Tag disability

microreview: Songs For Wo​(​Men) 2 by Mugabi Byenkya

José Angel Araguz 5 Comments

review by José Angel Araguz

A photo of Mugabi's mixtape as a cassette outside of its case.
A photo of Mugabi’s mixtape as a cassette outside of its case.

[CW: talk of suicide]

One of the gifts of lyric poetry is the way that it can hold space for a full range of truths as well as ways to access understandings of truth. I often tell writers that what we are after is awkward human utterance. This can be interpreted both as craft as well as content. Figuring out what needs to be said as well as how it needs to be said–this is the gift and animation of engaging with poetry and its truths.

These thoughts are on my mind after spending time with the digital album Songs For Wo​(​Men) 2 (Hello America Stereo Cassette) by Mugabi Byenkya. This album’s narrative arc centers the experiences of a disabled body navigating an able-bodied world as well as the themes of intimacy and love and their role in survival. What charges through the listening experience is Byenkya’s lyric sensibility.

The opening to “Tina,” for example, sets a scene deftly then quickly makes clear what the stakes are:

Housekeeping keeps knocking on the door telling me to open up. I sit and listen. I’m the reason that the towel rack lies mangled askew on the chalky linoleum floor, wondering how much this is going to rack up in charges, wracking my mind for a convincing enough excuse, because I had a seizure while getting out of the shower is a little too much truth, a little too much awkward silence, a little too much shifty eyes, a little too much tiptoeing past the room but barging in when the fork clatters to the ground, a little too much.

The scene here depicts the liminal space of having to negotiate around vulnerability. The physical vulnerability of the moment runs parallel with the emotional vulnerability behind the speaker’s voice. Reading the words alone makes clear the mind at work; the wordplay of “open up” can be appreciated and lingered over in text, such a poignant note to hit before moving forward. Listening to Byenkya’s voice behind words, however, adds a further dimension, makes clear exactly the “opening up” to come.

The idea present in the phrasing “a little too much truth” lives at the core of this album. Byenkya’s awareness and ability to evoke for listeners moments of “a little too much truth” is a gift to watch in action. The track “Professor Poopy Pants” shows how this kind of truth can be accessed through humor:

No doctorate. But my pants are poopy. Did I just poop in my pants? Absolutely. There’s no fade to black like a scene in a movie cuz I just pooped my pants and that’s a major oopsies. You might be chuckling and wondering how I could get to the point where I poop in my pants while asleep; you won’t be chuckling when you discern that it’s due to me suffering from three strokes by the time I turn 23. At the time life was so stressful and depressing that pooping my pants was honestly a relief. For I went to bed most nights wishing for death, but that morning I woke up to some comic relief.

When listening to the track, Byenkya’s performance takes centerstage. He delivers the above lines with a swagger and play at first, only to ground that swagger in a tone of conviction as the lines move from play to the truth of the scene. This switch in tone occurs in text via word choice, as can be seen midway in this excerpt when the speaker moves from “poop” to “discern” midway, the physical language shifting to language of the mind.

More than analysis, this mixtape invites introspection, the speaker waxing through intimate raw recollections, sharing them with the listener in ways that spark insights. The blunt and direct statements throughout stand in stark contrast with the emotional tenor in which they are delivered:

My first thought upon waking up is suicide; my last thought before drifting off to sleep is suicide. I’m not often this frank about my suicidal ideation, but I am often this frank about my love for you.

This moment from “Laura” is a good example of the facility with which Byenkya creates moments of intimate juxtaposition that point to personal stakes. In doing this, Byenkya is able to tap into a lyric sensibility and draw out the poetic from vulnerability. Here, too, is another example of how “a little too much truth” is necessary to speak about what matters.

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Songs For Wo​(​Men) 2 can be found at Hello America Stereo Cassette site.
Find out more about Mugabi Byenkya’s work, at his site.

community feature: Artists Undeterred – Art Exhibit

José Angel Araguz Leave a comment

This week, I’d like to introduce a new type of feature on the Influence: community features. In these features, I’ll be promoting events put on by marginalized literary communities and spotlighting their efforts. If you have a community you feel should be highlighted, feel free to message me about it either on Twitter (@JoseAraguz) or email  (thefridayinfluence@gmail.com)

ArtistsUndeterredPrideFinalFlyer

For this first community feature, I’m bringing attention to “Artists Undeterred” an art exhibit which opens at the Pride Center of Staten Island on August 11th at 7pm. The opening will feature artist commentary by LeVar “Var” Lawrence and a performance by Open Doors Reality Poets, of which Lawrence is a core member. To find out more about the event and explore links to the featured artists, go here.

This event came to my attention via Ani Schreiber, an artist whose work is part of the exhibit. I have had the honor of having Schreiber’s artwork feature on four of my chapbooks and all three of my full length poetry collections. Her work is marked by a rich directness steeped in realism, imagination, and vision.

For those who might not know, Schreiber is also my partner. We have been together for eight years, married for four of those. Over the years that we’ve been a part of each other’s lives, I have watched Schreiber come to terms not only with her disability but also with herself as an artist. Now, it is a problematic trope to discuss a disabled artist in terms of “bravery” or “admiration,” mostly because it fetishizes and condescends to people who are simply being people. So when I say that I have a great admiration for Schreiber and her work, it comes from a place of artist to artist and is informed by our personal history.

I have been there when she’s had to stop working on a project due to physical limitations and seen the frustration of those moments. I have also seen her suss out new mediums to continue at her work. Watching her do this navigating of the intersection where artistry and disability meet has resonated with me. There are lessons in perseverance that come with an artist’s life that don’t fit into instructional guides, and that drive home that you never know what a person’s been through to get to the creative act.

In the clip below which serves as an introduction to the Open Doors Reality Poets, Ramon “Tito” Cruz reads the following lines:

Soledad es una cosa que no se puede hablar
La soledad es una cosa que to puede matar

(Loneliness is a thing of which you cannot speak)
(Loneliness is a thing that can kill you)

These lines point to the loneliness of hardship which the creative act acknowledges. Events like the “Artists Undeterred” exhibit create spaces where the art resulting from this acknowledgment is celebrated and seen.

To find out more about Open Doors, go here.