One such author writing outside of mainstream market expectations is the poet
and interdisciplinary artist Maiana Minahal, former director of UC
Berkeley's Poetry for the People. Her second book, Legend Sondayo,
has just been released by Berkeley-based Civil Defense Poetry. I just
picked up Minahal's pocket-sized book, which I've been carrying around
in my purse, and reading in snatches. This is a good way to read a book
of poems, savoring them one at a time, appreciating each poem's form,
density, and space. She writes prose poem and free verse as adeptly as
haiku and hay(na)ku sequence. Here is an excerpt from "stolen/kali":
1 | 2 | 3 |
my | coils claw | knife blade singe |
her | wind boils | fist and stab |
she | strangle jagged | edge razor diamond |
strike | burn deep | fear livid scream |
glitter | heart rot | slaughter bind blue |
As you may see, Minahal's poems are concrete
and active with a woman kicking ass (kali is a Filipino martial art).
Read this excerpt aloud and you can hear its musical staccato. The
woman's movement is both dance and combat.
I enjoy Minahal's
poetry because, apart from being precisely crafted and lively, it's
subversive. It literally subverts an old Filipino folktale of the woman
Sondayo, who battles the wind goddess, because the wind goddess stole
her husband. In Minahal's retelling, she creates an urban and
contemporary Sondayo: "Times have changed, so now I can tell you what I
couldn't back then: I fought that wind goddess for my wife, not my
husband. In those days, we didn't have all your genderqueer and
polyamory or trans tweeners, flaming and flaunting. (More power to
them!)"
Writing outside of mainstream expectations is also writing against their expectations. It's a thriving and necessary bottom-up approach which is familiar to those of us who work with community arts organizations. That said, do pick up your copy of Legend Sondayo and show your support for the independent publishers bringing us these necessary voices.
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