On the Road (again)

Yesterday, I hit the road, in a Jack Kerouac/Easy Rider/Sibyl Gipsy sort of way (Sibyl Gipsy is one of my retired pseudonym... Sibyl=prophetess from the Aeneid, Gipsy=Wanderer). I like to think of it as migrating south for the winter :) This trip is part adventure, part service, part visiting close friends and family, part creative soul searching, part "should I relocate to one of these places?" and part some stuff I have no idea about.

Today, I am in Tampa, Florida.

Weekend update: "faith-based poetry"

For those who don't know, I have been keeping the Friday evening-Saturday evening Sabbath for almost a year and a half. I thought I'd get a chance to "bang out" a poem after sundown on Saturday, but that didn't happen. So I doubled up on Sunday. Religious concepts and biblical imagery often show up in my poems, even when the poems are not explicitly "faith-based" in subject matter.

My relationship with the Creator and with the mainstream church has been rewarding at times, turbulent at times, and even severed entirely at times (by my choice). It felt a bit weird to write these poems when most of Christendom is observing Palm Sunday (also the date when the Passover lamb was kept). Sometimes it feels weird to write poems about faith. Even though English letters has a huge tradition of "faith based poetry", and there is certainly a market for "inspirational poetry," many contemporary "literary" poems seem to mention Jesus, the God mentioned in the Bible, Christianity, etc. in ways I consider to be condenscending, sarcastic or irreverent in the most basic meaning of the word.

In writing these poems, I couldn't figure out if I was subconsciously trying to please everybody, offend everybody, or just explore and express my own history and relationship to faith, skepticism, rebellion, redemption, and evangelism. These poems are not skewering the faith or offering straight-up praise and worship. I hope they reveal one woman's challenges in trying to live a life that is pleasing to the Creator, in trying to figure out just what that requires. Either way, here they are. They are not strictly a series, though one logically follows the next. 

Fallen Angel
Hadassah Ayodele

seventeen years of singing...sermons...sunday
school could not persuade me that i did not top
your hot list.....it did not take much to pry 
me loose...a little marx...a little memory...a little mary 
jane.....did not take much to convince me.....we all hallucinated 
you into being.....never mind the trees...fish...moon...stars...
they sprang from the head of amoeba....come...called 
your accuser...but leave that list behind you...no room for rules 
on this ride.....here...hit this...take off that skirt.....do you feel 
loved now...no...well hit it again....do you feel protected.....
i don't know...i can't feel my.....take that rubber off...who taught you 
to move like that...you...oh...you did....it was always you.....maybe 
you need something a little stronger...here...don't spit...swallow 
it's good for you.....is it hot in here...is it me.....it's you...always been 
you.....so hot...irresistible...don'tblame them...couldn't help but help 
themselves....behind the shed...in the bed...in your house....take off that 
blouse.....who taught you to move like that....oh jesus.....wrong.....
oh god.....you hallucinating again....no i'm burning up.....what have i 
done....too late to play dumb.....turn up the radio...back that ass 
up.....do you feel free.....no.....well fuck you then

Fisher of Men
Hadassah Ayodele

Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired
to have you, that he may sift you
as wheat: But I have prayed
for thee, that thy faith fail not:
and when thou art converted,
strengthen thy brethren.
--Luke 22:31-32

you recall the rebel: 
thigh-high boots sashaying
from damascus to perdition,

desert rose exploding arid,
cloudless sky with scent to make
you crawl to cactus, slice

her open, cool your dusty
tongue and find free love
a shimmy, shimmer, 

then vacancy.
then you, sand-blind,
prying spine and vow

from blood-stained throat:
thou shalt not trust
voices crying, visions in the wild.

you cannot recognize this head
wrapped in repentance, bits
of petal bound to splintered 

reputation, begging won't you 
lead this caravan to zion, 
won't you fertilize

this barren land? you cannot bear
to hear of healing streams
or swallow magic wine while ice chipsmelt inside your mouth. guard,instead, your frozen heart, spit
chilly propositions, quicken 

buried flesh and sniff the air 
for thunder, salt, hail to cleanse 
the earth of hypocrites.

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So there it is. I'm thinking that by next week, I will unearth and present some contemporary "faith-based" poetry. Until then, here is Sunday's poetry book pick: 

Just one dollar, just one dollar!

Yes, "the stain of love / is upon the world!" William Carlos Williams woite about everything, everyday stuff: neighbors, old men, plots of ground, Greco-Roman mythic figures, storms, ballet, and of course, love. What is impressive is the lyricism, imagery, motion and control: he uses these tools as a sort of diving rod to extract poetic majesty from seemingly mundane, ordinary objects, events and people. Here are a few examples:

The Spring Storm 

The sky has given over 
its bitterness. 
Out of the dark change 
all day long 
rain falls and falls 
as if it would never end. 
Still the snow keeps 
its hold on the ground. 
But water, water 
from a thousand runnels! 
It collects swiftly, 
dappled with black 
cuts a way for itself 
through green ice in the gutters. 
Drop after drop it falls 
from the withered grass-stems 
of the overhanging embankment.

He writes about rain a lot :)  Also, the seasons and the times of day. 

Dawn
  
Ecstatic bird songs pound 
the hollow vastness of the sky 
with metallic clinkings-- 
beating color up into it 
at a far edge,--beating it, beating it 
with rising, triumphant ardor,-- 
stirring it into warmth, 
quickening in it a spreading change,-- 
bursting wildly against it as 
dividing the horizon, a heavy sun 
lifts himself--is lifted-- 
bit by bit above the edge 
of things,--runs free at last 
out into the open--!lumbering 
glorified in full release upward-- 
                                                  songs cease.

Colors also feature prominently in his work. But here, he paints A Portrait in Greys:

Will it never be possible
to separate you from your greyness?
Must you be always sinking backward
into your grey-brown landscapes—and trees
always in the distance, always against
a grey sky?
  Must I be always
moving counter to you? Is there no place
where we can be at peace together
and the motion of our drawing apart
be altogether taken up?
  I see myself
standing upon your shoulders touching
a grey, broken sky—
but you, weighted down with me,
yet gripping my ankles,—move
  laboriously on,
where it is level and undisturbed by colors.

(darn you, blogger and your formatting-retardation!)

National Poetry Month, day 3: Dining with "The Black Poets"

I have to find these video clips of Amiri Baraka doing "lowkus" at the Brave New Voices protest reading/rally last summer. That is too perfect for today's selection, The Black Poets, edited by Dudley Randall. The anthology was released in 1971, and features over 300 pages of poetry from the folk poems of our ancestor's early days in bondage through the liberation voices of the 1960's. It contains spirituals (recognizing the close relationship between song and poem), literary poetry, Harlem Renaissance-era poets, post renaissance, and a huge selection of sixties poets. It contains a healthy serving of the most well-known names in black poetics: Hughes, Dunbar, Bontemps, McKay, Cullen, MY MAN STERLING A BROWN, Brooks, Clifton, Baraka, Sanchez, Don Lee, Giovanni, even Tolson (of Great Debaters fame).

One poem to whet your whistle, from Conrad Kent Rivers, titled:

In Defense of Black Poets

(for Hoyt)

The critics cry unfair
.....yet the poem is born.
Some black emancipated baby
.....will scratch his head
wondering why you felt compelled
.....to say whatever you said.

A black poet must bear in mind
.....the misery.
The color-seekers fear poems
.....they can't buy for a ten-dollar
bill or with some clever contract.
.....Some black kid is bound to read you.

A black poet must remember the horrors.
.....The good jobs can't last forever.
It shall come to pass that the fury
.....of a token revolution will fade
into the bank acounts of countless blacks
.....and freedom-loving whites.

The brilliant novels shall pass
.....into the archives of a 'keep cool
we've done enough for you' generation:
.....the movement organizations already
await their monthly checks from Downtown
.....and

only the forgotten wails of a few black
.....poets and artists
shall survive the then of then,
.....the now of now.

Thank you, Mr. Rivers! We shall remember!


************************************

And now, my humble poem for the day:

a sort of ode to motivation
Hadassah Ayodele

i thought if i wrote you a poem
you'd stop by long enough
to pick it up en route to the airport.
i'm sure you have more important
things to do than coax me
off the couch: power lunches
in hollywood hills, tennis
with venus and serena,
record deals to sign, sermons
to inspire.
............. to be honest,
we were never that close
anyway. you had no patience
with my tendency to stare
down the sun and blow the dust off
mommy's old 45's the night before
a due date.
...............maybe one day, you'll
pencil me in under charity and skim
this poem, all the while noting the piles
of paper on my desk, dresser,
ironing board, and suggest
that i title my forthcoming chapbook
the twelfth of never.
...........................no sweat--
i still plan to list you first
in the dedication.

fyi: the series of periods in the poems are only there to show the spacing, since I can't seem to figure out how to convince blogger to print extra spacing in a line... how unpoetic!

Day 2: Wounded in the ... mind of a poet

So it's day 2 of the 30/30 Challenge. This was a rough one for me. I woke up with heavy thoughts on my mind... heavy thoughts that I did not want to write about. So I decided to write a poem about not wanting to write. Here is the outcome:

Fugitive
Hadassah Ayodele

at twelve, the page: a crypt
to bury ancient rage till
magic verses melted sand
in gleaming revelation.
by twenty-one, fingers learned
to crush fig leaves and light
meters tight with incense
on the altar of amnesia.
come thirty, charred skin
made good parchment,
bore testaments tattooed on
temple walls by false prophets.
death and rebirth strike in threes:
confess, release, renew.

So um, it's a sort of sonnet, lol. Yesterday's poem rolled off almost easily. A few tweaks here and there. This one was considerably more difficult. I went through several false starts. Such as:

run
from this poem
from this page
there ain't a meter
strict enough to contain
this maudlin, sentimental
hole in my morning
no ink sure enough
to stand fast against the downpours
clouding vision, judgment, control

i used to hide
in these notebooks
used to camouflage my sins
in cryptic metaphors
swampy syllables

i snatched that bad boy out of my notebook like tracks in a girlfight. before it was all said and done, i had bottled lightning, peeled potatoes, buried treasure, and rolled some scrolls. finding the right language to express an idea you're not all that comfortable having in the first place AIN'T EASY. i can't say i'm thrilled with today's poem. in a way, i kind of wish i had just written the poem i ran from in the first place. but hey, the point of the 30/30 challenge is not to create 30 brilliant masterpieces. (Right?) The point is to write, come what may. To flex that muscle through rain, sleet, hail, or dark of night.

*****************************
TODAY'S BOOK:
I had intended to re-read Gwendolyn Brooks' In the Mecca, but I couldn't find my copy, so I opted for Sonia Sanchez's Wounded in the House of a Friend.

More to come soon about this stunning volume of poetry...one quickie that probably most women have asked themselves (and maybe "their" man) at least once in life (hopefully we learn after the first time):

if i become

the other woman will i be

loved like you loved her?

Inaugural Post - National Poetry Month!

I have been meaning to launch this blog for some time now; it is only fitting that I launch it on the first day of National Poetry Month. (Click the link for more info on the month @ Poets.org).

Like countless poets around the nation, and probably the world, I will be participating in the 30 poems in 30 days challenge. The drafts will be listed here. In addition, I'll be posting photos, poems, reviews, links and other things of a poetic nature to celebrate the poem, past, present and future. So here's poem 1 of 30.

Adrenalin(e)
Hadassah Ayodele

boy, you so beautiful
you make me wanna
drop my flashlight
& find the sun
before the earth trembles
again & this shaft
collapses around me

girl, you so sweet
you make me wanna
swallow the ocean
& drown you
in saline carcasses
bait-strung bellies
& busted gills

4.1.09

*********************************************

I'm also reading/skimming a book of poetry every day.

Today's selection: Speak These Words: a Guerilla Poets anthology. (click the link to see this title on Amazon.com)



Edited by Janaka Stucky and published in 2001, this anthology features the work of 16 poets who posse'd up to take poetry to unsuspecting masses "on street corners, in subways, in shopping malls, in fast-food joints, in public restrooms, on piers, in stores and anywhere else."

Their goals?

"to celebrate the outloud art of poetry"
"paying special attention to the aesthetic beauty of the spoken word"
"to knock the walls down around poetry"
"to keep poetry a living and accessable [sic] language."

(from the back cover)

excerpts from a couple of poems in the collection:

He is the one who calls me beauty,
who keeps digging his fingers into me,
into every pocket of skin,
grabbing onto veins and muscles
bones and blood cells,
but his fingers are beginning to hurt
my spine and I cannot believe
he has found anything alive in me.

from Exhuming the Body of a Loved One
by Lauren Mazurek

how on Thursday afternoons,
the knife sharpener rides his bike in circles
and plays his high pitched whistle
until the red-haired housewife comes out
with her longest knife and says
"I'm so glad you came, I still have to chop a pig's thigh
for tomorrow's soup,"
he amuses her with the tiny fireworks show
between the whetstone and a blade
"How much do I owe you?"
"It's free for beautiful ladies like you"
and she blushes again.

how in the evening, soccer teams are formed
by the best player and the kid who owns the ball.
And then it's either the fat kid or the ugly girl
who gets upset
when they're chosen last--
and it's always one of them who's chosen last."

from Remember, please remember
by Jacobo Bergarche