The other day I was following links that took me to Puerto del Sol. I don't know how it compares to the square in Madrid that I visited, but I did enjoy the work. You can buy the issues to enjoy, or check out their blog. I chose to share with you from their PdS Black Voices series, some work by Elizabeth Acevedo.
These three poems are featured, and below is some commentary. I wanted to share them the same way they appear, because it feels intentional and they go well together.
Regularization Plan for Foreigners, 1922
Trujillo says: I will fix this.
And so the man digs the ditches.
The dirt packs beneath his nails and when his wife kisses
his fingers at night she tells him they smell just like graves.
He holds her close, his bella negra of accented Spanish,
who does not think how a single word pronounced wilted
could force him to dig a ditch for her.
Some nights, he dreams of yellowed eyes. Of sweat-drenched
dark brows. Bodies stacked like bricks
building a wall that slices through the sky.
Borders are not as messy as people think.
They are clear, marked by ditches, by people face down,
head-to-ankle skin-linked fences: Do Not Cross.
Puedes ser nada disfrazado en piel y pelo?
He’s learned to turn his ears down like a donkey
when the children of Haitians plead, Yo soy Dominicano.
At best they’re mules,
El Jefe tells the ditch digger, who is glad
he was born on this side of the flag. This remedy will continue,
El Jefe says. And so the ditch digger repeats the instructions
like a refrain for cutting cane:
aim low, strike wide, look away as the open earth swallows them.
Mami Came to this Country as a Nanny
and around the same time she tells me i can’t walk
the house wearing only panties anymore,
she teaches me how to hand wash them in the sink.
tsking that washing machines
don’t launder as well as a good knuckling,
she drops soap on the crotch, folds the fabric
on itself and shows me how one end
pulls out the stains of the other;
detergent, and fabric, and hands against hands
make the seemingly most dirty material clean again.
no menstrual cycle ever made me more woman
in mami’s eyes than this learning how to wash my own ass,
this turning of the shower rod into a garland of intimates.
this memory tighten my fist that first week of freshman year
when katie kerr’s mother, who has a throat made for real pearls,
points her unsoftened mouth at me, letting loose the sullied words:
you better take care of Katie, she’s always had help.
and i have to blink, and blink, and blink but leave unmentioned
all the ways my hands have learned to care for things like her.
Beloved
It’s easy to forget a pot of beans when you’re numb.
The burning crinkled my nose but I didn’t stir,
so when you come home
after work asking, did you hear the verdict?
I can only tell you I forgot to lower the heat,
that the stovetop stained where the beans split open
and pushed out from their skins; the boiling pot
sputtering blue-black water I can’t bring myself
to clean.
Cubans call the dish Moros y Cristianos
a name tied back to the time
when the North Africans conquered Spain.
No one knows why the Cubans named it that,
named their most popular meal
after black power. I think they were being hopeful.
We say a silent grace over plain white rice.
And I wonder if you, like me, pray for an unborn
child we’ve already imagined shot in the chest.
Tonight, no music plays and for the first time since I
learned to cook I understand
a meal can be a eulogy of mouthfuls.
Neither one of us scrubs the stove. Some things
deserve to be smudged. Ungleamingly remembered.
I kinda hate to say I like the prettiness of a poem, especially when it is about ugly or heavy things, but I do think these are beautiful. I also like how they are about everyday things tinged with more--laundry, cooking, outdoor work like digging ditches or cutting sugar cane. Poetry doesn't need to be about grand things, but sometimes the grand things can be reflected in the smaller, everyday things.
If you want your voice to be part of a bigger picture of American voices, consider submitting to Juan Felipe Hererra's La Casa de Colores project. The current poet laureate is working with the library of congress to accept up to 200 words per person per month on a theme, this month's theme being "Family". The pieces will be worked into a larger, epic poem for all voices. Since we all live in a house of colors together, that makes us a family, so the epic poem will be titled "La Familia". If you submit, please share what you chose!
No comments:
Post a Comment