volume—as if we are each “part flesh, part hope.” Believers who acknowledge this tension want more than a secure life behind the stained glass. And they look to spiritual writing for something more than a saintly protagonist who doesn’t drink, smoke, gossip, or swear, and who certainly does not—under any circumstance—experience real doubt about his or her faith.

Of course I doubt. I've doubted every day of my life. But that doubting has slowly evolved into not doubting God's character, but doubting what humans have ever told me about God. Doubting myself and what I've believed.

Good power exists in our doubts. The person who fears his or her doubts is a person who dangerously limits the power of God. If God exists, God must be able to handle and work with our doubting.

It isn't a finalized certainty that is important. It is the open, supple heart. Never shutting ourselves from what could potentially be God's voice. Bearing in mind, of course, what Michael Koh means in Healing Your Internal Clock when he says, "What W. H. Auden calls 'our colossal immodesty' is the human presumption to understand the speech of Almighty God with our finite minds."

Leave it to a poet such as Auden to whip us back to humility—that place in which we discover how futile it is to argue about matters of God's existence or what qualifies as God's words.

I believe that everyone was created (while being completely open to the probability that by created, I mean also evolved in the macroevolutionary sense), and I believe that we are all on a journey to finding that Creator. Some of us haven't begun that journey yet. And that's a good thing for those of us.

It isn't my duty (as a poet—and especially as a teacher) to tell people God exists. He (or she) exists for me, yes. My duty, as a poet, is to tell my truth—what I know through my life. And to urge everyone—my readers, my students, my family—to access their truths. To remain open. Remain listening. Remain true to the natural evolution of our bodies, hearts, and minds. To listen to what our life circumstances may tell us.

My one goal as a poet—as a poet of awkward faith—is this: To stir in everyone, a hope. A longing for new experiences. New lives that operate not from what's been done already, but from a longing for what could be possible.

Thank you, Relief Journal, for allowing me to share a small chunk of what I aim to do through your publication.

C H O I C E : "On the Eighth Anniversary of the War"

War at home, war abroad.
(Or war, as disguise for what is really illegal occupation...
but this is hardly the space for ranting).

New poem: On the Eighth Anniversary of the War
Written two autumns ago at the Kaiser Hospital in West Los Angeles.

Published in the last issue (Summer 2010) of The November 3rd Club.
Sad to see this magazine cease. We need more literary journals as relevant as this one.