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Monday, February 4, 2013
Gwendolyn Brooks
she doesn’t wear
costume jewelry
& she knew that walt disney
was/is making a fortune off
false-eyelashes and that time magazine is the
authority on the knee/grow.
her makeup is total-real.
a negro english instructor called her:
“a fine negro poet.”
a whi-te critic said:
“she’s a credit to the negro race.”
somebody else called her;
“a pure negro writer.”
johnnie mae, who’s a senior in high school said:
“she and Langston are the only negro poets we’ve
read in school and i understand her.”
pee wee used to carry one of her poems around in his
back pocket;
the one about being cool. that was befo pee wee
was cooled by a cop’s warning shot.
into the sixties
a word was born . . . . . . . . BLACK
& with black came poets
& from the poet’s ball points came:
black doubleblack purpleblack blueblack beenblack was
black daybeforeyesterday blackerthan ultrablack super
black blackblack yellowblack niggerblack blackwhi-te-
man
blackthanyoueverbes ¼ black unblack coldblack clear
black my momma’s blackerthanyourmomma pimpleblack
fall
black so black we can’t even see you black on black in
black by black technically black mantanblack winter
black coolblack 360degreesblack coalblack midnight
black black when it’s convenient rustyblack moonblack
black starblack summerblack electronblack spaceman
black shoeshineblack jimshoeblack underwearblack ugly
black auntjimammablack, uncleben’srice black
williebest
black blackisbeautifulblack i justdiscoveredblack negro
black unsubstanceblack.
and everywhere the
lady “negro poet”
appeared the poets were there.
they listened & questioned
& went home feeling uncomfortable/unsound & so-
untogether
they read/re-read/wrote & rewrote
& came back the next time to tell the
lady “negro poet”
how beautiful she was/is & how she helped them
& she came back with:
how necessary they were and how they’ve helped her.
the poets walked & as space filled the vacuum between
them & the
lady “negro poet”
u could hear one of the blackpoets say:
“bro, they been calling that sister by the wrong name.”
In Your Eyes
I shine on your stomach
where I removed your entrails
I swell your tongue in my grip
spread frozen across your skin
I sold your heart for feathers
liquefied your joints with pain
I set your whiskers a-quiver
and grew bulbs in your viscera
If you hide me in shame
I grow forever more
Yet if you name me
you prove I am not yours
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Hello one and all! Thanks to one of our lovely poets, Jeff, we now have a compiled list of poetry readings that will take place this year, all the way through May. I'm sure they're bound to be thrilling, so take a look!
Readings, Spring 2013
February
Friday, Feb. 1, 7:30 p.m.
Literary Northwest Series reading:
Karen Holmberg
(poetry)
The Valley Library
Rotunda
Saturday, Feb. 2, 2:00 p.m.
Author reading
and signing: Tom Titus, from his new collection Blackberries in July: A
Forager’s Field Guide to Inner Peace (essays)
Grass Roots Books
and Music, 227 SW 2nd, Corvallis
Saturday, Feb. 9, 2:00
p.m.
Poetry Reading: What the River Brings: Oregon River Poems
Charles Goodrich,
Donna Henderson, Claudia Lapp, Kathryn Ridall, and Tim Whitsel
Grass Roots Books
and Music, 227 SW 2nd, Corvallis
Friday, Feb. 15, 7:30
p.m.
Oregon State
University Visiting Writers Series: Paisley Rekdal (poetry and essays)
The Valley Library Rotunda
Saturday, Feb. 16, 2:00 p.m.
Poetry Reading:
Constance Eggers, from her chapbook Reliquary
Grass Roots Books
and Music, 227 SW 2nd, Corvallis
March
Saturday, March 2, 7:00
p.m.
Author Event: A Natural History of Now (essays) and These Mountains that Separate Us (poetry)
Readers include
Rick Borsten, David Oates, Adrienne Ross, Bette Husted, Pamela Steel, M.E.
Hope, Charles Goodrich, and Erik Muller
Corvallis-Benton County Public Library, 645 NW Monroe Ave.
April
Thursday, April 4,
7:30 p.m.
Oregon State
University Visiting Writers Series: Mike Rich (screenwriting)
LaSells Stewart Center Construction & Engineering Hall
Friday, April 19,
7:30 p.m.
Oregon State
University Visiting Writers Series: Dawn Raffel (fiction and memoir)
The Valley Library Rotunda
May
Friday, May 10, 7:30
p.m.
Oregon State
University Visiting Writers Series: Antonya Nelson & Robert Boswell
(fiction)
The Valley Library Rotunda
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