The 'process notes' pieces were originally solicited by Maw Shein Win as addendum to her teaching particular poems and poetry collections for various workshops and classes. These poems and process note by Kim Shuck is part of her curriculum for her Poetry Workshop at University of San Francisco in their MFA Program for Spring semester of 2023. https://www.usfca.edu/arts-sciences/programs/graduate/writing-mfa
Since Maw has asked for process notes, let’s start with some things about the way that I write generally. For the last… erm, let’s say ten years, I’ve written a poem every day. For some of those years, I’ve posted them on social media. I started doing that because I had picked up the title of San Francisco Poet Laureate and too many people misunderstood that to mean that everything I wrote was a work of eye-watering genius. So, I posted every day to show that poetry is work and that I write a lot of poo. I put it on my Facebook writer page so that my friends had to visit to be confronted with the poo. What that activity has shown me is that I am a seasonal creature. I write about certain things at certain times of the year as the light, temperature, food, whatever pulls memories and thoughts out of me. Not everyone has time for a decade long experiment, but it was interesting and a good investigation if you are tempted.
I think that I was watching some Indigenous women in Canada on hunger strike when it occurred to me to do the first of what Dr. Jenny Davis has called my poetry actions. Hunger strikes are brave and direct, but some of the things that I want to protest require more words, so I started doing a poem a day on specific topics. I generally do about 50 sometimes a few more but between 50 and 60 protest poems before I let go of the topic. Generally, I stop because the family stages an intervention, sometimes because the goal of the protest has been accomplished. Some of my poetry actions have been directed at local situations: the removal of the Early Days statue from San Francisco’s Civic Center. Sometimes I write about international concerns: murdered and missing Indigenous women. Sometimes I write about a generalized injustice: Poems for Trans Youth. There have been a few others, but these have gathered the most attention so at this time they are the most successful.
Murdered and Missing became a book.
Murdered and Missing
Day 15
Borders
Are the sites of
field amputations and
This two hundred
years has sharpened the clumsy
Exposed bones
This town
This road a canal and
locks that help the money flow
At specific levels
This town with
razored visible bone
This machine of
commerce
Decorates itself with
the bodies of our daughters
Their deaths are not
collectively a symptom
Each one is a gasping
tragedy
A name we whisper as
the year thins
As the light changes
And the money passes
along the blacktop canal
And the parasites
gather at the site of the injury
A place where blood
can be encouraged to flow
Murdered and Missing
Day 23
Colonial times are
now
Each body captured
One at a time
Violence
Keeping every one of
us
In a state of fear
Execution
A daily possibility
This one was difficult. I have my own personal experiences with MMIW, not least that while I was writing it one friend was shot and one young woman in the community was kidnapped. Even so, I thought that I should do more research than I already had, so I watched dozens of news reports, read even more trial transcripts, and spoke to people about their experiences. I don’t suggest doing this without a spotter. My partner and family were the ones who put the brakes on this one. I could have kept doing it, but it was changing me, and ultimately, I think that my loved ones were right. It was time to stop. The truth is that you notice more of what you’re looking for over time. If you pay attention to flowers, it’s what you see. If you intentionally get more aware of social injustice you will notice that things are very bad. It’s important to notice those things. It’s also important to be in your body. The family thought that I was getting angrier and more depressed, and they were right.
These days I’m writing daily poems that are not about murder, or not for the most part. I’m not posting them. I am sharing them with some friends in word documents organized by month. I’ve written in various places that what we are actually writing are tools: lock picks, prayers, maps. Sometimes it’s good to just let your subconscious kick out what it thinks you need. Sometimes it’s good to actually pilot the ship. It’s really important not to underestimate what the process does to you.
February 16, 2023
Mythical medicine
Baffled in predawn
clouds
Sometimes the road
is closed
Storm
Fire
Sometimes the road
is closed this is
Not longing these
Abandoned
foundations these
Bricks we make
Building a stair a
Way out a
Way down to the
river I don’t
Know what that
chord was the one they
Wove on that old
Home site
Weathered out now
but there are
Days when the
Sun and moon are
in the
Sky at the same
time and there is always that
Rumor of a
Cure
February 23, 2023
Promise of ice
Luxury of a house
Even if pierced by
Some other
intention the
Boarded window the
Tape and staples
After the
windstorm after the
Wind we can
Watch the weather
the
Kaleidoscope over
Well tempered
yards and
Trimmed trees over
Creeks their
Runoff controlled
our
Paths controlled
this
Lick of frozen
water a
Combination of
scent and
Shiver this west
is
Still primarily
Imagination
Kim Shuck is a silly protein. Shuck was the 7th Poet Laureate of San Francisco. Kim has edited, co-edited, wandered through the editing meetings of ten-ish anthologies (depending upon publication dates which are very subject to change) and is solo author of another ten books of prose and/or poetry. Shuck’s latest volumes are: This Wandering State, an anthology of San Francisco Poets, Noodle, Rant, Tangent, a collection of short prose, and Exile Heart, a poetry collection.
Maw Shein Win's recent poetry book is Storage Unit for the Spirit House (Omnidawn), which was nominated for the Northern California Book Award in Poetry, longlisted for the PEN America Open Book Award, and shortlisted for the California Independent Booksellers Alliance's Golden Poppy Award for Poetry. D.A. Powell wrote of it, "Poetry has long been a vessel, a container of history, emotion, perceptions, keepsakes. This piercing, gorgeous collection stands both inside and outside of containment: the porcelain vase of stargazer lilies is considered alongside the galley convicts, the children sleeping on the cement floors of detention cells, the nats inside their spirit houses; the spirit houses inside their storage units.…These poems are portals to other worlds and to our own, a space in which one sees and one is seen. A marvelous, timely, and resilient book." Win's previous collections include Invisible Gifts (Manic D Press); her chapbooks include Ruins of a glittering palace (SPA) and Score and Bone (Nomadic Press). Win’s Process Note Series on periodicities : a journal of poetry and poetics features poets and their process. She is the inaugural poet laureate of El Cerrito and often collaborates with visual artists, musicians, and other writers. mawsheinwin.com
