Saturday, October 12 2019
Blue Hour Reading Series with Raych Jackson and Berry Grass
The Whistler
Your hands have no more worth than tree stumps at harvest.
Don’t sit on my porch while I make myself useful.
Braid secrets in scalps on summer days for my sisters.
Secure every strand of gossip with tight rubber bands of value.
What possessed you to ever grow your nails so long?
How can you have history without braids?
– Raych Jackson, “A sestina for a black girl who does not know how to braid hair”
Watch Raych Jackson’s 2019 reading of her poem, Church Girl Learns to Pray Again, with Button Poetry:
When my stomach protested, my momma would bring ginger ale.
Without ice in the cup, she’d pray over bubbling ginger ale.
It’s the medicine & the communion. The lone drink & the chaser. You’re balanced on that high-string ginger ale.
Saturday, October 12, 2019
Six Points Reading Series with Raych Jackson and Camellia-Berry Grass
The Whistler
he forced me awake by snoring after
commendable I was able to fall asleep
this is his bed now he is rooted I am
snapped hanging on to assault charges by
splinters commendable I was able to fall
asleep maybe it was the best defense
Get Raych’s book, EVEN THE SAINTS AUDITION: http://bit.ly/raychsaints Become a Member for exclusive perks and videos: https://bit.ly/ButtonMember Raych Jackson, performing at Rustbelt 2018 in Detroit, MI. Help us decide which videos go up on YouTube: https://bit.ly/ButtonCurator About Button: Button Poetry is committed to developing a coherent and effective system of production, distribution, promotion and fundraising for spoken word and performance poetry.
A black girl is happiest when rooted to the scalp are braids.
She dances with them whipping down her back like corn in winds of harvest.
Braiding forces our reunions to be like the shifts your mothers work, long.
I find that being surrounded by only your own is more useful.
Gives our mixed blood more value.
Solidifies your place with your race, with your sisters.
– Raych Jackson, “A sestina for a black girl who does not know how to braid hair”
Get Raych’s book, EVEN THE SAINTS AUDITION: http://bit.ly/raychsaints Become a Member for exclusive perks and videos: https://bit.ly/ButtonMember Raych Jackson, performing at Honey in Minneapolis, MN. Help us decide which videos go up on YouTube: https://bit.ly/ButtonCurator About Button: Button Poetry is committed to developing a coherent and effective system of production, distribution, promotion and fundraising for spoken word and performance poetry.
Wednesday, March 8, 2017
Reading the Black Library: Celebrating Brooks with Quraysh Ali Lansana
Bing Reading Room
What you mean, you trying to catch a train? I don’t care a bit more than nothing about no train. You know what they say about trains. If you miss one now, there’ll soon come another. You don’t want to be riding on an empty stomach no how.
Don’t consolidate school for cognitively impaired … Invest in future with vote for Addison bond … Accept ‘Redskins’ name or move somewhere else.
You are just like your father. I would only say those words in tenderness. When he was born with that booty chin,
a cleft just like his father’s. When the baby fat began to melt from his bones and long, lean warrior limbs emerged. When I noticed that his laugh was developing a husky vibrato.
Sandra Jackson-Opoku is an award-winning poet, fiction writer, screenwriter, and journalist who writes frequently on culture and travel in the African diaspora. Related link: http://voices.cla.umn.edu/artistpages/jacksonopokuSandra.php
The traveling salesmen fed me pills that made the lining of my veins feel scraped out, my jaw ached… I knew every raindrop by its name, I sensed everything before it happened. Like I knew a certain oldsmobile would stop even before it slowed, and by the sweet voices of the family inside, I knew we’d have an accident in the rain. I didn’t care. They said they’d take me all the way.
– Denis Johnson, “Jesus’ Son”
Listen to Denis Johnson’s reading at the Poetry Center of Chicago:
If one rainy night you find yourself
leaving a phone booth, and you meet a man
with a lavendar umbrella, resist
your desire to follow him, to seek
shelter from the night in his solace.
Poetry@Tech Presents: Allison Joseph September 25, 2009 http://www.poetry.gatech.edu/index.php Produced by the Georgia Tech Cable Network
Don’t show your face in a sundown town,
or forget your race in a sundown town.
What ancient shame flushes my cheeks?
Reminded of my place in a sundown town.
Allison Joseph is the author of six poetry books: What Keeps Us Here (Ampersand, 1992), Soul Train (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1997), In Every Seam (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997), Imitation of Life (Carnegie Mellon, 2003), Worldly Pleasures (WordTech Communications, 2004), Voice: Poems (Mayapple Press, 2009), and My Father’s Kites: Poems (Steel Toe Books, 2010).
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
with Aricka Foreman
City Lit Books
you got to have the wildweed and treebark boiled
and calmed, wating for his skin like a shining baptism
back into what he was before gun barrels and bars
chewed their claim in his hide and spit him
stumbling backwards into screaming sunlight.
Listen to Tyehimba Jess’ 2007 reading with A. Van Jordan at the Poetry Center of Chicago:
Audio recording of the Poetry Center Reading Series featuring Tom Raworth, Diane di Prima, Kimiko Hahn, Eugene Gloria, Patricia Smith, Luis Rodriguez, Robert Bly, Brian Turner, Bruce Weigl, Tyehimba Jess, A. Van Jordan, Arielle Greenberg, Billy Corgan, Franz Wright, Czeslaw Milosz, Louise Glück, and Alicia Ostriker.
I sing this body ad libitum, Europe scraped raw between my teeth until, presto, “Ave Maria” floats to the surface from a Tituba tributary of “Swanee.” Until I’m a legatodarkling whole note, my voice shimmering up from the Atlantic’s hold; until I’m a coda of sail song whipped in salted wind…
Jess, a Detroit first book of poetry, leadbelly, was a winner of the 2004 National Poetry Series. The Library Journal and Black Issues Book Review both named it one of the “Best Poetry Books of 2005.”
Watch Tyehimba Jess read for the Chicago Poetry Center, with Aricka Foreman:
Poets Tyehimba Jess and Aricka Foreman are featured in an event hosted by the Poetry Center of Chicago and curated by Natasha Mijares. This program was recorded by Chicago Access Network (CAN TV).
