The title of this blog entry is what my girl Gladys said she heard when I stepped to the open mic this past Thursday. Although I didn’t hear it myself, I’m pretty sure some folks thought it. Foreal. Come on. If I saw myself up at an open mic, I’d have enough reason to be a little doubtful of what I’m about to experience as an audience member. Self-assigned onto a bill of mostly musicians, singers and rappers, I could definitely see how some people would need to be convinced that a poet makes for sufficient entertainment. But the best part about it is that I know everyone has connected with poetry at some time in their lives. Truthfully, I bank on that fact and it usually works out just fine. Aside from a competitive desire to prove people wrong, I know that, in the succinct words of Michelle Myers, “I am an Asian American woman. It was important for me to be here.”
Earlier this week I received a mass e-mail regarding a call for papers about cultural production. The e-mail reaffirmed what I’ve known for awhile but haven’t been able to verbalize until I set eyes on it, which is the idea that cultural producers occupy several spaces at any one time. I thought about how my poetry takes place on a stage, is often the product of several hours of writing, rehearsing and sitting. I also hope that it transcends my intentions and latches onto audience members’ own memories and creates a better future or serves as a point of reference that makes them do double takes in some sort of way. Because in paraphrased words by Geologic from Blue Scholars, I don’t like art without a message.
Being artist is being cultural producer. Being Pinay/Asian American is more than people know. So, what’s this Asian girl gonna do? I’m gonna continue to read, learn and write about it. And even better, I’m gonna share what I know – show that I am more than a perceived “Asian girl” by assumed, normalized notions of race and ethnicity. I’ve been on the hunt for venues and open mics, opportunities, monies, people to connect with, writing workshops, anything I can do to keep on pushing poems and people. At the same time, I’m trying to help others along the way by passing along information, mobile pics or inside jokes that could lead to uplift, direction or happiness. I have to do this now and in the only ways that I know how because, in the words of my friend Mark V, it’s one of the only ways that the theories, concepts and critiques I learned in college can live on.
In my own words, I do it because we are worth more.
janice.







