My waking hours have been filled with poetry and tissues this last week.
The cold germs found their way past the daily vitamin C I take and turned me into a sneezing, coughing, dry mouthed mess. Thank goodness for the poetry.
Last week, two poets presented an opportunity which I took because I love poetry and I dabble (very lightly) in composing poems myself.
The first poet needed beta readers for an upcoming chapbook, so I read seventy plus pages of melodious words and did some critiquing (as a reader, not a poet).
The second poet, Michelle Wing, an AROHO sister, poet, and Facebook friend (who’s own poetry collection “Body on the Wall” will come out in Spring 2014) posted an interesting game on FB. Anyone who ‘liked’ a poem that she posted would be assigned a poet. In turn, the ‘liker’ would choose a poem by that poet and post it on their FB page.
Michelle assigned me to read poems by Chyrstos, a Menominee rights activist for Turtle Mountain Band of Chipewa, Norma Jean Croy, and Leonard Peltier. Her poems are in numerous anthologies and she has five poetry books published. Many of her poems speak about the living traditions of her people, the edgy rhythms of urban life, and violence.
These two poems resonated:
The Man Who Couldn’t Live Without Me
I’m sitting at the bus stop holding a pillowcase of dirty laundry
when he informs me passionately,
Baby, you’re my only
real reason for being,
If you love that other bastard
I’ll kill him
Baby I need you
Sunshine ain’t nothing
if you aren’t mine
Laughing I thought he made about
as much sense
as any woman who has said such stuff to me
Pretty efficient to obsess about a complete stranger
since the truth
arrives much faster and less painfully
When her bus comes-she leaves you
No ego loss there
As my J Church rolled up I said,
Bye, bye my one true love
Laughed with myself and every lover
I’d promised to kiss forever
cause I know now the only person I can’t
live without
is me
Not Vanishing
In the scars of my knees you can see
children torn from their families
bludgeoned into government schools
You can see through the pins in my bones
that we are prisoners of a long war
My knee is so badly wounded no one will look at it
The pus of the past oozes from every pore
This infection has gone on for at least 300 years
Our sacred beliefs have been made into pencils
names of cities gas stations
My knee is wounded so badly that I limp constantly
Anger is my crutch I hold myself upright with it
My knee is wounded
see
How I Am Still Walking
If you love poems that interweave personal stories with edgy narrative, social justice themes, and poems exploring the Native American experience, check out Chyrstos poetry.
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