03/04/2022
When asked how, As a poet, does he conceptualize the city or his city...
????
Here's Tongo's reply....
Tongo-"Cities are very much just open-air prisons. I think you can argue this is true even for the
ruling class themselves and the way they’re cordoned off, or the way that they cordon themselves
off. The city, or the potential of a city, is a place where strides are taken in different cultural fields.
Theoretically, if a city is going according to plan, the engine of it is the fact that none of us have to
grow crops all day long. We can get food from this cat who loves to make food. Survival in a
theoretical city is collective. From that standpoint, that is the opportunity for intersection, that is
what could bring the evolution of culture, the evolution of societies, civilizations. But in reality, we
just have open-air warehouses, open-air prisons. We have a police state. We have corporate culture
that is solely there to inhibit everybody and everything. The poet, as perceiver, has a galaxy of food
to write about. Poetry itself is presence in the present moment, taking any little snapshot and
pulling a million things out of it. The possibilities are endless, including the oppression and social
farce of this ridiculous system and society.
Now, I think that the poet is not immune to how everyone else is socialized. Getting back to the
cultural domination that’s perpetuated and just kind of compounded in this stage of imperialism,
it’s almost like cities are caricatures of themselves, are corporate re-imaginings of themselves. It’s
such a stunted time, and the best mind to keep under control is stagnant, predictable, and
dependent. I think the poet isn’t saved just by the virtue of their craft or of their talent. But there
is the opportunity to do the cultural work, and also the poet…I’ve never used that term.
[Sarcastically.] “The poet.”
But we’re almost like the trickster spirit roaming around. We need no equipment. All we need is
one person. If you’re with me, I can expand your perception, go, “Oh, no, take a look at this; take
a look at that,” until you see what’s truly wrong. In a way, [poets] are like the guerilla art, and
almost the invincible art, because poetry is not a martial art. It’s just mind. It’s just thoughts. I
mean, you add a voice to it, and when you do, you enter this physical universe barely. Definitely
not enough to strike at [it]. Because poetry can take place anywhere. If we think of a see-saw, the
poet is in a super impressionable, vulnerable position because we don’t really have a church, you
know? We don’t have a venue, like a club that we play in, or an art studio to protect us. We just have
a pen and whatever else. We can sit down and hang on for dear life, trying to write a poem. Not to
mention, the institutional, academic domination of poetry. To a certain extent, all of that makes the
poet vulnerable.
So if we do fall into American hegemony, we can’t fall. I mean it’s a tall order, and even the craft
itself is very much a loner craft. To be a musician is instant unity — we’re a band; we’re together, you
know what I’m sayin’? Dancers, together. Actors, together. Painters, not necessarily together, but they
got mighty walls. We’re just nothing — but on the flip, we are the most effective agitators. It’s not a
coincidence that poets are very much at the center of radical renaissance. Anytime you have a radical
renaissance, there’s a poet in the mix, if not at the center."When asked how, As a poet, does he conceptualize the city or his city...
????
Here's Tongo's reply....
Tongo-"Cities are very much just open-air prisons. I think you can argue this is true even for the
ruling class themselves and the way they’re cordoned off, or the way that they cordon themselves
off. The city, or the potential of a city, is a place where strides are taken in different cultural fields.
Theoretically, if a city is going according to plan, the engine of it is the fact that none of us have to
grow crops all day long. We can get food from this cat who loves to make food. Survival in a
theoretical city is collective. From that standpoint, that is the opportunity for intersection, that is
what could bring the evolution of culture, the evolution of societies, civilizations. But in reality, we
just have open-air warehouses, open-air prisons. We have a police state. We have corporate culture
that is solely there to inhibit everybody and everything. The poet, as perceiver, has a galaxy of food
to write about. Poetry itself is presence in the present moment, taking any little snapshot and
pulling a million things out of it. The possibilities are endless, including the oppression and social
farce of this ridiculous system and society.
Now, I think that the poet is not immune to how everyone else is socialized. Getting back to the
cultural domination that’s perpetuated and just kind of compounded in this stage of imperialism,
it’s almost like cities are caricatures of themselves, are corporate re-imaginings of themselves. It’s
such a stunted time, and the best mind to keep under control is stagnant, predictable, and
dependent. I think the poet isn’t saved just by the virtue of their craft or of their talent. But there
is the opportunity to do the cultural work, and also the poet…I’ve never used that term.
[Sarcastically.] “The poet.”
But we’re almost like the trickster spirit roaming around. We need no equipment. All we need is
one person. If you’re with me, I can expand your perception, go, “Oh, no, take a look at this; take
a look at that,” until you see what’s truly wrong. In a way, [poets] are like the guerilla art, and
almost the invincible art, because poetry is not a martial art. It’s just mind. It’s just thoughts. I
mean, you add a voice to it, and when you do, you enter this physical universe barely. Definitely
not enough to strike at [it]. Because poetry can take place anywhere. If we think of a see-saw, the
poet is in a super impressionable, vulnerable position because we don’t really have a church, you
know? We don’t have a venue, like a club that we play in, or an art studio to protect us. We just have
a pen and whatever else. We can sit down and hang on for dear life, trying to write a poem. Not to
mention, the institutional, academic domination of poetry. To a certain extent, all of that makes the
poet vulnerable.
So if we do fall into American hegemony, we can’t fall. I mean it’s a tall order, and even the craft
itself is very much a loner craft. To be a musician is instant unity — we’re a band; we’re together, you
know what I’m sayin’? Dancers, together. Actors, together. Painters, not necessarily together, but they
got mighty walls. We’re just nothing — but on the flip, we are the most effective agitators. It’s not a
coincidence that poets are very much at the center of radical renaissance. Anytime you have a radical
renaissance, there’s a poet in the mix, if not at the center."
