what’s up world? on the train to dc for the campus progress national conference which is gonna be a big crazy bonanza of over 1300 students from over 47 states and counting unified by progressive politics.  gonna be sharing the stage with folks tomorrow like van jones, bill clinton, nancy pelosi, staceyann chin, john oliver from “the daily show,” the madden brothers from good charlotte and more (http://www.campusprogress.org) – another one of those funny days where i’m feeling blessed and curious re: where poetry is taking me now –

aiiiii – blogovel ain’t gonna be happening until i’m a little bit less on the traveling tip, so hmmm...who knows when that will be!  (also had a moderate computer crash last week, so yes, back up your files my people, back ‘em up – nothin’ like total erasure to get those writing muscles snappin’) – listening to michael jackson “off the wall” right now – and as for our late great loved king of pop i’ma say this –

from an artist perspective, i think it’s so funny how folks will claim baby michael, off the wall michael, all the way through thriller michael – but nobody wants to claim strung-out on prescription drugs, wearing a veil all the time, named his baby “blanket” michael (including myself).  for someone whose life was so heavily documented – we can indeed pick and choose the michael we each want to claim – the phantom of the young boy while the real middle-aged man was dying. 

memory can be a muthafucka’ – know what i mean?

what a weird thing for a man to have an entire world in love with the memory of who he was and then in near complete rejection of his current reality (before he passed).  i mean, that’s gotta have you feelin’ all fucked up at least a little bit.  i think when i got the news, i didn’t really believe it.  just like i can hardly believe it now.  maybe there was a part of me that thought michael jackson would live forever – he a bit otherworldly.  and he mortal just like the rest of us.  i dunno, can’t really grapple with all of it quite yet.

makes me think a lot about artists’ lives in general, of course, since he’s passed – it’s been non-stop michael jackson fests everywhere – it almost seems so greedy to me, for someone who seemed so alienated and ridiculed for his personal life –  we take the goods to brighten our lives, but reject the man – why, because we paid him for it with our dollars, our time, and attention? 

i can’t shake the feeling of a bit of the martyrdom that occurs when someone gives as fully of their entire lives to others as mj did through his creativity and his music.  no matter how much money he got.  even just listening to one song -- he gave so much of himself in every single song.

i still remember when “thriller” came out and opening the album up to that centerfold of him with the white tiger or whatever that thing was – i still remember how me and my crew of little taiwanese kids spent the whole summer making up dances to “human nature” – so many of our lives have been soundtracked by his gifts on this earth, for which i’m very thankful.  the only consolation right now feels like the fact that his body of work is so vast – a universe of music to surround ourselves with for days, weeks, months, years. 

for michael jackson – without whom so much of what we take for granted would not have been possible.

blessings and next week from brave new voices (http://www.bravenewvoices.org) in chi-city!

kells

what up family?  writing live and direct right now from one of my favorite spots on the planet, busboys and poets in washington, d.c. -- blogovel will have to wait once again -- tlc's "waterfalls" playing on the overhead speakers.  feeling good.  overfull.  blessed.  alla dat.
..
so hangin' with my homie rolando brown earlier this weekend, we were rappin' as always about the difference between honesty and openness -- honesty being telling all the facts, openness being how close you let someone in.  he also was making fun of me since i was moaning about some of my spoken word pet peeves, and he said these are what aren't in your blog, right? --

so i decided in the spirit of making my aesthetics (as of today) official and openness that i'd dedicate this week's blog to the shit that i like in spoken word -- which is actually me loosely veiling and trying - unsuccessfully - to positively flip what i don't like in spoken word.  like all rules or parameters for taste, they are meant to be broken, changed, turned upside down, evolved, challenged, and usurped -- or else, what's the fun?

so makin' it a treatise on what i like -- i'm gonna do the whole authorial "should" throughout.  ah yes, dear blog reader, hope this inspires you to write your own! 

not to say that i do these things in all my poems (i'm sure my biases are reflected in my style/form/content/process), but a lot of these are my aspirational desires when it comes to spoken word.  when i have enough time, these preferences inform a great deal of my revision process, and when i actually achieve them, i'm like "damn, i'm smart." --

1) a poem should be about one subject: as spoken word artists, i feel like sometimes we feel like we gotta put our whoooooole damn lives into 3 minutes.  one moment with my mother is worthy of a poem.  one conversation with a good friend is worthy of a poem.  the closing of one neighborhood barber shop is worthy of a poem.  a terrible and unexpected kiss is worthy of one poem.  i relate this directly to the fact that so many of us in spoken word don't feel that we have the PERMISSION to expand our stories, that our words, our lives, our experiences deserve to be visited and re-visited over and over again.  so we put the moon, the stars, revolutionary politics, that muthfucka' who broke our hearts, neo-liberalism, 'lil wayne's latest single, drug addiction, and our absentee parents all in one poem.  not so, poet, i say.  let us expand fully into the space and breath that we deserve - one poem with one central idea (illustrated by a few cohesive images/intersections that strengthen it) at a time.  

2) a poem's metaphors and images should work together to support the central idea of the poem. -- i know i don't always follow this, but as poets, we can look at our poems and make a map of what we're giving to the audience visually.  a poem can be about love, right? but if the images/metaphors i select are a dead frog, an empty beer bottle and a spaceship --   what i've put into the audience's minds and hands are a dead frog, an empty beer bottle, and a spaceship.  now, why would i do that?  most folks who know me know that i am totally ANTI-writing line by line, because i think it leads to trying to write the hottest or most "deep" line.  in the final analysis, if i'm not looking at the whole poem and what the whole poem is saying, i'm left with a dead frog, an empty beer bottle, and a spaceship, which is not hot at all.  why not pick metaphors and images that work together to create a larger extended metaphor or at least some kind of relationship with each other - feel me? 

3) writing clearly is awesome. complex ideas, simple (not simplistic) language.  no need to put all kinds of extra stylistic shit on it - if the feeling is honestly confronted and felt, if the thoughts are fresh and arrived at by humble and concrete reflection, the words then are just the vehicle and the more invisible they can be for the emotion and experience (unless that ornateness of delivery and therefore the complications of communication are central to the idea) -- the better.  sure, it may be "deep," but did any of us understand what that muthafucka' REALLY just said or what? 

4) write what you know as in observe and ask vs. assume.  for example, as much as george w. is much maligned in the spoken word community.  not one person i know (including myself) could possibly know what he thinks and feels.  we cannot assume to know him or his true intentions (which by the way is why i love the scene where w. is smoking up with harold and kumar in "h & k escape from guantanamo bay") -- we can reflect what we observe and our interpretations/questions of those actions, but then the poem is more about us than it is about him, which is cool too, but it helps to know that.  there are such odd contradictions and unexpected surprises in each human being, which is the beauty of humanity -- that even the most "evil" person has wonderful kindness and generosity in certain circumstances and the most "good" person has deplorable, disgusting moments as well.  a good persona poem which is sustained throughout lets go of the ego and the intentions of the poet and listens to the character/person him or herself -- it's nearly impossible for the poet's voice and opinions to not interrupt, but like any good friendship -- space for the poem and persona to be themselves are the only way to muster up the honesty and courage that can be deeplyresonant throughout.  

5) if you can hear the rhyme or the rise and fall of the poem as you write it, do the opposite.  fresh rhyme, fresh rhythm.  the poem and its content deserve it. i sometimes intentionally take rhymes out of parts of my poems, because they were too easy.  they created a flow when i want the listener to stop, be jarred, or experience something different.  we paint in rhyme, just as we paint in the absence of rhyme.  rhyme isn't just about achieving it.  tight rhymes to me aren't just about rhyme scheme and pattern, but also when to use it at all to illustrate the experience i'm conveying through my words.    

6) images and metaphors should be precise.  yeah, poetic license is one thing, but does this image or metaphor really fit what i'm trying to say?  "when you left me that night, i felt like a prisoner at abu ghraib."  -- like really?  like did i really feel like someone who was stripped naked, beaten with electric cords, tortured and held against my own will by the military of a foreign regime.  if that is ACTUALLY exactly how i felt, then hell yes, use it.  if not, it's just exaggeration, lies, and imprecision, which ain't cute.

ai - that's enuff for this week.  just finished up the campus progress: poetry through protest spoken word event, which was super-dope, and the brooklyn honors spike lee event was brilliant -- and i even got a new scandalous poem out inspired by "she's gotta have it" -- tentatively called "the confessions of kelly zen-yie tsai...inspired by the confessions of nola darling" -- so that was that good queasy feeling of getting new work out into the world that was challenging for me on an aesthetic and emotional tip which felt goooood --

more stuff next week -- gonna be performing in hartford, ct tomorrow and then back in d.c. next week for the campus progress national conference with bill clinton, van jordan, john oliver from "the daily show" and more -- YAY!

manifest onwards --

r.i.p. mj - more on that next week --

blessings,
kells 
 
 
 
 

while i further explore the blogovel (blog+novel) concept i.e. get my notebooks and scraps of writing from over the years in order...figured that i would spend this week talking a bit a about frenemies (friend+enemies)...interesting, since i was talkin' stuff with my dad on father's day about friends that you choose to let go of over the years.  he said, "yes, some friends grow to be..." and i was about to interrupt him and say "enemies," and he surprised me by finishing the statement by saying, "irrelevant."

when he said that, it almost hit me at a deeper level, one that dropped through my insides into some big hollow space.  even antagonism implies some kind of relationship.  irrelevance does not.  and there is a mournfulness to that realization.  that certain relationships, places, spaces just don't have much to do with your life as it currently stands - sometimes without you noticing it or having paid attention at all.  and then perhaps a release, a sense of odd exhilaration, when you realize you have no real attachment at all.  that your feelings have changed.  which reflecting on that can have its own sadness and joy too, at least for me.  

not so much frenemies, as much as [------]

blankness.

sometimes, i get super-confused, because i feel like my life is so full of change all the all the time (different cities, different people, different projects, different shows) -- that i feel like i must be one of these down for change spontaneous people, but when i really glimpse at what i cling to, what i hold onto unnecessarily for so long -- some of my most inner actions seem to fly in the face of that -- a woman instead who's all about keeping dusty corners dusty, and don't want nobody touching her shit, even in all of its imperfect haphazard arrangement -- a miss havisham anyone? (whoa, my high school english teachers would be so proud of that -- y'know from charles dickens' "great expectations"? i haven't read it in a million years, but i guess that's the beauty of art and literature.  it sticks with you, ha!) --

so maybe this week is about embracing the miss havisham in me and in you dear reader -- give the ol' lady a couple of cookies and let her stare out the window as you quietly move out one box and then the next and then the next, and then the real tough job will be getting the lady up and out of her chair.  gently, y'know, without force.  lead her outside slowly.  let her see the sun.

it won't be too scary after all. the feeling of all of that sun.

dope gigs this week -- apia summit fundraiser at sulu series in nyc on sun. was alllllll love :) (thanks hanalei!) -- looking forward to the spike lee buggin' out poetry event on friday 6/26 at the brooklyn historical society -- yes, my people, a whole 4 DAYS of brooklyn honoring spike, so you don't wanna miss it -- and i'm gonna be reading a new piece inspired by "she's gotta have it" and doing the campus progress spoken word event: protest through poetry on tues. 6/30 in washington, d.c. -- hot hot hot, so DO NOT MISS THESE :)  and can ya' believe they're both free -- all details on my calendar at http://www.yellowgurl.com/category/calendar --

still working on the poems based on laura and euna plus the one based on "the heathen chinee"...

blessings and through the rain --

kells the anti-destroyer

what's up world? just woke up from a nap and had the craziest dream, ok, so it goes a little something like this: i'm at some club talking about how whack the dj is, and some girl goes there you go again always talkin' shit, and i get mad, but she's an old friend, like from elementary school or something who i hadn't seen in a long time but all grown up. i'm mad and i go upstairs to exit the club, and i am in this long corridor with glass doors on the end, and i know these men on the outside of the doors are going to hurt me (just like dudes hanging out on the street or something). so i try to go outside, but then go back in, and this guy starts trying to follow me into the corridor...

and i start running and screaming saying that this guy is gonna hurt me...i'm pushing past all of these people, who are all happy and young and having a good time/oblivious -- and i start pushing past all these people running -- the corridor is all high and white and bright.  people keep grabbing my hands laughing, and i make it to the other end of the corridor and the glass doors, and some of these young folks are outside, but i realize they're after me to, and as i'm heading back through the crowd, this guy (one of my friends) reaches out his hand at the wrist, and is grabbing at my pulse, so i know he's doing something, and he's happy as a clam and everybody's dancing, but then i realize it's this weird ritual thing, like a mass wedding or something.  and i finally get out of this guys grasp, but the ritual is over. the thing is done, and as i leave the outside now looks like the inside of a church or something.

hmmmm...

so anyways, that definitely was not what i was planning on writing about for this week's blog. but in general, i find myself saying to myself and many friends this week for any obstacle that comes up "this too shall pass..." , which perhaps is the most buddhist of jewish sayings. to embrace impermanence that both our joys and pains are fleeting - so to perservere and experience the moment as it happens is the only choice in life that allows us to fully live.  trying to do that as much as possible. um hm.

reading through iris chang's the chinese in america and found a description of a "humorous" poem from 1870, recounting a shady card game between a chinese guy and an irish guy, which was the most popular poem across the country for that entire year, published and reprinted far and wide -- i'm gonna write a response poem to it next week (perhaps, do an illuminated broadside?) plus a piece for laura ling and euna lee, which i'll read at the sulu apia summit fundraiser in NYC on sunday night (COME! IT'S GONNA BE SUPER DOPE! 8 PM, 308 BOWERY, $8 Gen/$5 Stu) -- but for those who are curious, here it go: 

The Heathen Chinee or The Plain Language of Truthful James by Bret Harte (1870)

Which I wish to remark,
And my language is plain,
That for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar,
Which the same I would rise to explain.

Ah Sin was his name;
And I shall not deny,
In regard to the same,
What that name might imply;
But his smile it was pensive and childlike,
As I frequent remarked to Bill Nye.

It was August the third,
And quite soft was the skies;
Which it might be inferred
That Ah Sin was likewise;
Yet he played it that day upon William
And me in a way I despise.

Which we had a small game,
And Ah Sin took a hand:
It was Euchre. The same
He did not understand;
But he smiled as he sat by the table,
With the smile that was childlike and bland.

Yet the cards they were stocked
In a way that I grieve,
And my feelings were shocked
At the state of Nye's sleeve,
Which was stuffed full of aces and bowers,
And the same with intent to deceive.

But the hands that were played
By that heathen Chinee,
And the points that he made,
Were quite frightful to see, --
Till at last he put down a right bower,
Which the same Nye had dealt unto me.

Then I looked up at Nye,
And he gazed upon me;
And he rose with a sigh,
And said, "Can this be?
We are ruined by Chinese cheap labor," --
And he went for that heathen Chinee.

In the scene that ensued
I did not take a hand,
But the floor it was strewed
Like the leaves on the strand
With the cards that Ah Sin had been hiding,
In the game "he did not understand."

In his sleeves, which were long,
He had twenty-four packs, --
Which was coming it strong,
Yet I state but the facts;
And we found on his nails, which were taper,
What is frequent in tapers, -- that's wax.

Which is why I remark,
And my language is plain,
That for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar, --
Which the same I am free to maintain.

he also wrote a piece about a chinese guy who was the victim of a white mob two years later called "wan lee" - another interesting point that chang makes during this early part of american history is that a lot of chinese immigrant men (who were deprived of chinese women due to u.s. immigration policy) ended up marrying irish immigrant women (who vastly outnumbered their male counterparts), and at that time, which i already knew, is that chinese communities were shuffled between white status and black status or native american status depending on what state you were in, what kind of work you did, how you immigrated to the u.s. etc.

one of my good friends back in chicago told me long ago that the reason why he studied history as his undergrad major was, "shit's gonna be fucked up, and you're gonna want to know why." true, true. a lot of the invisibility, a lot of the antagonism between races, a lot of the practices of assimilation or extreme isolation, have their roots in old places, even if -- for the chinese american and larger asian pacific islander american communities -- our generations have come in vastly different waves unaware and often not interested in connecting with these histories marked by the pains of discrimination and segregation.

so it's gettin' on that long side for this week -- but last thing i'll say is this -- so i wuz watching "dancer in the dark" since i'm working on an opera right now (long story, ha!), and trying to watch dramatic stories that involve music that i don't think suck -- and after reading online about it post-watching, i came across the concepts of diegesis and mimesis, which in the greek classical sense is re-telling (i.e. epic poetry) vs. re-enactment (i.e. tragedy, comedy) -- which makes me think of a convo i had with an off-broadway producer who said that "cabaret artforms like spoken word, comedy, or music just do not work in theater." -- well, all i gotsta say is take it up with plato and aristotle, i.e. you can suck it.

smooches,
kells

p.s. many changes to the blog in upcoming weeks -- developing the concept of writing a novel in serial via my weekly blog, will still do kinda shenanigans updates and loose essays on spoken word, hip hop, arts, politics, and culture here and there, but the weekly (i'm thinking) will be 500 words of a novel each week -- more on this next week.  gonna think it out/dream it out some more -- well hell, dear blog readers -- comment/let me know what you think!  'cuz you know i do this for you - well, you and so my crazy brain won't self-destruct with words :)

   

what's up family -- hope everybody's doing alright.  for the latest update in what's been happening with the laura ling and euna lee trial -- they have been sentenced to 12 years worth of hard labor in a north korean prison camp for illegally crossing the border while reporting on the trafficking of women in the area.  huffpo's article is here and a more descriptive passage about what the conditions in the camp "hell on earth" is supposed to be like is here.

i'm going to try as much as possible during this time to stay away from reading user comments on these articles -- since from what i quickly glanced there's a lot of idiotic n. korea/liberal/obama-bashing as well as disturbing comments about just "nuking the gooks," etc. as can be imagined, laura and euna's unbidden roles in the much larger sticky complications of diplomacy and negotiations with n. korea is the kinda stuff wars start from (ever notice that in the history books -- it's that one thing that just pops everything off).  it's horrible, disturbing, and a good question -- whether the u.s. government will send gore or richardson or maintain a line of silence and condolence in a kind of cold non-diffusion of the issue.

as gotham chopra in this huffpo post here points out the u.s. can hardly be the champions of liberating those from wrongful imprisonment considering guantanamo bay (not to mention the countless cases of wrongful imprisonment with the domestic prison system). i've pasted a bunch of actions that you can take at the end of this blog post -- let's send our prayers and try to leverage as much support as we can to get these women back home.

in other news, i also just recently received the link to melissa roxas' affadavit on her torture by the arroyo military, which you can find here. i have so little else to say at this moment. just inured with the sense of what it takes and what it means to tell the story of what is really happening to and for people all around the world.  if we cannot bear to simply hear what is happening to people around the world, how can we live our lives on a daily basis just condoning its passage willfully without our knowledge.  also, saw "sin nombre" this week, which i swear is one of the best movies i've ever seen -- so please do support and check it out here.

blessings and promises for poetry next week --
kelly

LIBERATE LAURA & EUNA ACTIONS YOU CAN TAKE:

FOLLOW ON TWITTER
http://twitter.com/liberatelaura

JOIN THE FACEBOOK GROUP
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=60755553149

SIGN THE PETITION FOR THEIR RELEASE
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/free-euna-and-laura

WRITE TO PRESIDENT OBAMA*
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

WRITE YOUR SENATOR*
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

WRITE YOUR MEMBER OF CONGRESS*
https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

* LETTER TEMPLATE FROM STAR JONES
http://positivelystar.blogspot.com/2009/06/get-involved-for-laura-ling-and-euna.html

READ AND SUBSCRIBE TO
http://liberatelaura.wordpress.com

REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS
http://www.rsf.org/

so last week i wrote in my blog about melissa roxas and i received this email from marlon esguerra last week: "There is official word that after 5 days since her abduction, Melissa Roxas has been reunited with her family. Her two companions, Juanito Carabeo and John Edward Handoc remain missing." so please keep juanito and john in your prayers.

i'm performing tomorrow (6/3) at a vigil in nyc - washington square park, 6-8 PM (there will be simultaneous vigils nationwide in ca, or, il, al, dc) to raise awareness around the abductions of current tv journalists laura ling and euna lee who are being detained in north korea . for more information on the circumstances surrounding their disappearances, click here.

i'm finally reading iris chang's the chinese in america partly because i've been meaning to forever, and also for research for a project that i'm working on that focuses on a chinese woman in the early american west.  for folks who don't know, chang is the award-winning author of the rape of nanking -- she wrote it when she was in her late 20's and completed suicide at age 36 in 2004.

it's odd, looking at her website, that it is simply as it was. no mention of her death whatsoever. as if it's just an absent-minded webmaster who hasn't updated her speaking engagement calendar.  as if her death hadn't happened at all.  everything just a temporary and ordinary stop.

at the time of her death, chang was suffering depression due to exhaustion as well as doing research on the bataan death march in the philippines. her suicide notes make some allusions to her own suspicions that the CIA is targeting and working to discredit her authority --

all of this going on over the last couple of weeks is making me think and feel a lot about young asian pacific islander american women who are risking mentai and bodily well-being in the pursuit of unearthing historical truth, equity and justice for all, intervening in the exploitation and trafficking of our sisters abroad.

i am simultaneously proud, inspired, horrified, and regretful of the danger and its potential (or in chang's case exacted) toll it can take on individual people. we have the legacy of chang's work, but not her own survival. what does that say about the living? what kind of world, what kinds of psychic and physical injustice do we permit every single day?  how can we work together as artists, activists, educators, business folks, media, government, everyday people to lessen this harm every day?

it feels naive as i write this. my afternoon spent in a soho cafe sipping on lemonade reading chang's book envisioning particularly dramatic plot points that i can steal from it for the stage.  

there was a time in this country (about 160 years ago) when anyone who wasn't white was legally considered black, and if you were legally considered black you weren't considered legally at all, i.e. killing you, robbing you, raping you, didn't matter since you weren't even human. our legal system functionally still absolutely works in this way for some communities here in the u.s. and all over the world.

the least i can do - is write the story of this in a human, personal, current, relevant, and emotional way. i found this on chang's wikipedia: "Reporter Richard Rongstad eulogized her as 'Iris Chang lit a flame and passed it to others and we should not allow that flame to be extinguished.'"

feelin' that --

r.i.p. ronald takaki (1939-2009).

to all those who continue to care and to survive.

blessings,
k

no shenanigans this week.  this is re: melissa roxas, whom i met at the kundiman asian american poets retreat in 2005.  she has been abducted while working with farmworkers/political organizing in the philippines.  please read.  please sign the petition.  please spread the word, and have melissa and her companions in your prayers.  marlon esguerra told me about it as we were watching the cav's game in brooklyn on sunday, but the fact that this forward came to me from marlon on the kundiman e-listserve via margaret rhee in l.a.'s e-forward via kenji kenjiro from the toronto asian arts freedom school on fb is heartening in the potential of spreading word and action about this as quickly as possible.

blessings and take care,
kelly

Dear all:

Please forward widely. Filipino-American activist and Kundiman poet Melissa Roxas was abducted by suspected state security forces. I just got this email from Marlon Esguerra through the Kundiman listserve. Im distraught over this, as I was at Kundiman with Melissa a few years back and was moved by her activist and human rights work in the U.S. and Philippines. The link goes to a petition. Please see below.

best,

Margaret

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/find-filipina-american-activist-melissa-roxas.html

-------------------

Surface Filipino-American activist Melissa Roxas now!
May 24th, 2009
Contact:

Kuusela Hilo
BAYAN-USA Vice Chair
vicechair@bayanusa.org

Rhonda Ramiro
BAYAN-USA Secretary General
secgen@bayanusa.org

BAYAN-USA, an alliance of 14 Filipino American organizations and chapter of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan Philippines), is calling on President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the Department of National Defense, and the Armed Forces of the Philippines to immediately surface Melissa Roxas, an American citizen of Filipino descent who was abducted in the Philippines on May 19. BAYAN-USA also urgently calls on our representatives in the U.S. Congress to act quickly to ensure the safe return of Roxas.

Roxas is a well-known Filipino American activist, who served as the first Regional Coordinator of BAYAN-USA in Los Angeles and co-founded the cultural organization Habi Arts. Roxas is an active human rights advocate and was instrumental in organizing a BAYAN-USA contingent that participated in the International Solidarity Mission in 2005, an international fact finding mission that called attention to the escalating human rights violations in the Philippines. Roxas went to the Philippines in 2007 to pursue human rights work, where she became a full time volunteer health worker. She was abducted on May 19, 2009 at approximately 1:30 PM in Sitio Bagong Sikat, Barangay kapanikian, La Paz, Tarlac. She was with two other volunteers, Juanito Carabeo and John Edward Handoc.

Based on reports filed by the human rights group KARAPATAN and the La Paz police, Roxas and her companions were taken by at least 8 armed, hooded men riding two motorcycles and a Besta van without any license plate numbers. There has been no word on the whereabouts and condition of Roxas and her companions since the abduction. The circumstances of Roxas’ abduction typify the abductions and enforced disappearances of over 200 innocent civilians, allegedly last seen in the hands of suspected state security forces.

“We are deeply concerned about the abduction of Melissa Roxas, Juanito Carabeo and John Edward Handoc. We call for Melissa and her companions to be immediately surfaced unharmed,” said BAYAN-USA Secretary General Rhonda Ramiro. “We condemn the ongoing abductions and human rights violations that have been rampant under the Arroyo administration and victimized thousands of innocent people.”

The search for Roxas and her companions will be spearheaded by the human rights organization KARAPATAN, while BAYAN-USA, its member organizations, and allies will undertake an international campaign to exert pressure on the Arroyo government to surface Roxas. “We appeal to our elected officials, members of the Filipino American community, and all people in the U.S. who believe in human rights to take action to surface Melissa and her companions. Since we were founded in 2005, BAYAN-USA has campaigned ceaselessly for an end to the human rights violations in the Philippines, and we will not stop until we obtain justice for Melissa and all victims of human rights violations under Arroyo.”

what's up world?  hope you're all doin' good doin' good doin' good.  just breathing in and out on this tuesday afternoon.  cleaning up the apartment before working some more on the draft of the solo show.  birds a-twittering.  alicia keys sangin' from tiny laptop speakers.

got to perform at the new york city council asian pacific islander american celebration over at city hall which was quite an honor.  hosted by councilman john c. liu, who's the first and only asian american to ever be elected to the new york city council.  (he was first elected in 2001.)  looking up the stats on this -- new york's five boroughs are home to 8 million people, and the ethnic breakdown is 45% white, 27% black, 27% latino/a, and 10% asian according to the 2000 census (which by the way, i'm sure severely under-reports all communities of color and foreign-born popuations). 

the new york city council has 51 members representing 51 districts.  so if we are proportional to even the numbers that are on the books, we should have at least 4 more city council members in the mix to represent our communities.  john's running for city comptroller -- the dude that handles all things financial for the city gov't -- so my people, who's got next?

which brings up the question of new leadership -- not only in politics, but also art, social change, science & technology, business.  i was gettin' into one of those late-night consciousness-swirling convo's with a good friend who's a choreographer about the fears that come up when you start articulating your new vision for leadership by voicing what you -- in this moment, of this generation, of your experience -- believe in and see in the present and for the future.  it's a scary thing to do. 

your elders, your mentors, your peers, your supporters, your funders, your collaborators, your teachers, and your own students or followers may disbelieve you, argue with you, and disrespect you, for seeing and saying differently.  they may discredit you and dismiss you, either because they've shut themselves off to new experience or they themselves feel threatened by what your visions propose.  throughout this, you must hold to what your experiences embed in you as truth. 

fortitude of belief.  no matter what.  this is from erich fromm's art of loving which i just finished last week: "Only the person that has faith in himself is able to be faithful to others, because only he can be sure that he will be the same at a future time as he is today and, therefore, that he will feel and act as he now expects to.  Faith in oneself is a condition of our abiility to promise..."
 
uh huh.  got it,  like that very much. the luminous heather park was also in the house, as was jennifer hayashida from the cuny asian american / asian research institute, who spoke on the state of apia's in higher education, kinding sindaw, ht chen and dancers, and the apa heritage month high school leadership awardees.  (thanks to bonnie, sharon, and crew for holding it down!).      

also performed a 7-page snippet of my solo show over at the solonova ones at ten party on friday night at d-lounge, which was an enormous relief, that along with a bunch of other new grooves. (thanks jennifer and jd!)  just when i've convinced myself that i can hole myself up in my apartment forever and be one of those reclusive, socially maladjusted writers, i realize how wrong i am. 

coming from spoken word -- the writing of the word is its own living art, and it happens in community.  with the audience.  with breath and body and life.  i cannot divide that any more from the writing process than the curves of the letters themselves.  and i'm a ham and a stage hog, a leo and a youngest child, so put me in front of a mic, and we'll have a good ol' time, ha! 

good times sharing the stage with darian dauchan, the ever-diva vanessa hidary who read a hilarious and vivid excerpt from a novel she's been working on, and my kuya patrick rosal who always lights up each page and each stage with the gravity, intensity, light, and movement as only an old skool jersey b-boy poet can.

until next crossing --

blessings,
kelly

hey what's up world?  oooo, it is finally cool and sunny and beautiful out, so hopefully that'll be it for the rain for now -- been lots goin' on, so from top to bottom, end to end, let's see -- i'm really feelin' my haiku blog on Twitter -- may be re-structuring this blog over the next couple of weeks/months too, just to be able to get more in-depth and focused on juicy cultural/political stuff, more concentrated travelogue, more heart, less hecticness -- so yes, stay tuned for that :)

a couple of weeks back, i had the supreme pleasure of being one of the judges for the first-ever urban word nyc's slam of the ages which pitted 6 of the youth poetry slam teams from 2000-2008 (2000, 2001, 2007, 2008, hmmm...another two teams, which years?  i am forgetting.), which was really dope to be able to see side by side not only generations of poets all sharing the stage, but generations of spoken word poetry itself. 

it was like a mini-time capsule of where spoken word has come to where it's going -- with the older cats coming with more straight-up reach into your heart poetics evolving into the sophistication of poetic devices, complexity of interwoven multi-voice conceptual group poems, mic choreography and theatrics of the new skool.  peace for hunger.  resolution and reflection for challenge and conflict.  old skool for new skool.  was tons of fun, and like an NYC spoken word poetry family reunion -- got to share the judges' table with the illustrious oveous maximus, bonafide rojas, tara betts, and regie cabico.  crazy bob holman jumped off the night.  the ever-lovely celena glenn hosted with that inimitable skill and grace that she always has, and an extra-hot mc from canada who got the whole place jumping -- whose name has also slipped from my grasp, ai!

(just saw "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" for the first time this week, "blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of their blunders." -- nietzche, y'know?!)

got to spit poems and talk stuff about human idiosyncrasies and community leadership with anarchist autumn brown, playwright patricia ione lloyd (who wrote "the king's mistress," a fictionalized viewpoint of mlk jr.'s life with coretta and a fictional mistress  freedom train productions' "myth of the unflawed superhero" dialogue/performance/panel @ the brecht forum -- which brought up for me the long-standing issue of the divide between community activists and public servants/politicians, which i think is often because of lifestyle differences.  i.e. if you dress different from me, act different from me, hang with different people, we must not be down for the same thing.  but any progress that artists and activists want to make anywhere can be seriously fortified by having public servants/politicians be on point to do what they can do to support those goals and efforts.  

performed at the urban bush women souldeep fundraiser for the summer leadership institute in new orleans -- let's just put it out there.  jawole willa jo zollar (the artistic director for ubw) is one of the most dynamic, amazing people let alone artists in the world.  hands down, no contest on that.  so it was that kind of floor-shaking, community-buzzing, heart-enlivening, brilliant evenings where dope art, community, and coming correct and tight with what you want to say and what you're trying to do all share rooms in one house.  (much love to paloma especially for bringing us all together!) -- got to share the stage with another chi-town to nyc transplant charan p. and the incredibly mind-blowing planet ubiquity.

other exciting bits from this week -- got listed on angry asian man's "30 most influential asian americans under 30" which was awesomely awesome.  got to take a workshop with martin espada via the acentos bronx poetry crew -- and nearly passed out when he told me he liked my work -- got to re-connect with lots of new york and bay area fam at living word project's life is living festival combining environmental justice and hip hop up in harlem, and a peek at blastmaster krs-one out at habana outpost this saturday for their block party -- so nevah forget, as krs sez': "hip is the knowledge, hop is the movement."

and yup, come catch an excerpt of my solo show-in-progress over at the solonova ones at ten on friday @ d-lounge, 10 PM, $10 with darian dauchan, vanessa hidary, and patrick rosal also reading/performing. more details at http://www.yellowgurl.com/category/calendar.

sitting her ass down to write poems and other big fantastical things --
kells :)

do not betray the words

do not take them in your hands
and twist them like air balloons

creating wiener dogs and flowers
and imaginary crowns

do not stretch them so thin
that their skins breaks

everything evaporated
torn casings limp on the ground

do not take the words
and make them trophies

line them up on your mantle
shiny and golden and clean

do not make them objects in your
collection trussed in traces of dust

do not play the words

dunk them in the deep end of the pool
with no breath, no air

do not tell the words that you're coming back
when you know that you're not

do not pat them on the shoulder
while laughing to your friends about them

the words are simple enough
neutral enough plain enough

the words are atoms of sound
 
black scratches bent into circuits

they catch your electricity

they await your satisfaction

the words designed
to penetrate within

faster than the hypodermic's nose
by-passing follicles and fat

the words bounce against your walls
they echo and then want to come out

let the words say you

celebrate you

flipping all your dark corners
inside out

much love to amnat and the crew at siena college & and andre and all the folks at tonight's "myth of the super leader" panel discussion/performance -- come through to tomorrow night's souldeep fundraiser for urban bush women at solomon's porch in bed-stuy -- and next friday catch a glimpse of my solo show at soloNOVA -- all details are at http://www.yellowgurl.com/category/calendar :)