Jizō Bosatsu,1279.
Artist in Japan,
Wood, lacquer, bronze, gold leaf and crystal.
So in a way this poem is three-times ekphrastic: the mythos, the statue, the modern short story.
New Sonnet up at The Amethyst Review
Another one of my theological sonnets—
[Say prayer’s correctly rubbing God’s back]—has been published by The Amethyst Review.
This one explores the human desire to get a signal out—to be heard and responded to by the numinous. Somehow appropriate for our current reality of social distancing.
Oddly enough, the inspiration for this poem came from a conversation with a student (as many do): something relatively psychotic about a rabbit’s foot. This is what it turned into. I think she would be pleased.
A Happy Poem Published in Solstice
In general, I am happy when any of my poems find publication. But some bring me more joy than others.
This is one of those times.
My poem “an open letter to my mixed little “Sisters Who Kept Their Naturals”” was just published in Solstice, and my heart is full.
While the connection and indebtedness to Gwendolyn Brook’s “To Those of My Sisters Who Keep Their Naturals” should be apparent, as with many of the poems in my “open letter” cycle, this piece has a intended audience and specific muses.
They know who they are, what their strength means to me, and how proud I am to be their big brother (multiple puns intended).
New Poem in Spiritus
“The Third Renunciation”—one of my theological sonnets—was published in the latest issue of Spiritus (20.1).
It takes its title from Mary Margaret Funk's discussion of the 4th century monk John Cassian's three-fold denials in order to follow a path of spirituality:
First, we must renounce our former way of life and move closer to our heart’s desire, toward the interior life. Second, we must do the inner work (of asceticism) by renouncing our mindless thoughts.…Third, and finally, we must renounce our own images of God so that we can enter into contemplation of God as God" (Thoughts Matter, 9).
It is also the ‘title track’ of a book of poems I am shopping for publication (so if you like this one, and know anyone who wants to publish a bunch more like it, hit me up).
Three Poems in Poemeleon
Poemeleon has accepted three of my poems for their TRUTH/Y Issue:
“an open letter to the school resource officer who almost shot me in my class” ~ reprinted from Gravitas and Teaching While Black
"an open letter to the poetry editor of [name withheld on advice from counsel]” ~ a true (enough) story
"…and who is my neighbor?" ~ the “Parable of the Good Samaritan” retold for our #movement times.
Two Poems in Show Us Your Papers (Anthology)-- Currently in Pre-Sale
Two of my poems will appear in the upcoming anthology Show Us Your Papers:
“legacy” ~ on emails containing last wills and testaments
and
“we all have to make sacrifices” ~ on racial microaggressions against the people least likely to shoot up a public school.
From the Introduction of the anthology:
Show Us Your Papers speaks to a crisis of identity and belonging, to an increasing sense of vulnerability amid rapid changes in the USA. While corporations wait to assign us a number, here are 81 poets who demand full identities, richer than those allowed by documents of every sort. Here are poems of immigration and concentration camps, of refugees and wills, marriage and divorce, of lost correspondence and found parents, of identity theft and medical charts. In an era where the databases multiply, where politicians and tech companies sort us into endless categories, identifying documents serve as thumbtacks. They freeze the dancing, lurching, rising and falling experience of our lives. The disconnect between our documents and our identities is inherent, reductive, frustrating, and, too often, dangerous. Yet we cannot live without them. In this anthology 81 poets offer a richer sense of our lives and histories—richer than any “official paper” allows. These lyric and narrative forms demand that readers recognize our full identities: personal, familial, national, and historical…
[Forthcoming] Two More Sonnet-Like Poems Will Appear in The Amethyst Review
Continuing my heretical (?) take on “unholy sonnets,”
[Say gravity is grace enough for god-]
and
[Say prayer’s correctly rubbing God’s back]
will be joining my other poems in The Amethyst Review: the former in April, the latter in May.
The Amethyst Review has previously published:
[Forthcoming] Poems in Baltimore Literary Review & Ploughshares
Baltimore Literary Review has accepted “mannish water”
and
Ploughshares has accepted “twelve minutes a slave” for publication.
It’s been a solid week.
Poem published in Take a Stand, Art Against Hate
“said the band-aid to the shotgun wound”
is being reprinted in Take a Stand, Art Against Hate: A Raven Chronicles Anthology.
This poem, originally published in Teaching While Black, explores everything wrong with the application of uncritical anti-bias trainings in public school settings. Or at least what I could fit into one long poem before my head exploded.
I proud to have it included in this anthology.
Two poems at Dappled Things
I did a stint as a Christian mystic. I reality, I just read a lot about Christian mysticism, mindfullness, contemplation, meditation, acedia, and a whole trove of related materials, attempting to find…something. The Desert Mothers and Fathers, philosophers and hermits, poets and academics.
Of course such musing birthed poetry. And, somehow, Dappled Things’ found two of them worthy of publication.
“…as yourself” ~ an attempt to find the balance between “the Golden Rule,” “the Two Great Commandments,” and the mystic’s distrust of “Self.”
“the prophet speaks against Rilke” ~ an ekphrastic response to Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Ick bin auf der Welt zu allein und doch nicht allein genug”
The only answer I'll give about the poems in Teaching While Black
Two Poems Reprinted at Digging Press
Digging Through The Fat: A Literary & Arts Journal for Cultural Omnivores republishes works from around the internet.
Community No 41.
Two of my poems were selected for Community No 41.:
“the surprising thing,” &
“when asked what i learned in elementary school being bussed from Mattapan to Wellesley.”
Both are included in my chapbook Teaching While Black.
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"Holding Peace" (CNF) published at How to Pack for Church Camp
Every once in a while I write a short story, usually based on a real experience. A work of creative non-fiction (CNF). This one has been published by How to Pack for Church Camp.
This time I decided not to include names, to protect the guilty. I know some of the guilty are reading this right now. You went to this camp. You were in the room. You said these things. Hopefully you’re a better person now.
As for my unnamed friend: all my love, B. Now and forever.
Sometimes submissions are an education. And sometimes you get published.
When you write a poem entitled “an open letter to the white feminists holding a literary panel on Toni Morrison,” you don’t actually think anyone will publish it.
You send it out thinking, at the very least, some junior reader or part-time editor will have something to think about. Because following her sudden death, what writing conference would ever host a panel discussion about Toni Morrison, but not include one (1) Black woman on the dais? The one you attended. So you write a poem. And cast it upon the waters hoping it will do some good.
{It’s like writing a poem entitled “an open letter to the poetry editor of [name withheld on advice from counsel]” about a passive aggressive, racially charged exchange with an editor: no one will ever publish that poem, but those who read it might think about how they interact with their submitters of color after reading it. }
And then you get an email saying that someone does want to publish a poem about well-meaning, but misguided white women, and you’re shocked.
An Advent/Christmas poem (I completely forgot I wrote)
Advent
Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
~ Lawrence Ferlinghetti
beside a manger scene, He surveys the wonder of
His pasty complexion surrounded by solemn faces:
the pallor upon the Ikea cast, assembled around
His waxy facade, causes even His capillaries to cringe
as speakers hidden in synthetic straw capture
how the original animals couldn’t keep silent –
the apparent theology of a rum pa pumb pumb aside.
entering the service filled with seasonal sons and daughters
He sniffs for the familiar scent of worship – the sweet censer
of honest meditation, but this multitude presents only
a facsimile of praise: the stench of filthy rags hidden
beneath scented candles and choir robes.
eyes raised, He notices His cross covered by a crown of fir,
and before the altar, the holy family in flannel: a pageant
of preschoolers deified by proud parents. turning to leave,
His shirt sucks to His right side. rushing past unnoticed,
barely beyond beveled doors, the ground clutches His knees;
He falls beneath the phantom of wooden weight.
tasting the gall, He vomits. from above a hand touches
His now sensitive shoulder, and a man with no place
to rest his head, offers all he has: a cotton cloth stained
with gin and dried blood. Christ accepts and wipes His mouth.
His savior nods to the tiny plastic persona beside them and smiles
before limping away with a song: a rum pa pumb pumb.
Published in the anthology Love Among Us (2009).
*Teaching While Black* Publication Update
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I just approved the covers and internal galleys for Teaching While Black, and the release date looks like it will be pushed up to mid-late January.
Just in time for Black History Month.
However, you can still pre-order now and secure your copy at a price of $7 (it goes up to $13 upon publication).
“self-evident” at Tahoma Literary Review
A creative nonfiction meets historical fiction poem (I know what that said) has been published in the latest edition of Tahoma Literary Review.
Poem reprinted at Portside.org
Three school poems at The Radical Teacher
The following poems— all true stories— have been published by The Radical Teacher and will also appear in my forthcoming collection Teaching While Black:
Three poems at Rigorous
The good folks at Rigorous have seen fit to publish three more of my poems, all ekphrastic in nature:
“essay for history B”
[inspired by thanks Langston Hughes’ “Theme for English B”]
“an open letter to an american institution”
[inspired by Ted Kooser’s “Fort Robinson”]
and
[Say the blues were apocalyptic— Black]
[a sonnet inspired by James Cone’s The Cross and the Lynching Tree]