Friday, February 27, 2015

Poem of the Week: Roger Reeves




Self-Portrait as Vincent Van Gogh
in the Asylum at Arles

The moths in the orchard squeal
with each pass of the mistral wind.
Yet the reapers and their scythes,
out beyond the pear trees, slay wheat
in sure columns. Christ
must have been made of shocks
of wheat. When they lashed him,
four bundles of fine yellow burst forth
from each welt. And the women,
tarrying as they do now behind the swing
and chuff of the reapers' blades,
gathered and plaited the stray pieces
of wheat falling from his hips into braids,
long braids that would bind a tattered sail-
cloth over his yellow mouth, yellow feet.
Oh to be bound by one's own blood
like a burlap sack cinched around the neck
with a leather belt. Father forgive me
for the moths shrieking in the orchard
of my mouth. Forgive the rattle and clatter
of wings inside the blue of my brain.
Even if these iron bars queer a field,
queer a woman standing too close to a reaper's blade,
a half-moon hung and wholly harsh,
even if this woman, burdened like a spine
carrying a head and a basket of rocks,
forgets the flaw of a well-sharpened tool,
let her not mistake my whimper and warning
for the honk of a goose in heat. Father,
she is not made like our savior,
of straw, of a coarse tender. Nothing will stop
when her blood runs along a furrow.
The sun will not sag with a red scowl.
The field will not refuse water. Father,
I am unsure of what I am-
a fragrant mistral wind or a pile of moths' heads
at the foot of a pear tree. Father,
give me a scythe. Father, let me decide.

* * *
From King Me (Copper Canyon Press, 2013).
Used with permission.

* * *
Roger Reeves's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Best American Poetry, Poetry, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, Boston Review, and Tin House, among others. Reeves was awarded a 2014-2015 Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University, a 2014 Pushcart Prize, a 2013 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship and 2008 Ruth Lilly Fellowship, King Me, his first book of poems, was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2013. King Me has been awarded the 2014 Larry Levis Reading Prize by the creative writing program at Virginia Commonwealth University and the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award. He is an assistant professor of poetry at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

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Friday, February 20, 2015

Poem of the Week: Peter J. Harris

Photo by Adenike A. Harris 

Don't Even Pretend
(The Saturn Poem)


From the Washington Post - November 13, 1980:
BRAIDED SATURN RING ASTOUNDS SCIENTISTS

PASADENA, CALIF., -- "It defies the laws or orbital mechanics as I understand them but two components of the fifth ring out are braided," said Dr. Bradford Smith of the University of Arizona, one of the scientists gathered at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to study photographs being transmitted from [Voyager I]. "If the distribution of these braids is uniform around the entire ring then there are as many as 1,000 braids in the ring."

Not only is the fifth ring in braids, Smith said, but the 500-mile long braids appear to have kinks in them. Smith said that as bizarre as the braids are the kinks are even more bizarre. "If you look closely, you see abrupt bends in the braids, as if somebody took the surface and bent it," Smith said. "I don't even pretend to understand what this means."

Saturn's rings was all nappy
spread out from her head
like she just woke up
took a shower & aint dried them yet
dread locks
cluttered with moons/meteors/mysteries
so God, She said:

"girl...now you know
I can't let you be orbiting round me
looking like that. suppose we have company.
what they gon think of me?"

God took off from work
unscrewed Her Afro Sheen jar
washed Her comb & pick
sat under constellations
& told Saturn to sit on the space
between Her legs.

"honey, I got to plait your rings
even if I miss a day's pay."

      God got to cornrowing Saturn's rings

aint nothing more coaxing than God's hands
spreading each ring into 3 strands
sifting through rocks that was worlds eons ago
She finger Afro Sheen down the part
softening scalp/loosening crusty moons
stuck in orbit
She start humming Nina Simone
while threading wisdom down each row

"here comes the sun
little darlin
here comes the sun..."

hands so knowing
they tug/twist/twirl those knotty rings
& Saturn don't whine
just listen to the lyrics
& feel tight lightness
creeping along her scalp
down her back into infinity
Saturn close her eyes
& feel peaceful
like when God rubbed Her palms
for the sixth time & rolled rings
from the swirls in the fingerprints
of each hand

"here comes the sun
little darlin
here comes the sun..."

God weave bright beads, baubles & shells
yellow curves/purple swoops/blue loops
decorate the arcs spreading now
like the stiff necklaces
around the throats of Masai sisters

"there child. I'm finished!
my my, you look like a magic pinwheel
gracing space. Here, look in my corona
& see how pretty you are."

God hum & sigh
She got to rest these few more hours
work again tomorrow
smiling early from the east
glinting off Saturn's rings
like a fawn darting quenched from a water hole
and back into the forest

***
From Bless the Ashes, poetry (Tia Chucha Press/Northwestern, 2014).
Used with permission.
Photo by Adenike A. Harris.

***
Peter J. Harris is a native of Southeast DC and an alumnus of Ballou High School and Howard University. He is the author of Bless the Ashes, poetry (Tia Chucha Press), and The Black Man of Happiness: In Pursuit of My 'Unalienable Right,' a book of personal essays. He has published his work in a wide variety of publications since the 1970s. Since 1992, he's been a member of the Anansi Writers Workshop at the World Stage, in LA's Leimert Park. Visit his website at: www.blackmanofhappiness.com.

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Friday, February 13, 2015

Poem of the Week: Ailish Hopper


 


Ways to be White in a Poem

Tension makes
a form resound

and so the many lines I am told
not to cross

Do not go out alone at night
Do not call attention to yourself

Closer to the color line
the more I am
            White girl

fool

It is a while before
the other girls

correct me, gently. Good timbre needs
more air
          Shout out!

Muscles flex, quick-shift
          I stomp, impious

impervious, now

Do not dance suggestively
Hold a stranger’s eyes

That first day in the gym
I asked the row

Could I
             thinking
about cheers

elbows sharp, foregrounded

feet, cloud-
stepping
Never of
A cheer

as the body 
went up
As if I were.        Were not

Branch creaking
Rope taut

And, maybe you, too---
whoever you are---reading this

flicker

Do not touch
Or eat

Their food
Do not drink

From the same cup
***
From Dark~Sky Society (Western Michigan University, 2014). Used with permission.

***
Ailish Hopper grew up in DC, and is the author of Dark~Sky Society (2014), selected by David St. John as runner up for the New Issues prize, and the chapbook Bird in the Head (2005), selected by Jean Valentine for the Center for Book Arts Prize. Individual poems have appeared in Agni, APR, Blackbird, Harvard Review Online, Ploughshares, Poetry, Tidal Basin Review, and other places. She has received support from the Baltimore Commission for the Arts and Humanities, the MacDowell Colony, Maryland State Arts Council, and Yaddo. Her essays on art and literature that deal with race have appeared in or are forthcoming in Boston Review, The Volta, and the anthology,A Sense of Regard: Essays on Poetry and Race. She is currently at work on an essay about imagining the world after the reign of white supremacy. She teaches at Goucher College.

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Friday, February 6, 2015

Poem of the Week: Bettina Judd


THE INAUGURATION OF EXPERIMENTS,
December 1845

Lucy didn’t scream like most.  Though sometimes she 
would moan--deep,   long   and   overdue.     I’d wake 
thinking death. It’s her, knees curled under, head face 
down, her body trying to move out of itself. Anarcha 
and  I  take  turns  wiping  her  head  with  cool  rags, 
warming her feet with our hands, singing to her. She 
would join  in  a  voice  so  low  it wasn't like she was 
singing at all but whispering a prayer that hushed on 
long after we finished.

Doctor spent a lot of time with Lucy. He would stand 
at the foot of her bed looking. Not mad    just like he 
had a whole lot of questions and wanted answers from 
her. I had questions too, so I looked to Anarcha.

She thought a long time.   Finally said, She too sick to 
die.  We too well to be living.

***
From Patient (Black Lawrence Press, 2014). Used with permission.
Photo by Rachel Eliza Griffiths. 

***
Born in Baltimore and raised in Southern California, Bettina Judd is an interdisciplinary writer, artist, and performer. She is an alumna of Spelman College and the University of Maryland, and is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies at the College of William and Mary. She has received fellowships from the Five Colleges, The Vermont Studio Center, and the University of Maryland. She is a Cave Canem Fellow and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize in poetry. Her poems have appeared in Torch, Mythium, Meridians, and other journals and anthologies. Most recently, her collection of poems titled Patient. won the Black Lawrence Press Hudson Book Prize and was published in November of 2014. As a singer, she has been invited to perform for audiences in Vancouver, Washington DC, Atlanta, Paris, New York, and Mumbai.

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If you are interested in reading past poems of the week, feel free to visit the blog archive.