We are here to talk about a poem by Patrick Rosal and it's called Uptown Ode that Ends on an Ode to the Machete. It's from a book of poems, that's published in 2016 called Brooklyn Antediluvian. It's actually an old ModPo at least the time of this recording the most contemporary poem that we're talking about. It's a brand new poem. Patrick Rusal has written other books, has published other books. One is called Boneshepherds. And this one has won a number of prizes. It's a really great book. It's a recent book. I think it's 2011, maybe. I'll check that to be sure. Maybe 2011, I was right. And the other one American Kundiman. And a Kundiman refers to a genre of love poem that is written in Tagalog in the Philippines. And so what he's done here is he's taken it into English and he's varied it. So, it's a series of love poems. In Brooklyn Antediluvian, we encountered this poem which is divided distinctly into two parts. So, we'll talk about those two parts. But, the first part is written in a kind of frenetic and I think I would say, not happy but, ecstatic, excited, energetic, present tense. So can anyone, may Connie, just say in the most basic way what you think is literally going on? What is the scene? What's the narrative? Is it day or night? Tuesday morning or is it Friday night? >> It could be either of those days, probably towards the night. There's traveling going on. The author or the narrator and Willy are just going across the city, across the bridge to a bar dancing, there is that frenetic energy, a lot of- >> Is it just the speaker and Willy? >> It's seems like people are joining them or coming in [CROSSTALK] >> I think Orlando is joining them. >> Yeah >> And there's a reference to I mean what they're drinking, what they're listening to. >> Kimara do we know where they are? >> East side? Franklin and Fulton? I know Tito Puente was from Spanish Harlem so maybe- >> El barrio? >> El barrio, yeah >> So that's aka Spanish Harlem or East Harlem. >> Yeah. >> So, they're going up town, looks like. >> Yeah. >> Titot Fuente gives us a context in terms of music and style. Anybody? Carlos. >> He's a famous percussionist, I think. >> Yeah. Well, he's a Latin jazz composer And a mambo musician. Very, very well known and it's a throw back for these young people to be so referring to him. Tamara, I think I cut you off, what city is this? >> New York City. >> It's New York. >> Mm-hm. >> Lily, we've got an energetic present tense Men going dancing. This must remind you of another poetics, an earlier poetics. >> Yes, it sounds like Frank O'Hara's The Old Place. >> Mm-hm. At the Old Place, yeah, in particular, but what more generally about O'Hara do you see here? >> I think we follow one speak a sort of like if you were on TVshow like we track behind one speaker as he moves through a crowd of lots of people and energetic night out. And we're not going any particular place. We're kind of just weaving in and out as though we were at a party behind one person's shoulder. And Anna, it's not even five past midnight in El Barrio, and I'm nodding to Pibo spinning one ill-cut after another. There's another O'Hara poem that we encounter in ModPo that this reminds you of, don't you think? >> It's got that kind of classic O'Hara, New York School, I do this, I do that kind of style. >> Very good. >> Reminds me of the beginning of the day lady died. >> Or even the end. >> Or the end. >> [CROSSTALK] >> Gosh, like the whole poem. >> Yeah. >> It's this kind of motion sort of through the city. But I think what Rosal's bringing to this is there's, I know that Harris is sort of anti-narrative but Rosal kind of updates that anti-narrative with a kind of simultaneity. Like these things are all happening at once where he says, don't take three minutes for me Will to jump on the dance floor or post up at the bar sipping on Barrilito or to tap on my glass. These things, the or instead of the ands that O'Hara would use, makes all these things kind of happen with this charged simultaneous energy. >> Carlos, I'm going to ask an obvious question, but I think it's really important. How else is Patrick Rosal different from, this is a New York poem, it's in New York, but it's a different New York than Frank O'Hara's. New York now. >> Yeah well it's very textured by immigrant culture and it has such a. I mean Frank O' Harra can be very musical but I think that this poem has such a sonic quality to it and such a condensed heated rhythm is that I think is- >> They'd almost matches the different kind of music that he's referring to in the poem at the old place, O'Hara and his male friends leave one bar to go to another. And their Button, one of his friends his nickname Button. Lindy's with me in that pond. So, Frank and Button are Lindy. Well, there's not a lot of Lindy in here and so Kamara, I know that you're really interested in sound studies and rhythm of speech and performance. You want to say something about the performance of the first part, to follow what Carlos just said about the music. >> Well, when we listen to it, it's very [MUSIC] It sounds almost like, it's a drum actually. His voice sounds like a drum and the words going out. I was just underlining what he was saying some of the words that stuck out to me the verbs specifically the flies from Franklin that zip up the east side that knock him to Ester Williams. Not only was the performance very percussion-y, >> Yeah percussive >> Percussive, but the language itself especially the verbs. >> Yeah, so there's very little in the way of iambs. The iamb does da-dum. This is up the East side or over the bridge up the East side so we get much more of a serious of unstress syllables and then lead to Sabeeds. So it's like it's almost scored by Tito Puente in a way >> It's very tight yeah. So, Connie do you want to add to that, before we get to the end of the first section and figure out where the poem is going to go, do you want to add anything? >> Yeah sure, just the rhythm of the dancing that all of you mentioned, but here it's culturally marked and it seems almost, I mean you have, in the next section, which we're about to get to that'd be of the right in the act. And in the end, another kind of ritual which recalls this sort of dancing ritual as a way of recovering maybe a rhythm, or another poetic mode, or even recovering a kind of days work on it. >> Yes, so, combining Carlos has mentioned of one of the many differences between this and O'Hara. Namely that this uses the immigrant American experience and Connie's mention of the importance of that with the sense of diaspora leading us to the next point. It goes to a place, I mean it metaphorically goes to the Philippines. It goes to a place poetically that O'Hara has been. It moves the New York School style forward, you might want to say. Yeah, okay. So, can we push a little further on your mention, you said immigrant, but there's some more specificity here. >> Yeah. >> To some of the dual label words. >> When I first read the poem, I had no idea about the author's background. So, when I read the first section, I thought this is the Latin American poem. Just given all the references. I mean getting into the next gaskara come, gaskara is a skull. So, I'm imagining like drinking out of this like plastic skull almost or [FOREIGN]. There's the accents and of course the mention of- >> So you thought, and Tito point this out, you thought these are Latin American trends? >> Yeah. >> We don't know in fact, we find out that the speaker is making a pilgrimage back to the Philippines. So we're assuming, and we know Patrick Rosal that his family is Filipino, but we didn't know that. So, we have a general sense of the importance of Spanish culture. And in Filipino's relationship, the Spanish is complicated, but anything else to add? I mean Connie has said diaspora. Is that apparent in the first section? >> Well I think because in maybe the New York school, poetics, the dietetic language and the reference to the objects is really important. Here even more so, maybe they seem like artifacts or a way to connect to something that's lost and there is that, I think a sense of going back or a sense of the importance of these objects. >> Lily, Kamara, can we add one more factor before we go to the next section which is there's O'Hara like homosociality here these are guys who are dancing with each other, just as in O'Hara's at the old Place. Anything to say of significance about that? Lily, you first? >> At the very end of this section, he goes from calling, I'm assuming it's the same person, calling his friend, or maybe it's actually his brother, Willie, to dear brother Will, all capitalized. So, I could interpret that a few different ways, like all capitalization makes it seem like this is a title that he holds. >> Yeah. >> Or it could possibly it could mean he calls him by a name that he translated to English as dear brother Will all caps, or maybe like a term of endearment that wouldn't translate, something like that. But very clearly underscoring that this statement that your brother, Will, is about to make isn't to be taken lightly. Like, it's very, it is dear, just like the relationship that they have with each other. >> And Kamara, Geebo, this is a classic, modern, poetic device where we get in media res into a set of relationships and it isn't spelled out to us who Geebo is but you can just see it. Some friend they just call him Geebo because he's just Geebo. And Willie daps up Orlando the friendly gesture of greeting. A handshake that is associated with US communities of color in the 60s and 70s and then it becomes more generalized. So, there's some depth. So, do you want to say anything about how these men relate to each other and is it of interest? >> Yeah, I just, I love the line the rhythm bradabom I can't say it correctly, but, bradabombula to watch the dip and sway of this motley flock. >> This is a motley flock. >> This is a motley flock of men who may be from different backgrounds but share this musical rhythm Fun lifestyle together. >> So, let's just assume that Lily's right about Will, who has maybe a special relationship, because the others maybe, in fact, they maybe from all parts of what makes up the El Barrio. What makes up Spanish Harlem, Latin American, Central American, Filipino, but brother Will seems to have a special thing he wants to say as a result of this great experience that the motley flock is having. And Anna, how would you paraphrase that, we are all trying to get home, good luck. I think several of us should have a shot at this, but what do you think? Take a shot. >> Well, I guess I would say it's the kind of push and pull of that immigrant experience of the places where you can sort of maintain your contact to your culture and tradition and yet you also participate in being part of the motley flock. So maybe like his, him saying this and especially in if you listen to the reading, he really like this is the moment, this the gravitas moment really. >> Yes. >> Which just stands in such a wonderful contrast to the energy that we were talking about at the beginning of this discussion. >> Yes. >> That makes you sort of pause and think about actually what that, struggle or what that, many at sometimes it's the struggles maybe sometimes it's a, it can be a tremendously kind of a power >> Yeah. >> Existing with one foot in each >> Yes, well I want actually to go around starting with what Anna just said. Go around and give everybody a shot and saying what is being said is true and powerful I'll just add that if this poem is an analog to O'Hara's At the Old Place, it might not be and we can ask Petrograd Solid. The analog to this statement which is whispered from one person to the next it comes at the beginning of that poem and that's one of O'Hara's friend. Across the bar saying let's beat this place. Let's go to the old place, which is said with lips. It's just, Okay and here it's, in a way, Will leaning over and saying well, not let's go to another bar where we can dance but I think we are in another place or I think we all have an urge to go somewhere else. So, Carlos, do you want to paraphrase that? We'll go around and give everyone a chance. >> Yeah. I think I'm going to jump ahead briefly. When he uses the duende it's really appropriate to this poem. >> Can you explain? >> So, duende, I think has a couple of different meanings depending on how you learn about it, but it's either like the spirituality of a place or landscape which comes from, I think primarily Latin culture or kind of spirituality or sense of aura in the piece of art, the poetic landscape or artistic landscape. >> And there's so many layers in this poem because there's the poetic landscape of the poem and the duende that we're reading. And then there's this kind of, these people are sort of trying to create. In this dense, heated moment of music and kind of connecting. >> But far away from some origin. >> And far away from their origins, which is another landscape they're sort of trying to travel through. >> Reproduce it in the motley flock. >> Yeah. >> Right, but then that inevitably makes Will think, wait a minute, what would really doing here? Is we're all trying to get home. Yeah. >> They're all potentially from different cultures, but like Connie was saying or sort of like what you were saying, there are these objects that stick out, like artifacts, that, and we'll get to the machete later, that have connections between cultures and this kind of coming together. >> Great. Connie, you want to add anything to a paraphrase of that powerful line? >> Yeah, sure. I think you gesture towards this with your reference to the [INAUDIBLE] poem, we're all trying to get home, as away from this bar or this particular bar, but also the more significant or heavier mention of home As in, we're all trying to get home because we're not here yet, either in this motley flock or in this particular place. And we're trying to recover that in a way. And then, it's also put on the page where at home is aligned with the next segment or the next ode. And is aligned with allow me to translate, as an anticipating the distance between this home, that the speaker, or Willy, is experiencing or wants to experience, and the reader's experience of what home is. And this requires some sort of translation. >> NIce. Very good. Lily, you want to add anything? >> Yeah, I think it's interesting because in just the reality of the scene, they're coming from Brooklyn or somewhere like much further itself Franklin and Fulton. So, like they have traveled along way to get to where they are. So, in the scene it could have been sort of like a confusing moment like maybe Willy is actually saying it's time to go home, it's too late. [CROSSTALK] So it's not such a, it works well with the concept of translation I guess is what I'm trying to say. Because it's not such a grand statement, that is really out of place. It's like a statement that the language of it fits in the scene. >> But also has really deep meaning and implication simultaneously, at the same time. >> Yeah. Great. Kamara, anything to add? >> Yeah. >> You like this line, don't you? >> I like this line. I think that, okay, I love that we are all trying to get home, as in it's like a simultaneous process, as in while all of this is happening they're still trying to find a home in some type of area. That this isn't just a fun joy ride throughout the city, which it is, but it's also a sort of a search and a journey, for some part of the homeland wherever that might be. I loved when you were talking about with like the diasporic artifacts and things like that. I think wherever their homeland be for the individuals they are all sort of searching for it in this fun journey and I think it says a lot about an immigrant experience in America like searching, trying to be this like American citizen will also trying to find artifacts of home
