LET US GO NOT UNRECORDED ~

 

E V A N   S.  C O N N E L L 

WOMEN IN THE DARK ~

 

R E A D     M E

LUKE KELLY ~

 

L U K E      K E L L Y

STEPHEN BATCHELOR ~ THE ART OF SOLITUDE ~

 

Yale

2020

JOHN ASHBERY ~

 

L I S T E N

Ecco 2021

HELEN FRANKENTHALER ~

 

H E L E N     F R A N K E N T H A L E R

                                                   Helen Frankenthaler at work in her studio in 1969

                                                          Ernst Haas/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

SAHARA DESERT NOMADIC ARCHITECTURE ~

 

BLUES IN THE BOTTLE ~

 

Jim Kweskin now owns this song

VAN MORRISON, LIVE! 2021 ~

 

Van Morrison is 75 years old here

both belting out songs as singer

and blowing sax —

today is his 76th birthday

August 31, 1945

PATRICIA SMITH ~

When Black Men Drown Their Daughters

When black, men drown. They spend their whole lifetimes

justifying the gall of springing the trap, the inconvenience

of slouched denim, of coupling beyond romance or aim.

All the while, the rising murk edges toward their chins.

Hurriedly, someone crafts another scientific tome, a giddy

exploration of the curious dysfunction identifying black

men first as possible, then as necessary. Elegant equations

succumb to a river that blurs quotient and theory, rendering

them unreadable, and the overwhelm easily disappears

the men, their wiry heads glistening, then gulped. All that’s

left is the fathers’ last wisdom, soaked wreckage on silver:

Girl, that water ain’t nothing but wet. I’m gon’ be alright.

 

When black men drown, their daughters turn to their mothers

and ask What should I do with this misnamed shiver in my

left shoulder? How should I dress in public? They are weary

of standing at the shore, hands shading their eyes, trying

to make out their own fathers among the thousands bobbing

in the current. The mothers mumble and point to any flailing

that seems familiar. Mostly, they’re wrong. Buoyed by church

moans and comfort food of meat and cream, the daughters

try on other names that sound oddly broken when pressed

against the dank syllables of the fathers’. Drained, with just

forward in mind, they walk using the hip of only one parent.

They scratch in their sleep. Black water wells up in the wound.

 

When black men drown, their daughters are fascinated with

the politics of water, how gorgeously a surface breaks

to receive, how it weeps so sanely shut. And the thrashing

of hands, shrieking of names: I was Otis, I was Willie Earl,

they called me Catfish. Obsessed by the waltzing of tides,

the daughters remember their fathers—the scorch of beard

electrifying the once-in-a-while kiss, the welts in thick arms,

eyes wearied with so many of the same days wedged behind

them. When black men drown, their daughters memorize all

the steps involved in the deluge. They know how long it takes

for a weakened man to dissolve. A muted light, in the shape

of a little girl, used to be enough to light a daddy’s way home.

 

When black men drown, their daughters drag the water’s floor

with rotting nets, pull in whatever still breathes. They insist their

still-dripping daddies sit down for cups of insanely sweetened

tea, sniffs of rotgut, tangled dinners based on improbable swine.

The girls hope to reacquaint their drowned fathers with the concept

of body, but outlines slosh in drift and retreat. The men can’t get

dry. Parched, they scrub flooded hollows and weep for water

to give them name and measure as mere blood once did. Knocking

over those spindly-legged dinette chairs, they interrupt the failed

feast and mutter Baby girl, gotta go, baby gotta go, their eyes

misted with their own murders. Grabbing their girls, they spit

out love in reverse and stumble toward the banks of some river.

 

When black men drown their daughters, the rash act is the only

plausible response to the brain’s tenacious mouth and its dare: Yes, 

yes, open your ashed hands and release that wingless child. Note

the arc of the sun-drenched nosedive, the first syllable of the child’s

name unwilling from the man’s mouth, the melody of billow that

begins as blessed clutch. Someone crouching inside the father waits

impatiently for the shutting, the lethargic envelop, and wonders if

the daughter’s wide and realizing eye will ever close to loose him.

It never will, and the man and his child and the daughter and her

father gaze calmly into the wrecked science of each other’s lives.

The sun struggles to spit a perfect gold upon the quieting splash.

The river pulses stylish circles of its filth around the swallow.

 

 

___________________

Patricia Smith

from Incendiary Art

TriQuarterly Books / Northwestern University Press

2017

SEND ME TO THE 'LECTRIC CHAIR ~

 

RICHARD WRIGHT ~

 

R E A D      M E

The newly discovered Richard Wright novel The Man Who Lived Underground is a quiet and simple beauty. The novel could have been dedicated to George Floyd it’s that immediate and topical. The visionary was on top of his game 1940-1945: Native Son, The Man Who Lived Underground and Black Boy. Native Son riveted me fifty years ago, much more than Invisible Man, and this new book discovery may be the one Wright is remembered for. Started out as a short story that was later lengthened but probably too modern and basic for a publisher at the time to realize what they had. Library of America has now published the book. I read the book in one-sitting. Couldn’t help myself.

[ BA ]

______________

The Library of America

2021

ZORA NEALE HURSTON ~

 

R E A D      M E

Amistad, 2020

NATHANIEL MACKEY ~

 

On Antiphon Island

—“mu” twenty-eighth part—

   On Antiphon Island they lowered

the bar and we bent back. It

  wasn’t limbo we were in albeit

       we limbo’d. Everywhere we

                                                   went we

  limbo’d, legs bent, shoulder

   blades grazing the dirt,

                                       donned

andoumboulouous birth-shirts,

    sweat salting the silence

 we broke... Limbo’d so low we

     fell and lay looking up at

   the clouds, backs embraced by

                                                    the

       ground and the ground a fallen

                                                         wall

  we were ambushed by... Later we’d

      sit, sipping the fig liqueur, beckoning

 sleep, soon-come somnolence nowhere

     come as yet. Where we were, not-

withstanding, wasn’t there...

                                             Where we

  were was the hold of a ship we were

                                                           caught

      in. Soaked wood kept us afloat... It

wasn’t limbo we were in albeit we

    limbo’d our way there. Where we

 were was what we meant by “mu.”

                                                        Where

     we were was real, reminiscent

  arrest we resisted, bodies briefly

                                                    had,

 held on

to

                  •

     “A Likkle Sonance” it said on the

record. A trickle of blood hung

    overhead I heard it spurts. An

  introvert trumpet run, trickle of

                                                     sound...

      A trickle of water lit by the sun

        I saw with an injured eye, captive

  music ran our legs and we danced...

                                                           Knees

bent, asses all but on the floor, love’s

      bittersweet largesse... I wanted

   trickle turned into flow, flood,

        two made one by music, bodied

                                                           edge

          gone up into air, aura, atmosphere

              the garment we wore. We were on

            a ship’s deck dancing, drawn in a

                                                                 dream

    above hold... The world was ever after,

                                                                 elsewhere.

Where we were they said likkle for little, lick

     ran with trickle, weird what we took it

  for... The world was ever after, elsewhere,

                                                                   no

  way where we were

was there

_______________________

Nathaniel Mackey

from Splay Anthem

New Directions, 2002

JACK HIRSCHMAN ~

 

August 2021 MERCHANDISE  |  PUBLICATIONS  |  EVENTS Photo of Jack Hirschman by Dennis Letbetter. Jack Hirschman 1933 - 2021 Our friend, poet Jack Hirschman, passed away on August 22nd at age 87. His presence in North Beach will be missed, especially here at City Lights, where he was a frequent visitor. Jack touched the lives of so many, especially young poets. He was a fixture in the poetry scene right up until his passing, reading at virtual events, relentlessly writing and translating. We are the proud publisher of his poetry books Lyripol (1976, now out of print), Front Lines (2002), and All That's Left (2008), his translations of Antonin Artaud, Artaud Anthology, (1965) and In Danger: A Pasolini Anthology (2010), which he edited, as well. On our blog we’ve posted a poem by Diane di Prima, written on the occasion of his 80th birthday in 2013. We think it's the perfect tribute to the poet's poet. We send our love to Jack's wife Agneta Falk, to his family, and to all who will miss our comrade. Read Diane di Prima's Poem to Jack >>

JUNE JORDAN ~

 

Roman Poem Number Thirteen

                                             For Eddie

Only our hearts will argue hard

against the small lights letting in the news

and who can choose between the worst possibility

and the last

between the winners of the wars against the breathing

and the last

war everyone will lose

and who can choose between the dry gas

domination of the future

and the past

between the consequences of the killers

and the past

of all the killing? There

is no choice in these.

Your voice

breaks very close to me my love.

____________________

June Jordan

Directed By Desire

Collected Poems

Copper Canyon Press

2007

WEAR GLOVES ~

 

ETHERIDGE KNIGHT ( HAIKU ) ~

 

Haiku

1 

Eastern guard tower 

glints in sunset; convicts rest 

like lizards on rocks. 

2 

The piano man 

is stingy, at 3 A.M. 

his songs drop like plum. 

3 

Morning sun slants cell. 

Drunks stagger like cripple flies 

On jailhouse floor. 

4 

To write a blues song 

is to regiment riots 

and pluck gems from graves. 

5 

A bare pecan tree 

slips a pencil shadow down 

a moonlit snow slope. 

6 

The falling snow flakes 

Cannot blunt the hard aches nor 

Match the steel stillness. 

7 

Under moon shadows 

A tall boy flashes knife and 

Slices star bright ice. 

8 

In the August grass 

Struck by the last rays of sun 

The cracked teacup screams. 

9 

Making jazz swing in 

Seventeen syllables AIN’T 

No square poet’s job. 

_______________________________

Etheridge Knight

 from The Essential Etheridge Knight

University of Pittsburgh Press 1986