Al Black's Poetry of the People Features Jonesy Stark
This week's Poet of the People is Jonesy Stark. I met Jonesy about 12 years ago at an open mic; he blew me away. Some poets are good with delivery or good with their word craft; Jonesy is great with both. Often, I'm left in awe of the relationships he sees in words. Jonesy quietly gives back to young people in need of support an amentor. A hidden gem in South Carolina's poetry scene, I am honored to know him.
-Al Black
'Father, husband, educator and advocate of turtles. The tragic end results of Peter Parker being bitten by a radioactive poet.' He is a dude with dreads. Oft mistaken for a poet. Olympic gold medalist robot dancer. PHD in Yamology.
_____
Cardinal Sin
Chapter one First verse
“Thou shall not come for the black woman.”
Whether you be other or brother
Must be out your cotdamn mind
To fix your lips to spit some foolishness
And assume I’m finna let it slide
I’m beyond done with you Quasimodos masquerading as Shaka Zulus
You who fetishize the motherland yet detest her daughters
Are unworthy of association with either
In order to be the king
You must lay your life down for the queen
But rather than stand tall
Y'all quick to hotep two step
Dance around accountability
Content to sit on sideline as she unnaturally shifts her spine
Criticize as she throws out her back to pick up your slack
Denounce her for doing for self what you wouldn’t provide her
As if she’d wish to wear the weight of a nation
Defend its borders
Administrate its affairs
All the while making it seem effortless in heels with slayed hair
To be black and to be woman
Is to know no compassion
It is to forever be measured and always found lacking
It is the expectation to be more than a woman
While being treated like less than a lady
It is to walk through a world of pointing fingers
Rarely encountering a helping hand
Because it takes less effort to punch down
Than it does to lift up
It is to intimately know the sting of a slap
While yearning for a caring caress
It is giving the blessing of life to sons who will curse you
It is being crucified and exposed before the world
By the man who was supposed to protect you
It is enduring it all
And still fighting for they who fight against you __
House
I started writing poetry because I wanted a girl to like me
And a decade and a half later
I can sincerely say not much has changed
Guess Hov said it best
“You are who you are when you got here”
Hol’ up
You are who you are when you got hair
Them short and curlies
Folk, I’ve surely yet to meet an adult
We all adolescents imitatin’ what we was taught
Trying’ to live out gimmicks and images we bought
I mean practice makes perfect
And I’ve perfected the practice of actin’
As if I actually have a clue
When in reality I’m equally as lost as my son askin’ how to
See he’s thoroughly convinced I have infinite access to the answers
That his author father
Is the Merlin to his Arthur
When really I’m no mystic
Somethin’ far more simplistic
Just older
And not necessarily wiser
Gifted
With opportunity to make more messes
But how can I confess his faith is fully misplaced
Shake the foundations of his sense of security
I can’t
So I continue to adorn my red and blue suit
To battle monsters in closets and boogeymen beneath bedframes
Doing my damndest to deceive both he and me
To defy my kryptonite
The gnawing that comes from the knowing
Knowing that despite my desire
The “S” on my chest can’t shield him from life
Eventually I’ll have to rack my brain
Tryin’ in vain to explain
Why Lex Luthor is often the victor
Why I raised him like a Kent
In a world corrupt and bent
Taught him to walk straight
In a slanted land where the bad guy wins
On that day the facade will falter
His reality irreparably altered
As his eyes realize my mystique
Is merely a smoke and mirror mirage
My omnipotence
Certainly less than advertised
My omniscience, nonexistent
Simply a paltry parlor trick
That moment will be awkward
But it will leave us both better
Liberated I free to give what little know how I’ve acquired
To transmit my ideas clear
Unfettered by paternalistic pretense
And he to transmit my middling musings
Into something actually advantageous
Reconstruct my copper cognitions and leaden logos
Into glimmering golden gnosis
Perhaps through his process
Successfully plot his path to the fabled land of adulthood
___
Venomous Virility
“Y’all niggas’ gay!!!”
This was my induction
Into the fraternal order of black masculinity
You see apparently
Six year old me
Had transgressed the border between
Showin’ love for the homey
And havin’ homo tendencies
Cuz real niggas give daps, not hugs
And mosdef don’t smile
While engaged in a man to man embrace
Vulnerability was solely for sissies
And unbecoming of a brother
Tears were for queers
Emotions kept tightly wrapped under covers
These cardinal rules came to reign
Occupied cavity in chest
Freshly emptied of innocent heart
Anger only acceptable outward expression
Of inward issues
Fists replacing tongues
As practiced tools of communication
Because there’s nothing a broken jaw can’t transmit
As impactfully as an eloquent, impassioned plea
Or so we were miseducated to believe
Because every muted word
Every tear unshed
Was a link in chains weighing down our souls
Denial of half our nature
Naturally made us semi-realized beings
Being constantly at war with ourselves
Being strong at too high cost
Of mental and emotional health
Denyin’ self wealth
Of integral life experience
Because boys don’t cry
We crawl through life with faded vision
And I say crawl because men
See, we don’t run
Unless forced to confront
Foe intangible yet can painfully touch
One we can’t vanquish via violence
Neither kick nor punch
I once witnessed my father lose that fight
In a moment of brokenness bend knee
Allow hurt heart through eyes to speak
Tears stain cheek
Once he’d gathered himself
And once more donned his armor of pride
He apologized
I don’t know which was worse
The fact that he felt the need to
Or that I both understood and realized
That in that moment he’d rather have died
Than of himself reveal that side
Losing control was a sin inconsiderable
Father, son bonding
Belonging to ball parks and bar stools
Never bedrooms…
Sorrow shown silent
Only at burial grounds
This’ the mis-molded mess this world’s made us
Sensitive spirits shackled within testosterone walled prisons
Accented with homophobic bars
Boys playing at being men
Barely brave enough to question
Who made up
These malicious mores of manhood?
These Guantanamo Bay ways of approved gender displays?
Who galvanized this jihad against genuine self-expression?
I know not
But I know this
I’m staging a coup
I’m no longer content too
Goose step to cadence of callous rhythm
Ho-hum humdrum pattern stern and militaristic
Monotone,
Mirthless
I will dance daringly to an ostentatious orchestra
Melodic flourishes fully seasoned with life’s many flavors
All while wearing colorful dream coats
Tailored to transmit its infinite textures
No more austere armor
I’m casting aside my sword
Picking up a pen and building bridges with my words
I’m splintering shaft of my spear
And exchanging it for a paintbrush
With aim of illustrating a better world for my son
One where he can sing, dance, laugh, and cry
With equal pride
One where the weapons of war are ideas
And border skirmishes serve to break down
Those between self and others
Oh what a world it’ll be
____
Inhuman
I didn’t want you to walk away
But I didn’t know how to ask you to stay
I’ve never been one
For one on ones
Too easily tongue tied when eye to eye
So on this stage I set free the secrets of this page
Prayin’ these words land not
Upon ears deafened by my silence
Victimized by my non-verbal violence
Tuned out by my inability to tune in
I am
More machine than man
Mechanically marching from moment to moment
Merely reacting to previously programmed prompts
Physically present but lacking sincere presence
In essence
I am empty inside
Hollow
Homunculi passing for person
Human in form
All the while lacking the essential qualities
A marvel of masterful magecraft
Cleverly crafted to casually deceive
Mirage of a man
...
Al Black's Poetry of the People Featuring Larry Rhu!
This week's Poet of the People is Larry Rhu. I think I first met Larry when Curtis Derrick hosted a poetry workshop and Tim Conroy introduced us. Larry and I cohost Simple Gifts and I cherish sitting in his backyard garden to discuss literature and Boston Celtic basketball. He is a generous and humble friend and I am honored to be in his orbit.
Lawrence Rhu is the Todd Professor of the Italian Renaissance, emeritus, at the University of South Carolina. He has published books and essays about the American and European Renaissances and edited Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. His poems have appeared in Poetry, North Dakota Quarterly, Innisfree Poetry Journal, The Poetry Society of South Carolina Yearbook, Pinesong, Fall Lines, One, Main Street Rag, Conversations: The Journal of Cavellian Studies, Jogos Florais, Forma de Vida, and other journals. They have won awards from the Poetry Society of South Carolina and the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society of New Orleans.
Instead of a Letter
Ever since your scary diagnosis, Jerry,
your Kawasaki Ninja’s helping us
document nostalgia’s hits or misses:
Fats Domino at El Casino Ballroom
in downtown Tucson, Oracle Union Church
beyond the Catalinas. Grandfather Ford—
an old Ford, he’d say, but still serviceable—
supplied its pulpit with clear messages
he shared implicitly (or I divined)
between approach shots on the practice range
when he taught me to golf during junior high
and we began our easy-going exchanges.
Nothing oracular about that town
except the name and my experience
of friendship with a kindred soul whose calling
required some explanation of its quiet
moments, like golf, when others take their turn.
Chemo and radiation are still shrinking
your tumor while our sunset dialogues
help reconstruct our common histories
with anecdotes and our imaginations
in FaceTime calls from two time zones away.
Bits and pieces patched together come
to represent whatever meant the world
to me and you, my father’s other son
in spirit and my mother’s other student.
Grammar and medicine, their offerings,
helped you avoid English X at U of A
and then through medical school at UNM.
Transcendental brother, Anglo caballero,
biker, physician, my dear friend, your Ninja
and horses call to mind a life of travel:
happy trails, lonesome roads, and our reunions
in Rio Hondo, New Orleans, Missoula,
Boston, Prescott—even Italy,
when I was teaching high school there in Rome.
In just three months you’ve biked eight thousand miles
in perfect weather on backroads and blue
highways, inspired by sunlight and fresh air.
Has anyone lived long enough to be
“almost a native,” as some born elsewhere
used to say after many years in Tucson?
May we not homestead in creation, staking
our claims, not taking what’s given for granted,
settling in some ever nearer region?
Benefits of Doubt
For D. T. S.
No inference made, no implication either—
I did not infer what you did not imply,
but thanks. I appreciate your concern.
Ghosts haunt words with shades of meaning
difficult to dispel. Slips and lapses
make us marvel at the secret life
of language in conversation with itself.
Perfect strangers intrude upon the best
intentions, foiling our plans. Still, we’re thrilled
to entertain felicities unaware.
It all depends upon our being being
attuned. So, drop your guard. Speak your mind.
Learn what you mean in sync with those awaiting
news of you and yours. I’ll listen up. Online
or off, count on my friendship as a reader.
Arborist
Two trees or maybe three I knew for sure:
the fig and sycamore…but now I can’t
recall the third. The Church of Rome inspired
my confidence about the first—fig leaves
cover places Michelangelo
and Donatello felt the shepherd boy
need not blush to leave exposed. A protest
rallied us to save the sycamores
along the Charles River by Mem Drive.
But I knew cacti of my desert boyhood
well before hope of a better school stole me
away from home to greener climes with all
four seasons, ice and snow, and trees Thoreau
once learned by heart alone. The orchard keeper,
my beloved, leads me now through arboretums
around the world. Unlike Walden’s chronicler,
even in dark woods, we wander as a pair.
Released from rigors of the father tongue,
which he so harped upon, the fallen world’s
transformed into a commonwealth we share.
Memento
No reason for the trip but Sunday free
we headed toward the North Shore on Route 1
— itself a brilliant stretch of salesmanship
where concrete cattle graze invitingly
on green cement before a steakhouse door,
one of many bright commercial fancies
up and down the strip.
We toured the infamous Witch House in Salem
where pre-trial interviews were held before
witchcraft and wizardry scared slaughter out.
There must be reasons why the Lord would fail them.
Soon, a host of innocents told why.
Our high school guide recited all the facts
and ushered us about.
Then, on to Marblehead where several hills
are strewn with brayed slate gravestones by a pond
the locals fish on weekends when they’re free.
Hourglasses, death’s heads, cross-bones are the frills
that trim the verses written for the dead.
We paused and read their prayers so quaintly rhymed
and lost to history.
May her virtues take her where they should
graven on the slate of Mary by her John
invoked the angels she’d soon bide among
To such as she I’m sure that death is good.
We moved from stone to stone like other tourists
till evening took the light and brought a chill
that made us move along.
Going back on the same route we came by
we passed a dinosaur at a putt-putt course,
a lowering hazard on the thirteenth hole.
The traffic slowed. A siren gave a sigh
and blinked upon a wreck beside the road.
Three bodies, under cover, lined the pavement.
The cars slowed to a roll.
Streetcar through Parnassus
Don’t you think somebody ought to pray for them? - How six-year-old Ruby Bridges explained her prayers for protesters against school desegregation
From Lee Circle to the Garden District
nine muses cross the tracks,
divinities of total recall
once upon a time.
From history to astronomy
along St. Charles Avenue
the streetcar bumps and grinds
from Clio to Urania, the goddess
Milton summoned puritanically
insisting on a Christian meaning
for her pagan name. No such
precise distinction here obtains.
That culture clash sounds academic,
the harmonizing rhetoric antique.
The Heavenly Muse now names
some lapsed Presbyterian
daughter of faded Memory.
Yet, in the roundabout, Lee’s empty place
on the Olympian column top
prompts Clio to review her latest draft
—its epic or tragic plot—
with Calliope and Melpomene.
That vacancy makes room
for hope to change the shape of time
imposed by powers that be—
or were and wished to stay.
Cycling between the Odd Fellows’ Rest
and the Archdiocesan Cemetery,
beyond the neutral ground,
I turn toward Metairie and soon discern,
from beneath the Interstate,
a marble soldier
ready to read the roll of casualties,
the toll his counterparts memorialize
on a thousand small-town New England greens.
Whatever local muse prompts song,
as I recall, no run of Boston streets
bears gaudy classical names
if you don’t count the Marathon.
There’s no Mardi Gras with krewes,
like Bacchus or Endymion
or Comus’s raucous gang
routed in that Puritan’s court masque.
Yet who’s to say they won’t be coming back?
Here or there, in Cambridge or Fenway Park,
or on the banquette where first graders once
braved mobs with Federal Marshals,
walking to school and hoping
against hope for a fresh start.
SC Writers Association 2024 STORYFEST Early Bird Registration Ends June15th
2024 STORYFEST EARLY BIRD PRICING ENDS JUNE 15
Early bird registration for SCWA’s 2024 Storyfest, set for Sept. 27 through 29 in Columbia, ends June 15.
Fees for the full three-day conference are $250 for members and $325 for nonmembers; those fees will increase by $30 on June 16, so register now and save! Student registration for the full conference is $140. A one-day ticket for Saturday-only sessions is available for $195. Masterclasses, manuscript critiques and query pitches are available for additional charges as add-ons to your registration.
Storyfest, SCWA’s biggest event of the year, will be held at The DoubleTree by Hilton in Columbia, with the added advantage of having the hotel and conference under one roof – and the rooms are less expensive this year, too!
In addition to amazing authors, editors, agents and screenwriters from outside of our state, some of South Carolina’s most prominent writers will be there to make this conference successful. We will have three pre-conference masterclasses and craft classes as well as the invaluable Queryfest, Slushfest, Speed Pitch Session and a “Publishing World Today” panel, which provides cutting-edge self-publishing assistance. Four keynote speakers will provide valuable insights, including information on artificial intelligence and how it will impact the writing world, and Storyfest has 20 other breakout and other presentations – something for every genre. A Saturday cocktail hour, open mic, exhibits, book signings and more also will be included.
We will highlight our keynote speakers and presenters in The Quill between now and September. We featured Lynn Cullen and Grady Hendrix in the May issue; see 2024 Storyfest Faculty bios on all of our fabulous speakers. Here are two more keynoters:
TIFFANY YATES MARTIN
Tiffany Yates Martin has spent nearly 30 years as an editor in the publishing industry, working with major publishers and New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling and award-winning authors as well as indie and newer writers. She is the founder of FoxPrint Editorial and author of Intuitive Editing: A Creative and Practical Guide to Revising Your Writing. She is a regular contributor to writers' outlets like Writer's Digest, Jane Friedman and Writer Unboxed, and a frequent presenter and keynote speaker for writers' organizations around the country. Under her pen name, Phoebe Fox, she is the author of six novels. Visit her at www.foxprinteditorial.com.
She will offer a masterclass, “Mastering the Holy Trinity of Story: Character, Stakes and Plot;” deliver a keynote, “The Happy, Harsh Truths of a Writing Career;” and present breakout sessions. We are thrilled to have her for 2024 Storyfest.
ALAN ROTH
Alan Roth graduated from Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey with degrees in history and English literature, then attended graduate school at Emerson College in Boston, where he received an MFA in creative writing. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and serves as an adjunct professor of screenwriting at Fairleigh Dickinson’s School of the Arts. He is a winner of the coveted Nicholl Fellowship Academy Award for best original screenplay (Jersey City Story) and works with producers on developing projects for both film and TV.
He will present a keynote, “AI and Current Trends in Writing,” and a breakout session on “Book to Screen.” We are so pleased to have him as part of 2024 Storyfest.
The hotel room rate is $169 (plus tax & fees) for one king or two queen beds. For the SCWA discounted rate, reserve at the DoubleTree by Hilton Columbia; book by Aug. 29 for the discount.
RESERVE YOUR ROOM FOR STORYFEST
If you are not a member of SCWA, join now to enjoy the member rate for Storyfest as well as other SCWA benefits. Membership is $75 annually; go to Join Us.
For more information email administrator@myscwa.org
Battle of Musgrove Mill Poetry Reading & Contest - June 28th 10 am - noon
News from the Poetry Society of South Carolina —
Enter our contest by submitting a poem with the theme of revolution or victory to everycornereverycounty@gmail.com.
You can win a beautiful American themed guitar, thanks to our sponsor, Danny Sciortino!
Poetry of the People with Al Black featuring Mary E. Martin
This week's Poet of the People is Mary E. Martin. I first met Mary in either Rock Hill or Charlotte at a poetry reading put on by Jonathan K. Rice. She has facilitated some of my readings in Rock Hill and has journeyed to Columbia to read for the Mind Gravy Poetry series. She is a elegant poet who writes from a gentle, graceful place. Rock Hill, South Carolina is blessed to have her in their midst.
-Al Black
Mary E. Martin is a poet, dancer, and teacher at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC. She
grew up in the west and the south, preferring the rich landscape of the south. She explores a
fusion of text, movement, and music in community performance projects she has developed in the Carolinas. Her poetry has appeared in many journals, including The Kansas Quarterly, The Journal of the American Medical Association, and The Southern Poetry Review.
At the University Inn
As a student waitress
I served Denise Levertov
breakfast—she drank tea,
not coffee.
I almost spilled
my adoration, but her reverence
for the moment stopped me
from recalling the spell
her reading had cast--
only her poetry
breathed, her images
sacred, almost palpable
renderings of the inner
paradise we know exists.
I kept the check slip
she had signed,
taped on a wall
near my desk,
an artifact that lasted
as many years as it took
for me to realize
beauty’s minutiae
is just as sublime
as what we claim
breathtaking.
My Dog Looks Up at the Moon
Late night he pauses
on the deck, doesn’t howl
but quietly stares
at the bright curve above,
his big head, black and white
sixty-pound hunter body
more a still life, a whisper
between dog and moon,
he listening as the moon
tells him he is a being
who loves, a love
that can travel anywhere,
a dolphin splash love;
he wishes he could swim
to the moon, lick her
powdered white cheek, sleep
overnight in a velvet smooth
crater, dreaming an unknown
tenderness, then slip back
down just as I awaken;
mythically happy to see
him again, I kiss him
and feed him breakfast.
Folk song
I like to howl with my dogs
in our own backyard Olympus,
out-sounding the sirens
by blending our voices.
Without judgement or fear
I like to howl with my dogs;
we are neither dog nor human
out-sounding the sirens.
Crooning welcome tears
without judgement or fear
I stretch out my neck;
we are neither dog nor human.
I stand erect as they do
crooning welcome tears,
eyes toward the clouds
as I stretch out my neck.
A pack of screeching troubadours
out-sounding the sirens,
no better heaven than ours
than when I howl with my dogs.
Flint
I sit on my couch
waiting for a spark
of an image, just enough
to keep me writing
in my small house, on a quiet
street, Flint Street,
the only sharp edges
the barking dogs
in almost every house.
My words, the hard quartz tools
I rely on to shape the world,
are like the rough tools
tribes relied on to survive
in the wild brush and windowless caves.
I think of the steel that strikes
flint into fire, angry voices
of a small Midwestern town
shouting out their abuse,
the City of Flint forging
their words into a hard
refusal, to be more than
their namesake’s core,
to be the unshadowed
flame of the heart.
El Paso
When I was young and shy
The dark brick scrubbing
our hands when we grazed the body
of homes on the army base
as we darted everywhere to find
a place to hide. We played at night
with flashlights, the fat tree trunks
our gathering place, the touch
of the bark friendly rough.
Later we lived in an off base adobe
cuddled all around by bushes,
bushes full of secret
spaces I quietly lingered in every day.
Walking to school I always hesitated
at the canal, loud water tumbling over itself,
the bridge with no rails the only connector
to the school. I swear I could see loose
animal bodies shoved through foaming
water, wet fur, and bared teeth.
Our father treated us with short trips
over the border in Juarez,
always stopping at the same restaurant;
we sipped orange sodas,
stared at the polished blue and white tiles,
while my father drank beer
or tequila; none of us
ever questioned why always
the same place, the same food.
The cruel misperception
of others, always a lack
of embrace-- the 1950’s shadow
pulled me to hide
and grow where I hid.
This week's Poetry of the People is a guest from NC - Andrew K. Clark
This week's Poet of the People is Andrew K. Clark.* I first got to know Andrew after a poetry reading in Hilton Head when I had dinner with him after his reading. He was living in Savannah with his wife, Casey, and preparing to relocate to the mountains of North Carolina where he grew up. He now resides and writes in the mountains outside Asheville. He is a prolific poet and author and is a delight to know.
-Al Black
Andrew K. Clark is a novelist & poet from the Western North Carolina mountains, where his people settled before The Revolutionary War. His poetry collection, Jesus in the Trailer, was published by Main Street Rag Press. His first novel, Where Dark Things Grow, is forthcoming from Cowboy Jamboree Press on 9/10/24. His work has appeared in The American Journal of Poetry, UCLA’s Out of Anonymity, Appalachian Review, Rappahannock Review, The Wrath Bearing Tree, and many others. He received his MFA from Converse College. Connect with him and read more of his work at andrewkclark.com.
beautiful screaming
I tried to quit
I really
did
throw’d everything away
so many times
swore off the makeup
swore off them wigs
I’d go to bed
try to forget everything
squeeze my eyeballs
inside out
but seemed like
it called to me
from in the bin
called me
to put it back on
come stand in front of the mirror, boy
it was hardest when
the sun went out
***
first time I didn’t even
mean for it to happen
I got all made up
& I don’t know why but
I went outside
down there
by the pond
that old dirt road
you know the one
the lover’s lane
there was a car pulled
near the water
and I wanted
to see inside
catch me a peek
of what they was doing
only when I did
the girl seen me
she screamed
screamed so loud
it busted my ears
so loud she shook
the whole goddamned world
and the boy trying to jerk
up his pants
& I fell in love with her
right there
& the sounds she made
I ain’t never heard
nothing so beautiful
& she made me
beautiful too
& she seen me
like nobody ever seen me
& she saw how beautiful I was
& everything tingled everywhere
in the whole goddamned world
the whole world tingling up
its goddamned spine
and down between
its goddamned legs
& I went back the next night
& the night after that
seem like more cars come
down by the pond
like people wanted me to
just scare the living
shit out of them
like it turned
them on too
& I gave them what they wanted
& they gave me what I wanted
all that screaming
them tires spinning the dirt
***
them kids made up
hashtags for me
things like
#clownscare
& #clownopocalypse
& it went on like that for a long time
& I made all the papers
& it was beautiful
till
they caught me
& they put me back
in the home
& they chained me
under the box springs
pumped me so full
of all them drugs
& I love all them drugs
when I’m under
the box springs
pumped full
I can’t remember
who my first-grade teacher was
or where I learned to dress up
or who my daddy is
but I do remember
all that screaming
all that beautiful screaming
& how they seen me
really seen me
for the first time
equine | canine
the horses up
the mountain
went wild, forgotten
by their people
nobody come by
to even feed them
until
they forgot they
were horses
grew as feral
as jackals
fought off bears
killed off the coyote
stayed alive
even during winter
no grass on the ground
teeth grinding
down the trees
they fucked each
other constantly
foals rising from
the dark earth
each spring
they ate their brothers
whose legs fell lame
teeth rounding
sharpening canine
until
their eyes grew large
dark manes matted
no one could
approach them
no one could
pet them
but me
paper dolls
drought and famine and violence and
tinder enough to burn the world down,
and it’s only tuesday. but one thing you
understand is that you got to get right
with god. it don’t pay to wait. you ‘re
on the last verse of just as i am, without
one plea, sister gail keeps playing long
as there are sinners out there and you
better get up, fight your curled up
atrophied limbs, fight your jangled up
trifling, get down front to that altar and
make yourself low before the preacher.
you don’t have to do it, i know.
salvation is a choice. but if you don’t,
you should know a few things. one, the
devil has nightmares too. they wouldn’t
make sense to you because they’re
made up of all the beauty of gods green
spring bright fondling, the way vines
creep under doorways and rise to
choke the tallest thickest trees in the
woods out back. did you know there
are flowers with black spider eye
faces? god made those too. bottomless
night holes that fall for miles, sucking
you in by your eyeballs, pulling fibrous
orange slice chunks from your back,
bent and stretched and uglier than you
can imagine. two, you had no choice
but to do it. you might could’ve
become a preacher yourself, shopping
pinstripe suit catalogues, starching
your collars out in a dingy basement,
pull cord lightbulbs burning your scalp.
you might could’ve earned your keep
on the mission field or in a soup
kitchen but when mama took up that
knife and cut that man across his face
for the way he mocked her cooking,
you ain’t had no choice. three, scissors
and girly magazines in your hiding
place under the skirting of the trailer,
stretched out on the warm dirt, you
found magic powers. kaleidoscoping
girls every which way and that: take
this head and put it on that body, put
these legs under those hips, take her
tits and put them on that one there, and
this one, she should be a dancer, so
change her shoes. so much flesh, so
much sin and skin that you mix and
match in peach and black and orange
and cream - you’re nothing if not
wicked. four, when they found your
stash, pulling back the purple curtain,
they took all your lovers away, best
friends too; you had no choice. sister
gail finished the song, and the preacher
ain’t called for another verse, so thank
hallelujah for lighter fluid, kitchen
matches and sweet sulfur black and
blueness.
Pollination
(after Lindsey Alexander)
My beard is a honeycomb you lick when hungry.
On your way to the icebox,
on our daily hike through the woods,
you can’t help but stop and taste it.
Bright and untamed,
Zizzing like bees
in a white box;
your face stays sticky and
you keep licking your cheeks all day,
even during video calls.
Eventually, you send
a dozen mouths
to extract me,
drip by drop,
while you lie back
and wait to be fed.
*While Clark is not a SC poet, we are honored to share his work with you this week via Poetry of the People!
REVIEW: Letters to Karen Carpenter by Richard Allen Taylor - Reviewed by Lawrence Rhu
The heart of Richard Allen Taylor’s new collection, Letters to Karen Carpenter (Main Street Rag, 2023), is “Undeliverable,” the first of its four sections. There Taylor apostrophizes the late singer of poignant hits and anthems of romantic promise like “Close to You” and “It’s Only Just Begun,” as he struggles directly with his book’s core premise and challenge. The intimate beauty of Carpenter’s voice, combined with the pathos of her early death due to complications of anorexia nervosa, often served Taylor and his late wife, Julie, as a compelling soundtrack to their life together, especially during her last days when she was dying of leukemia.
In “Recruiting You, Karen, as a Pen Pal,” Taylor acknowledges his own mother’s quiet disappointment in him for rebuking his daughter’s impulse to address her dead grandfather during a Thanksgiving prayer. Thus, Taylor both confesses and disavows his paternal inclination to lay down the law about communication with the dead. Such religious inhibitions give way to imaginative play audible in this poem’s title and its transformation of “a brass lamp” into a magic lamp that delivers his late mother’s “unsolicited advice.” Moreover, that maternal heirloom, duly capitalized in the next poem, names the record company that released the Carpenters’ first single, Magic Lamp.
You’ll recall that, before there was writing, Orpheus sang as he descended to rescue Eurydice from the land of the dead. Those who turn the feelings such a story relates into compelling songs or poems can deeply affect us. We understand what they are saying, or we know that, someday soon enough, grief will teach or remind us, and we will understand again. In Letters Taylor achieves such effects in representing the process of grief and mourning. His serious yet playful approach enables him to bear the weight of such heavy loads both honestly and nimbly. The epistolary form opens a space for tones of confidentiality and intimate exchange. It puts Taylor in conversation with addressees who are out of reach but familiar and loved. Of course, there are darker sides to such imaginary conversations, and Taylor does not pretend otherwise. In a down-to-earth way, he expands our horizons, so they include mercy and gratitude along with suffering and loss. You can hear it in “Note to Karen about Mortality,” the opening poem of Letters:
I watch a lone hawk ride thermals, rise
without effort—and think of mortality’s leaden
weight, sloughed off like last year’s molting.
Not that I believe in reincarnation. Not that I
disbelieve. I mean the hawk reminds me
of you, and my wife—who loved your music.
“Undeliverable,” the book’s second section, represents raw encounters with the Grim Reaper in “Chemotherapy” and “Untitled Poem about Dying,” as mute acknowledgment of the limits of language reveals in the first word of the latter poem’s title, “Untitled.” In the following quote, the memorable simile, “like a canal lock,” provides the title for a poem about a waiting room where caregivers bide their time while cancer patients undergo tests and procedures on the day after Valentine’s Day: “The room has filled and emptied many times today, // like a canal lock passing ships into the darkness.”
Though the book’s first two sections display Taylor’s resilience and wit in the face of daunting loss, its final two sections, “Postcards” and “Change of Address,” give those qualities freer range and greater opportunity to shine in his lines. Taylor’s elegiac imperative inspires many poems, but it also leaves room for hope and recovery as well the play of language that gives delight.
-Lawrence Rhu
Lawrence Rhu is the Todd Professor of the Italian Renaissance emeritus at the University of South Carolina. He has written books and essays about the American and European Renaissances, and he edited Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale for the Evans Shakespeare series from Cengage. His poems have appeared in Poetry, Two Rivers, South Florida Poetry Journal, Forma de Vida, Jogos Florais, Quorum, Fall Lines, Pinesong, and the Poetry Society of South Carolina Yearbook. In 2018-19, three of his poems received named awards from the Poetry Society of South Carolina. A fourth, “Reading Romance with a Lady Killer,” received the 2018 Faulkner-Wisdom Poetry Award from the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society in New Orleans. In 2019, his unpublished poetry collection, “Pre-owned Odyssey and Rented Rooms,” was runner-up for that Society’s Marble Faun Award. In 2020, Conversations: The Journal of Cavellian Studies published or reprinted a dozen of his poems together with his essay on poetry and philosophy, “Other Minds and a Mind of One’s Own.”
This week's Poet of the People is Moses Oaktree - Al Black
This week's Poet of the People is Moses Oaktree. I met Moses several years ago in Augusta, GA, when he was the manager of the Book Tavern Bookstore and a staple of the local poetry scene. Pre-COVID he would sometimes make an appearance at Mind Gravy. After COVID he moved to the Midlands and exploded on the scene. He is (in my humble opinion) the best spoken word poet in the area. He owns the stage and his work stands up well on the printed page. He is a top draw in the region and I fully expect him to become a force throughout the Southeast on his way to a national reputation.
- Al Black
Moses Oaktree is an artist, storyteller, and co-founder of Charleston, SC’s UnSpoken Word Open Mic. Mosely has performed his signature features across the United States, especially for his homes of New Orleans, Atlanta, Columbia, and Charleston. His style melds southern lyricism, historical intrigue, and a surrealist take on the African/African-American tradition to create a contemporary black American myth. He is currently working on his first book of poetry, “Heaven Be A Black Land”.
Just. Like. You.
Met someone who looked Just
Like You Today.
Honestly, it was uncanny. Your curves;
Your style--
God knows I missed your smile. She was a song
I’d once known well.
I reached for her hand out of reflex. A habit in death throes;
Memories of you echo Through places in me That have no name.
Why do you remain?
Your smile could lift the waves.
I stopped myself just as I felt
the warmth of her body. Goosebumps;
Hot needles in my skin turn to ice. Shudders;
She walked way in the moments tween my
Stutters.
I am reminded
Your smile was paradise.
I, too
I love telling folk how Dr King’s “I Am A Man” slogan turned queer in the next iteration of the movement.
I love talking bout Black Lives Matter being run by queer/women.
I love talking bout Bayard Rustin.
I love talking bout how voices, once hushed, still can find their way into the Light.
“I Am A Man”
We are equal as human.
“Black Lives Matter”
We are equal as human.
The final rendition will be “I, too, have a soul”
But if they kill me, they’ll say it wasn’t true.
Notes From Abraham
“Life was a constant miracle”, He say.
His body like smoke in the wind; He who gives shape to mist.
Substance like vapors, Both solid and shapeless.
He leans closer before he persists.
“Each breath was a gamble with death”, He say.
“I won so many times I musta cheated. Pain----
Illness----
At times, I was broken.
I took losses, but was undefeated.”
“I wanted it all…” He say.
“I made deals with the Devil- Chasing keys to Heaven.
We don’t realize the moment we
Lost Cause
The more I realized what beauty was;
The more fluent I became in the language of
God”
Time
Time Manifested
as flesh and bone
Dove into itself to discover its soul Then walked Earth’s mighty plains As the ghosts of the future.
I am
.
This week's Poet of the People with Al Black is Lang Owen
This week's Poet of the People is Lang Owen. Before the printing press, balladeers carried poetry and news to the people; Lang Owen writes in that tradition. He is a gifted singer/songwriter who writes poem songs about people and the human condition. Every so often you meet someone who paints stories that sound new every time you hear them sung - I am privileged to know Lang Owen. www.langowen.com/
-Al Black
Lang Owen works straight out of the 1970s singer-songwriter tradition, employing poetic lyrics to express the challenges and possibilities of the current day, often viewed through the perspective of individual's imagined interior lives. Lang’s gift for seeing the world around him and dialoguing with others about their lives informs his songwriting, which often takes the form of conversations between characters in his songs. Lang released his third album, Cosmic Checkout Lane, in April 2024, his second collaboration with musician/producer Todd Mathis. “Cosmic Checkout Lane is about living our wisdom at any moment, including standing in a grocery store checkout line,” Lang says.
In 2022 Lang released She’s My Memory, which the Post & Courier Free Times ranked sixth on its The Best of South Carolina Music 2022 list. Lang’s 2019 debut album Welcome To Yesterday was hailed as “evocative storytelling at its finest” by music writer Kevin Oliver. Lang has played multiple venues in North and South Carolina, and received airplay on radio stations in the United States, Canada, Ireland, and Luxembourg.
Everybody Here
Everybody here’s my therapist
I need all the help I can get
I look around, I’m losing my ground
I don’t like what I see one bit
I float by like a whisper, you hand me a megaphone
In our own little worlds somehow we’re not alone
We’re not alone
Everybody here
Everybody here’s my archeologist
Digging in the dirt for things I miss
Down on hands and knees beneath the olive trees
Finding my love still exists
We live in memory like statues standing in Rome
In our own little worlds somehow we’re not alone
We’re not alone
Everybody here
I don’t know what I’m dreaming any more
I just know you’re believing
I don’t know whose shoes are on my floor
I just know you’re not fleeing
What I can do is wash your feet
Patch you up when you’re bleeding
I’ll keep your secrets discrete
I’ll say what you’re meaning to me
I float by like a whisper, you hand me a megaphone
In our own little worlds somehow we’re not alone
We’re not alone
Everybody here
Gravity
I’m not a smart man, but I know gravity
I drop nails from many a roof, it’s physics obviously
Don’t take paper in a frame to see that things fall
I’ve done this job for twenty-eight years, I’m a jack of all trades
I fix everybody’s leaky walls, water moves in strange ways
Don’t take paper in a frame to know a hammer’s what you need
House to house, I drive around, lots of new cars everywhere
From my truck, I see it clear, this town’s in disrepair
I guess that’s why God put me here
My knees are shot, all the ups and downs, I tell my boy get your degree
I’ve done some things of which I’m proud, it never came easily
Don’t take paper in a frame to know what builds you breaks you down
House to house, I drive around, lots of new cars everywhere
From my truck, I see it clear, this town’s in disrepair
I guess that’s why God put me here
I paint all your empty rooms, I like the smell of something fresh
I leave a little bit of me in there, where your baby lays down to rest
Don’t take paper in a frame to know love’s all in your hands
House to house, I drive around, lots of new cars everywhere
From my truck, I see it clear, this town’s in disrepair
I guess that’s why God put me here
Love Sputnik
Mr. Hardy taught the sciences, the stuff of life
Backrow kids mocked thinning hair and tattered ties
Astronomy was his true love, Mr. Hardy had no wife
Russia launched first satellite shook the world
Beep beep on ham radio, spaceage unfurled
Mr. Hardy daydreamed at his desk of a long-lost girl
Oppenheimer called out God
Galileo searched the stars
Mr. Hardy lectured genius does no tricks
Sir Iassac’s apple fell to ground
Einstein wrote it simply down
Mr. Hardy questioned who on earth invents
Love Sputnik
18,000 miles an hour light across the sky
Mr. Hardy said change rockets into our lives
When she burned up in the atmosphere, Mr. Hardy cried
I recall a film about the sun Hardy showed
Man in glasses explained giant stars someday explode
In the cosmic scheme of things no one is betrothed
Oppenheimer called out God
Galileo searched the stars
Mr. Hardy lectured genius does no tricks
Sir Iassac’s apple fell to ground
Einstein wrote it simply down
Mr. Hardy questioned who on earth invents
Love Sputnik
Mr. Hardy gazed alone at night crescent moon
Mr. Hardy knew she’s inching away too soon
Mr. Hardy retired from everything that very June
Oppenheimer called out God
Galileo searched the stars
Mr. Hardy lectured genius does no tricks
Sir Iassac’s apple fell to ground
Einstein wrote it simply down
Mr. Hardy questioned who on earth invents
Love Sputnik
Man With A Broom
Thirty years I swept floors, F & M Bank
Retired with a big mug, too many last hugs
Cards and thanks
Now I use a red broom, sweep my curbside
Photos, bottles, pennies, cigar butts
You know it’s not right
My sight is still good, careful when the cars pass
My doctor says she’s never seen a man my age
With such a strong back
I’ve got so little to leave this big world
I never had a son or a precious little girl
I’m just an old man with a broom
On the street in the sun Monday afternoon
Man with a broom
I found a brown shoe on the sidewalk nearby
My whole day puzzling what happened to that foot
Can’t say why
My shadow tells time, I don’t wear a watch now
I can see no point in counting the hours
As they wind down
Who’ll pick up this broom? Nobody wants to sweep
I’m scared things all go to hell when I fall into
That long sleep
I’ve got so little to leave this big world
I never had a son or a precious little girl
I’m just an old man with a broom
On the street in the sun Monday afternoon
Man with a broom
Neighbor kid walks by with those earphone things
Give me a listen, though it don’t beat Bob Dylan
My heart still sings
Wife calls me inside, says I’ll die from the heat
But this broom’s what I’ve got, and I’ll sweep ‘til I drop
On this clean street
I’ve got so little to leave this big world
I never had a son or a precious little girl
I’m just an old man with a broom
On the street in the sun Monday afternoon
Man with a broom
Used Books
I Sunday browse your shop for hours
We talk about writers when no one’s there
And you proclaim love for Hemingway
For your age that’s pretty rare
You say you can relate
To wine and war and fate
And how this life is so unfair
Your eyes ask me why, you wait for me to try
I scratch my head, I can’t help you there
You wanna be heard, you gotta listen
You wanna be read, you gotta buy somebody’s book
You wanna be found, you gotta know who you’re missing
You wanna be seen, you gotta really, really look
Oh I swear, my sweet Karina
I once told a girl you never mind my words
“I mind them too much,” she said with a smile
She vanished like a ghost in a cloud of cigarette smoke
I missed that coming by a country mile
I tell this tale to you, I’m no fountain of any truth
Might be the one thing I do today worthwhile
No doubt it’s been said by poets long since dead
There’s nothing in this world we can’t defile
You wanna be heard, you gotta listen
You wanna be read, you gotta buy somebody’s book
You wanna be found, you gotta know who you’re missing
You wanna be seen, you gotta really, really look
Oh I swear, my sweet Karina
Old Man and The Sea, I peruse with iced coffee
I’ll soon forget every page I turn
My days are scribbled down, torn up paper on the ground
Take what I say this once for what it’s worth
You wanna be heard, you gotta listen
You wanna be read, you gotta buy somebody’s book
You wanna be found, you gotta know who you’re missing
You wanna be seen, you gotta really, really look
Oh I swear, my sweet Karina
Poetry of the People with Al Black featuring Tim Conroy
This week's Poet of the People is Tim Conroy. I met Tim Conroy several years ago at a Columbia literary event and cajoled him into doing his first poetry feature. We became fast friends, haunting and terrorizing coffee shops throughout Columbia. Later, we teamed up with singer/songwriter, Lang Owen as the Two Hats & a Ponytail trio. When Tim's wife retired, they fled to Florida; however, he will be back in Columbia to perform Tuesday, 05/07 at Simple Gifts and Wednesday, 05/08 at Mind Gravy with Lang and myself for the Reunion Tour of Two Hats and Ponytail.
Tim Conroy is a military brat who has lived all over the country and eventually ended up in South Carolina. A retired educator and beloved social rabble rouser, he has published two books of poetry, Theologies of Terrain, Muddy Ford Press 2017 and No True Route, Muddy Ford Press 2023. During COVID, he co hosted the YouTube poetry interview series, Chewing Gristle
Lousy
My Dad said lousy a lot
to describe his children
a lousy jump shot, a lousy right fielder,
a lousy bedmaker, a lousy dishwasher,
with a lousy attitude.
We had lousy eyes, freckles, and postures.
But he would never admit,
we were stationed in lousy towns.
We could have become lousy
because he fought in three lousy wars,
where he won a few lousy medals.
Every year, we left friends and moved
on lousy cross-country car trips.
He had a lousy temper and backhand.
His world turned lousier when our mom divorced him.
He was lousy in love with her.
He tasted lousy when schizophrenia
came for one of his sons.
Afterward, he was never a lousy grandfather
or a lousy money giver.
He remained lousy at saying sorry.
When he died, we never felt lousier
and knew a pilot's love didn't land empty,
his caps and his godawful shirts,
his lousy flaws, our hearts.
No True Route, Muddy Ford Press, 2023
The Flight Jacket
hung in the closet to forget the throttle
and how it zoomed from carriers during
the Korean War, dipped into battle
of the Chosin Reservoir for the troops
to make a break for it through scarred paths
and never told its story, zipped up mute
stayed cold to the touch preferring the dark
every day its arms down not saluting
while its empty pockets refused to hold
onto the sound of bombs and men waving
screaming hello, goodbye, and blood marking
each sleeve forever, but the leather saved
many lives, though not Dad’s, his explosions
and how he didn’t want us to touch him
The Child We Need
In front of imperial drones,
swollen under cement blocks
—tongues, old and young
because we doubt what is told
because it takes silence to listen
because we need to learn gestures
to rise reversals from wombs.
War-born babies and hostages
with no chink of light, no angels,
no safe mangers even for donkeys,
only hunger and inconsolable wails
until we embody the dead,
the child we need to live won’t
sing and fly paper kites in Gaza.
The Best Part
The truth be known,
gay or straight,
the priest gets paid,
the nun has a shitty deal,
the minister wants his ass kissed.
Meanwhile I have felt a voice
in the forest of owls and ordinary spaces.
Strangers have rescued me from peril;
like you, love has saved me.
Your neighbor is human.
We don’t listen or tell it right,
we take it literally,
we can’t write it down better,
we make it too complicated.
Who have you loved in this journey?
What is it you have given?
From Theologies of Terrain, Muddy Ford Press, 2017
A Fitted Game
The American Legion is full of men and women who battle
video games for printed slips to exchange at the bar for cash.
They don't dare add up the losses, so full of gin and silent friends.
Some say it's a loss of purpose and only passing time.
My Dad would have died playing if he hadn't croaked in bed.
His fingers reached, but I did not know what to tell him.
Their sacrifice isn't gone, and the popcorn kernels are still free,
salted, and buttered, sliding down throats that burn like cigarettes.
The flashing screen doesn't care who presses the fortune of the hours,
shouldering memories with sips. No soldier deserts the machine
that programs a fitted game, though many dream of a different outcome.
I have loved those players who won once
Al Black's Poetry of the People Features Janet Kozachek
This week's Poet of the People is Janet Kozachek. Shortly before COVID I hosted an ekphrastic poetry event at the Arts Center in Kershaw County, Camden, SC; Janet has had a lot to do with introducing me to many opportunities to host poetry events in Camden, Orangeburg and Hampton County. She is a dynamic advocate of the creative arts and a talented poet, writer, and visual artist. I look forward to participating in whatever event she creates next.
-Al Black
Janet Kozachek has led a long and eclectic career as a writer and visual artist, pursuing work and advanced study in Europe, China, and New York. She was the first American to matriculate in the Beijing Central Art Academy (CAFA), where she studied painting, poetry, and calligraphy. Ms. Kozachek moved to the Netherlands with her husband Nathaniel Wallace, to teach with the University of Maryland overseas division for two years. Returning to the United States she became a graduate student at Parsons School of Design.
During graduate work at Parsons in New York, Kozachek studied painting and drawing with Larry Rivers, Paul Resika, Leland Bell, and John Heliker, and poetry with J.D. McClatchy. It was this brush with McClatchy, then editor of the Yale Review and author of Painters and Poets, that first inculcated the idea for Kozachek that painting and poetry could emanate from the same creative source in western as well as in eastern art.
In South Carolina, Kozachek embarked on a long peripatetic career as an artist in residence and sometimes adjunct professor teaching Chinese art and Mosaic making throughout the state under the auspices of the South Carolina State Arts Commission. Kozachek founded and became the first president of the Society of American Mosaic Artists in 1999. She wrote for, and co-edited, the society’s quarterly publication, Groutline, and co-authored the catalogue for the first international exhibition of mosaics in the United States. She also actively wrote for Evening Reader Magazine, publishing essays on art and social issues. She is the author of four books of poetry.
Song of the Sinuses
(On the occasion of the discovery that researchers playing ancient ceramic musical instruments would sometimes hear a note that others could not because it was generated from resonance inside their sinuses)
The archaeologist,
with his vinyl gloves
and his plastic straw,
played the ancient globular flute,
last touched a millennium ago
by Shaman’s lips.
Six whole notes
climbed up a scale
as the pressure of modern air
yielded sound.
For the record there were six notes.
The archaeologist heard seven.
Investigators played that tape
again and again
– in search of that seventh note.
that they were certain that they heard.
What was that seventh unrecorded final note
that could not be bound
yet rang persistently in their heads?
It was a singular sinus sensation!
The lonely note was for
the hearing of the solitary.
It was a spiritual resonance
of an internal sound
echoing in the caverns of their skulls.
Not every note must be noted.
Not every thought must be voiced.
Not every sound need be heard by others.
Not every action must be known,
nor every meaning ascertained.
Not every desire must be met.
There must be quiet in the world
to leave a space for internal music.
Listen.
News Cycle
( After a Drawing by Laurie Lipton)
Another school shooting
the jaded eyes and numbed mind
observe on the rectangular
porthole to the outside world
Another invasion
I watch the troops float onscreen
above my painted toes
Another disaster
A family sleeps on borrowed blankets
outside the rubble
of what was once their home.
I scan them while reclining
in my own bed
in my air-conditioned room.
Another war
feeds my evening news cycle
I watch it through
the hazy steam
that emanates from my
museum shop coffee cup
decorated with scenes from
Picasso’s Guernica
aesthetically wrapped snugly
around the glazed form.
Purchased for just
$9.99 at the museum shop.
Another famine
plays out across my television
Mothers cradle emaciated infants
My cat cries out
wanting to be fed
I pause to feed her
and switch the channel
I am told
that brain surgery is performed
with just local anesthetics
to get below a scalp’s surface
with sedatives to blunt awareness
of what is inserted or extracted
from the matter of mind
Brains don’t feel pain
Patient patients
close their eyes then
and don’t panic
at what they see or hear
Another massacre?
Too many in a day now
to be counted
With the precision of a scalpel
the news cycle enters
through an anaesthetized cloud
of indifference
blunted by frequency
numbed by distance
cushioned with a thick cotton blanket
blocking out the fear
that the news
some day
will find me
Celestial Beings and Lesser Gods
(Zaparozhia and Melania Perik)
Objects upon a white cloth
lay as offerings to people passing by
in the torpor of late afternoon shadows.
A solitary apple, a tempting trinket,
sit as the trappings of yearning
for a warm bed and respite from hunger.
A mass of woman sits
swaddled in a woven coat
and a thinking hat.
She nods her head downwards,
as hypnogogic hallucinations
fly within and without the hollows of trees.
Celestial beings and lesser gods,
half human and half chicken,
turn right side up and upside down
in their flight between somnolence and wakefulness.
They have been conjured.
They cavort among the boughs,
and then are exorcized
from haunted limbs.
Crow
Crow watches you
with eyes you cannot see,
black on black against the setting sun,
waiting in quiet silhouette upon a branch.
Crow seeks you
in benevolent predation,
to feed upon your sorrows,
and swallow your regrets.
Crow finds you
alone among the living,
lost within memories of departed souls
who call and call your name.
Crow grasps you
in her claws folded
tight around your waist,
her black beak cool against your face.
Crow knows you
when you cross the bridge
into that great void
and come back home again.
Jasper Project Board Member AL BLACK Creates New Poem to Celebrate Announcement of ONE BOOK 2024 Novel - BEAVER GIRL by CASSIE PREMO STEELE
In honor of the announcement of Cassie Premo Steele’s novel, BEAVER GIRL, as the selection for the ONE BOOK 2024 community reading project, we asked Jasper Project board of directors member and local poetry guru, Al Black, to read Beaver Girl and craft a poem in response to the message of the book. Al did not disappoint! Please read Al’s poem, and the signature poem for this project, The Remembering, below, then pick up your own copy of Beaver Girl, and write a poem, paint a picture, or create a piece of music in your response to the book and enter it in the Jasper Project’s THE ART OF ONE BOOK 2024 Arts Contest.
The Remembering
Leave your shoes here on the stump.
Go forward on bare feet,
step through into the Remembering.
The ground will know you.
The mycelium will announce your approach.
Next to the beaver pond remove your gown.
Sit naked on the bank. Tonight is the Leaving of the Kits.
The recitation of old stories
of Livia, Chap and their families
Tales of a time when humans and beavers
spoke the same language
and learned to live together, again.
Tonight, young beavers must leave their parents
make space and time for the next litter.
They may invite you to swim
to the far side of the pond with them.
There they will leave the water
and begin their journey to new streams.
Not all of your sisters or all of the kits will remember,
but if they listen,
they will feel memories of the Healing Time
that came after the Great Dying Away.
And maybe - if you are blessed,
you will remember and believe the old stories of a beaver girl
and that ancient laws of preservation are based in truth.
The door of enchantment is only open a short time
so do not question me, remove your shoes and enter the Remembering.
Al Black, 04/21/2024
Announcing the Jasper Project's THE ART OF ONE BOOK 2024 CONTEST for Literary, Visual, and Musical Arts!
The Art of ONE BOOK 2024 – Cassie Premo Steele’s BEAVER GIRL!
Want to bring your own interpretation of 2024’s ONE BOOK selection? The Jasper Project has an opportunity for YOU! Read Cassie Premo Steele’s Beaver Girl, then write a poem, paint a picture, or craft a piece of music with or without lyrics.
Entries
A panel of experts in the art of your entry will review submissions and choose winners in the following categories:
· Poetry
· Visual Art
· Original Music
Winners will receive prizes, be featured in the Fall 2024 issue of Jasper Magazine, and be celebrated at the ONE BOOK 2024 Round-Up Party on Sunday, September 22nd at the One Columbia Co-op! DEADLINE JULY 1, 2024!
All submitted work must be original, family friendly, and capable of being performed or displayed in an outdoors setting. Both 2D and 3D work will be considered for the visual art competition.
Submission Instructions
Email your files to submissions@jasperproject.org. In the email please include your name, mailing address and phone number. Submissions are limited to 3 entries in each arts category.
Include the following attachments in your email:
· Poetry – Word Document or PDF
· Visual Art – Hi-res photos or scanned image of your work.
· Music – MP3 or WAV (If files are under 150 mb you can attach them to the email). For larger files please send a Google drive, Dropbox or One Drive link. Youtube, Vimeo and Sound Cloud links are also fine.
Poetry of the People – Ashley Crout
This week's poet of the people is Ashley Crout. I met Ashley a few months ago and since then I have heard her do readings and had lunch with her and another friend. It is like we have known each other for years.
You can hear her this Wednesday at Mind Gravy. 04/10 - 7 pm Cool Beans.
Bio
Ashley Crout was born in Charleston, SC, and graduated from Bard College and the MFA program at Hunter College. She is the recipient of a poetry grant from The Astraea Foundation, has received awards from The Academy of American Poets and the Poetry Foundation and is a four-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Her work has been published in Michigan Quarterly Review, New Orleans Review, Atticus Review and Dodging the Rain, among others. She lives in Greenville, SC, with her hound, Stella.
CLOSED ADOPTION
All I knew of my birth mother then
was the fierce red color of her hair
that burned away any usual humanness,
her build still slight with youth
and her love of the horses she rode
across the mind of my childhood.
I filled my room with horse figurines
so that we would have something shared
between us when she came one day
to find me. But sometimes what is missing,
does not know how to return. You find
yourself seeking the safety of certain devotion
such as the loyalty of vaguely human horses
like the ones in westerns who know how
to head home if ever they are separated
from their cowboy in the course of the story.
I cannot end this with even a brief singular nod
of acknowledgement. I saw her once
decades too late, the woman who carried my life
until it could be separated from hers.
I recognized her the way I know myself
in the mirror. She moved as I moved. Her face
was trapped in my face. I would not let her out.
I had never resembled anyone. You would think
it would have connected us. I was once
brand new in the world. I needed her then
is what I said during our single intersection.
She had no language for how she heard this,
did not respond. I considered being devastated,
then I decided to take my life back.
I pictured all my horses restless in the barn,
alerting me to a dangerous presence, a coming
storm indifferent to my safety, my survival,
the interdependent structures of my house.
You’ve grown old, I might say. I will outlive you.
SONNET IN A TIME OF CONTAGION
A slant rain deadens the night-dark highway.
There’s something I’m trying to leave behind.
In some yesterday, a new disease came.
You now must hold yourself still in stopped time,
stand at a remove from the living world—
seen but unheard, your voice hushed by distance.
Skin on skin touch forbidden, that’s the curse.
You could be coated with it. That’s the dance.
You could look like yourself but carry it,
sicken someone, accidental murder.
You could hate it but find you’ve married it.
This has happened before. It grows further.
I mean your death could stand right next to you
and you wouldn’t know it. You wouldn’t move.
WOMAN WHO SAID $37 MILLION JACKPOT WIN HAD RUINED HER LIFE FOUND DEAD IN HER HOME
And so it seems you cannot buy your way out of lonely.
How many years did she string her
luckiest numbers together looking
to match the winning sequence
before the unlikely day that she did.
She had not meant an avalanche of dollars
but the people she believed they would draw
towards her. She had never before been special
to anyone. She had outlived an entire line
of women who aged unwitnessed, unmentioned
by any voice in any room.
Some tragedies are about what does not happen.
Maybe she sat in her usual house, and the money
overwhelmed her with its possibles, its faces
of former rulers as immovable as the dead become.
Maybe she waited for the townsfolk to begin
to swarm their singular greeding hive mind
at her property’s edge. She dreamed of crowds
that at once would know her, at once would love her
if only they all drew together imitating an embrace.
There is no account of the how it had,
as she is said to have said, left her life a ruin.
Maybe it could never have been enough
for the madness of hands sticky with want
that surrounded her mother’s mother’s house
and outstretched their temporary mouths
revealing the entire top rows of their teeth.
Maybe all those who beamed at her briefly,
just polite enough to make their faces grateful,
bought garish gleaming boats and sailed away.
Maybe she felt smaller then as if seen
from a distance until she was almost an absence
like the failure of light outside her windows.
Even her body left her alone in her sleep.
Authorities found her days too late – unable
to separate what once she was, a physical house
abandoned, from the thin sheet she’d drawn to her
as one does when desperate for the necessity
of touch. Maybe, in her wealth of grief, she submitted
to sleep so fully, its shutdown of conscious
calculated wants, that it kept her body in such
a stillness that it never moved again. Maybe
she lost all knowledge of how to lift herself out
again into the gold sun, the sight of its glare
like coins placed on the eyes of the dead.
LAND DWELLLERS
When you are inhabited by a geography, its waters –
the animal scent of the marsh, the brine-soak
of the ocean – rise into your mouth. You swallow.
You are never not swallowing. Its land hums under
your feet. You cannot place the song. Its land loosens
into silt. The rust red dust sinks, is sinking, until it settles
on the flat of your diaphragm. To breathe, you have to
lift entire cities as if holding an offering up to God, excavate
your body from the roots of the family that named you.
You never had their thick drawl in your mouth, how it
stretches every word backwards into a story that glories
the past. Your mother and your mother’s mother could
have been someone but they only sat watching the world.
Slatted rocking chairs cast them forward then back
then back. The slowed sound of their language lingers,
like the crushed lavender scent at their necks, long
after it means whatever it meant. Your chest is resonant
with human voice. You are both the house and the one
locked out, your flushed face cooling against the windows.
One day you will run. One day you will run back
for the same reasons that you left. You are populated
both with those whose sins are unforgivable and those
who prophet a God to them. Every one of them, every last
one of them, is yours. Every goddamn one of them is you.
Black Nerd Mafia Presents All My Friends are Dope – An Immersive Interactive Art Experience
“All my friends are dope, you could pull a name out of a hat and whatever name you pulled would be amazing”
This brag about members of Black Nerd Mafia’s artist collective, The Cool Table, from founder and Jasper Project board member, Kwasi Brown, last year was the inspiration for their upcoming event: All My Friends are Dope – An Immersive Interactive Art Experience. Returning for a second year on Saturday, April 6th at the Ernest A. Finney Cultural Arts Center, the experience features a variety of art disciplines. The event starts at 5pm and features a panel conversation, poets, visual artists, and live music. The lineup includes Tam the Vibe, Eezy Olah, Kenya T, Airborne Audio, Cre the Creative, Wannapoundjuu, Niyah Dreams, Moonkat Daddi, Kuma The Ambassador, Yyusri, Dooozy, AC3 Sage, Bugsy Calhoun, Roc Bottom Studios, Dogon Krigga, Jakeem Da Dream, Dr. Napoleon Wells, Deidra Morrison Wells, and TBRH Co-Heaux. There will also be food trucks and vendors as well.
Check out the video below from last year’s event and learn more about Black Nerd Mafia in the Fall 2023 Issue of Jasper Magazine.
Poetry of the People - Jennifer Bartell Boykin
This week's Poet of the People is Jennfer Bartell Boykin. I first met Jennifer when she was a student at the University of South Carolina and she has graced the mic of poetry events I host in the Midlands. She is busy advocating for poetry throughout our community and I encourage you to hear her if you have an opportunity.; she is an insightful and delightful poet and serves us the Poet Laureate of Columbia, SC. - you won't be disappointed.
Bio:
Jennifer Bartell Boykin is from Bluefield, a Black community in Johnsonville, South Carolina. She is the Poet Laureate of Columbia, South Carolina, writes poetry and nonfiction and teaches in Columbia, SC. http://www.jenniferbartellpoet.com/
She has a new book, 'Traveling Mercy.'
Your Grandfather’s Collard Green Patch
I watch the boys play
at a tailgate of his truck.
Or I should say only one
is kneeling in the dirt.
Three black boys. Two black men.
In a field between Lynchburg
and Bishopville. Where the cotton
has already been picked, piled, and hauled
off. Their grandfather’s collard greens
stand proud in the background.
The one kneeling is listening
to the dirt, learning how to make
it yield. And it is the granddad’s
voice that whispers back into his
ear. The collard greens standing
proudly in the background, their price
already haggled. They will be New Year’s
greens with the field peas and black eyed-peas,
our chance for good luck even though
Omicron is looming, and Delta has yet to leave.
But still the grandfather smiles and the grandsons
laugh, because this overcast Wednesday
is one more day.
Waiting: Starbucks on Piney Grove
for Mary Kathryn Coleman
Feels like I’ve been here before but
it is the first time. I’m trying to be
within myself. I’m looking out of the
window at the yellow and black design
of Waffle House. I am sipping my coffee
drink, that is more than just coffee;
my coffee game is notoriously weak.
My father drank Sanka. Instant
coffee. That’s decaffeinated. And that
is my coffee blood line. I’m trying
to get some writing done. I’m trying
not to look at the three teenagers
together, but not, each on their phones,
a convex mirror to the outside world.
This is how to hang with your friends
and not. In this world we have managed
to build for ourselves. To be trapped in
the orbit of our own small illuminated
planet. The baristas are baristering.
People come in and out,
some to pick up their mobile orders,
others to get orders to go. The only
other person in here is a guy on his laptop.
Is this his office? A woman comes in with
her daughter. I am waiting for my friend
who I haven’t seen in months, who has
had a baby since last I saw her, who has
bought a house. The guy on his laptop
is packing up. He is moving on too, but
here I will remain, to wait for my friend.
To see her and smile, and laugh
because it’s been too long because of life,
but because of COVID too. Thanksgiving
is tomorrow, and most days I am grateful
for the simple breath that keeps this body
upright from day to day. Thanksgiving
is a Day of Mourning. But I am going to go
to somebody’s house and eat some macaroni
and cheese. It better be good. I digress.
There’s wonder in the wait. The Always Open,
the hotels and restaurants that surround this place,
the interstate just in the distance.
Home
for Monifa Lemons
Santee, you see is where you meet me,
with arms like poetry flung wide
and a smile
that could love and cut
at the same time.
When you think of South Carolina,
you think of home and where
the ancestors walked and where,
if you are real quiet and still,
you can hear the Spanish moss
whispering your name.
Santee, you see, is where us tribe be,
but us tribe be in the air and everywhere
and infinity times two. At Santee we got
poetry and poetry got us.
Muh knee is fa’ praying
and Monifa praying that
BLACK LIVES MATTER
BLACK POETS MATTER
SC is ours. They can’t have it.
Santee, you see, is where you met me,
but not where you left me.
We walk this dirt road to find
The Watering Hole, to find the sweet water
that sustains us in these bitter times.
And the dirt road welcomes you back,
remembers your footprints, and the prayers
you sent. The dust underneath your feet
exhales: Welcome Home.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
for Blless
They’re back in their spawn
Oh, damn. Here we go again. I’m trying
to level this fucking Kar.
What you doing? I’m ‘bout to eat soup
my wife made for me.
I need to level up my gun. It’s dumb
slow: this call of duty
of working all day, creating truth from beats,
and melodies from the vision of a future
that will never come. Maybe I win today. Damn.
He is garbage. Finding peace
at being who you are gets tiring and over-
rated as most games are. Win.
Defeat. Coalition. Begin. You, being
the one that fell again. The one who got up.
This Road I Take
Whether it slithers like the satan-
like snake or lies flat like a sheet
on a freshly made bed, we must
travel either way. Peace, be
like a sword. Traveling mercy,
follow me wherever I may go.
Joy, don’t forget me at night
either; I need you then too.
Grief, my life partner, don’t
be as cruel in the end as you
were in the beginning. Whether
it be forked or diverging in a woods,
I know not. I must travel it,
I must come to know
each bog and bump on this road.
Though it is not smooth
the whole way, I made it.
And I had so many along the way
to give me cool drinks of water.
Congratulations to Poetry Out Loud Winner JESSIE LEITZEL!
JESSIE LEITZEL
The Jasper Project congratulates Jessie Leitzel on winning first place in the South Carolina Poetry Out Loud State Finals, held Saturday, March 9th at Richland Library. Leitzel was one of six finalists who competed in the finals for the national recitation competition and will go on to compete in the final competition in Washington DC later this spring.
“Leitzel was composed, confident, and they presented themself as a bright and progressive representative of South Carolina,” says the Jasper Project executive director Cindi Boiter who, along with Jasper Project board of directors member, Al Black, Marilyn Matheus, and Lester Boykin, adjudicated the event. Ray McManus was the host of the event, and Paul Kaufmann was the accuracy judge. Shannon Ivey was the performance coach and Eric Bultman served as recitation coach.
Leitzel is a nonfiction writer and poet studying creative writing at Charleston County School of the Arts in North Charleston. They are the co-founding editor of the literary magazine, Trace Fossils Review, a 2024 Presidential Scholar in the Arts nominee, a gold medalist of the Scholastic Writing Awards, and a YoungArts Award winner with distinction in nonfiction.
Winning second place was Abhirami Nalachandran from Calvary Christina School in Myrtle Beach and Catherine Wooten of Westgate Christian School was awarded the third place prize.
Other finalists included Eve Decker of Spartanburg Day School, Erin Maguire of Socastee High School, and Gemma Williams of Ashley Hall in Charleston.
Congratulations to all the finalists, as well as to the Columbia SC arts community for coming out to support your literary artists!
Al Black Celebrates 1000th Poetry Event March 13th at Cool Beans
At the Jasper Project, we’re excited to share the news of a celebration of one of our own, Al Black, SC’s poetry guru!
Fueled by a labor of love to share and encourage the creation of poetry among his friends and neighbors writ large, for years, Al Black has been staging poetry events ranging from readings to open mic nights to song writers’ circles, and more. Next Wednesday, March 13th will be Al’s 100th poetry event. We’re happy to join the SC Poetry Society in congratulating Al and celebrating this momentous occasion at t pm at Cool Beans coffee in Columbia, SC.
The event is open and free to the public.
Congratulations, Al!
Poetry of the People: Jesus Redondo Menendez
Our first Poet of the People of 2024 is Jesus Rodondo Menendez.
Jesus is a dynamo. He immigrates to this country in his 40s, becomes a successful teacher, works on an advanced degree in school administration, navigates the waters of marriage and writes delightful poetry.
Jesús Redondo Menéndez was born and grew up in Spain, developing a love for books as tools of learning, and as open roads for his imagination. He graduated in Psychology, in his forties decided to move to the United States and started a career as an educator in South Carolina. Now, almost ten years later, he is finishing the process to become a school administrator. He deeply thanks America for this transformational change. Now and then he enjoys writing poetry and short fiction, and experiencing new places in the loving company of his wife and their four legged child, Chomsky
____
A belonging recipe: a bit of matter, time and self
I've sat on
the wooden bench
in front of the river...
Couldn't help but crying
and gasping,
overwhelmed by
the daunting sense
of belonging
to just the
intersection
of that moment,
that place,
and my most
intimate
and inner
self...
____
Bay of Dreams
There is a picture
I often like to revisit,
and truly enjoy to see,
one with my little dog
watching us
at the beach,
his defenseless back
pointing to the sea.
I called it Bay of Dreams,
because we always
pictured our hopes
somewhere overseas,
in a sort of secret place
where you could find them
guarded by him,
bathed and soothed
by the lullaby
of ocean beings.
But as it happens in every dream,
there are moments when
the bay turns into a tree,
and we, and our hopes,
are together,
embraced by its leaves.
There’s an uneasy sense
of uncertainty coloring the scene.
And we can see the cloud
that announces the storm,
and we can feel the strong
and chilly wind
as it starts shaking the tree.
And we see our hopes
falling to the ground,
as the cloud darkens,
as the wind blows,
as the leaves fly,
as our fear grows…
And we hold to each other
and to myself I keep
how much
I would like to believe
there is some purpose
above us
that is shaking
the tree.
_____
You make it easy (to Lola)
There are some days,
I have to say it,
I don’t want to leave
my bed,
‘cause there lays
everything that makes
me feel safe:
the woman that leads
my boat,
the pet that watches
my footsteps.
Life can be wonderful
you often can hear me say,
sometimes a little bitchy,
that I keep to myself,
but every morning
I walk to the mirror
tying my tie,
reminding to myself
who I am.
A person that may
stumble and fall,
but always stands up;
that may need to
try a thousand times,
but never gives up:
those and many more
are the things
that make me who I am.
And there’s no day
I don’t wonder where
you get your strength from,
how can you have
such a clear mind
to target all our goals,
I don’t mind confessing
something that I truly enjoy:
I’m still figuring you out,
because from all that breathes
in this world
you amaze me the most.
And I think to myself
that I don’t care whatever it takes,
I don’t need to know what it is,
it doesn’t matter the pain,
because you make it easy.
____
My people
My people dared me
to play kickball
so I told my people
I didn’t know the game.
My people raised eyebrows,
because, you know,
it seems that
my people know.
My people don’t know
that my people still
blame me for what
my people did
500 years ago,
while my people
celebrate
old fashioned speeches and parades.
My people know
my name when
I ask to close the check,
while my people
keep reminding me
that I am
just another guy
from 10 miles away.
My people invite me
to parties,
bridal and baby showers,
after work meetings
poetry readings,
and jazz,
while I know
about my people’s lives
on Facebook or Instagram.
My people ask me
if I want to stay,
and my contract
waits to be signed
on my desk,
while my people
keep asking me
when I’ll go back home,
how long I’m gonna
be away.
My people, one year ago,
a 30 degrees morning,
and short sleeved people
had to show
their best behavior
to come to Español,
but my people yesterday,
last class of the week,
didn’t care that much at all.
And today my people
are here in West Columbia
listening to my words.
Thank you for your patience,
my people.
____
Squeezing a verse (to Evelyn)
And there she goes,
a dynamic explosion
of creative bangs,
a swag of jeans,
and bright lemons,
squeezing verses
like demons
sliding down
the darkness
of his shirt,
feeding our hearts
with something mellow
bringing light
in the yellow shape
of delicious fruits
with citric flavor.