Hafiz, Georgia O'Keeffe, Kae Tempest + yours truly

Babes and bots, 

This week a tall, brown-haired student said to me that his mom used to read his fortune with tarot cards. I asked if his fortune was ever accurate and he said "no." He then asked if he could copy my response to his journal question from the board. The question: what is your passion? How can you dedicate more time to your passion? Respond with five full sentences. He then informed me that he had a shamrock shake on March 3rd, which he remembered because he loves mint ice cream. This was the most memorable experience of my week, principally because I'm fascinated by the way people link two things--a shamrock shake and a journal response--together.

Right now, I'm listening to No Prizes by Kae Tempest and thinking of an episode of The Poetry Magazine Podcast with Sonia Sanchez and Tongo Eisen-Martin. And something about Kae Tempest's voice, the rap music tradition, basic melodies syncopated by lyrics, not just the words but the way one says them, not performatively but accurately, as they should be. 

And now my mind wanders to a Hafiz poem, "If It Is Not Too Dark," which was carefully handwritten and pasted on birch bark by a dear friend, now pinned to the wall nearest my bedroom door, and the abandoned stanza on my nightstand: "Let's stop reading about God/We will never understand Him." 

And now I return to the now, someplace I don't often find myself because I, like a child, dream too often and too big to be present for long. Today I made a poem with fridge magnets which, I've decided, is the only way I will construct poems from here on out. These particular fridge magnets are vegan-themed so, naturally, my poem is about tofu. 
I tofued/greened of your table/here was living/or some balanced alternative.

a few lines that keep sticking with me 

I was a mother before I was born 

pause for the mouth 

my nose is running down my face

your face is a hole in my eye

I will outgrow you. I will hold onto you until I cannot grow anymore, and then I will know that you are the object of my un-growing. 

to refuse one's condition

this poem by Tongo Eisen-Martin...and the way he might read it. 

how everything sounds different when you throw "Lord" in there, just for fun

capturing cat hair before it hits my nose 

this month's books 

Surprise surprise I am reading many books and I haven't finished any of them. The Mere Wife by Maria Dahvana Headley is pretty epic, but I have no idea what is going on. In fact, I didn't realize there were two separate plotlines happening until I read the back aloud to a curious student the other day. 

Georgie O'Keeffe, if you want to be provocative and say it's reading...and how the Tate Modern called her work "sensuous" and "dust-dead"...and how asensuous should really be a word because everything sounds better with an "a" in front. 




And, while we're at it, consider this: landscapes reflecting bodies, bodies reflecting landscapes, bodies of water, bodies of bodies. Is there such a thing as a natural landscape? Or a natural body? Is it not all "natural" to some eye? All food for thought, perhaps. 

That's all for now, folx. Thanks for taking a bite out of the sandwich with me. 

xoxo
BLT

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