HOT TEXTS and SMALL BEAST Monday, February 20, 2012

Another gorgeous day had me riding my bicycle into Brooklyn (via PATH). I had to pick up some tax documents from the house and swing by the Food Coop to check on my status, which is non-responsive.

After watching the sunset from my perch in the living room, I headed to the Way Station on Washington Avenue. I don't like walking into a bar for a poetry reading in the neighborhood that I grew up in but cannot afford to live in and being the only other black person in the bar. Truth be told I hate it. It makes me wonder about the ethics of my poetry community:

Curated by local poet activists Krystal Languell and Emily Skillings-HOT TEXTS is a reading series in Brooklyn, New York that celebrates innovative writing rooted in the body, desire, sexual politics and the erotic sphere. HOT TEXTS is an extension of the Belladonna* Collaborative, a feminist, avant-garde event series, collective and publishing venture.

I wonder what Languell and Skillings mean by "local poet activists." I wonder if there are any neighborhood bars left in my neighborhood. Or, I have to accept that the face of the youth in my neighborhood has changed. I wonder if it is a responsibility of local activists to deal with the recent history of displacement that enables their presence.

All of that ranted, I was very excited to be going to the reading. I think it is important to be critical of the communities of which we are part. It encourages debate, which encourages critical thinking, which animates the possibility of systemic transformation. I will forever be uncomfortable entering spaces that have been enabled by the criminalization of the black body. ...but I am getting ahead of my research, which exists right now just as a question: what are the relationships between gentrification and the alarming rate of incarceration of black and brown youth?

I couldn't have been happier at the Way Station sitting in the raised red booth joined by friends old and new and listening to a reading by Rachel Levitsky, Christian Hawkey, and Erin Moure. The reading was standing room only. For me the highlight was Hawkey's poem about the color blue which was collaged from mentions of blue in a poet he was translating. The introduction of Moure which was stream-of-consciousness notes while reading which described how Moure expands time. And always, just being in the same room as Levitsky.

After the reading, I bicycled over to SMALL BEAST at the Delancey in the lower east side. Because the Lower East Side is not my neighborhood, and also it has consistently been a home for experimental art, and the bouncers were tattooed white guys, I wasn't thinking too much about gentrification. The spot was pretty empty. I ordered a cranberry and tonic with a lime in a cocktail glass. The bartender told me it was free refills. Score. I will return. The band I heard was Nigel. It was the first performance (and rehearsal) between Flo, on vocals and pedal, and Pete, on drums and computer. It was awesome. By the end, there was some good stuff happening. Micheal Park, our musical curator for the evening, danced throughout the set. At the end of the set, Pete gave me postcards, and Flo filled one out in blue sharpie. I still need to get a label to send it to the MAP Gallery.

I wanted to stay and listen to more of the bands, but it was getting late, and I still had a ride on a PATH and then bicycle ride home, so I left into the unusually warm February evening. If you think that this warm weather has nothing to do with the rise of industrial factories beginning in the 1820s, you are wrong. To not think about the weather in the context of global warming as a result of the industrialization of the earth is irresponsible.