D Hideo Maruyama 4/4/25 D Hideo Maruyama 4/4/25

We are becoming a Review Site.

Given how ChatGPT has been hoovering creative content on the Internet, it seemed wiser to focus on criticism versus original work. We can not duplicate what we did in the 90s. I do not have the volunteers to help with the process of creating essentially a book a year. Although the printing system is much better today, the art of editing content requires more than one eye. So, I am shifting to book reviews, and criticism. And no, we are not getting into critical theory.

What I intend to do is to help create an ecosystem in which we can do focused reviews of new books of poetry, and novels. We might also consider doing reviews of plays. This is something that I think also needs to happen, but I need a good critic of plays to work with me on this.

Additionally, I also think we can post interviews of up and coming AAPI artists. I am still working on the concept, but I think one way is to do interviews and to post the content both on this website and the dISorient Journalzine account.

This will be the focus of the relaunch. Additionally, I will continue to monitor the poetry scene in Southern California. Please go to our Instagram account to see the photodocumentation.

D Hideo Maruyama 4/4/25 D Hideo Maruyama 4/4/25

Elegy for Junior Baby For Peter J Harris (2 versions)

Prose

The Los Angeles Poetry scene lost one of its pillars, Peter J Harris. I’ve known PJ since the 90s, when I used to hang out at the World Stage and the Anansi Writers Workshop. PJ and Kambon Oba Obayani and I were always talking about poetry, jazz and the poetry scene. This was a time in which independent coffee shops held readings like at the Onyx and Cobalt Cafe. Poetry during the 90s was fierce with poets like Merilene M. Murphy, Dr Mongo and D Knowledge. (I started to use D Hideo Maruyama as a result of seeing how it worked with D Knowledge. There were too many Davids during that time with David Henry Hwang, David Mura, David Wong Louie.) PJ was the background music in my life. He has always been the Charles Mingus bassline pacing of my life.

Recently in 2021, PJ asked me to be a part of a California Arts Council study on the state of the arts in South Central. I agreed, and he asked me specifically because my now defunct organization, dISorient Journalzine and the 501c3 part called Aisarema, had worked with bringing in AAPI poets to Leimert Park during the 90s. Much of this started with an invitation by Father Amde and the Watts Prophets. We read periodically at 5th Street Dicks coffee shop. The poetry scene of the 90s was hot. Various groups ran city wide poetry festivals like When Words Collide in Long Beach in 1995. It was at this event in which I heard Allen Ginsberg spit out his verses. Poets read verses on rooftop bars, and clubs like Que Sera Sera, which launched Melissa Ethridge. dIS•Orient/Aisarema started to bring AAPI poets to Leimert Park on a regular basis, and then poet Irene Soriano continued to book things with her series, Wrestling Tigers. This was how I started to hang out in Leimert Park as a regular with the Anansi Workshop run by Michael Datcher.

This was a creative time for me. I was influenced by the Long Beach poetry scene with Gerald Locklin and Charles Webb being my MFA instructors. The shadow of Charles Bukowski was always present. My style was distinctly Long Beach, but with a level of research. I was also heavily influenced by the World Stage. I was a regular, and PJ and Oba and I would do the workshops, and the readings. I learned to edit at Long Beach State, but I finished at the World Stage. I also developed long standing friendships with Black men, who have always been a center of my development as an artist.

One day, the poetry stopped. I had pulled out of poetry during the 2000s when I felt that poetry was not getting any respect. This was also a time in which the scene changed as chain bookstores and Starbucks impacted the scene. The arts were effectively defunded during the 2000s, when Sacramento defunded the California Arts Council which defunded the Small Organization grants that allowed the 501c3 Aisarema to publish dIS•orient Journalzine. The minute this happened, I switched to playwriting. I did this because I felt that my voice might be heard in theater, so I started to do the David Henry Hwang Writer’s Institute workshops at East West Players. For a period of time, I disappeared from the Anansi Writers Workshop at the World Stage. I still remained in contact with PJ and Oba, but I stopped writing poetry. But I kept in touch with my poetic friends.

PJ has always been around like a quiet Mingus bassline. Eventually, I discovered that he was working on a play, which would become The Johnson Chronicles. He was a prolific creater of poetry, a radio man, and an organizer. He was always making work, and I admired him for this. At one theater centric gathering, PJ asked if I was getting a book done. I said, not yet. At that time, I did not think I could get a book done, as I write mostly long poems. Who reads poetry anyway? At one point, I realized that my playwriting was probably not going to go beyond a certain level of development. I would get rejected in the process of writing a short play at the Company of Angels theater group, and I moved back to writing poetry again. This was further reinforced when a musician friend of mine said my plays are boring. A visual artist friend of mine said my poetry was better.

In 2016, I heard that there was a new anthology focusing on Leimert Park, and there was a call for submissions. There was a previous edition of Voices from Leimert Park edited by Shonda Buchanon. She was doing a follow up, and I eventually decided to revisit an old poem, “Quartz City” which originally was started at a screenplay in verse. I converted it back to conventional poetry, and it was accepted into Voices of Leimert Park Redux. When I went to the release party, I saw PJ again. We started to talk like no time had passed, and he asked me again about when I was going to get a book done.

In 2023, I really dived into poetry hard. By this year, I became a father, and I realized that as an older father, I needed to make sure that my daughter could really get an insight of her dad. This time it was through the Community Literature Initiative run by HIram Sims. This was connected to the World Stage Press, and I was back into the Leimert Park ecosystem. I already had the bulk of the content for a book in my hard drives. Some of them required using some software to convert old WriteNow files into MS Word. Utlimately, I managed to recover the bulk of my poetry, and revised some of them. Most have been workshopped during my MFA coursework at Long Beach State. After a year with CLI, I completed my manuscript which was initially titled, Quartz City, but was changed to Taiko Quartz Beat thanks to the advice of Pam Ward and Mike the Poet and Hiram Sims. I integrated my photography work into the manuscript.

PJ has been the bassline in my life. When are you going to get a book done, Dave?

Before I could return to the Anansi Writers Workshop again, PJ had passed. I never got to tell him that I finally got a book together. In this sense, I regret not getting back into writing verse earlier. PJ had worked with a lot of AAPI artists. Kristina Wong, traci kato-kiriyama come first to my mind. He was an editor for the Altadena Poetry Review, and he also worked with Teresa Mei Chuc. One of the key aspects of PJ was his ability to get people together. He was a bridgebuilder.

I wished I had the time to present my book to him.

PJ, I finally did get that book done.

December 2024

———————————————————————————————————————————————

Poetry Version

Elegy for Junior Baby

For Peter J Harris

I. 2024

I remember Junior Baby.

Put down your gun.

Pick up your baby.

I remember Junior Baby.

PJ had this specific smile,

And an affirmation of your work . . .

Even if he thought it was shit.

He still approved

that you were at least still shitting.

Better to be shitting

than to have poetic constipation.

He was quietly raging against bias

Up-raising Black men who were fathers.

I never viewed him as a father.

I viewed him as brother in words.

There could be years between conversations.

Writing plays required moving in different circles,

But I still found him as he explored plays as well.

We both agreed to keep on working.

He always asked me,

“Dave, when are you getting your book done?”

II. 1997

When you looked up recluse,

You might have seen my picture.

I generally didn’t talk

Unless I read poems

or lectured

about how Thomas Jefferson

knocked up his slaves.

During the 90s,

PJ, Kambon Oba Obayani and I

Used to hang out after readings at the World Stage.

We would make plans for other readings to spit out words.

PJ and I didn’t often talk about poetry.

We talked about other things like Jazz.

Most of the time, I was listening to Thelonious.

And he noticed my cadence was like Thelonious.

My affection for Thelonious and Bud Powell

Would be accented by John Coltrane.

Oba would offer a comment about phrasing.

We agreed Miles was better

before Bitches Brew.

Other times, we would gossip about the scene,

D Knowledge, Michael Datcher.

The Watts Prophets would join us,

at 5th Street Dicks under the quiet shifting

of chess pieces.

Oba, PJ and I did not always talk about art.

We would sometimes point out how hot a poet was.

How her verses were rippling off her luscious tongue.

How it would be interesting to give her some new pacing.

PJ noticed I was looking one night.

“I wish I could do some drumming, but I’m a loyal man.

You’re single, why not try out her phrasing Dave?”

I was by my nature extremely shy,

And there would be no drumming that night.

He just wanted me not to be so tight.

I am still too tight.

“Come on Dave! Damn!

Alright.”

III 2003

I disappeared from it all.

As an editor, I was more well known.

Dissing orientalism with dISorient Journalzine.

One day, California defunded small organizations.

My zine had to close shop.

In the 2000s, I thought poetry was dead.

I stopped going to the World Stage.

I stopped writing poetry.

I thought poetry was dead.

No one was going to read my lines.

No one was going to see what I wrote.

No one was going to know my verses.

And I had an MFA in Creative Wretchedness.

I dropped out and

started to write plays.

But PJ would soon remind me

Writing was a creative act.

I wanted to see if I could be like Shakespeare,

And write a play using blank verse.

It was soon clear that no actor wanted to read it.

I started to write conventional plays.

One day, I found out PJ had dropped into playwriting,

And wanted to create his own version

Of the Vagina Monologues.

So much about the Johnsons.

It’s like he was watching me write,

Even after I had left the World Stage sidewalk.

He was working on his monologues,

And I was trying to figure out production.

Maybe he was mocking me

For not using my Johnson at the right time.

Another day a musician friend told me,

Your plays are boring.

Shit, I’ve been shitting shit.

Have these years been just shit?

A decade and only two short plays

staged?

“So when is that book coming out, Dave?

Come on, Man!”

IV 2017

I came back

To poetry.

I reworked some old poems

And sent them into an anthology.

When I got my copy of Voices of Leimert Park,

I saw his name listed, as well as Father Amde.

I slowly re-engaged the world of verses,

And PJ asked when I was going publish a book.

Again, No clue.

“Come on Dave!”

V 2021,

One day, PJ called me up.

“I am doing a study of the arts in South Central.

I know you can bring an AAPI view of South Central.

No pressure. Do you want to participate?”

I did not deny this request.

A friend asks a favor,

A friend should say yes.

And so, the interviews started.

His trust in me was unwarranted.

I had only recently started to write verse again.

I have only started to submit to journals.

I have only started to get back in the game.

But he knew I was a historical record.

We both talked about the place of art,

How South-Central is a core of creativity in LA;

How South-Central mirrors Tupac’s poem about roses;

How South Central also needs stable venues for voices.

We talked about the importance of space,

But now I think what is space without the people?

What is the World Stage without PJ?

“Dave, it’s good, but you might want to do this.”

His shadow is still pestering

my lack

of confidence.

VI 2024

I am a person who is not tight with people.

I am perpetually guarded and walled off.

I was never guarded with PJ.

I did not feel that he would not listen to me.

I wish I was a better friend.

was closer to tell him of my troubles.

was the same guy he knew 30 years ago.

was better than what I am now.

My dreams now come coded

in my syntax.

Most mentors in my life

have been

Black men.

Floyd Clark

is a Black photographer

married to a Nisei.

He can speak some Japanese

and knows Crenshaw’s history.

He used to ask me,

Why Leimert Park?

It’s the poets.

Once hanging out at poetry readings again

Floyd called me up one day to critique me.

Your photos of Black poets suck.

Work on it.

I started to do

Viet Nguyen’s Sympathizer on HBO

One of the things that has been occuring as of late is the increase in representation of AAPI in films and on TV. In the past, we only got the Joy Luck Club, but nothing happened afterwards. Things have drastically changed in the past 10 years. During the 1990s, we had very little in terms of exposure for AAPI in film, and AAPI writers were also not given the opportunities which were locked down by both the combination of mainstream writers and the New York Publishing Houses.

Today, we have Viet Nguyen’s The Sympathizer on HBO. Consider this thought: HBO brought us Game of Thrones, The Sopranos, and other series. Given this context, having an AAPI centric show on HBO is a big win.

Congrats to Viet, who was part of the Editorial Board of dISorient Journalzine during the early days.

D Hideo Maruyama 4/4/24 D Hideo Maruyama 4/4/24

Will try to go to print???

After some thoughts about the nature of the Internet, and the growth of Generative Artificial Intelligence, I’ve decided to go to a traditional hard copy version of dISorient Journalzine.

After some thoughts about the nature of the Internet, and the growth of Generative Artificial Intelligence, I’ve decided to go to a traditional hard copy version of dISorient Journalzine. Again, everything is still in the formative stage, but I believe in hard copy zines can have a more safer situation given how things like ChapGPT scavenges across the net to generate its content.

When the zine was first created, this was before we had 5g on iPhones, and we used desktop publishing programs and print houses with runs of about 500 copies. The costs were about $2000 per run, which also included a designer for the zine. The editorial work was entirely voluntary, and we had several editorial boards rotate over time. Towards the end of the run, I had specific demographics run dedicated versions of the zine, which essentially became almost mini-anthologies. I intend to do much of the same with the revamp.

I am picking up a fancy book scanner, and I intend to scan the old editions of the zine for people to read. All of them are out of print, and therefore only accessible at UCLA’s Asian American Studies Center library.

I had received a number of submissions when I was trying to go online. One of them was from Amy Uyematsu. She had always supported the zine, and she was instrumental in its success.

Much love to Amy Uyematsu.

D Hideo Maruyama 2/1/23 D Hideo Maruyama 2/1/23

So it begins

AAPI Arts and Literature

dISorient Journalzine has been under hibernation for several decades. When the California Arts Council was defunded in the early 2000s, and the grants that supported various community-based arts organizations vanished, so did dISorient Journalzine.

This website is a resurrection of the zine, but it will also feature a section for overall literary events in the Southern California basin. I hope this website will become a resource for AAPI-related arts.