Some poems

Posted: May 2nd, 2011 | Author: lise | Filed under: Column, Poetry | Tags: Bocas Lit Fest, Christian Campbell, jazz, Lisa Allen-Agostini, Merle Collins, poetry, reading, Trinidad & Tobago, Trinidad and Tobago, writing | 2 Comments »

I’m posting here three poems. The first is a poem I wrote some years ago after my mom died, and which I read at the Bocas Lit Fest Poetry Lime Friday night; the other two are poems that came out of the Bocas poetry writing workshop I did. (Check the previous blog posting for details on that). I’m also putting up, for the workshop poems, the prompts that comprise the material that went into the poems.

 

Once

(For Dolsie)

 

Frail as hope

her wasted body

smells of soap

and soured dreams.

Once she was

much more than this.

Once she kissed

our smooth young faces.

She held us hard

against the world

outside her yard,

kept us safe.

Once she loved.

Once she moved.

 

Merle Collins, who led the workshop on Saturday with Christian Campbell, had the participants write for a minute after being given a prompt, and then we had to take those writings and shape them into a poem. These were my responses to the prompts and the poem that came from them. (It’s not very good, I warn you!)

Stew–stew in your own juices watching that ass slip slide hiccup down the hall oh lord will I never stop stop stop stutter to a halt

Friday–payday just got paid money in my pocket hey hey* (*you recognise this song?) but that is not me hungry when is my friday coming

Mango–sweet and slippery flesh sliding on lips nature is a boss fragrant flesh a gift thank you Jesus his face in every mango

Soft–but soft what light through yonder window breaks the window break? no yuh ass is shakespeare yuh ent ha no culcha or wha

Islands–her eyes were islands drowned in milk open only to what was inside her drowned

Drunk–like his blood eaten like his body consumed by the world that scorned him

Sky–open Irish frizzy hair delight bright smile heart-shaped face shape of her heart

Empty–Fennec on my lap warming my empty womb the son I will never have he answers when I call with a polite mew to say yes? you called?

Sea–me here in you so big and I so small and never could swim too good splash but not hard softer, a lapping more a lapping

From which I constructed:

 

You sea

me there in you

so big

and I, so small

and learning to

swim through

the softly lapping

waves of your hipsway

watching that

ass slip slide

hiccup down

the hall

slippery like

a mango

flesh a fragrant gift

but you

open to only

the islands of

her eyes

what is inside her

 

and me stroking

the kitten on my lap who

warms my empty womb

the son I will

never have

when I call him

he answers

with a polite

questioning

mew

 

I am become

the cat’s mother

she

 

Finally, Christian Campbell’s exercise was to use mimicry–like jazz singers scatting, like a soucouyant taking the shape of an old woman–to shape our poems.

I chose to mimic the form of a radio death announcement.

 

We have been asked

to announce the following death:

Respect, of women

and boundaries,

who dies on every street in town

every day.

The funeral of the late respect

will be held at noon

today

at the rape of your daughter.

No flowers, by request.

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