thursday june 23rd, 2005 - 2:57PM

so the trick has been to try to maintain the discipline developed at cave canem. i'm doing decently so far. i'm staying fairly well on task this week. today, i even set aside some time to practise my djembe and stuck to it fairly well. i'm going to write now and then go to the gym. First i'll show another poem from the cave canem week though. it is an ekphrastic poem (not sure if i spelled that correctly). gimme a week or so and i might even get some photos from cave canem up on the website or even on the journal. again, these are my first draft efforts...

Choice

I want to tell you
that I threw my babies
into the river

banded my belly
tight – until the ninth month
and on a hot June night

when everything was finally
quiet, I slipped out the back porch
headed down to the river
birthed them by my lonesome – twins
one boy, one girl.

I begged my God, His forgiveness
cut the cord and buried it
among the hyacinths
(the missus sure did like them flowers)
smothered their faces
and offered them to the current

I’m not so much sad
as relieved – Mr. Jim wondering
how come his seed won’t take
in me

I keep losing to that man –
my husband, my first two boys.
Since his wife dies
he don’t even think
he gotta hide no more

Sometimes middle of the day
he drag me off somewhere
and sweat all over me

so naw, no more losing.
Let Jim do what he will
I’ma sew me two bonnets
with their names on them
and give them to him
over breakfast

I want to see his face fall
all over his grits and eggs
I think, I hope - he hangs me

I named them right, too
tear his heart out slow
one pink bonnet, one blue

Hyacinth
Jim, Jr.

I've also began reading Kwame Dawes' latest book, "midland". Dare i say this? i think it might be his best collection yet. Given the way i feel about Kwame's work, that means that it is so freakin' bad (not bad as in bad but bad as in good) that i don't know how to begin to understand that level of kung fu. If you have ever liked a poem or liked anyone's ability to make language dance as if each word were a marionette, then you will love this work - his praise poems, his love poems, his remembrances; everything. Everything is hallmarked with a brilliance and passion so precisely controlled that he sems to defy the rules of what one should do with a beast unleashed, because Kwame, at every turn - in the rempage or the taming, owns the beast...

Monday June 20th, 2005 - 8:40AM

So i'm back from Cave Canem and i feel myself transformed... again... I thought that the experience i had the first year culdn't be duplicated. I even came in with a plan; exercises i wold use to generate the poems which you have to generate every morning by 10. i figured that if i did this, i'd be fine. i'd get work done and i wouldn't be up staring at the screen at 8:35 wondering where the poem would come from.

That worked for the first night, but then the suggestions that the faculty gave us and the discussions they started and the absolute presence and involvement and atmosphere there, meant that i ended up writing the poems i needed to write; the poems i thught i couldn't or was afraid to.

In particular, Kwame Dawes' presence as faculty gave me such permission to write in the dialect, to constrcut the poems in the voice that was necessary, in the language that was necessary that i feel i made a huge breakthrough this week.

In additin it was yet another lesson in how non-monolithic we are, something i think even we black folk forget the more we're inundated with images of ourselves in public life. So yes, we are doctors and parents and entertainers and we are plus size burlesque performers, and preachers' kids and singers and one Trinidadian sport-nut poet, so here's a poem about cricket. i probably would never have written this poem two weeks ago. it's weird to feel like a week later, i'm a better poet than i was when i started. So dig it, hope y'all like it. There are others. i'll poet them later...


Brisbane, 1975

(i) Bowler – opening spell

All morning, this blistering heat,
oppressive even for one
black as me, and accustomed
to Carribean sun.

My tail is up, and even
off a short run-up, I am
a rainbow of fire and movement.

Still, not a wicket.
My in-swinger is hostile
and I haven’t even rolled
my sleeves up yet.
The batsmen can’t touch me.
I have them beaten – all ends up.

In the stands, the sea of faces
burned to a pink under their wide-brim hats
is quiet and confused. Even they
have been sure they’ve heard
a fine edge, or detected the trapped
stance in the thud of an L.B.W.

(ii) Umpire

I couldn’t care less how much
this savage hoots and points his finger,
how many screamed howzats?!
at what he thinks is an out.
If this boy thinks he will win
an appeal from me with anything
less than licking the stumps
clean out of the ground,
then this black fool
must be more stupid than I first thought

This is our game. We taught
these monkeys how to be dignified
how to play the gentleman’s sport,
how to be civilized. They’d still
be in trees if not for us.

Now they want to change the game,
embarrasing our batsmen,
coming to the wicket top buttons
undone, trying to frighten us
with their shiny black chests.

I will show them. We are still
their patrons in this game.
Good white wickets are not
this nigger’s, for the taking.

(iii) Bowler – just before noon

So apparently, even an obvious
top edge is not enough
to give me my due.

I’m going back to the long run-up
To hell with strategy and field placement.
I’m not even looking for the L.B.W.
or the catch amongst the slips and gullies.

This next delivery will be pressure,
short-pitched
in-swinger
from wide in the crease
up and in at the hapless right-hander
Let me show these fuckers
who is Man here.

If I can’t get the wicket,
I’ll take the white’s boy’s head.

Monday June 20th, 2005 - 8:40AM

So i'm back from Cave Canem and i feel myself transformed... again... I thought that the experience i had the first year culdn't be duplicated. I even came in with a plan; exercises i wold use to generate the poems which you have to generate every morning by 10. i figured that if i did this, i'd be fine. i'd get work done and i wouldn't be up staring at the screen at 8:35 wondering where the poem would come from.

That worked for the first night, but then the suggestions that the faculty gave us and the discussions they started and the absolute presence and involvement and atmosphere there, meant that i ended up writing the poems i needed to write; the poems i thught i couldn't or was afraid to.

In particular, Kwame Dawes' presence as faculty gave me such permission to write in the dialect, to constrcut the poems in the voice that was necessary, in the language that was necessary that i feel i made a huge breakthrough this week.

In additin it was yet another lesson in how non-monolithic we are, something i think even we black folk forget the more we're inundated with images of ourselves in public life. So yes, we are doctors and parents and entertainers and we are plus size burlesque performers, and preachers' kids and singers and one Trinidadian sport-nut poet, so here's a poem about cricket. i probably would never have written this poem two weeks ago. it's weird to feel like a week later, i'm a better poet than i was when i started. So dig it, hope y'all like it. There are others. i'll poet them later...


Brisbane, 1975

(i) Bowler – opening spell

All morning, this blistering heat,
oppressive even for one
black as me, and accustomed
to Carribean sun.

My tail is up, and even
off a short run-up, I am
a rainbow of fire and movement.

Still, not a wicket.
My in-swinger is hostile
and I haven’t even rolled
my sleeves up yet.
The batsmen can’t touch me.
I have them beaten – all ends up.

In the stands, the sea of faces
burned to a pink under their wide-brim hats
is quiet and confused. Even they
have been sure they’ve heard
a fine edge, or detected the trapped
stance in the thud of an L.B.W.

(ii) Umpire

I couldn’t care less how much
this savage hoots and points his finger,
how many screamed howzats?!
at what he thinks is an out.
If this boy thinks he will win
an appeal from me with anything
less than licking the stumps
clean out of the ground,
then this black fool
must be more stupid than I first thought

This is our game. We taught
these monkeys how to be dignified
how to play the gentleman’s sport,
how to be civilized. They’d still
be in trees if not for us.

Now they want to change the game,
embarrasing our batsmen,
coming to the wicket top buttons
undone, trying to frighten us
with their shiny black chests.

I will show them. We are still
their patrons in this game.
Good white wickets are not
this nigger’s, for the taking.

(iii) Bowler – just before noon

So apparently, even an obvious
top edge is not enough
to give me my due.

I’m going back to the long run-up
To hell with strategy and field placement.
I’m not even looking for the L.B.W.
or the catch amongst the slips and gullies.

This next delivery will be pressure,
short-pitched
in-swinger
from wide in the crease
up and in at the hapless right-hander
Let me show these fuckers
who is Man here.

If I can’t get the wicket,
I’ll take the white’s boy’s head.

Thursday June 16, 2005 11:29PM - Cave Canem

Last night i went to Wal-Mart. I wanted frozen fry chicken for the late night session where we would drink and talk a little retire to write the next day's poems, come back and drink a bit. i was traumatized. one should be traumatized by anyplace in which it is possible to get underwear, a gun AND a Big Mac. Further, an able-bodied couple and their ten-year old son entered the facility. The parents proceeded to sit down in motorized scooters - Mart-Carts (like the kind reserved for those who can't walk well on their own), so they could peruse Wal-Mart in a more leisurely fashion. Their big-headed child ran alongside them...

...i am NEVER moving to the suburbs.

We just returned from Pittsburgh, where there was a faculty reading in the Mattress Factory. Kwame Dawes is a god amongst men. The man's poetry is so absolutely FLY!!!! that i found myself in that sort of exhausted frame of mind for the entire reading; the one in which youo find yourself, when the ability of the work provokes such profound emotional responses (and so many of them) that you feel like there isn't much more you can take. In addition, Cyrus Cassells, Cecil Giscombe and Marilyn Nelson read; and for sure they were all superb (and i do mean UTTERLY so), but for me tongiht Kwame soared. i still have to figure out how to come up with a poem for 10AM tomorrow. This is the poem i handed in yesterday...

If one day the ancestors should return, honor them
(for David Rudder)

Ile Ife
Ile Ife
Ile Ife

Say it three times anywhere
from San 'do to Palatouvier
from Manzanilla to Pointe-a-Pierre

Make a circle in the center of the cane
Tie the cock foot and place it in the center
Wear white and leave your head incovered
Make sure the drummers have plenty rum
Make sure the drummers are sweating

Take off your shoes and pound the dust
Let your bare feet pound the dust
let your black feet pound the dust
Let id dig up the ground and turn the soil fresh

Dance the calinda
Dance the congo
swing the skirt and wet the gayelle floor
swing the boie and wet the gayelle floor
Make sure the dancers have plenty white rum
Make sure the dancers are sweating

chant a psalm
chant a psalm
chant a psalm
call for 'Batala Shango Ogun
call the spirit to come in your head

Drop the beat on the first dambleh
Jump high chantuel song from the throat
swing your stick and pour the rum heavy

Light the match
Light the match
Watch the cane take flame
Watch the cane take flame

Pass the cutlass slow on the cock-neck
Drain it upside down in the dirt
Let the blood run free

Have at it if you wish. there'll be another update telling you about the poem i handed in today etc, and the spades game in the bus on the way from Pittsburg...

Wednesday June 15, 2005 - Cave Canem

This is what i turned in yesterday to Erica Hunt's workshop

Bassman

I was planning to forget calypso
and go and plant peas in Tobago
but i am afraid
i cyah make de grade

cuz every night ah lie down in meh bed
ah hearin' ah bassman in meh head...
Mighty Shadow (Bassman, 1974)

The bassman is a drunken joker
spinning like a fightin' cock
two sticks half a sponge ball
on the end of each
lickin' the multi-toned drums

laughing and sweating
this is how he sounds
the clarion call of tormented muse

bringing the calinda
out from the fields
distracting the trill of an aguinaldo
from the cooking pot

None can hear the bassman
and get easy rest
every neglected song
and unwritten poem
is an empty panyard
Carnivbal Saturday morning

and the bassman like a Midnight Robber
rears up and boasts
all of Picton Road Laventille Hill
in the pirouette of sticks

all sailor in the dance
all devil mas'
all jamette and chanticleer
heed J'ouvert heed Dimanche Gras
and las' lap
following the bassman's crazy
flapping of wings
from Jerningham Avenue over the peal
of the clock toweron the other side
of the Savannah in Queen's Royal College

from canboulay
to a Minshall King of Carnival
wingspan taking up the width of the entire stage
the bassman claims all of these
muse
duppy
douen
and calls them to the streets

That sound in the black bard's head
is a Judas-kiss a heart beat
no to be ignored
even the Shango woman
waiting on a Tobago beach
to complete Shadow's moaning
knows he is nor more a disciple of pigeon peas
than the bassman a connoisseur of wine

so the Shadow bounces
ramrod straight
taking the spirit possession
like a man
bassman in his head
driving him crazy
from fightin' cock mornings
to a heavy horn
the Black Shadow endures the conquering duppy
and everything falls into place

So that's it. feel free to say what you think. i'll post the thing i'm taking to class today later afetr i've got some sleep to make up for the sleep i didn't get last night (damn freakin' drinkin' poets!) i'll also post the poem i handed in the first day. i much prefering the poems i've got out of the retreat this time than i did last time (which is as it should be, i guess).

by the way, run out and get Luis Francia's "Museum of Absences". He is the Filipino-American writer with whom i featured at the library last thursday. his 9-11 poem seriously challenges Espada's Alabanza as the best 9-11 poem i've come across - not that they even bear comparison, but in terms of the fondness i've developed for Alabanza since 9-11.

later

Tuesday June 14, 1:44AM - Pittsburg - Cave Canem

So, it's going well. i've just got done with the poem i've got to hand in tomorrow. tday's workshop was with Kwame Dawes. He is at least at Shaolin Monk level with his critiques. I did a poem based on Ai's "Why i Can't Leave you" (out of the "Vice" collection). This year it is a lot more subdued than it was in 2003 (perhaps because 2003 now lives in infamy and the administration is doing all in its power to ensure that 2003 does not repeat itself). I'm sharing a suite with Regie Gibson, Frank X Walker and James Cagney (yes, this brother's namer is James Cagney).

I just got done completing a poem based on calypsonian Mighty Shadow's 1974 hit "bassman", and i've been trying to write that poem for a number of years so i'm a little bit in awe that i got a draft done that i like. i'll post tomorrow the two poems i've done here so far.

tonight the faculty reading featured Toi Derricotte, Cornelius Eady, Erica Hunt (who is my new baby-mama) and Walter Moseley, who has been hanging out here at the retreat and is funny as hell (we went to the mall today to get water and flip-flops). again, the week promises to be dynamic, inspirational and wonderful and i feel like i have even more to offer this time than the first time, if only in terms of quality of work.

speak with y'all later

Friday June 3, 2005 - 4:50AM - New Orleans

Deja Vu Cafe
The Blue Nile
The Hukkah Cafe
Snooks
Cafe Lafitte in Exile
The Abbey
The Lizard Lounge
d.b.a.
The Corner
Adolfo's...

These are a smattering of the establishments in which Marty and I had at least one beverage, took in some amaxing musical acts, and/or ate fried alligator, blackened alligator or deep fried alligator. There are more, but i can't remember them right now.

Bad Alligator
Waterfowling and the relentless pursuit of self-abuse
Ubiquitous Pigeon...

These are a smattering of the chapbook names we've come up with from this vacation. Stay-Tuned; i've got some poems to write...

Later

New Orleans
Thursday June 2, 2005 - 6:15AM

Deep fried crab
Deep fried crawfish
Deep fried oysters
Deep fried alligator
Deep fried catfish

it's heaven i tell you, it's pure heaven. New Orleans is a city with ghosts; not just their ghosts of lore, but a city with the very obvious feel of history that real cities have. Indeed, much of the French Quarter reminds me of home and one cannot escape the city's French heritage.

We've managed to take a boatload of photographs including a bunch of really creepy ones from the cemetery (including the reputed tomb of voodoo priestess Marie Laveau). We have not yet had a meal that was less than stellar. If you're gonna come off of five days in Jamaica this is not a bad way to do it.

Of course, the city of New Orleans encourages drinking like none other, so ther's no really coming off anything. Still, it is a lovely vacation (not like i have another vacation to compare it to - but i'm having a good time).

there'll be swamp tours later today - after i go to sleep and get up and get some breakfast and a beer...