NYC is poetic, am I?

What's interesting is that a city can be something different to everyone else. Media is so effective at portraying a city. NYC has an almost mythical status with Friends, Seinfeld, Sex in the City, and even more contemporary content creators like Casey Neistat or Kelly Wasaka.

I've really enjoyed my time here! Surprisingly, it's been harder to make friends than I anticipated, but I've gotten up to so many things.

In mid August I attended a poetry retreat for 5 days at the Outlier Inn. Essentially it was an adult summer camp. In good summer camp fashion people were horny as hell. Tons of people were fawning over the owner of the Outlier Inn his mystique and how hot he was. I was perplexed, and still am (respectfully!). Unsurprisingly some of people affiliated with poetry camp are also involved with Poetry Brothel. Upon further reflection it makes sense poetry is sensual, attraction is in the brain, and having a way with words can take you very far!

I learned about poetry camp through Fractal University where I attended an 8 week poetry class. Even though I felt quite inept at literary pursuits. I've struggled to read Toni Morrison's Beloved, and am often too literal.

The city itself is full of poets! Maybe because big metro areas lend themselves to arts, or because sitting on the subway provides time for observation and reflection. The subway itself features poems, in the place where there could be ads, in an incredibly capitalist city / society!

In an effort to meet more people I attended neighborhood happy hours, where I met a poet. When I informed my tap teacher that I was missing class for 4 weeks partially due to poetry camp I learned that a classmate is a poet! That poet has since gifted me some poetry books! When I attended a no office holiday party with friends the one other person we talked to was a poet.

In the winter, a friend invited me to a Timothy Goodman pop up show. Surprise surprise he's a poet / artist. In line for that event I met a fellow Floridian. We exchanged numbers and went to the Moma together one day. She invited me to her birthday. The main person I talked to at her birthday party was a poet who had performed at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. I enjoy following the connective threads of life. Surfacing the serendipity.

Am I a poet?

I struggle with identity! I've tap danced for two years, but I don't consider myself a tap dancer. I was born in Colombia, my parents were born and grew up in Colombia, and some grandparents were even born and lived in Colombia, but am I Colombian? Is our family Colombian? Only a few generations before most of my ancestors were living in Eastern Europe, maybe Romania, Moldova, Ukraine? We definitely aren't Romanian, Moldovan, or Ukrainian though.

We are part of the Jewish Diaspora. I do and don't feel Jewish. A classic case of 2 Jews 3 opinions. At work we had a teammate move to Israel. I was asking him about the move, and he didn't want to share much, because it was personal. To learn more from the person I told him I am Jewish. He said he didn't know I was Jewish, but that it made sense because my brother and I are so irreverent. I was laid off from this job. I'd like to think it's because of my irreverence, but that's a whole separate story!

I'm white passing, hispanic passing, and Jewish passing / non passing. Once in the Bay Area I attended a South East Asian open mic night. One of the people I met there ran a BIPOC (black indigenous and other people of color) yoga that someone tried to invite me to, which I was promptly uninvited to for being white. On that night I was definitely a hispanic named Jose stating that I was a Colombian, could I not attend the yoga event?

Sometimes people ask if I am hispanic because of my name, or they want to know if I speak Spanish so they can practice with me. Sometimes people don't even consider that I am hispanic despite my name.

In reality we're all poets, or at least have poetic qualities. Poetry relies on language, and emotional experiences things we experience daily. Poetry is also about interesting use of language, and making connections. For instance,

So. There I am. Nude. Splayed out on a car like a slutty

chicken, and I'm screaming about the government

The above lines from The Future by Neil Hilborn definitely make an interesting connection. In fact one of my favorite lines of poetry is from Ellen Bass's Indigo:

I want to have married a man who wanted
to be in a body, who wanted to live in it so much
that he marked it up like a book, underlining,
highlighting, writing in the margins, I was here.

My mom absolutely detests tattoos, so it' very cool to see them in a different perspective and described so beautifully.

NYC is poetic in the way it reveals and thrusts you into unexpected interconnectedness. Whether it's in the form of having an unexpected experience, running into a friend who moved from SF in the subway, or running into my cousin on the Hudson Greenway. I look forward to continuing to experience living in the city, and marveling about how massive it is yet how frequently chance encounters occur, as well as other unexpected entertaining serendipity.