4 the performance and what not

hey y'all! so this was no easy decision, been thinkin abt it all damn day.

but, i decided to read lucille clifton's "surely i am able to write poems"...as if that wasn't obvious already ahahahah!

for my own poem, i'm gonna read some new-new. like, so new i haven't even typed it yet, so new it doesn't have a name. it's fresh off the presses of this notebook with its pages falling out (!!!). when i type that up, i'll send it to tessa :-D

oh -- and my five word bio is: runs on shrimp and laughter.

yeaahhhh so excited for this!!!!

Performance Info

Poem #1: Etheridge Knight's "Belly Song"

Poem #2: Poem from Seurat's Points series, "Breaking Point"

Artist Bio: Always near abstraction and obscurity. 

Potluck: Bringing a cake!!!

Poem #2 for zine:

Breaking Point

Further loss to change

No longer viewed a problem

People, it doesn’t make sense

On a drug

That may not happen –if at all

Created awareness specialist

On it from the beginning, no one challenged them

New concerns, long-term safety

The current looking with critical eye

Method used been called into question

How and how?

Is it, even?

The years keep evolving

Once diagnosed

A fragility fracture

A meeting of experts

Defined by density

One measure available

“Normal” were those of a deviated standard

Anyone who fell in between had a condition

A disease somewhat arbitrary

An independent prevention

Density helped her avoid

Density is only one part of the picture

Determined by other components, its capacity for self-repair

Melissa: carries the sea with memories

• Poem from our studies: Khaled Mattawa's "Echo and Elixir 2"
• Poem from my personal work: A poem, "The Afternoon Elephant in the Lunch Break Room." (posted below for the zine.)
• Artist Bio: carries the sea with memories
• Potluck item at Elmaz's: Maybe my pulled chicken adobo again? (;

The Afternoon Elephant in the Lunch Break Room



The Ravenel Bridge in Charleston
is a white, looming structure
over the south peninsula

where I climb over the fence
and think: not of dying
but meeting the black medical student

who jumped into the teal,
shimmering bay
just a few days earlier

at work, we heard the news



over the radio, interspersed
between minute-to-minute broadcast updates
about a white man who stopped traffic

drove into the bridge's concrete wall
wrote with black, bolded letters on
the side of his truck: I want to die

he didn't succeed in killing himself
but his life story was on the tip
of everybody's tongues

unlike the black medical student



whose story was spat out by the townsfolk
forgotten and thrown to the sea like her body
dismantled by the coldness

my coworker said: "Poor guy;
he gone and try to kill 'imself.
I gave my peace. Sent my prayers to heaven.

but that bridge's fence needs to be higher.
other folks can't be trusted."
"others like whom?" I asked her

but she dodged my looks



with her pretty, sea-blue eyes
so here I am, standing
at the edge of the bridge

at the tip of the concrete wall
and over the fence
cars past by me and honk

I'm not thinking of dying
I just came here to ask her:
how does it feel

to be remembered?

VJ's Poems and Five Word Bio

Poem from our readings: Lucille Clifton's "September Song" 

Poem from my collection: "Was he Black? (an oldie but goodie) or "Suffering in Silence" (a newbie)
The newbie will go in the zine

Bio: Venus wages peace through poetry

Bringing to the table? wine and or sparking cider

SUFFERING IN SILENCE (for 9/11 families who want to forget)

 By Venus Jones

I was silent yesterday/ You know when you've said everything there is to say about a dismal day/ Kind of silent/ When you want terrible memories to simply fade away/ Kind of silent/ I've said it already/ In different ways/ a thousand times/ Some people still haven't found their missing/Voice or vanguard/ Yet some how/ It comforts them to hear /about where I was// How heavy the mental lifting really was/ How heroic/ Everyday people can be/ Some survivors move people/Some thrivers move on/ He allowed the event/To eventually enter his body/The back pain/ The knee pain/The chest pain/ Got old/ We don't want to talk/ About the lack of assurance/ When the ailment and ache are hidden/ And people don't know--- What is not said lingers longer/ Inside he picks at the scab/ opens the wound again/ Yearly/ His wife cries/ the quiet tears that he can't / So they both turn away/ Suffering in silence/ What's the cost of remembrance?/ What's the cost to forget?/ Yesterday

Reading Details

For Reading:
Lucille Clifton: Mulberry Fields
LLesenia Bolorin: Dear L, (From my Opening Doors Project)
5 Word Bio: They said, so I say.

• poem #1: rick barot's "reading plato"
• poem # 2: a poem from my current project called "milwaukee aubade"
• bio: if dionysus were a feminist...

Bio + poem excitment

• Poem from our studies: Mộng-Lan's "Ravine"

• Poem from my personal work: A short excerpt from a series I titled "Bible Study"

• Artist Bio: Pink faced, glassy eyed honesty.