We're about halfway there, folks.
A quick update on the book: It's currently the 5,358th ranked title on lulu.com, which is actually not bad at all. I'm only about halfway towards my original sales goal though, and things seem to be slowing down. So please--PLEASE--if you've purchased the book, and you dig it, spread the word. And please--PLEASE--if you've purchased the book, and you dig it, share that information with me. I'd love to post some of the responses folks are having to the poems.
That said...let's do some liner notes:
21. Lunares -- This is a lot of people's favorite, and it's certainly one of mine. Cindylu is one of those great friends that I don't actually know, have never actually met, but am still amazingly inspired by her. I've already mentioned Travel Hailu in a previous post, so you get a sense of the basic organizing principle for this one--haiku. Cindy asked for a poem about lunares (or birthmarks), and I went ahead and didn't research the history of the phrase. I ended up coming kind of close though, and with a poetic term like that, and form like haiku, it's kind of hard to go wrong.
22. Jellyfish -- This might be the weirdest poem I've ever written. I was told to write about having sex with a jellyfish. So I did. Write about it. Not do it. I took it as a challenge, and my main character ended up taking it as a challenge too. The rest is history. Bizarre history.
I just thought of something else about Lunares -- it has found its way, in excerpted form, into Tyree, which is, as loyal readers know, the sequel to Guernica. That's all.
23. Fly Girls: Read Me -- This was based on RGV's answers to my questions about dreams and fears and all that good stuff. She was kind of close to a lot of my own inner workings, so the piece just sort of poured right out. I did sneak in some of her personal stuff--references to her relationships with men and her need to allow herself weakness. I really enjoy writing from a woman's perspective, both in poems and in plays--even when they take me to places pretty distant from myself. Maybe especially then.
24. Munchies -- Man, just remember that not all these poems are autobiographical. Some of them are. This one might be. This one also might not.
25. Good Loving: A Sketch -- Someone said to write about good loving, and I almost wrote about the H-Town classic Knockin' The Boots, but opted to go in the sketch direction instead. The term good loving (and its dirtier cousin, good lovin') always feels raw and filthy to me, but there was a strong need not to go full-out in that direction in this one. And besides, thinking about the rawest, filthiest moments I could imagine or remember, they always came back to being madly, wildly, truly in love with the other person involved. And that lead to this.
More soon.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Monday, February 19, 2007
New Monologue
This monologue was written, by me, over at myspace.
It was written for Stephanie, who happens to be one of the best young actors in NYC.
She gave me a topic, and I ran with it in another direction.
I think she liked it.
You kind find out more about this kind of stuff over at the myspace page.
And...you can suggest a topic for me to write about.
You might even get a monologue out of it.
So this one is written for Stephanie to perform, but I don't think she'd mind if other women chose to perform it in auditions too.
Or other guys--we don't discriminate.
What I'm saying is, you all have my permission to audition with this piece if you so choose.
Just make sure you credit me if anyone asks.
My left shoe and my right shoe are the same shoe but opposite. Same purpose, same style, and completely at odds. My right shoe can't possibly do the job of my left. And I love my shoes, both of my shoes, and I love them together, and I think they love me, but I don't think they love me together.
No wait. That's not--
My left shoe and my right shoe are the same shoe, but opposite, and I need both of them, I mean, both of my feet are soft on the underside. Both of my feet are in danger of being sliced by stray shattered glass if I walk around with them unprotected. My left shoe protects my left foot. My left shoe can't protect my right foot. That doesn't mean I have any less respect for what the left shoe can do.
That's what I told him. I don't think he, like, got it.
"I'm not a shoe," he told me, and I told him "I know you're not a shoe," and he said "I can protect both of your feet, all of your feet, tops and bottoms, and your legs, and" -- and then he went in great detail describing all the body parts of mine he wanted to protect, and he took a lot more time protecting certain parts than other parts, you can guess. And I told him it wasn't about protecting my feet or my ass or my tits, and that the fact that he went from my feet to my ass to my tits just proved the point I was trying to make in the first place, because, because, because well, she wouldn't have jumped from my feet to my ass to my tits.
And I told him "look, I don't mind that those are the parts you plan to protect," and I didn't tell him that I knew that when he said "protect" he meant "violate" or maybe not violate, but something dirtier and more boy than "protect", and I didn't mind that, because he is a boy, and I like him being a boy, so the feet, the ass, the tits--protect away, right? "But you protect those parts, and the other parts need protecting. I don't expect you to be responsible for my overall protection, the overall protection of all my parts, but my parts still need protecting. Feet, legs, ass, tits, you got 'em covered. But I've got other parts. I need another shoe."
"Shoes don't protect anything other than feet."
He's astute.
I told him "I know shoes don't--this isn't about shoes. You. And She. Are the exact same to me, for me, around me, to me. You give me something and she gives me something and it's the same and the job overlaps, but you do it one way and she does another way and all together you and she protect me, top to bottom, head to toe, right foot to left foot." And that's what I was telling him, that I needed them both, and I realized that this could be problematic to understand, but that's why I brought up the shoes.
"I'm not a shoe." He was pretty adamant about this point.
"I know you're not a shoe!" And I took my left shoe off, and I threw it at him.
It was written for Stephanie, who happens to be one of the best young actors in NYC.
She gave me a topic, and I ran with it in another direction.
I think she liked it.
You kind find out more about this kind of stuff over at the myspace page.
And...you can suggest a topic for me to write about.
You might even get a monologue out of it.
So this one is written for Stephanie to perform, but I don't think she'd mind if other women chose to perform it in auditions too.
Or other guys--we don't discriminate.
What I'm saying is, you all have my permission to audition with this piece if you so choose.
Just make sure you credit me if anyone asks.
My left shoe and my right shoe are the same shoe but opposite. Same purpose, same style, and completely at odds. My right shoe can't possibly do the job of my left. And I love my shoes, both of my shoes, and I love them together, and I think they love me, but I don't think they love me together.
No wait. That's not--
My left shoe and my right shoe are the same shoe, but opposite, and I need both of them, I mean, both of my feet are soft on the underside. Both of my feet are in danger of being sliced by stray shattered glass if I walk around with them unprotected. My left shoe protects my left foot. My left shoe can't protect my right foot. That doesn't mean I have any less respect for what the left shoe can do.
That's what I told him. I don't think he, like, got it.
"I'm not a shoe," he told me, and I told him "I know you're not a shoe," and he said "I can protect both of your feet, all of your feet, tops and bottoms, and your legs, and" -- and then he went in great detail describing all the body parts of mine he wanted to protect, and he took a lot more time protecting certain parts than other parts, you can guess. And I told him it wasn't about protecting my feet or my ass or my tits, and that the fact that he went from my feet to my ass to my tits just proved the point I was trying to make in the first place, because, because, because well, she wouldn't have jumped from my feet to my ass to my tits.
And I told him "look, I don't mind that those are the parts you plan to protect," and I didn't tell him that I knew that when he said "protect" he meant "violate" or maybe not violate, but something dirtier and more boy than "protect", and I didn't mind that, because he is a boy, and I like him being a boy, so the feet, the ass, the tits--protect away, right? "But you protect those parts, and the other parts need protecting. I don't expect you to be responsible for my overall protection, the overall protection of all my parts, but my parts still need protecting. Feet, legs, ass, tits, you got 'em covered. But I've got other parts. I need another shoe."
"Shoes don't protect anything other than feet."
He's astute.
I told him "I know shoes don't--this isn't about shoes. You. And She. Are the exact same to me, for me, around me, to me. You give me something and she gives me something and it's the same and the job overlaps, but you do it one way and she does another way and all together you and she protect me, top to bottom, head to toe, right foot to left foot." And that's what I was telling him, that I needed them both, and I realized that this could be problematic to understand, but that's why I brought up the shoes.
"I'm not a shoe." He was pretty adamant about this point.
"I know you're not a shoe!" And I took my left shoe off, and I threw it at him.
Friday, February 16, 2007
Other News.
1. I've got a special, myspace exclusive writing project going on in the spirit of Fly Girls and Other Poems. If you've got a myspace page, go check it out: www.myspace.com/kristofferdiaz
2. Spread the word about the book, folks.
3. I am still, slowly, working on non-poetry writing projects. The long-awaited novel is about two-thirds finished. The Unnamed Football Project (now known as Skill Positions is still in the early planning stages. I'm also about to dive into a monologue/possible ten-minute play--you may or may not hear more about that.
I think that's it, for now.
Liner notes probably won't be updated for a few more days, for those of you taking notes.
On the notes.
2. Spread the word about the book, folks.
3. I am still, slowly, working on non-poetry writing projects. The long-awaited novel is about two-thirds finished. The Unnamed Football Project (now known as Skill Positions is still in the early planning stages. I'm also about to dive into a monologue/possible ten-minute play--you may or may not hear more about that.
I think that's it, for now.
Liner notes probably won't be updated for a few more days, for those of you taking notes.
On the notes.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
The Stories Behind The Fly Girls, III.
And we're back (c) gmail chat.
Let's jump right in:
11. Fly Girls: The Assassin -- Part of the process for coming up with poems for this project involved asking folks what they dreamt about. Some folks took this literally, some less so. One young woman said she had weird dreams while sleeping, then said that her waking dreams were often about becoming an assassin and going to cool parties. There was no way I was passing that scenario up. Writing this piece gave me a very ninja feeling, and those of you who know me know how I feel about ninja feelings.
12. The Way a Drug Haze Is -- Okay. So there are times in life when you think you know exactly what's going on. You think you see things the way they are. And you do. Partially. And if you're a poet, or a writer of any kind, you get your thoughts about that moment in time out onto paper, and it helps you put your foot in front of the other. And that's a good thing. And your thoughts are therefore down on paper forever, and that's a good thing, because later on you can go back and look at them, and you can see that while you may have been right, and you may have understood what was going on at that point in your life, you might not quite have seen the whole thing. But you stand behind what you wrote, and you stand behind what you thought, and you write some new stuff to help make it all make sense, and hopefully, for the rest of your life, you're learning more and solving and resolving your initial issue. So yeah. This poem is the early part of working out something. There are other poems later that continue the process. And that's all you get.
13. Teaching, Part Two -- The second poem in the "Teaching" series has the same kinds of origins as the first. It's based on real life, and it's using the economy of poetry to distill my emotions into as few words as possible. It's all a coping mechanism. Sadly, I don't have much follow-up information on the kids involved in the incident described in the piece--I believe the boy ended up incarcerated for a while (maybe still), and I'm just hoping the girl graduated and is moving on to bigger things.
14. There is a City -- Sometimes you write serious poems about serious topics. Sometimes you write ridiculous poems about serious topics. And sometimes, when you're lucky, you get to write serious poems about ridiculous topics. The instructions I was given for this piece were simple: "write a poem about my foot." I had never seen the foot in question. I really kind of don't like feet in general. Still, somehow it became clear to me that there was only one image that worked for this piece--a village underneath a foot, not frightened by the possibility of being crushed, but thrilled by the benefits of location. I wish I could draw, because the image is pretty clear in my head, and I love that image just as much as the poem.
15. Fly Girls: Give Me -- I really love to watch good singers sing. Some folks get onstage and look like they belong there. This poem is about one of those people. We talked a little about why she sings, how she feels when she sings, stuff like that--and all that made its way into the piece--but I ended up more interested in what she looked like when she sang. The dialogue we had just reinforced exactly what I had already thought. She was at peace with the world when music was pouring out of her. I know the feeling with words, so I tried to do her justice.
And you know what? We're going to go ahead and do the next five poems while I'm here!
16. Mindful -- A lot of these poems were written online, as part of a very supportive community of writers. Two of these writers were being honored one month, so I went ahead and wrote pieces based on their screennames. And that's pretty much all the backstory for this one. I ended up in love with the idea of a back-and-forth visual on the page, and somehow, it stuck--the poem doesn't work for me if it's all straightforward and aligned. I think there's only a handful of poems in this book that work that way for me. Either way, this is really just a piece written for a writer I really dig. Buy her book here.
17. The Pineapple -- This is almost part of "Teaching" series, except it's not based on real events. It is, theoretically, based on real kids though--I'm not sure how they worked their way into my head when I was given the instructions to write about "throwing a pineapple off an overpass," but I'm kind of glad they did. It's also based on (full disclosure) some real, real, realy stupid stuff I did when I was a kid. I won't go deep into detail, but I'll say that water balloons and pieces of fried chicken were sometimes involved. Man, kids are dumb. At least I was dumb when I was a kid. Thank god I didn't have any pineapples on hand.
18. First Love -- It is what it is. I do want to say that a lot of times things are overstated to make words and ideas fit--not saying whether or not that's happening here, but it happens. And I'm not saying this is even necessarily based on real experiences. In short, no backstory. Sometimes you gotta mix things up.
19. Teaching, Part Three -- Coaching basketball gave me a different perspective on teaching than teaching did. I got to see young men in their element, being themselves, taking care of each other, looking out for each other, and most importantly, learning from each other. The first part of this poem is based on that. I was trying to get these kids to run faster, and I told them that the last person to finish his sprints would have to dance at center court while everyone watched. I forgot, however, that I was dealing with a bunch of b-boys on my team. One of them slowed down, let everyone pass, then moved to the center of the court and set off a cypher. Good times. Not long after that, the incident described in the second part of the poem went down. Not good times.
20. In The Face of Change -- This poem was born on a birthday card for a friend who was struggling through a bunch of change. Big change. She dealt with it as well as I could possibly imagine. So I wrote about her.
And that's all for now. More liner notes next weekend. Maybe.
Let's jump right in:
11. Fly Girls: The Assassin -- Part of the process for coming up with poems for this project involved asking folks what they dreamt about. Some folks took this literally, some less so. One young woman said she had weird dreams while sleeping, then said that her waking dreams were often about becoming an assassin and going to cool parties. There was no way I was passing that scenario up. Writing this piece gave me a very ninja feeling, and those of you who know me know how I feel about ninja feelings.
12. The Way a Drug Haze Is -- Okay. So there are times in life when you think you know exactly what's going on. You think you see things the way they are. And you do. Partially. And if you're a poet, or a writer of any kind, you get your thoughts about that moment in time out onto paper, and it helps you put your foot in front of the other. And that's a good thing. And your thoughts are therefore down on paper forever, and that's a good thing, because later on you can go back and look at them, and you can see that while you may have been right, and you may have understood what was going on at that point in your life, you might not quite have seen the whole thing. But you stand behind what you wrote, and you stand behind what you thought, and you write some new stuff to help make it all make sense, and hopefully, for the rest of your life, you're learning more and solving and resolving your initial issue. So yeah. This poem is the early part of working out something. There are other poems later that continue the process. And that's all you get.
13. Teaching, Part Two -- The second poem in the "Teaching" series has the same kinds of origins as the first. It's based on real life, and it's using the economy of poetry to distill my emotions into as few words as possible. It's all a coping mechanism. Sadly, I don't have much follow-up information on the kids involved in the incident described in the piece--I believe the boy ended up incarcerated for a while (maybe still), and I'm just hoping the girl graduated and is moving on to bigger things.
14. There is a City -- Sometimes you write serious poems about serious topics. Sometimes you write ridiculous poems about serious topics. And sometimes, when you're lucky, you get to write serious poems about ridiculous topics. The instructions I was given for this piece were simple: "write a poem about my foot." I had never seen the foot in question. I really kind of don't like feet in general. Still, somehow it became clear to me that there was only one image that worked for this piece--a village underneath a foot, not frightened by the possibility of being crushed, but thrilled by the benefits of location. I wish I could draw, because the image is pretty clear in my head, and I love that image just as much as the poem.
15. Fly Girls: Give Me -- I really love to watch good singers sing. Some folks get onstage and look like they belong there. This poem is about one of those people. We talked a little about why she sings, how she feels when she sings, stuff like that--and all that made its way into the piece--but I ended up more interested in what she looked like when she sang. The dialogue we had just reinforced exactly what I had already thought. She was at peace with the world when music was pouring out of her. I know the feeling with words, so I tried to do her justice.
And you know what? We're going to go ahead and do the next five poems while I'm here!
16. Mindful -- A lot of these poems were written online, as part of a very supportive community of writers. Two of these writers were being honored one month, so I went ahead and wrote pieces based on their screennames. And that's pretty much all the backstory for this one. I ended up in love with the idea of a back-and-forth visual on the page, and somehow, it stuck--the poem doesn't work for me if it's all straightforward and aligned. I think there's only a handful of poems in this book that work that way for me. Either way, this is really just a piece written for a writer I really dig. Buy her book here.
17. The Pineapple -- This is almost part of "Teaching" series, except it's not based on real events. It is, theoretically, based on real kids though--I'm not sure how they worked their way into my head when I was given the instructions to write about "throwing a pineapple off an overpass," but I'm kind of glad they did. It's also based on (full disclosure) some real, real, realy stupid stuff I did when I was a kid. I won't go deep into detail, but I'll say that water balloons and pieces of fried chicken were sometimes involved. Man, kids are dumb. At least I was dumb when I was a kid. Thank god I didn't have any pineapples on hand.
18. First Love -- It is what it is. I do want to say that a lot of times things are overstated to make words and ideas fit--not saying whether or not that's happening here, but it happens. And I'm not saying this is even necessarily based on real experiences. In short, no backstory. Sometimes you gotta mix things up.
19. Teaching, Part Three -- Coaching basketball gave me a different perspective on teaching than teaching did. I got to see young men in their element, being themselves, taking care of each other, looking out for each other, and most importantly, learning from each other. The first part of this poem is based on that. I was trying to get these kids to run faster, and I told them that the last person to finish his sprints would have to dance at center court while everyone watched. I forgot, however, that I was dealing with a bunch of b-boys on my team. One of them slowed down, let everyone pass, then moved to the center of the court and set off a cypher. Good times. Not long after that, the incident described in the second part of the poem went down. Not good times.
20. In The Face of Change -- This poem was born on a birthday card for a friend who was struggling through a bunch of change. Big change. She dealt with it as well as I could possibly imagine. So I wrote about her.
And that's all for now. More liner notes next weekend. Maybe.
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