This poet life - all Texas, Amanda Johnston, Parneshia Jones, lakes & late lunches.
Grisham Middle School visit - poeting about bra shopping & French kissing.
BBQ
Donut Burgers
Shots & Pilsner
Book Woman!!!
DreamYard & Bronx Love
Back to DreamYard this week & witness to such a brilliant & genius borough. Glad to be back in the Bronx. Feels like home.
Lament for the Dead - project & new poem
Hello all-
I feel honored to be a part of this incredibly moving project. Please click the link below to read the poem, & find more info on the project.
Lament for the Dead is an online community poetry project which will mark the death of every person killed by police this summer, and every police officer who loses life in the line of duty, with a poem.
The first lie that hate tells us is that any other person is not as human as we are. This project resists that lie by recognizing each other’s humanity, even in the most difficult places.
http://www.lamentforthedead.org/about/
The Morris Book Shop
Lexington, my love.
Family
Charlie Brown - Bavarian Alpine - History
Last call @ Country Boy Brewing - Cougar Bait
Chicago
Chicago - you city of conjure women & decades old friendship. City of lakes & loose talk, all Old Style all night, city of fried perch w/ jalapeños, peppermint sticks in pickles, Bookends & Beginnings for the Vessel juke joint party. Ellis & Jones & DFlo. You city of fried pickles & cheese curd, all Midwest & wild, all rowdiness. City of salted grits & fried eggs, falafel & lamb & hummus. City of griddle burgers & garden dragged hot dogs w/ relish, white onions, tomatoes, celery salt, sport peppers & a pickle - done right. Damn! City of late night poetry, the Green Mill, bass players & cold beer, open mic - Angela Jackson making the night fire. Chicago - I come back to you always.
Thank you for having us.
Open Road
Hey folks. We are headed for the open road. First stop is Chicago for Parneshia Jones & the Vessel book party & then we will be reading at the Green Mill on Sunday, June 28th. Then we are heading home to Kentucky for a reading at Carmichael's Bookstore on Friday, July 3rd, and another stop at the Morris book shop on Thursday, July 9th. Please check the calendar for times & info. & follow here for updates & poems & photos. Hope to see y'all somewhere soon.
April Poem #21
Initial Investigation
for Freddie Gray
Consider the whole built spine
& how long it took to deconstruct
consider riot as retribution, cleansing even,
balm.
April Poem 20 (sample)
An open letter to Michael T. Slager
In memory of Walter L. Scott
It was the standing there that fucked me up
your body upright, right & erect—how many
ways can you let someone die? Beneath you,
your very stand/stance your whole vertical shit
stiff & still, shifted eyes—but body cocked up
up turned—closer to sky, to wings & flit fuck
you man & the way your spine stood still, firm
all those vertebrae lined up, a house beneath
your skin where you're at home, confident.
April Poem #19
Shelter
because staying dry is sometimes remedy
all those metal spokes jutting about
plastic handle hold on tight canopy
awning from sky awning from down
pour because there was no rain
but you held onto that smallest roof
in any case coat buttoned styled
half dangling on your open mouthed
half smile sometimes
just the thought of protection is enough.
Ekphrastic poem from: Young girl with umbrella on Centre Street Hill District, Pittsburgh 1951, Richard Saunders
April Poem #18 (sample)
The Reception
Gather arms wrapped around waists, backs
& tilted chins, square jaws, pantyhose, patterned
clothes held close. Celebrate congregate cocktails
wedding bells. Trees tell, gather tales, tell them tall
take ‘em home.
*Ekphrastic Poem based on painting by Johnathan Green, 1988, oil on masonite
April Poem #17 (sample)
Express to Work
Because your body smells of sweat, sawdust,
9-5 & lemon rind. Smells of coffee grinds & time.
How polite your skin is against mine. NY Times
& this. Daily grind. Grind. Crime in times. News
& crime. Grind & time. Time & grind. Warnings
never end & it’s cold—keep a coat on & it’s bustle
graffiti, train track trance—all of us a spell.
Ekphrastic poem sample based on painting by Maxwell Taylor
April Poem #16 (sample)
Last bus stop five stops before yours,
so find the corner of the stop, stoop be-
neath. Crouch low, don't pull rank.
You've got none. You're not grown
Up, not now/yet.
April Poem #15 (sample)
High Proof
You say moonshine, illegal, the boot’s only leg—low down
un-authorized, un-hinged & loose. You say moon, shined
hell broke & break (ed) loose. Rowdy bawdy. Midnight rise,
moon & still distilled. Likker & licensed, licensed
to rise, spirit to shine, burn the oak & white lightning fine.
You say un-aged & heirloom, punctuate & proof, you call
it hooch, honey mountain dew, sweet smuggled swig.
April Poem #14
Soaked Mourning
That this spring has been
Hard is not a fucking joke
Misted rain, missed trains
Matched caps to rain jackets
City spun w/ un-ripened
Buds shunted to trees, timid
Months of waiting, days dying
When I read you—news you un-
Ravel the gore & insides of me
Us, bussed to home & families, jobs
& each hustled day Pick up any
Paper or feed See the mouths
Of the mothers & their empty arms
See the hollows of their children
The way they/we wait for some reck-
Oning Some way to navigate how
Bullets bury in skin, the way hate
Is a plume, feathers & flaunt all
Choked & ravaging, blistered, burn-
Ishing & blooming a hot wreckage.
April Poem #13 (sample)
1959
But she's a bad girl
Because she wants to be free
She wants to be free
& Transatlantic telephone cables continue & earth orbiting
satellites are launched to measure shapes of clouds, cause
& rotation. Locus pinpointed. Kind of Blue recorded. Slim
progression & harmony, honey score & flit, fleet, modality—
sets & scales. Able & Baker barrel through space weightless
wonder rhesus & squirrel aboard Jupiter AM-18 back towards
the deep end of all the 50’s—collision & pomp. Pompadours
& still cigarettes.
& Barbie is born.
She wasn't a bad girl, girl at first
So good at the start
But now, now we must part
Oh yes, she's bad girl
*Lyrics from Bad Girl - Smokey Robinson & The Miracles
April Poem #12 (sample)
American Arabic, Irish, Italian Abecedarian w/ Blue(d)grass & Bourbon(d) Influences
Alphabetize existence: adage, acreage, age: under, old, less (is more—or is it?)
behold bourbon barrel B-town baby (girl), believer in bats, bells & boom boxes
causing cold chills in chlorine contaminated city pools
dreaming days of dodging disasters
existing to elevate—elevation &
fetch, fast forward float.
Gargantuan(ly) gussied up, no guise, all gall gall, gall, all gumption & good
hell of a hellion—high water(ed), heathen(ed) hexer of helium & high(ed) hopes
inclusion in instrumental, illustrious illusions, inventions
justifying the jut & juke & jaw of juvenile—cause I was
April Poem #11 (sample)
Tell me all the things you’d miss
If you’re asleep—note—if you’re not awake,
wide eyes, you could miss—there is much.
The hefty rat, its rot, right eye, steady steel
& gray body upturned & turned in on itself,
the glue trap’s coffin & concrete grave
on Audubon’s quietest 8:20 am street. Just
face & tail taunting world. Avert her eyes,
April Poem #10
Hey folks-
Posting the full poem for April 10th. Headed to AWP in Minneapolis tomorrow for Hemisphere signings & panels & readings. Check the calendar for events & times. Would love to see you if you're in town.
Thanks all,
Ellen
Beer Poem #3
For the hop heads & fermenters for the vintage
& the chug, for the grail & the bodega on 177th, aged
& ale, hail this elevated elixir—it’s elemental how
bad this bitter brew’s got me bent & bedazzled.
April Poem #9 (sample)
Beer Poem #2
Beer as brave bravado, beer as cocky seductress of smooth, drink me & you'll forever be. Beer w/ the crew, beer on the dance floor, all slosh & gait, beer w/ swagger, beer as bulked up & barreling. Beer as orbit, as orbiting, beer as balm and calm, beer to soothe, beer to elix—all hail, the great elixir.
April Poem #8 (sample)
Haikus to My Daughters
after Parneshia Jones
II
Learn to navigate
Train to bus to car to foot
Keep your directions
III
Don’t be scared to dance
When the circle opens wide
Prepare to shake it
IV
Learn to love hunger
Appetites are sexy cool
Feed yourself wholly
V
Bodies are seductive
Don’t take them seriously
Everything decays