Mic Check, or WWJD part 2

As I was working on my last post, I struggled with how to also talk about the media portrayal of trans deaths. About how trans women and transfeminine people of color are disproportionately affected by murder and violence, and no one hears about it, no one talks about it. And then a white girl dies, and it's a national news event. About how I am complicit in widening that gap by amplifying the stories that I can relate to and falling silent in the face of a violence I have never known.

Well, Alok of trans activist/performance duo Darkmatter posted a poem called "bible belt" on their blog on my birthday, and I'm just seeing it today, and it is everything. And if I just shut up and redirect you to other people's blogs forever, I hope you'll understand. Here's a snippet, but go read the whole thing for the love of Maude. And then donate to the Trans Women of Color Collective if you can.

this is the town where i attempt suicide at thirteen. i did not have the language for it at the time, it was a tightness in this chest, a tinge in this voice a belt around my neck [...] these days i have all the theory to know why they would have called this a ‘suicide’ and not a ‘murder’ to rinse their own hands and crosses of the blood as if we hate ourselves because it is our choice and not theirs as if we kill ourselves because we wanted to and not because they told us to as if we were not following their prophesy on our knees, in His name amen © Alok Vaid-Menon

Whose Haikus?

A while back (June?), I quietly stopped calling the poems on this blog "haiku" and changed the headline to say "short poem" instead. But I thought now it was time to be a bit more explicit. Maybe because lately I've been having a hard time telling people about this blog.

In a world where white men gobble up everything in sight (resources, power, culture) and spit up a milky backwash everyone else is expected to lap up and praise us for, it's easy to get lazy. I started this "haiku" thing as a way to get myself to write every day by doing the least amount of writing possible--the definition of laziness. And not that I need to wait for someone to call me on my bullshit, but I've been mostly unchallenged in my use of someone else's culture to tell cute little stories about my life.

I have found this project useful for marking moments over the last couple of years, connecting moments to ideas about the world, and occasionally connecting to others who comment here or on 17aDay's Facebook page. And the 5-7-5 form, with its syllable constraints, helps me focus and distill a lot of thoughts and feelings into something manageable, yet meaningful. So I don't want to just scrap the whole thing.

One thought I had was that maybe there's a short form in a European tradition that I might have any claim to (because I love a sonnet, but let's be real, I already struggle to post once a week), and I could rename the blog and keep on in much the same manner in the new form. My preliminary research hasn't turned up much, except some forms that were "inspired by" haiku and tanka. Also, though, that just sounds like a really easy out.

So, while I continue to ponder and process and publicly guilt about it, here's a limerick to hold you over.

There once was a blogger named Calvin
Who some shame for his haiku was havin'.
In his search for some verse
Less hijacked, just as terse,
It appeared that at straws he was grabbin'.

Played Out

So there's this game, and you probably know about it, and right on the box it says it's "for horrible people." But I've mostly played it with extremely lovely people who work hard to not hurt others with their words and actions. Is that what makes the game fun? Someone please explain.

Haiku for Game Night

Conscious queers playing
Cards Against Humanity:
Laughter and shame face

There are way worse examples than this. Way worse.

XYZ, PDQ

Remember this really smart and useful essay about being called out on privilege and its brilliantly memorable analogy to your fly being open?

I revisited it today. Here's the unfortunate part:

It works for people who accept that privilege is real and has influence over the way we experience life. It works for people who recognize their own privilege exists and want to help build a more equitable society. In short, it works for people who want to act as allies.

Cue the sad trombone.

Haiku for Watever. I don't even HAVE a zipper!!!

Dude, your fly is down.
"How dare you try to help me
Not be embarrassed."

kiss me, i'm jesus

Haiku for December 25, 2013

"Happy holidays."
Everybody celebrates
Something today, right?

Also, this.

Gratitude-Free Zone

I don't celebrate Thanksgiving, just like I don't celebrate Columbus Day. The story of the first Thanksgiving I was taught in school is a lie, the kind of lie that my Jewish friends were taught in Hebrew school as kids. A lie that is told to cover up genocide and land theft and erase the histories of entire peoples.

I am not thankful for this:

Or this:

I'm real happy that a lot of you have decided to take this day (or even this entire month) to remember to practice gratitude, and I like gratitude and think it's important.

But I just felt the need to carve out a little corner of the internet today in which to say, "No, thank you." Today is a day of mourning all those murders, rapes, mutilations, all that enslavement and lying and theft that happened and continues to happen in North America and Palestine and all over the world.

Also gonna mourn my grandma, who left this life on Thanksgiving a few years ago. She had a big mouth and an attitude and was one of my favorite people ever. Love you, Gram.

A Public Service Announcement (Disguised as a Clip Show)

I looked at the Times Haiku Blog recently (thanks to reader "amplituhedron") and thought, "But those aren't even haiku. They're just sentences with 17 syllables." I looked at it some more and thought, "But they look a lot like mine, don't they?"

So it seems like the responsible thing to do, as the proprietor of an internet website with literally tens of readers, to shed a little light on what a haiku actually is. I realize not all of us were able to attend a crappy state school where other cultures' art forms were watered down and spoon-fed, so I'll fill you in on some things I learned.

7 Things About Haiku That This Blog Gets Wrong

1. Language. Traditional haiku are in Japanese, while I write exclusively in English. A subtle distinction, lending itself to number 2 below.
2. Syllables. Japanese haiku count syllables differently. 17 Japanese haiku syllables are roughly equivalent to 12 in English.
3. Line breaks. Japanese haiku are usually printed in one line, not three.
4. Juxtaposition. Haiku are supposed to use a "cut" word, or equivalent punctuation, to set off two parallel or contrasting ideas or images.
5. Self-sufficiency. Haiku are meant to stand alone, not follow an anecdotal setup characterized by too many first-person pronouns.
6. Nature. I do it sometimes (mostly in autumn, it seems). More often, though, I write about stuff like zombies, brunch, noise music, and cassette tapes.
7. Seasons. You could also argue that some of my haiku qualify as seasonal. However, traditional haiku usually contain one of a prescribed list of words used to suggest a season.

Got any more? Leave em in the comments!

36 Chambers of Woo

Probably, the less said about this, the better.

Haiku for My Nonexistent Infection

Um, I'm pissing blood?
"Try some homeopathy."*
I. Am. Pissing. Blood.**

Oh, Vermont medical care.

*This line could have also read, "Maybe it's your period" or "Bet it's the testosterone."
**The bleeding has stopped, so please do not be (as) alarmed.

Requisite Anti-Columbus Post

I appreciate that the people in my life mostly have kickass politics and that my Facebook feed the last few days has been full of statuses correcting the misinformation we were taught in school, particularly repeated postings of The Oatmeal's comic drawing on Howard Zinn's scholarship.

I also appreciate that Imani shared the photo below, taken outside Walter's in Fort Green, lest I feel too satisfied with myself and my friends and forget to be angry about gentrification and displacement and disenfranchisement currently happening in Brooklyn and all over occupied America.

Post by Imani Henry.

[Update: As I was writing this post, Imani got word that the restaurant owners issued a formal apology for the sign. Probably in part because his friends saw his photo and started making noise.]

Haiku for the Legacy of Genocide

2013
And still telling lies about
1492.

There's a whole world out there.

One thing that's really stood out for me since moving from the Big City to the Small Town is how much less aware I am of global and even national events. I still get the same articles in my Facebook feed, I guess, but my focus is much more local.

And I wanted that. Going from editing a national magazine to providing direct service within a few miles' radius gave me the personal connections I was missing in my work. And I wanted my world to shrink to a manageable size so I could recover from the burnout of being stacked on top of and crammed together with 8 million of my fellow humans for 5 years.

But there are days when I feel cut off from the world and people who are in tune with and talk about the world outside their immediate sphere. And today, as news of Manning's sentence is making the internet rounds, I don't want to read smart, progressive articles or poignant, pointed tweets about what it means. I want to sit in a room with other people who are outraged or dejected or confused and just feel things and ask each other questions and stare at the floor.

Will that happen at the potluck tonight or around my kitchen table tomorrow or at the coffee shop Friday? Maybe, but probably not. I've felt this way many times recently--when Zimmerman was found not guilty, when Assata showed up on the most-wanted list, when the California prison hunger striker died, whenever there's news of Lynn Stewart's health declining. I could go on.

Maybe what I really miss is talking to people who are working on national or global social justice and a sense of hope for what is happening on the ground. All I'm left with is the headlines and a feeling of isolation.

Haiku for August 21, 2013 (aka tl;dr)

My New York Lefties,
Let's be depressed together
Til we change the world.