If a Microphone Was Once a Confessional, This Newsletter is Broadcast Radio
Yes, I am a fan of Fall Out Boy's Naming Conventions
My copy of We the Gathered Heat came in earlier this week. It’s a collection of poetry from a whole array of very talented Asian American poets. I don’t know all of the poets off jump, but I did recognize a good majority of them.
I was fortunate enough to have been around during a veritable heyday of collegiate slam poetry during the 2010s. I hold the meaningfully only to me distinction of having competed the most times at Washington University’s slam poetry scene with 7 monthly slams, and 3 grand slams. I only made the CUPSI (Collegiate Union Poetry Slam Invitational) team once my senior year and we did *okay*, but it’s hard not to be thankful for the art form considering everything it did for me and everything I did for it.
I met several of my closest friends through poems. I am directly responsible for Button Poetry’s Livestreams, a claim which I find hilarious because the only reason I had any experience with livestreaming was because an older mentor wanted his partner to see one of our Grand Slam’s once and that was enough of a foundation to fumble my way through learning an entirely different set of tools (which you can see here still). Every so often, I still get introduced to as a poet. I don’t rebuke the moniker. I owe poetry a lot.
I bring all of this up because as I looked through the names of the poets in We the Gathered Heat, and see my peers of yesteryear and mentors of a different time, I see remnants of a different path. One where I try to hone my craft as a poet. But I’m not a poet. At least not like that. I use poetic mechanics. I love the flourish of language, but I am not precise with it. Not to say that poetry is inherently precise. But the form has a tempo that does not intrinsically match my own rambles.
I have come to find joy with the short form. The personal essay. The critical review. And I think a part of that is that I liked poetry in the context of slam, the competition, the performance, the act of treating a microphone stand as a confessional.
My style is better suited for radio. Or in this case, weekly newsletter.
The two formats share a base priniciple of talking to mixed audience. Some who know me deeply. Some who know me in passing. Some who don’t know me at all. This particular endeavor is mostly angled to the people who know me, but the angle of intent has been known to miss or hit incidentally.
This year, I had the fortune of watching Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron, a movie that very much felt like a movie Miyazaki made for himself and let us watch (complementary). I also had the neutral experience of watching of Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, the first movie in modern memory that I actively don’t want to think about and is probably the best argument for the phrases “kill your darlings” and “money does not ensure quality.” It is also a movie that Francis Ford Coppola made for himself and let us watch (derogatory).
I’m writing this newsletter much like I used to write poetry. Mostly for myself, but with the intent to share with others. And I guess this week, I was thinking a lot of poetry and audience and why I do anything. And the answer should always be because it’s fun. In some way, shape, or form, it’s gotta be fun. And I hope to share that fun with y’all.