Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam
320Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam
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Overview
“Here is a democratic orchestration of voices and visions, poets of all ages, ethnicities, and geographic locations coming together to create a dialogue and to jam–not slam. This is our mouth on paper, our hearts on our sleeves, our refusal to shut up and swallow our silence. These poems are tough, honest, astute, perceptive, lyrical, blunt, sad, funny, heartbreaking, and true. They shout, they curse, they whisper, and sing. But most of all, they tell it like it is.”
–Tony Medina, from the Introduction
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780307565648 |
---|---|
Publisher: | Crown Publishing Group |
Publication date: | 04/23/2009 |
Sold by: | Random House |
Format: | eBook |
Pages: | 320 |
File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Louis Reyes Rivera is a professor of Pan African, Caribbean, Puerto Rican, and African American history and literature. A noted poet and essayist, he is the recipient of more than twenty citations, including a Special Congressional Recognition Award for his work as an activist poet. Def Poetry Jam is a multimedia poetry project featuring live showcases and jams across the country, a website, and other projects aimed at bringing poetry to new audiences.
Read an Excerpt
The Way We Move
the way we move, funk groove
beat the rhythm out some pavement,
our elegant violent attitude, quick
slow motion movement in quicksand
in somebody else's shit house shanty town
shingly jingly chains clamped on our neck,
hang to the floor scrape spark and clink
and we make music out of this cool behind dark
shades, taught to fear the sun, hiding in
beauty parlors and bars draggy face with
hatred and ugliness,
and it only comes when you don't
accept the natural gifts, the fingerprints of a
higher order of peace and simple logic, what makes us
phenomenal is that we can sleep walk in
harmony, never breaking a sweat 'cept in factories
or bars, prisons we even build systems for, our
own street logic and survival, but this is not where
we're meant to be, not on the operating table of
extinction or at the broken doorstep of finality
stumbling drunk confused scagged out on whiteness
and greed and stupidity into the bleeding face of our
dead father, and we are not supposed to move
this way, slow mumbling suicide in quicksand and defeat
we must refocus, we must see again
Tony Medina (New York)
. . . And the Saga Continues
for Gary Graham
From Guinea to Haiti to Brooklyn
And back
From Guinea to Haiti to the Bronx
And back
From Brooklyn to the Bronx to LA
And back
From Philly to Haiti to the New Jersey Turnpike
And back
From village to hamlet to Borough
And back
From LA to Orange to Newark to Guinea
And back
From PR to the Bronx Brooklyn Queens Guinea
And back
From Soundview to no view of the anguish of . . .
Mother Mother why have you forsaken me
Bless me father for they are winning
And my mutter is crying
Bless me father for my mutter is crying
At the sight of my dying
Save me Lord from being vanquished
Save my mutter from this anguish
From Harlem to the Bronx to Brooklyn Queens Newark San Juan
and the nation's highways I languish
In my blood and tears of my mother's anguish
And back
Call the name . . . Call the names I say
you know them better than I
Shaka Sankofa Malcolm Ferguson Patrick Doresmond
Abner Louima Amadou Diallo Kevin Cedeno James Byrd
Matthew Sheppard Anthony Baez Michael Stewart
Earl Faison . . . etc. etc. etc.
And the list gets longer week by week
An African got lynched today
Juneteenth 2000
From Texas to Chicago to Watts to Newark
And back
From PR to Cuba to the Dominican Republic
And back
Africa calls from the bottom of the Atlantic
And back
From Ghanaian fields smooth black skin
Turns purplish under lash under water
And back
Can you hear them gurgle . . . Abnerrrrr
Can you hear them scream . . . Amadouuuuuuuu
Can you hear the windpipe snap . . . Antonyyyyyyyyap
Blessed be Blessed be Blessed be
Dear Lord have mercy Lord have mercy
Have mercy on me
bless me father for I
have sinned . . .
with my mind I daily will demise
of the western ways and all of its compatriots
Bless me father with a bottle of scupernog or
Wild Irish Rose to soften the blow
of this monster's breath upon my neck
And back
in harlem in havana in charleston in Porto Prince
the saga continues . . .
blood blood I say
blood in the rectum bullets in the gut
in the head the chest neck
And back
A rope a nightstick pepper spray
Or a lethal illegal injection
from the State
the state of tex ass where seldom is heard
an encouraging word and the sky is cloudy
all year
how 'bout florida or new jersey or new york
the city so nice they kill you twice
Next stop Ghana to the Congo to Zimbabwe
And back
Ted Wilson (Orange, NJ)
Table of Contents
Foreword | xv | |
Introduction | xix | |
Invocation | ||
We Have Been Believers | xxv | |
A Poet Is Not a Juke Box | xxvi | |
Nommo | xxvii | |
No Jive | xxviii | |
failure of an invention | xxviii | |
Building | xxix | |
The Disdirected | xxxi | |
Blood I Say, Study Our Story, Sing This Song | ||
The Way We Move | 1 | |
... And the Saga Continues | 1 | |
Bad Times | 3 | |
How to Do | 4 | |
Like a Dog | 6 | |
Lonely Women | 7 | |
On the Other Side | 9 | |
N | 10 | |
Her Scream Has Been Stolen | 11 | |
Crater Face | 12 | |
susu | 13 | |
An Asian Am Anthem | 14 | |
Scout | 16 | |
This Old Man | 17 | |
Afternoon Train | 19 | |
Beginning at the End: Capital/Capitol Punishment | 20 | |
Open Your Mouth--and Smile | ||
A Chinese Man in Smyma | 22 | |
450 Years of Selective Memory (Smile) | 23 | |
the n-word | 24 | |
an open letter to the entertainment industry | 25 | |
Metropolitan Metaphysics | 28 | |
America Eats Its Young | 29 | |
laughin at cha | 31 | |
Rosa's Beauty | 32 | |
Overworked | 33 | |
Nintendo | 34 | |
Stealth-Pirates of Cyberia | 35 | |
The Death of Poetry | 35 | |
Last Visit to Chestnut Middle School | 37 | |
Learning to Drive at 32 | 38 | |
Mr. BOOM BOOM Man | 39 | |
Road to the Presidency | 40 | |
For What It's Worth | 41 | |
Every Word Must Conjure | ||
It's Called Kings | 44 | |
Billy | 45 | |
To Become Unconscious | 46 | |
Letter to an Unconceived Son | 46 | |
The Usual Suspects | 48 | |
Blooming Death ... Blossoms | 49 | |
What the Oracle Said | 51 | |
The U.S.A. Court of No Appeal | 52 | |
on the state-sanctioned murder of shaka sankofa | 52 | |
An Epistle to the Revolutionary Bible | 53 | |
Warrior Womb | 55 | |
Cowboynomics | 56 | |
Demockery | 57 | |
Executive Privilege | 58 | |
Question | 61 | |
georgia avenue, washington d.c. | 62 | |
A Palace of Mourners | 64 | |
Palestine | 65 | |
The Road from Khartoum | 66 | |
A Modern Love Poem | 68 | |
In Praise of the Seattle Coalition | 69 | |
Blood Is the Argument | 69 | |
Drums Drown Out the Sorrow | ||
Amadou Diallo from Guinea to the Bronx Dead on Arrival | 73 | |
Another Scream | 74 | |
A Well-Bred Woman | 76 | |
Amadou | 78 | |
BLS | 78 | |
after diana died | 79 | |
Dudley Randall (1914-2000) | 80 | |
Hoodoo Whisper | 81 | |
Sammy Davis, Jr. | 82 | |
Glad All Over | 84 | |
Dancing after Sanchez | 85 | |
The 13th Letter | 86 | |
In Black Churches | 86 | |
For Gwendolyn Brooks | 87 | |
tonal embryology | 88 | |
Zizwe | 88 | |
All, Bomaye | 89 | |
Phyllis | 90 | |
Timbalero | 91 | |
Puente | 93 | |
Somalia | 93 | |
epitaph for Etheridge Knight | 94 | |
Farewell Queen Mother Moore | 97 | |
Palenque Queen by Habana's Shores | 98 | |
When the Definition of Madness Is Love | ||
January Hangover | 100 | |
the hardest part about love | 100 | |
Lies We Tell Ourselves | 102 | |
8 ways of looking at pussy | 103 | |
Temporary Insanity | 105 | |
alone in belize | 106 | |
footprints | 107 | |
Big World Look Out | 108 | |
Bullet Hole Man: A Love Poem | 110 | |
Dreadlocks | 111 | |
Roots | 111 | |
Six Minutes Writing | 112 | |
Diner | 112 | |
Fullness | 113 | |
Wet Dream | 115 | |
foursomes | 115 | |
Wishing You | 116 | |
Shunning an Imperative | 116 | |
January 8, 1996 | 118 | |
A Poem for You | 119 | |
Throbs for the Instructress | 120 | |
At the Frenchman's | 121 | |
Mata Hari Blues or Why I Will Never Be a Spy | 123 | |
Yellah | 124 | |
Extremes Ain't My Thing As Salaam Alaikum | 125 | |
13 | 126 | |
rock candy | 127 | |
Love Jam | 129 | |
Cocaine Mad-Scream Article #33 LoveSong | 130 | |
We Whose Fathers Are Hidden | ||
The Elders Are Gods | 132 | |
What the Dead Do | 133 | |
creation is a cycle | 133 | |
Birth | 134 | |
Daughter-to-Father Talk | 136 | |
Tattooing the Motherline | 137 | |
Our Fathers | 138 | |
Mama's Magic | 139 | |
Father's Day | 140 | |
Momma in Red | 140 | |
Wildlife | 141 | |
Chicago on the Day Brother Increases His Chances of Reaching Age 21 | 142 | |
Lest We Forget | 143 | |
The African Burial Ground Called Tribeca | 143 | |
fatherless townships | 144 | |
Waiting for the Results of a Pregnancy Test | 146 | |
Sitting in the Doctor's Office the Next Day | 148 | |
Circa | 148 | |
Seed of Resistance | ||
Cooking | 151 | |
Ben Hur | 151 | |
in 5th grade | 152 | |
Complected | 154 | |
Broken Ends Broken Promises | 155 | |
My Name's Not Rodriguez | 156 | |
Water from the Well | 157 | |
The Tragic Mulatto Is Neither | 158 | |
Beauty Is Moving Us Forward | ||
I'm Sayin Though | 160 | |
beauty rituals 2000 | 160 | |
Medusa | 161 | |
Stariette | 161 | |
exceptions | 163 | |
What the deal, son? | 166 | |
Plain Ole Brother Blues | 168 | |
Why I Be a Goddess | 169 | |
I'm the Man | 170 | |
Dare to Be Different | 171 | |
Thoughts from a Bar Stool | 173 | |
A Blue Black Pearl | 173 | |
runnin | 175 | |
conversations in the struggle | 176 | |
Harvest: A Line Drawing | 177 | |
joseph speaks to gericault in the studio | 178 | |
Entrancielo | 181 | |
New York Seizures | 182 | |
Hey Yo / Yo Soy! | 185 | |
Flying over America | 188 | |
It Was the Music That Made Us | ||
I'm a Hip Hop Cheerleader | 190 | |
kill the dj | 192 | |
Ms. Cousins' Rap | 193 | |
all up in there | 194 | |
Doin' | 195 | |
The Trash Talker | 196 | |
Owed to Eminem | 197 | |
A Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop | 200 | |
rapid transit | 201 | |
hold it steady | 202 | |
Conversation with Duke Ellington and Louis (Pops) Armstrong | 203 | |
For Lady and Prez | 204 | |
breath | 205 | |
The Flow | 206 | |
Bebop Trumpet | 208 | |
conjugation of the verb: to blow | 208 | |
The Creed of a Graffiti Writer | 210 | |
Sonido Ink(quieto) | 214 | |
because I am it's a race thing trip | 215 | |
Grasshopper | 217 | |
Grace | 219 | |
The Low End | 219 | |
rep/resent | 221 | |
2G (Another Millennium Poem) | 223 | |
enter(f*#@ckin)tained | 223 | |
Children of the Word | ||
Motherseed | 226 | |
Wake Up, My Little Pretties | 227 | |
nommo: how we come to speak | 227 | |
spaNglisH | 229 | |
New Boogaloo | 229 | |
Mi Negrito | 232 | |
News of the World | 233 | |
Much of Your Poetry Is Beautiful | 234 | |
Ginsberg | 234 | |
In Bed with James Tate | 235 | |
soulgroovin ditty #7 | 236 | |
Sundays | 237 | |
To Aretha Franklin from Sparkle | 238 | |
Lumumba Blues | 239 | |
All the shoes are shined and the cotton is picked | 240 | |
In this day age | 241 | |
The Trouble I've Seen | 241 | |
Having Lost My Son, I Confront the Wreckage | 242 | |
Bensonhurst | 243 | |
For Michael Griffith, Murdered Dec. 21, 1986, Howard Beach, NY | 244 | |
Lift Every Fist and Swing | 245 | |
TV Dinner | 245 | |
Bluesman | 248 | |
We're Not Well Here | 250 | |
Nickel Wine and Deep Kisses | 251 | |
The Coward | 253 | |
Strip | 254 | |
Sex | 255 | |
enemies | 256 | |
American Poetry | 257 | |
So Many Books, So Little Time | 260 | |
How to Be a Street Poet | 261 | |
The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash | 263 | |
X | 264 | |
The Tradition | 265 | |
There It Is | 267 | |
Contributors | 270 | |
Permissions | 281 |