Creative Portland

Kaitlin: [00:00:00] Hey there. Do you think of yourself as a creative person? If you found yourself here and you're curious, you are. This is Creative Portland, the podcast made for you by the all volunteer team who organized the Creative Morning Series. Speaker Series in Portland, Oregon. I'm your host, Kaitlin, and I'm really glad you're here.

Each episode, we are going to share a talk from one of the most generous, inspiring, and creative people in this city. You'll hear from people doing things You probably already think of as creative people who paint, write books, illustrate comics, style photo shoots, make music, even sing opera. There are others who run companies or bake, a few who've broken world records, some who organize festivals, even a rodeo.[00:01:00]

They interrogate sorrow. They create joy. They play. I'm confident you'll take away something different from every person on this show. Each of these talks was originally recorded in front of a live audience, so sometimes they mention things that are on a screen, but those are pretty minor.

If anyone is bringing sexy back to poetry, it's Eric Tran. And yes, he'd be okay with us saying that. Eric is an Oregon Book Award winner and the author of poetry collection Mouth, Sugar, and Smoke. He gave this talk at Clinton Street Theater in April 2024. You can find more of Eric's work linked in the show notes and at veryerictran.

com. And special thanks to the authors who gave their permission for Eric to read their poems as part of his talk. Everybody.[00:02:00]

Eric Tran: The morning is my favorite time of day. For someone who sometimes gets burned when he walks into churches, there's something like very sacred about mornings that I really appreciate. And I love that I get to spend it all with you. And in that sacredness, I'm gonna, I'm gonna invoke. One of my favorite poets, Sam Sachs.

I'm just going to read this poem to you. It's a poem by Sam Sachs, it's called Butthole. Oh putrid

rose, oh floral gift from a dead god, I buried alive only to excavate and find still fresh. Oh myriad sweet sounds I make with it. Trumpet, trombone, tornado, goblin. Oh second mouth that gapes and swallows. Oh second mouth that [00:03:00] hungers for new tongue. Oh stomach that rests so far from the colon but still calls him cousin.

Oh come old world magic. Oh small hungry. How many octaves can you tuba? How many eloquent speeches come right from the gut? What countless phallic shapes have you named husband? What knuckle tucked into you? A dyke holding up all this stale water. Sweet you. Who birthed iron when I took too many women's multivitamins, claiming there's no such thing as gender.

Praise how you expand and shrink like a house's water pipes. Praise how when you bleed, you're always trying to tell me something. Praise you. Tiny gymnast. Beast with a breathing halo. Gold band that weds my strange body to the strange, strange [00:04:00] earth.

Hello! I'm so excited to be here with you all. Mostly, um, I live down the street and I come to the Clinton Street Theater quite often. Did you all know that, uh, Clinton Street Theater has the longest run, like, longest ongoing showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show? Um, and I thought I should honor that. If you've been to the Rocky Horror Picture, there's a part where they ask the audience, How many of you have never been here before?

Like, how many of you are Rocky Horror virgins? And if you've never been there, don't answer the question, it's a trap. Um, I think they make you strip down your underwear or something like that, um, and I won't do that. Um, but how many of you haven't read a poem this year? Raise of hands. Oh my god, all of you are so great.

You can picture me in my underwear as a, as a reward. Um, this is all to say, uh, we're going to [00:05:00] cover some poetry today. Um, actually we're going to talk about something called double entendre. But together, we're going to accept that there's a loose definition of double enchandra and we're just going to work with the understanding that it just means double meanings.

Um, some of these poems will be disgusting, and by that I mean very sexy. Uh, and hello, I'm Eric Tran. I wrote this book called Mouth, Sugar, and Smoke, Roasted Silly. Uh, it won the Oregon Book Award last year. Well, hold your applause because it, um, It lost an award as well. Uh, but I've also been featured in, on NPR's, , All Things Considered, , Poetry Daily, some other places too, that deign to have someone like me there.

A little bit more about me. Well, I guess more importantly, I should say that I'm growing up my hair. So this headshot is a little old. Um, but I still love white t shirts because they make my tits look amazing. Why is that [00:06:00] funny, Armin? Thank you so much, , to Creative Mornings, Kaitlin, for, uh, walking me through all this and Joan for recommending to me.

It's pretty incredible that I get to be here with you all. Um, so, uh, as mentioned, I'm a psychiatrist by training. I've been in med school for probably about 10 years or so. And I'm a poet by even more training than that. , I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, and then I left for North Carolina, and what I like to say is in exchange for my 20s, I got several, , graduate degrees, and then landed in Portland to finish my fellowship.

I bring this up, uh, with you today. Because this is sort of the, the nidus for this talk, I landed in Portland, 2022, the pandemic is obviously ongoing, but it's sort of the world had just reopened and everyone I talked to in Portland sort of still had this sort of shell shocked closed off quality to them.

And then here I landed, this brown queer guy [00:07:00] expecting No kind of response from a city that's known to be really white. And yet I was invited into so many spaces, including Creative Mornings, which is why I'm so grateful to be here. As mentioned, uh, I do a lot of poetry readings. Uh, it was quite surprising to be, uh, involved in that.

And then I became a co leader for this group called the PDX Queer Asian Social Meetup. And every time we have a meetup, I expect probably like three or four people to show up, but then we always end up sort of exceeding capacity. , and here's a picture of us being really cute, and by that I mean me being very cute.

Um, this is, the night is for the talk, because we're going to talk about double entendre, which I think is, uh, often known as jokes, particularly of a sexual nature, but hopefully at the end of the talk you think about how double entendre is actually a uniting of forces, and by extension a uniting of each other.

Because in a world where, you know, it's much easier to dehumanize one another for political agendas, like, [00:08:00] for example, we can't even say Palestine in the New York Times, uh, how important it is to remember our capacity, beyond what people tell us that we're able to do. Um, some disclosures. I am a poet and I have some books for sale.

Here it is again. Sales for the book, , benefit aid for Palestinians in need. And we'll cover some poems today. I really value diverse, uh, voices, diverse writers. And somehow, all these poets ended up being super hot.

And I've only flirted with half of them, so. Let's go back to Sam Sachs butthole, which I'm sure is a phrase that he's heard many times. Um, I wanted to open up with this. Because it's such a good example of entendre. So if you think about entendre as double meaning, so things that he's said so far that are equivalent to a butthole or may, butthole may have a double meaning into the idea of a rose, which feels important to say in Portland's city of roses.[00:09:00]

Um, so certainly the butthole looks like a rose, right? The sort of, uh, concentric rings. but if you, Push a little further. You think about what do you do with the roses when you see them, you put your nose directly into them, right, which you should do that with buttholes too, or you could do that with buttholes.

I shouldn't tell you. I shouldn't shouldn't do. Um, so now there, you know, there's a double entendre with buttholes in terms of looks, but then also smells later. He says the butthole is like a trombone, both again in terms of shape, the hole at the top. , but then you think about sound, what sound does a tuba make, what sound does the butthole make?

And then what do you do with the tuba? You put your mouth on it and you blow as hard as you can. Sometimes there's finger movements involved too. Um, and maybe that's something you should associate with buttholes as well. And then the final example I have is he, he likens in the, in the last line, buttholes to rings.

And I love that Sam is talking about these really mundane objects. Sure you could talk about butt holes as [00:10:00] craters, as the rings of Saturn as a black hole. Something really lofty, but then you might never think about it again. 'cause how often do you run into black holes? Right? But you run into rings all the time.

So what I hope you do today is for those of you who wear wedding rings, you look at your fingers sometimes today and you think, oh yeah, I really love my wedding butt hole. Um. And, and not as a cheap thing, but to think about how we elevate the butthole, right? Because now the butthole is something that signifies love.

The butthole is something that we really value, is something that we really cherish. And why is that not the case? It does so much for us. Um, the next poem I have is, is, uh, an excerpt from the language in Question by Benjamin Garcia. He has a mouth on him. Yes bitch, but allow me this amendment. I've had several mouths on me, sometimes simultaneously, but let's not go there now.

Suffice to say, God gave me two ears and one mouth for reasons I've been unconvinced by. [00:11:00] God damn, my mouth has many uses. Eat, sing, bite, kiss, but most of all, insinuate. Have you ever been sucked? By the cups of an octopus's underside. The language in question is like that. It's a squish, worm like squirm that can contour and go down the wrong pipe.

If some words don't belong in poems, then I say those people can go fuck themselves. Just kidding. I don't really say that because they might actually enjoy it if they could only let themselves relax. Here's a word I thought I'd never have an occasion to use in a poem. Poppers. One whiff and even a novice novice could let the sphincter open just long enough for this octopus to pass.

Uvula. Violet. Vulva. I love this poem for sort of teaching entendres because it's not a [00:12:00] subtle poem in the same sense that entendres are not very subtle either. And that's the point of them. They're here to come to the forefront and in fact, bring things that are otherwise unsayable to the forefront in this poem itself.

It says that the most powerful thing that his mouth can do, the most pleasurable thing that his mouth can do is insinuate rather than outright say, but sort of say out the side of his mouth. Um, later he says that the language in question is just like that. Language itself has the power to insinuate, to bring from the shadows into something, into the light.

The language here is worm like, but that itself could also be pretty phallic, right? Um, later he brings up the word poppers, which is, , a sex paraphernalia, um, that is technically illegal to use in text, , but he brings it to the forefront anyways. The next poem I have is from a, a longer section called Novena, uh, by Jacques J.

Rancourt. Salve [00:13:00] Regina. There's a pistol down my throat. A magazine cocked in my hand. See what I've done? I came to him in the night while my parents were sleeping. Past amaryllises, past grapes frozen on the trellis. I came rosaries onto his chest. He was a gun. A game of Russian roulette. Laying on a moon like scorpions under a star studded sheet, my breath dismantled, our barbs leaking venom.

I brought this poem because entendre is not about comparing things that are too alike, right? Like if you compared a cock to a dildo, that wouldn't be pleasurable. It's exactly kind of saying the same thing. Entendre brings things in the shadow to the forefront that you otherwise would not expect to bring together.

So in this poem, a pistol and a cock. are kind of compared here, both something that you can put [00:14:00] down your mouth and fillate, but then also the use of the word copped to describe a gun also then brings the associations together. Later, he talks about calming rosaries, which are not things that I would have put together, but now you have this image of things dripping down someone's neck, of something that someone maybe toys with in times of distress.

I bring this up to sort of lead to our last couple of poems. This is one by one of my favorite poets. It made quite the rounds during the Ferguson shootings. Uh, maybe I'll read it to you first and then talk about it in a little bit. It's called, uh, it's by Danez Smith. It's called Alternate Names for Black Boys.

One, smoke above the burning bush. Two, nemesis of summer light. Three, first sun of soil. Four, coal awaiting spark and wind. Five, guilty until [00:15:00] proven dead. Six Oil heavy Starlight. Seven Monster until proven Ghost. Eight. Gone. Nine boy. 10 Phoenix who forgets to un ash. 11. God of shovels and black veils. 12.

What once passed for kindling. Thirteen fireworks at dawn. Fourteen brilliant shadow colored coral. Fifteen, I thought to leap this blank but who am I to nameless nothing. Sixteen, prayer who learned to bite and sprint. Seventeen, a mother's joy and clutched breath. Eighteen. Maybe we wouldn't think about this as entendre, but using the sort of, uh, scaffolding that we have already, a couple of things that this poem does, it brings things from the shadow to the light, , voices from the community that are [00:16:00] otherwise pretty oppressed.

I'll admit, for me, it wasn't until I sort of, uh, was reading more about the Ferguson shootings. That I understood, maybe for the first time, black oppression by the police state. And the poem brings that to light. It also brings things together that are otherwise, uh, we wouldn't necessarily associate. Uh, so for here, uh, a phoenix who forgets to ash.

So you think about a human that was compared to a mythological bird who's on fire, um, but being covered in ash both associates the color of the skin, but also maybe a new rebirth, which then implies a recent death, , and a comparison to a mother's joy and clutched breath, guilty until proven dead, brings together associations that make sense.

Now that we see them together, right? Like how often black men in particular are targeted by the police, a mentor of mine said that all art should have this quality. That it should be [00:17:00] surprising and yet inevitable.

The last poem that I'll share by another poet today is by Kyle Carrero Lopez. I bring this up because I think often we might conflate entendre with euphemism, but I'm here to argue they are different and in fact, opposite. Whereas entendre wants to bring things from the shadows into the light, euphemism is what we use when we're too scared to say what we need to be saying.

In this poem, Kyle is making fun of euphemism. So in this poem, instead of saying black, he uses POC, which is a more, I suppose, politically correct euphemism, um, that feels safer. Black erasure. Nina Simone saying POC is the color of my true love's hair. And they say POC don't crack. And let us bless Gumbo, Quimbombo, and POC eyed peas, and POC [00:18:00] weddings, and broom jumps, and Danez Smith wrote, and even the POC guys profile reads, sorry, no POC guys.

And to flirt with men. And to flirt, men have asked if I'm POC where it counts. And hey, remember outcry over POC Rue in the Hunger Games? POC Hermione? POC James Bond? POC Spider Man and Mary Jane? And when cops kneel on POC necks, the autopsies that come next can lie, can blame underlying conditions, and POC lives matter to the public about a week at a time.

What I hope this presentation has done so far is to encourage you to not use euphemism, to think about entendre instead. If there are surprising yet inevitable associations that you have, particularly to one another, particularly to groups that you otherwise would ignore or are minoritized [00:19:00] further, how can you bring them together?

How can you bring them towards the I'm going to close, uh, with one of my poems. That I hope maybe, um, enacts one of those ideas. This is called, uh, well, it's a little too late now to sell you. If you have kids, you should probably leave. But if you have kids, you should probably leave. This is called Party at Shit's House.

It's from my friend McKinley.

In the sun spattered morning after my first post breakup rebound, after asking this guy all weekend to absolutely wreck me. After admitting it's like flipping a coin, if bottoming will delight or bleed me, I shared with my straight friend the shame of that one night stand, that night's massive third leg, [00:20:00] how I was so swept to the ground that I stole that man's sock so that after my life might smell more like him, that in that last inevitable Enviable elephantine careening towards the edge of blowing my load.

I let my heart go free for the first time in months and shit myself. And that man's still hard dick. And my friend, so loving and so, so straight, considered his regret black coffee and said, You know, you shouldn't show up to a party at shit's house.

And be upset when shit is there.

But you don't [00:21:00] know, I wanted to say. My rebound felt warmth spilling down his leg and asked if that was his cum leaking out. No, I had to say, that's me. The stink of me that has nowhere else to hide. You don't know, I wanted to say, I still think about this other man who fucked me too hard, and I didn't ask him to stop.

Instead, I offered to blow him in exchange for a moment of relief. I remember licking blood and bowel off my teeth and was grateful for that escape. I never told you. Last year, another beautiful man forced his hands onto me, and I wanted nothing more than to be asleep. I mean, what use is a shit eating grin when you could have silence instead?

When that beautiful man left, I stripped down the bed and left the sheets to [00:22:00] fall like kudzu across a starving field. I dreamt of them grabbing my legs and still managed to catch myself because, friend, I want to believe that you believe that I am strong in some ways that matter. I want my body to be known and somehow still mine alone, but maybe, maybe I want you to say Eric, of course you're strong against what scares you most.

Of course you're so beautiful and so stupid to think your body will ever be separate from mine. When we hold each other, no light will pass between us. I mean, we will hold each other how the moon holds up the night. So friend. I want you to bring your knuckles to my door. Tell me to answer it. [00:23:00] I'll say, welcome.

It's me. Shit. I'll tell you how I haven't straightened up for company, but that there's cake in the freezer for moments like this. All you have to say is, Yes, Eric. Traffic was awful. We experience such awful things. Together, now be a darling. Take my coat.

Kaitlin: This podcast is produced by the all volunteer crew who bring you Creative Mornings events in Portland, Oregon. You can reach us at morningsportland at gmail. com and watch the videos of all the talks that are featured on this podcast plus others.

to the Regional Arts and Culture [00:24:00] Council, whose 2024 grant funding helped us launch this podcast. Thank you also to our sustaining partner, Wacom, who make each of these original events possible, and to Cova Coffee, who caffeinate everyone who attends. Thank you to Johnny and Simon of Weird Wonderful for their audio production and podcast wizardry.

And just a huge hug to each person who's been part of the Creative Mornings Portland volunteer team over the years. Thank you to Antha, Rogan, Shemisa, Charlie, Chelsea, Christopher, Crystal, Elizabeth, Hannah, Yvonne. Joan, Julia, Kavir, Laura M, Laura N, Leah, Lucy, Sarah, Sumit, Tyler, and [00:25:00] Vinny.