{"id":364,"date":"2011-05-02T10:49:44","date_gmt":"2011-05-02T15:49:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lisaallen-agostini.com\/?p=364"},"modified":"2011-05-02T11:07:24","modified_gmt":"2011-05-02T16:07:24","slug":"some-poems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lisaallen-agostini.com\/?p=364","title":{"rendered":"Some poems"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Once<\/p>\n

(For Dolsie)<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Frail as hope<\/p>\n

her wasted body<\/p>\n

smells of soap<\/p>\n

and soured dreams.<\/p>\n

Once she was<\/p>\n

much more than this.<\/p>\n

Once she kissed<\/p>\n

our smooth young faces.<\/p>\n

She held us hard<\/p>\n

against the world<\/p>\n

outside her yard,<\/p>\n

kept us safe.<\/p>\n

Once she loved.<\/p>\n

Once she moved.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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!)<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

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

Mango–sweet and slippery flesh sliding on lips nature is a boss fragrant flesh a gift thank you Jesus his face in every mango<\/p>\n

Soft–but soft what light through yonder window breaks the window break? no yuh ass is shakespeare yuh ent ha no culcha or wha<\/p>\n

Islands–her eyes were islands drowned in milk open only to what was inside her drowned<\/p>\n

Drunk–like his blood eaten like his body consumed by the world that scorned him<\/p>\n

Sky–open Irish frizzy hair delight bright smile heart-shaped face shape of her heart<\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

From which I constructed:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You sea<\/p>\n

me there in you<\/p>\n

so big<\/p>\n

and I, so small<\/p>\n

and learning to<\/p>\n

swim through<\/p>\n

the softly lapping<\/p>\n

waves of your hipsway<\/p>\n

watching that<\/p>\n

ass slip slide<\/p>\n

hiccup down<\/p>\n

the hall<\/p>\n

slippery like<\/p>\n

a mango<\/p>\n

flesh a fragrant gift<\/p>\n

but you<\/p>\n

open to only<\/p>\n

the islands of<\/p>\n

her eyes<\/p>\n

what is inside her<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and me stroking<\/p>\n

the kitten on my lap who<\/p>\n

warms my empty womb<\/p>\n

the son I will<\/p>\n

never have<\/p>\n

when I call him<\/p>\n

he answers<\/p>\n

with a polite<\/p>\n

questioning<\/p>\n

mew<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I am become<\/p>\n

the cat’s mother<\/p>\n

she<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

I chose to mimic the form of a radio death announcement.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We have been asked<\/p>\n

to announce the following death:<\/p>\n

Respect, of women<\/p>\n

and boundaries,<\/p>\n

who dies on every street in town<\/p>\n

every day.<\/p>\n

The funeral of the late respect<\/p>\n

will be held at noon<\/p>\n

today<\/p>\n

at the rape of your daughter.<\/p>\n

No flowers, by request.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,8],"tags":[66,99,101,4,100,81,85,24,61,39],"class_list":["post-364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-column","category-poetry","tag-bocas-lit-fest","tag-christian-campbell","tag-jazz","tag-lisa-allen-agostini","tag-merle-collins","tag-poetry-2","tag-reading","tag-trinidad-tobago","tag-trinidad-and-tobago","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisaallen-agostini.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisaallen-agostini.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisaallen-agostini.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisaallen-agostini.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisaallen-agostini.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=364"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lisaallen-agostini.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":366,"href":"https:\/\/lisaallen-agostini.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions\/366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisaallen-agostini.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisaallen-agostini.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisaallen-agostini.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}