This mind can't contain all these words
We’re in the home stretch of National Poetry Month. You’re almost there, kids. And since you’re already struggling, let’s do a poem that’s sure to make you really uncomfortable.
I admit it. I like to watch you squirm.
***
Hips
There’s something about her hips.
The way they’re spread wide
and far, like the rumor of
good things to come.
The way the curve of them
begs for hands to grip
just at the top, squeeze,
hold on for the ride of your
Life.
We’re half-way through National Poetry Month. Are you feeling the burn? Don’t worry. You’re doing great. And this poem is a fun one. It answers a question writers get all the time.
I don’t think you’ll like my answer, though.
***
Where Do You Get Your Ideas From?
I want to say my mind is a prism,
that it fractures the light of reality
into a rainbow, creates a palette
I paint with to please the masses.
In actuality, my mind is a kitchen sink drain
that I clean out now and then
and save the best bits of gunk
to make a meal no one eats.
National Poetry Month continues, and so does the onslaught of my bad poetry. Let’s have some fun with a poem that would have folks loudly declaring that the shoe doesn’t fit if they read it.
Good thing nobody’s read it.
***
Let’s Eat
Men are vegetarian dogs.
They like to chew on skinny things-
matchsticks, toothpicks,
meatless bones
picked clean by high standards.
A man is finicky about his meal.
Women, though, women like to dine,
feast, indulge in the banquet
laid before them, the tastes,
the textures, the variety, the flavors
washing over their tongues, savoring.
A woman is not a picky eater.
It’s National Poetry Month, my yearly excuse to inflict my terrible poetry on your delicate sensibilities, a weekly barrage of cringe-worthy attempts at art.
I hope you like abuse.
***
This Is a Bad Poem
This is a bad poem.
First and foremost it doesn’t rhyme,
except by accident one time.
Secondly, it doesn’t use enough devices.
It lacks metaphors like a drought lacks rain.
It has all the symbolism of an anvil
dropped from a great height
onto a cartoon character
who never saw it coming
despite the music.
Lastly, it took me only ten minutes to write it
and five minutes to edit it.
Fifteen minutes too many because
this is a bad poem.
National Poetry Month is coming up and I want you to be prepared by reading some good poetry before I inflict my bad poetry on you.
Yes, I know. You don’t really like poetry. Well, this isn’t English class and we’re not picking apart sonnets to understand iambic pentameter and symbolism. We’re reading for our own enjoyment and our own experience. Let the poems speak to you on whatever level they find you one. You’ll be surprised how much you can get from them there.
The Breakbeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop, edited by Kevin Coval, Quraysh Ali Lansana, and Nate Marshall- This is the first of The Breakbeat Poets anthologies which include Black Girl Magic, Halal If You Hear Me, and LatiNext. I will one day acquire them all. Until then, let’s talk about this one. It features 78 poets born between 1961 and 1999 writing about the experience of existence in the moment.
If the thought of poetry only conjures up memories of dead white folks with dusty rhyme schemes about love and nature, this is going to be refreshing, as these poets redefine what poetry means. I particularly like the visual aspect of Douglas Kearney’s poetry, for example. But every poet brings something special to the page, and the hip-hop flavor is undeniable. It’s so good.
Black Queer Hoe by Britteney Black Rose Kapri- Isn’t that title to die for? Tackling questions of identity, sexuality, and power, these poems pull no punches in their exploration and reclamation. The slim volume of poetry is packed with honesty, emotion, and humor. Some of it’s downright raw, but it’s all unapologetic, and I love that. It doesn’t flinch.
“Queer enough” hits me where I live. “reasons imma Hoe” and “before they can use it against you” speak to me on a soul level. The poems are short, but pack one hell of a punch. And the tweets are a sweet bonus. It’s a fab read.
Citizen Illegal by José Olivarez- Another slim volume, it packs within its pages and poems reflections on race, ethnicity, immigrants, and racism. Latinx lives and Chicago scenes come alive. It’s honest and funny and emotional.
The title poem “(Citizen)(Illegal)” sets the perfect tone. “You Get Fat When You’re In Love” sings to me. And I love “Mexican Heaven”. Yes, all of them. You’ll have to read the book to know what I’m talking about. And you should definitely read the book.
It’s worth noting that Britteney Black Rose Kapri and José Olivarez are both contributors to The Breakbeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop. It’s also worth noting that all three of these poetry books are available at Haymarket Books.
If you ever wanna learn to like poetry, start with one of these. If they don’t make you like it, well, go back to Shel Silverstein and never stop looking for that poetry joy.
Yes, I know. National Poetry Month is over and you’ve had all of my terrible poetry you can handle. That’s fair. But this isn’t about my poetry, nor will I subject you to any more of it (at least not until next April). This is about poetry in general and how I think that for the general public, it doesn’t get a fair evaluation.
Obviously, there’s no harm if you don’t like poetry. It’s just that I don’t think people get a chance to like poetry.
Think about it. When are most people introduced to poetry? In school. Grade school, junior high, high school. And in that context, the agenda behind the introduction is to teach us the different kinds of poems and the various kinds of poetic devices, and the poetry we consume in the classroom is all for the purpose of learning these things. And that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with learning the parts of the body that you’re looking at. Even if you never use that knowledge beyond the classroom, you’re still developing critical thinking skills and developing those important neural pathways that you will (hopefully) use later.
But at no point are you taught to experience and enjoy poetry (I could make this same argument about literature and reading for enjoyment). Instead, you’re trying to parse the implied meanings of a poet whose been dead for a hundred years for a grade. You’re not asked to understand what that poem means to you or explain how it makes you feel or how you experience. Yes, I’m coming from a very “I don’t know art, but I know what I like” kind of place.
Here’s kind of what I mean.
When I was a sophomore in high school, my honors English class was studying poetry and one of our assignments was to submit a poem to a poetry/art contest. So this was for a grade as well as for glory. The contest had a theme, I can’t remember exactly what it was. Something about robots taking people’s jobs or some such shit. Anyway, when I submitted the first draft of my poem, my teacher returned it with the critique that it didn’t have enough poetic devices.
Even as a 15 year old know-nothing, I thought to myself, “That’s not how poetry works.” Emily Dickinson never looked at one of her poems and said, “Needs more devices” like she was spiking a punch. And I’m not comparing myself to Emily Dickinson at all. It’s well established that she was brilliant and I’m terrible. I’m just saying that I don’t think that’s the thought process behind crafting a poem. I would think there’s more focus of the utilization of the poetic devices to help convey the meaning and feeling of the poem, not the number of devices used. Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe that’s why the greats are so great. They were carefully measuring the poetic devices that they put into their poems.
In my case, I capitalized the last line of the poem to satisfy my teacher’s poetic devices requirement and ended up winning second in both county and state.
Was it that capitalized line that pushed me onto the victory podium? Did the judges look at my poem and count the number of devices and decided I’d inserted a sufficient number of them to be worthy of a prize? I have no idea and I’ll never know. I don’t think I’ve capitalized an entire line in a poem since then, though. Maybe that’s why I’ve never won anything else.
I’ve always liked writing poetry even if I’m not very good at it and don’t use enough devices, but I wasn’t always fond of reading it. I liked some of it, but it seemed like the poetry I was supposed to read and like (much like the literature I was supposed to read and like) wasn’t my cup of tea and I struggled to get into it. I never gave up on reading it, but it took me a long time to finally find my groove. As it turns out, I like free verse best. It speaks to me, as it were. It also seems that I like current poets rather than poets of the past. José Olivarez, Britteney Black Rose Kapri, E’Mon Lauren, Aja Monet, and Kevin Coval are a few of the poets I’ve read recently and I dug their work.
Did I notice their use of poetic devices? Well, as a terrible poem writer always looking to learn how to be less terrible, yeah. I made note of things that they did that caught my attention. But mostly I read for the experience. Because for me, poetry is an experience. Is it supposed to be? I don’t know. That’s just how I prefer to process it. I just absorb the piece, the feeling, the emotion, the meaning and message, intentional and interpreted. I find the most enjoyment in poetry by letting the poem speak for itself.
What I’m saying is that I wasn’t ruined by learning the ins and outs of poetry, but I had to learn for myself how to enjoy it. I was never given that option when I was reading and writing for a grade. I guess you can’t score a good time. Which is a damn shame. Reading for enjoyment is a life skill.
And if after reading all of this you think you still wouldn’t or don’t like poetry, read Shel Silverstein.
If you still don’t like poetry after Where the Sidewalk Ends or A Light in the Attic, then yeah, you don’t like poetry.
The end.
It’s the last week of National Poetry Month. You did it! You made it! The last terrible poem you have to read!
Until next year.
Get Ready With Me
She lets her coffee cool as
she puts together her face
puts together her day
puts together her life
one coat of mascara at a time
Hang in there. National Poetry Month and the terrible poetry is almost over. Just one more week after this.
My Soul’s Meat Vehicle
Sometimes I think I’m just stardust
With delusions of grandeur
Living a whole life
That I made no plan for
That I’m nothing more than mediocre
A dull, used old soul
Inhabiting a blob of skin
That does little to keep out the cold
Most times, though, I feel rather bold
And insist on my space
My spirit roars into the room
Scattering folks with haste
It’s true, I am not to everyone’s taste
The gallons I get to the mile
How I customized my ride
They can’t dig my outward style
Just like them, I here for a while
Stardust looking for a miracle
Cruising along with the top down
In my soul’s meat vehicle
National Poetry Month continues and so does the terrible poetry.
John’s Last Phone Booth
I’d like to get lost
for a little while
look for the last
phone booth
put in some change
dial a number
and talk to no one
in particular
I’d like to get lost
for a little while
walk cracked roads
to nowhere
see no faces
that I know
or no faces
at all
I’d like to get lost
for a little while
lose myself once
or twice
find my way
back again
the same but
someone else
April is National Poetry Month and in honor of that, instead of a weekly blog post, you’ll be subjected to a weekly poem. Will they be good? No. Like my tiny terribly art, I do this for my own enjoyment. Being good has nothing to do with it.
Even if I did win second place in a state poetry contest my sophomore year of high school.
But I digress.
Gird your loins.
Art
Colorful and dark
I’ll bring the blues
and greens and pinks
and whites
I’ll always bring the white
the too bright washout
fade
the Browns and the Blacks
and the Yellows and the Reds
I’ll bring the beige
The purples we talk about
and the greys we don’t
The oranges we swallow
and the truths we won’t
I’ll bring the indigo, the violet
the night
the rainbow
I’ll bring the colors
smeared on the dark
A painting
A still life
unframed
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