One of your favorite poems, featured here in June 2015. One of mine too.
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“Mean” by Taylor Swift, covered by Boyce Avenue feat. Megan Nicole.
Calling me out when I’m wounded… You, with your switching sides And your wildfire lies and your humiliation You have pointed out my flaws again As if I don’t already see them… But the cycle ends right now ‘Cause you can’t lead me down that road And you don’t know, what you don’t know… And all you’re ever gonna be is mean Why you gotta be so mean?
Many thanks to Brian Dean Powers for recommending this poem for us while Words is enjoying a brief hiatus. Brian shares his thoughts and poetry at The Body’s Heated Speech.
Three times my life has opened.
Once, into darkness and rain.
Once, into what the body carries at all times within it and
starts to remember each time it enters the act of love.
Once, to the fire that holds all.
These three were not different.
You will recognize what I am saying or you will not.
But outside my window all day a maple has stepped
from her leaves like a woman in love with winter, dropping
the colored silks.
Neither are we different in what we know.
There is a door. It opens. Then it is closed. But a slip of
light stays, like a scrap of unreadable paper left on the floor,
or the one red leaf the snow releases in March.
Many thanks to Archita for offering this as a favorite poem that we have previously shared on Words for the Year (on December 28, 2014). Archita shares her thoughts, poetry and photography at A Journey Called Life.
Let’s make a movie called Dinosaurs in the Hood. Jurassic Park meets Friday meets The Pursuit of Happyness.
There should be a scene where a little black boy is playing
with a toy dinosaur on the bus, then looks out the window
& sees the T. Rex, because there has to be a T. Rex.
Don’t let Tarantino direct this. In his version, the boy plays
with a gun, the metaphor: black boys toy with their own lives,
the foreshadow to his end, the spitting image of his father.
Fuck that, the kid has a plastic Brontosaurus or Triceratops
& this is his proof of magic or God or Santa. I want a scene
where a cop car gets pooped on by a pterodactyl, a scene
where the corner store turns into a battle ground. Don’t let
the Wayans brothers in this movie. I don’t want any racist shit
about Asian people or overused Latino stereotypes.
This movie is about a neighborhood of royal folks —
children of slaves & immigrants & addicts & exiles — saving their town
from real-ass dinosaurs. I don’t want some cheesy yet progressive
Hmong sexy hot dude hero with a funny yet strong commanding
black girl buddy-cop film. This is not a vehicle for Will Smith
& Sofia Vergara. I want grandmas on the front porch taking out raptors
with guns they hid in walls & under mattresses. I want those little spitty,
screamy dinosaurs. I want Cicely Tyson to make a speech, maybe two.
I want Viola Davis to save the city in the last scene with a black fist afro pick
through the last dinosaur’s long, cold-blood neck. But this can’t be
a black movie. This can’t be a black movie. This movie can’t be dismissed
because of its cast or its audience. This movie can’t be a metaphor
for black people & extinction. This movie can’t be about race.
This movie can’t be about black pain or cause black people pain.
This movie can’t be about a long history of having a long history with hurt.
This movie can’t be about race. Nobody can say nigga in this movie
who can’t say it to my face in public. No chicken jokes in this movie.
No bullets in the heroes. & no one kills the black boy. & no one kills
the black boy. & no one kills the black boy. Besides, the only reason
I want to make this is for that first scene anyway: the little black boy
on the bus with a toy dinosaur, his eyes wide & endless
* Many thanks to Alvira Khan-Gordon for offering this as a favorite poem that we have previously shared on Words for the Year.
Alvira wrote:
I find it difficult to choose a poem as being a favourite – they each bring a gift. But you have asked for a favourite to be named so Danez Smith’s “Dinosaurs in the Hood” is my choice. Its political comprehension and fury are palpable and yet its touch is light, loving and sure. It is a poem that speaks to every disenfranchised and demonised community about its characterisation and its truth and I love it for that scope.
I couldn’t have said it any better, Alvira, thank you.
Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that’s what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.
Who would want to be thinking day and night?
the young man said, eating his chicken
in the beautiful cool shade. Me, I said
before I could stop myself. Heard how it sounded
but knew what would happen if I qualified it.
Me, I said again, but he was already talking
about how a doctor had cured his knee with magic.
Words ... for the Time Being 