Stingy Kids

A Poet for Queens

After a long search, and a heated debate on the nature of poetry, Queens has named Ishle Yi Park as its next Poet Laureate. The position requires, to quote the Times, that "the winner must be someone who has lived in Queens for at least five years and has written, in English, 'poetry inspired by the borough.'" The wording is very interesting because it suggests that there are a number of Queens poets who write in other languages. And, indeed, on page 2 of the article one finds a vivid description of Queens polyglot cultural prism:

In the last few decades, immigration has made Queens a far more cosomopolitan place. There are at least 20 poets writing in Chinese in the borough, said Philex Zhao, the executive director of the Chinese Writers Association in Flushing. There are others writing verse in Marathi, Tamil, Gujarathi and many other languages. Young hipsters crowd into the Indian eateries of Jackson Heights and the Asian noodle shops of Flushing. The borough's diversity has even inspired a collection, mostly prose, called "Patchwork of Dreams," published in 1996 by a small Jackson Heights press.

While this linguistic and cultural diversity comes naturally to Queens, non-English voices remain shut out of official spaces.

But the search for a Queens Poet Laureate raised another compelling question on poetry. Due to a paucity of quality submissions, the application deadline for the position was extended twice, and in the meantime, rap star Joseph "Rev. Run" Simmons of Run-DMC attempted to secure a nomination. Though Simmons argued that most of his rap songs begin as silent lyrics, he failed to secure the position. "I don't know if Queens is ready for a rapper as a poet," he said. But Parks's own work engages the different modes in which poetry is made public these days. In the past year, she has published both a book of poetry and a CD compilation of performance poems. Considering that the previous Poet Laureates of Queens were not performers, I think that Park's nomination reflects a growing receptivity to less text-based modes of poetry.

Park will hold the (unpaid) position for the next three years. Though she's been an active, award-winning poet for several years, her father was a little sceptical: "[he] was like, what are you, a poet lawyer? so i drew him picture of a roman in a toga with a laurel wreath and he understood."

Links:
*Sai-i-Gu, a poem responding to the '92 LA riots (written in 1992)
*5. 27.04, Park's new book The Temperature of this Water launches at The Asian American Writers' Workshop

iSight a Novel

In 2003, the Agatha Award for Best Children's/Young Adult Mystery went to Daniel J. Hale and Matthew LaBrot, an uncle/nephew writing team from the Dallas area. Their novel Red Card is the first in the Zeke Armstrong series, which chronicles the adventures of a 13-year old sleuth from Dallas. But more remarkable than the fact that LaBrot was 15 at the time of the award is that most of the novel was written over email, iChat and iSight:

It started out by emailing each other back and forth...As things progressed, we started using iChat...Then, the iSight camera came out, and now I can see Matthew's face when we’re writing. The iSight picture quality is amazing, absolutely amazing. The built-in microphone is a noise-suppression microphone. It's so clear, you hear everything.

I'll mention something, and basically split the screen where I'll have the Microsoft Word document on one side and iChat on the right. It's so cool. You know, I can say something and look at Matthew, and if he makes that face…I'm like, "Oookay…" and I know it's time to get rid of that, it's not going to work.

Green Streak, the next Zeke Armstrong adventure is already in bookstores. It's set in Manhattan, and I have to wonder if this backdrop is a kind of homage to the technology that made the first novel possible. You know, the "Big Apple"? Ugh. Bad pun, I know.