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.