Desert Landscapes

While in graduate school, I wrote a little thing about nothing. I am not sure if this is a prose poem or a story or an essay, but whatever it is, the cross-genre journal Espacio Fronterizo found room for it in their November 2023 publications. Thanks to the editors for giving “Desert Landscapes” a home.

When you see a train, you see the whole miles-long train of hoppers and tankers and engines, you see it all at once, all in one look off to the side. It is far away, but nothing keeps you from seeing it all at once because there is nothing out there. 

Displacement Activities

Moss, a literary journal of poetry from the Pacific Northwest, published one of my poems last summer. It appeared in a beautifully bound issue, packed full of great poems and short stories by other PNW writers. I appreciated the chance to see my work alongside theirs and to learn about so many new PNW poets. Last week, the editor wrote to share the link to Displacement Activities‘ online venue – which he called Fresh Moss. It’s the greeney season.

Interview on narrative theory

What makes someone the same person over time?

This is the question that Teaching Predoctoral Fellow Phillip Barron hopes to answer in his first year in the Lewis & Clark philosophy department. Having completed the necessary coursework at the University of Connecticut, he is now at LC working on the first year of a two-year predoctoral fellowship, and currently teaching PHIL 217: Conceptions of Selfhood and Personal Identity. In his Ph.D. dissertation, he hopes to give a new perspective of the idea of personal identity through narrative theory.

“(Narrative theorists) are people who say that an essential part of your identity revolves around the stories that you tell about yourself,” Barron said. “My argument is that narrative theory is … the only (theory) that can say, ‘This is why psychological continuity matters, this is why bodily continuity matters.’” 

Read the rest of the interview/profile at the Pioneer Log, the student-run newspaper at Lewis & Clark College.

Photo by Jo Tabacek

Nicolás Guillén Book Award

In June, I had the surprise honor of picking up a book award. I learned about six months before then that What Comes from a Thing was chosen by the Caribbean Philosophical Association to receive an annual award for contributions to philosophical literature.

Even more humbling than the award itself was sharing the stage with Kamau Brathwaite, Robin D.G. Kelley, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, and fellow San Francisco State alum, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz.

By way of invocation, I read “The Problem of History” (below) as well as “Who’s Afraid of Franz Kafka,” is by Ángel Escobar.

Las Meninas in Aesthetics for Birds

The latest in my obsession with Las Meninas is up at Aesthetics for Birds, the philosophy and art website. It’s a short piece about the enigmatic painting, restricted by design to only 100 words. The tight limit provides the kind of challenge that appeals to me as a poet and as someone who writes philosophy about art. One ought to be able to say something meaningful in so little space.  

Las Meninas– https://aestheticsforbirds.com/2018/10/26/100-philosophers-100-artworks-100-words-69/

Check out all of their 100x100x100 series. One hundred works of art, written about by 100 philosophers, using only 100 words each. It’s not just paintings; there are entries on film, sculpture, poetry, conceptual art, photography, and some that defy categorization. 

All 100x100x100 – https://aestheticsforbirds.com/category/100-x-100-x-100/

A favorite of mine, pulled from the long list, is Joshua Hall’s reading of Mark Strand’s poem, in which Hall sees a distillation of Simone De Beauvoir’s Ethics of Ambiguity.  https://aestheticsforbirds.com/2016/11/11/100-philosophers-100-artworks-100-words-58/

Las Meninas, Diego Velázquez, 1656 (Prado)

Podcast discussion on poetic meaning, philosophy of poetry

My friend and colleague Cody Turner really digs podcasts. He listens to them, recommends them, and even started his own. His Tent Talks are wide-ranging conversations on everything from what psychedelics can tell us about consciousness to truth models in philosophical logic. This past week, Cody had me on the show to talk about my work in poetry and philosophy. I’m grateful to Cody for doing such a close reading of my current work in philosophy of language, on the topic of poetic meaning. Like any piece of writing, I learn just as much about what I have written by talking with someone else about how they interpreted my text. 

It’s a long discussion (2:40:25), so here’s a breakdown. The episode opens with general questions about, what he calls, my intellectual history, which I interpret as, how I ended up here. At 36:52, he asks me whether I consider myself to be a poet or philosopher primarily. At 40:44, he then leads us into a close reading and discussion of my claims about the relationship between personal significance and semantic meaning, specifically how poetry blurs the distinction between them. Finally, at 1:30:50, Cody reads some of his favorite poems from my book, What Comes from a Thing, and we talk about the joy and difficulty of writing, reading, and interpreting poetry.

You can also download the episode from iTunes, under Podcasts, here

Or, you can check out the full range of his podcasts at his website, codyturnercreations.com

Racism and the disjunctive syllogism

Since the election, friends of mine have shared sentiments like, “either you voted for Clinton or you voted for a racist.” Or, they draw a more provocative line, saying “either you stood against Trump or you are a racist.”

Whether these conversations take place in-person or on the rough seas of social media, they are volatile. Some object that the attitude expressed by the disjunctions presents a false choice. One way to argue that the disjunction is false is to point out that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were not the only two candidates for President on the ballot; one may have voted for Jill Stein, Gary Johnson, or anyone else by writing in a name.

Other ways to object are to deny that Trump is racist or to claim that Hillary is. Some object to the logic of the disjunction, saying that voting for Trump did not amount to an act of racism. And, having witnessed more than one of these conversations play out on Facebook, many others object to the personal address. That is, they don’t like the “you voted for a racist” any more than the “you are a racist.” Not surprisingly, one who objects to racism in principle does not like to be told that she is a racist or told that what she is doing is racist.

After a campaign in which Trump impugned the judgement of Mexicans, challenged the sitting President’s natural citizenship simply because of his race, and equated Muslims with terrorists, it is clear that racism and bigotry played a role in the recent Presidential election. Trump only half-heartedly condemned the KKK when they endorsed his campaign. And if he entertains people like Steve Bannon and Joe Arpaio while assembling the White House staff and cabinet, then it is reasonable to conclude that racism will play a role in his tenure as President.

In my Critical Thinking class, we recently covered the disjunctive syllogism. It is a method of argumentation that takes the following form: it is either the case that proposition A is true or proposition B is true; I know that A is false, so B must be true.

The disjunctive syllogism is the form of some of the most polarizing political rhetoric. “Love it or leave it.” “Either you support the President or you are unpatriotic.” “You stand for the national anthem or you disrespect military veterans.”

It is perhaps fitting that that the logical operator for a disjunction is referred to as a wedge and is most often represented in typeface as a lowercase v. In class, we practice writing the forms of arguments, and the form of the disjunctive syllogism shows its wedge. A v B; ~A; Therefore, B. If Trump’s campaign rhetoric set a divisive wedge in our national politics, then his election pounded that wedge into place.

But not all disjunctive syllogisms are false choices. From my third-floor classroom, I used the following example. To get to class today, my students took either the stairs or the elevator. Today, the stairwell was closed for painting. So, I can reasonably deduce that my students used the elevator.

That is, if the disjunction captures the full range of possibilities, then the disjunction holds.

The rising number of hate crimes portend the continuing struggle in the days ahead. There is no inoculation against the plague of racism. The only means of resistance are active and regular.

It is difficult to capture what motivates voters at the polls, but for any Trump supporter who thinks that voting is a race-neutral activity, try on the following disjunctive syllogism. It may not make you feel any better about your vote, but this one captures the possibilities we face in our everyday interactions.

Either you stand against racism, or you enable it.

What Comes from a Thing, publishes Thursday

Remember, remember, the Fifth of November. That is when my new book of poetry, What Comes from a Thing, will be published.

In May, I learned that a manuscript of my poetry won the Michael Rubin Book Award from Fourteen Hills Press. On Thursday, the book will be published, and it all kicks off with a reading at Green Apple Books on the Park in San Francisco. If you are in the Bay Area, come join us for some poetry, wine, and books. All the details of the book release party are here on the event’s Facebook page.

A few weeks ago, I saw the galleys. I think my heart skipped a little when I reached in and pulled them from the envelope. The striking artwork on the cover is “Continuity” by the painter Charles Sheeler (Tempera on Plexiglass, 1957). I am especially grateful to Sue Grinols at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco for her help securing permission to use Sheeler’s piece as the cover image. Its striking lines, deep shadows, and industrial setting complement the poems, many of which embody the sounds and rhythms of factories, industrial farmlands, and ports of late modernity.

Until Thursday, you can read what the contest judge, Laura Walker, and other reviewers, Andrew Joron and Rachel Blau DuPlessis, have said about the book over on the book’s page. That’s also where I will let you know how to purchase a copy, as soon as it is available through Small Press Distribution.

Book Release Party7-8pm, Thursday, November 5 Green Apple Books on the Park 1231 9th Avenue, SF CA 94122 (415) 742-5833

I feel like I should at least start the reading in a Guy Fawkes mask.