Monday Newsletter #1

featuring Denice Frohman, a Cal City throwback, and a first attempt

What’s up mi gente,

Welcome to my Monday Newsletter. Like I said in my intro to this project, I don’t really know exactly what I’m doing with this yet. Please be patient with me while I figure out how to make this space sing. A few of you reached out to let me know that you enjoyed the conversation format between My Inner Hater and myself. I reached out to My Inner Hater to see if he would like to make regular appearances in my newsletter. My Inner Hater responded by saying, “Guest appearances in your newsletter? Do you have guest appearances money?” I have a feeling he’ll make some more appearances despite his big talk.

My plan is for the Monday Newsletter (side note: does anyone have a suggestion for a name for the Monday Newsletter?) to be a more longform edition and the Friday Newsletter to be a little more shortform. The first few weeks of this thing might shape shift a little as I try to find the right balance.

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As you can tell from the photo above, the subject of today’s newsletter has to do with basketball. But not because of The Last Dance. I woke up this morning thinking about Denice Frohman’s incredible new poem “Lady Jordan” which was published in the New York Times this past weekend.

Here’s some of what I notice in the poem:

1. Every other line is indented. To me it gives the poem the look of a hooper dribbling the ball side to side while sizing up an opponent. I notice the poem is 14 lines, so it’s the same length as a sonnet.

2. The last two lines are an incredible couplet: “ladylike, I wore that rusted metal rim like a ring,/ and slipped my bones through the net like a perfect white dress—” That last image is a game changer. I’ll never look at basketball nets again without thinking of wedding dresses. I also love the word “bones” in that last line. Bones have a different texture than “hips” or “shoulders” or whatever else you might slip through the net. Bones feel a little bit more mortal. It’s a word that could carry injury. It makes the image of the perfect white dress a little more ugly.

3. The poem tells you everything you need to know right from the first line: “It didn’t matter that I married the game” —The poem begins with marriage! And it’s a bit of a cliched phrase, right? I’m married to the game. The images in the poem begin a little bit predictably: The ball in the second line is a basketball. The basketball images in lines 5 & 6 are basketball images. The exception is in line 3: “Girls don’t hoop, they wear hoops.”—Again, the whole poem is right there. The speaker seems to resist this prescription. But by the end of the poem, the speaker is like fine, you want me to wear hoops? how about a basketball hoop?!

4. I don’t know how Denice wrote this. If she started with the image of the basketball net as a wedding dress and then built around it, but I admire the restraint Denice uses throughout the first 10 or so lines. If Denice populated the poem with a bunch of exaggerated images, then maybe the last couplet doesn’t stun us quite so deeply. I’m thinking about horror movies that rely on gore for thrills. After the first time, the effect of the gore weakens. It doesn’t move us as much. Denice keeps the imagery somewhat restrained, but finds other ways to heighten the drama— Las vecinas chirping “¿Y tú novio?,” talking trash back to Danny, making the quip about history and the neighborhood boys. All those lines are like little threads the poem could have followed. Denice has us leaning like Byron Russell in 1998, by the time we realize what hit us, Denice is already posing for the cameras. Haha. My bad. I couldn’t help myself.

Let’s zoom out.

One of the questions that I’ve been coming back to again and agin lately is: What makes art memorable? What makes it sticky?

When I read this poem what makes it memorable is the combination of the final images, but it’s more than that. It’s the banter throughout. The sly trash talking with the vecinas, the neighborhood boys, and anyone else that doubts or otherwise judges the speaker. The movement from the apartment building to the playground. And yeah, that last couplet which reorients my understanding basketball rims and nets. What do you think? Does this poem stick with you, the way it sticks with me? If so, what do you notice. What do you think gives this poem its juice?

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Quick Hitters

What I’m reading: A Sinking Ship Is Still A Ship by Ariel Francisco

What I’m watching: Naruto Shippuden

What I’m listening to: Fetch The Bolt Cutters by Fiona Apple & Las Que No Iban A Salir by Bad Bunny

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Personal News:

Brooklyn Poets chose me as Poet of The Week. You can read one of my poems there and read an interview with me if you’d like more of my voice.

Haymarket Books has a 50% off sale going on until May 24th. I recommend you buy all of their books especially this one.

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Mexican Heaven:

This video made me crack up. Chaparro Chuacheneger sings “We Will Rock You” by Queen (video via Eloisa Amezcua).

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That’s it for today. What do you think? Is this useful? Do you have suggestions for how I can improve these newsletters? Do you have questions you’d like to see me address?

with gratitude,

José