| POETRY CURRENTS | |
LISTEN TO BANGKOK
At the base of the Sky Train a young woman is selling fried bugs. Beetles the size of chestnuts bar-b-qued to perfection. It is this juxtaposition of ancient and futuristic that most defines Bangkok; it’s a constant overwhelming of your senses. Street vendors with their portable grills cooking squid, chicken, innumerable delicacies, smoke drifting up the stairs to the Sky Train. (Wait: stairs to the Sky Train?) Only at Disneyland does the USA have such modern transportation. The train towers over the city, zipping you from the weekend market to the waterfront, covering distances in minutes that would take hours by ground transportation. Video monitors blasting the latest pop music sensation of an all woman violin group we quickly dub “The Dharma Chicks.”
Listen to Bangkok at dawn: 1000 high-pitched birds, soi dogs howling, motorcycles waking up humming, the soft pitch the sky makes as it lightens, a few human voices, skyscrapers topped with red flashing lights, monks somewhere chanting, heat seeping up in swampy air, more birds, crickets, monkeys screeching, the splashing tire of a taxi in an old pond....
BANGKOK POETRY AT THE ABOUT CAFE
The juxtaposition of ancient and future holds true in the poetry of Bangkok. I take the Sky Train to the river and then the ferry up to the National Library. Embarking at the ferry stop I pass vendors with buckets of live eels. A woman sits by the buckets and scoops up eels that try to slither away. O, to be an eel scooper! At the National Library you can see poetry epics carved into palm fronds, the slates of palm looking like stacked Venetian blinds, the beautiful Thai script flowing like water. On the other hand, you can attend the monthly readings at About Cafe.
The night I attend the host Wesley Hsu sets the tone by declaring the theme of the evening “Get me to the church on time.” The theme is in honor of the impending wedding of Stuart MacDonald, the Web master for the poetry series. (His wedding was to take place the next day.) A mix of video, audio and poetry by Jim Brewer and Bevan Powrie opens the evening -- it’s as adventurous and funny as anything you would see in New York or London, in other words, as modern as anything on the planet. We move on to punk poetry by David Coker and Wesley’s own hilarious poem, “Get Me to the Church on Time”:
I’m getting married in the morning--in about twelve hours or so
And already the laws of gravity have changed on my tuxedo
This used to be the only suit I ever looked forward to wearing
Lovely, isn’t it? Thai silk measured by an Indian tailor of some renown
Sewn by Burmese women chained to sewing machines in Chinatown
This is my pan-Asian party uniform, my one-line punch line
“Black tie? But there are no black Thais,” was always funny
Probably because we were already drunk on looking like adults for once
At least until we got drunk on wine, which in this suit was every time....
Wesley is a charming, comical host, who tells me after the reading he was inspired by the Poetry Slam at the Green Mill and Marc Smith’s energy. When Wesley moved to Bangkok a few years ago he looked around for a poetry reading with that feel and, unable to find one, he decided to start his own. He produces the events with Owen Flint. DJ Martin Collins sets the tone with his between-poet blasts of sultry beats. You can find the schedule for the Bangkok poetry events at the Web site (www.bangkokpoetry.com).
The readings are packed, the feeling of community strong. Don’t miss them if you are in Bangkok. Of course, nothing would prepare you more and be more inspiring for your poetry than first chomping down on a crisp fried bug!
WORD ART IN SANTA FE
Back home in Santa Fe, my latest project is a collaboration with master printer and papermaker Tom Leech of the Print Shop & Bindery at the Palace of the Governors: Word Art, a series of poetry broadsides. The series was launched last Friday, June 6, with a poetry reading at the Palace & the release of the first broadside, “His Life” by Naomi Shihab Nye. You can hear more about this series on KUNM Community Radio, Albuquerque: “New Poems + Old Presses = Cool Stuff.”
