Can You Hear Me Now?
Writing SLAM! Poetry
Lesson Ideas
Links to more lessons, as well as other resources, can be found on the CYHMN? Website:
www.canyouhearmenowyychs.com
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Table of Contents
and Poetry List
1. Where I’m From: Poetics of Place* (p. 4)
- Adam Gottlieb “Maxwell Street” (Louder Than a Bomb movie)
- Lemon “Where I’m From” (video)
- The Digable Planets “Where I’m From” (video)
2. Invocation/Shout Out* (pp. 5 – 7)
- Sekou Sundiata “Shout Out: The Blue Oneness of Dreams” (print)
- Derrick Brown “To The Lightning Teachers” (video)
- James McAuley “Invocation” (print)
3. What It’s Like to Be (Me) . . . For Those of You Who Aren’t* (pp. 8 – 9)
- Patricia Smith “What It’s Like to Be a Black Girl (For Those of You Who
Aren’t)” (video)
4. The Corner: Smaller Places and the Stories in Front of Our Noses* (pp. 10 – 12)
- Yusef Komunyakaa “Blue Light Lounge Sutra for the Performance Poets at
Harold Park Hotel” (print)
- “Harlem Love Poem” by Yvonne Fly Onakeme Etaghene (print)
5. 1st Things 1st: The Narrative of the New* (pp. 13 – 14)
- Patricia Smith “First Kiss” (print)
- Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz “Ignition” (print)
6. The Utopian Future World* (pp. 15 – 18)
- Martin Espada “Image the Angels of Bread” (print and video)
- Tim Stafford “Zip-lines” (print)
7. Realist Portraiture: Pictures of People We Know* (p. 19)
- Dylan Garrity “Rigged Game” (video)
- Catalina Ferro “Emergency Exit Row” (video)
- Erin Dingle “Freeze Tag” (video)
8. Odes: Elevating and Praising the Mundane* (pp. 20 – 22)
- Kevin Coval “Ode to the Boombox” (print)
- Aracelis Girmay “Ode to the Watermelon” (print)
9. Battle Poems: The Elevation* (pp. 23 – 24)
- Katie Makkai “Pretty” (video)
- Kim Berez “Poem for Wicker Park Yuppies (A True Story)” (print)
10. Persona: From the I You Are Not* (pp. 25 – 26)
- Martin Espada “The Bouncer’s Confession” (print)
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11. Personism: A Poem Between Two People, Rather Than Two Pages* (p. 27)
- Sarah Kay and Phil Kaye “When Love Comes” (video)
- Eric Devenney and Amiana Banks “Zombie Love Poem” (video)
12. Resisting Colonialism: Fractured Poetics and Surrealism* (pp. 28 – 32)
- Daniel S. Solis “Welcome to the Revolution” (print)
- Suheir Hammad “break(place)” (print)
13. Defining Your Generation* (pp. 33 – 36)
- Alan Ginsberg “Howl” (print)
- Marty McConnell “Give Me One Good Reason to Die” (video)
14. Manifestos and Essentials* (p. 37)
- Shane Koyczan “Bullies Called Him Pork Chop” (video)
- Jeffrey McDaniel “The Foxhole Manifesto” (print)
15. Good Advice: Speaking to Others About Where You’ve Been (p. 38)
- Jeanann Verlee “Unsolicited Advice to Adolescent Girls with Pink Hair and
Crooked Teeth” (video)
NOTE:
Unless otherwise stated, all “videos” that are referred to can be found on YouTube.
*These lessons have been adapted from the writing materials created by the Young
Chicago Authors in support of Louder Than a Bomb. The original lessons (and many
more), including many of the provided poems, can be found here:
http://youngchicagoauthors.org/blog/?page_id=827
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1. Where I’m From: Poetics of Place
Focus: writing about a specific place (focus on sensory image, detail,
and emotion)
Poems: “Maxwell Street” by Adam Gottlieb from LTaB (video clip),
“Where I’m From” by Lemon (video), “Where I’m From” by The
Digable Planets (video)
Introduction and Analysis
1. Make a list of sensory details from your own neighborhood. Write at least the first
five things that come to your mind when considering the following categories:
a. out my front door; my kitchen smells like; 11 o’clock on Friday night, I
hear; the people; the best time/my favourite time
b. if you’ve recently moved, you can either write about your new
neighborhood or your old
2. Watch Adam Gottlieb’s performance of “Maxwell Street.”
3. What did you like about the piece and what stuck in your mind?
4. Watch “Where I’m From” by Lemon.
5. What did you like about this piece?
6. Watch “Where I’m From” by The Digable Planets.
7. What did you like about this performance?
8. In what ways are each of these poems similar in their treatments of place and ideas,
and in what wars are they different?
9. How do the poets create a vivid sense of place for the audience?
10. In what ways are our personal and cultural histories parts of our sense of place?
Writing Exercise
1. Write your own “Where I’m From” poem mimicking Adam’s, Lemon’s, or The
Digable Planets’ form. (You can repeat the phrase “where I’m from” or change it
and make it your own.)
2. You should use the categories and sensory imagery and information as springboard
into the description of your neighborhood.
3. The more specific the writing the better. In Adam’s poem, we learn the names of a
number of neighbourhoods, several historical events, key experiences of the life in
that place, etc.
4. Write for 10-15 minutes and fill an entire page.
5. Stop writing.
6. Read around.
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2. Invocation/Shout Out
Focus: lists and repetition; praising influences
Poems: “Shout Out: The Blue Oneness of Dreams” by Sekou
Sundiata (print poem), “To The Lightning Teachers” by Derrick
Brown (video), “Invocation” by James McAuley (print poem)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Introduction and Analysis
What is an invocation; what is its religious and ritual significance? When and where
do invocations take place?
The same with shout-outs: what is a shout out and when and where do we find
them?
Read and follow along with the text of Sekou Sundiata’s shout out.
What did you like and remember about the piece?
Watch a clip of Derrick Brown’s poem.
What did you like and remember about the piece?
How is repetition used in these poems to make them song-like, and to synthesize
giant, seemingly disparate images and ideas?
There are many references in the poems that the reader may not know. However,
“the familiar” to the poet does not necessarily mean the reader will be distanced.
How does Sundiata’s and Brown’s use of their respective “familiars” affect
audiences? Why do they affect you this way?
Writing Exercise
1. Write your own invocation or shout out.
2. You can repeat the phrase “come” or “here’s to” or make your own.
3. Write for 10-15 minutes and fill two whole pages.
4. Stop writing and read around.
“Shout Out: The Blue Oneness of Dreams” by Sekou Sundiata
Here’s to the best words
In the right place
At the perfect time
To the human mind blown-up
And refined.
To long conversations and the
Philosophical ramifications
Of a beautiful day.
To the twelve-steppers
At the thirteenth step,
May they never forget
The first step.
To the increase, to the decrease
To the do, to the did
To the do to the did
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To the do to the did
To the done done
To the lonely.
To the brokenhearted.
To the new, blue haiku.
Here’s to all or nothing at all.
Here’s to the sick, and the shut-in.
Here’s to the was you been to the is you in,
To what’s deep and deep to what’s down and down
To the lost, and the blind, and the almost found.
Here’s to the crazy
The lazy
The bored
The ignored
The beginners
The sinners
The losers
The winners.
To the smooth
And the cool
And even to the fools.
Here’s to your ex-best-friend.
To the rule-benders and the repeat offenders.
To the lovers and the troublers,
The engaging
The enraging
To the healers and the feelers
And the fixers and the tricksters,
To a star falling through a dream.
To a dream, when you know what it means.
To the bottom
To the root
To the bass, uh, boom!
To the drum
Here’s to the was you been to the is you in
To what’s deep and deep to what’s down and down
To the lost, and the blind, and the almost found.
Here’s to somebody within the sound of your voice this morning.
Here’s to somebody who can’t be within the sound of your voice tonight.
To a low-cholesterol pig sandwich smothered in swine without the pork.
To a light buzz in your head
And a soundtrack in your mind
Going on and on and on and on and on like a good time.
Here’s to promises that break by themselves,
Here’s to the breaks with great promise.
To people who don’t wait in the car when you tell them to wait in the car.
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Here’s to what you forgot and who you forgot.
Here’s to the unforgettable.
Here’s to the was you been to the is you in
To what’s deep and deep to what’s down and down
To the lost, and the blind, and the almost found.
“Invocation” by James McAuley
Radiant Muse, my childhood’s nurse,
Who gave my wondering mouth to taste
The fragrant honeycomb of verse;
And later smilingly embraced
My boyhood, ripening its crude
Harsh vigour in your solitude:
Compose the mingling thoughts that crowd
Upon me to a lucid line;
Teach me at last to speak aloud
In words that are no longer mine;
For at your touch, discreet, profound,
Ten thousand years softly resound.
I do not now revolt, or quarrel
With the paths you make me tread,
But choose the honeycomb and laurel
And walk with patience towards the dead;
Expecting, where my rest is stayed,
A welcome in that windowless shade.
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3. What It’s Like to Be Me (For Those of You Who Aren’t)
Focus: lists, identity
Poems: “What It’s Like to Be a Black Girl (For Those of You Who
Aren’t” by Patricia Smith (video)
Introduction and Analysis
1. Create a list of all the various ways you can identify yourself (eg. daughter, brother,
black man, Jewish, reader, hip-hopper, skater, jock, teenager, Catholic, teacher,
volunteer, driver, gamer, writer, friend, etc.).
2. Listen to Patricia Smith’s poem.
3. What did you like and find interesting about the poem?
4. How does the poet use repetition, pace, and tone of voice to affect the audience?
5. How does the poet use the juxtaposition of imagery with our expectations about the
identity of the speaker to affect the audience?
6. What three identities does Patricia Smith write about in this poem?
Writing Exercise
1. Select two of your identities to write about.
2. Write the title of your poem at the top of their paper using Patricia’s form (eg.
“What’s It’s Like to Be a Jewish B-boy (For Those of You Who Aren’t)”).
3. Use “it’s” to help structure your poem as it allows the ability to string together a
variety of images to build one unified whole.
4. This is your opportunity to tell those who do not know exactly what it is like to be
you, what it’s like, so take advantage of it. Describe—using vivid imagery and
precise and powerful details—what it’s like to be you.
5. Write for 10-15 minutes and try to fill an entire page.
6. Stop writing and read around
“What It’s Like to Be a Black Girl (For Those of You Who Aren’t)” by Patricia Smith
first of all, it’s being 9 years old and
feeling like you’re not finished, like your
edges are wild, like there’s something,
everything, wrong. it’s dropping food coloring
in your eyes to make them blue and suffering
their burn in silence. it’s popping a bleached
white mophead over the kinks of your hair abd
primping in front of mirrors that deny your
reflection. it’s finding a space between your
legs, a disturbance at your chest, and not knowing
what to do with the whistles. it’s jumping
double dutch until your legs pop, it’s sweat
and vaseline and bullets, it’s growing tall and
wearing a lot of white, it’s smelling blood
in your breakfast, it’s learning to say fuck with
grace but learning to fuck without it, it’s
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flame and fists and life according to Motown,
it’s finally having a man reach out for you
then caving in
around his fingers.
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4. The Corner: Smaller Places & the Poems in Front of Our Noses
Focus: description and place and stories that we overlook
Poems: “Blue Light Lounge Sutra for the Performance Poets at Harold
Park Hotel” by Yusef Komunyakaa (video), “Harlem Love Poem” by
Yvonne Fly Onakeme Etaghene (print)
Introduction
1. Write a list of your favorite spots to hang out in your neighborhood, in your city, in
your country, in the world. Anyplace is useful, but it must be a place you know well
and visit fairly often.
2. Who are some of the people who are in that place? What do you do in that place?
Describe both.
3. Listen to "Blue Light Lounge Sutra for the Performance Poets at Harold Park
Hotel" by Yusef Komunyakaa and read "Harlem Love Poem" by Yvonne Fly
Okaneme Etaghene.
4. What did you like and remember about these pieces?
5. What are some of the rich and vivid descriptions, as well as the specific, familiar
and seemingly mundane details given about the places mentioned in the poems?
6. What are some of the stories that are happening in these places that might be
overlooked by others?
Writing Exercise
1. Select one location from your list.
2. Write the story or a scene from that location, using sensory imagery and
information. The more specific the writing, the better.
3. Write for 10-15 minutes. Fill an entire page.
4. Stop writing. Read around.
"Blue Light Lounge Sutra for the Performance Poets at Harold Park Hotel" by Yusef
Komunyakaa
the need gotta be
so deep words can't
answer questions
all night long notes
stumble off the tongue
& color the air indigo
so deep fragments of gut
& flesh cling to the song
you gotta get into it
so deep salt crystallizes on eyelashes
the need gotta be
so deep you can vomit up ghosts
& not feel broken
till you are no more
than a half ounce of gold
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in painful brightness
you gotta get into it
blow that saxophone
so deep all the sex & dope in this world
can't erase your need
to howl against the sky
the need gotta be
so deep you can't
just wiggle your hips
& rise up out of it
chaos in the cosmos
modern man in the pepperpot
you gotta get hooked
into every hungry groove
so deep the bomb locked
in rust opens like a fist
into it so deep
rhythm is a pre-memory
the need gotta be basic
animal need to see
& know the terror
we are made of honey
cause if you wanna dance
this boogie be ready
to let the devil use your head for a drum.
Yvonne Fly Onakeme Etaghene "Harlem Love Poem”
I love Harlen for the brothas playing football across Lenox avenue,
across traffic,
above heads
like what? . . . this is Harlem.
old school soul music playing on the streets
sweet oils and incense
flirting with my senses
as I walk to the #2 train
at 125th
we all know:
nothing
beats
Brooklyn,
the Bronx rolls hard,
queens is huge - the most underestimated,
& I dont know shit about Staten Island
except that's where Wu-Tang comes from/
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it's just something about the streets
of Harlem:
vibrant, alive, honest
the cracks in the sidewalk look like crow's feet
on the face of the city
laughing at me for being in such a hurry
all the damn time/
Harlem: where blackness is a political statement
& IHOP is my spot, folks do not know
about IHOP on Adam Clayton Powell!
living up the street from the Apollo
& a few blocks from Langston Hughes' house
means something
everyday
I get called a queen
it's enough to melt my hardened heart
make me smile once or twice
much later in my day
remembering/
I thought I was gonna have to move to Oakland
to find peace of mind, until Harlem loved me/
after living in Harlem
it was like the streets were calling my name
from Minneapolis
from Los Angeles
from Green Castle, Indiana
come home, we know what you like to eat
we know how you like to dress baby
we know you walk hard
but are tender like feathers inside
come home
your Nigeria away from Nigeria
folks have church on the streets in Harlem
and even tho I ain't no Christian
I got to respect that
every Sunday
you can't ignore the word
you got to walk around our God
but come correct
& you are welcome to join in
if so moved.
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5. 1st Things 1st: Narrative of The New
Focus: narrative storytelling, first times
Poems: “First Kiss” by Patricia Smith (print), “Ignition” by Cristin
O’Keefe Aptowicz (print)
Introduction
1. Make a list of three different “firsts” that have been significant in your life.
2. Read the poems “First Kiss” by Patricia Smith and “Ignition” by Cristin O’Keefe
Aptowicz.
3. What did you like and remember about the poems?
4. When you read the title of “First Kiss,” what tone did you expect the poet to use
when describing the experience?
5. Identify the violent language and imagery used in the poem to describe the kiss.
How does her word choice or diction match the emotional mood of the poem itself?
6. How does the experience of a “first” in “Ignition” differ from the one experienced
in “First Kiss”?
7. Upon the spectrum from “ideal” to “truth,” where does your “first” fall? What tone
and imagery would be most appropriate to describe your “first”?
Writing Exercise
1. Select and write about the first time you did something. Use vivid and powerful
sensory imagery and information - the more specific the writing, the better.
2. Carefully choose the language you use in your poem, and ensure that the language
and diction match the emotional content.
3. Write for 10-15 minutes: try to fill a whole page.
4. Stop writing. Read around.
“First Kiss” by Patricia Smith
All previous attempts had failed miserably,
so I’d only dreamed of the sizzle
until Lloyd Johnson, a swaggering boy who breathed candy,
mashed me flat against the side of a Kedzie Ave. storefront.
I tried to kiss the way I thought Diana Ross would
(a dry, tight-lipped smack that hinted at so much more),
but this was nothing like the smith, seamless smooches I’d
dreamed of.
This was a runaway bashing of throats, tongues and teeth,
this was a collision of misshapen mouths,
this was a feverish lip-tangling
that left my face feeling like the punchline to a bad joke.
So of course I fell in love,
which is what Motown said you did after someone kissed you.
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Lloyd Johnson was having none of that, however.
He spoke to me in snickers from that moment on,
as if he’d ripped open a part of me
and didn’t want to see what had spilled out.
He told everyone that I wouldn’t let him touch
what was shaking beneath my shirt,
he wouldn’t let me call him boyfriend,
he wouldn’t even let him call me Lloyd anymore.
Our faces would never collide again.
Then everyone told me why.
It drives a boy crazy when he finds out
he’s kissed a girl
no one has bothered to kiss before.
When the romance between Lloyd and Patricia began and
ended with that one sloppy kiss, it took my daddy to slap a ____
on that heartbreak.
My daddy was a factory worker, worked at the Leaf Candy
Company on the west side of Chicago all his life, but nobody
could tell me he didn’t know about romance. He was short and
skinny and almost bald, but you couldn’t beat the ladies off him
with a stick.
So I thought I was lucky because daddies teach little girls
about little boys, that’s just the way it is. But when daddy suddenly
isn’t around, you start waiting again. You wait for the
music to give you hope.
“Ignition” by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz
like the first time you step
into the driveway and see no parents
the first time you open that door
and the sound it makes when you close it
the first time you hear the rebel’s yell of your engine
and the buzzing confederacy it stirs in your ribs
the first time you leave the neighborhood
and the whole city explodes onto your radar
and you could go anywhere, anywhere,
and the radio feels like a soundtrack
and the radio feels like an anthem
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6.
The Utopian Future World
Focus: imagine the world to come, hope for the future
Poems: “Imagine the Angels of Bread” by Martin Espada (print and
video), “Zip-lines” by Tim Stafford (print)
Introduction
1. What are the most significant problems facing our world today? How would
you solve each of these problems (one solution for each; may be silly or
sarcastic or serious)? Identify three specific ways that your daily life would
change in this perfect world.
OR
2. Create some lists to answer the following questions: what would the city/county
look like in an ideal world? what would everyone have? how many hours a
week would we work? what would we do for work? where would we live? etc.
3. Read Stafford’s “Zip-lines.”
4. What do you like and remember about Stafford’s poem?
5. What problems are solved in the world Stafford imagines? Why is it a better
place than our current world?
6. Read silently and listen to Espada’s piece.
7. What did you like about this poem?
8. What problems are solved in the world Espada imagines? Why is it a better
place than our current world?
9. In what ways does Espada invert traditional power relationships in his poem,
and what are the fundamental nature of the change that is longed for?
10. Which of the solutions, Stafford’s or Espada’s is more likely to happen? Where
is the line drawn between realistic and fantastic solutions to problems?
Writing Exercise
1. Imagine the world that will be – the world that you would like to live in that is
just and equitable. Imagine and re-imagine traditional relationships in the future.
2. Write an anthem about this world: you may use the phrase “this is the year” or
describe your life as you live in this world.
3. Write with hope for 10-15 minutes; fill a whole page.
4. Stop writing. Read around.
“Zip-lines” by Tim Stafford
After breakfast
I drink a cup of coffee
Step into my harness
Put on my helmet and gloves
And take a zip-line to work
Actually, it’s more like zip-lines
The first one connects to the back porch
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My fourth floor apartment
It carries me over our pool and two blocks of ranch homes
Stopping at a platform that connects me with downtown
That cable runs just east of the high school football field
So I can race my shadow to the end zone
There are platforms and cables scattered throughout my city
Filling the sky like a permanent laser light show
Only now, we can ride the beams
Nobody knows who built the first ones
They appeared overnight strung up from the water tower
Angling down to various hubs: downtown, the mall, schools, etc.
An anonymous ad was placed in the newspaper
That said only “ENJOY!” in tall black letters
Soon folks started stringing up their own lines
The Mayor showed his support by connecting a line
from his house to City Hall
The businessmen to the bank
The baker to the donut shop
The police to the donut shop
Wealthy families flew in experts from Costa Rica’s Cloud Forest
To design, test, and maintain their own personal lines
Teenagers would kiss their sweethearts good-night
and zip from their balcony to home with grins
that reflected so much of the moon
They became spotlights
Now
The sky of my city looks like giants playing cat’s cradle
Every day it is filled with
Thousands of citizens soaring
Where there was once only smog
Automobiles remain idle in driveways
Reduced to overpriced lawn ornaments
The subway no longer runs
It’s cars salvaged and scrapped
To create more steel for more cable
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Conductors now working for the newly formed
Zip-line Safety and Management Dept.
Testing lines and placing poorly laced shoes in
Lost and Found
The kid who bags my groceries
Insists that other zip-line cities are
Popping up all over the nation
And that he’ll be the first person
To zip cross-country
On lines strung up from the
Abandoned smokestacks of Pittsburg
To the empty water towers of Chicago
From Kansas flat-land silo’s
Through Utah’s Arches
To Northern California’s ancient redwoods
His parents think he’s crazy
I think it’s the best idea I’ve heard in a long time
“Imagine the Angels of Bread” by Martin Espada
This is the year that squatters evict landlords,
gazing like admirals from the rail
of the roof deck
or levitating hands in praise
of steam in the shower;
this is the year
that shawled refugees deport judges
who stare at the floor
and their swollen feet
as files are stamped
with their destination;
this is the year that police revolvers,
stove-hot, blister the fingers
of raging cops,
and nightsticks splinter
in their palms;
this is the year
that dark skinned men
lynched a century ago
return to sip coffee quietly
with the apologizing descendants
of their executioners.
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This is the year that those
who swim the border's undertow
and shiver in boxcars
are greeted with trumpets and drums
at the first railroad crossing
on the other side;
this is the year that the hands
pulling tomatoes from the vine
uproot the deed to the earth that sprouts the vine,
the hands canning tomatoes
are named in the will
that owns the bedlam of the cannery;
this is the year that the eyes
stinging from the poison that purifies toilets
awaken at last to the sight
of a rooster-loud hillside,
pilgrimage of immigrant birth;
this is the year that cockroaches
become extinct, that no doctor
finds a roach embedded
in the ear of an infant;
this is the year that the food stamps
of adolescent mothers
are auctioned like gold doubloons,
and no coin is given to buy machetes
for the next bouquet of severed heads
in coffee plantation country.
If the abolition of slave-manacles
began as a vision of hands without manacles,
then this is the year;
if the shutdown of extermination camps
began as imagination of a land
without barbed wire or the crematorium,
then this is the year;
if every rebellion begins with the idea
that conquerors on horseback
are not many-legged gods, that they too drown
if plunged in the river,
then this is the year.
So may every humiliated mouth,
teeth like desecrated headstones,
fill with the angels of bread.
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7. Realist Portraiture: Pictures of People We Know
Focus: description of people you know, choosing a purpose for your poem
Poems: “Rigged Game” by Dylan Garrity (video), “Emergency Exit Row”
by Catalina Ferro (video), “Freeze Tag” by Erin Dingle (video)
Introduction
1. Write a list of people you know well or interesting people you’ve come across in
your school, neighborhood, or in your family or your travels, etc.
2. Focus on three of the people on your list.
3. For those three people, write down the place the person hangs out the most or where
you met them, what items they have around them, and what they do. Where are
these characters going? Who would they like to be? What is one wish they might
make? Who might they ask for a favor? What do they say? What do they want to
say? What do they want people to know?
4. Listen to “Rigged Game,” “Emergency Exit Row,” and “Freeze Tag.”
5. After each, discuss what is memorable about the characters described in these
poems.
6. Note that two are about someone the poet knows very well (a sister and a daughter)
and the other is about people the poet only knows in passing.
7. What is similar about how the poets talk about the people they are describing? What
is different? Why do you think this might be?
8. How do each of these poets connect us to the people and experiences they are
describing?
9. Which poem provides a better (more clear, more interesting, etc.) portrait of the
character(s)? Why do you think so?
Writing Exercise
1. Select one person from your list to write about.
2. Write the story of meeting them or a scene set in the location where you met them.
Use sensory imagery and remember that the more specific the writing, the better.
3. Write for 10-15 minutes. Fill an entire page.
4. Stop writing. Read around.
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8. Odes: Elevating and Praising the Mundane
Focus: odes and praise, finding beauty by paying attention
Poems: “Ode to the Boombox” by Kevin Coval (print), “Ode to the
Watermelon” by Aracelis Girmay (print)
Introduction
1. Write a list of things you love: foods, fruits, appliances, articles of clothing,
days of the week, parts of speech, seasons, streets, drinks, pets, etc.
2. Read “Ode to the Boom Box” by Kevin Coval.
3. What do you like about this poem?
4. What was so important about the boom box for this poet?
5. What makes the closing lines of this poem so powerful? To what extent are
killer closing lines a requirement of all poetry, but performance poetry
especially?
6. Read “Ode to the Watermelon” by Aracelis Girmay.
7. What do you like about his poem?
8. What was so important about watermelon for this poet?
9. What makes the closing lines of this poem powerful or interesting?
Writing Exercise
1. Select one thing you love from your list.
2. Write an ode—a poem of praise—about or to this thing. The more specific the
writing, the better.
3. Write for 10 – 15 minutes and fill an entire page.
4. Stop writing. Read around.
Ode to the Boom Box by Kevin Coval
Man shall not live by bread alone,
but every word that proceedeth
out of the mouth of God. – Matthew 4:4, King James Bible
yellow with two tape decks. speakers
at the head of my bed, above pillows
the possible voice at constant watch.
i'd plug into this mouth where g-ds
lived, headphones murmured the speak
that quiets and saves before sleep. mom
at work or date. younger brother, a seraph
in the adjacent room. baby sitter settled
and stopped touching. this instrument
at night, my own. alone with bootlegs
of men mostly from New York. Black men
who are reporters, who report on being
Black men in New York and American
20
projects, and boroughs like Brooklyn
and the Bronx, the South, South Bronx.
after school the boom box came public, is
latchkey kid company and accompaniment
before nintendo, E and i in lotus, apprentices
in front of the master craft. real. live. no tv
for hours hunched over your push button
mouth making pause tapes, slight of hand
right-timing miracles to get the beat blend
before we heard of a mixer, cd player, we
flipped, a to b-side, blank tapes recording
the low frequency college radio midnight
mix show. we worshipped your base. but
sometimes you’d hurl the tape back, a mess
of metallic string and sometimes you’d purr
magic in the corners of our childhood, like
Heka, Egyptian g-d and medicine man,
activating our imagination so we may fast
forward and rewind ourselves to a place
different from our own.
“Ode to the Watermelon” by Aracelis Girmay
It is June.
At El TaContento near 17th,
the cook slices clean
through the belly of a watermelon,
Sandía, día santo!
& honey bees
grown in glistening temples
dance away from their sugary hives,
ants, in lines,
beetles, toward your red,
(if you are east, they are going east)
over & over,
toward your worldly luscious,
blushed fruit freckled with seeds.
Roadside, my obtuse pleasure,
under strings of lights,
a printed skirt, in grocery barrels,
above park grasses on Sunday afternoon
to the moan & dolorous moan
of swings.
21
Ripe conjugationer of water & sun,
your opening calls
even the birds to land.
& in Palestine,
where it is a crime to wave
the flag of Palestine in Palestine,
watermelon halves are raised
against Israeli troops
for the red, black, white, green
of Palestine. Forever,
I love you your color hemmed
by rind. The blaring juke & wet of it.
Black seeds star red immense
as poppy fields,
white to outsing jasmine.
Again, all that green.
Sandía, día santo,
summer’s holy earthly,
bandera of the ground,
language of fields,
even under a blade you swing
your quiet scent
in the pendulum of any gale.
Men bow their heads, open-mouthed,
to coax the sugar
from beneath your workdress.
Women lift you
to their teeth.
Sandía, día santo,
yours is a sweetness
to outlast slaughter:
Tongues will lose themselves inside you,
scattering seeds. All over,
the land will hum
with your wild,
raucous blooming.
22
9. Battle Poems: The Elevation
Focus: rants and critical discourse, a letter to someone, saying what you most
want to say
Poems: “Pretty” by Katie Makkai (video) “Poem for Wicker Park Yuppies (A
True Story)” by Kim Berez (print)
Introduction
1. Make a list of things you do not like: days of the week, abstract concepts, foods,
subjects in school, politicians, etc. You can not name someone in the school or the
room.
2. Read Berez’ poem and listen to Makkai’s poem.
3. What do you like about the poems?
4. Why were these poems written? Why are the authors upset?
5. What imagery, figurative language, tones of voice, pacing do they use to reinforce
their anger?
Writing Exercise
1. Select a person or idea from your list.
2. Write a battle poem/letter to that person or idea for 10-15 minutes.
3. Fill an entire page.
4. Stop writing. Read around.
“Poem for Wicker Park Yuppies (A True Story)” by Kim Berez
You people
talk about travesties, Eurodollar exchange rates
in a foreign land
I can’t find on a map
‘cuz I went to Chicago public schools
& maybe ‘cuz I barely been out of the neighborhood still
You know what’s happening all around the world
but you don’t know what’s going on all in front of your face
Hey! I said you people so well informed
reading the paper all morning in Café Purgatory
sipping $2 a cup herb tea from filtered water with no bugspray in it
or $4 a cup organically grown coffee
from only companies that don’t exploit Nicaraguans
How wonderful to have that choice!
Instead if hunting for a decent-paying job here
To pay the ever increasing rents
to cover the ever increasing taxes
here where the yuppies ever increase
23
You people walk around blinded by your focus
on worlds so far removed
Deafened by constant anal-ization of the world inside yourself
Can’t you open one eye and see what was in front of your nose ISN’T
What’s missing from this picture?
One less teenage hoodlum to have to pass on the street
nervously with your ‘significant other’
If you noticed you’d think changing demographics
But what’s missing here
WAS
MY COUSIN
My cousin Ricky
was-blown-away
Right here on the corner where you live your ‘pioneering’ life
We buried him
while your face was buried in USA Today
B E Z droning in your earphones
deafening your senses
to such nuisance
& Ricky does not sleep nights no more
so he walks around in my dreams
He’s not carrying the pieces the cops found him with
He’s just a boy with restless legs
Just a number now to read with your coffee and scorn
I mean scone
24
10. Persona: From the I You are Not
Focus: telling the story of someone who is not you, selecting an angle
Poems: “The Bouncer’s Confession” by Martin Espada (print)
Introduction
1. Write a list of people you know well—of people you see regularly—but don’t talk
to much: people who, perhaps, have very different attitudes, interests or beliefs than
you do.
2. Read Espada’s poem.
3. What stands out about the poem most clearly to you?
4. How does the poet help you to understand, relate to, or connect with, the
experiences of his character?
5. What are the benefits of writing a poem from the perspective of someone you are
not?
Writing Exercise
1. Select a person on your list and write a poem from his or her perspective. Consider
who the audience will be for this poem. Where is the speaker while they are
speaking?
2. Use sensory imagery and information. The more specific the writing, the better it is.
3. Write for 10-15 minutes and fill an entire page.
4. Stop writing. Read around.
“The Bouncer’s Confession” by Martin Espada
I know about the Westerns
where stunt doubles bellyflop
through banisters rigged to collapse
or crash through chairs designed to splinter.
A few times the job was like that.
A bone fragment still floats
in my right ring finger
because the human skull
is harder than any fist.
Mostly, I stood watch at the door
and imagined their skulls
brimming with alcohol
like divers drowning in their own helmets.
Their heads would sag, shaking
to stay awake, elbows sliding out
across the bar.
I gathered their coats. I found their hats.
I rolled up their paper bags
full of sacred objects only I could see.
25
I interrogated them for an address,
a hometown. I called the cab,
I slung an arm across my shoulders
to walk them down the stairs.
One face still wakes me some mornings.
I remember black-frame eyeglasses
off-balance, his unwashed hair.
I remember the palsy that made claws
of his hands, that twisted his mouth
in the trembling parody of a kiss.
I remember the stack of books he read
beside the beer he would not stop drinking.
I remember his fainted face
pressed against the bar.
This time, I dragged a corkscrewed body
slowly down the stairs, hugged to my ribs,
his books in my other hand,
only to see the impatient taxi
pulling away. I yelled at acceleration smoke,
then fumbled the body with the books
back up the stairs, and called the cab again.
No movie barrooms. No tall stranger
shot the body spread-eagled across the broken table.
No hero, with a hero’s uppercut, knocked them out,
not even me. I carried them out.
26
11. Personism: A Poem Between Two People, Rather Than Two Pages
Focus: intimate details, relationships, writing for multiple voices
Poems: “When Love Comes” by Sarah Kay and Phil Kaye (video), “Zombie
Love Poem” by Eric Devenney and Amiana Banks (video)
Introduction
1. Make a list with three columns and rows. At the top of each column put the name of
someone you love, someone you used to love, and someone you loved for a very
short period of time.
2. Beneath each name consider and write the following: where was the last place you
saw this person, what is something they say often, what do they like to consume,
what song/literature/piece of art do you associate with them, what was the most
interesting conversation you had with this person, what was the most angry
conversation you had with this person, what would you like to say to this person
that you haven't said, what was something you learned from your experience with
this person, etc.
3. Watch "When Love Arrives."
4. In what ways were two people necessary for this poem to work? Give specific
examples of phrases, topics, or experiences where two voices were necessary.
5. What else do you remember and find important or interesting about this poem?
6. Watch "Zombie Love Poem."
7. In what ways were two poeple necessary for this poem to work? Give specific
examples of phrases, topics, or experiences where two voices were necessary.
8. What else do you remember and find important or interesting about this poem?
Writing Exercise
1. Select one person from your list.
2. Write a poem to that person: tell them something you have wanted to tell them as
well as record how they would respond or how you wish they would respond. Use
sensory imagery and figurative language. Specific = better.
3. write for 10-15 minutes and fill an entire page.
4. Stop writing. Read around.
27
12. Resisting Colonialism: Fractured Poetics and Surrealism
Focus: word play, fractured linguistics, the immigrant experience, allusions
Poems: “Welcome to the Revolution” by Daniel S. Solis (print), from
“break(place)” by Suheir Hammad (print)
Introduction
1. Write a list of words: write five words under the categories Canada, gender,
race, city (they are in), music.
2. Read Solis’ and Hammad’s poems. What words are being repeated? Why might
they be repeated?
3. How do each of the poets treat and transition through space and place? Why
might that be?
4. What do these poems feel like? What techniques and word choices create these
feelings?
Writing Exercise
1. Put on some music without words. Write about occupation (whatever that
means to you). Every so often, how and whenever you see fit, choose a
category. At that point, you must put a word from your list beneath that
category into the poem, wherever you are, immediately.
2. Write a story or a scene from that location. Stress that right now, you should not
be concerned with meaning.
3. Write for 10-15 minutes.
4. Stop writing. Read around.
from “break(place)” by Suheir Hammad
(nyc)
the humidity condenses breath
bodies stick and stones gather in a lower
back
gray thick moving slow and alone
i am looking for my body
for my form in the foreign
in translation
what am i trying
to say i sit in this body dream
in this body expel
in this body inherit
in this body
here is the poem
i left a long time ago
remember stubble remember
unwanted remember touch
i can’t remember where i left my
body
28
poem needs form lungs need
air memory needs loss i need
to translate my body because it
is profane
what had happened was
i wrote myself out of damage
this is the body of words and
spaces
i have found to re-construct
(deheisha)
my home
girl is there now the air is thick
people don’t breathe well hold their
tongues against cursing all of existence
all that would carry on living during this
she wakes to news just the beginning
the same story the one which leaves
bodies
behind as tokens of nothing
one family
roasting corn
now all husks
silk
spraying
wind
my home girl’s body
would be called white be claimed jewish
is mother and loved by a man who sits
in a bay
by telephone and radio and reaches for
his lover’s body
and finds only formless
she is witness and rage
i pray her body save her
come back with her offer lover a home
daughter a beginning and all of us testimony
the people there tell her they will survive
this
if a body can carry through you follow
(beirut)
a green body obsessed white
possessed by all male religion sword
sniper garnishes silicone
radishes video radiology vixens eastern
29
european prostitution manic
depression olive oil sweat camps resorts
hair gel all that is life
all that is death
the roads and bridges been hit
the airport been hit
where is a body to go
we lived there once my parents sisters
and me
i left my skin there still boiling
“Welcome to the Revolution” by Daniel S. Solis
I was,
walking the University of New Mexico
under the pines
cutting through the perfect mountain air
searching the shadows
for the bloodstains
from the riots.
Student led anti-war demonstrations
when “Mexican-American” Guardsman
bayoneted Chicano students
having traded obsidian blade
and Toledo steel
for
oiled and honed army issue
in fixed position
point and thrust
and the blood blossomed from earth brown skin.
And that was less than thirty years ago
and I was tracking down those puddles
so I could put my fingers into them
like some kind of
coagulated
Holy water
blood pudding.
And maybe I could put my thumb
and pull out a heart
Cem-Anahuac-City of the Aztecs
heart of the world
beating
like a gory jewel
in the undulating copper sun of my dreams
and I lost focus
30
closed my eyes
vertigo unfolding
when a hand gripped my shoulder
hard.
I opened my eyes and there he was,
in the dream flesh,
Cesar Chavez,
el mero-mero de el Movimiento Chicano.
“Pos, que diablos tienes, bato?” he asks
and I think,
my dance card of demons is way too long to list
but before I can answer
he punches me in the gut
a beautiful right that knocks me on my ass
he stands over me radiating
that terrible sweet saint’s intensity
eyes pools of onyx fire,
glittering love,
and destruction.
“I thought you were non-violent!” I gasp.
“You call that violence?” he asks, sincerely amused and appalled.
“The only violence here is your immense ignorance pendejo!
Dip your fingers into the dried up blood of students? What crap!
Why not go for fresh blood?
Dip your fingers into the blood of Zapatistas dying in the Jungles of Chiapas.
Dip your finers, hands, into the shattered dreams of immigrants being hounded
by the border patrol, coyotes and la Migra.
Dip your fingers, hands arms into all of the sangre Chicano being spilled by gangs
The cops and clicas in the streets and callejones of Dallas, Chicago, L.A. and Albuquerque
...
you think it stopped flowing
just because the P.B.S. special ended?
just because you quit thinking about it?
just because there was no one around to yell ‘VIVA LA RAZA!’
and wake your big ass up?”
He grabbed my face and shoved it into a mirror and said
“That’s violence! Everyday you don’t speak the language of your Grandmothers
and your Grandmothers’ Grandmothers, that’s violence!”
and I knew
he was right
and I turned to him,
but he was gone.
And in his place
was Santos Rodriguez,
a wavering twelve year old angel
with half his head blown away by the Dallas police
31
and I trembled –
as he took my hand
and we took flight,
rose into the air,
and we flew backwards,
past the L.A. riots
smoke and fire licked at us
and we rose higher,
screams from furnace heat napalms victims Viet Nam
and we rose higher
Mexico City 1968, students machine gunned in the bloody streets
and we rose higher . . ..
All the way to a valley in northern Mexico
at the beginning of the last century
where the La Cucaracha,
the troops of Pancho Villa were encamped.
Where,
Adelitas,
Amazonian Mestizas
of legendary courage and ferocity sat,
oiling rifles, honing machetes.
While the men,
prepared atole tortillas and tamales.
Unself-conscious role reversal
because revolution is more important than machismo.
And Santos sets me down face to face
with el General, Francisco Villa
and he is grinning with a humor full of danger
and in the silence I realize
that everyone is staring at me,
waiting . . .
and Villa’s face
changes
to the face of a child
waiting,
to be taught
to read
in English
and Spanish.
and a voice in my head says,
“Welcome to the revolution, cabroooon!”
32
13. Defining Your Generation
Focus: list poems and anthems, generational portrait/ode
Poems: “Howl” by Alan Ginsberg (print), “Give Me One Good Reason to
Die” by Marty McConnell (video)
Introduction
1. Write a list of what defines your generation. Consider technology, music, historical
events, slang, the difference between themselves and their parents, clothing, trends,
TV shows, movies, hit songs, etc.
2. Read and/or listen to an excerpt from “Howl” (note that there is explicit language
and imagery in this poem) and the entirety of “Give Me One Good Reason to Die.”
3. What effect is created through the repetition of the “we” and “who,” the series of
small portraits of people and groups?
4. What tones of voice do these two poets use to describe various elements of their
generations? Note specific pairings of elements or events and the words/tones of
voice used to describe them.
5. What effects are created through the poets’ uses of sexual imagery and profanity?
6. According to each of these poets, what are the defining elements of their respective
generations?
Writing Exercise
1. Write a generational portrait. Use the phrase “we who,” if you wish. Use sensory
imagery and detailed descriptions, using your lists as a springboard.
2. Create something epic and timeless.
3. Write for 10-20 minutes.
4. Stop writing. Read around.
from “Howl” by Alan Ginsberg
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery
of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat
up smoking in the supernatural darkness of
cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities
contemplating jazz,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El1 and
saw Mohammedan angels2 staggering on tenement3
roofs illuminated,
who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes
1
El: elevated train; the opposite of a subway because it travels above the streets rather than below
Mohammeden angels: the prophet Mohammed said that the angel Gabriel came to him and told him he would be Allah’s messenger to
humankind
3
tenement: apartment buildings made cheaply for families with low incomes
2
33
hallucinating Arkansas and Blake4-light tragedy
among the scholars of war,
who were expelled from the academies for crazy &
publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull . . .
. . . who journeyed to Denver, who died in Denver, who
came back to Denver & waited in vain, who
watched over Denver & brooded & loned in
Denver and finally went away to find out the
Time, & now Denver is lonesome for her heroes,
who fell on their knees in hopeless cathedrals praying
for each other's salvation and light and breasts,
until the soul illuminated its hair for a second,
who crashed through their minds in jail waiting for
impossible criminals with golden heads and the
charm of reality in their hearts who sang sweet
blues to Alcatraz5,
who retired to Mexico to cultivate a habit, or Rocky
Mount to tender Buddha or Tangiers to boys
or Southern Pacific to the black locomotive or
Harvard to Narcissus6 to Woodlawn7 to the
daisychain or grave,
who demanded sanity trials accusing the radio of hypnotism
& were left with their insanity & their
hands & a hung jury,
who threw potato salad at CCNY8 lecturers on Dadaism9
and subsequently presented themselves on the
granite steps of the madhouse with shaven heads
and harlequin speech of suicide, demanding
instantaneous lobotomy10,
and who were given instead the concrete void of insulin
Metrazol electricity hydrotherapy psychotherapy
occupational therapy pingpong & amnesia11,
who in humorless protest overturned only one symbolic
pingpong table, resting briefly in catatonia12,
returning years later truly bald except for a wig of
4
Blake: William Blake; an English poet who claimed to have religious visions
Alcatraz: the most famous prison in the .S., found in the San Francisco Bay
6
Harvard to Narcissus: Harvard – a famous and prestigious university; Narcissus – from Greek mythology, a young man who fell in
love with himself, eventually being turned into a flower
7
Woodlawn: a hospital but also a neighbourhood in New York City
8
CCNY: City College of New York
9
Dadaism: an artistic movement started after World War 1 that protested against “oppressive intellectual rigidity in both art and
everyday society;” “characterized by deliberate irrationality and the rejection of prevailing standards of art”
(www.artinthepicture.com/styles/Dadaism)
10
lobotomy: an operation in which nerve fibers are cut in order to separate and isolate parts of the brain
11
insulin . . . amnesia: various treatments for mental illness and their result (amnesia)
12
catatonia: often associated with schizophrenia, a mental condition variously characterized by stupor, mania, rigidity, or extreme
flexibility
5
34
blood, and tears and fingers, to the visible mad
man doom of the wards of the madtowns of the
East,
Pilgrim State's Rockland's and Greystone's13 foetid
halls, bickering with the echoes of the soul, rocking
and rolling in the midnight solitude-bench
dolmen14-realms of love, dream of life a nightmare, bodies turned to stone as heavy as the
moon,
with mother finally fucked, and the last fantastic book
flung out of the tenement window, and the last
door closed at 4. A.M. and the last telephone
slammed at the wall in reply and the last furnished
room emptied down to the last piece of
mental furniture, a yellow paper rose twisted
on a wire hanger in the closet, and even that
imaginary, nothing but a hopeful little bit of
hallucination
ah, Carl, while you are not safe I am not safe, and
now you're really in the total animal soup of
time
and who therefore ran through the icy streets obsessed
with a sudden flash of the alchemy15 of the use
of the ellipse the catalog the meter & the vibrating
plane,
who dreamt and made incarnate16 gaps in Time & Space
through images juxtaposed17, and trapped the
archangel of the soul between 2 visual images
and joined the elemental verbs and set the noun
and dash of consciousness together jumping
with sensation of Pater Omnipotens Aeterna
Deus18
to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human
prose and stand before you speechless and
intelligent and shaking with shame, rejected yet
confessing out the soul to conform to the rhythm
of thought in his naked and endless head,
the madman bum and angel beat in Time, unknown,
yet putting down here what might be left to say
in time come after death,
and rose reincarnate19 in the ghostly clothes of jazz in
Pilgrim’s State . . . Greystone’s: mental hospitals in the Eastern U.S.
dolmen: “stone table;” refers to the arrangement of stones to create a burial mound
15
alchemy: a magical process of turning base and common things into something of great value (as in, lead into gold); also concerned
with finding an elixir of life
16
incarnate: given a body
17
juxtaposed: putting two different things side-by-side for comparison
18
Pater Omnipotens Aeterna Deus: Ominipotent (everywhere at the same time) Eternal Father God
13
14
35
the goldhorn shadow of the band and blew the
suffering of America's naked mind for love into
an eli eli lamma lamma sabacthani20 saxophone
cry that shivered the cities down to the last radio
with the absolute heart of the poem of life butchered
out of their own bodies good to eat a thousand
years.
19
reincarnate: returning to a bodily form, as after a death
eli eli lamma lamma sabacthani: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” In Christianity, the last words spoken by Christ
before he died
20
36
14. Manifestos and Essentials
Focus: manifestos, understanding and expressing your values
Poems: “Bullies Called Him Pork Chop” by Shayne Koyzan (video), “The
Foxhole Manifesto” by Jeffrey McDaniel (video)
Introduction
1. Create a list of your most important values or beliefs in relation to the following
two categories:
a. right and wrong
b. writing
2. Listen to Koyzan’s “Bullies Called Him Pork Chop” and McDaniel’s “The Foxhole
Manifesto.”
3. What is interesting and powerful about each?
4. A manifesto is a public statement about the essential goals and/or values of a person
or group. What are the essential goals and values communicated through each of the
poems?
5. How does each poet use imagery and repetition to build the intensity of their poems
and reinforce their values?
Writing Exercise
1. Write your own manifesto or list of essential values in relation to one of your two
lists.
2. Write for 20 minutes, and fill two pages or write 20 essentials.
3. Stop writing. Read around.
37
15. Good Advice: Speaking to Others About Where You’ve Been
Focus: list poem, sharing wisdom and experience
Poems: “Unsolicited Advice to Teenage Girls with Pink Hair and Crooked
Teeth” by Jeanann Verlee (video)
Introduction
1. Create a list of the most important lessons you’ve learned about any of the
following:
a. Love and relationships
b. Family
c. Writing
d. School
e. Friendship
f. Other
2. Watch Verlee’s “Unsolicited Advice . . .” performance.
3. What is interesting and powerful about this poem?
4. What are some of the lines or phrases that Verlee repeats? What effects are created
through this repetition?
5. What different emotions does Verlee express through her poem? How do her
choices about subject, details, imagery, and tone of voice work together to build
these emotions?
Writing Exercise
1. Choose one of the lists you created and use that to generate a poem that offers your
advice to a specific audience. Be sure to include advice for a variety of experiences
you expect this person to have.
2. Model your title on Verlee’s: “Advice to a . . ..”
3. Write for 20 minutes, and fill two pages or write 20 pieces of advice.
4. Stop writing. Read around.
38