When I complained to my friend Ms. Cade about the lack of poetry in life, she whole-heartedly agreed, which was a shame. Maybe had she disagreed, I wouldn't set out on this adventure to find poetry in an ordinary Baltimorean day, as to disprove my own point. And then I wouldn't have to get stuck in a pre-apocalyptic mall or visit a tattoo parlor in the middle of nowhere. And then I wouldn't feel out of place for liking Baltimore so much now at the cusp of graduation.
Speaking of graduation, I should probably introduce myself, since I'm gonna essentially make it painfully personal and tell you about my day. I'd say I occupy the "exotic white" category, being from Armenia. For all intents and purposes of this article, I'm an amateur: I checked out a decent DMC camera, but I'm not good at photography and I'm majoring in Writing, though wut r words even and howz u do dem. I guess what I'm trying to say is captured pretty well in a text I sent to someone in The Poetic Day's morning in response to her analysis of my boy trouble. "my larger struggle is that of a self incapable of love. incapable of choosing a side, incapable of reconciling difference and sameness, the outer and inner view, the categories and the cases, the frames and language with being lol. for all the facade u can't blame me for being scared" It applies well to the challenge of this day, I think. Words fail us all the time. It's in their nature to seek their own demise. When you say something, its opposite is immediately summoned and that shadow follows it around. When you say something, from the whole world of what was "unsaid" you choose the opposite statement and say, "Yeah, especially not you."
Baltimore is not poetic, but at this point in contemporary poetry we've declared everything poetic "unpoetic." Having a camera made me uncomfortable in a Sontagian way. I felt like I was framing all the wrong things; filtering, sacrificing truth to aesthetics. One day I'll be better at imposing frames and won't be obsessed with what's left on the margins. One day language and I, Baltimore and I will figure it out. Or did we already on April the 1st, 2016?
Speaking of graduation, I should probably introduce myself, since I'm gonna essentially make it painfully personal and tell you about my day. I'd say I occupy the "exotic white" category, being from Armenia. For all intents and purposes of this article, I'm an amateur: I checked out a decent DMC camera, but I'm not good at photography and I'm majoring in Writing, though wut r words even and howz u do dem. I guess what I'm trying to say is captured pretty well in a text I sent to someone in The Poetic Day's morning in response to her analysis of my boy trouble. "my larger struggle is that of a self incapable of love. incapable of choosing a side, incapable of reconciling difference and sameness, the outer and inner view, the categories and the cases, the frames and language with being lol. for all the facade u can't blame me for being scared" It applies well to the challenge of this day, I think. Words fail us all the time. It's in their nature to seek their own demise. When you say something, its opposite is immediately summoned and that shadow follows it around. When you say something, from the whole world of what was "unsaid" you choose the opposite statement and say, "Yeah, especially not you."
Baltimore is not poetic, but at this point in contemporary poetry we've declared everything poetic "unpoetic." Having a camera made me uncomfortable in a Sontagian way. I felt like I was framing all the wrong things; filtering, sacrificing truth to aesthetics. One day I'll be better at imposing frames and won't be obsessed with what's left on the margins. One day language and I, Baltimore and I will figure it out. Or did we already on April the 1st, 2016?
No rules!
It is common knowledge that you can't be poetic if you don't take weather personally. April the First started like a day that didn't want to start, all gloomy and gray. Baltimore often gets days like these and I respect the poetry in that. "Pyjama noir and Grubhub chronicles," except on a city level. An invitation to cancel plans and forgive irresponsibility. But on that particular day the invitation was deceptive - soon obnoxious sunshine showed up and I had to get down to business and defeat the hons. Except, of course, the Baltimore hons are undefeatable. When a cafe tried to trademark the term "hon," a local word for working class ladies of the past in bright dresses and with bee hive hair, it saw a 22.5% drop in sales. Baltimore doesn't like its words to belong to anyone but a vague "we." Especially it's against words used for profit and I think all the lunatics and poets will agree with that stance.
The Poetics of...bank of america
I had to stop by Bank of America to get my money order to apply for a visa thing that'll let me stay and work or something in the US for another year. Since I had declared the day poetic, I thought about why I was even going through the application, when I would likely be more useful back in Armenia. I like it here as much or as little as I like it there. But to return would mean failure, as declared by everyone back home and to stay would mean to switch sides. When will I ever mean it, when I say it's "totally, like, cool with me" that we all leave the country and forget the language. Bc it's not like I side with capitalism or anything. But saying you wanna be a writer is the most individualistic thing you can say. Can I take my rock from the pile and put it somewhere else, but fret that the mountain's getting shorter? My dichotomy is not "us" and "them," it's "me" and "us." Which me? Which us?
"You are so beautiful," I tell to the Bank of America assistant at the risk of sounding crude. She is sooo beautiful.
"It's just makeup," she says. Lies.
"You are so beautiful," I tell to the Bank of America assistant at the risk of sounding crude. She is sooo beautiful.
"It's just makeup," she says. Lies.
The poetics of...dialogue
The city talks, if you listen. It talks through announcements and graffiti, but Baltimore also talks through strangers. I got called beautiful a zillion times and I don't think I have my pretty average level of aesthetic allure to thank. More likely, Charm City sees humans as beautiful in general. Fine, fine, especially young women, but then who doesn't? I've come to expect strangers with stories about taking their grandchildren to The Book Festival or getting arrested or both. After the Paris events, a guy outside the pub in front of Charles theatre gave me a speech about fundamental similarities of all religions and scapegoating, though he didn't quite use those terms. Those academics made up their language to play separatism, it seems.
So many people in Baltimore are from Baltimore. I took the Purple to Graffiti Avenue, the only street with legal graffiti, and asked the man next to me about his favorite Baltimorean thing.
"The city overall...The people. Though the crime rate is terrible," he said, "What about you, you like it here?"
"Sure," I said, "It's very...eclectic. So unique."
My, at times I indeed despise the flaccid bookish vocabulary of those habitually read, not heard.
So many people in Baltimore are from Baltimore. I took the Purple to Graffiti Avenue, the only street with legal graffiti, and asked the man next to me about his favorite Baltimorean thing.
"The city overall...The people. Though the crime rate is terrible," he said, "What about you, you like it here?"
"Sure," I said, "It's very...eclectic. So unique."
My, at times I indeed despise the flaccid bookish vocabulary of those habitually read, not heard.
The Poetry of Misspelling
The Poetics of...graffiti
In the Ave I creeped on these humans spraying yellow.
"What is it gonna become?"
"It's just initials. For a friend, who passed away today."
Poetry, it seems, is happening now. Just now.
"What is it gonna become?"
"It's just initials. For a friend, who passed away today."
Poetry, it seems, is happening now. Just now.
They were talking in an interesting accent, so I asked:
"Where are you from?"
"Charles Village," she said, "You?"
Well, in that case.
"Me, too."
"Where are you from?"
"Charles Village," she said, "You?"
Well, in that case.
"Me, too."
You know it's poetry, when it revives a scene. I wonder if he did the whole romantic gesture of putting his hands over her eyes or if he was just some shy dork, who nodded at the wall. Let's go with the dork. Also, let us not forget the dark painful poetry that is matrimony. In wise words of Aziz Ansari, "Hey, so we’ve been hanging out all the time, spending a lot of time together and everything. I wanna keep doing that … till you’re dead. I want to keep hanging out with you until one of us dies.”
Below that kids graffitied their greatest fears that dangerously sounded like JHU kids' fears: "My biggest fear is...not being good enough/not being able to support myself/never doing anything worth mentioning." So is life, recognition and repetition. Maybe there's poetry in that, but I'm too close to their fears to see it.
Below that kids graffitied their greatest fears that dangerously sounded like JHU kids' fears: "My biggest fear is...not being good enough/not being able to support myself/never doing anything worth mentioning." So is life, recognition and repetition. Maybe there's poetry in that, but I'm too close to their fears to see it.
"White men" seems pretty high up. And then to the left, what is it? "Both white y(?) Riot we destroy!"
When biblical words crawl up Baltimorean walls in all the colors of the rainbow, it's poetry however you look. "But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls." (Heb. 10:39)
This one made me fill like Bella Swan googling vampires. The Ankh to the left is the Egyptian key to (eternal) life and I found some 2003 Black Spirituality forum discussions, but still have no idea what the stamp means.
Other minor city poetics include - The American Dream :), an unreachable destination sustained by the sheer number of those who walk there; "Police Build Trust Please; art with trash; "Diversity"; Natty Bohs, of course; #TruestSelves - always in plural; "You are here." "Where?" "Somewhere under the Sun."
The Poetics of...Tattoos
After Graffiti Ave I went to Jacki's tattoo parlor to talk to her. Tattoos seem to force poetry on the least poetic of humans. When talk gets dirty and starts referring to "a lifetime," like the topic of tattoos seems to, people get awfully serious and irony dies out, making way for symbols and mementos.
Jacki is the sole artist and master of her parlor, so its only fair she wasn't there when I dropped by without a previous arrangement. She was probably with Robin, her partner of 26 years. I remembered seeing photos on her wall of them in leather on a motorcycle, looking all cool back in the 80's. When they asked her about tattoo reality shows in an interview, she replied:
"I watched the occult, motorcycles, feminism, culture, lesbianism, and more get co-opted, assimilated, pasteurized, sterilized, homogenized, sanitized, neutralized, bastardized and misrepresented, made palatable, and packaged for mass-consumption; why would tattooing be any different?"
I'll return another time.
Jacki is the sole artist and master of her parlor, so its only fair she wasn't there when I dropped by without a previous arrangement. She was probably with Robin, her partner of 26 years. I remembered seeing photos on her wall of them in leather on a motorcycle, looking all cool back in the 80's. When they asked her about tattoo reality shows in an interview, she replied:
"I watched the occult, motorcycles, feminism, culture, lesbianism, and more get co-opted, assimilated, pasteurized, sterilized, homogenized, sanitized, neutralized, bastardized and misrepresented, made palatable, and packaged for mass-consumption; why would tattooing be any different?"
I'll return another time.
Poetry in...Communities
It was evening by the time I got to Fed Hill. Everywhere on business windows there were signs "I support PREP." Google said it was a campaign in support of the neighborhood school. A pitch for public education the local businesses were happy to support.
Quite recently some neighbors got together to try and challenge the Fed Hill bars' licenses, because people had gotten too loud and drunk in celebrating St. Patrick's Day. But then they changed their mind. "We didn't mean to be mean, just be civil, alright guys?" or something like that.
Quite recently some neighbors got together to try and challenge the Fed Hill bars' licenses, because people had gotten too loud and drunk in celebrating St. Patrick's Day. But then they changed their mind. "We didn't mean to be mean, just be civil, alright guys?" or something like that.
"Escape Artist." Where can I apply?
In the Inner Harbor there was a celebration in honor of light and the city: Light City Baltimore. People were ordering happiness as they listened to live jazz:
Or writing "The power of kindness" and drawing kittens on the city:
In Humanities you come to expect language with false bottoms and secret compartments. "I distrust all language that isn't snaky, and I think it is healthy for a democracy to make room for devilish arts that disobey the straightforward - arts that acquaint us with the church's former adversary, the erroneous," as Koestenbaum wrote. But here it felt right. It felt refreshing. Simple. "Love your Earth." Sure. Alright.
The fire show stopped before it properly started because of pouring rain that made the crowd find shelter in the mall. The only beacon of nourishment, Starbucks, had a long queue in front of it, which made me give up on my medium Americano and low-key hate communal pre-apocalyptic existence with "Excuse me"s and staring and time nearly stopping. I almost caved in and Ubered back. Almost. But soon I remembered I had a book with me and instead read about the only Poetics I hadn't encountered in Baltimore neither that day nor, seemingly, ever:
When Purple Circulator bus arrived and we rushed in, it seemed like the poetic day was over. A guy offered me his seat, which reminded me of Armenia. Humans do that all the time there. Overall I felt pretty satisfied with the day's city poetry, but then suddenly there it was - The Poetica, the shot, the reward for not taking Uber. I was just at the right spot - toward the back, up on a pedestal, but my camera alas was safely tucked away in its tiny bag in my larger bag. Showing heroic restraint and ignoring the risk of losing balance and murdering the lady to my immediate right, I utilized my left hand to fish out the 453$ camera, almost dropping it, and pressed the button without even looking properly. There it was. I stole the moment. After all what's your love, if it's not love on the Purple line? And that, my friends, is Baltimore poetica.
RSS Feed