At this time, two years ago, I was in a lot of pain. A friend invited me to a spoken word event. I had never listened to spoken word before, but she was really excited to hear one of the judges, Carlos Andrés Gómez, so I went.
The experience is difficult to describe. It’s like describing colour to someone who’s never seen before. I felt alive. It was impossible for me to sleep that night, and the next day, I decided I needed to talk to him.
At the time, I was transitioning from my position as Poetry Editor to Assistant Editor at an online student literary magazine. The interview became one of the last podcasts for the magazine.
After hearing all the talented spoken word artists, I realized that there are things in this world that are far greater than my personal dramas, and that one day, this too shall pass.
I remember the first time I heard this poem. It was two years ago in my Creative Writing class, and from the United States of Poetry video cassette. I don’t believe it was a DVD or anything, since my prof was technological disinclined.
It was the first time I was exposed to spoken poetry. It primed me a few months later for my first real experience of spoken word, which I’ll talk about in a later post. I was drawn to this poem because it so clearly articulated the confusion that I was going through. It said everything I was unable to say.
I Am on My Way to Oklahoma to Bury the Man I Nearly Left My Husband For,
Sandra Cisneros
Your name doesn’t matter.
I loved you.
We loved.
The years
I waited
by the river for your pickup
truck to find me. Footprints
scattered in the yellow sand.
Husband, mother
in law, kids wondering
where I’d gone.
You wouldn’t
the years I begged. Would
the years I wouldn’t. Only
one of us had sense at a time.
I won’t see you again.
I guess life presents you
choices and you choose. Smarter
over the years. Oh smarter.
The sensible thing smarting
over the years, the sensible
thing to excess, I guess.
My life deed I have
done to artistic extreme I
drag you with me. Must wake
early. Ride north tomorrow.
Send you off. Are you fine?
I think of you often, friend,
and fondly.
Last year, my friend visited South Africa and brought me back a book of poetry by Lindiwe Mabuza. I was immediately lost in its pages. This is the second poem in the collection.
Each Heavy Heart-beat, Lindiwe Mabuza
Each heavy heart-beat pulses still
Each heart of loaded centuries
Long buried
In the safe beds
Of these waters
Each heart-beat yet
Is living witness
To the freshness
Of our newfound
World
Each pregnant hill truthfully
Undulates before our eyes
Heaves
In languages
Fecund in shades
Of green truths
So that now for the first time
In our brief moments
The very horizon
No longer lures
As it once did, as it did yesterday –
Is no more elusive
For all now know
That we chose
We chased
Not in vain
For we have now tasted a victory
That nourishes our dreams
So all our tomorrows
Triumph
For our victory
Is the child
Of minds that master their own lives
Achieving what is divinely possible
Is our child
Yet our brawn
Yes our vision
Our brain
Now breathing free
You can touch it
Breathing so unhindered
In this place
Where all nature and beauty
Are stark naked
But like this river
Our nakedness hides
Deeper regions
Come now
See
This wonder close
Where our very breath
Meets
Those lofty blues
For us to see – for you
How contours
That were once
Very distant
Have been brought down
To levels that all may know
On our shores
Come
Hold our breath
Help us cross this river’s
Steady unstoppable flow
For we have swum
In its currents
Emerged
Warm
All over all the world
For there too
My freedom was won
Come
Hold tight here this hand
It belongs to other dreams
That seemed forlorn
Yesterday
So much of pipe-dream
For sceptics
When so many patriots
Lost
Their youth
Their innocence
Their blood
Their life
Though not their spine
Chasing these dreams
We now hold
Across continents
Where are they today?
The cynics?
The detraction?
The nihilists?
The naysayers?
The prophets of doom?
Where are they?
It is time
For our merry-go-round
All around us
Thoughts breed new life
Geraniums
Suddenly
Pop here
There red, there white faces
From every window
Or balcony
All boldly saying
Let the world celebrate
Let’s go round and around
For we too are free
To merrily-go-around.
August 1995
Mabuza, Lindiwe. Footprints and Fingerprints. South Africa: Picador Africa, 2008.
Recently, I applied to teach English in Indonesia, and now I’m thinking about interning in Africa–Malawi or Ghana, to be specific. Here is one of my favourite poems from Indonesia:
Me, Chairil Anwar
When my time comes
No one’s going to cry for me,
And you won’t, either
The hell with all those tears!
I’m a wild beast
Driven out of the herd
Bullets may pierce my skin
But I’ll keep coming,
Carrying forward my wounds and my pain
Attacking
Attacking
Until suffering disappears
And I won’t give a damn
I want to live another thousand years
(translated by Burton Raffel)
Anwar, Chairil. “Me.” The Poetry of Our World: An International Anthology of Contemporary Poetry. Ed. Jeffrey Paine et al. New York: HarperCollins, 2000. 427.
I’m reading The End of the Affair which was recommended to me by a writer-friend. It’s written by Graham Greene, a male obviously, but with diary entries from the female protagonist who’s engaged in an illicit affair. The following entry is visceral and unbounded. He is able to write so well from a female perspective.
I remember once, a friend told me that Cormac McCarthy was asked why many of his characters are male, and he said that he was unable to “write” women. I also remember another writer (the name escapes me) being asked the same question, and he said that he “writes” women by taking a “normal,” rational human being and removing all the sanity from that person, and infusing them with overwrought emotion (I may be elaborating here). I’m pretty sure it was from a forgettable romantic comedy or something.
Here’s an entry from The End of the Affair that exemplifies this character’s hard look at herself:
What do you love most? If I believed in you, I suppose I’d believe in the immortal soul, but is that what you love? Can you really see it there under the skin? Even a God can’t love something that doesn’t exist, he can’t love something he cannot see. When he looks at me, does he see something I can’t see? It must be lovely if he is able to love it. That’s asking me to believe too much, that there’s anything lovely in me. I want men to admire me, but that’s a trick you learn at school – a movement of the eyes, a tone of voice, a touch of the hand on the shoulder or the head. If they think you admire them, they will admire you because of your good taste, and when they admire you, you have an illusion for a moment that there’s something to admire. All my life I’ve tried to live in that illusion – a soothing drug that allows me to forget that I’m a bitch and a fake. But what are you supposed to love then in the bitch and the fake? Where do you find that immortal soul they talked about? Where do you see this lovely thing in me – in me, of all people? I can understand you can find it in Henry – my Henry, I mean. He’s gentle and good and patient. You can find it in Maurice who thinks he hates, and loves, loves all the time. Even his enemies. But in this bitch and fake where do you find anything to love (Greene 101)?
Greene, Graham. The End of the Affair. New York: Penguin Group, 1999.
Good morrow! I heard it’s best to keep blog posts short and succinct, so… poetry and music. I love them both. If I had to choose between the two, I couldn’t.
I imagine the three of us holding hands and prancing off into the sunset.
I also do a lot of random things, so I’ll make sure to keep everyone updated on The Life of Nok (capitalized for emphasis and pronounced “nook”.) Maybe I should call it Nok in a Nutshell. Too much? Maybe.
Bird of Passage 