Poetry Friday Roundup is Here–Celebrating Tracy K. Smith at the Chicago Public Library

Happy Poetry Friday–The Roundup is here!

On Saturday, April 27, 2019, I had the privilege and honor of hearing Tracy K. Smith, our  22nd US Poet Laureate at the Chicago Public Library’s Poetry Fest. A compelling poet, she is as warm, sharing, and inviting as all her images portray her. I was captured and moved by her talk and poetry readings.

She read from Life on Mars, 2011, which received a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Her book asks these questions, ” What do we belong to?” and What are we?” She also read from Wade in the Water, 2018. Wade in the Water includes poems from letters that black soldiers wrote to family members and to the President; correspondence between slave owners; threats to the environment, and more.

WADE IN THE WATER

By Tracy K. Smith

for the Geechee Gullah Ring Shouters

One of the women greeted me.

I love you, she said. She didn’t

Know me, but I believed her,

And a terrible new ache

Rolled over in my chest,

Like in a room where the drapes

Have been swept back. I love you,

I love you, as she continued

Down the hall past other strangers,

Each feeling pierced suddenly

By pillars of heavy light.

I love you, throughout

The performance, in every

Handclap, every stomp.

I love you in the rusted iron

Chains someone was made

To drag until love let them be

Unclasped and left empty

In the center of the ring.

I love you in the water

Where they pretended to wade,

Read the rest of the poem here and listen to Tracy K. Smith recite it below.

I also want to share one of Tracy K. Smith’s recordings from The Slowdown. The Slowdown is a podcast done weekdays by Smith where, she “delivers a different way to see the world – through poetry. Produced in partnership with the Library of Congress and the Poetry Foundation.” Below I’ve included the last portion of the poem, Beehive, by Jean Toomer, Here’s a link to The Slowdown site, look for the BEEHIVE recorded on May 30, 2019.

BEEHIVE

By Jean Toomer

Earth is a waxen cell of the world comb,

And I, a drone,

Lying on my back,

Lipping honey,

Getting drunk with that silver honey,

Wish that I might fly out past the moon

And curl forever in some far-off farmyard flower.

Read the beginning part of the poem here.

I wanted to write a poem that would complement some of the poems I’ve shared here. I felt a pull to write about the tragic life events that came sharply in focus last week with another mass shooting– Tracy K. Smith weaves life both contemporary and historical into her poems, sometimes subtlety and sometimes frankly–my poem follows more of the later form. In her talk, she also shared a bit about her system for writing, which included, (paraphrased) … start your poem with a “question or itch,” try and get traction, see if the sound or image can move forward. Here’s my itch…

SEEING SUMMER’S GREENS

It’s almost summer
Greens growing everywhere
Flowers of all colors have finally come out
Breathing sighs of beauty
Waiting for your breath to breathe in,
But the guns never seem to go away…

12 lives lost in Virginia Beach
Take a minute think about them–
Their brother, mothers, friends,
Another mass shooting
Guns Kill–that’s their purpose
Take them away and they can’t kill.
How can we sweep this aside–
Life moves on–
Your daughter texts you about getting home
But the guns never seem to go away…

7 lives lost in Chicago
Over Memorial Day weekend.
With 43 individuals shot
–Individuals– we need people
Seen and to see themselves
As individuals, with value and worth.
Chicago has a new woman Mayor
She said of this event, it’s going to take a long time…
We all have to “dig down deeper and ask ourselves
what we can do to step up to stem the violence.”
But the guns never seem to go away…

Guns Kill–that’s their purpose
Take them away and they can’t kill.
Take them away and individuals might
Start seeing some of summer’s greens
Waiting for their breath to breathe in,
Waiting for their breath to begin to breathe…

© 2019 Michelle Kogan

Please add your links below so all can partake of all the poetry goodness for this week!

Visit Renée LaTulippe’s site No Water River to find out more about what Poetry Friday is.

Also Tabatha Yeatts at her site The opposite of Indifference has a request:

“Send me links to your posts if they are poems about/to/inspired by Naomi Shihab Nye!”

Here’s the post that I will be adding them to:
https://tabathayeatts.blogspot.com/2019/05/poems-about-poets.html