The Routes that Clutch: Circle Island / Circle Blog

The wheels on TheBus go round and round (h/t Ryan Oishi); after launching this blog in January 2009 my fourth post was about a project organized by three UHM alums about TheBus. That project, called Routes, is now out from Kahuaomanoa Press. Made in the format of a bus map, the anthology includes poems, short fiction, journalism, a strip of ads at the top, and a panel called "Route 5: My Seat," where the rider can compose her own poem (or post) as she rides.

At 9:32 a.m. on May 19, 2010 I got on the Circle Island bus (55) at the Kane`ohe Bay Shopping Center across from Windward Mall. The weather was warm, the mountains clear behind the looming mall, the wires, the SUVs. The bus headed away from Kane`ohe along the coast on Kamehameha Highway, or the route that is prettier than Kahekili Highway, on which I commute.

By 9:42 we arrived at the intersection of Kamehameha Highway and what again became Kam Highway. To my right was the gas station and 7-Eleven, and to my left as we turned was the Hygienic Store, whose name was carefully enunciated by the voice of TheBus, Puakea Nogelmeier, a deep resonant voice (even so disseminated). Every so often the Puakea voice would advise riders to "please kokua" or to "watch for suspicious behavior," but mostly it called off the names of the stops.

Chad Blair: Anyone who has taken O`ahu public transportation in the past five years knows his work: Triggered automatically at every stop, the pre-recorded spots let riders know they've arrived at Kapi`olani Boulevard or Alapa`i Street. As pronounced properly by Nogelmeier, it's Kah-pee-oh-la-need and Ah-la-pah-ee, the `okina--the upside-down apostrophe--requiring a cutting off or ending, a glottal stop.

As we rode toward Kualoa Beach Park, where the island itself turns, I saw many signs protesting development, especially in the Waiahole/Waikane area, known for resistance in the 1970s against the theft of water for leeward side golf courses and such.

PROTECT AND DEFEND WAIAHOLE / WAIKANE
KEEP THE COUNTRY COUNTRY
STOP STEALING THE WATER FROM OUR STREAMS (by the old poi factory)
THIS IS AN AG PARK / NOT AG ESTATES

At 9:40 we had made the turn to the north, and I noticed the ads above and across from me. There was a Mahalo to Our Sponsors next to an anti-methamphetamine ad (METH WILL CHANGE THAT). I learned that Darryl Valdez is Operator of the Quarter and that he has won a trip to Vegas.



Things I did not know: there's a trout farm at Kahana Bay. There is also bridge construction.

GOV. LINDA LINGLE THOU SHALT NOT STEAL

By 10:08 we were passing Hauula Beach park, where a wedding party was assembled, the bride in white dress bright against the turquoise water.

EMINENT DOMAIN ABUSE
[something about Eminent Domain and YouTube: here!]

At the Polynesian Cultural Center, La`ie, a group of firemen were shooting water from a mighty hose at--what? The sign? The plants in front of the sign? A motorcycle gang, the first of several, had gathered at the La`ie McDonalds. A young white man got on wearing Koss earphones and a black teeshirt that read, "without music life would b flat" (the flat was a flat sign, mind you). He sat in front of me and pulled out a novel whose chapter heading had something to do with ice.

Next to me was a man who got on a bit later, hanging his bike on the front of the bus, whose left arm was tattooed with the word HAWAIIAN. More motorcycles went by, heading south. People were starting to know one another--many handshakes among the guys at the front.

SECUREMENT MANDATORY / MAHALO! THEBUS

Things I did not know: the circle just past Hale`iwa town is called Weed Circle.

I had a bit of a doze and came to in Wahiawa where a sign in an old restaurant read: SHOCK AND AWE BREAKFAST SPECIAL. Who could resist?

A few more turns and DIVINE PLEASURES / WELCOME HOME TROOPS with an odd mix of buxom blondes and a Pirate theme. AVOCADO PAWN.

Somewhere near Sunset Beach two women got on board and sat behind me. One was older, had grown up in Hawai`i; the second was much younger. The first was in sales, had almost bought a store in Hale`iwa Town; the second was a hair stylist (a "perfectionist," her friend said). They both knew Justin, the older woman from way back, the younger one as his girlfriend. Justin is a good guy, teaches boxing at a camp for kids (the young woman hailed a boy who got on with a "Justin is my boyfriend!" to which the little guy didn't know how to respond). Justin's former girlfriends were all losers. Jamie hated ALL of them. But younger woman doesn't want to talk about the past, even though Justin wants to know about hers: who were they, how old, what did they do for a living? She keeps telling him it just doesn't matter and she trusts him, but he keeps asking. The older woman started talking about Christine, his one ex, who had cheated on him. Christine was not so bad. And there were others the older woman knew. In Mililani Town, younger woman said she did not want to hear about Justin's past. It was over, and besides, they were all LOSERS. The women were going to Chinatown. Justin didn't want her to go anywhere herself. There were a lot of things Justin did not want. "At least he's trying now," said the younger woman with a sigh. He hates guys from the mainland, Justin does. "They're so stoopid." The way he was raised, island-style, by his granddad. "I don't bring it up any more, the mainland."

Gizelle Gajelonia: Deah God, Plz no bless Carissa though cuz I faking hate her! God, I thought she wux my fren. I saw her yesterday making out wit John Boy, my ex-boifren form ninth grade at Sushi Man. I laught though because da mean Korean lady dat works ova dea told me to stop doing dat. But I'm so pissed off! I no can believe she would do dat! Faking slut, I hope she get preggo and den John Boy dump her sorry ass . . .

The bus stopped at Alakea Street at about 1 p.m. I talked the bus driver out of a transfer. I didn't know why, but he looked at me funny. My husband says the transfers last only two hours, and I had told him I started in Kane`ohe, which would have been three hours before. He gave me one anyway. Funny thing, after half an hour off the bus for coffee and relief, I caught the same one over the Pali and back to Kane`ohe.

This time I sat on the left side of the bus, looking into the aisle. An older woman sat next to me, her hair done up (but still disordered), her face done up, wearing a dress. She was Korean, she told me, and her husband Japanese, Irish, Hawaiian, and at the Aloha Care place in Kane`ohe. Did I know where it was? When I said yes, she showed me a bag full of sushi she bought for her husband, and handed me a plastic platter with eight sushi pieces in it. "It was for the bus driver, but if you know where Aloha Care is, you can have it." We both have two children, she and I, and we both lived in northern Virginia. "Oh, people in the country are so much friendlier than people in the city," she said, as everyone on the bus who was not asleep started talking.

Eric Chock:

Tutu standing on the corner--
she look so nice!
Her hair pin up in one bun,
one huge red hibiscus hanging out
over her right ear,
her blue Hawaiian print muumuu
blowing in the wind
as one bus driver blows
one huge cloud of smoke around her,
no wonder her hair so gray!

A straw haired man on the older side of younger across from me reminded me of a colleague of mine, but had perhaps not made it so far. When a young man got on the bus with a boogie board in hand, he was accosted by the first guy, who began talking about his two cars that he had to sell (legal something), how you needed a car to get chicks, something about surf boards, working construction for the military. His talking knew no pause. So many cars on the island now, the population has changed in the 32 years he's been here.

Kai Gaspar:

When she pau school, Aunty Hemolele go Oahu
so she can go college
so she can learn how fo talk hybolic

By the time we got to Kane`ohe and my friend was safely off the bus at Aloha Care, the guy was sitting next to a young woman (she, pinned against the window) and he was grilling her about her studies. She's an English major, she said, staring straight ahead, showing no interest in the man who talked and talked. "You know how I write a five paragraph essay?" he asked. And then he told her. What to put in the first paragraph, the second, and on to the conclusion. Two sisters from Long Island who got on with some special needs kids from Benjamin Parker School sat behind him and his conversational hostage, getting the giggles. Their supervisor, an older white woman, called back, "The bus is a great place to meet people, isn't it?"

Mike Leidemann: TheBus: A metaphor for modern life. Who knew?




Routes is edited by Emelihter Kihleng, Ryan Oishi, and Aiko Yamashiro, and published by Kahuaomanoa Press. Other writers than those quoted include Emelihter Kihleng, Rodney Morales, Lisa Linn Kanae; design by Mark Guillermo. $6. Anyone interested in the anthology should contact wecatchbus@gmail.com

Craig Santos Perez blogged recently on the press, here.

Jill Yamasawa's Aftermath will be published soon by them, as well. Also an early blog entry for me.



[note: not all diacriticals are in place: blame blogger!]

Editing as collage: Tinfish 19 in the making

Given the right manuscript (complete) and the right designer, Tinfish can publish a book promptly; such was the case with Paul Naylor's new Jammed Transmission. I could say more about the way in which the design's strengths bring out those of that text, but for now would like to think about putting together our annual journal issue. We're up to 19 issues, not including the half-issue that turned into a book, namely 18.5. While we never announce theme issues, #18 turned into a long poem issue, and so was relatively easy to put together. Non-themed issues that develop themes; non-coordinated art and poetry that coordinate; poets who don't know each other locked (sometimes happily) in conversations they would not otherwise have--these, along with the recycled materials used to create our covers, are what I think of as signatures of Tinfish's journal. Accident and randomness cohering into a "still yet moving" anthology (to wrench Hart Crane's bridge utterly out of context), that is what we do. Cohering and yet not necessarily coherent, suggesting and yet not insisting, these are our trajectories.

There are many ways to organize accidental anthologies of poems; some editors place poems in alphabetical order, by poets' last names. This is an arbitrary and in many ways unsatisfying means of conveyance, although it does allow poems to stand on their own, not infect one another with the editor's machinations. I will confess that Tinfish's agenda is very much on my mind as I put together sequences of poems by poets as different as Emelihter Kihleng and Daniel Tiffany, Kenny Tanemura and Mandy Luo. As my assistant editor for this issue, Jade Sunouchi, remarked, this issue is "weird"--so are many of them. Part of this weirdness comes out of the difficulty in finding conversations between poets. Take Kihleng, whose Tinfish 19 poem is a Haunani-Kay Trask-like anti-tourist screed, and Tiffany, whose selections from a longer piece use Middle English lyrics to generate songs in our vernacular. Sit with these poems a while and you realize they do talk to each other. Here is the end of the Tiffany excerpt from our next issue:

I am for wowing al forwake
Lest any reve me my make
Eyes shining through
Like she was
Who-whooin somebody
Leave us all alone

which is to be followed by Kihleng's Don't come to my island, which includes these lines:

and if I, a native of this island, still haven't convinced you
really, you don't want to come
it's so hot and humid
simply miserable it is

In his note, Tiffany tells the reader that the Middle English passages come from a volume that attacked the use of the vernacular; he is appropriating its quotations toward a more positive purpose, the creation of a poem many centuries later that celebrates the vernacular--its and ours. Kihleng also celebrates the vernacular in her attack on "the Mexican woman from Texas" (an unexpected imperial tourist):

the island is surrounded by mangrove swamp
or naniak, we call it
naniak full of elimoang
mehn wai who come to visit
are fond of eating these giant mangrove crabs
(but the crabs alone shouldn't make one want to travel all that distance)
they don't taste that good

Kihleng distances herself from the tourist even as she sarcastically agrees with her that things just aren't that tasty or beautiful on the island. But to anyone with an ear for local language, she is also celebrating its powers to name, to claim, to distinguish between speaker and listener, if that listener is not listening or cannot understand the words.

The poem that will follow Kihleng's, Jill Yamasawa's The Kona Coast, invokes a different kind of conversation, one between a Micronesian writer and a writer from the Big Island. In this poem, Yamasawa takes material off a Kona resort's website and lineates it as "free verse." With a deft use of italics, not found in the original (or so I'm presuming, as I have some trouble "navigating" it), Yamasawa casts doubt on the seeming reverence of the resort's PR:

Hokuli`a reflects the same reverence
to the Island of Hawai`i's historical
and cultural legacy,
clearly embracing the native saying,
Nui ke aloha no ka`aina
(Our love for the land
is without limits).

The italics here are not used to mark the Hawaiian saying (as words from a "foreign" language); they are used as scare quotes to mark precisely the lack of clarity in the relationship between resort and the `aina, or land.

In this sequence of three poems from the many in our forthcoming issue, I've tried to do several things at once. I've tried to create contexts out of juxtapositions that suggest the opposite of context. Middle English lyrics and Kihleng's angry anti-tourist words hardly form what we might call a "natural" context. Yet I would argue that there is context, that even as Tiffany's words (through their sound and their hidden context, in a history that is lost to most of us) mitigate the roughness of Kihleng's, they participate in a move into the vernacular, away from the standard American English that characterizes most of the work in the issue. The move from Kihleng to Yamasawa is more direct, and yet their methods are different. Yamasawa damns the resort simply by parroting its PR; Kihleng turns tourist rhetoric on its head by seeming to agree with the tourist that her island is nothing to pay a steep airfare to visit.

I make such sequences knowing full well that I have added my voice into the mix, a voice that is different in many ways from those of the authors whose work I am organizing, putting in sequence, asking to talk. What I hope is that our readers realize that they too have the power to play with the poems, either by leaving each be on its own, or by reading them in a different order (or dis-). I am reminded of the Cortazar novel whose title I can't remember that included a key in the back to all the many different ways you could read the book, switching chapters around. [Editor's note: must have been this one.] This was before the age of the computer, when such playfulness comes without saying. Yet Tinfish is resolutely a paper production, so it's harder to rearrange our intentions (or even our lacks thereof, since we thrive on accidents). The editor's job is to quote, but to quote out of one context and into another. It's one reason I love the job more than I ever imagined I would. Editing is "writing" in the way that collage is. And collage is a form of appropriation that is always aware of itself as such, ever attempting to undercut (sometimes with scissors!) its own authority.

Other conversations we discovered as we leafed through "accepted" poems: Kenny Tanemura's "On Mao's Indigestion" with Mandy Luo's "The Silk Road" (h/t to Jade on that one); Yamasawa and Gajelonia on Wallace Stevens, Gajelonia and Oishi on TheBus; Janna Plant, Barbara Jane Reyes, Jody Arthur and others on oral traditions and mythologies from the Bible to Samoa; Oscar Bermeo and Deborah Woodard on landlords; Paul Naylor on place and parenthood; Michael McPherson in a good-bye (he died this past year).

The verbal material of the issue has not yet been successfully transferred to a designer (though I did fail miserably at the file transfers last evening). Chae Ho Lee will do the graphic design. Maya Portner is making the covers, and another artist will be doing a centerfold. The final issue will have both centrifugal and coherent force to it; centrifugal because ideas and images will be flying outward unpredictably, coherent because we do not want to escape the force of our limitations. We are not the resort, claiming its own lack of limits by quoting from a Hawaiian saying (and thereby attempting control over its words). And so there is a lack of ambition in all this, as well. We do not aim to cover a territory (bad metaphor, that!) but to open up the torqued and untorqued spaces of the poems we publish. That said, these journal issues involve the most labor of any of our publications. The covers (500 0f them) are hand-made and then stapled onto the books. Many hands are involved, from mine and Jade's to Gaye Chan's, a graphic designer, an artist (or two or three). When I get complaints that our issues cost good money, I think of all these unpaid hands, to say nothing of the costs of distribution, mailing, advertising, and so on.