April Poetry Month - Seventeen Magazine - Found Poem #1
Happy Poetry Month! I have been writing a poem a day & wanted to post some of the new work. We are working on media literacy with the Bronx Poetry Project & we spent some time analyzing magazine covers - what a wild world we entered. So much madness. Hope you enjoy.
Seventeen Magazine
Found Poem #1
You won’t be able to stop checking out your butt, but
be brave this year. This year look Hot! Hot! Hot!
in your jeans. Girls Gone Wild (for less). Less
is more. More is more. But how far must a girl go
to get his attention? Hot Abs. Hot Arms. Hot Thighs
How far must a girl go? His attention? How hot hot
hot is his attention – girl. Get Instagram Instaglam. Oh!
Fashion, beauty & body tricks. Tricks of the beauty trade—
Bikini Body Confidence. Blitz. Glitz. Gutz. Butz & Bendz.
Slutz & Steady Glamor. Sexy cuts. Sexy tone. Sexy sexy
sexy sexy sexy sexy. Sexy. Amazing shine. Shine & get
the guy. Get flat abs. Fast. Get major confidence. Get:
Gutted. Get: Guilty. Get: Major stressors. Get smooth
skin fast. Get 625 pretty looks for YOU. Party hair. Party
skin. Party boobs. Party bod. 763 fashion tips & beauty
tricks. Boost your bra size in one month. Boost your hot
flat abs. Boost your confidence. Boost your mood w/
659 new luscious lip colors. Learn to kiss. Sexy like.
This issue is for YOU.
This issue is for YOU—
Is this issue
for YOU? Who
is this issue for?
AWP Los Angeles
To all the birds painted & all their wings. To the decades long friendships & all the poems. To new collections, drinks on rooftops, lime, lobster rolls on the beach, sunshine, sand. So thankful for the time. For all the words & all the ways to say them.
Ara & Marina! Celebrating: the black maria - so gorgeous!
Venice
Northwestern University Press - Luis Rodriguez & Parneshia Jones
Affrilachian Poets
LA Sky
Tsukiji Fish Market & Final Farewell to Tokyo
To this trip I will never forget. Here's the start to a new poem:
To the shark fin on the bullet train from Sendai to Tokyo -
How ocean you are. How deep dark sea scrawl, belly crawl how you taste of raw & helpless, how you lapse & drape, thwap the whole of your boneless accordion around my tongue. How you sidle & meander rock loose & let flap. How you must have held memory, a rollicking jut of salt & sand. Each waves' buoyant frolic towards hunger & then sate. How you never expected the hook,
All you knew then was swim. Eat or get eaten. & all the time I am thinking that those of us on land
are doing the exact
same thing.
Visit to the Tohoku Region - Ishinomaki High School - Exchange of a Lifetime
This partnership started nearly three years ago to create a global exchange between poets in Japan and the U.S. Currently we have over 30 students in South Korea, Japan and the U.S. all sharing poetry & who they are. On the final days of the trip we visited the Tohoku region, site of the tsunami that devasted the area nearly five years ago. We visited a local high school to share poetry as a way to heal. Renée Watson brought her gorgeous book - A Place Where Hurricanes Happen & we shared our collective future together. The poetry transformed the room. Started the healing process. How poetry grounds & connects us. & it does!
Tokyo International Literary Festival & Tsukuba Elementary School
Ambassador Caroline Kennedy held a beautiful reception at the Embassy & toasted our young poets. Here they are posing for the camera & loving getting to know each other. They also performed at the Literary Festival & we got the chance to see Poetry Boxing in action at Tsukuba Elementary. Also got to teach a performance workshop to all the students with the brilliant Renée Watson. Warm-up games, songs, intro silliness & emotional car ride. The poets were awesome!
Keynote poet - Elizabeth Alexander - Praise Song for the Day
Poets from the 2014-15 season. Loved seeing them!!!
Students serving lunch - so cool.
These guys were the DJ set for lunch - seriously. There was music & they were the ones making it happen.
International Poetry Exchange 2016
Welome to Japan. See the city this way - with young poets from NYC & Tokyo & South Korea & Okinawa. Watch their thrill & see your own. Watch the way the words unwind. Capture every possible moment. Be awake, alert. You won't want to forget.
Meiji Shrine, where we wrote wishes and prayers on wooden wishing plaques. Here's to all the many things to come.
Hemisphere LOVES Wild Fig & Berea & Kentucky
All down home. All North Limestone & family. All radical spaces & love. All brilliant students who are grown. All the wildest of figs. All fried green tomatoes, cheese grits, biscuits & gravy. All bell hooks & Gloria Steinem secret events. All in awe of Crystal Wilkinson & all the community she continues to build & build. All crock pots of chili at Madison Southern. Lord, it all makes me feel so home. Can't wait to get back. Love!
Hemisphere heads to Austin, Texas
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.