Mudcloth is everything right now. I was feeling that poem from jump
it was you outside of the poetry reading
last wednesday night
you at the doorway
For me, what is so inviting about this piece is how quietly it begins. There are no capitalized words, no punctuation, no italics...nothing but words that roll off the tongue easily. It sounds like an intimate stream of conscience and I am automatically lured in and I want to know where these thoughts are going. I also appreciate automatically being grounded in place. I know where I am. I'm at the local poetry spot on a Wednesday night. It feels comfortable, familiar. I can see & feel my environment.
One of my favorite stanzas (and I have more than a couple)
i had been calling you
you had been calling me
feeling call, spirit call
the way old lovers communicate
when phones are complicated, forbidden
Let me be honest here. When I came to these lines, I threw the book. Literally it went flying across my bed in excitement. WHO has not felt this??!! And if u haven't, i'm hella jealous because I have been here, and back again. Imani described this moment, this feeling so perfectly. I've never been able to put it to words....how it feels to have a lingering soul-tie to someone you were once with. You know you can't just pick up the phone and call...either because new relationships have been established or just because it would make things ultra awkward. So you can't talk but you're still talking...and you feel the conversation in your pores, in the curve of your spine, in your heart. The way old lovers communicate. Ugh...just so so good.
I'm so in love with the ode to brownness and earthy naturality in this. Brown love, brown heartache, brown soul mates, brown babies. It's been awhile since I have read a poem that embodies so much rich color. It feels familiar. I just wanna paint these words all across my own brown skin.
donny hathaway and oranges
made me cry last night when I thought of you
as i ate the fruit
something about the sweet readiness
to satisfy, to nourish
is so opposite of what we became
and donny knew it
saying goodbye to us
now, when it is hardest
Mmm hmm. More familiarity. I map most of my life by music and food. Eating certain things can trigger certain memories.It's the oddest thing, not necessarily because it happens, but when it happens I don't quite know how to control the emotions that may come along with the memory. And music...smh...most definitely. When I'm going through hard times, music is often my catharsis. And certain artists know how to yank you back to a specific time and place. Tolliver really speaks on it here. To satisfy, to nourish is so opposite of what we became. This hit so close to home with me. So often we love hard and have such high hope for the sustainability of our relationships and when things unravel we're left there like....that's it?? What happened?! We were so so good. Until we just weren't. [sigh]
I have to talk about the baby in the mudcloth. The way Tolliver makes this precious baby a symbol of a past love gone awry is so unique and sad and beautiful and hopeful all at the same time.
but when i saw him there
each cheek permanently embracing a kiss
i felt he was a little bit of me
and wasn't he there
when we tried to work it out
when we came undone
The topic of this babies existence was such a huge thing hinging this relationship together and eventually the cause of the demise of it because the narrator wasn't ready for a child and the other half of the relationship was more than ready. The narrator felt as if she poured blood sweat and tears into this child before he was even born! Which lead her to feel as if a small part of him was also hers. This is so deep. I really love the story in this poem. That's something i truly appreciate in this weeks readings: the various narrative arcs. I know not all poems will have or even need them but sometimes I just want a story! I want to get it in its entirety. I want to see and feel what's happening and not have to wonder what the hell I just read, and what I'm supposed to take from it. I just want an intriguing, powerful, full-bodied story that I can relate to because I have nursed some of the same thoughts and emotions. I needed this poem as a reminder of why I write.
i just posted my entry before reading yours, but YES YES YES. i agree especially this:
ReplyDelete"WHO has not felt this??!! And if u haven't, i'm hella jealous because I have been here, and back again. Imani described this moment, this feeling so perfectly. I've never been able to put it to words....how it feels to have a lingering soul-tie to someone you were once with. You know you can't just pick up the phone and call...either because new relationships have been established or just because it would make things ultra awkward. So you can't talk but you're still talking...and you feel the conversation in your pores, in the curve of your spine, in your heart. The way old lovers communicate. Ugh...just so so good."
UGH is right. just UGH. so hard. and this "So often we love hard and have such high hope for the sustainability of our relationships and when things unravel we're left there like....that's it?? What happened?! We were so so good. Until we just weren't."
and the sense memory thing is really a thing. like a certain song comes on and it's just over. you're pulled back. or you catch a whiff of a certain smell on the air and you're brought back to a specific day. and, yeah, even food. like, tolliver's been eating oranges her whole life, but eating one now just pushes her over the edge.
Chanel I agree with you. I too rarely see poems give this much ode to a color and the Earth/mud in such a unique way.
ReplyDeleteHere's two of my favorite stanzas
and love, love is the color brown
find our story on af few yards of fabric
in the hood somewhere
notice the soil finger painting
of how we found each other
The other thing that resulted from your expressive post, Chanel, is the sense of history holding life yet to come. I hadn't parsed the baby in the mudcloth that way yet and you led me right to it. Thanks for an insightful and exciting blog.
ReplyDeletee
two seconds for this:
ReplyDelete"You know you can't just pick up the phone and call...either because new relationships have been established or just because it would make things ultra awkward. So you can't talk but you're still talking...and you feel the conversation in your pores, in the curve of your spine, in your heart."
I call that...the placenta of relationship. it's never never over...until it's over. aha!
also *clapping* at your last few sentences. should we feel wrong for just wanting this??? "I want to see and feel what's happening and not have to wonder what the hell I just read, and what I'm supposed to take from it. I just want an intriguing, powerful, full-bodied story that I can relate to because I have nursed some of the same thoughts and emotions. I needed this poem as a reminder of why I write."
*drops laptop, exits stage left*