“Occupation Poem” is a collective bus stop intervention that took place in the border zone of Occupy LA during the 5-6pm rush hour. Collaborators asked people waiting for the bus:

1. What’s your occupation?

2. How do you occupy your time?

All conversations were transcribed on to index cards to be utilized as source text for new poems and given away for free at other Occupy sites around the USA. To be continued in 2012.

Supplies:

Sign, pens, index cards, clip boards, object to collect cards (small bucket).

Methodology:

Site specific = check out the space ahead of time. Locate the border zones of the Occupy movements. Discover ways to interact with the public, especially the people who do not have the leisure time to actively participate. A political movement is a social movement, talk and document. The poem will exist simultaneously on and off the page.

A definition of activist writing:

My poetry stems from curiosity, a search exploring the endless possibilities of language. I uncover communication: pushing, pulling, taking language apart, putting it back together, and finding places for all of the missing pieces. I believe that to survive is to communicate-belong, belonging, keep going.

Further examples:

Revolutionary Optimism (2006), Walking Poem (2006), Beast Poem (2007), 4000 Words 4000 Dead (2008), Survival Tactics (2009).