Held to the Earth

A lot of good news to report: if you take a second to look at the date, you'll realize that it's almost the end of April. My second semester of junior year is quickly vanishing. The curtains are being pulled back, revealing a spring and summer vacation that includes turning twenty-one, reading all the books I've been putting on my "to read during 2k7 summer" list, and -- as usual -- figuring out my future. I shouldn't get ahead of myself though. There's still much to be done before the semester is truly wrapped up. And before April 22, 2007 officially ends, I'd like to wish my brother a happy 25th and the Earth a pleasant day/night's rest.

In celebration of finishing my big African American history paper, below is the link to a Thomas Sayers Ellis poem I especially like, "Slow Fade to Black." Of course my paper focused on black poets. To be brief, I wrote about contemporary black poets who have broken free of the "reactionary poetry" so many of their predecessors were stereotyped into. I brought in various essays as framework to support the authoritative and revolutionary qualities of these poets, and then commented on a few specific poems, one of which happened to be Ellis' below.

Unfortunately I don't have time to go into any more detail, but enjoy this one for now and I encourage anyone who's reading to check out Ellis' 2005 collection entitled The Maverick Room: Poems, available from Graywolf Press.

"Slow Fade to Black" by Thomas Sayers Ellis

Emerging Poet Alert

Matthew Olzmann is one of those poets I've heard about through the grapevine. I've had to use my Google prowess to find his poems, but all that clicking is worth it. To my knowledge (re: my Google/Amazon knowledge) Olzmann doesn't have a book of poems out yet, but here's hoping he will soon. I can't wait to read a whole collection by this intriguing poet. Below I've posted just one of his poems and linked to a couple more. I have nothing substantial to say at the moment about these poems -- after all, there are only a few -- except that they've been responsible for taking me out of a prolonged bad mood, and for that I am grateful. In that light, sit back and happy feasting!

When We Both Looked Like Bukowski and The Legends I Built All Let Me Down
Matthew Olzmann

I was led to believe by now I'd be famous, or simply
Unemployed & incoherent with at least one healthy
Narcotics habit hiding in my past

Or up my sleeve.

This was before I knew how it felt to hold a man back,
Three stories up, he was determined to die
His eyes went blank & his feet were

Slipping on the ledge.

I remember asking my mother what she wanted for her birthday.
She said, "I used to ask for good kids." But Mom,
You've got great kids! She smiled,

"Now, I just want honest kids."

On Sunday mornings, my neighbors hurl beer bottles
Until they hurt. It's a weekly ritual attempting to prove
The American myth is alive & kicking with

A weak bladder & a bad liver.

In a past incarnation, I stared at my reflection ’till
It went blind. I dreamt my lover covered me
In crushed lotus petals & called me Barabus.

I've never been to Disneyland.

I'm not sure if I can scale the walls, but I was
Born in Detroit, where it's always possible to catch
A quick glimpse beneath your skin

Pulled back by a universe of pins.

The rats ’round here get thick on last week’s garbage.
If you listen, you can hear them: Them humans
Are just as scared of you as you are of them.
Walk close enough

& they'll scurry away.

Other poems:
Statistics
Louisville Slugger
Nate's Glass Eye

Poem of Low Latitudes

I love the poem featured on today's Poetry Daily website. I'll leave my commentary at that and post the poem below. I'm on the lookout for the poet's book, but no luck so far. Enjoy this in light of National Poetry Month and despite the tragedies at Virginia Tech today.

Poem of Low Latitudes
Mike Dockins

Let's crumple calendars, smash watches.

Let's throw ropes around the Moon,
never stop swallowing its linens.

Let's recline the way the horizon does,
every evening, yawning across Tropic lines.

Let's fill a hammock with limes.

Let's fall asleep on the reef,
stare up through clear water at trembling stars.

Let's climb a coconut tree & squeal like monkeys.

Let's ride a trade wind like paper airplanes.

Let's watch the sky wheel & wheel
from under straw hats.

Let's count a billion stars,
lose track at a billion minus one, then start over,
until we glitter with white sand.

Let's tumble together until the earth is flat.

Let me sail like Magellan into you,
unfold the maps of your roundness.

Let's hope for the volcano.

Let's reinvent the godless universe ballooning.

Let's crawl into a conch shell
& bang on a bongo.

Let's build a bonfire
that boils away the atmosphere.

Let's sublimate, evaporate, condense.

Let's get drunk on the real stars—
helium engines strumming
our own cores to a glow.

Let me wear your warm skin.

Let's simplify: skin, nerve, synapse, nucleus,
hydrogen, quark, the unpronounceable....

Nancy Morejón, Cuban poet

So far in my Cuban Literature course I’ve enjoyed the poetry of José Martí, Eliseo Diego, and Nicolás Guillén. Recently we finally studied a female Cuban poet: Nancy Morejón (b. 1944). She belongs to the second generation of poets who came into the Revolution (those born after 1940) and who supported its ideals. She was the first black woman to graduate (with honors) from the University of Havana and the first black woman to win Cuba’s National Prize for Literature in 2001. She published her first poetry collection, Mutismos, when she was eighteen and has gone on to write thirteen books of poetry, three monographs, a play, and four volumes of critical studies on Cuban and Caribbean history and literature, not including her involvement in other genres such as translation, essay, and journalism, as well as her collaborations in the fine arts and theatre. Phew.

Morejón’s poetry is infused with black history, feminist issues, Yoruban mythology, and Cuban nationalism, but she prefers to write from her “poetic soul.” Writing with this angle in mind is what makes her poetry so effective. She’s able to avoid the traps that so many others fall into when writing about such subjects. Her poetry is as multilayered and complex as her identity, easily reflected after reading Looking Within.

But what I want to touch on is the idea of whether or not the knowledge of a poet’s biography is important. Does it help a reader better understand a poem that alludes to and references content that otherwise is unknown to them? Or should a poem be able to stand on its feet without extensive research into the poet’s life? I believe that the latter is always present in a good poem. At the same time there’s no debating the former question. Of course insight into the poet’s life will shed new light upon his or her writing, and I find this especially true with Morejón’s poetry.

In this case, knowing more about Morejón undoubtedly enriched my appreciation for her poetry. After I investigated and read more about her, I revisited a particular selection of poems from Coffee and Clarity from the Looking Within book. While there were many poems that I enjoyed from these two sections, it was “A Havana Patio” that caught my eye.

Immediately I was reminded of Gabriel Abudu’s (also the English translator of the poem) article on Havana as a poetic and personal space in Morejón’s poetry. In the article he mentions that her “Havana patio is priceless because of the values that she learned growing up there; in fact, her courtyard is as valuable to her as last year’s seeds are to the farmer.” He also goes on to say that, in a different poem, Morejón “reiterates the importance of the courtyard not just as a physical space but, more significantly, as a space that she connects with her sense of self and identity.”

This is evident in the poem in which “memory,” so “dear” to everyone as Morejón suggests, is easily accessible in a place “without tall walls.” In fact, the patio brings forth memory so easily that Morejón is reminded of her past (“preserves the bones of the dead”) even without the influence of a “rainbow” or an “Andalusian flower” her “grandmother so much demanded.” Rainbows can symbolize many things, but in this poem it seems hopeful and fearless because of its “intrepid glow.” And the flower isn’t just any ordinary flower, but a Spanish one that her grandmother (notably part of her lineage) specifically not only liked, but “demanded.”

A few things to generally note: (1) Morejón is obsessed with her past, and often uses poetry as a way of exploring it. It is in those poems that she revisits Africa, encounters the grandparents she never met, and experiences the hardships of slavery. As a result, she often gives voice to people who don’t normally have one. (2) Morejón is a strong believer that our ancestors and loved ones who have passed on (family, friends, anyone we’ve shared a close bond with) continue to affect our daily lives, their presence still clearly all around us.

The magic of the Havana patio lies in its ability to open up not only the past, but also the future to the speaker. In the first stanza, it’s clear that the patio is essentially a time capsule of sorts that keeps past “treasures” intact. They are as important as “seeds” that represent fertility, growth, and thus future. From the patio the speaker can also see the “stars twinkle,” symbolizing the heavens, where the dead “reside” and can influence and watch over the living. Knowing how important ancestry, mythology, and Havana factor into Morejón’s writing not only greatly improved my understanding of this poem, but also more importantly, my respect and admiration for her poetry. It also emphasizes the importance of personal space, and how the places that mean the most to us are a lens through which we can see our past, present, and future selves.

A Havana Patio
Nancy Morejón

A Havana patio,
as Machado requested,
is dear to memory.
Without tall walls,
without that intrepid glow
of the rainbow,
without the Andalusian flower
grandmother so much demanded
in the flower vases . . .

A Havana patio
preserves the bones of the dead
for they are ample treasures,
a farmer's old seeds.

A patio, ay, from where
so many stars twinkle.

National Poetry Month

It's April 1st, which means National Poetry Month has officially begun.

Enjoy the next thirty days by reading, writing, and loving poetry! My personal goal for the month is to fit one or all of the above into each day, either by reading or writing (even if it's incomplete).