M. Ayodele Heath

Poets Make Black History: Day 23

2011-02-23T08:36:00.001-05:00

"A Poem About Intelligence for My Brothers and Sisters" by June Jordan

Poets Make Black History is a web video series of 28 poems celebrating the contributions of African-American poets such as Sonia Sanchez, Lucille Clifton, Langston Hughes, and more...

Poets Make Black History: Day 22

2011-02-22T08:31:00.001-05:00

"Leda, After the Swan" by Carl Phillips

Performed by M. Ayodele Heath

Poets Make Black History is a web video series of 28 poems celebrating the contributions of African-American poets such as Sonia Sanchez, Lucille Clifton, Langston Hughes, and more...

Poets Make Black History: Day 21

2011-02-21T08:23:00.001-05:00

"Peeling Potatoes at Terezin Concentration Camp, 1944" by Kamilah Aisha Moon

Performed by M. Ayodele Heath

Poets Make Black History is a web video series of 28 poems celebrating the contributions of African-American poets such as Sonia Sanchez, Lucille Clifton, Langston Hughes, and more...

Poets Make Black History: Day 20

2011-02-20T08:13:00.001-05:00

"Ode to the Midwest" by Kevin Young

Performed by M. Ayodele Heath

Poets Make Black History is a web video series of 28 poems celebrating the contributions of African-American poets such as Sonia Sanchez, Lucille Clifton, Langston Hughes, and more...

Poets Make Black History: Day 19

2011-02-19T08:00:00.001-05:00

"Love in the Time of Chain Link Fences" by Reginald Dwayne Betts

Performed by M. Ayodele Heath

Poets Make Black History is a web video series of 28 poems celebrating the contributions of African-American poets such as Sonia Sanchez, Lucille Clifton, Langston Hughes, and more...

Poets Make Black History: Day 18

2011-02-18T07:54:00.005-05:00

"Elliptical" by Harryette Mullen

Performed by M. Ayodele Heath

Poets Make Black History is a web video series of 28 poems celebrating the contributions of African-American poets such as Sonia Sanchez, Lucille Clifton, Langston Hughes, and more...

Poets Make Black History: Day 17

2011-02-17T07:46:00.002-05:00

"Dark Prophecy, I Sing of Shine" by Etheridge Knight

Performed by M. Ayodele Heath

Poets Make Black History is a web video series of 28 poems celebrating the contributions of African-American poets such as Sonia Sanchez, Lucille Clifton, Langston Hughes, and more...

WARNING: THIS VIDEO CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE WHICH MAY BE UNSUITABLE FOR SOME VIEWERS. DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

Poets Make Black History: Day 16

2011-02-16T00:07:00.001-05:00

"The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" by Gil Scott Heron

Performed by M. Ayodele Heath

Poets Make Black History is a web video series of 28 poems celebrating the contributions of African-American poets such as Sonia Sanchez, Lucille Clifton, Langston Hughes, and more...

Poets Make Black History: Day 15

2011-02-15T17:01:00.006-05:00

"Power" by Audre Lorde

Performed by M. Ayodele Heath

Poets Make Black History is a web video series of 28 poems celebrating the contributions of African-American poets such as Sonia Sanchez, Lucille Clifton, Langston Hughes, and more...

WARNING: THIS VIDEO CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE WHICH MAY BE UNSUITABLE FOR SOME VIEWERS. DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

Poets Make Black History Day 14

2011-02-14T23:29:00.003-05:00

"Letter to an Unconceived Son" by Tyehimba Jess

Performed by M. Ayodele Heath

Poets Make Black History is a web video series of 28 poems celebrating the contributions of African-American poets such as Sonia Sanchez, Lucille Clifton, Langston Hughes, and more...

Poets Make Black History Day 13

2011-02-13T23:24:00.001-05:00

"Man on the TV Say" by Patricia Smith

Performed by M. Ayodele Heath

Poets Make Black History is a web video series of 28 poems celebrating the contributions of African-American poets such as Sonia Sanchez, Lucille Clifton, Langston Hughes, and more...

Poets Make Black History Day 12

2011-02-12T23:19:00.004-05:00

"Caged Bird" by Maya Angelou

Performed by M. Ayodele Heath

Poets Make Black History is a web video series of 28 poems celebrating the contributions of African-American poets such as Sonia Sanchez, Lucille Clifton, Langston Hughes, and more...

Poets Make Black History Day 11

2011-02-11T09:44:00.002-05:00

"The Blue Seuss" by Terrance Hayes

Performed by M. Ayodele Heath

Poets Make Black History is a web video series of 28 poems celebrating the contributions of African-American poets such as Sonia Sanchez, Lucille Clifton, Langston Hughes, and more...

Poets Make Black History: Day 10

2011-02-10T02:15:00.004-05:00

"The Ten Commandments" by Jericho Brown

Performed by M. Ayodele Heath

Poets Make Black History is a web video series of 28 poems celebrating the contributions of African-American poets such as Sonia Sanchez, Lucille Clifton, Langston Hughes, and more...

Poets Make Black History: Day 9

2011-02-09T01:33:00.004-05:00

"Making Foots" by Nikky Finney

Performed by M. Ayodele Heath

Poets Make Black History is a web video series of 28 poems celebrating the contributions of African-American poets such as Sonia Sanchez, Lucille Clifton, Langston Hughes, and more...

Poets Make Black History: Day 8

2011-02-08T01:21:00.001-05:00

Paul Laurence Dunbar's "A Negro Love Song"
Performed by M. Ayodele Heath

Poets Make Black History is a web video series of 28 poems celebrating the contributions of African-American poets such as Sonia Sanchez, Lucille Clifton, Langston Hughes, and more...

Poets Make Black History: Day 7

2011-02-07T07:04:00.007-05:00

"Facing It" by Yusef Komunyakaa

Performed by M. Ayodele Heath

Poets Make Black History is a web video series of 28 poems celebrating the contributions of African-American poets such as Sonia Sanchez, Lucille Clifton, Langston Hughes, and more...

Poets Make Black History: Day 6

2011-02-06T06:59:00.005-05:00

"For Black Women Who Are Afraid" by Toi Derricotte

Performed by M. Ayodele Heath

Poets Make Black History is a web video series of 28 poems celebrating the contributions of African-American poets such as Sonia Sanchez, Lucille Clifton, Langston Hughes, and more...

Poets Make Black History: Day 5

2011-02-05T08:29:00.004-05:00

"Flounder" by Natasha Trethewey

Performed by M. Ayodele Heath

Poets Make Black History is a web video series of 28 poems celebrating the contributions of African-American poets such as Sonia Sanchez, Lucille Clifton, Langston Hughes, and more...

Poets Make Black History: Day 4

2011-02-04T10:21:00.006-05:00

"Incident" by Countee Cullen

Performed by M. Ayodele Heath

Poets Make Black History is a web video series of 28 poems celebrating the contributions of African-American poets such as Sonia Sanchez, Lucille Clifton, Langston Hughes, and more...

Poets Make Black History: Day 3

2011-02-03T09:08:00.004-05:00

"If We Must Die" by Claude McKay

Performed by M. Ayodele Heath

Poets Make Black History is a web video series of 28 poems celebrating the contributions of African-American poets such as Sonia Sanchez, Lucille Clifton, Langston Hughes, and more...

Poets Make Black History: Day 2

2011-02-02T09:47:00.004-05:00

"Wise I" by Amiri Baraka

Performed by M. Ayodele Heath

Poets Make Black History is a web video series of 28 poems celebrating the contributions of African-American poets such as Sonia Sanchez, Lucille Clifton, Langston Hughes, and more...

Poets Make Black History: Day 1

2011-02-01T09:32:00.008-05:00

"Won't You Celebrate with Me?" by Lucille Clifton

Performed by M. Ayodele Heath

Poets Make Black History is a web video series of 28 poems celebrating the contributions of African-American poets such as Sonia Sanchez, Lucille Clifton, Langston Hughes, and more...

Common Ground

2008-08-08T16:56:00.007-04:00

I'M SLOWLY COMING BACK TO life.

About six months ago, 2 friends of mine and I, who had artistic inklings, decided to get together and expose ourselves.

So, On Thursday, September 4, I'll be participating with j.stacey grayson and melvin dozier in the opening of our first collective public visual art exhibition, "common ground."

Above is a sneak preview of four of my 10 pieces. Their titles (counterclockwise from top left) are:

"cooperation"
"osun"
"ere ibeji (twins)"
"be fruitful"

Dimensions of these range from 25" x 25" to 33" x 33".

If you're in Atlanta, mark the event on your calendar. Have some vino. I'd love to see you.

what:

opening reception for common ground

where:

the atrium
236 auburn ave., n.e.
atlanta, ga 30303

when:

thursday, 04 sept 2008

6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.

how much:

free

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED # 43: I'm a P(i)MP

2008-08-03T23:07:00.010-04:00

AS I'VE BASICALLY FALLEN INTO a black hole, albeit a blissful one, I figured now's as good a time as any to send a status report back to Earth. Seven Saturdays ago, I joined _atrese, _remain_, and _urti_ in a weekly study group to prepare for the ever-ethereal, ever-nebulous, ever-controversial Project Management Professional (PMP) certification exam.

Some employers think the certification is trash. Others won't even talk to you unless you have it. So, for once again in my life, I'm playing the paper game and erring on the side of killing trees. (That is, I'll take the paper for $500, Alex.)

After weeks of Pareto charts, Ishikawa diagrams, Earned Value Analysis, Delphi techniques, and critical paths, on Thursday, after work, I sat for the 4-hour, 200 question exam and...

Passed.

I shared the news with the other members of my study group this Saturday over sushi, and I won't stop until we're all certified! Promise.

If you happened to arrive at this entry via a Google search for how to pass the exam, here are some tips:

1) Create a study group. To say the PMBOK is dry is a gross understatement. Having a group of compadres with which to chew the chapters of rice cake made them much more palatable.

2) Teach it to someone else. I've always found that the best way for me to learn material is by teaching it to someone else. We covered two PMBOK chapters per week. On a rotating basis, one of us led teaching each chapter to the rest of the group.

3) Buy Rita Mulcahey's PMP Exam Study Prep, Fifth Edition. Everyone I spoke to who passed the test swore by this book. I'm gonna swear by it, too. About 15 - 20% of the test covers material not in PMBOK, and Rita's book is the most comprehensive source of material not covered in PMBOK. Also, her practice tests most closely resembled the types of questions on the exam. When I was scoring 80% or higher on the practice tests, I scheduled to take the actual test.
4) Take the day off on test day. Either take it on a weekend, or take the day off from work. I underestimated what it was like to sit for a 4-hour exam after a full day's work. It took me about 3 hours to finish, but the last half-hour was grueling. In hindsight, I wish I'd had a fresh mind.

5) Memorize all 44 processes inside and out. I did not take the time to learn every input, output, tool, and technique, however. I did take the time to memorize the recurring ones - Work Breakdown Structure, Risk Register, the various quality, cost, and schedule techniques, etc.

And if you have any questions about the exam, shoot me an e-mail at ayospeaks@gmail.com.

I'm here to help!

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED #43: Become PMP Certified

Ascension

2007-11-23T13:32:00.001-05:00

WHILE THE WRITING WELL HAS been experiencing a drought lately, this day after Thanksgiving, I'm thankful all artistic expression is not lost.

Above is my latest painting endeavor, which I'm calling Ascension. It's 8 panels, mixed media on canvas, roughly 42 inches tall by 70 inches wide.

...

2007-11-21T13:01:00.000-05:00

I apologize.
I've been corporatized.

Adventures in Playwriting: The First Reading

2007-06-28T17:23:00.000-04:00

TODAY, I DROVE TO EAST POINT to obtain a Tarot reading - not for myself, as one might expect for someone in my precarious situation. Rather, I got a reading for Nigel and Asha, two characters in my first play.

This might seem a rather odd practice - that one would seek a Tarot reader to get a reading for two fictional characters - but they're not fictional g*ddamit - I talk to them everyday!

The reading began with _a_u asking the purpose for the reading.

"Nigel and Asha have received a small inheritance - a very small inheritance from Nigel's Great Aunt," I said. "They're seeking advice on how to proceed."

_a_u whispered into his deck, shuffled his cards, and gave the couple a 5-card Crossroads spread:

which is used when the client is at a crossroads in life and is contemplating a change. The five cards tell you what happens/happened in the 1) Past, 2) Present, 3) Future, 4) Visible World, and 5) Invisible World.
Here is what the reading revealed:

1) PAST

CARD: SANTERIA-OGUN

CONTEMPLATION: An iron gun, old yet capable of firing a lethal bullet. This gun was not made for target practice or the hunting of food. It has but one purpose. It has but one target.

INTERPRETATION: There has been violence and/or a possible conflict with the law in either Nigel or Asha's past.

2) PRESENT

CARD: SANTERIA-YEMAYA

CONTEMPLATION: Honey flows freely from Our Lady's gracious bounty.

INTERPRETATION: This card shows Yemaya as a beautiful pregnant orisha standing in the foaming sea. She is about to give birth. This means that either one is literally pregnant with a child or metaphorically pregnant with an idea. It also means abundance and wealth.

3) FUTURE

CARD: CONGO-WATER-GRANBOIS

CONTEMPLATION: Favorable outcome when last words are said and last things done.

INTERPRETATION: Keep quiet about your inheritance and you should have no difficulty.

4) VISIBLE WORLD

CARD: PETRO-FIRE-ERZUILE

CONTEMPLATION: Rage and hate binds you to your object as closely as does great love. Hate and love are both sides of the same coin whose denomination is union. Will is the name of the Hand that distributes these coins.

INTERPRETATION: Not all will be easy in the transference of this inheritance. There is jealousy, anger, and hatred - perhaps from family, perhaps from elsewhere.

5) INVISIBLE WORLD

CARD: SANTERIA-OLODUMARE

CONTEMPLATION: Accepting one's personal failures. Embracing one's sadness. Usg these sadnesses and failures to build a house of peace and purity, an impregnable abode fit for the indwelling of Obatala (God).

INTERPRETATION: Whatever material goals you are seeking, God will provide them.

Oddly enough, or perhaps not, the reading is pretty in-line with the plot I've envisioned. The most surprising piece of information was that _a_u correctly read that Asha is pregnant.

In fact, she is and has not yet told her boyfriend, Nigel.

If _a_u can see into the world of fiction, maybe I should ask _a_u for tonight's Cash 3 numbers... Maybe not.

Since I've got nothing better to do, I may as well write a play. ;-) Thirteen pages and counting...

MISSIONS ACCOMPLISHED: 9, 21, and 59

2007-06-24T16:36:00.000-04:00

IT'S BEEN A FEW MONTHS SINCE I've updated my 101 in 1001 and, while I haven't achieved a lot of quantity as it relates to mark-offs, I have achieved 3 big ones as it relates to quality:

#9: Get a laptop.

One immediate consequence of becoming unemployed was that I had to surrender my work laptop. It took me about 4 days to realize that I couldn't go back to being chained to a computer desk at home, so I went out and bought an Acer TravelMate 2480. While it's not as sexy as the Powerbook I'd been eyeing for the past year, it more than gets the job done for a writer - and, thanks to GIM Computers, for less than half the Powerbook's price!

#21: Buy a house.

It's been several years in the making, but I finally got fed up with renting. About 3 years ago, I decided to work on my credit, go back to school, get a new job, and save up some cash so that, in 2007 I could make the big leap.

Every Sunday since mid-January, I drove to the neighborhood and imagined myself turning a key in the front door. On March 19, 2007, I sealed the deal on a 3 bedroom townhouse in the SWATs!

Since, I've become one old handyman: painting, hanging shelves,painting, installing light fixtures, painting, and plumbing even.

Did I mention painting?

# 59: Teach a college level course

Thomas Lux and Georgia Tech made a dream come true when they selected me as a McEver Visiting Chair in Writing. While it only lasted four weeks, it was life-changing. Though it felt a little strange to be called Professor Heath, it was the single most natural employment experience I've had in my entire life - almost as if I was born to do it!

They Called Him Buddy

2007-06-19T07:41:00.000-04:00

I WAS SURPRISED AT HOW HEAVY the body was, despite the fact that six of us carried it.

The ceremony was a short, utilitarian affair. It started 2 minutes early, and we were asked not to wear suits.

"Black pants, a white shirt, and a tie," my mother said. "Just make sure the tie isn't red."

As pallbearers, I thought that we might at least wear white gloves, especially in this faraway place of rituals we grew up knowing as only "The Country." So, I was a little surprised at the end of the fifty-five minute ceremony when the pastor said, "Will the pallbearers please rise and exit the church?" and within seconds, I was out in the 95-degree heat with my bare right hand wrapped around the cool steel of the casket rail.

*

They called him Buddy, but he was born J_hn Wesley Byrd. He was my Mother's father, which made him my grandfather. He passed early Friday morning after 88 years from a sudden bout of pneumonia, just short of Father's Day.

If my Mother and her siblings had had their way, the body would have arrived by mule. Instead, a sky-blue hearse delivered his body to Hopewell Baptist Church in Upatoi, Georgia, and a matching limousine carried his seven living children.

The funeral staff granted the family's wishes to keep the ceremony's pace swift. In fact, it left my Aunt Mae on the outside of the church:

"She's still in the limousine," my Mother, Lucille, whispered to her sister, Brenda.

"Why's she still in the limousine?" Brenda whispered back. "The friends and guests are almost finished viewing the body, and they gonna close the casket!"

"She's locked in it," my Mother said. "She can't get out."

"Whatchu mean she cain't get out. Tell her to open the door!" Brenda said.

"Brenda, she's locked in. It won't open from the inside or the outside."

"Oh Lawd," Brenda said. "Clarence," she said to their brother. "'Cille say Mae in the limousine and she cain't get out."

"How she got locked in the limousine?"

"I don't know," Brenda said, "but we gotta hurry up. They gonna close the casket in a couple of minutes."

"Well, she saw the body yesterday," Clarence said.

"Clarence!" my Mother quipped.

"Well, where the driver at?" he asked.

"Ain't that him on the organ?" Brenda said.

"No," my Mother said. "There he is, standing over there. M_rvin, go and see if you can get the driver to help your Aunt Mae. Hurry up, now before the casket closes!"

When the limo driver freed my aunt from the limousine, her first words to him were not, "How in the hell did you lock me in the limousine?" but:

"That's just Daddy having his last word."

*

The graveyard was maybe fifty yards from the front door of the church, but it felt like Grandpa's 147 pound body gained a pound with each step. Such is this heaviness:

This is the soil where my Father's Grandfather is buried (1886-1965). This is the soil where my Father's Grandmother is buried (1888-1969). This is the soil where my Father's Mother is buried. This is the church where my Father's father was a deacon.

This is the soil where my Mother's mother is buried. This is where, today, we bury my Mother's father.

This is the church where my Mother met my Father.

This is where, today, we bury my Mother's father.

What a wonderful weight to bear.

All of these years, I never really understood how intertwined my Mother's and Father's families were - how small these worlds.

My cousin behind me kept stepping on my right heel. For once in my life, my world shrank to a very singular purpose: Carry this weight and don't fall.

"Turn," I heard a voice say. "Now switch hands." The pallbearers switched hands. "Now, lift up once." We lifted. "Now, once again." We lifted again. "Now, one final time."

And with the final heave, the work was done. Without a fuss, the casket lowered into the ground.

Another Dream of Traveling

2007-06-02T06:50:00.000-04:00

IN THIS DREAM, I WAS DRIVING on a freeway. It must have been the Downtown Connector because there were 7 or 8 lanes of traffic in each direction. Driving the car I currently own, I was in the right-hand lane.

Traffic was thick, but moving as I approached an underpass when, ahead to the left, like an enormous harpooned whale, an 18-wheeler began dumbly whipping its tail back and forth across the traffic, sending eight, nine, ten cars behind it crashing against the underpass walls before finally coming to rest, just beyond the underpass, in its great clumsiness, taking another 18-wheeler in its wake.

Great plumes of fire and smoke erupted into the sky as motorists rushed to pull off to the side of the expressway. I, too, found myself in that number - first, counting my blessings, but then, wondering when, if ever, I'd be able to leave this great shadow under this bridge.

My patience would not let me wait to go where I was going, though I didn't quite know where that going might be. But I knew I had to keep moving - car or not, freeway or not - and I began walking back the way I had come - which would be regressing - though away from the smoke and fire.

I didn't get very far, not even from underneath the shadow of the bridge, before I saw cars moving again. I turned around and saw that, not only was traffic zooming beyond the speed limit, but the underpass was not as I had remembered it. Instead of drab concrete walls holding up the bridge, there were now construction and windows with dazzling displays of chic mannequins and mod furniture. Wet cement for a sidewalk, even.

I stumbled into the area where I thought that I'd left my car and found someone official-looking.

"My car," I said. "Where is my car?"

He looked at me dumbly, his face covered in construction dust.

"There it is," I said, locating my car, now, too, covered in dust, but surrounded by store walls. Could it even be gotten out?

"What? I have a ticket? How can you give me a ticket? There was the accident... I only walked away for a few minutes! How was I to know that it would only take minutes to clear?

"There was fire." I pointed to where there was no fire. "And all of the smoke! And now all of this construction? How dare you give me a ticket! Who do I need to talk to get this removed? I wasn't even gone five minutes! You g*ddamned government official! How the f*ck was I supposed to know..."

And, like a broken record on full volume, I continued my tirade until the tendons in my throat were no longer taut, until long after I was out of breath.

And I had to make a choice:

Go back and get my ticketed dust-covered car, which was now surrounded by four walls, or keep it moving - on foot.

Traveling, Part II

2007-06-01T17:01:00.000-04:00

TODAY, I DISCOVERED the meaning of my dream about the red shoes.

I arrived at work around 8:30 with breakfast for my co-workers: pancakes and sausage for _ue___ and French toast and turkey sausage for ___in__. I wore a yellow, long-sleeved Oxford shirt because it was Friday and I was feeling like the sun.

Today, made 4 months at the new gig.

After I finished my own French toast, slopped in syrup and butter, I put on my headphones, turned on my favorite Pandora station, and began my usual business of manipulating cells in Excel.

Suddenly, I got the urge to begin backing up files - my personal files. I was on my work laptop, where I hadn't stored many, but there were a few essential "documents" which had been updated recently (for good reason, apparently) which needed to be protected. So, I shot them to my Gmail account. That's when I received the first tap on my shoulder.

"M_rvin," ___in__ said. "You know they just let ____ go."

"Really?" I said

"Well, right now it is just a rumor, but nobody's heard from her. There's nothing on her desk. We don't know if she went on vacation or what."

"Wow," I said. "How long had she been here?"

"I don't know. Four... five years? It's really sad."

"Yes, that is really sad," I said, stuck my earphones back in, and went back to working.

A few minutes later, I received the second tap on my shoulder. I turned around.

"M_rvin," ___in__ said. "It gets worse. I just heard that they're laying off one person from every department."

"Wow. Now that's pretty serious. Who'd you hear that from?"

She mouthed the person's name.

"M_rvin, hold my hand," she said, playfully - but not playing.

"What are you worried about?" I asked.

Then, she went into the reasons why she thought that she'd be the one let go. Then, she justified why the other Project Manager in the department might be let go.

Then, I said, "Well, I was the last one hired in the department. If there's going to be any letting go, it would only make sense that it would be me."

Then, ____in_ went into all these reasons relating to value and contributions and non-threatingness and likeability as to why, if there was a keeper, I would definitely be it.

"Okay," I said and began backing up my Favorites. This time, I turned off the music.

A few minutes later, I received the final tap on my shoulder, but I heard the person coming.

"M_rvin, can you come down to see me?" said K___, the VP of _e____e. "We won't be in my office. We'll be in the training room."

We? I thought to myself. Here we go.

Then, I grabbed a pen and pad. Though I usually took my laptop to meetings, this time, I decided to travel light.

When I entered the room with its mystic royal blue walls, K___ was accompanied by _e____, the head of HR. A long white envelope glowed ominously on the table where they sat. I joined them.

The 90-second speech began, "Well, M_rvin, as you know, we're in a financial crunch" and it ended with, "you've been a terrific asset to this company, but, effective today, your services will no longer be needed at _o_____ _ho___ Technologies."

"Do you have anything you would like to say?" he added.

"No," I said, smiling. "No, nothing to say."

"We really hate doing this," said _e______, the head of HR.

"I understand," I said to him. "I understand," I said to her.

_e_____ informed me of when my benefits would expire, my eligibility for unemployment, etc.

K____ added, "We just want you to know that this is in no way reflective of your performance.

If you need any letters of recommendation, I'll be glad to write them. Do you have any questions for us?"

"No. No questions. Thanks for the opportunity to work here."

"Again, we're really sorry and I know this sounds crude, but would you like a box for your things?" _e_____ said, as her hand directed me to, not one, but a tower of boxes stacked in the corner. The grace of her gesture reminded me of Janice Pennington from the Price is Right.

"I'll take one. Yes, thanks."

I picked a box, only there was no brand new car.

If that's all," K___ said, "we'll escort you to your desk."

There is something very genteel about the word, "escort," in this context. The last time I was "escorted" somewhere was as a special guest for a Black history program for the city of Roswell. Another time, I was being escorted to the front of an auditorium as a special guest for a New Year's assembly at a Zulu high school in South Africa. But each time that I've been escorted, there has been a stage waiting for me - a special stage for me to share my talents with the world.

So, as I walked down the graying corridor to my cubicle, my ears rang with a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.:

Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase,
just take the first step.

As I whisked past my former co-workers, their eyes shying away - as if to look at me would be to become me - I felt like a caterpillar about to take flight, or a sun about to rise.

It seems that my dream of the shoes had been my 2-week notice.

Within 5 minutes, I had boxed up all of my things and said my goodbyes. I walked off, donning my new red shoes, into my new life.

Traveling, Part I

2007-05-21T08:41:00.000-04:00

LAST NIGHT I DREAMT I was wearing red shoes. Loafers.

But anyone who knows me knows I wouldn't be caught dead wearing red shoes - especially loafers.

I'm not a loafers kinda guy.

This morning, I stuck my right foot in a brown Oxford I hadn't worn in months. But something was troubling my big toe: A penny? A pebble?

I pulled off the shoe. Shook it. And out came, wrapped in silver foil, a Hershey's kiss.

What does it mean? Where do I go?

Return of the King

2007-02-21T16:50:00.000-05:00

I HAVEN'T REALLY blogged about my new day gig. It's another position as a project manager for a technology company. The commute is farther, but it'$ a growth opportunity.

After being in one place for 11 years, another place is bound to feel a little different. So, now that I have three weeks under my belt and some of the newness has worn off, I can safely say, the place really is a little different.

Rather than tell you, I'll let you see for yourself. This happened while we were in the middle of a meeting at 4:00 this Wednesday:

Mo Drama

2007-02-18T16:35:00.000-05:00

NOW THAT I'VE COMPLETED my MFA in Poetry and now that I''ve joined hundreds of other MFA graduates in playing the ludicrous lottery of submitting the manuscript to poetry first book contests, one might think that I would be itching to put the MFA to work and start on my second collection.

One might think that, but one would be wrong.

Instead, on February 5, I began writing the next chapter of my literary development by enrolling in a course entitled Intro to Playwriting at Actor's Express, taught by none other than local playwriting prodigy, Lauren Gunderson.

My Mondays begin with me rising at 7:00 a.m. - prepping and grooming before the commute into the sun at 7:45. About 40 minutes later, I arrive at the new day gig, work until 5:30, and hit the gym for an hour. By the time I get to the Playwriting class at 8:00 p.m. - 13 hours later - I should be running on fumes.

But I'm not. I'm a live wire.

Lauren's really passionate about playwriting, and it's contagious. I haven't been this enthused since I took my first poetry workshop with Blake Leland as an undergrad at Georgia Tech in 1994. There are striking similarities to that experience and this one. For starters, I'm the only Black person in the class.

Which is to say, I stick out. Again. But that's par for the course.

I remember the first time I picked up the Nuyorican anthology Aloud in '94, and how I dreamed of one day performing on the Nuyorican stage. I had no idea how I would get there. I'd never seen the place, but it happened. It took 6 years.

This time, my sights are on an analogous institution in the theatre community, New York's Public Theatre. Though I've never been there, I've seen/read many works incubated there: George C. Wolfe's The Colored Museum, Suzan-Lori Parks' Topdog/Underdog, Richard Greenberg's Take Me Out, Daniel Beaty's Emergence-See!, and Savignon Glover/George C. Wolfe's Bring in da Noise, Bring in da Funk. I've always admired the Public Theatre's commitment to developing new work and its commitment to community outreach. And I'm excited to have my own work join that tradition.

I'll give myself 6 years to get a play staged there. 2013 here I come!

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED #6: New England, a New Beginning

2007-01-25T08:07:00.000-05:00

SO, WHEN I ASKED MY MOTHER AND FATHER IF THEY were coming up for my graduation in January, this was the answer I got from Moms:

"Well, I'm trying to convince your Daddy to go. He seems to think we're gonna get drowned in snow. He keeps asking me to check the weather."

That was October.

Now, how an October weather report would accurately predict a New England blizzard in January was beyond the both of us; in fact, it was beyond the realm of rational thought. But something about New England in winter made my father, King David Heath of Talbotton, Georgia, irrational. Yet something about this lack of ration was fitting because my mother and father would be coming to witness an event which was, by anybody's stretch, irrational: my graduation with a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from New England College.

If you've been following this blog, you know the convoluted path I took to get here. Rational thought said I should have gotten a bachelor's degree from Georgia Tech, gone on to graduate studies in electrical engineering at MIT, and followed a sequence of 0's and 1's until I was married with a wife named Angela, two children named Chelsea and Marvin, moving into our second house in some suburb of DC or Houston by this point, living a life of baseball practices and piano recitals and mutual funds.

Instead, here I was trying to convince my Pops to get on a plane to brave the possibility of a blizzard to see me, who shattered his dream of an electrical engineer, graduate with a Masters degree in Fine Arts - Poetry, no less:

SO, HERE ARE me and Pops just before the graduation ceremony. Incidentally, not only did it not snow, but the day before Moms and Pops arrived, the sky was blue, the groundskeeper was actually mowing the grass, and the temperature topped 70 degrees. How's that for New England in January?

Even beyond the weather, the entire residency
was surreal. First, I should mention that, for the first time since the inception of the New England College MFA in Creative Writing program, the winter residency was not being held at the campus in Henniker, NH, but rather at the Northfield Mount Hermon School for Young Ladies , a sprawling campus about 90 minutes south in Northfield, Massachusetts which could have passed for the set of A Separate Peace - in some ways.

In other ways, the campus was eerily reminiscent of The Shining. Perhaps, it was the still as of yet unexplained woman's voice we all heard 3 o'clock one morning screaming, Let me in! I'm locked outside! I'm locked outsiiiiiiiide!!!

Aside from causing good old-fashioned nightmares, the move to this campus could have created a logistical nightmare: flying into Hartford instead of Manchester, all of us being equally lost on a new campus - new students and old students alike. But it went rather smoothly considering.

An unintended consequence of this move to this location "even remoter than Henniker" was that we had no access to a convenience store. Instead, we had a makeshift comissary with very limited options. When I realized that I had forgotten to pack my electric razor, this led to me accomplishing one of my quirkier 101 in 1001 goals:

#86: Shave with a disposable razor.

The only ones they had were pink.

*

BUT THE HEIGHT OF SURREALNESS actually occurred on the first full-day of the residency when four of our graduating class of eight had to present our half of the panel, "Doing the Nasty: Writing in, Around, and Through Taboo." Each of us had fifteen minutes to present some craft-oriented mini-lecture. Some of my classmates' topics: Issa Lewis, "The Fallible Speaker: An Exploration of Anne Sexton's 'The Exorcists'"; Misha Cahnmann-Taylor, "White Lies, White Truths: White Writers on Race in Contemporary American Poetry."

My taboo topic? "Rethinking the P*ssy Poem: An Analysis of Tone in the Poetry of Nin Andrews." Yes, me, on a panel talking about p*ssy poems for fifteen minutes.

Priceless.

At the Hartford airport the previous day as we waited for our shuttle to campus, I practiced my p*ssy talk on my classmate, Issa Lewis. I had some reservations about being male and leading such a talk, so I made sure to incorporate a lot of audience participation into the talk. Issa was my guinea pig.

Naturally, the big taboo is the word, p*ssy - particularly, saying it aloud. So, imagine us, in an airport waiting area, surrounded by tables of people, trying to navigate this talk - using our "inside voices," but having to raise our volume periodically to outtalk the P.A. system - Would passenger Douglass J_nes please report to the U.S. Air counter? Passenger Douglass J_nes? - only to have the room suddenly go quiet just as Issa says the following line from "The P*ssy's Debut":

"P*ssy. Pretty, isn't it?"

Imagine the elderly man at the table next to us, raising his brow as he reads the Times. Imagine the woman two tables over, feeding her infant apple sauce, suddenly missing the baby's mouth.

After the practice run concluded, Issa said, "In all my years of living, I've never said the word, p*ssy, as many times as I have in the past fifteen minutes."

"But did you like it?" I asked.

She paused for a moment. Then she said devilishly, "Yesssss."

Parting is such sweet sorrow, it is said. And I'd have to concur. Even in a low-residency format, bonds are created which hurt to break. But where one road ends, there is a place to forge another. And standing here, today, it could not be any brighter.

To end this entry, which culminates an 11-year chapter in my life, which resulted in the completion of my first book-length poetry manuscript, Dreams in the Black Bazaar, (a fitting title for my last 11 years), which resulted in my completion of goal #6: Graduate with an MFA, and which finally allows me to lay Marvin Heath to rest, I'll share these photos of my two families who made it possible - my fellow NEC Class of Winter 2007 graduates: L-to-R: Benjamin Russell, Issa Lewis, Jim Kelleher, me, Michael Fisher, Misha Cahnmann-Taylor, Tara Betts, and Laurie Sewall (not shown) and Moms and Pops.

Here's to a new beginning:

Frames: a Portrait of 2 Black Men

2007-01-23T07:47:00.000-05:00

AS I RETURNED TO WORK AFTER one of my final lunches with my co-worker, __i__, we discussed the notion of truth as it relates to the two different realms of media in which we practice: his, photography; mine, print.

"Photographers are the biggest liars there are," __i__ said as I turned on the wiper blades. The traffic light turned green. "No one wants to see the truth. No one wants to see the wrinkles and the scars. No one wants to see the zits. They want to see the make-up and the air-brushing and the digital editing. People want lies and we give 'em to 'em."

"Well, was there ever a time when photographs were viewed as truth?" I asked, stepping on the gas. "I mean, how does what you've said relate to Seeing is believing?"

"Well, no matter who takes the photograph, there's always a matter of perspective," he said. "If I take a picture of your face from beneath you, it can make you look more intimidating.

"Or let's say if I take my hand and point it at your face like this." He pointed his hand an inch away from my right cheek. "And let's say I shake my hand as if I'm chastising you, like this. If someone were to take a photograph of us in this car at this second, it could be used as evidence that we were arguing - say, as a motive for murder."

Why this particular gesture, I thought, of all?

"There's always more to a story than a photograph can present," he continued. "What happened in the 10 seconds before the photograph? What happened 10 seconds after? What is occurring just one foot outside of the frame?"

"That's really interesting," I said. "It's fascinating how so much credence in our culture has been placed on photography... and print - how much value we put on these media to document. To see a photograph of something or to see it in print automatically makes it seem more true.

"For instance, in a court of law, if I were to verbally testify that you stayed late after work on 4 different occasions in the past month, it would strengthen my testimony in the eyes of the average person if I possessed a document where I had recorded the dates and times. The funny thing is, it would strengthen the testimony regardless of when I had created the document - even if I had created it just hours before on a computer. The document doesn't make what I'm saying any more true, but we believe it to be more true.

"History is the prime example," I continued. "It is just as easy to write a lie as it is to write the truth."

"Ain't that the truth," he said.

*

A few minutes before the frame of this blog entry, I revealed a truth to __it_, my main lunch buddy at _o_____ _ed__ _ystems.

After 11 years of service, I pointed and committed a murder, of sorts. I handed in my letter of resignation.

I know it hurt a little for him to hear it, because it hurt a lot for me to say it. I'm going to miss these conversations, __i__. I'm going to miss the midday diversions from the trappings of cubicle life, the exploration of new lunch spots, the visits to the Apple store, the occasional Borders run, and most of all - yes, most of all, the fellowship.

And that's the truth, man. Thanks for all the years.

Back from...

2007-01-16T05:26:00.000-05:00

Since I last blogged on December 7 (bad blogger, bad blogger), I've completed a personal revolution of sorts. Which is to say, there's a load to report. Will I be able to recall it all?

Anyway, expect updates to resume this week. 2007's off to a bang!

You Walked Right Into That One

2006-12-07T07:38:00.000-05:00

MANAGER: It's a damned shame no one ever taught you how to open a big screen TV.
GRUNT: Huh?
MANAGER: I said, It's a damned shame that nobody ever taught you how to open the box of a big screen TV.
GRUNT: ...
MANAGER: You're supposed to turn the box so that the TV is right-side up inside the box. See? Then, you tear away the box and all the packaging around it. That way you don't have to flip the TV after it's out of the box. (Smugly.) That's how you open a big screen TV.
GRUNT: ...
MANAGER: ...
GRUNT: I wouldn't know. I'm poor... I can't afford a big screen TV.

Serving Time

2006-12-04T09:15:00.000-05:00

I HAPPEN TO LOVE catfish: blackened catfish, cajun catfish, catfish with blackbean sauce, catfish & grits; Catfish Masala, Catfish Provencale, Catfish Piccata, Catfish Almondine; pecan-crusted catfish, panang catfish, pan-seared catfish, and the Great Granddaddy of them all, good old fashioned southern fried catfish.

Yes, heaven is an all-you-can-eat buffet of catfish.

My friend, _ar____ had been promising to take me to a catfish joint in Austell which he's been raving about for the past two years - the kind where, on Saturday nights, people stuff themselves four generations at a time; the kind of where people walk in, but have to roll themselves out.

We finally made it there this past Saturday. Though the place was packed, the hostess was able to seat us immediately.

Before I could open the menu _ar___ said, "Salt & Pepper catfish."

"What?" I said.

"Salt & Pepper catfish. You can look at the menu, but the S & P catfish is great. Trust me on this one."

"Okay, Salt & Pepper it is," I said and tapped the menu shut.

As the waiters scurried to and fro balancing platters of crab, oysters, and fish, two of them nodded at _ar___, recognizing him from his previous visits.

"I come here almost every week," he said.

When our twenty-something waiter arrived, he seemed a little awkward in taking our drink orders. He wasn't very personable.

"You want water... and lemonade?"

"Yeah," I said. "A water and a lemonade."

In an effort to change the vibe, _ar___ made some small talk. "You're new here, aren't you?"

"No," the waiter replied indignantly. "I've been here a whole month."

"..."

"..."

"..."

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED # 28: The Stuff of Stuffing

2006-11-23T14:02:00.000-05:00

SO, I ARRIVED AT THE DEKALB COUNTY JAIL's back entrance and pressed the buzzer.

"Do you have any of the items posted on the sign to your right?" a voice over the intercom said.

Suddenly, I couldn't read. A man I recognized from television as Sheriff Thomas Brown appeared next to me and, with his index finger, underlined each red-lettered item on the sign.

Guns.
Knives.
Drugs.
Cell phones.

Then, I realized that I'd ended a call just before I pressed the buzzer. Clearly, the voice over the intercom must have seen me talking on my cell phone over the security camera. Surely, it is what prompted her to ask the question.

There are few things more annoying than a person asking you a question they already have the answer to. And here, with the sherriff standing next to me.

"Yes, I have a cell phone."

"I'll need you to secure your cell phone before you enter," she said.

Secure? Like, in my pocket?
Rather than be a wise a$$, I assumed she meant that she wanted me to leave it outside.

"Um, okay. I'm going to put it in my car," I said. (I was coming to serve - not be served. I wasn't trying to spend the night in the DeKalb County Jail.)

I returned and rang the guard again.

"Did you secure your cell phone, sir?"

"Yes," I said.

She buzzed me into the barbed wired gate, and I walked up the ramp to the back entrance to the jail where I - without a strip search, without a pat down, without so much a waved wand - signed in and, within 3 minutes, was in a hairnet and apron ready to begin my shift for goal #28: Volunteer for Hosea Feed the Hungry.

*

Hosea Williams was one of the most outspoken leaders of the Civil Rights movement. During the 1965 march on Selma, he was beaten to the point of unconsciousness. This proved perhaps his most remarkable quality: his hard-headedness.

His motto was "Unbought and unbossed." In fact, Martin Luther King once called him, "My wild man, my Castro." Lacking the tact or diplomacy of King, Joseph Lowery, and Ralph Abernathy, Hosea never really got the national attention of the others. But Hosea's mission was primarily to carry on what King considered the second phase of the Civil Rights movement, which King began just before his assassination in 1968: the Poor People's Campaign.

One of Hosea's greatest accomplishments in this effort was Hosea Feed the Hungry & Homeless which offers hot meals, haircuts, and clothing for the needy in Atlanta each Thanksgiving and Christmas. Also providing job training and rent and utility assistance, today, the program serves over 55,000 men, women, and children each year.

*
I'd never seen so much bread in my life: White bread. Brown bread. Publix bread. Colonial bread. Bread ends. Bread middles. Bread stacked 8 ft. high. Bread from wall to wall. Bread for rooms and rooms.

I was assigned to a group of a dozen or so volunteers for the 6 - 9 p.m. shift, whose duty was to tear bread for stuffing for the next day's Thanksgiving dinner. In two lines of chairs, we faced each other: elderly, young; Black, Asian, White; each leaned over a 30-gallon bag waiting to be filled.

19 And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude.

20 And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full.

21 And they that had eaten were about five thousand men, beside women and children.

Like clockwork, we took loaves, opened them, and tore and tore and tore the bread; four slices at a time, five slices at a time; into fives into tens. And over poorly-rendered Christmas carols - What did the true love give on the 12th day? - and out-of-tune TV jingles, we each filled the bags with pieces of bread, with the stuff of stuffing, with pieces of our lives.

There was something very therapeutic about all of this tearing and joining and joining and tearing. In other halls and other rooms in the basement of this jail, some cleaned turkeys, others chopped onions, others emptied vats of green beans.

How humbling it was to play such a small part in a project that would, the next day, serve a multitude of 5,000 - threefold. Fifteen thousand men, women, and children all made possible by thousands of volunteers giving the greatest donation of all: Time.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED #28: Volunteer for Hosea Feed the Hungry.

At the Silver Skillet for Breakfast This Morning, I Saw This and Couldn't Resist

2006-11-19T15:18:00.000-05:00

BREAKING NEWS: Atlanta Hosts 1st Annual B.E.T. Hip Hop Music Awards and...

2006-11-13T19:29:00.000-05:00

no
one
got
shot

REVIEW: Dolores Kendrick's The Women of Plums: Poems in the Voices of Slave Women (William Morrow Company, Inc. 1989)

2006-11-07T21:30:00.000-05:00

In his 1979 critical collection, From Behind the Veil: A Study of Afro-American Narrative, Robert B. Stepto posits, "The strident, moral voice of the former slave recounting, exposing, appealing, apostrophizing, and above all remembering his ordeal in bondage is the single most impressive feature of the slave narrative." But what of a collection of poems based on slave narratives? Is the remembering enough? And if it is not enough, what elevates this remembrance to poetry? This is the challenge faced by former Washington, D.C., poet laureate, Dolores Kendrick’s award-winning 1989 collection, The Women of Plums: Poems in the Voices of Slave Women.

The Women of Plums is based on actual interviews of female slaves conducted by the Federal Writers’ Project. Ambitious in scope, these poems, mostly dramatic monologues written in the voices of slave women, humanize the horrors of slavery. In "Sophie, Climbing the Stairs," a slave braves the threat of flogging to learn how to read. In "Leah: in Freedom" a runaway slave refuses to let her spirit be broken despite repeated recapture. In "Ndzeli in Passage," a slave’s sister chooses death by drowning during the Middle Passage over a life of enslavement in America.

While these situations are moving, the poems themselves, often, do not move. The lyrical execution of the dramatic scenes is largely uneven.

True, there are moments when Kendrick’s technique dazzles. Alliterative and assonant, "Liza Lily in Silks" turns and turns and turns, reveling in its own sounds:

Oh, this is a quiet dress.
Light. Airy.
I can take off soft

in it anytime I please
if only to tease
Edam. Get him away

from the horror of his hope
That traps him in that
House that both of us hate.

I wait…

Written in the form of a shopping list, "To Market, to Market" chills the reader with its utter inhumanity:

one Spinning Wheel
one Dresser Mirror
one nigger wench & child

The ballad form beautifully amplifies content in the tragic "The Ballad of Bethany Veney" where:

...when old Kibber came upon
us running brave and free,
he made John climb
(for the last time)
the way away from me
  Good God! the way from me.

With its crisp monosyllablics, the images in "Julia Carrying Water" sing with the clarity of Lucille Clifton:

though I walk through
briars and bristles

up hills and over
stony paths

in rooms brightly dark
with watery movin’

But in other places within the collection, the language too often dulls into what reads like transcriptions arbitrarily broken into lines, as in these prosaic passages from "A Slightly Colored Lady":

In slavery you had to be good or you’d
Make Marster mad and he’d sell you
Or beat you or both…

And you wouldn’t know ‘till ‘twas too late
‘bout Jonah who be sold ‘way from his family
And Lilliemae who stood on the auction-block

Or these lines from "Sidney, Looking for her Mother…":

And you detain me unlawfully. Do you understand the
papers, suh? Can you
read? No offense, suh. Oh, no! but the train for Austin be
here any
Minute and that be the place where I last heard my mother
was

Or still worse, these lines from "Jo Abandoned":

At least I think he could Though his feelin’s be slow
They usually firm and honorable Just wanted the best
Jack always wanted the best for himself I didn’t fit

Where is image? Where is metaphor? Where is music?

Ironically, the most lyrical language in The Women of Plums actually occurs before the title page in "Canticles of a Black Lady," the prelude to the collection. Hear the lovely music in "…Fly winds to sea-rocks and break/ a round of prayer upon their backs," "Their ripe dreams bitten into leave a sour sweetness in the membranes of the mouth," and "The women of plums are sweet and black./ Their flesh moist with tears of joy."

It begs the question whether the need for verisimilitude to the slave narrative transcriptions shackles Kendrick’s ability to lyrically deliver.

Dolores Kendrick does get credit for originality in content. Along with Rita Dove’s 1987 Pulitzer Prize-winning collection Thomas and Beulah, Kendrick’s The Women of Plums helped lay the foundation for the recent rash of book-length African-American verse based on historical figures including Natasha Trethewey's 2002 Bellocq's Ophelia, Quraysh Ali Lansana‘s 2004 collection, They Shall Run: Harriet Tubman Poems, and Tyehimba Jess‘ 2005 National Poetry Series winning Leadbelly.

As Stepto proposed was true of the slave narrative, The Women of Plums’ real strength is in its remembering and in its engagement of the "moral, strident voice." While some of the poems struggle on the page, they consistently cry out to be voiced. Thus, it is no surprise that Kendrick adapted the collection for the stage, where it won the New York New Playwrights Award in 1997.

Before The Women of Plums, never before had there been such an assemblage of voices of female slaves in verse. But poetry demands more than originality in content. It demands originality in technique. In this regard, the fruit of The Women of Plums is lyrically bittersweet.

The End

2006-10-26T13:39:00.000-04:00

This is it. Thursday, 26 Oct 2006, 1:29 p.m. The last straw.

I'm not mentioning who did it, or where it happened. But as of right now, it is over. Finis. Done. Rubber stamp it. Slam the gavel. Seal the coffin. Stick a fork in it.

Take a good look at these shoes, cause soon you're gonna hafta fill 'em.

So it is written.

So it shall be done.

Not Everyone's Dreading It

2006-10-19T19:14:00.000-04:00

THIS WEEK I GOT HIT WITH what many consider to be the most dreaded of all civil services. Eight long hours, one short check: Jury Duty.

Reporting time was 8:15. So, I rose with the roosters to make the rush hour drive downtown to the zoo which masquerades as the Fulton County Justice Center.

After security clearance and the 7-story elevator ride, at 8:00 I checked in with the clerk and, with the rest of the pool of groggy jurors, joined the drone of bureaucracy. All was relatively quiet, that is, until one of the elevators opened up and a 5 1/2-foot tall cannonball shot out.

A bearded Black man carrying what appeared to be all of his earthly possessions: On his legs, two pair of pants. On his back, every shirt he owned. Over his shoulder, a dufflebag stuffed beyond recognition.

"Where I need to go for Jury Duty?" he asked - about ten times too loud for 8 o'clock in the morning and to no one in particular.

Someone answered, but he didn't hear it. After gathering his bearings, the homeless man found himself a line and stood in it.

The room murmured a little, and then a little more until the man made his way to the front of the line.

"Here for Jury Duty?" the clerk asked.

"Yes," the man said, suddenly articulate.

"May I have your summons?"

"Yes, ma'am" he said. He fumbled through one pocket. Then another. Yet another. "Oh, oh, here it is."

Before asking the man for his ID, the clerk studied the summons. True, it was printed on the same baby blue paper as everyone else's, but then she looked back up at the man, confused.

"Sir, you're in Group 18," she said, as if speaking to a child. "Only Group 19 was required to report. You're free to return--"

"I know. I know that," he said. "But what I need to know is, am I still getting my $25 check?"

Stand Up, Stand Out: Honoring the Life of Tamara Dobson

2006-10-12T00:10:00.000-04:00

TO TELL YOU THE TRUTH I had never heard of her until Digable Planets' first single, when Mecca said:

Ask Butta how I zone

and Butterfly replied

Man, Cleopatra Jones

The year was 1992 and I wanted to be Cool Like Dat! Whatever dat was. And ya know I had to find out. So, I went to the Wesley Chapel Blockbuster, found the blaxploitation section and bam! Right there between Coffey and Shaft, there she was, 38-26-39:

I popped in the video cassette, and I was immediately souled.

I mean, how could you not love a woman who stood 6 -foot plus and had the nerve to sport 4-inch platform heels? Ow! Who could casually Kung Fu kick The Man without even needing to retouch her lipstick. Shonuff! Who before Foxy, before Coffey, before Christy, broke the blaxploitation gender barrier - before anybody had heard of a Charlie or an Angel. All in a day's work, baby. Bam!

Earlier this week, Tamara Dobson made her transition due to complications from MS, but during her life, in her no nonsense glory, the real woman martial artist behind Cleopatra Jones was a true shero. Face of Revlon, Chanel, and Faberge, she made being Black proud, unapologetic, and downright bad!

So, here's to standing up and standing out. Scram all you jive suckas. This space is to honor the life of a graceful and true Black beauty, a pioneer.

Tamara Dobson
Rest in Peace
(1947-2006)

Half-Empty

2006-10-10T16:10:00.000-04:00

TODAY, WHEN I returned from lunch, I placed a small Vanilla Frosty on her desk. I knew she liked Vanilla Frosties.

She took her eyes off of her monitor, looked down at it, then quizzically up at me.

“What?" she said. "You didn’t want it?”

“No,” I said. “It’s for you.”

“Well, I mean," she stuttered. "I’m not even hungry.”

“Okay,” I said, and thought, That's why I got you a Small.

I handed her a spoon. Started for my cubicle.

“Hey," she yelled, quicker than a woman can change her mind. "Do you have a straw?”

“Yes,” I said, and gave her a straw.

…

A few moments later, I reappeared at her desk. She was smiling - eyes focused in her cup.

“You’re not used to people giving you things, are you?” I said.

“Wh- What? Why would you say that?”

“Well, when I gave you the Frosty, the first thing you said was, What, you didn’t want it?

"You assumed that I was giving you the Frosty because it was something I was rejecting – like I couldn’t have possibly bought it just for you.”

“Well, um, I guess you have a point,” she said, between sips. “Thanks!”

“You’re welcome,” I said to her.

How sad, I thought, as I noted her half-empty cup.

Frottage (with the Forsaken Flavor)

2006-10-04T00:51:00.000-04:00

AT A COMPANY BIRTHDAY FUNCTION last week, a co-worker pushed up on the table and asked, "What kind of ice cream is that - plain?"

"Plain!" I said. "What do you mean plain? It's vanilla! Vanilla is a flavor, too!"

*

When people want to describe the epitome of Plain Jane, vanilla's the flavor of choice. Vanilla sex... Vanilla Ice...

How has vanilla gotten such a bad rap?

Ooooh. That was bad.

During summers, when I was much younger, I would wait until my Mother was safely distracted upstairs, doing something vanilla - like, say, cutting out McCormick sewing patterns. I'd wait until my infant brother was counting sheep. Pops on the factory line at the Lakewood plant, I'd descend downstairs into the kitchen for some 5-year-old freakin!

I'd pull myself up onto the formica countertop, peel open the cupboard like a white linen dress. I'd bypass the swarthy cinammon and persimmon, black pepper and salt, until... until...

Ahhhh.... Vanilla extract.

I'd unscrew the top and then: Wait.

I'd leave the bottle open. Ooh, was I open.

Let vanilla linger. Let the aroma waft through the room. Let me wear vanilla in my hair till I lather in its oils. Let me rub my tongue in it.

La-la-la-la-laaaaaaaa...

Aren't those tomatoes still
blushing on the window sill?

The facts:

Native to the Americas, there are about 150 types of vanilla, though only two types are used commercially. In the 1500's when the vanilla plant first left the Americas for Spain, the Spanish believed it only had value as a perfume. Vanilla grows in the tropics - within the 20-degree latitude band on either side of the equator. Vanilla is the only edible fruit of the orchid family.

Tropical? Edible? Orchid? What's plain about that?

Say it with me: Va. Nil. La.

To say it, you must first bite your lip.

Va-nil-la.

Then, press your tongue to the roof of your mouth.

Va-nil-la.

Now, flick your tongue at your partner and release.

Va-nil-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la...

I think I hear her coming. Should I climb down?

The Art of Appreciation (Part 1 of 3)

2006-10-03T07:49:00.000-04:00

LILY TOMLIN IS quoted as saying:

Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.

Fellow blogger, Lisa Williams, says:

It's really easy to complain. If you're not careful, then you end up complaining about your whole life. Concentrating on the good things is really good. Catch people doing good.

So, I'm taking her up on the challenge in part 1 of 3 of my pursuit of goal 89:

89. Write (and send) 3 letters of appreciation for excellent customer service.

The unintended consequence of writing the following letter to the owners of DeKalb Tire is that it gave me perhaps more pleasure than it will give its subject employee, Mr. Spe_r, whom I also mailed a copy:

30 September 2006

Mr. & Mrs. H____n
DeKalb Tire
6179 Roswell Rd., NE
Atlanta, GA 30328

Dear Mr. & Mrs. H____n:

I am writing to express my appreciation for the excellent customer service I received from Ad_m Spe_r and the staff at DeKalb Tire (Roswell) on the morning of Saturday, 30 September. I always receive good service at DeKalb Tire, but I must say that this was the most painless experience I have ever had with auto repair.

Around 7:30 a.m., I went in for a routine oil change and rotation and asked for an inspection of the CV axles on my I_____i I30. After the oil change and rotation had been completed, Mr. Speer invited me into the bay to see the damage to my CV axle.

I asked Mr. Spe_r for an estimate for the cost to repair and the time it would take. When he told me that it would require transporting parts from another location and about two hours of labor, I felt a sudden weight at the thought of waiting. So, I declined the service until a time when I had more time. But I was troubled at the thought of continuing to ride around with such a serious potential problem.

Then, without my saying a word, Mr. Spe_r offered me peace of mind: a courtesy ride while the car was being repaired. He informed me that the technicians should have the repair done by a little after 12 noon.

H_ns, the technician providing the courtesy ride, had me back home within 10 minutes - before 8:30.

Much to my surprise, I received a call from Mr. Spe_r at 11:00 a.m. telling me that my repair work was complete. A full hour ahead of schedule! And within fifteen minutes, H_ns was back at my doorstep to pick me up.

You may consider nothing extraordinary about this service, but that’s what keeps me coming back to DeKalb Tire. You make extraordinary service ordinary.

For tires, for maintenance, for repair, I will continue to send people I care about your way.

Sincerely,

M_rvin Heath

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED #13: Reclaiming my Inner Geek

2006-10-01T16:08:00.000-04:00

WHY DID I do it? I love mental challenges. So, one day last Spring I challenged myself to take the test for Mensa.

The total testing time was about two-and-a-half hours. Two timed tests.

The first IQ test was over in a flash: 50 questions, 12 minutes. It was the notorious Wonderlic test - the very same Wonderlic test given to incoming NFL football players, the one on which a very promising recent quarterback prospect allegedly only scored a 6.

The questions aren't as difficult as one might think - math (arithmetic, algebra, geometry), verbal (vocabulary, analogies,etc.), and logical reasoning skills. Pacing is the issue. You just have to average a little over 4 questions a minute.

You're not penalized for incorrect answers. So, while I put an answer for every question, I really only completed about 44 or 45 questions. I tend to favor accuracy over speed. (Here's a link to a few dozen contemporary other quarterbacks' scores.)

The second IQ test, the Mensa test, was very bizarre. It began with the proctor reading a 3- or 4-minute long passage about, of all things, Greek pagan theatre: Circles. Drums. Priests. Fire.

We were forbidden to take notes.

Then, the proctor gave us pencils and administered 6 very abstract mini-tests (what shape next in this sequence) ranging from 10 minutes to about 20 minutes each, before giving a final test asking 30 questions about the passage on Greek pagan theatre, which we'd listened to nearly two hours previously. Surprisingly, on that section, I remembered enough where I only had to guess on 5 or so answers.

Due to advisement from their legal department, Mensa no longer gives your actual IQ score by mail for fear of litigious test takers - something about liability for the potential psychological trauma of receiving an IQ score without the presence of a licensed psychologist. Nowadays Mensa only notifies you on a pass/fail basis, whether you meet their requirements.

You have a choice to either pre-qualify from a test from your youth, or to qualify on one of the two proctored tests.

So, two weeks later, I received my results from the proctored tests by mail:

My first official Mensa "event" is this week. Talk about interesting material.

I'll let you know how it goes...

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED # 13: Become a member of MENSA.

A Sentence: 10 Years of Detention

2006-09-26T18:08:00.000-04:00

I love my _o_. I love my _o_. I love my _o_. I love my _o_. I
love my _o_. I love my _o_. I love my _o_. I love my _o_. I love
my _o_. I love my _o_. I love my _o_. I love my _o_. I love my
_o_. I love my _o_. I lo

Now, it's Literal

2006-09-21T10:50:00.000-04:00

AS I AM SIPPING my 3rd cup of joe, freshly brewed in the company breakroom, I receive the following e-mail from the Facilities Manager:

Our water supply is still slightly discolored. This problem is affecting our neighbors as well. I have contacted the Forsyth County Water Department. They are sending someone out to investigate. I will keep you posted.

This place is killing me.

Sip, sip, sip...

Live a Little

2006-09-19T09:23:00.000-04:00

SOME OF YOU MAY ALREADY KNOW, but in a very strange twist of irony, this Spring I'll be a McEver Visiting Chair in Writing at Georgia Tech. Those of you who've been following this blog know that I, er, left Georgia Tech as a Junior Electrical Engineering major over 11 years ago because, when I needed it, no such program existed.

Since 2002, Poetry at TECH has become the premiere reading series in the city, showcasing such voices as Billy Collins, Rita Dove, Gerald Stern, Stephen Dobyns, and Lucille Clifton. When I was enrolled, Tech only offered one poetry workshop... every two years.

Live a little, the old folks say.

In addition to teaching an undergrad Creative Writing workshop in April, I'll be one of five poets (Sharan Strange, Travis Denton, Anthony Kellman, and Thomas Lux) conducting a free Community Poetry Workshop in early 2007.

The day-long workshops are open to the public, but space is limited. The application deadline for all of the workshops is November 10, 2006. To request an application, e-mail travis.denton@lcc.gatech.edu, or call Poetry at TECH at 404.385.2760.

Return to the Slave Plantation (Part II)

2006-09-14T07:39:00.000-04:00

HERE'S THE TRULY AMAZING THING about blogging. You make connections in ways that would have been virtually impossible in the Pre-Virtual Era.

In this case, I bumped into a descendant of John Fitz Jarrell. Rather, a descendant of John Fitz Jarrell googled his family name and discovered my March 2005 blog entry, Return to the Slave Plantation (Part I), in which a phone call to the Jarrell plantation was the final in a series of futile attempts at locating a slave cabin to visit.

The descendant posted anonymously - pleasantly enough. So, I'm posting our dialogue here.

At 11:29 AM, Anonymous said:

As a descendant of John Fitz Jarrell, I can tell you that the reason there are no slave cabins there is that the plantation became what most plantations became after the Civil War...a family farm - same thing as before, just farmed by former slaves. The cabins weren't needed so they were torn down or allowed to fall down. The family was working hard to survive, why would they put effort into maintaining buildings that were no longer being used? Jarrell plantation is a realistic view of a real plantation - not some sprawling, manicured Tara-like estate, but a medium-sized family-owned farm.

Then, At 7:39 AM, M. Ayodele Heath said:

Thank you, Anonymous, that's the most information I've received to date regarding my difficulty in finding a slave cabin to visit in Georgia. Someone should tell that to the groggy woman answering phones at your forefather's plantation. Your information is revelatory.
It once again stresses the importance of each individual taking responsibility to tell/preserve his/her own history. You're correct: Why would a family working hard to survive put effort into maintaining buildings no longer being used?
Of course, slave cabins have historical value today as do concentration camps in Europe. The experience of visiting these no-longer-used facilities has great spiritual value for the descendants of those who suffered there.
Your information also stresses the importance of my actually visiting an actual slave cabin and using my gift to report on it in verse. For if the physical buildings don't exist, how else will the memory of those who suffered be kept alive?

Crossing the Pond (Part 1)

2006-09-13T20:21:00.001-04:00

TODAY, THE PHONE AT MY DESK RINGS AND it's a good friend who lives in Florida with whom I don't get to chat very often.

"What's happening?" I say.

"Not too much, man. We've been playing phone tag and I figured I'd try you during the day when I knew you'd be at your desk."

"Ah, cool, cool. So, what's going on witcha?"

"Well, two things," he says. "One, I just got some good news."

"Yeah? Spread it!"

"Well, you know, my performance piece, _ri__, that my group performed at the NYC Fringe Festival a couple of months back?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, there was this guy there with this theatre festival in England that just called and invited us to come perform it there."

"Man, congratulations. That is good news."

"Thanks. Well, the second part of the news is that I'm planning to go over a little before the festival to do a few spoken word shows..."

"Yeah?"

"...and I was thinking it would be nice if we could do the shows together."

Goal 25 here I come!

"Ah, cool. So, when are you talking?"

"... October."

"As in, a-coupla-weeks-from-now October?"

"Yeah."

To be continued...

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED #2: I'm sittin on the FRONT row

2006-09-12T11:52:00.000-04:00

I NEVER SIT ON THE FRONT ROW at anything. Something about being that close to a lecturer/performer typically makes me uncomfortable. I can't quite put my finger on what it is, but I think it has something to do with feeling on the spot. It's like, say, being on stage. You might think it odd that a performer would be uncomfortable with being on the spot, but that's me - odd!

When you're on the front row, everyone knows your business - when you're going to the bathroom, when you're doodling, or when you're - God forbid - nodding off. So much pressure!

So, here I am - not going to the bathroom, not doodling, not nodding off - but sitting on the front row with my two very lovely New England College classmates, Issa Lewis and Tara Betts, at Ira Sadoff's lecture during this on the poetry of Frank O'hara at this summer's residency.

Mission Accomplished #2: Sit on the front row at anything.

Brewing

2006-09-07T07:25:00.000-04:00

TALK ABOUT IRONY. For those of you familiar with my poem, "On Closing Woodruff Park," which I wrote a little over ten years ago about the eviction of the homeless from the park, now the homeless are being invited back to the park with the

Yes, the Woodruff Park Reading Room.

First of all, class, today's vocabulary word is room. Rhymes with broom. Let's say it together now:

room (n.): an area within a building enclosed by walls and floor and ceiling.

Now, re-read the definition. Ceiling. Say it with me: Ceeeeeeeiling.

Since when did parks have ceilings?

I suppose the effort to foster literacy is commendable. But on the other hand, instead of working toward providing affordable housing downtown where monthly rents are $1500 plus, the idea is to make it more comfortable to live outside?

I can see the promo:

We could split a latte, if we had mo change.
Now, hurry up with the Funnies before it rains!

I feel another poem brewing...

For those of you unfamiliar with the poem, you can hear it at my website. Follow the Words link in the navigation bar.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED #86: 170 or Bust!

2006-09-03T10:29:00.000-04:00

IN THE 10TH GRADE, I'D PRACTICALLY reached my maximum height somewhere between 5'10" and 5'11", and I weighed 145 pounds.

I was a rail, an ectomorph - what is commonly called a "hard-gainer."

I received all sorts of magical weight-gaining advice from friends - Eat a potato everyday - and from coaches - Do lots of heavy squats - and family members - Wait till you're married! None of that worked. Well, I didn't exactly try marriage.

And I don't know about others' experiences with weight-gain formulas, but every one I tried sent me straight to la toilette. How sexy is extra mass when you're strapped to a commode?

Granted, I did gain a "freshman-fifteen" over my early 20's which put me around 160, but it seemed, no matter what I did, that I just could not gain weight! (I can feel you rolling your eyes; but, hey, we all have our problems.)

Whether it was a combination of accomplishing goal 8, goal 69, or whether it was hitting age 30, I'm not sure, but, at any rate, I'll take it!

True, if you look at me today, I still look slim, but at least there'll be no more Starvin Marvin jokes!

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED 86: Achieve and maintain a weight of 170 pounds.

The Book Meme

2006-08-29T17:28:00.000-04:00

I'll have to admit. I'm not much one for forwarding chain letters, jokes, and the like, and I normally wouldn't have engaged in this book Meme except that I got tagged from both sides. (Thanks Blue and Collin!) So, here's my contribution, but I'm not going to tag 5 people as instructed. In fact, I'm not tagging anybody. (At least, not in public.) However, if you're visiting and you want to post your answers to the questions, feel free to do so. My days of~~prostitution,~~ er, solicitation are over. ;-)

ONE BOOK THAT CHANGED YOUR LIFE: Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café, ed. Miguel Algarin, Bob Holman.
IN 1994, WHEN I was teetering alone on a ledge 7 stories above Margaret Mitchell Square, this book saved my life. Not physically, but certainly spiritually. It reminded me I had a literary bloodline, a family, and gave me the courage to stand for what I believed – the courage to perform. There are so many books I could name here but this was probably the greatest literary discovery I ever made. Thanks, Miguel and Bob, for having the vision to pull this anthology together. ___________________________________________________
ONE BOOK THAT YOU'VE READ MORE THAN ONCE:Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor.
I READ THIS in the 4th grade. I think it was the first book I ever read about a Black family – and in the South, no less! And so I read it over and over to hear stories like my mother and her sisters would tell, around gingham tablecloths, eating fried fish.

Even at a young age, I was drawn to the balance of the emotional and the socio-political themes in this book. Love my mission or hate my mission, blame Mildred Taylor for it!
___________________________________________________________

ONE BOOK YOU'D WANT ON A DESERT ISLAND: The Essential Neruda by Pablo Neruda.
IF I HAD TO BE stranded away from human touch, I’d definitely want Neruda to remind me of the sensuality of the natural world.
___________________________________________________

ONE BOOK THAT MADE YOU LAUGH: Gorilla, My Love by Toni Cade Bambara. NOBODY'S BITE is like Bambara's. If Alice Walker was the champion for Zora Neale Hurston, I hope to one day be a champion for Toni Cade Bambara.

___________________________________________________
ONE BOOK THAT MADE YOU CRY: Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. THE LAST PARAGRAPH IS ONE of the most chilling I've ever read. I shed tears because suddenly I felt like a foreigner in my own body and knew that I could never look at Africa with the same eyes again. This book moved me to take a West African penname.
___________________________________________________
ONE BOOK YOU WISH HAD BEEN WRITTEN: Ralph Ellison's follow-up to Invisible Man. Obviously, he was a perfectionist of the worst possible kind. And not that I believe he could improve upon Invisible Man, but it would have been interesting to see him try - not in what has come to be known as Juneteenth, but in an actual finished product.
_____________________________________________________
~~ONE BOOK~~ TWO BOOKS YOU WISH HAD NEVER BEEN WRITTEN: I couldn’t choose between these two, so I’m cheating (I sooooo enjoy this):

1) B-Boy Blues by James Earl Hardy. TRASH, JAMES, ARE you listening? Trash! And you had the nerve to write a – Trash! – follow-up? You might’ve better served as a pizza-delivery-plotting porn director. Put down your pen and get yourself a video camera.

On second thought, maybe not. James Baldwin is turning ovah in his grave, honey. And then you had the nerve to write more sequels? Tr-tr-tr-tr-tr-tr-trash! You make E. Lynn Harris look like William Faulkner!
Girl, give it a rest. ______________________________________________________

2) The Cantos by Ezra Pound. IF ALEX TREBEK WROTE poetry, it would be this. Any book of poems that requires over 800 pages of footnoting should have never been written. Yeah, I said it. Ezra, I am blaming you singly for why modern Americans hate poetry. You. Ezra. Poetry. Hate. I. We. All.

I'll take ERUDITION for $200. How could you write a document as lucid as ABC of Reading and then write this? I'll take CHINESE ENCRYPTION for $600. Maybe all you needed was a good double-date with Alex Trebek to get this out of your system. Then, we wouldn’t've all had to suffer through this garrulous doorstop.
How's that for a daily double!
_______________________________________________________

ONE BOOK YOU'RE CURRENTLY READING:
Antipoems by Nicanor Parra.
_________________________________________________________

ONE BOOK YOU'VE BEEN MEANING TO READ:
The Known World by Edward P. Jones.

To Receive

2006-08-28T08:03:00.000-04:00

Alan Sugar, an audience member at Java Monkey last Sunday, wrote this poem after seeing my performance. As it is a really special moment for me, I thought I'd share it with you (after obtaining Alan's permission, of course.)
As an artist, for a decade you grow this vision, hoping others might see it, and then, what a joy when it gets reflected back to you like this - the highest compliment anyone could give a poet: a poem.
Thanks, Alan. This just might carry me through the rest of my life. Enjoy.

Ayodele at Java Monkey

Vulnerable you appear to us, and yet you are commanding—
Like a laborer who bows before the field, so strong, so understanding.

You kneel so silently on the earth as it softly sings.
Your words are like the shape of birds testing their new wings.

You take the truth and uncover it, revealing all its holes.
And in the mist of twilight, you gather up lost souls.

Humble and proud, your dance is life,
The sea is your son, the heavens your wife.

It is black. It is bright. It is all that you give.
The angels all flutter around the home where you live.

Day 7: Rx

2006-08-25T21:49:00.000-04:00

  This blue pill
stops the virus from replicating. Take 5 every
twelve hours with food, or milk, else
it won’t work at all. This white pill
works with it, but causes dreams
which some can't bear. The blue
and white are your Miracles. Never miss a dose
for the rest of your life.
Take this one
with lots of water: 6, twice a day,
to root out your pneumonia.
IMPORTANT: Don’t stop till the end
of 6 weeks. If the cough comes back,
you could literally drown
in your own phlegm. Also, stay out
of the sun.
  Grind
this big white pill each morning.
Dissolve it in water or juice; it’s too
big to swallow. It will be bitter, but it’ll
make the dark rashes
on your torso and face
disappear. It is not to be confused
with this pill, which is for thrush –
to relieve the raw white patches
covering your tongue
and the insides of your mouth.
This pill is for the diarrhea those pills
will cause. Take two, as needed, after each
loose stool. Oh, & this iron pill
in case you have fatigue.
     This brown pill
will help you regain your weight, but it may
raise your cholesterol. These pills will
counter that. Remember, you must eat
or the blue pill won’t work. One
more thing:

Be careful –
be very careful
when you take the blue pill
the first time: In some,
it causes hypersensitivity—
high fever, bloody
stool, aggressive rashes, and (if not stopped
immediately)
   death.
Call us without delay
should any of this
begin to happen. Take care. Here’s
your bag.

*
Next?

Day 6: Journal Entry

2006-08-24T08:04:00.000-04:00

I
I will
I will not
I will not kill
I will not kill my
I will not kill my self
I will not kill my self any

more

Day 1: The Diagnosis

2006-08-23T07:49:00.000-04:00

You

are HIV-positive: This is not
a death sentence. This is not
the end of the world. Not

the end of your life. It is
a beginning. It is your walk
to walk. You will not walk

alone. For the rest
of your days, your blood
will tell us all. Imagine one drop:

When negative, your viral load
was zero. Today, it is 196
thousand. Which says you’ve had this
a very long time.

In this same drop,
T-cells are your soldiers.
A negative man’s army?
About one thousand. Yours?
12. Which means your body

has already surrendered.

I am not here
to alarm you, but you cannot
leave here and continue
to live like this

*
There is help, but we can't help you
here. Take this card.
G_d,
your eyes. You’re so
young. We see so many
like you. Why do you
wait

so long?

Day Negative 7 (Mother's Day)

2006-08-22T08:28:00.000-04:00

C_llin, since I feel like I shorted you on new material, I decided to post the 1st of the 4 AIDS poems I didn't read at Java last night, "Day Negative 7: Mother's Day."

16 May 2000. He is flying (or falling) – no – lying
to himself. Death traps his breath in a lode-
stone BOX (N.) -->
corner: a predicament from which
graceful escape is impossible
Who owns the air? the voice asks. Who,
the Earth? He
fights God with eight
translucent arms. The thick yellow fog
is boiling. Boils
for eyes. Swirling black columns
of smoke rise like stilts as he walks
Who owns the flowers? When he climbs
into the coffin, Venus
flytraps of lightning
open: knock-knock. All bone. Who owns
the sea? Can you? Another black O
on his thigh. A pair, a MOON (N.) -->
a small body in orbit about a planet
(I am coming back.)
K.S., night sweats, an opera
of coughing. A coffin. Too short. Pulse?
*
Pulse? One hundred
thousand black ants scurry
through the artery. No
escape. Who owns this
body? Stars
over Miami. Hands
in every crevice. Breath.
Stone. Mother. Who owns
light? Reach. No flowers but
(I am coming back soon.)
gravestones. First
son. Last
light. First
love. Last
LUST (N.) -->
one of the seven deadly
sins.
Future. Face it. A bouquet
of injections. ER.
Stretcher.
Your status, sir, your status?

Java Monkey & Jungle Jitters (or, Ayo, the Punk A$$ed B*tch)

2006-08-21T08:46:00.000-04:00

I REALLY APPRECIATE ALL OF YOU WHO BRAVED THE RAIN (and the long distance charges, Ch_rryl) to come out to the Java reading last night. It was great seeing the familiar faces (Collin, Rupert, Karen, Kodac, Lady, Brian, Lisa), but it was also nice to see so many new faces. I speak for all Black people when I say this:

You were a great audience. (Had to be there.)

*

Why did you cut it short? Ch_rryl asked.

Well, I suppose I had a case of the jungle jitters. I had a brand new sequence of 4 AIDS poems I was going to read, but I felt like I'd been on stage a long time. When I reviewed my set after sitting down, I realized that I'd only read 6 poems. Oh, well, there'll be other features.

Anyhoo, for those of you who came in search of the sorts of banned cartoons that inspired my poem, "Americana 2," here is one called Jungle Jitters:

Monkey Do

2006-08-15T13:47:00.000-04:00

Hey Pos and Poettes,

Due to a sudden change of events, I'll be featuring this Sunday at Kodac's reading at Java Monkey in downtown Decatur, across the street from the Decatur MARTA station.

I don't think I've given a local feature since, like, February? So, brace yourself people.

Black man.
Build up.
Microphone.

I don't know what's going to happen.

Hot Off the Presses (Well, not Exactly)

2006-08-07T07:36:00.000-04:00

Hot off the ~~presses~~, er, server. Check out my poem, "The Tragic Mulatto..." in the latest issue of the web journal, storySouth.

Grammar Granny Strikes Again

2006-08-02T12:31:00.000-04:00

USUALLY I'M PRETTY COOL when it comes to casualizations of language, being I'm a poet and all, but some things get my IGG (Inner Grammar Granny) a little tight in the sphincter.

Today's offender, a certain, otherwise articulate, manager here at the plantation:

... we need to determine the heighth of the monitor from the floor before we can...

Heighth? Heighth? Is that Sprench for height?

It just makes me want to run over into his cubicle, ram two fingers into his mouth, hold his tongue down and go, th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th-

Breathe.

th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th-

A (Final) Semester in the Life of a Low-Res MFA Student: The Reading List

2006-07-22T17:42:00.000-04:00

Following is my reading list for the Fall Correspondence Semester in the New England College MFA in Poetry Program. The four areas of study are mostly my choice. The reading list is jointly designed with the input of my faculty advisor, Ira Sadoff. (NOTE: Not every book in each packet corresponds with that packet's goal. Also, I'll be reading the Old Testament over the course of the entire semester.)

Packet # 1: Crafting the Long Line (August)

1. CK Williams, TAR.
2. DA Powell, TEA
3. Adelia Prado, ALPHABET IN THE PARK
4. The Old Testament (King James Version) - whole semester
5. Nicanor Parra POEMS AND ANTI-POEMS
6. Ira Sadoff THE IRA SADOFF READER

Packet # 2: Irony in Social Commentary (September)

7. Rodney Jones, APOCALYPTIC NARRATIVE AND OTHER POEMS
8. Dolores Kendrick, WOMEN OF PLUMS, POEMS IN THE VOICES OF SLAVE WOMEN
9. Toni Morrison, PLAYING IN THE DARK: WHITENESS AND THE LITERARY IMAGINATION
10. Patrick Rosal, UPROCK HEADSPIN
11. Robert Stepto, FROM BEHIND THE VEIL: A STUDY OF AFRO-AMERICAN NARRATIVE
12. Major Jackson, HOOPS

Packet #3: Line Break (October)

13. James Tate, THE LOST PILOT (neo-surrealism)
14. Frank O’Hara, THE SELECTED POEMS OF FRANK O’HARA
15. Yannis Ritsos, tr. William Keeley
16. Fernando Pesso SELECTED POEMS, tr. E. Honig
17. Rafael Alberti, THE OWL’S INSOMNIA
18. Nazim Hikmet THINGS I DIDN’T KNOW I LOVED

Packet #4: Writing for Performance (November)

19. Jo Bonney (editor), EXTREME EXPOSURE: AN ANTHOLOGY OF SOLO PERFORMANCE TEXTS FROM THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
20. William Shakespeare, ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA
21. Robert Hass, PRAISE
22. Susan Mitchell, RAPTURE
23. Cesar Vallejo, SELECTED POEMS tr. Wright and Bly or Alistair Reid
24. Pablo Neruda, Selected POEMS tr. Wright and Bly or Alistair Reid

Recovering your personal DNA

2006-07-18T15:22:00.000-04:00

IT'S BEEN A WHILE SINCE I blogged about my employment situation. Here's an update. After 4 lateral moves, I received my first promotion in January.

Before you congratulate me, I should tell you that I've been working at this company for 10 years. I first walked through its doors in September 1995 at age 21. As I'm not feeling terribly creative these days, I don't have many words to describe the new position, but the words living hell do come to mind.

Anyway, as I approach the final stretch of this marathon before entering the stadium - feet bloody, dehydrated, delirious - I look for constant signs to remind me of who I am. Today, I took a Personal DNA test which says I am a

Respectful Director

Here's a link to my results in more detail: My Personal Dna Report
Here's a link if you want to take the test yourself.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED #36: THE BEATDOWN

2006-07-03T23:41:00.000-04:00

SHE WAS TOO CHICKEN to play me one-on-one. So, I had to give a double-beatdown A-town style during our June residency in the New England College MFA in Poetry:

AYO: 241
ISSA: 209
T_RA: 148

Mission accomplished #36: Beat T_ra Betts in Scrabble

That would be 93 points, T_ra. Ninety-three, without even adding your and Issa's unplayed tiles! But who's counting?

Imagine the beating if you didn't have Issa to buffer my booyakuhs!

Look at the bright side, T_ra. At least I saved you the embarrassment of posting both of your defeats. Oops, did I say that? In January, maybe you two should play me 2 on 1. But let me stop before I'm accused of trash talking.

Oh well, too late!

Message to a Naysayer

2006-06-19T10:21:00.000-04:00

Your Reality
is always subject to change.

My Faith, however,
is not.

Americana Take 2: Starring Droopy & Daredevil Dog

2006-06-07T07:22:00.000-04:00

With a lit stick of dynamite
behind his back, the bulldog, Spike,
tries to time Droopy’s knee-hang swing
on the flying trapeze: Ooouuuuut…
& baaaack… - Oooouuuutttt…
& baaaaaaaack… Ostensibly to jump
& join the blasé bassethound
for the standard death-defying fare – no

net. But Spike’s real fool-
proof plan: Just before the fuse goes
Kablam!
to hand off the volatile baton
to the nonchalant pup with his paws outstretched,
leaving Spike, like every TV villain, to revel
Ha! Ha! Ha!
in his victim’s demise.
But when Spike finally leaps

to pass the dangling hound the explosive
stick, there’s a change

in plans:
Spike in mid-air
with a finished fuse!
Ha! Ha!
goes the audience.
Kablooey!!!
goes the fuse.
& in lieu
of Droopy’s demise, the daredevil’s
fall; which consists:
Of bulging eyes,
thick lips, pickaninny plaits, & worse—
& worst of all: a Black

*

face.

Poor Spike.
Poor Daredevil Dog.
Foiled
again.

If you're under 25, you probably think this is the stuff of my imagination. Unfortuantely, it isn't.
Check out this video footage of more Americana you won't see - one of many such uncensored episodes featuring Droopy & Spike, "Droopy's Good Deed." The "incident" occurs at 5:17.

I Turned Around

2006-05-29T10:45:00.000-04:00

TOWARD THE END of the breakfast shift, I was standing in line with a buddy at Hardee's, examining the menu, when suddenly I felt a sheet of sandpaper chafe my tricep.

Before I could turn around-

"You need to stay out of the sun," a stranger's voice twanged like a banjo. "You gittin too dark."

*

About five-and-a-half feet above the floor, it was the face of a White man, 70 -or-so years old. His teeth, riddled with holes, were the color of spoiled milk. If I would have leaned in closer, his breath would have stank. The sandpaper I'd felt was his right hand.

Is to touch, to possess?

He was grinning.

"You gittin a lot darker than your friend here," he said, as he held up MyFriendHere's buttery arm for comparison. MyFriendHere's plastered smile strained with disgust.

As the stranger released my arm, I beheld the full picture: the gray wisps impossibly stretched across his skull, the roughened palms of a lifetime working outside, his khaki skin creeping closer toward the color of dirt, the bent back leaning day-by-day closer to the ground. I beheld this man, an elder to my own parents, and looked into his shining eyes, blue and bright with the electricity of connection.

Something shot through me.

And so I said back to him, the only thing I could have possibly said:

"Yeah, yesterday we all spent a lot of time out in the sun."

And I turned around.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED #31: The Telling

2006-05-24T18:36:00.000-04:00

31. Tell __i__

A: __'_ a __tt__ __g_r_
I: I mean there's ___ing __g_r_ and then there's-
A: I mean __g_r_
I: Well, how do you know?
A:
I:
A:
I:
A: Cause _'_ ___g_r_ _o_

Note to a 12 Year-Old Wordsmith at Henderson Middle School

2006-05-23T18:05:00.000-04:00

Dear K_lly:

Your third eye sees things which others cain’t. Your pen reveals all to this world.

Who sees hair moving “like a golden sun… like 50 golden daisies?”

Who makes oceans turn into marbles? And eyes turn into oceans?

You do.

You are a poet.

What you have cannot be taught. Nor can it be purchased. What you have is Imagination.

Run wild with it, K_lly. Never let anyone steal it. It is what makes you special.

Write on. Write on. Write until your insides become the outside.

Write until it shakes.

Write until it shines.

Beware the Dog

2006-05-19T21:17:00.000-04:00

I TRY TO SHARE ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS WELL AS disappointments in this space. Here's a minor downer.

Usually, I don't sweat rejection slips, but this particular one keeps growling at me from the nightstand. About a year ago, Cave Canem, America's premiere organization committed to the cultivation of new voices in Black poetry, sent out a call for poetry submissions about 'the Southern experience and its influence in contemporary poetry.'

Southern. Experience. Poetry. This has my name written all over it! I thought as I licked my submission envelope shut.

True, I expected that the anthology would attract a deluge of Black southern poets (and I personally know quite a few excellent ones), but I thought that surely, in my six page submission, that there would have been something that would have struck a sweet spot with the editor(s).

Apparently not.

The rejection letter was polite enough. In fact, the rejection made me respect Cave Canem all the more. But this is an occasion for some serious introspection: If I, a contemporary Black southern poet, can't cut it for an anthology focusing specifically on contemporary Black southern poetry, then that says something.

Loud. Even if I don't hear it, I can feel it.

Something's stirring...

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED #38: Big Tipper

2006-05-15T17:12:00.000-04:00

............................................

Defying a myth, or

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED #38: BIG TIPPER

She was sweet. She was cute. So I said, What the heck?

38. Give a waiter/waitress a tip larger than the price of the food I ordered.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED #7: The Toll

2006-05-14T20:16:00.000-04:00

SO, I'M ON THE WAY to my folks' for Mother's Day, and I have a choice:

1) I can take the the Perimeter, which is a shorter ride, but which suburbanizes the senses with one corporate logo after another babbling above the pine trees - BP, Knights Inn, McDonald's, BrandSmart, etcetcetc.; or

2) I can take Georgia 400, which, though it is about 10 minutes longer, is a much sexier ride under the svelte silver towers of Buckhead, racing the train toward Arts Center Station until it dives into the belly of skyscrapers of Midtown.

No matter how many times I take this route - this weekend ride on this jet black stretch of Georgia 400, which always feels freshly paved - my heart races with excitement. Since I had a little time to spare, I opted for sexiness; but even moreso because it was an opportunity to accomplish my first task from my 101 in 1001 list:

7. Pay the toll for myself and 9 vehicles behind me.

Those of you in other areas of the country may be shocked to know that the toll on Georgia 400 is only 50 cents. So, for a five-note, I could nix number 7 from my list. I reached in my pocket, fingered a ten and within sixty seconds, I was braking at the toll plaza.

"I'd like to do something a little different this morning, " I said. "I'd like to pay for myself and for the next 9 cars behind me."

The cashier's first reaction was mild stankface.

So, I flashed her a 60-watt smile, then watched her stankface dissolve.

"That's really nice of you," she said.

But as she began to count my change, I realized the cause for mild stankface: The toll system is designed such that 50 cents must be deposited in a change basket before the automatic arm will raise to allow a driver to advance. In lanes with a cashier, this means that the cashier must always physically drop 50 cents into the change basket when making change. So, even though I was paying for 9 cars, the cashier would still have to drop in 50 cents for each car.

As she coupled quarters together, I could see a line - 1, 2, 3 cars and growing - behind me. I imagined myself as the 3rd car in the line:

Why in the world is there a line on a Sunday morning?

Why did I choose this line?

or-

What the-

But no sooner than that, the cashier leaned from her window. "One. Two. Three. Four. Five dollars," she said. "Oh, and fifty cents for your toll. That's right, right?"

"Right," I said, smiling to myself. "Have a Happy Mother's Day."

And I just couldn't stop smiling.

As I pulled off, I anticipated the next exchange - Man? Woman? Young? Old? Democrat? Republican? Black? White? Then, in my rearview mirror, I saw an impatient hand rushing out of a driver's side window, frantically waving a dollar bill. Then, I saw the cashier waving off the driver's hand, refusing the money.

I wonder what particular words the cashier said; wonder how she perfected the phrase a little more with each driver; how it struggled divinely on her tongue until, with the 9th driver, it emerged, sweet, lean, and metaphoric, like a fruit:

"Your toll has already been paid."

And I imagined myself on the other side of the toll plaza, pulling up to the cashier and hearing, Your toll has already been paid. I imagined my predictable skepticism. Who? I'd demand, and Why? I'd want to know. Is this a test? A trap? And What did I do to deserve this? I'd wonder to no end.

And as I, in the rearview, watched that driver pull off, watched the next one arrive, watched the toll plaza diminishing behind me, I wondered, How many tolls have been paid in my life which I am reluctant to accept? I thought of Christianity - a toll that was paid. I considered slavery - a toll that was paid. I thought of my Mother and Father and thought - what a toll they have paid. These are the things of which real love is made. It is giving and expecting nothing in return. It is unconditional - ordered and chaotic, for us all, flawed and imperfect, regardless of merit or circumstance.

Here, hurtling down the blackness, on the way to meet my Mother and Father, I approached the speed of light, and I couldn't stop smiling.

And gently, the sky let go.

And, for once, I didn't question when it began to rain.

101 in 1001

2006-05-11T19:57:00.007-04:00

IF YOU'VE BEEN REGULARLY FOLLOWING my blog, you know I'm an obsessive goal setter. If you're a regular surfer of blogs in general, then you have likely seen the following concept already. If not, here are the rules of 101 in 1001, courtesy of triplux.com:

The Mission:Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.

The Criteria:Tasks must be specific (ie. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (ie. represent some amount of work on my part).

Why 1001 Days? Many people have created lists in the past - frequently simple goals such as new year's resolutions. The key to beating procrastination is to set a deadline that is realistic. 1001 Days (about 2.75 years) is a better period of time than a year, because it allows you several seasons to complete the tasks, which is better for organising and timing some tasks such as overseas trips or outdoor activities.

As I accomplish a goal, I'll use the ~~strikethrough~~ to cross it off of the list. I'll also blog about the accomplishment and I'll try my darnedest to include a pic as proof. (Except for those goals which are missing lots of letters. I'll take the proof for those to my grave!) And I'll add the '101 in 1001' list to the 'Best of This Blog,' so you can easily access it to check my progress.

Some goals are intentionally a cinch and others are intentionally on the verge of impossible, but I love chasing after the impossible. This is gonna be a blast. February 7, 2009, here I come. Strap on tight for the ride!

1. Watch the sun rise over an ocean and make a wish (for myself).
~~2. Sit on the front row - at anything.~~ Completed 6/25/06
3. ~~Create a mixed media art piece using paint and collage.~~ 11/23/07
~~4. Buy an unabridged English dictionary~~ Completed 1/12/07
5. Stand in one of West Africa's Doors of No Return (Ghana/ Senegal)
~~6. Graduate with an MFA in Creative Writing~~ Completed 1/12/07
~~7. Pay the toll for myself and 9 vehicles behind me.~~ Completed 5/14/06
~~8. Bench press 225 lbs. five times in one set.~~ Completed 7/10/06
~~9. Get a laptop. (Mac preferably)~~ Completed 6/05/07
10. Take a hot air balloon flight.
11. Skinny dip in the Carribbean.
12. Cook a dish using eggplant
13. Become a member of Mensa Completed 9/29/06
14. Play 5 full-court games of basketball
15. Enter the National Ten-Minute Play Contest.
16. Start a monthly program for local poets to visit and read at a convalescence home.
17. Be an extra in a movie.
18. Pay off all of my credit card debt.
19. Apply to Cave Canem.
20. Read the entire Bible.
21. Buy a house. Completed 3/19/07
22. Run in the Peachtree Road Race.
23. Enter 20 first book poetry contests.
24. Publish a first book of poetry.
25. Recite a line from Othello at the Globe Theatre in London
26. Create a theatrical 45 - 60-minute one-man show to promote the 1st book of poetry.
27. Document the show on DVD.
28. Volunteer for Hosea's Feed the Hungry. Completed 11/22/06
29. Ho__ a _e_ _a___
30. Take a grant writing class/workshop.
31. Tell __i__ Completed 5/24/06
32. Visit a slave plantation
33. Wear pink.
34. Learn to drive a stick-shift.
35. Eat a cheesesteak in Philadelphia.
36. Beat T_ra Betts in Scrabble. Completed 7/2/06
37. Get a piece (poetry, essay, comment) aired on NPR.
38. Give a waiter/waitress a tip larger than the amount of the food I ordered. Completed 5/15/06
39. Hold my breath underwater for 60 seconds.
~~40.~~ ~~Get a new ivy cap.~~ Completed 11/07/08
41. Go on three job interviews Completed 11/03/06
42. Organize a metro Atlanta teen poetry slam.
43. Become PMP certified. Completed 07/31/08
44. Start (and keep) an idea journal
45. Cook dinner every night (or eat leftovers) for 7 days straight.
~~46.~~ ~~Drive up the Pacific Coast Highway.~~ Completed 11/09/08
47. Learn the preamble to the Constitution by heart.
48. Befriend someone considered an 'illegal alien.'
~~49.~~ ~~Visit _e___ine in Virginia~~ Completed 7/08/07
50. Test drive an Infiniti M35
51. Handwrite 20 letters to people you know (and mail them, of course.)
52. Get a henna tattoo.
53. Read Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude.
54. Revisit South Africa
55. Beat _e__h in a game of racquetball.
56. Learn to properly set a table.
57. Interview 3 family members about their childhoods.
58. Visit the Cabbagetown Neighborhood Improvement Association
59. Teach a college level course. Completed 4/17/07
60. Pay a different stranger a compliment once a week for a month.
61. Start a local 8-week poetry workshop teaching writing and performance
62. Write the poem for ___k_'s __dd__. Completed 11/07/06
63. Read Cane by Jean Toomer
64. Get my teeth whitened.
65. Drink sake in Tokyo or a margarita in Mexico.
66. Spend one day without talking. Completed 8/28/08
~~67. See a live roller derby match.~~ Completed 10/22/06
68. Apply for an NEA grant.
69. Eat breakfast every morning for 21 days straight.Completed 6/6/06
70. Fly first class.
71. Take an acting class.
72. Eat a vegan meal at the _oo_'s new house.
73. Appear on Valerie Jackson's radio show, Between the Lines
74. Fry fish.
75. Enter the Creative Loafing Annual Fiction Contest
76. Sing one of the following at a karaoke bar (video courtesy of youtube.com):

"Whip It" by Devo
"Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?" by Culture Club
"Stayin Alive" by the Bee Gees
"Don't Leave Me This Way" by Thelma Houston

77. Visit White Water.
78. Squat 225 lbs. 10 times in one set.
~~79.~~ ~~Participate in the annual Atlanta AIDS Walk~~Completed 10/19/08
80. Write my first full-length play.
81. Get it produced.
82. Perform my 'Home' poem for the Governor of Georgia.
83. Shave using a disposable razor Completed 1/9/07
84. Write a letter to the editor of a newspaper.
85. Write a letter to the editor of an NPR show.
86. Achieve and maintain a weight of 170 lbs Completed 8/16/06
87. Take someone up on a dare.
88. Win a poetry prize of $10,000 or greater.
89. Write (and send) 3 letters of appreciation for excellent customer service.
90. Write (and send) 3 letters of complaint for poor customer service.
91. For three months, each time I visit anyone, bring a gift.
92. Take a cooking class.
93. Swim 2 laps without stopping.
~~94.~~ ~~Eat sushi in San Francisco.~~ Completed 11/09/08
95. Attend an AWP Annual Conference.
96. Finish reading a James Baldwin novel.
97. Listen to a complete book on audio Completed 6/6/06
98. Write a poem for my Mother and read it to her at an open mic.
99. Visit 7 different churches of 7 different denominations.
100. Appear on the Oprah Winfrey show - as a guest!
101. Watch the sun set over an ocean and make a prayer (for someone else).

If you're inspired to do 101 in 1001, visit triplux.com for tools on setting up your 101 in 1001 project, calculating the end date, adding a date countdown to your site, and examples of other bloggers' 101 in 1001 lists.
Also, if you can help make this 101 list shorter, hit a brotha up!

REVIEW: The Truth about 'United 93'

2006-05-09T21:43:00.000-04:00

FUNNY HOW A MOVIE COMMEMORATING THE AMERICAN spirit leaves me feeling the need to restrict my own freedom of speech. Meaning: If I blogged the way I really feel about Paul Greengrass' "United 93," I'd fully expect that, the moment I pressed <PUBLISH>, a CIA agent would materialize from my closet, cuff me, beam me up to Virginia, and slam me in a holding cell with Zacarias Moussaoui.

So, what will I say about "United 93"?

Let me check my closet first.

Let me start with the positives: Even though we all knew how the movie
would end, I was on the edge of my seat for virtually the entire ride. Then, there's...

<PEEKING AROUND THE CORNER>

Okay, now on to the negatives. In the press notes for the film, Greengrass lists 'commemorating those who died on flight United 93' as one of his motives for creating this film. A short note about commemoration: If Greengrass expects the old I'm-singing-about-Jesus-so-you-can't-boo-me-off-of-the-Apollo trick is going to fly, he will sadly learn the fate of many a Sandmaned "His Eye is on the Sparrow" singer. Meaning: Greengrass gets zero sympathy points (from me) for United 93's subject matter.

While the horse is down, at the risk of being branded un-American I'm going to beat it a little more. The act of commemoration, or recognition, while commendable, is not enough in itself. For instance, when recognizing the performances of Olympic athletes, gold, silver, and bronze medals are awarded - not tin ones. It is not enough that Greengrass created a film in an act of commemoration, what is as important, or even more important, is the quality of that which commemorates. Commemoration means nothing if the medal, the trophy, the statue, the film is made of something which will tarnish or be forgotten. And this is where United 93 is a failure - there, I said it, failure - as a movie.

"United 93" is a tin medal. While Greengrass' shaky camera lens does successfully convey the sense of disorder aboard the flight, is that technique really new territory for docudrama? And while 'United 93' is perhaps accurate in its detail of the cockpit and the air traffic control center; while it is shiny in its portrayal of the heroics of the passengers; it is hollow as a tin can in what I felt as an audience member the moment I walked out of the theatre.

Here is the main problem with the film: Like the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz, it has no heart. Oodles of emoting, but no heart. Allow me to explain. I liken 'United 93' to the the 1933 version of "King Kong, in which it felt like Ann Darrow screamed for 90 minutes straight running from that gorrilla through the jungle: scream after scream after scream <BREATH> after scream after scream after scream <BREATH> after... Instead of feeling terror, I felt dread. Kill her, already! I screamed at the screen. Granted, that was movie-making of a different era, but I'm a movie watcher of this era. Which brings me back to 'United 93'.

While I realize that the final minutes of the flight must have been horrifying, there had to be a better way to portray this cinematically. How many times to watch one sobbing into his phone? How many times to watch another screaming at the top of her lungs? Any fan of a convincing horror film will tell you the power of suggestion in creating tension. And don't get me wrong, I'm not asking for entertainment, I'm just asking for effectiveness.

Where was the revelation? Which is to say I don't fault the actors. I fault the one holding the camera. Movie-making is not just bout getting the fact right; it is about getting the feeling right. A more effective way to humanize the United 93 tragedy would have been simple: Follow just one passenger's story to the end. Instead, I left the cinema feeling no passenger's story.

Yet I don't consider Greengrass' project a waste. Ten percent of the opening weekend's proceeds went to the Flight 93 memorial in Pennsylvania, and hopefully, his film will inspire other filmmakers to seek a deeper truth. I say, save your time and donate your money directly to the Flight 93 National Memorial fund.

Oops, I've been had...

2006-05-08T07:33:00.000-04:00

Apparently, I'm not the last to know that Louis Armstrong first recorded "Oops I Did It Again"... because, oops, it never happened! It's a hoax. I've been had!

A clue should have been that the host site I linked to for the audio file was the humor.about.com site. The bigger clue was the atrocious scatting at the end of the audio file (which I never heard because I never made it to the end of the song.)

The biggest clue of them all was audiolog's comment on my post... that it's a hoax! Thanks audiolog!

Oops, this was a very bad case of 'Consider the source.'

I guess this is what happens when you're desperate for something to blog about. ;-)

The Voice of Zora, a Voice of Us

2006-05-03T13:50:00.000-04:00

THIS SEMESTER, I'M WORKING ON a critical paper analyzing poetic text vs. poetic performance. The audio and video footage have repeatedly led me outside of 'poetry' and deeper inside myself.

Namely, I discovered that, of the many things I love about the South, what I love perhaps most is its sound: the slow crunch of a visitor's tires approaching down a dirt driveway; the electric whining of cicadas in the whiteness of August; the dark percussion of stomping heels moving an old Baptist church.

But among all of these sounds, what I love most are the voices of our people - from the Cajuns to the Geechees, from the Appalachians to the Low Country. These vibrations are the soul of what the South is.

In honor of these sounds, I'd like to share an aural treasure I stumbled across in my research - the voice of one who embodies what moves me about this place, who reminds me why I could never leave this place - or, at least, why it will never leave me. It is filled with the rocking of my Great Aunt Goldie weaving stories on her screened-in porch in Midland - the voice of north Florida's contribution to the Harlem Renaissance, Zora Neale Hurston.

Am I the last to know

2006-05-02T16:31:00.000-04:00

OOPS, IT'S A HOAX!!!

~~that the Britney Spears' 2000 breakout hit, "Oops, I did it again"~~

~~was first recorded in 1932?~~

By Louis Armstrong! (Listen to Louis' version here.)

Louis must be turning in his grave.

Once upon a time, she dreamed

2006-04-27T11:22:00.000-04:00

a

Here's my second painting. Acrylic on canvas like the first one, I did this one last spring. Six panels, the total composition is about 36" x 30".

I call it, "Once upon a time, she dreamed."

REVIEW: The Power of 'Umoja'

2006-04-24T09:24:00.000-04:00

A THUNDER AND LIGHTNING SHOW singing among the clouds, the South African tour-de-force, Umoja, is now traveling the U.S. With Mandela-like poise, Bhekizitha Penuel Ndaba, narrates this unforgettable two-hour musical journey. With unswerving verve, the colorful 30+ member cast transports the audience through pre-colonial, apartheid, and post-apartheid South Africa.

After an explosive opening ensemble of Zulu drumming, song, and dance, Umoja celebrates South Africa's rural pre-colonial history with a wall-shaking tribal drum sequence, an evocative bare-breasted Zulu mating dance, and an otherworldly, glow-in-the-dark Venda snake dance.

Paying homage to the urbanized apartheid era, Umoja moves to Durban and Johannesburg: a 1950's a capella doo-wop inspired talent show; a raunchy Shebeen (a sort of speakeasy formed when Blacks were forbidden to congregate); a tin can dance for HIV awareness; gumboot dancing (a form of communication which developed when workers were forbidden to speak to each other in the mines); and a soul-splitting Gospel sequence which electrifies the sky.

Umoja climaxes with high-powered kwaito, the part house, part hip-hop, part reggae youth music of the post-apartheid era. The women's dizzying, ass-shaking dance solos make Miami-bass dancers look like convalescent two-steppers. Umoja then returns to its rural roots with a graceful balancing act, a delicate dance to the river, balancing pails to fetch water, and an athletic warrior dance with spears. Umoja is a spectacle not to be missed.

Some reviewers have criticized Umoja's lack of politics, particularly its cursory treatment of apartheid, but instead of spouting rhetoric, the show's creators, Todd Twala and Thembi Nyandeni, live it. Umoja, the Xhosa word for togetherness, started years ago as a series of community dance workshops for underpriveleged Soweto youth. Forty countries and four continents of spreading South African culture later, these same youth comprise Umoja's touring cast.

After wildly successful runs in South Africa, Canada, and Europe, Umoja is now playing in Atlanta at the Civic Center through this Sunday, April 30 with New York, Philadelphia, DC, Chicago, Boston, Dallas, and LA. soon to follow.

See when Umoja is coming to your town. And get your tickets today!

2 Fibonacci Poems

2006-04-18T00:55:00.000-04:00

Okay, as promised, I now have Fibonacci poems. (I know, I know. I'm such a hypocrite.) Enjoy!

They
say,
Dirty
Mexican
But when they need clean
They ain't callin nobody else!

***

All
spooks
have eyes.
Blink. Blink. Blink.
We might look sleep, but
that 3rd eye/ is what'll gitcha

Fibonacci Poems on the Web Multiply After Blog's Invitation

2006-04-17T09:05:00.000-04:00

AS A FORMER engineering student who now writes poetry, I should probably find this New York Times article about Fibonnaci poems interesting. Let me defy a stereotype for you: I don't.

What geeks! And besides, the poems are terrible!

Except for the following Fib, whose last line sums up my sentiment nicely:

pink
rocks!
you are
my favorite wordsmith.
(Fibs, however, are not worthy)

Naturally, this means I'll spend all day trying to write a Fib which I do think is worthy. Aaargggh!!!
0-1-1-2-3-5-8...

Knowing Your Place

2006-04-15T09:25:00.000-04:00

IT'S FUNNY HOW THE subconscious operates. Often, I find it speaking to me through other people.

Recently, Dr. L_dley asked me to judge a student poetry contest at Cl_yton State University for Cygn_t, their campus literary magazine. After the magazine editors screened the entries, I received a stack of 20 or so poems to select 5 honorable mentions, and 1st, 2nd, and 3rd prize winners for $250, $125, and $75.

Again, this was not a slam, but a written poetry contest.

When I judged this same contest last year, I felt there was an obvious first place winner. But this year, it was a bit more challenging. The quality of the entries was much more even. I read; I re-read; I re-re-read, and after much deliberation, I narrowed the field down to three.

One entry had strong imagery ("in her jolted zombie shuffle") and a good sense of music, but it lacked in gravitas and was a little longer than needed. Another entry made brilliant use of puns and had strong wit, but it struggled with thematic clarity. And the last of the three had a strong sense of voice, thematic clarity, a good ear for music, but wove in and out of didacticism - it was clearly a

dum, dum, dum, dummmmmmm....

'spoken word' piece.

The step child of academic poetry, the spoken word piece rarely ever sees its way into print. But here was one fairly well-written alongside two other also fairly well-written 'page' pieces. Giving it a place at all might be considered controversial.

So, which poem would I choose for first place?

I should add that, in addition to the prize money, the top three finishers and the honorable mention would read their pieces during an award ceremony, which happened this past Wednesday. This complicated matters.

Why complicated?, you may ask. Well, this was a written poetry contest; so I was to make my assessment based on the writing alone. But the audience's first exposure to the winning pieces would be at the award show in an oral reading. The audience wouldn't have the benefit of seeing the text in print. So, if one of the poets happened to be a poor reader, it might - to the audience - reflect poorly on my judging.

I can hear you saying

F*ck the audience!

But that wouldn't be me, now would it?

Page-oriented poets can have a tendency to be less performance-savvy. In some cases they may actually sabotage their work with less-than-engaging presentation skills.

In all likelihood, the spoken word performer would be the best presenter of his work and would completely outshine the other presenters. As the winners would be reading in order from 3rd place to 2nd place to 1st place, if I gave the performance-savvy spoken word poet a lower place, the audience, experiencing the poems orally, might perceive the award presentation as anticlimactic, unfair, and whatthef*ck? - especially if the other two poets wound up being poor presenters, even if those poets' poems might have been written better.

So, what did I do?

I f*cked the audience. I gave 3rd place to the spoken word poet.

And what happened? Exactly what I feared.

Keeping in mind that this was a written contest, I prefaced the award to the spoken word artist, _a__ _n___y by pointing out his piece's sound composition, the heavy use of internal rhyme, contextualizing it in the tradition of 19th century poet Gerard Manley Hopkins' "sprung rhythm." I'd felt the need to justify giving him an award, but the justification was unnecessary.

The poet, before reading his piece, justified again, "I know this piece is a lot different that the other pieces you're used to seeing in the campus literary magazine..."

And then, of course, he ripped it.

Uh oh, I thought.
Then Now, whose award was I worried about justifying again?

Then, the 2nd place entrant, __ll, who I, in his introduction, praised for his sense of wit - got up and said sarcastically, "Thanks for making me follow him."

...

Now, I'm not going to rag __ll. He doesn't need ragging. He rags himself. Clearly, he hates public speaking. He rattled off his piece, mumbling - completely destroying the ability for the audience to appreciate his puns; completely sabotaging his strength - his use of language.

I wish that I had an opportunity to coach him - to tell him to slow down, to enunciate, to pause, to breathe, to let the poem come to life. I'm not asking for him to be Laurence Olivier, just for him to present in a way that he doesn't stand in the way of his own work. Poor, __ll. He's such a promising writer. I felt bad for him.

Fortunately, the first place entrant was a good reader. She read at a good pace, made eye contact, paused for the audience to laugh. In other words, she let her poem breathe. I felt redeemed about my choice.

But then it happened. The spoken word artist brought an entourage.

No, not like you might think. Not a performance posse, not a slam consortium: It was his wife and children.

_a__ _n___y, himself, was very humble and almost apologetic about receiving 3rd place. He shouldn't have felt that way, but he recognized the tension between performance and print.

His loving wife had a different idea.

Not even 30 seconds after Dr. L_dley made the closing remarks, _a__ _n___y's wife marched - and I do mean marched - over to him.

In typical sistagurl fashion she looked him dead in the face and said, "You know I'm mad, right?"
"What?" Dr. L_dley said, gathering his papers.

"You know I'm mad."

"About what?"

"You know I'm mad," she repeated. "Now, I just sat here and listened to all these poems. I just sat and listened to all these people read, and... you know that ain't right."

"I'm not sure what you're talking about," Dr. L_dley said.

And he probably didn't. But I knew what she was talking about - because I live it. Somewhere along the way, I have become a part of the machine. I am becoming a part of the Academy.

_a__ _n___y's wife knew something which I, too, knew. A poem is not just words on a page. It lives. It breathes. It is a spirit.

Am I helping to carry it? Or am I helping it to die?

If you thought you were having a bad day...

2006-04-09T08:22:00.000-04:00

Things could be worse.
You could be the posterchild
for Constipation.

Ayo Goes Visual

2006-03-20T20:45:00.000-04:00

AS IF I DIDN'T HAVE ENOUGH on my plate these days, I've now taken up painting. This was my first. It's now about a year old. I call it "Z." In 4 parts, the total composition is about 40 in. tall x 30 in. wide. The inspiration was three-fold:

1) A Tribe Called Quest's "Low End Theory" album cover (Oh, the lost art of album covers!)
2) South African visual artist/writer Peter Clarke, who asked, What's the worst that could happen?
3) a huge bare space on my dining room wall that could have cost over $1000 to fill with a professional framed painting!

Necessity is the mother of invention!

The Beginning

2006-02-13T09:55:00.000-04:00

I’D BEEN TAPPING MY FOOT in the temple waiting room for five hours. My “appointment” was at 3, and I’d watched half a dozen others enter and exit—in dashikis and geles; hugging and prostrating, laughing and singing; arriving well after me and leaving long before. Earlier, it was unseasonably warm, but by this time January was reasserting herself, pushing through the door like an evicted tenant gathering her belongings. By the time Bale called my name, the temple was practically empty. If it had been summer, I would have heard crickets. I was a lone pot of hot peppers ready to boil over.

“Balé will see you now,” smiled the attendant, draped in white, in some accent that hinted of a Spanish colony.

I couldn’t be mad at her, but I could be mad at him. When I crossed the threshold into the temple room, I saw Bale seated cross-legged on the mat and it suddenly occurred to me that I should be bowing or bending or kissing the ground—anything but what I was doing, which was standing before him.

“Alafia,” Bale said as he rose to embrace me. “Thank you for being so patient.

“Have a seat. Please. What can I do for you today?”

The voice in my head said, It’s not day anymore; it’s night.

But the voice in my mouth said, “I came to get my name.”

Subversion of the Sonnet Form to Dramatize Content in Hayden's "Frederick Douglass"

2006-01-06T10:52:00.000-04:00

A sonnet, Robert Hayden’s “Frederick Douglass” memorializes the former slave-turned-abolitionist of the same name. The poem opens stately with the loaded clause: “When it is finally ours, this freedom, this liberty…” The phrase “when it is finally ours,” in modifying “this freedom…” indicates that “this freedom” 1) has not yet been obtained, 2) has been long awaited, and 3) is a collective, not an individual, freedom. Announcing content of a “freedom deferred, one might expect the poet to assert freedom from shackles by employing free verse. So, it is rather ironic that the Hayden chooses to compose “Frederick Douglass within the restrictions of the sonnet form.

But in the 1884 report, “Southern Slavery and Northern Religion” collected in the The Frederick Douglass Papers (New Haven; Yale University Press, 1979), abolitionist Nathaniel P. Rogers wrote of Frederick Douglass, “He said he was not a fugitive from slavery—but a fugitive slave. He said he was not a fugitive from slavery—but in slavery.” Likewise, the poet Hayden works in the sonnet form to create a sort of poetic liberation in the same way the subject, Frederick Douglass, worked within the American political system to obtain political liberation.

Let us examine Hayden’s particular formal choices to this effect:

With fourteen lines, Hayden retains the line requirement of the sonnet, which is perhaps the only sonnetic element he keeps. Hayden’s stanzaic construction adheres neither to the Petrarchan nor the Shakespearean archetypes. Rather in an outright defiance of the form, Hayden’s “Frederick Douglass” is not broken into stanzas at all.

Also, Hayden’s end rhyme scheme deviates from classical sonnet models. Allowing for very liberal approximate rhymes (particularly, equating beautiful, all, and systole; and alien, man, alone, and thing) yields the scheme: abaa cdec ffgf hf.

Scanning the lines themselves, which we would expect to be iambic pentameter in a sonnet, we find that not a single line scans as such. In fact, the lines’ syllabic counts vary from eleven to eighteen.

But this is not rebellion without a cause. While the number of syllables per line varies widely, the number of stressed syllables per line is more consistent, varying from five to seven. While on one hand Hayden is breaking a particular social order—having only one stanza, deviating from a classical rhyme scheme, and abandoning the iambic pentameter—on the other hand he is building a new social order through rhetorical devices – particularly anaphora.

Opening the sonnet, the anaphoric “When it is finally ours, this freedom, this liberty, this beautiful and terrible thing” creates a momentum which will sustain this sentence for eleven lines. The next clause in this sentence switches the anaphora from “this” to “when it” with: “when it belongs at last…, “when it is truly instinct…, “when it is finally won…,” and “when it is more…” Expanding and expanding “this freedom,” these temporal clauses amplify the inevitability and the weight of it, thus deepening the pathos of the poem.

The subsequent clause – line 7 of the poem – switches the anaphora back to “this” with the introduction of Frederick Douglass, the man, whose life purpose was “this freedom”:

this man, this Douglass, this former slave, this Negro
beaten to his knees, exiled, visioning a world
where none is lonely, none hunted, alien...

The anaphora sustains the momentum. Eleven lines: one sentence. There is a unity, a oneness here which demands one stanza – an order which trumps the schism of octet and sextet, a new American order which supersedes antebellum ideas of what order should be.

And having exalted “freedom” over the first six anaphora-heavy lines, Hayden now gives Frederick Douglass, the man, the same elevation with five anaphora-heavy lines of his own. Here, the poet says, This is how great the virtue is; this is how great the man concluding the dramatic first sentence with: “this man/ shall be remembered.”

Using just two sentences, the poet suggests that he is following the binary dynamic of classical sonnets. In fact, while Hayden provides no stanza break to indicate such, the composed and measured rhetorical diction – “diastole,” “systole,” “needful,” “logic”—erupts in an ecstatic interjection in the middle of line 11, “Oh.”

This is a volta, if there ever were one. And the content of “Frederick Douglas” does turn at this point. After expressing the magnitude of the man’s cause, and the magnitude of the man, Hayden resolves this sonnet of Frederick Douglass with a couplet which recalls the Shakespearean model but, in spanning four lines, is clearly its own:

…Oh, not with statues’ rhetoric,
not with legends and poems and wreaths of bronze alone,
but with the lives grown out of his life, the lives
fleshing his dream of the beautiful needful thing.

As Frederick Douglass, the man, required a new America to comprehend his manhood, Hayden institutes a new sonnet to memorialize Douglass’ legacy. And it is not a legacy to die frozen in the statues of the status quo, but to live actively in the flesh, in “the lives grown out of [Douglass’] life,” in the ideas of the African-American poet, Robert Hayden.

2005 Goals in Review

2005-12-26T12:58:00.000-04:00

Things from my goals list, which I DID NOT ACCOMPLISH :-(

Reach target weight of 168 pounds.

I didn't follow my action plan of eating breakfast every workday. As a result, I didn't meet the goal. Nor was I consistent with one leg workout per week.

Attend a church (any church) once every 2 months.

Pay off my Capital One Mastercard (which has the highest interest).

I did not put the card in a Ziploc bag with water and stick it in the freezer, so I couldn't use it. Another failure to follow the action plan.

Give more compliments.A/P: Each day, give at least one compliment to a stranger/casual associate.A/P: Each day, give at least one compliment to a family member/close friend.

I did not follow the action plan here. As a result, it did not become a habit.

Visit parents once a month.
Travel to a Carribean island for a long weekend this summer.

Boy did I miss this one.

Complete a book by James Baldwin.
Keep the blog updated.A/P: Update twice a week.
Obviously, I didn't keep this one.
Get the book club involved in volunteering in a community project.
The book club didn't have a single meeting last year. (I think they're waiting on me to finish grad school.)
Resume Spanish lessons by my birthday (7/23)
Take an acting class.
Take voice lessons.
Bench press 225 pounds ten (10) times.

------------------------------------------------------------------
Things from my goals list, which I DID ACCOMPLISH :-)

Launch a website.

www.ayospeaks.com

Give at least 1 free performance per month.
Start a separate wardrobe for performance
More sowing: Once a month, take a platonic friend/associate/co-worker out for a meal or coffee.

__it_; D___n; __ja; _a_a_; F__ie__; _a_u; D_n__k_; _ar_; __m; Da___;
_a__i_; _abi

Workout 3x a week.
Eat more vegetables!
Drink more water!
Attend at least 6 plays this year:

Porgy & Bess, The Syringa Tree, Flyin West, Take Me Out, Madea Goes to Jail
(that really shouldn't count)

Develop a standard pay scale for gigs.
Earn $_,000 in writing gigs/awards.
Call more often!
Say NO!
Break the routine.
Clean out my closet.
Become a better swimmer
Continue to expose myself to new experiences.
Learn five (5) new recipes:

sweet potato souffle; coconut rice; cajun red snapper; broccoli, rice &
cheese casserole; garlic lime chicken

Complete 1st year of MFA Program in Poetry

Halfway home!

It's been a long time coming but...

2005-12-21T09:50:00.000-04:00

Now, I have a website. Check me out. Let me know what you think:

www.ayospeaks.com

To Bewitch or Not to Bewitch: Tone in Louise Glück’s “Witchgrass”

2005-10-31T10:41:00.000-04:00

As a plant, it was introduced from Europe to North America for erosion control in cultivated fields, but as a word, witchgrass has a somewhat more colorful history. From the Middle English, quitch grass, the word came to modern English as the homophonic quick grass, due to its nature of spreading rapidly and uncontrollably. When American farmers discovered that the hairy weed, which can grow to over three feet tall, not only spread rapidly, but refused to die - as if protected by some other power - the name quickly developed the connotation, witch grass. In her 1992 Pulitzer Prize winning collection, Wild Iris, Louise Glück uses tone to give voice to this relentless supernatural weed with her poem, which shares its name.

The opening stanza of “Witchgrass” establishes the mood – dark and mysterious:

Something
Comes into the world unwelcome
Calling disorder, disorder—

What is named here is not a plant, nor a man, but “something.” “Something,” implies that this thing is unknown - ‘the unknown’ being a key attribute of fear.

This “something” does not have a ‘natural’ arrival: It does not sprout, as a plant; it is not born, as a man; it, rather in a spiritual manner, “comes into the world unwelcome.” Which raises the question: Why is it unwelcome? And unwelcome to whom?

Supporting this tenuous mood, Glück’s repetition, “disorder, disorder” recalls the language of a spell – in the manner of the incantations of the three witches of Shakespeare’s Macbeth:

“Double double, toil and trouble”

and

“A drum, a drum! Macbeth doth come!”

Having established the Salem witch-hunting mood in the first stanza, the poem dons second person in the second stanza. The tone: defensive – even defiant. As if accused of being a witch, the plant takes voice and scolds the reader:

If you hate me so much
don’t bother to give me
a name: do you need
one more slur
in your language, another way
to blame
one tribe for everything

One can literally feel the plant’s hairs rise from the page with the phrases “you hate me so much” and “don’t bother.”

The focus of the poem narrows as the plant clarifies who has considered it unwelcome: the “you” and “your” here, refer to those who call the plant “witchgrass” – i.e. English speakers, or more generally, Man. The plant construes its bestowed name as “one more slur” and “…another way/ to blame.” The personified plant’s tone for the remainder of the poem is appropriately indignant.

In the third stanza, the plant appeals to the religious sensibility of man for a change in its perception:

as we both know,
if you worship
one god, you only need
one enemy—

“As we both know” is nothing less than patronizing. And if one considers that modern English speakers are overwhelmingly monotheistic, “if you worship/one god…” is merely rhetorical – and certainly sarcastic. The plant’s tone is undermining its appeal to be seen in a different light. Which raises the question: Is this really an appeal for a change in Man’s opinion?

And just in case Man is too thick-skulled to notice this subtle exercise in condescension, the fourth stanza, which contains the crux of the poem, opens with the plant stating its stance directly:

I’m not the enemy
Only a ruse to ignore
What you see happening
Right here in this bed,
a little paradigm
of failure

The plant maintains that it is not the enemy of Man. The plant asserts that the negative attention its name garners simply distracts Man from his real enemy, Satan. And while the poem has presented itself as largely literal prior to this point, it announces itself as allegorical in the lines “here in this bed/ a little paradigm/ of failure.” This “bed [of soil]” where this “what” that Man sees “happening” is a microcosm of the failures of the World.

The poem then specifies this “what” that is happening and resumes its bitterness:

… One of your precious flowers
dies here almost every day

The word “precious” here is filled with vitriol. This tone is not one of attracting more flies with honey. Rather, it is the scathing tone of one who has given up the art of persuasion. And taking the allegorical clue from earlier, the “here” where the “precious flowers” die can be read as the World; the “precious flowers”: as Man, who inhabits the World. The plant is saying that despite the reality that Man dies everyday, Man still searches restlessly for meaning. The plant underscores that this meaningless searching is the real root of the problem:

and you can’t rest until
you attack the cause, meaning
whatever is left, whatever
happens to be sturdier
than your personal passion

and in the fifth stanza

… you… go on
doing what you always do,
mourning and laying blame,
always the two together

Here, the plant points out Man’s irrationality. Man’s “cause” of why the precious flowers have died is not specified. Rather, the cause is “whatever is left,” “whatever happens to be sturdier…” The repetition of “whatever” highlights the lack of rationale in Man’s process and speaks to the plant’s exasperation. The plant insists that its naming as “witchgrass” is not a result of any actual witchcraft – has no real basis - but is just another “whatever” in Man’s irrational process of “laying blame.”

If one considers that “a weed is just a flower out of place,” as the old saying goes, then “Witchgrass” is a poem of a plant bitterly asserting its flower-tude. And in the final two stanzas, the plant asserts its self-determination:

I don’t need your praise
To survive.

Finally, the plant ‘pulls rank’ on Man, attacking him with a dart of truth, which is undeniable, but also eternal:

I was here first,
Before you were here, before
You ever planted a garden.

The plant declares its seniority with, “I was here first.” It reminds Man that before Man exploited “witchgrass” for his own cultivating purposes – even before Man ever existed – the plant already lived on Earth.

This now yields a different reading of the opening stanza:

Something
Comes into the world unwelcome
Calling disorder, disorder—

It is not the plant, who is unwelcome; it is not the plant, which causes disorder. It is Mankind. And if religion is a search for eternal Truth, then, in the poem’s conclusion, the plant leaves Man a taste of his own piety:

…I’ll be here when only the sun and moon
are left, and the sea, and the wide field.

I will constitute the field.

This is a truth which echoes. And after refuting being named for the witch for the entire poem, “Witchgrass” ends bewitchingly with these haunting lines.

Another Rejection Slip

2005-10-23T09:29:00.000-04:00

"...Okra..." was closest.
- John, editor of 32 Poems

Funny, I don't even like okra!

Roots and Culture in Tanure Ojaide's "Akua-ba"

2005-10-02T11:47:00.000-04:00

Nigerian poet, Tanure Ojaide writes, “The creative writer is never an airplant, but someone who is grounded in some specific place… Every writer’s roots are very important in understanding his or her work.” Ojaide’s axiom is especially true in his own work, which reflects the complex politics, religion, and culture of his birthplace in Nigeria’s Delta region. His poem “Akua-ba” is grounded in the “specific place” of the mythology of Ghana’s Akan people.

In traditional Akan’s matrilineal society, a woman’s greatest desire – and highest achievement – is to bear children. Consequentially, a woman’s inability to bear children makes her, in a sense, a failure. “Akua-ba” is based on a tale from Akan mythology of a barren woman, named Akua, who consults a priest to attain fertility. The priest orders her to commission the carving of a small wooden child, which Akua is to carry strapped to her back. Instructed to give the child beads, gifts, and trinkets and to talk and sing to the child, Akua is to treat the wooden doll as if it were real.

Fellow villagers laugh at Akua’s practice and begin calling the wooden doll, “Akua ba,” which means “Akua’s child.” Eventually, when Akua not only gives birth, but gives birth to a baby girl – prized in a matrilineal society - the same villagers who ridiculed her begin adopting the same practice to overcome barrenness.

With a flat, disk-shaped head, this wooden doll, akuaba (which is known more commonly in the West as a fertility doll) is the ideal of Akan beauty. Understanding this context of how the doll is used and its mythological basis is essential to understanding not only the content, but also the aesthetics, which inform Ojaide’s poem, “Akua-ba.”
The poem opens with a complex opening image:

a childless mother draws tears
from the cemetery of her mind

In line 1, by naming the woman “mother,” Ojaide signifies that this woman, at some time in the past, has borne a child. But by using the modifier “childless,” the poet also indicates that this mother no longer possesses this child. In line 2, “the cemetery of her mind” reveals that the child is dead.

This is an intriguing image. A cemetery is typically thought of as not holding water, but of holding its antithesis, dirt and stone. A cemetery is, rather, dry. That a “childless mother” is drawing tears from a place of dirt and stone speaks a depth of emotion that is beyond literal comprehension – that is, metaphoric. She grieves her dead child, drawing tears from a place that has no tears to give. When one considers the value placed on motherhood in Akan culture, the pathos of “Akua ba” is magnified.

In lines 3-4, as Ojaide extends the water metaphor, he introduces the first-person perspective:

In her face I see the bed that
The river hasn’t covered with sheets

The introduction of the first person here further amplifies the pathos of the poem. The scene of this grieving woman becomes even more immediate. The water of her tears, which has been drawn from a cemetery, is so overflowing that it is now called a river; and this childless mother’s face becomes “the bed” of this river. Ojaide’s specific choice of “bed” and “sheets” as images, while furthering the water metaphor, also conjure a haunting image of the empty bed of the woman’s dead child.

But all here is not loss. Line 4 suggests that this grieving is not relentless as “the river hasn’t covered” the woman’s face “with sheets” [of water]. It suggests that there is some reprieve from this outpouring of grief – perhaps, even hope.

And in the next stanza, this glimmer of hope is developed:

Even the singing bird that loses its voice
Still loves to bathe in the stream
Where its feathers will explode into colours
That relieve silences of a dumb creed

Now, Ojaide equates this mother, who has lost her child, to “the singing bird that loses its voice.” Each has lost its instrument of purpose – the Akan mother, her child; the bird, its voice. Yet, the singing bird reclaims its happiness; it still “loves to bathe in the stream/Where its feathers will explode into colours.”

The use of “stream” here is significant as it illustrates the transformative power of water. First, water appeared as the singular “tears/ from the cemetery of her mind.” Then, it became the more overwhelming “river,” or an outpouring of grief. And now, it becomes a soothing “stream” which “relieve[s] silences” of a singing bird – i.e. a stream of renewal, a stream of rebirth.

In the third stanza, the poem itself transforms into a healing device. Incantatory and ritualistic, the anaphora of “For her who” is true to the oral roots of Akan culture. Each action is a call for a total healing – of body, soul, and mind; of past, present, and future:

For her who in prayer rubs her breasts with saliva,

This first incantation is centered in the body (breasts) and rooted in the past. It is the gesture of a mother whose breasts ache for her dead child.

For her who sings lullabies to a doll,

This second incantation is centered in the soul (singing lullabies) and straddles the present. In Akan society, singing lullabies to an akuaba is a ritual done to mourn a lost child (past), but it is also a ritual done to promote fertility for a new child (future).

For her who in dreams plays in after-rain puddles

This final incantation is centered in the head and is projected in the future. The woman here does not mope in these puddles, but “plays” in them as the singing bird of the third stanza, who bathes in the stream. This is the language of overcoming, the language of holistic healing.
The poem climaxes in the final line of the stanza where the poet reasserts the first person, proclaiming, “I sing this song.”

Rather than neatly resolving the poem with a cliché equivalent to “Time will heal all wounds,” in the final stanza, Ojaide leaves the poem open-ended with possibility:

Every womb’s a gate – ahead
An evergreen livery of singer birds

Ojaide offers solace to the Akan woman in that her womb is a gate to a very lush “evergreen livery of singer birds.” The poet does not specify the number, only that it is plural. This rich, green image suggests fertility - the possibility of more children in the future.

The last two lines of “Akua-ba” are consistent with the poem’s mythological basis. As the myth of Akua offered a lesson to those who ridiculed her in her challenge with fertility, so this poem offers a lesson to the Akan woman who has endured this tragedy.

Last fruits of the season,
So dearly priced

This is no occasion to stop living, but to do the exact opposite – to hold life even more preciously.

Nightmare

2005-09-07T09:13:00.000-04:00

I have two
left feet. I can’t soul
clap. My lips: a line. My ass

is too.