First, the cat update. For anyone following our Instagram account (@limitedengagement), you know that we are once more sharing our home with a cat—and I purposely don’t say “own,” because I don’t think you ever really own a cat, they’re more kind of like that free-loading roommate who doesn’t clean up after themselves or pay their share of the rent. Her name is Susuwatari, after the little black soot creatures in the Miyazaki film My Neighbor Totoro. We’re calling her Susu for short. The name seems to suit her. She is, as was Alison (my previous cat, for newer listeners), a rescue from the Humane Society. Black cats are often mistreated and are hard to adopt out, and I have a fondness for them, so I do what I can. Susu has certainly dealt with some trauma (on top of being recently spayed, she’d been abandoned, and was pregnant), but she’s settling in nicely. She and Gizmo are still working out the kinks in their relationship, it’ll be fine. She’s weird, he’s weird—she likes having her belly rubbed, which is not a normal cat thing, and she likes headbutting stuff.
I spent some time writing poetry on demand again. This time it was for Independent Bookstore Day over at Changing Hands Phoenix. My second time now, and again I found it very freeing creatively. I’ve seen some of the writers I’ve done this with make notes and write rough drafts prior to typing up their finished pieces, but I composed one draft on the typewriter, and that was it. I’d never pretend that’s the best way to go about it, but it works for me. The Changing Hands requests were much more difficult than the ones I got on Roosevelt Row. For starters, I had to write a couple of poems suitable for children, then there was the woman who wanted something happy about retiring on a farm with pumpkins, goats, and chickens. About a third of the people wanted something happy. I don’t do happy.
All told, over the course of about 4 hours, I wrote 18 poems, which is nothing to sneeze at. They weren’t all great, but I actually really liked a few of them that I’ll probably rework and hang onto. I’ll post my favorites up on Instagram.
We went to see Infinity War last night, and I’ll probably talk a little bit about my impressions when I record the next Hoot N Review this week with Jenna Duncan, but I loved it. We’ll see where it falls in the rankings over time, but I think it’s possibly their best. At this point, they’ve reached a critical mass as far as the amount of characters goes, but they pulled it off. For a while there, I thought I was watching a Paul Thomas Anderson film with amazing special effects.
I had the opportunity recently to sit down with Omar Pimienta and Jose Antonio Villaran, the writer and translator respectively of The Album of Fences (available now from Cardboard House Press). With everything hitting the fan right now, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to have this discussion on the poetics and poetic politics of borders, the responsibility of artists (of all disciplines) to create work that speaks out against the prevailing rhetoric of fascism, social regression, and hatred. We got deep.
Best,
Jared
Limited Engagement 