Journey Notes: Writing “Why I Couldn’t Write” and Submitting it to Ghost Heart Literary Journal

Before we begin, please go read the poem here. I am forever thankful to Ghost Heart Literary Journal for giving this special piece a home.

This piece came to me as a result of a online poetry writing hosted by a bookstore for their local lit fest last August and reading Light Filters In by Caroline Kaufman (poeticpoison).

Originally, I had the intention of posting it on Instagram and this was supposed accompanying caption:

I actually wrote something good. 🙏

I know I have been out of sorts since July. I still am. The pandemic is getting to me and it’s stronger than ever. I couldn’t fight it as it held me prisoner with uncertainty about everything. I have no way of knowing and not knowing holds me down, crippling me of actually living out my truths. Knowing that I have this inability to write, I knew I needed something to ground me back and get me to start over. I did. I found an online poetry workshop hosted by a bookstore for their local lit fest.

I have to tell you this: I am untrained for writing. I have no technical background on writing. I have nothing to ground me to it. That is why I attend whatever writing workshop I can to make up for it. It helps, really. Attending workshops helps me hone my skills.

This particular workshop brought me back to the basics and taught me poetry at its best – how it is a translation of the inaccurate, how devices help out, and how to write by looking at it from the inside. The most important thing I got from it is that I need to read in order to be good at writing. I need to study the masters and to realize what they did in order to do it.

As a start, I read @poeticpoison’s Light Filters In and her poems reminded me to let it go. Just let everything go with complete honesty and vulnerability. And that is what I did here. I addressed my unwanted guests. Knowing that they’re here will help me find a way to guide them out of my being.

Easier said than done, yes.

But it’s a start.

I’m scared. I’m in despair. I’m lonely.

This pandemic is getting to me.

But I won’t let it win. I will rise.

That is a very lengthy caption, yes. I remember writing this caption in the middle of the night, right after writing the piece. Everything was laid out but a part of me didn’t want to let this poem go. I am no longer sure what prevented me from sharing that on August. After that, I stopped writing. I focused on my day job and making decisions about how I was going to go about my life in this pandemic. A large part of me wanted to stick it out on my own but yes, a lot of factors were considered and it was best for me to go home.

Somehow, I stumbled upon Ghost Heart Literary Journal’s call for submissions for Chambers and I thought, why not? I have this piece resting on my phone, waiting to be shared. Only did a few tweaks on the original draft before submitting.

Getting the positive response was one of the best things that happened in 2020. I was (figuratively) jumping for joy when I got the acceptance email. If we graph my happiness, it is a very obvious high peak. It was my first-ever poem in a literary journal. It is truly an honor for me to be a part of Ghost Heart Literary Journal’s Chambers.

I, however, wasn’t able to promote it immensely when it got out. I haven’t answered some responses too – which I feel very guilty of. I wanted to do a read through of all my issue-mates and recommend them for reading but I only got to read around eight entries as I got busy with packing and with work. (I shall try again, I suppose.)

Speaking of trying again, I just found out that Chambers for April 2021 is open for submissions, dear friends! This is the tweet from Ghost Heart Literary Journal:

Will I be submitting? Possibly. We’ll see.

Until next time!

Best regards,

Anj

Journey Notes: What Has Been Going On So Far Part 2

Hello everyone!

It has been months since my last update. I am so sorry about that. 😩

To start things off, I did get tested in December and thankfully, it came out negative and I went home without worrying too much. It was such a good relief to be home. I spent the holidays and my birthday surrounded by my family. There has been a couple of hurdles living with my family again but yes, I am wearing my big girl pants and being the leaf!

I don’t go out as often and I was able to work in a safe space, where I don’t have to go hunt down a connection. Work was steady and challenging, as always. (I got promoted last month too!) A lot went on and I think I am in a good safe space right now.

The sad thing is that we’re back to having our Enhanced Community Quarantine for one week. My city is officially back on lockdown in a few hours my time. My country really isn’t doing well in this fight against COVID19 and a lot of us see our government sending us to our doom before COVID19 does. There are a lot of issues – people jumping lines to get the vaccine, cases are steadily rising by the thousands… it’s like we’re back in March 2020 again.

In relation to writing, well… did I write since I got back home? I did, but not as vigorously as before. I submitted two flash fiction stories in The Five Hundred before they closed down: Yes or No and Denouement. Between the two, Denouement ranked better. I wrote that hours before the deadline. (I was already getting ready to sleep until I realized, “f*ck, it’s the deadline!”) Yes or No needed more time and editing.

As for poetry, I wrote my birthday poem because I’ve reached a milestone (haha, you can probably guess my age with that statement). I also wrote poems for a contest and a local call for submissions. The poem I submitted in the contest didn’t make it, sadly. (I will release a revised edition on Ko-Fi as I need content there too.) My birthday poem, however, will be released on my Instagram tomorrow, just to get things rolling in preparation for… you know it, NAPOWRIMO!

Will I finish NAPOWRIMO 2021? I don’t really know. NAPOWRIMO2020 happened because I didn’t have work for the entire month of April. But, nevertheless, I hope I do finish it. We shall see.

A tarot card reader I follow said this and I have written a pretty darn good essay the other night, one that made me cry a bit while writing and had the nicest paragraphs. (I am currently disassociating myself with it so I can turn it into a submit-able object.)

Looking forward to sharing new work on Instagram to everyone on the www.

Please take care and stay safe, dear friends and readers!

Best regards,

Anj

Journey Notes: What Has Been Going On So Far

Hello everyone! I hope you are all doing well.

A storm has come and passed through our country. It is said to be the strongest storm in the whole world and has caused a lot of damage in the provinces, with 20 people on its death toll.

The country is also preparing for ANOTHER storm coming our way. Weather reports say that it might make landfall either today or tomorrow. Please pray for my country, so that we may survive this next storm.

My city is still under quarantine. We have been hitting 2000+ cases per day but yesterday, we hit a number below 1000 cases. Still a scary world out there, though.

On a more personal scale, I am surviving. Physically, I have no symptoms. I go to work five days a week, given that my office is right across my current home. I grab groceries every other weekend but stay at home as much as possible. Mental health is a bit whacked up – with the stress + anxiety from work, the uncertainty of this pandemic, and my financial instability being my greatest enemies to date – but I am trying and doing my best, one day at a time.

As a writer and a poet, I am very much lost.

When I started 2020, I didn’t have plans to write, with my work being as taxing as ever and I barely have any creativity in me. Retail tends to suck everything out of you – especially the time for your hobbies. (I have thought of quitting retail but I haven’t answered the next question – then what? – so quitting is not really an option. Girl’s got to eat.)

This has happened before but I have been able to fight it by simply writing and attending writing workshops and classes. My favorite writing exercise was flash fiction. (This link here will take you to a page where my flash fiction stories are posted.) I did write a novella once but I buried it as it wasn’t really well-written.

This year came as a surprise, starting with the pandemic and then, with me, putting my big girl pants on and joining AND finishing NaPoWriMo. I kept on writing and it was such a wonderful experience. I met new poets online, discovered more things about myself and the way I write
 and had a blast writing poem after poem.

It was the best preoccupation – diversion, really – from seeing and feeling terrible. There was my lack of sufficient funds as we closed our offices during the enhanced community quarantine from March until May, with our vacation leaves saving us from poverty until a certain point. (We had a pretty long and unwanted vacation from April until May. We still worked from home until the end of March) There was my alone-ness, which I was originally ok with and which grew into gnawing loneliness for actual human interaction with people I miss.

By July, I was starting to feel everything crashing down and if you have read my poems on Instagram, they are always about finding the light in the middle of the storm.

And, lo! There is a storm that has been with me since late July, a storm where, as I stay in it, I couldn’t see any light at all. I was lost in my own chaos, my own light gone. My current circumstances made me unable to do things that give me light.

But I am fighting it the way I did before – attended a workshop in August, read books in September and October, and just let myself be. I let my being go through the motions until the storm calmed down. Forcing myself (as proven by my workshop poem and that novella) never really did me any good. So I go and “be the leaf”, as Meelo says.

One big and good news that may help my fight is that I am going home! I am getting tested for COVID in December, before I head home, just to be sure that I won’t bring the virus home. I’ll be able to see my siblings soon! It would beat the loneliness bit and help with the financial bit (as I won’t be paying rent anymore). There is a part of me that isn’t really looking forward to going home (Have you ever been around a Filipino mother? A Chinese father, perhaps?) but yes, must wear big girl pants and “be the leaf”.

The other good news here is that I am slowly writing things again too, with one poem, Why I Couldn’t Write, featured in Ghost Heart Literary Magazine last month. I am very, very thankful to Melissa for accepting this poem for Chambers. (More on this on the next post!) Submissions for Chambers – November 2020 is open, btw!

I can’t really say when I’ll be back writing full force again. Work is more stressful nowadays and I am doing my best to cope. I take it day by day, really. Breathe in, breathe out. One step at a time.

Hopefully, the world gets better so we can all find ourselves out of this pandemic. I pray for our safe passage through it. May every one of us be safe.

Thank you so much for sticking around! I will be back writing again, surely.

Love,
Anj

Reading Black Poetry: won’t you celebrate with me and the earth is a living thing by Lucille Clifton

Hey everyone!

We are down to the last feature here in my blog. I have shared 14 Black poets in this space and I hope that you enjoyed reading and exploring their poems as much as I did.

Our last poet is Lucille Clifton. She is an honored poet and professor at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. She had written many award-winning poetry collections and children’s books for the African-American audience.

The first poem we’ll be reading is called won’t you celebrate with me.

won’t you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.

This is copied from the Academy of American Poets page.

What I love about this is how it sounds so resilient. As a woman of color, I find myself in many disadvantages with fears that are rather exclusive to my gender. If I were in a western country, worries related to my race may also surface. But this poem is very reassuring.

This poem tells us that a woman of color, despite being alone in this world, fending for herself, is capable. She will not cower or back down. She will fight whoever or whatever that aims to pull her down and survive that fight. Much love and power is packed into this short poem.

Rita Dove does talk about how “Lucille Clifton’s poems are compact and self-sufficient” and I like that about Lucille Clifton. Short but jam-packed!

The second poem, the earth is a living thing, is another short poem from Lucille Clifton.

is a black shambling bear
ruffling its wild back and tossing
mountains into the sea

is a black hawk circling
the burying ground circling the bones
picked clean and discarded

is a fish black blind in the belly of water
is a diamond blind in the black belly of coal

is a black and living thing
is a favorite child
of the universe
feel her rolling her hand
in its kinky hair
feel her brushing it clean

This is copied from the Academy of American Poets page as well.

What I love about this is (you may have guessed it) the imagery. It tells us how the earth is many things – a bear, a hawk, a fish, a diamond (I initially found it weird that this is in the list but then I realized it may be because down on an atomic level, it is alive..? MAYBE?), and a young Black girl. They do not have a common ground aside from being on earth but this poem artfully connects them and tells us the earth is living and fighting for survival like the rest of us (shambling bear, scavenging hawk, blind fish, hidden diamonds, and a little girl brushing her kinky hair which I have seen to be difficult as I saw videos and documentaries about African hair).

She has may lovely poems so please make sure to check. Aside from the two poems above, I absolutely adore poem in praise of menstruation and blessing the boats. I definitely recommend reading them.

Remember that the fight against racism against our Black brothers and sisters is still not over. Justice for Breonna Taylor’s death must be served. (Only one out of the three officers in indicted and the discussion on this decision is being questioned. That has prompted the release of the evidence the jurors considered.)

Remember that there are many ways you can help. You may find it thru this carrd link here.

Take care and stay safe.

Best,
Anj

Reading Black Poetry: Frederick Douglass + Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden

Hello there!

Today, we shall be reading two poems from famed poet Robert Hayden.

Robert Hayden is a Black poet and professor who has been praised for his history-based poetry and his experience as an African-American living in the 1900’s.

The first poem that I enjoyed reading is Frederick Douglass.

When it is finally ours, this freedom, this liberty, this beautiful
and terrible thing, needful to man as air,
usable as earth; when it belongs at last to all,
when it is truly instinct, brain matter, diastole, systole,
reflex action; when it is finally won; when it is more
than the gaudy mumbo jumbo of politicians:
this man, this Douglass, this former slave, this Negro
beaten to his knees, exiled, visioning a world
where none is lonely, none hunted, alien,
this man, superb in love and logic, this man
shall be remembered. Oh, not with statues’ rhetoric,
not with legends and poems and wreaths of bronze alone,
but with the lives grown out of his life, the lives
fleshing his dream of the beautiful, needful thing.

This is copied from Poetry Foundation’s page.

So beautiful and so full of hope! This is found in this book called The Collected Poems of Robert Hayden which was published in 1966. It is quite old, yes, but the sentiment still is something we all hold onto.

Frederick Douglass is a historical figure — an American social reformer who believed in equality regardless of race and gender. He was born into slavery, which he escaped from, and then, he fought for freedom and women’s rights through his words.

The second poem is a bit, in my opinion, more personal in nature. It is Those Winter Sundays.

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?

This is also copied from Poetry Foundation’s page.

This tells us of a story about a winter Sunday back when Robert Hayden was young. At first, I thought it may be something back from before the American Civil War (from 1861 to 1865) wherein the father in the poem is a plantation worker or a slave. But if the poet is the persona in this poem, it would mean this poem is set in the early 1900’s and that would make the father a free man.

The message of this poem is sweet — a father working tirelessly and looking out for his son, making sure he is comfortable, and how his son realizes that this is love. I like the imagery and the symbolism involved in this poem. It delivers the message – love – so well.

That is all from me for now. The next post will be the last one in this series, sadly.

Til then,
Anj

Reading Black Poetry: Inevitable + Black Girl Magic by Mahogany L. Browne

Hi everyone!

For this post, we shall be diving into two poems by Mahogany L. Browne. Honestly, what drew me to check out her work is her name. I have never encountered a person named Mahogany. It’s so unique and gives you the image of being strong and sturdy, like mahogany. (Names can give you that kind of power.)

Mahogany L. Browne is an American poet and spoken word artist. She has published a number of poetry collections and children’s books and received several fellowships and awards.

The first poem we shall read today is called Inevitable.

when I dropped my 12-year-old off at her first
homecoming dance, I tried not to look

her newly-developed breasts, all surprise and alert
in their uncertainty. I tried not to imagine her

mashed between a young man’s curiousness
and the gym’s sweaty wall. I tried not picture

her grinding off beat/on time to the rhythm
of a dark manchild; the one who whispered

“you are the most beautiful girl in brooklyn”
his swag so sincere, she’d easily mistaken him for a god.

This is copied from the American Academy of Poets page.

When I read this, I remembered this movie called Spanglish. There is a scene there where Flor, the mother, watches over the school dance her daughter, Cristina, attended. Cristina is dancing with a boy and suddenly, Flor sees that the boy is moving his hand to touch Cristina’s backside. The scene shows Flor’s abject horror which leads to her decision to find a day job that will pay a lot of money — more than the two jobs she has.

I think that is what every parent’s worry for their daughter, given what our current society is like. Parents should be able to teach their sons to respect women. Actually, it’s more of parents teaching their children (both sons and daughters) to respect other people. I hope that one day, we’d be able to live in a world where parents won’t worry about their daughters being harassed anymore.

The next poem is something that we’d be watching, rather than reading. This is a video of Mahogany L. Browne performing Black Girl Magic.

(You can read the transcript of this video here.)

Wow! This is an absolute favorite!

As a woman, I feel like every little girl, especially Black girls (as this poem is written for them), should read (and watch) this. No woman should ever have to follow the rules set by society and patriarchy. They should be allowed to bloom in their own unique way — to love and be loved, to be who they want to be, and to soar high above the sky.

There are so many things wrong in the world and I hope that we are able to correct them – little by little – as our voices are heard more. With our words and our hearts, we’d be able to inspire, to make a change.

May people of all races and genders be given equal opportunities and rights. May everyone be held accountable and liable if they do wrong. May the world be better for the future generations to come.

Best,
Anj

Reading Black Poetry: All Their Stanzas Look Alike + Sticks by Thomas Sayers Ellis

Hi everyone!

Post for today is a bit late, so sorry about that.

For today, we are reading two poems from contemporary poet Thomas Sayers Ellis. He has received many writing fellowships and grants, with the most recent one being a Guggenheim Fellowship in poetry. He is also a co-founder of the Dark Room Collective, a collective aiming to form a community for African-American writers.

The first poem I shall be sharing today is a 2005 poem of Ellis called All Their Stanzas Look Alike.

All their fences
All their prisons
All their exercises
All their agendas
All their stanzas look alike
All their metaphors
All their bookstores
All their plantations
All their assassinations
All their stanzas look alike
All their rejection letters
All their letters to the editor
All their arts and letters
All their letters of recommendation
All their stanzas look alike
All their sexy coverage
All their literary journals
All their car commercials
All their bribe-spiked blurbs
All their stanzas look alike
All their favorite writers
All their writing programs
All their visiting writers
All their writers-in-residence
All their stanzas look alike
All their third worlds
All their world series
All their serial killers
All their killing fields
All their stanzas look alike
All their state grants
All their tenure tracks
All their artist colonies
All their core faculties
All their stanzas look alike
All their Selected Collecteds
All their Oxford Nortons
All their Academy Societies
All their Oprah Vendlers
All their stanzas look alike
All their haloed holocausts
All their coy hetero couplets
All their hollow haloed causes
All their tone-deaf tercets
All their stanzas look alike
All their tables of contents
All their Poet Laureates
All their Ku Klux classics
All their Supreme Court justices
Except one, except one
Exceptional one. Exceptional or not,
One is not enough.
All their stanzas look alike.
Even this, after publication,
Might look alike. Disproves
My stereo types.

This is copied from Poetry Foundation’s page. There is supposedly indentation starting from the second line, followed by the fourth line, the sixth line, and so forth. My HTML skills are lacking. I can’t find the correct code to do the indent. :/

I think this is a big shout out to racism wherein a white person usually gets the job, the promotion, the award, and the bigger opportunities and it makes everything look alike, as if there is no other perspective better than his. This poem, however, breaks the pattern the same way having one different Supreme Court judge is. (I was amazed and saddened that Clarence Thomas is the only Black Supreme Court judge there is – ever. There are a number of women, with one of the most popular ones being Ruth Bader Ginsberg, the first Jewish woman and the second woman who ever served in the Supreme Court.)

But the persona remains hopeful. He thinks that, with this poem, even though it would look get lost in the other stanzas and look like the rest, it would disprove his stereo types — that not all stanzas look alike because one made it through and got published which proved that others can do the same. It’s a wonderful way to look at things — a way to remind ourselves that we have to keep on trying in order to break the pattern and make a change in this world.

The second poem is a more personal one, I think. It is called Sticks.

My father was an enormous man
Who believed kindness and lack of size
Were nothing more than sissified
Signs of weakness. Narrow-minded,

His eyes were the worst kind
Of jury — deliberate, distant, hard.
No one could out-shout him
Or make bigger fists. The few

Who tried got taken for bad,
Beat down, their bodies slammed.
I wanted to be just like him:
Big man, man of the house, king.

A plagiarist, hitting the things he hit,
I learned to use my hands watching him
Use his, pretending to slap mother
When he slapped mother.

He was sick. A diabetic slept
Like a silent vowel inside his well-built,
Muscular, dark body. Hard as all that
With similar weaknesses

— I discovered writing,
How words are parts of speech
With beats and breaths of their own.
Interjections like flams. Wham! Bam!

An heir to the rhythm
And tension beneath the beatings,
My first attempts were filled with noise,
Wild solos, violent uncontrollable blows.

The page tightened like a drum
Resisting the clockwise twisting
Of a handheld chrome key,
The noisy banging and tuning of growth.

This is copied from the Academy of American Poets’ page.

If All Their Stanzas Look Alike is about racism, this one is about sexism – one where the father sees kindness and lack of size, the usual attributes of women, as signs of weakness. There is also a stanza that mentions how the father would hit the mother and how he, as the child, would follow the example. Given that he is the man, the father sees himself as the one who should be followed and believed to be right all the time. The poem’s telling us that being the man makes you the best and makes you right, as shown by those who are older, bigger, stronger than us.

Seeing that he, the child, has the same weaknesses — small and frail and kind, he is able to find a way to fight back: through writing. It may not be physical but the words, he discovered that they they are strong — powerful. With his upbringing, what he wrote first are reflective of his father and his teachings – violent, uncontrollable.

But as he kept on writing, he realizes that it is wrong. The words he is writing is being thrown back at him, making him see the errors in his ways and his views — how it is wrong to hit women, how he is not always right, and how violence is not the right answer to anything at all. His words help him resist being a wind-up copy of his father and grow into a better person — which is a good thing.

I remember reading something on Facebook that went something like this: children with homophobic parents grow homophobic. (I couldn’t find the post but it was circulating after a Grade 1 student answered a very old, stereotypical, and sexist module in a very modern way.) This poem is showing us something similar: violent parents create violent children. And it is up to the child to grow up and be a better person than his/her parents.

The world is a really effed up place. But that does not mean that we should stop being kind to one another. Just like in the first poem, one change can be a start, an example, and eventually disprove existing stereo types.

I typed a lot today, really feeling the poems tonight. I loved them a lot. The poems are published in a collection called The Maverick Room. (It is a rather old book so there’s not many new copies left, as per Amazon.)

That’s all from me for now. I shall share the third-to-the-last poet later!

Best regards,
Anj

Reading Black Poetry: Still I Rise + Caged Bird by Maya Angelou

Hey everyone!

Today’s post is all about the marvelous poet, Maya Angelou. She was many things: mother, dancer (at one point), mechanic (at one point also), poet, storyteller, activist, screenwriter, autobiographer, and an inspiration to many.

I will say this early on; I LOVE HER POEMS. I feel so energized and full of hope after reading them. They have very vivid imagery and easy to understand, that ordinary people can easily imagine what is happening and can empathize with her poems.

Our first Maya Angelou poem is what I think to be one of her most famous ones, Still I Rise.

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

This is borrowed from the Poetry Foundation page.

So powerful! I think this is something we all need to read and to remember. Regardless of what other people view us to be, what color our skin is, what our size is, and what society dictates to be what’s “right”, we should be who we truly are especially if being true to ourselves does no harm to ourselves and to others. We may fall because of this, but we must always remember that we will rise at the end of it.

The next poem by Maya Angelou is called Caged Bird.

A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn
and he names the sky his own

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

This is also borrowed from the Poetry Foundation page.

I found myself empathizing with the caged bird since I — and all of us really — are more or less, caged birds. We have been in this pandemic for over six months and most countries haven’t gotten back on their feet yet. (My country hasn’t, unfortunately, and many of us here are suffering and having a hard time dealing with our new normal on top of the political turmoil here.)

But I strongly believe that we must not let our current situation — our oppressors — stop us from singing, like the caged bird. We have a voice and we will be heard. Soon enough, our voices will be too loud to ignore and we would be free. I hope that day would come soon enough.

There’s many more works of Maya Angelou that’s worth reading and sharing. On the Pulse of Morning is an inaugural poem she recited for then President Bill Clinton. (The one in the link is only an excerpt but you feel its strength… its power!) Phenomenal Woman is the best feminist poem out there. READ IT!

That’s all for me from now. Until tomorrow’s post!

Best,
Anj

Reading Black Poetry: Washington Mews + Death and the City by Rowan Ricardo Phillips

Hello, everyone!

We are reading two poems from poet Rowan Ricardo Phillips. He is a poet and literary & art critic in New York City. He is the author of two poetry books: Heaven (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015), which was a longlist finalist for the National Book Award, and The Ground (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012), for which he received the 2013 Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award for Poetry and the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award.

The first one we are reading is called Washington Mews.

I won’t ever tell you how it ended.
But it ended. I was told not to act
Like it was some big dramatic moment.
She swiveled on her heels like she twirled just
The other day on a bar stool, the joy
Gone out of it now. Then she walked away.
I called out to her once. She slightly turned.
But she didn’t stop. I called out again.
And that was when, well, that’s just when
You know: You will always be what you were
On that small street at that small time, right when
She left and Pluto sudsed your throat and said,
Puedo escribir los versos mĂĄs tristes esta noche
TĂș la quisiste, y a veces ella tambiĂ©n te quiso.

This is copied from the American Academy of Poets page.

I think, by now, you may have noticed that I am a sucker for imagery. I like how vivid the images are in this short, bittersweet poem of a good-bye to a lover — how they were once happy and how she left, how he felt when she left.

The last two lines, once translated, means:

I can write the saddest verses tonight
You loved her, and sometimes she loved you too.

The flash fiction writer in me sort of thinks that maybe she didn’t truly love him at all but just led him on. He only wants to believe that there are times that she loved him too. But we’ll never really know.

Moving on to the next poem, we are reading Death and the City.

Yesterday’s newspaper becomes last week’s
Newspapers spread out like a hand-held fan
In front of the face of the apartment
Door. A dog does the Argos-thing inside,
Waiting beside O as though his body
Is but an Ithaca waiting the soul’s
Return. Neil the Super will soon come up
With the key but only in time to find
Doreen, the on-the-down-low-friend-with-perks,
There already, kneeling between the two,
Stroking the hair of both O and the dog,
Wondering who had been walking the dog.

This is copied from the American Academy of Poets page as well.

I love how this poem incorporates Greek mythology and imagery. This, however, is very morbid. We have Odysseus and Argos, his faithful dog who waited for his return. Argos is remembered as a strong and fast dog but when Odysseus returned, he is found in very bad shape, surrounded by manure and had lice.

I think what happened here is that O is dead and Argos is faithfully staying by his master’s side, waiting for him to come back to life. There are two possible suspects – Neil the Super (who I think is a superintendent) who has the key, or Doreen who was there first (and most likely has a copy of the key). Well, O could have died of natural causes too. What do you think?

Do let me know in the comments section below. I’ll try to answer as soon as I can.

Thank you for reading!

Best regards,
Anj

Reading Black Poetry: Shed + Headwind by Amber Flora Thomas

Hello, everyone!

For today, we will be reading two amazing works by poet Amber Flora Thomas. She is a poet from North Carolina who won the 2004 Cave Canem Poetry Prize and has three books as of 2018.

The first poem that I wish to share is called Shed, which originally appeared in Callaloo, Vol. 36, No. 2.

She is not afraid of gods. She leaves her skin,
still coiled, a great throat collapsed.
Gods have entered and left.

The door sounds like a throat clearing
in its rusty evolution toward shadow,
an atrium from scalding noon.

She treats the dark like a cathedral.
She is all swallow, the heart working
under every scale to outgrow a fortified spiral.

The cathedral swallows the heart.
Take up your broom. No gods are left.
She finished the mice in time for autumn’s gloom.

There are some cathedrals like this shed
behind the house where she shunned her body
and in the dark was not afraid of gods.

Sunlight pulls past our legs
on the plywood and pools in the coiled skin
that overwintered.

Dig your broom into corners.
She is not afraid of gods or matriarchs.

This is copied from the Academy of American Poets website.

I LOVE THE IMAGERY. It is so powerful. I just love it so much.

I think of this as a story of a woman – a snake, really – left in the darkness after being used and abused who is now shedding her former self, the one that is captured in the cathedral of darkness and merging out of it, unafraid of anything or anyone.

*I think the woman/snake could be dead so there is no need for the brooms to swat her away. I’d like to hear what other poets and readers think about this poem.

The next poem from Amber Flora Thomas is called Headwind.

Weak motion of grasses and tern before the sea.
Worry’s school cresting here and everywhere
as failings.

I pace the cliff path, my hands cupped above my eyes.
The glare steals your progress, a kayak needling
the wide open.

Love means you answer, this the child’s rebuke.
A pattern crosses the point, hemming
the horizon: steamship.

I didn’t know you were the green pitch
unable to beat the storm to shore.
You didn’t know I was the lookout.

Get accustomed to the sad girl picking you
out of the sea, the knot caught in her throat,
and the unraveling of her speech: an endless rope
thrown out of me.

This is copied from the Academy of American Poets website as well.

After the first reading, I thought of it as a romantic poem but as you dig deeper and take it apart, verse by verse, you see that it is a tragic tale of a love that was not meant to be. A girl standing on a cliff, overviewing the sea, sees her beloved’s boat capsizing, never making to the shore. Regret overcomes her as she is unable to give her answer. It shows us how there is no certainty in life and that you should say what you wish to say to the ones you love.

Wow, just wow!

That’s it for today. ‘Til the next feature!

Best,
Anj