Yesterday at opening panel on Poethics Joan R. talking about her process over years of merging "direct action with the luxury of poetry".. and talking about occupying two distinct communities simultaneously in DC during the Vietnam years, the experimento poetry for one that did not overtly engage in political subject matter and political action groups. Seeking artistic offshoots of the latter, she found "audience-manipulating theater and rhetorical forms doing exactly what the repressive, authoritarian regimes were doing that we opposed."

Later during the Q&A, another panelist said to her, "I admire your faith and your commitment to the work of poetry and its reach." JR: "It's not faith, it's optimism, which is constructive pessimism."

*

From the prompt
How do I know I m not a bat?

because I think "which?"
for an American pastime?
to write to it
to be thinking of the time
to be located by things beyond
my own senses
for guidance
trying to make a point of
reference out of devil's thumb
to be thinking of ominous creatures-
am i one?
to be counting. countable, able to
discern within a mass its scale and context
context like a rib shack just around the bend
text like, "for decorative use only"
which is something inedible- though perhaps
it moves- to write to it, moves again, and
moves located by things beyond the rib shack
to have seen it on television
to have immediately asked
for a landmark with a name
a way of making the senses more acute
the senses, a name, if it can
be remembered- written down
even- and the scale of it made
by context, to notice, "that is not my local brand
of y" - is it edible?
can i buy it?