“Like a character from fiction, I will take you on your own terms.”
From “Moment at the 2004 Miss Indian USA Pageant with Velroy”
Close to New Year’s Eve last year, I got a phone call from my friend, Sy Hoahwah. He said that he and some friends were going to be coming through town on their way to California, where he would be doing some readings to promote his new book of poetry, Velroy and the Madischie Mafia. We’d been talking on the phone a lot recently because he said he was considering moving out here to Lawton, where he has family. Sy and I were fellow students in the MFA program at the University of Arkansas several years ago. I’m not sure I knew then that we both had connections to Lawton. I don’t think it came up until I was getting ready to move back here. But I was not surprised to learn it was true because Sy has a quiet, easy and open way of being that was familiar and appealing to me, especially in a place where I felt strange most of the time. I think it may be a regional thing—that openness. Maybe it has something to do with the plains.
At any rate, I was so excited to hear that Sy might be moving out here that I commenced making promises to do whatever I could to help, bearing in mind that my primary skills are enthusiasm and good intentions. So when he called and said he was coming through in two days and wondered if he could do a reading while he was here, I said, “Heck yes you can do a reading while you’re here! In two days!” I then added panic to my repertoire of useful skills.
The panic was unnecessary, it turns out, as I had only to call up my friend, Sam McMichael’s, who participates in and helps to organize the monthly open mic readings (sponsored by Sigma Tau Delta) at the Unitarian Universalist Church on 8th and B Ave. Sam said that we could use the church for the reading, and he and several other regular open mic readers and listeners helped to get the word out. So it happened that a pretty good crowd turned out on January 2nd to hear an amazing local poet read.
Sy’s casual demeanor suited the impromptu gathering well. Listening to him read was not very different from listening to him talk to his friends. The reading was intimate and extremely gratifying. Perhaps it was especially rewarding for us because the landscape of the book is so familiar. The poems are about Comanche County, Oklahoma—about Madischie, the Witchita Mountains, Lake Lawtonka.
In a review of Velroy and the Madischie Mafia published in the most recent World Literature in Review, Jeannette Calhoun Mish says, “Sense of place, in these poems, is also sense of history. The interpenetration of history and the present force an ironic perspective and a tolerance for contradiction.” The poems tell stories that are real and mythical, dark and humorous. They are plain and true. Not simple.
The poem “Comanche County,” for instance, describes Lawton in this way:
The poem “Comanche County,” for instance, describes Lawton in this way:
The town of Lawton is a courthouse lawn and hanging tree
God is everywhere
Even in the cheese dip served at El Cena Casa.
Jesus is the waitress
With big tits and psoriasis on the elbows.
Life was a Thanksgiving coloring book.
Everyone greeted this Indian with roasted turkey
And cornbread dressing.
I said that Sy has about him a quality of openness that I associate with the plains, and it may seem that I mean to say he is friendly--hospitable, like Oklahoma. There is some truth to that, I suppose, but what I really mean to say is that Sy is honest, and his poetry is honest in the same way the plains are open, honest and bare. Maybe they do have something to hide, but they have nowhere to hide it. What you see is what you get, if you bother to look. And you should bother to look.
If you missed it the first time, I’m sure you’ll be glad to know Sy Hoahwah will be reading from his book again on April 23rd at 7pm at the Leslie Powell Gallery at 620 SW D Avenue. Don’t miss this opportunity to meet the poet, to hear him read and to pick up a copy of his book. It is also available through West End Press, and you can read excerpts at the Poetry Foundation Website.
God is everywhere
Even in the cheese dip served at El Cena Casa.
Jesus is the waitress
With big tits and psoriasis on the elbows.
Life was a Thanksgiving coloring book.
Everyone greeted this Indian with roasted turkey
And cornbread dressing.
I said that Sy has about him a quality of openness that I associate with the plains, and it may seem that I mean to say he is friendly--hospitable, like Oklahoma. There is some truth to that, I suppose, but what I really mean to say is that Sy is honest, and his poetry is honest in the same way the plains are open, honest and bare. Maybe they do have something to hide, but they have nowhere to hide it. What you see is what you get, if you bother to look. And you should bother to look.
If you missed it the first time, I’m sure you’ll be glad to know Sy Hoahwah will be reading from his book again on April 23rd at 7pm at the Leslie Powell Gallery at 620 SW D Avenue. Don’t miss this opportunity to meet the poet, to hear him read and to pick up a copy of his book. It is also available through West End Press, and you can read excerpts at the Poetry Foundation Website.
