SO many words for Wanda and Hannibal, but I'll try to keep it brief

"We rarely indulge in wishy-washy poems that slide off your plate like a greasy egg; Leimert Park poets seldom write flimsy, flowery things that smell good in the morning, not always. We don't have time for that."
--Shonda Buchanan, Introduction to Voices from Leimert Park

I have to first of all say I am jumping to the CEILING that Elmaz has included these poets as a part of our syllabus. Again, it was starting to get a lil' lonely out here for me, having surrounded myself with folks who use their poetry as a platform to speak for the streets that have been silenced, whose stories aren't even worth a soundbyte on the nightly news. I am so appreciative that an anthology, albeit strictly about Los Angeles, is on the shelves to illuminate those tales. And again, this is no diss to experimental poetry everywhere, as I'm glad to share the space with such rich, enlightened works, which break me out of my own elements to just write to be heard, and forces me to look at my work stylistically and with more depth.
These are the same streets, asylums, hospitals, and streets that will forever take the stage in my own work, so it's hard not to be personally affected by the depth of her words. Also, have y'all seen her perform??? OH. MY. GOD. If not, please peep her recent reading of "Luvina": http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=Izl8ktxEI6U


I will say, though, it's disappointing to only have two poems from Wanda Coleman here -- one lengthier one, and a much shorter one that packs a punch. I'm equally disappointed in myself that this is my first encounter with her work, as she has instantly become an inspiration to me. I took this quote from her bio on the Poetry Foundation website: "Coleman frequently writes to illuminate the lives of the underclass and the disenfranchised, the invisible men and women who populate America's downtown streets after dark, the asylums and waystations, the inner city hospitals and clinics. . . . Wanda Coleman, like Gwendolyn Brooks before her, has much to tell us about what it is like to be a poor black woman in America."


Anyways. The intentionality of lengthy lines and ripe details in her poem "Of Cucarachas & Peanut-Peanut Butter: A Poem For & About Mister Birdsong" are rooted in her tremendous ability to paint a picture, to relocate yourself inside her world, and the world of Los Angeles. This poem isn't about the placement of words on a page, so much as it's about her delivering a tale of a man that needs to be chastised for his actions, for his treatment of poets and non-poets around him. But, because he's him (most likely white, definitely upper middle class), this probably won't happen. She just feels as though she has a right, through her words, to tell this story of the poet who believes he's god's gift to words. Something about this man leads him to having a following of loyal cronies who don't even understand why they're being kiss-asses to him, and allow him to keep this position of power in place. I already know he's got to be a real person, someone she's watched closely, and who pissed her off so much that she had to dedicate a poem to him. She unapologetically discloses his name and the countless acts of disrespect he's committed to other folks. He was probably deeply revered before this poem, but she had to call his ass OUT to set the record straight. (I tried my damndest to search for "Mr. Birdsong" on the internet, and found no such person, lol.)

Her positionality as a Black woman from Los Angeles who grew up impoverished deeply and rightfully informs her work, her politics, and the seething honesty that bleeds from it. She feels she has a true responsibility to the people who are in her community, those who end up in her work, and especially to Los Angeles (she's been running workshops since the Watts riots for God's sake!). To comment on the "burden of responsibility" for poets like herself or Hannibal is an afterthought, as the personal is political for them. They're not writing poetry to represent Black folks, as their responsibility lies in breaking through those silences, and shining light on the folks who aren't given voice, and showing a multitude of our experiences.

Case in point, Hannibal Tabu's "Dedication", which starts out, "This is not for the thugs", and repeats, "This is not for the hoes" midway. We Black poets have to unfortunately remember the slither of awareness that most people have about Black life and culture, as the media has pretty much shot any positive representations of us to hell. These are everyday people that end up here: the liquor store manager, the kids who love comic books, the "fifty year old brothers..." sitting on "a recliner, the throne they can afford". Moreover, it is a joy to see him highlight "the overweight nurses with carpal tunnel syndrome/everyday women dividing worry/between daughter at home and son who moved away." Hannibal and Wanda bring us into a glimpse of the neighborhoods they live, and those same neighborhoods nationwide, through their works. And for me, it has never been a question to highlight what goes down in our neck of the woods, the histories, the present, and the unforeseen future. Reading their works made me a slice of homesick. :-(

These are poets that are meant to be heard, meant to be the ones who uplift, and to tell it truly like it is. I've been reading a lot of poems lately at Mills that want readers to be "generous", to lead to many different interpretations of their writing, who evoke silence and use white space and create an atmosphere in their poetry of the cryptic...on purpose. Hannibal and Wanda display the strength of knowing that sometimes, you just have to tell it to people straight up, colloquially, and directly, in order to do justice to your community, and feel that your work has purpose. And ain't nothing wrong with that, ever.