MON JUL 16, 6:03 am
on the disquiet stage in lisbon w/sista dawson
flinging words of power straight up off the page,
a testimony from when rap spoke straight to god
w/a taste of sacred blues to light the way
hello world, just got back from lisbon, had a great reading w/
erica, love lisbon still, got a lot of work done, its a good city for
crunching pages, it respects literature and so does disquiet
and it has all my props for good production available
just sent this to my agent, FYI:
Hello ellen, no need to reply, just an FYI
am deeply buried in my revision and no longer
crippled w/anxiety I just don't have it in me
There are passages in that previous draft
that I find incredibly embarrassing to think
That you/folk read them but such is life
Mostly I am articulating connections between
his life and his visions that before I thought
Proximity and sequencing would suffice
I am fleshing out his thread so it will carry
the vision heavy 2nd half better, making them
subordinate instead of primary drivers
Reconsidering my strategy of speeding
narrative and ‘deconstructing it’ towards
closure in order to achieve narr velocity
as making it feel too lean, rushed
Perhaps most discretionary Ive changed, after
much deliberation, all jubilations sections to
2nd person instead of 1st and 3rd, so far it
Appears to be working well, hopefully it will
Sustain itself and carry deeper charwork
and more compelling narrative play
also 2nd gives me more room to play w/the interplay
between character, reader, writer, and narrator, between
reality, fiction and narrative illusion, like i do so love to do
(i know, arthur, make it even
more complex why dont you)
Extracting beats where I let my teaching and
preaching narrative nature get away from me
Moving quicker than I had anticipated
but ive generated a lot of raw manuscript
fleshing out jubilations thread and him
interfacing w/his prophetic visions, gon
Take a while to polish all that up
Going for end of year January
I guess that's it, mostly the report is that
I believe in it again, had lost my faith for
a moment there, wondering if I would
ever get it to work and when I reread what
I turned in last time It cause me to question
My judgement, I seem to have blind spots
Im gone, need to be clocking pages
just wanted to tell you how im trying
To address the issues you and readers
Raised, mostly im articulating connections
That I previously only implied – problem
Being of course that I will likely over articulate
But I will leave that for another draft
Hope things well w/you
And yours, all my love
arf
TUES JUL 3 2:07 am
hello world, so im in lisbon, disquiet, full on experience
but my determination is to maintain production, damn
summer is almost over, so its more like desperation and
im feeling my mortality, like give me a year lord so i can
get this done, and anyway its like this race against death
and i realize i can use that for what breaks him, i been
conscious i got to break my conjureman on a whole
new level, this impending death (he turns into a tree/myth)
that the 7 sisters of memphis have prophesied (i know,
you like what the fuck) i can have that fuck w/his head
already decided i got to articulate more than i have
okay im not giong to go into detail but death/legacy/
the immortality of art, these will be new drivers
im gone, 2 in the morning and im crunching, I
got to put this down at some point and prepare
for class at 10, ima give it another hour then
ima have to do the schoolhouse crunch
the one thing i will not do is
come to class unprepared
fuck it, put the text down i have pushed
it as far as it can be pushed, i can climb
back in the saddle after class/nap
all my love
rdoc
WED JUN 27:2018 5:59 am
i am really moved when folk acknowledge the
spiritual in my work, in my conduct, every year
the su black grads ask me to do the invocation
for their graduation program, they treat me kinda
offhand, but just that they ask me acknowledge
the spiritual in my work, i love it
recently had some folk im close to
ask me to baptize their toddler, i am
moved beyond my ability to articulate:
--------------------
Well 1st let me say that the honor
Of being asked overwhelms me
I will do it if yall insist you want it
But I do not feel worthy of the
Responsibility, I draw your attn
To one of my favorite lines:
I must be the slackest
Holyman ever been,
I say this seriously, Im flawed
im slack, often fear im a farce
but I am moved to be asked
And if yall persist in this folly
I will try to come up w/
something appropriate
something quiet and
lacking in pretension
something infused
w/a % of grace
arf
TUES JUN 25:2018 9:29 am
hello world, i been off the grid, let me do some quick catchup
been rolling, cuba, amazing experience, hung out w/a cool crew
jeff and rita and latasha and duriel and them, it was amaazing
memphis, jamey and the african jazz ensemble, a revelation on
many levels, profound generational interactions w/jamey & danian
me and ekpe decide to go for a CD, his band was primetime,
all these years i still think of him as a single, but his band
magnified his power and now i got visions of gil scott
and brian jackson danciing thru my head, we got a
plan, ima bet the credit cards, i see the vision
umass: hit w/noy holland,, we pulled it off, at
one point we did this word weave that was cool,
noy do that smoky thing
reverses: trump/repub base family separation policy
just so he could rile up his base, the daca kids
werent enuf, so he kidnapped babys, w/no plan
on how to put the families back together, doesnt
care, now he saying can have child back if you
agree to deport, he and his deplorables are
heartless, you couldnt write this as a thriller
november cant come quick enuf
umass: missed an op to speak on the role of the
artist in the age of trummp, was in my mind to do
it, just forgot, which is to do what you can but
get your work done, a corrective to the crazy
so, speaking of which, i am in the zone
on novel, was fretting cause all that
traveling i wasnt getting no work done
lot of thinking pushing roaddog thru
all those states but no work, got home
couple of days ago, maybe 4 day
lapse before going to lisbon and i
sat down to see if i could get a groove on
what im doing now is trying to enrich the
protagonists thread to make a more compelling
literary character and better subordinate the future
scenarios that are his prophetic visions, make them
a supplemental thread instead of driving closure
so, got to generate tons of raw manuscript and wasnt
so anyway, to make a long story short, i started doing
it in 2nd person, you, which is generating interesting
narrative, who knows if it will sustain itself/work
but if the criteria for 'works' is that im generating
manuscript then its working, also working out the
new storyline, i got so many ideas for where to take it
only question, once again, is do i have the craft, im feeling
good, give me 6 mos, lord, and i will have a good novel
give me a year & i will
have a masterpiece
your boy
rdoc
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