Shaken, Not Stirred
Poets and the new poetry.

Anne Keala Kelly

May 8, 2002

These days in Honolulu, a poetry assault is banging on the door two, three, sometimes four times a week. Dozens of poets prowl the streets and crowd into clubs, galleries, cafes, bookstores, lofts and theaters to read and perform their work. There’s so much reading and emoting on the tight circuit of venues that it’s like a storm.
     Honolulu has slipped into a seductive sea of contemporary poetic prose and politics, its own cocktail for the soul, made up of equal parts talking and listening — shaken, not stirred.
     Still yet, if you’re not a poet, sometimes you have to lean into the experience, listen to the two or 10 or 50 words strung together, before you realize that the person who was shouting in rhyme with a bass-guitar and snare-drum backup has just given you … a poem.
     And then there are poems, layered with a humor about, and a sensitivity for, the mundane goings-on of life, and the poets who write them, without drama or concern for what anyone else might think.
    
Birds, words
"A lot of my stuff is based on the average person’s life," says Joe Balaz, poet and artist. "I’m a blue-collar worker. I’ve been a truck driver, I’ve worked in warehouses. Right now I work in aquaculture. The poetry began for me in high school. I had an English teacher who gave us an exercise to write sonnets. By then, I had already been experimenting with simple forms. I wrote something called ‘Kingdom of Fire.’ The teacher and the aid were blown away. I took to it naturally."
     Balaz, as self-effacing about his work as he is unassuming in his appearance, has been a mainstay in the poetry community of Hawai‘i since the ’70s. He is one of a handful of poets who stir the wind beneath local poetry’s Pidgin-loving wings. His poem, "Da History Of Pigeon" (available on the Electric Laulau CD) describes the changing local-speak with the metaphor of birds.

      "Like different ’kine words
      The world was full of different ’kine birds,
      Red birds, yellow birds, blue birds, love birds,
      And then came pigeon …"
     
It ends,

      I guess with such a wide blue sky
      everything deserves to fly

     Balaz, editor and publisher of the literary, arts and poetry journal Ramrod from 1980 to 1997, is currently preparing for a May 11 performance/reading at the UH Art Auditorium that will include improvised accompaniment by the band Mokaki, and performances from fellow poets Katana and Steve Kealoha Wong.
     Balaz first experimented with music as a poetic medium in the mid-’80s, sitting in with poets Richard Hamasaki, Shinichi Takahashi and Doug Matsuoka. They organized themselves and started the Hawai‘i Amplified Poetry Ensemble.
     An early connection in Balaz’s expansive world of poetic possibilities was artist Imaikalani Kalahele, who, along with Hamasaki, joined Balaz in his first multimedia performance in 1983.
     "Joe came to one of my art shows," Kalahele remembers. "He was just beginning Ramrod. He saw my pen and inks, we got to talking, I showed him more stuff, and he said, ‘Eh brah, that’s poetry.’"
     Just before that first performance, Kalahele told Balaz, "Brah, I’m really fucking nervous, first time I evah do this in front of anyone." Balaz responded, "Yeah, me too."
     Kalahele, a poet, musician, and artist, will be among the musical performers on May 11 with his Mokaki bandmates (mokäkï means disheveled or messy).
     Balaz, who sometimes sits in and plays bass with the band, would rather talk about the work of other poets than his own. "Imai has a rambling associative style," he says. "He doesn’t stick to text — he captures a looseness."
   
"It’s a vibe"
Looseness is something Balaz refers to a lot, as if the space between things is where the truth lives. "What’s different about combining music with poetry is that it changes the mood — how the audience will perceive the poem," Balaz says. "Not that the work can’t stand on its own. The way I phrase the poems and read them, the meter is the same, but I’m laying that same narrative to music. The real interest of spoken word has come out of the hip-hop scene. A lot of people think a poetry reading is boring, so in a sense, mixing art, music, theatre, is to experiment and expand. What makes the effort enjoyable is the audience response. It’s about being part of the energy that happens at these readings. It’s a vibe, you become a part of the moment and the collective.
     "It’s a two-way street. People like Katana are putting some stuff down that’s new and fresh."
     Katana, a college student, rapper and spoken-word artist says, "When Joe invited me to be a part of his performance I knew it would be a great opportunity because I respect his work."
     Katana works from what she calls a "useless talent to rhyme."
     She explains: "When I was 3 or 4, my mom started writing down what I was saying. So we have poems from way back. One was called ‘Moon Dew.’ It’s about dew on a green leaf in the moon.
     "As I got older I wanted to write down my own stuff. Because I was dyslexic I had a hard time writing, but wanting to do my own poetry encouraged me to get through it."
     While putting together a music and spoken word CD and studying for her degree at UH, Katana also devotes herself to working with gangs and at-risk youth through an organization called Law of the Land, which she and a few other poets put together.
     "My goal is to do something that betters the world. I really believe in the art of spoken word, so I teach these children rap. It opens their channels of creativity and gives them other avenues of verbal self-statement."

      I am the master of my universe
      I have let go all my past pains
      and all my past hurts
      I am you and you are I,
      my god is I&I …
    
                     —excerpt from unpublished "I&I"

     Expression is what the poetry is all about. Sometimes it’s spiritual, sometimes playful. And yes, to a large extent, it’s youth driven. Even for poets in their 20s.
     Twentyish Steve Kealoha Wong, who’s also slated to perform with Balaz, has a poem he sometimes does with live musicians called "Recess."
     "For me, poetry is a philosophical investigation and what it’s like to be me," says Wong. "Like in ‘Recess’ I’m looking at children and what they have that grown ups don’t."

      Remember the days
      When we used to play
      On the playground everyday?
      What was that thing we took
      Recess
      Yeah recess … 15 minutes
      Of sheer madness …
    
                     —excerpt from "Recess,"
                      Words in the Rearview Mirror

     The poem recounts the joys and abandon of small-kid-time on the playground and ultimately asks the question, "When was the last time you took 15 minutes to just run around and play?"
     In February, Wong toured O‘ahu elementary schools in a program called Traveling Storytellers, directed by Kyle Kakuono.
     "It opened my eyes to the world of children again," he says. "Their laughter was so genuine. After one of those gigs, I was going up the Pali and I had to pull over and write down the poem that became ‘Recess.’"
     Wong, animated as a performer, is one of the increasing number of poets memorizing and performing their work "off book" with both improvised and rehearsed musicians.
     Poet, amplified sound artist and teacher Richard Hamasaki says that "new" poets are keen on memorizing and reciting their poems, like the Hawaiians do, or the Greeks. The development is "exciting," he says.
     "Every culture began with an oral tradition — the ancient ones anyway. The ancient orators of Greece were called ‘rapsodes’ and defined as singers of tales, and the Hawaiians had and still have their oral traditions. Their capacity to remember all the incredible chants, to articulate and transmit those chants generation after generation is an incredibly inspiring tradition."
     Hamasaki, whose new collection of poetry, From the Spider Bone Diaries: Poems and Songs is now available from UH Press, says it’s a great time for poetry around the world, pointing out that there’s more collaboration than ever.
     "Poets are working with artists, musicians, dancers — there’s a lot more improvisation going on.
     "On the other hand," he says, "performance today is going to have an influence on how one reads, writes and publishes. It will be interesting to see how some poets try to adapt their performance poetry into printed form."

      … if what’s to be spoken
      needs to be written

      sabotage the language
      ignore the golden rules

      guerrilla writer
      barbarize the rules …

                    —except from "Guerrilla Writer,"
                                        Spider Bone Diaries

No more metaphors
In the middle of Honolulu’s poetical efflorescence is Jesse Lipman, whose brainchild, Wordstew, is a poetry event that moves from venue to venue like a dance club and provides semi-regular gigs for poets and the community at large to come together. From Lizard Loft to Marks Garage, from Native Books to Kumu Kahua Theatre, Lipman, a Weekly contributor, has managed to keep a consistency for Wordstew, so that when its latest chapbook came out two weeks ago, about 90 people crammed into a sweltering Chinatown loft to celebrate and listen to the poets.
     "There’s a renaissance happening here right now in poetry," says the Chicago native. He says he’s inspired by the potential in Honolulu, and by the camaraderie he’s felt here.
     Lipman is a big fan of the conflation of poetry, spoken word and performance: "I think it’s a national trend," he says, "and it’s needed now. It’s a way to be thoughtful without so much instant gratification. People feed off of that. They are feeling some of the same frustrations, and poetry can address that in a good way. It’s a totally different take on democracy and ideas than what people are used to. It’s a way to combine your politics and creativity."
     "I see the self as being political in the venue of spoken word," poet Karla Brundage asserts. Her poem "Wanna Be White Girl" appears in the recent Wordstew chapbook.
     Brundage, a single mom and high school teacher, says she once received a complaint from a teacher that she didn’t use enough metaphor in her writing. She told the teacher, "I am the metaphor."
     "As a writer," she explains, "I take the everyday experience and see what’s involved. … I can’t take the metaphor and see the experience."

      … I was white
      I wore torn blue jeans and tie dye
      I listened to the Rolling Stones
      And Lynyrd Skynyrd
      I lived the words and knew the pain
      they held
      When I was white I dreamed of being
      Old Home’s Day Queen
      At the county fair …

                    —excerpt from "Wanna Be White Girl"

     "I’m half white and I’m not trying to negate that existence," says Brundage. But I had a romantic vision of that world."

Host cultures
Perhaps it’s the accessibility of the poetry, or perhaps it’s that "needing-it-right-now" thing, but there is an immediacy to the present poetry storm and to the poets themselves, who seem to want it all, but don’t mind waiting. In the Honolulu mix are men and women ranging from teenagers to folks in their 70s, gay, straight, whatevahs.
     Perhaps most typically about Honolulu poetry/spoken-word events, there is a remarkable lack of discrimination among the poets and those who come to listen. All subject matter, whether it’s sexism, racism or any other isms of the human heart, receives respect. In other words, someone would have to wear a pointy hat and shout KKK slogans to get his-or-her poetry ass kicked in these Honolulu crowds. And even then, if it were done well and in rhyme, the poet might get the benefit of the doubt.
     This is Hawai‘i after all, and the past hundred-or-so years are embedded with the colonial style of racism: the one that breeds a colonial style of silence — even among most intellectuals. So it should come as no surprise that the poets of Honolulu can be described as pacifists who use their poetry to articulate their outrage and their longing.
     "My need to write poetry is irrepressible, a part of my nature," says Mahealani Kamau‘u, whose first collection of poetry will be published by Kuleana Press this year. "I have written poems for and about lovers, children, parents, friends, times, events, places, feelings."

      "Host Culture"
      What euphemistic bullshit-
      Pure, unadulterated HVB
      They act like
      They was invited-
      Like all these years
      We been partying
      Or something:
      It’s like
      Getting fucked in the ass
      Is supposed to be
      A turn on —
      Get real …
    
               —excerpt from "Host Culture," in ‘Öiwi

     Kamau‘u says her poems "are not purposefully political," confirming that poets see what they see and report back in verse, but don’t necessarily relate to the poem in the same way the audience does.
     Recently, Kamau‘u read her poetry at Imaikalani Kalahele’s art opening at the Louis Pohl Gallery. One of the poems she read was tight with imagery of rats and rain and emotional horror juxtaposed onto memories of home. It was based on the experiences of a Hawaiian friend and Vietnam vet. But for Kamau‘u, it’s not an Oliver Stone movie, it’s simply a statement of what her friend has shared with her. "Ed has enlarged my vision of what a warrior is. His life has been and continues to be extraordinary and heroic, and I want people to know his story."
     "Poetry is like cycles, the pendulum swings," says noted Ka‘a‘awa poet (and mother of Karla Brundage) Kathryn Waddell Takara, whose early poems also came out of the Vietnam era.
     "Hip-hop is very strong with the young people — the message is sometimes very direct. I try to offer something of reconciliation. But that might be out of 20 or 30 years of doing it."
     Takara’s new collection of poetry is being edited and published by Bay Area publisher and literary figure Ishmael Reed.
     "The older poets are more about philosophical truths, the impermanence of it all," says Takara, careful and wise. "What makes us able to come together is that we all have a critique — we all bear witness to the social, economic, and the political — not just the tree, not just grandma — but the context."

      … The bag woman limps slowly again,
      hesitates in front of the hippie crystal stand,
      lights a long, dark cigarette, and moves on.
      A mangy dog sniffs where she stood,
      and backs away from her smell of mildew and death.

                         —excerpt from "The Bag Woman"
    
"Where I live …"
     Dennis Kawaharada, one of the very few local poetry publishers, has kept Kalamakü Press going for a little over 10 years, designing and editing. "If I can sell maybe a thousand copies of a book, I can put the money into another project. If you believe in your poetry and art, a small press gives you freedom. But the motivation is not to support myself doing this. For that I teach English and writing at KCC."
     Kawaharada works to publish people he thinks are important culturally and artistically. Kalamakü’s newest book is Imaikalani Kalahele’s collected poetry, called Kalahele … we remember now …
     "He never had a book before and was kind of reaching that küpuna status," Kawaharada says. "I’ve been reading him for years, but he didn’t come to me to do this book and I thought, ‘I really like this stuff, and I want to make a book if he wants to.’"
     Now that the book is out there, Kawaharada is happy: "Imai’s book is culturally and politically very important."
     Kalahele, like Balaz and others who have powerful voices within the poetry community, is so driven as an artist that asking him for details about what motivates him feels kind of humiliating. As with poets and artists everywhere, maybe it’s better to just experience the work and get from it what you will. But someone has to ask the painfully simple-minded question at least once or twice a year, just to keep ’em on their toes. When asked what poetry is all about for him, Kalahele responds kindly and without hesitation.
     "It’s still about the poetry exercise that I learned to teach poetry to school kids. I ask them to write what comes after ‘Where I live. …’
     "It’s heavy sometimes what they come out with. The purpose of poetry, if it can be said to have one, could be to answer that question: Where I live. …"

      the source
      of
      my origins
      lie
      beneath my feet,

      the breath
      in my chest
      originated
      in Pö
      the destiny
      of my race
      is
      plunged into
      my gut
      and
      infesting
      my veins

      with a new
      nationalism,
      old spiritualism,
      and a need
      to make wrong
      right
      now.
           —"Manifesto,"
           Kalahele … we remember now ...