The Root Rewrites the Western Canon
http://www.theroot.com/multimedia/root-rewrites-western-canon
Notes from a Failed Hand Dancer November 3, 2009
Notes from a Failed Hand Dancer
Maybe too young to know a rhythm : to know : rhythm is dynamic : made : not taught : who dares teach steps : sedentary as mountains — to aim for spirituals : about big rocks : gospels : might be : a better angle : baptisms : the mountaintop : welcome to a church of faithfuls : gathered about a mountain’s low old hips : gleefully emptying eye sockets : exchange for dipped hands : guiding : trusted hands : a mass of dignified followers : asking to be lead : knowing an inspirited sway : a swing of robed bodies : will follow : shook pews : balls of feet : weighted : unseated at the right hand of a brother : the float is not about tippies : toes sprinkling : dew eating a Sunday morning of porous earth : grabbing for parted light.
- Melanie Henderson
the folks on langston way October 19, 2009
(left to right: katey richie, derrick weston brown, fred joiner, truth thomas, randall's long-time friend, melanie henderson, randall horton, d'ana downing)
October Readings October 6, 2009
I’ll be reading this month at the following:
Lyrical City Open Mic Poetry! (Host: Holly Bass), Busboys and Poets, 5th & K, Sunday, 11 October 2009 @ 4pm
Finale Open Mic for Lyrical City. Hosted by Poet in Residence Holly Bass. Lyrical City is an ongoing workshop series that focuses on various cultural aspects of the city. The theme for the 2009 series is the African-American tradition in DC.
POESIS, Wednesday, 21 October 2009, 7 pm – 9 pm
October’s POESIS, hosted by Simki Ghebremichael, will feature Katie Bowler and Melanie Henderson commemorating Hurricane Katrina, accompanied by Shep Williams on keyboard and Curly Robinson on drums. Open mike follows. Admission is free. Pentagon City Borders, 1201 South Hayes Street, Arlington, VA 22202 (Pentagon City metro); 703-418-0166.
Trust and Music September 22, 2009
Someone whom I trust, dearly, shared a song with me a few weeks ago. The song was “Be Real Black for Me” by Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway. If you’ve heard this song, you already know how genuine and sincere the lyrics are. But Flack and Hathaway deliver it magically. I had never heard this song before except in Scarface’s sampling of it in “My Block.”
I was happy to learn there was an entire CD of Flack and Hathaway duets, so I bought it with the quickness. There’s so much variety in it, a devastatingly bluesy treatment of I (Who Have Nothing), originally by Ben E. King, an almost taunting rendition of You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling, originally by the Righteous Brothers, a song from their church roots, Come Ye Disconsolate, and piano solo, Mood. The self-titled Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway is probably the best purchase I’ve made all year and it hasn’t gotten old yet. I play it every morning like kneeling for a prayer. I walk differently, speak differently all day because of it. I play it when my son and I are driving home. He especially likes to sing the grand finish of Be Real Black for Me in his strongest, most joyful 2 year-old voice. I love it when he chimes in to duet with me.
To a Bourgeois Sister, an experiment in line endings September 16, 2009
So I’ve been reading The Art of the Poetic Line by James Logenbach. I appreciate Logenbach’s discussion of the line break vs. line end and do agree that when a line ends, it doesn’t necessarily break; the syntax may continue. Line break implies a definitive end, a stop. But, all lines of poetry do not function in a way that makes the term line break relevant. He provides a great example by William Carlos Williams, which follows:
To a Poor Old Woman
by William Carlos Williams
munching a plum on
the street a paper bag
of them in her hand
They taste good to her
They taste good
to her. They taste
good to her
You can see it by
the way she gives herself
to the one half
sucked out in her hand
Comforted
a solace of ripe plums
seeming to fill the air
They taste good to her
Though I may have made slightly different decisions for line endings in lines 1 and 8, the second stanza shows masterfully the impact and/or the potential of impact line endings can have upon a reader’s experience in the vein of comprehension and emphasis.
I liked the idea so much, I gave Williams’ technique a try. My humble attempt follows:
To a Bourgeois Sister
after William Carlos Williams
fingering a mound of
pearls flowing, water
strung about overlay tips
They look fine to her
They look fine
to her. They look
fine to her
You can tell by
the way she carefully rubs
her painted lips while
stroking a singular silk bead
Comforted
a solace of beaming planets
seeming to fill her eyes
They look fine to her
I’m still reading The Art of the Poetic Line. So far, so good. Check it out!
If you like the idea of revisiting popular poems, you may also want check out Conversation Pieces: Poems That Talk to Other Poems edited by Kurt Brown and Harold Schechter.
Ginkgo, for Lack of Digits September 13, 2009
Ginkgo, for Lack of Digits
My time here (in natural order)
is longer for years for breaths
like ours.
I’m the one
with all the time branches
lightly hover
with your death your heels toes
full of bumble blood, youth you have
to know this risk of my time here
(in no natural order) unnatural
is without you the brown body
the tree I will leap from fanning leaves
separating in a blown wind,
I fall for our time here, uncounted.
- Melanie Henderson
Be Real Black September 5, 2009
Be Real Black
(after Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)
Let the brief cool of fall,
pour like milk from the mouth
of a hand-made antique,
grow pretty as a lily
worthy of your pauses.
Let all that is black, continuous,
unchanged, magical,
sprinkle like a hush,
surrender to dizziness
whenever your lips part crookedly
casting my back’s arch,
setting me straight like teeth
perfecting organs for speech.
- Melanie Henderson
