Dana Teen Lomax: California Poets Part 7, Three Poems

Dana Teen Lomax

July 1st, 2024

California Poets: Part VII

Dana Teen Lomax

Three Poems

-upward-mobility-

the-in-between- of-upward- mobility-the- brookings- institute-man- said-property- ownership-is-the- main-way- wealth-is- passed-down- and-it-turned-out- that-when-my- mom-died-i- could-buy-a- home-she-never- wanted-to- borrow-against- hers-so-she- could-leave-you- kids-something- now-i-see-she- knew-exactly- what-she-was- doing-just-today- the-roomba- arrived-to-clean- this-house’s- floors-and-i-felt- so-bougie-but-a- friend-of-mine- said-if-there’s- an-infomercial- for-a-product-it’s- not-that-bougie- he-went-to-dartmouth-

-gender-and-all-

the-in-between- of-gender-and- all-the-shit- people-buy- trying-to-uphold- it-yes-my-biology- announced-itself- as-a-baby-turned-inside- me-and-i-lay- down-on-the- floor-in-target- while-steve- picked-out-our- shotgun- wedding-registry- i-was-exhausted- from-building-a- skeleton-the- fetal-brain- grows-at-close- to-250,000- nerve-cells-per- minute-i-think-of- the-ways-i- conditioned-our- child-listing-who-i- had-hoped-our offspring-would-become- thankfully-the- woman-at-e’s- holiday-party-hit- me-saying-who- in-the-actual-hell- do-you-think- you-are-

-the-texts-we-send-

the-in-between- of-the-texts-we- send-each-other- is-everything- ok?-we-type-if- the-other-hasn’t- answered-back- right-away-or- moved-to-call-all- good-we-write- despite-the-(and- this-is-a-partial- list)-heart- flutters-horse- accident- addiction-akin-to- a-betrayal- aneurysm- deathbed-copd- nebulizers-and- o2-tanks-the- manilla- envelope- suicide-autopsy- report-kidney- cancer- diagnosis-with- thank-god- indolent- chromophobe- liver-lesion- surgery-and- lupus-flare-silent- old-folks-home- demise-loud-trill- at-the- incinerator- button-our-arms- around-each- other-as-the- fires-burned-her- body-in-the-east- indian-tradition- policeman-at -the-door-the- only-thing-he- could-have- done-differently- was-the-choice- of-the-car-two- teenagers-in-a- hospital-bed-the- infusion- machine’s- circular-gears- big-hands-later- it-became-clear- genetics- tobacco-and- miller-lite- snatched-her- away-pandemic- covid-test-pcr- shut-ins-your- grandparents- gone-your-first- cousin-gone-my- favorite-cousin- gone-your- godmother-and- my-best-friend- gone-all-good- we-say-the- momentary- relief-a- sanctuary-we- hold-tighter- what-we-know- will-fall-from-us- eventually-while- the-anxiety- swirls-in- morning-coffee- and-afternoon- naps-digestion- that’s-always- askew-you-send- me-a-poem-by- vona-groarke- that-ends-with- the-boats-play- their-moorings- like-spoons-

Interview

September 21st, 2024

California Poets Interview Series:

Dana Teen Lomax, Poet, Activist, Filmmaker

interviewed by David Garyan

DG: Let’s begin with “-unnamed relation-” which is a collection of conceptual poems, three of which appear in California Poets Part 7. The poems have a very personal side but they aren’t burdensome in the way some confessional poetry can be. Can you talk about the writing process and what you were hoping to communicate through form and content?

DTL: I love engaging with conceptual art, the way it makes us turn our heads from side to side like dogs hearing a new sound. I’m hoping the form and content of -unnamed-relation- offer readers a certain unfamiliarity, an inability to take words for granted. The work asks readers to slow down and make connections between letters, between words, between ideas. As a poet and filmmaker, I am always learning from what I make and trying to figure out what it means to live each day. Is there “a middle way” in every situation—that is, one that exhibits compassion and understanding for all sides of an issue while holding its integrity, its center? If there is, can I find it? So much of what people are programmed to believe becomes foundational—even when these foundations harm us, even when the actions or beliefs alienate us from ourselves, each other, and the earth, even when we can articulate the programming and call it out. So, how can we unlearn and subvert the ideas that no longer help us out while remaining compassionate, loving beings?

I recently became a vegetarian and my aunt said to me, “Yes, there just are softer ways to live.” -unnamed-relation- explores these gentler ways while holding on to one’s core values. Who do we want to be, after all? During COVID, I became super close to my cats. I also doom-scrolled the internet and watched people communing with animals. I just do not want to eat them anymore; I see all animals, including farm animals, as sentient beings with the right to full, wonderful lives. I’m finding new ways to live. (...and I will miss Katz’s…)

Although formatted differently on the LAdige site, the poems in -unnamed-relation- are difficult to read in the original—just as new understandings are hard won and tangled. Change is not always easy, but -unnamed-relation- asks readers to figure out the ways change and relation are possible.

Thank you for your comment that -unnamed-relation-’s poems have a “personal side but they aren’t burdensome in the way some confessional poetry can be.” My son introduced me to an artist I greatly admire, Felix Gonzelez-Torres. His “Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.)” feels like a perfect artwork. He doesn’t describe his love, doesn't try to explain his grief, but it’s all there—personal in the most intimate way and far from burdensome. I have learned so much from this piece.

DG: In addition to poetry, you also employ the genre of film. Poetry seems to resist this idea because most of it is usually short and not often narrative-driven. However, your poem “-upward mobility-” shows there are ways around that. Visually, the film you made about it seems simple; in terms of content, there’s a lot going on underneath. Do you find yourself writing with a certain visual element in mind or does the text have a greater influence over what you choose to portray?

DTL: Thanks for engaging “-upward-mobility-,” David. I suppose one version of what you are asking is: do I think in pictures or language, and which is primary? I used to have this idea that everything is onomatopoetic because language and sound become image and vice versa. How is buzz related to bee or smack to lips? What is one without the other?

I wrote a poem about this a while ago:

Lullaby

teaching a repertoire of magic

a thrown voice, coin out of the ear

spells & leprechauns, santa’s bigass red

faeries to be queen of

you ask which is real

and what’s pretend

the ripple of belief, believing

onomatopoeia is every word

sounding itself

Houdini’s indictment of psychics

tree achoo spindle dread

(First printed in 580 Split, 2008 edition)

Images and words—like everything else apparently—are interconnected, entwined. Poetry is full of images and film relies on fields of language. Magic can be “real” and an idea at the same time—like sound in poetry, like images in film.

Thanks for seeing the “underneath” in these poems. On the surface, “-upward-mobility-” is a poem about a roomba. But it’s also a poem that considers class consciousness and inequity. It also contains a nod to differences in intergenerational inheritance and cultural wealth. The poem further considers “self-sacrifice” and maternal love. I once heard that “the worst way to teach someone something is to try and teach someone something.” I think about that from time to time. The saying reminds me to keep questioning what I think I know, ask myself what I am trying to explore in a work and why. It also invites me to consider how readers might engage with the page and its possible meanings.

DG: Teaching has been a big part of your repertoire, both in traditional and less traditional ways. For almost ten years, between 1994 and 2003, you worked with California Poets in the Schools, but in addition to this you also taught poetry to incarcerated youth and adults on many occasions—these are just some of the experiences you’ve had as an educator. To what extent did methodologies have to differ in each setting, if at all, and what did you enjoy most about each experience?

DTL: In my best teaching moments, I trust the art to do the work. People innately seek to create and write their stories. They get excited just to make, to play with images and sounds and meaning.

A lot of my teaching has been in university settings, e.g., San Francisco State University (where I taught Composition and Creative Writing for nearly two decades), but I have also taught young people in a variety of K-12 settings, from alternative high schools to Title I public schools to elite private schools. I have taught in prisons and juvenile halls throughout California. And in these different settings, my methods do not change, nor does the content within disciplines.

Wherever we are, we look at provocative work from Nina Simone, Myung Mi Kim, Gertrude Stein, Claudia Rankine, Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes, ee cummings, Shakespeare, Cy Twombly, Ruth Asawa. We let the art and our imaginations take over. I teach craft, sure, but mostly we talk about our lives in relation to what we read. I find teaching both energizing and moving and always feel deeply grateful to connect with people in this way. We bring what we love or need to think about into the space and we share it. Then we write.

In an interview entitled “Advice to the Young,” Kiki Smith says, “It’s a tremendous luxury that an artist takes for themselves—just to go down their own rabbit hole into whatever engages them… you couldn’t have a more luxury life than that possible.” For me, teaching is part of that “luxury life”—in community.

DG: Activism constitutes a big part of your creative effort and part of that was shaped by your upbringing. Can you talk about what inspired these efforts along with some of the activities you’ve undertaken in this respect ever since?

DTL: I recently read Davóne Tines’s comment that all of the work he does is trying to get people to simply ask the questions: “How are you? and What do you need? and How can I help?”

I am realizing how old school my values are in terms of service. My grandmothers both withstood discrimination, and this gave them a strong sense of communal responsibility. My paternal grandmother was Mexican-Irish, and my maternal Grandmother was proud to be an “Arky.” Both grew up dirt poor. And neither of my parents went to college. Still, they were some of the wisest people I’ve ever met; they taught me to be kind and to address social needs when I see them. My parents and their parents were close to the edges of poverty at different points in their lives, so they knew what it meant to scrape by. This encouraged them to give where they could, and I was raised to take note of social inequities and help to change them.

As an adult, I have worked with a number of arts-related and children-focused nonprofit organizations. These include AcroSports, the Performing Arts Workshop, Small Press Traffic, the William James Association, California Poets in the Schools, the Children’s Cottage Co-op, and the California Teachers’ Union (where I served as the Human Rights and Equity Chair for years)—to name a few. I also tried to teach my son the importance of service. Together, we volunteered at schools, public libraries, Bread and Roses Presents, and in any place that needed chairs put away or help with an event. Today, he is a kind person, inclusive and generous, and his strong sense of social responsibility is, in part, because of the time he spent volunteering in his formative years.

I suppose by Ibram X. Kendi’s definition of “activist,” i.e. someone with a known record of power and policy alterations, I qualify because of my union work in Equity and Human Rights, but just now I am hoping to move the needle in smaller ways. Today, I am busy handwriting postcards to unregistered voters in Florida in an effort to get them to vote in the next election. I am also an active member with PFLAG, advocating for LGBTQIA+ rights. On a larger scale, I try to be present, look around, and give where I can. I find that everyday there is someone to help out. “How are you? and What do you need? and How can I help?”

DG: In 2009, you published Disclosure, one of the more interesting conceptual works to be released—a collection of personal details such as bank activity, refund and rent increases from a landlord, physical exam notes, prayer requests, and other tidbits. The age of cookies, data mining, and identity theft has only become more advanced in these 15 years. It’s perhaps obvious where the distant future is headed, but how worried are you that most people will become such authors in the near future—and not intentionally but quite the opposite: through the unstoppable overreach of technology?

DTL: In the 70’s, pre-cell phones, we had the opulence of privacy. Today, if I mention to my family that I am interested in Japan, I begin getting ads for travel to Japan, invitations to Japanese forums, etc. It’s terrifying. Our civil rights are being decimated, and yes, I am concerned. People in this country quickly give up our fingerprints, our iris patterns, our palm designs, our facial recognition, our DNA. We are tracked via the cloud (which for a Gen Xer is a wild thing to actually write), and technology is everywhere. We have been barcodes for decades, and now we are algorithms. I am worried that the current government does not have our backs in terms of civil liberties and that technology’s reach will only continue to threaten our privacy and autonomy. The deep fakes are so numerous and pervasive that it’s hard to know what or whom to trust, and AI is changing society in ways that are unforeseen at this point. Technology’s role in society is and will continue to be a critical political issue. In the face of such manipulation and materialism, people’s awareness of their core values and their individual self-reflection will become paramount. As will trips into the wilds of nature—what is left of it.

DG: As a fourth-generation Californian, you’ve lived in a small town on the Mendocino Coast. From a personal and creative point of view there must be a lot more time and peace to write; at the same time, many of the institutional factors such as readings and events are fewer in number. What are things that make it easier and more difficult to write in this part of California, as opposed to LA or San Francisco, for example?

DTL: I have an irrational love of California.

I feel completely at home near Los Angeles (where I was raised early on). My heart really is in San Francisco and the Bay Area (where I lived for many years). Organizations like the Poetic Research Bureau in LA and Small Press Traffic in SF have shaped who I am as an artist and provide literary havens because they embrace avant-garde writing of all kindness. They welcome whatever kinds of experimentation comes their way. These organizations push me to stretch as an artist. Because of them, I have seen Bev Dahlen read, Kevin Killian sing “To Sir With Love” to Bob Gluck, and a host of readers from David Buuck’s Tripwire perform. Watching “Movie-Talking” with Konrad Steiner or Poet’s Theater inspires more daring projects and reminds me to celebrate the making. And yet, so many other places hold meaning for me across the state.

For example, the Gualala Arts Center has been pivotal to my artistic life and wellbeing. Located on the Mendonoma Coast, Gualala Arts is hidden back in the redwoods and is a very unassuming sanctuary, yet it is a place where committed artists come to perform, read, show their work. David Susalla, aka “Sus,” the executive director there, calls himself a maven of the arts, and he has been an important friend to me over the years. Sus writes grants, organizes shows, holds a vision for the organization, makes coffee, washes dishes, talks to ravens, and truly dedicates himself to art and artists. I have watched Sus say a resounding YES to most every project presented to him, including mine (THE BEAUTIFUL as an anthology and a gallery exhibit). Living in a rural community that is based on supporting all kinds of art and artists deeply affected me. I lived near Gualala Arts when my marriage was falling apart, and the time to grieve, the solitude, was really important for me. It was quiet. The isolation was a comfort. At the same time, I was not fit for public consumption, so it was good to be out in the woods, grieving deliberately and volunteering at the Arts Center.

When I was living on the northern coast in Sonoma, Beau Beausoleil asked me if it would be okay if Arion Press’s Master Printer typeset one of my poems entitled “Lullaby.” Recognition from Beau and the Arion caught me by surprise and came at just the right time. Being out in the woods for a few years offered a lot of isolated time to write and think, and being seen by my larger community in San Francisco felt edifying and validating. It felt important to me to remain active in both communities.

So, to answer your question, out on the coast, I missed the engagement with the avant-garde writers, but I loved the people I met (e.g., Sus, the executive director at the Gualala Arts Center, Susan Bernardo, a poet and children’s book author, Susan Wolbarst, a poet and journalist, Eric Wilder, a visual artist who introduced THE BEAUTIFUL project and made me cry at a reading, Jackie Gardener, a visual artist and collage maker who literally scooped me out of the rain once when I was in shock, Julie Carpenter, a felter, designer, and life-saver, Harmony, a fabric designer and community organizer, and so many others…) I ended up moving because I missed my family and my freaky-ass avant-garde poets. Both places offer community. The woods and the night skies are incredible. The cities hold so much.

Wherever I go, it is always difficult and easy to write.

DG: As opposed to novelists, who may or may not write one or two young adult fiction books throughout their career, the majority of poets don’t really publish collections of poetry for children. There seems to be no difference between poems for kids and nursery rhymes, yet that’s not the case with Kindergarde: Avant-Garde Poems, Plays, Stories, and Songs for Children, an anthology you edited and published in 2013. The list of contributors is, to say the least, outstanding. Can you talk about how the project started along with the rewards and difficulties of editing a collection of experimental work for children?

DTL: Again, thanks for all the kind words about my work, David.

Kindergarde began after I had a child. I knew, from teaching it for decades, that the narrative arc is a fantasy. Very few of us have a fairytale life. Still fewer benefit from blindly following societal norms. I wanted my community, the avant-garde writers I knew and admired, to tell me how to be a better parent, i.e. I wanted to know what they would say to children. Kindergarde is the result.

Any anthology is a lot of work, but I really enjoyed curating these pieces, being in contact with my favorite writers, reading what they’d send, talking to my child about the work. We made videos of kids reading avant-garde writers. My child was a part of the decision-making process, sometimes helping me see how kids might feel about a given poem or story. I guess the hardest part was the money and marketing. Even though the anthology was awarded a prestigious Creative Work Fund grant, I felt like everyone involved should have been paid more. We had actors, a director, a graphic artist, a costume designer, the contributors, etc… and we needed to market everything, so people knew about it. It was a lot to take on.

That said, the rewards for this project were great! The anthology is still revered, and I get notices every year about it being on different holiday lists internationally (including at Hopscotch in Berlin!). People give Kindergarde at baby showers and as birthday gifts. I am particularly proud of this project and the reach it continues to have. When kids are learning to read, they are reading Beverly Dahlen, Jaime Cortez, Harryette Mullen, Camille Roy, Johanna Drucker, Juan Felipe Herrera, Robin Blaser. They experience more expansive definitions of a story or what it means to put language together. This project really has taken on a life of its own. One poet called it “a cult classic.”

DG: From 2007-2009 you served as the Interim Director of Small Press Traffic. How important has the organization been, how did it develop during your time there, and how does it continue to support writers today?

DTL: I love what Michelle Tea said about Small Press Traffic. I was the interim director there years ago, and as such, I showed up to a San Francisco Arts Commission funding meeting. When the panel was discussing SPT, Michelle Tea simply said, “Look, there’s no one else in the Bay Area doing what they are doing…” I am certain that her comment secured the funding for SPT, and her sentiment continues to be true.

Those of us interested in the limits of language and its expansiveness, those of us not adverse to taking risks on and off the page, the queer among us in so many senses, the ones who find a home in literary arts writ tiny and also running off the page, those of us reading writers who are looking for new modes of expression and community, for those of us who are also those writers, SPT has been a safe haven and extended a sense of belonging akin to family.

DG: What was the last book you read?

DTL: I am currently reading Say What Happened, A Story of Documentaries by Nick Fraser, and I can’t get very far because I have to keep stopping to watch the films. The last doc I saw was Stories We Tell, which I recommend to anyone. It questions “truth” and “narrative” and “meaning-making.”

And I am spending waaaay too much time in the Criterion Collection closet with writers, actors, and directors. My dream is to be invited in one day myself… As a result, I just watched Tokyo Story (we really cannot take people for granted!) and Taste of Cherry (an awesome reminder of the things that make life worth living…). I also just saw Crossings, thanks to the Oxnard Film Society, and wept wildly; it’s a beautiful film.

DG: What are you working on at the moment?

DTL: Currently, I am working on a short documentary that I am super excited about. I am reluctant to say more just now, but it should be released by June of next year. It’s not some big secret, but sometimes saying too much takes away from the making for me.

Something occurs to me: two people have just joined the doc project—a good friend whom I met through Gualala Arts and a friend from the Bay Area. Funny how things come full circle sometimes.

Thanks for the interview, David. I appreciate the opportunity.

Author Bio:

Dana Teen Lomax is a multi-genre artist and an activist. She is the author of several poetry books and numerous chapbooks. About her last editorial project, THE BEAUTIFUL: Poets Reimagine a Nation, Juan Felipe Herrera writes, “Each author here, each photograph here, each moment here can change your life. Another of Dana’s editorial works Kindergarde: Avant-garde Poems, Plays, Stories, and Songs for Children (Black Radish Books), was awarded a San Francisco Creative Work Fund Grant and won the 2014 Johns Hopkins University Press Lion and Unicorn Prize for Excellence in North American Poetry. With Jennifer Firestone, she edited Letters to Poets: Conversations About Poetics, Politics, and Community (Saturnalia), which Cornel West called a “courageous and visionary book.” Dana's writing has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, published and reviewed internationally, named among the Guerilla Girls’ favorite poetry books, and received grants and awards from Intersection for the Arts, the Academy of American Poets, the California Arts Council, the San Francisco Foundation, the Marin Arts Council, Banff Arts Center, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and others. Lomax collaborates with artists from all over the country, has taught writing in libraries, schools, prisons, and universities, has served as the Human Rights and Equity Chair for her teachers’ union, and lives in southern California. Dana’s writing, editorial work, and short films can be found at danateenlomax.com.