Reader's Place: April 1, 2021

NATIONAL POETRY MONTH

Margaret Atwood, Barbara Kingsolver, Nikki Giovanni, and singers Lana Del Ray and Halsey all have new poetry collections out. The following authors are less well known, but ones to look out for.


Finna

Finna

finna comes from the southern phrase fixing to

like I come from my southern grandmothers & finna

is this word that reminds me about everything next.

even when i’ve been a broken boy i know i’m fixing to

get fixed. i’m finna be better. every dream i have is a finna

away from achievement. each new love i uncover is a finna

i unfold. every challenge i choose to meet & not let defeat me is a finna

i fight for.

-Nate Marshall

Finna: Poems, by Nate Marshall (Library Catalog)


Home body

awake

……..

if the devil hadn’t

pushed you into a corner

and forced you to break its neck

how would you have known

you were this strong

-Rupi Kaur

Home Body, by Rupi Kaur (Library Catalog)


When the light of the world was subdued…

Lesson in Fire

My father built a good fire

He taught me to tend the fire

How to make it stand

So it could breathe

And how the flames create

Coals that turn into faces

Or eyes

Or fish swimming

Out of flames

Into gray

Rivers of ash

And how the eyes

And faces look out

At us

Burn up for us

To heat the air

That we breathe

And so into us

We swallow

All the shapes

Created in a well-tended fire

-Linda Noel

When the light of the world was subdued, our songs came through. A Norton anthology of Native Nations poetry , edited by Jo Harjo (Library Catalog)


African American Poetry

Lunar Eclipse

August 16, 1989

Last night I watched the moon go out

become a dark opalescent glow

I could not believe what was happening

even as I saw the change in light.

 

The first time I met you

we sat up all night reading

each other’s poems     morning hopes

followed us down Cole Street

You stretch across our best years

like a living wire

between heaven and hell

at war    Being sisters

wasn’t always easy

but it was never dull

 

I can’t believe you are gone

out of my life

So you are not.

 

-Audre Lorde

African American poetry: 250 years of struggle & song, edited by Kevin Young (Library Catalog)


Deaf Republic

We lived happily during the war

And when they bombed other people’s houses, we

 protested

but not enough, we opposed them but not

 enough. I was

in my bed, around my bed America

 was falling: invisible house by invisible house by invisible house –

I took a chair outside and watched the sun.

 In the sixth month

of a disastrous reign in the house of money

in the street of money in the city of money in the country of money,

our great country of money, we (forgive us)

 lived happily during the war.

 

-Ilya Kaminsky

Deaf republic: poems, by Ilya Kaminsky. (Library Catalog)


 Compiled by Ina Rimpau

 
Robert Nealon