War Poems

Hard to believe it's been six years since the fall of Baghdad, but Democracy Now reports that on this anniversary of the fall, tens of thousands of Iraqis gathered to protest our continued occupation in that country.

Here are two poems inspired by war, one by Yusef Komunyakaa and the other by Brian Turner. Komunyakaa, a Pulitzer Prize winner, served in the Vietnam War. Brian Turner earned an MFA from University of Oregon before serving in Bosnia and Iraq.

Hanoi Hannah

Ray Charles! His voice
calls from waist-high grass,
& we duck behind gray sandbags.
"Hello, Soul Brothers. Yeah,
Georgia's also on my mind."
Flares bloom over the trees.
"Here's Hannah again.
Let's see if we can't
light her goddamn fuse
this time." Artillery
shells carve a white arc
against dusk. Her voice rises
from a hedgerow on our left.
"It's Saturday night in the States.
Guess what your woman's doing tonight.
I think I'll let Tina Turner
tell you, you homesick GIs."
Howitzers buck like a herd
of horses behind concertina.
"You know you're dead men,
don't you? You're dead
as King today in Memphis.
Boys, you're surrounded by
General Tran Do's division."
Her knife-edge song cuts
deep as a sniper's bullet.
"Soul Brothers, what you dying for?"
We lay down a white-klieg
trail of tracers. Phantom jets
fan out over the trees.
Artillery fire zeros in.
Her voice grows flesh
& we can see her falling
into words, a bleeding flower
no one knows the true name for.
"You're lousy shots, GIs."
Her laughter floats up
as though the airways are
buried under our feet.

--taken from Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems by Yusef Komunyakaa (Wesleyan University Press: 1993)


What Every Soldier Should Know
To yield to force is an act of necessity, not of will;
it is at best an act of prudence. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

If you hear gunfire on a Thursday afternoon,
it could be for a wedding, or it could be for you.

Always enter a home with your right foot;
the left is for cemeteries and unclean places.

O-guf! Tera armeek is rarely useful.
It means Stop! Or I'll shoot.

Sabah el khair is effective.
It means Good Morning.

Inshallah means Allah be willing.
Listen well when it is spoken.

You will hear the RPG coming for you.
Not so the roadside bomb.

There are bombs under the overpasses,
in trashpiles, in bricks, in cars.

There are shopping carts with clothes soaked
in foogas,a sticky gel of homemade napalm.

Parachute bombs and artillery shells
sewn into the carcasses of dead farm animals.

Graffiti sprayed onto the overpasses:
I will kell you, American.

Men wearing vests rigged with explosives
walk up, raise their arms and say Inshallah.

There are men who earn eighty dollars
to attack you, five thousand to kill.

Small children who will play with you,
old men with their talk, women who offer chai--

and any one of them
may dance over your body tomorrow.

--taken from Here, Bullet by Brian Turner (Alice James Books: 2005)

Happenings. Links.

A few upcoming events in Phoenix...

* This Wednesday, April 8 @ 7 PM, the Poetry in April Series continues at the Tempe Center for the Arts. The authors are Elizabyth Hiscox and Douglas Jones. Their bios can be read here. Tempe Center for the Arts really is a beautiful building. A photo of the exterior of the Lakeside Room, where the readings take place, is here.

* I’m glad to see that The Black Theater Troupe’s still performing "Revenge of a King," its hip-hop version of Hamlet. On Thursday, April 23 @ 7:30 p.m., it will perform at Playhouse in the Park on Central Ave. in Phoenix. The next day, April 24 from 8:15 a.m. to noon there will be performances and panel discussions about "shaking up Shakespeare" at the Lyceum Theater at ASU. Panelists include actor Harry Lennix and ASU professor Ayanna Thompson.

And finally this....

New York Times critic, A.O. Scott wrote a piece about the necessity and resurgence of the short story titled "In Praise of the American Short Story." I’m not sure that I was convinced though I’d like to think people love short stories the way that I do.

My Dirty Little Secret: Reading Cookbooks

Does anyone else read what I’ll call literary cookbooks? You know, cookbooks that combine recipes, poetry and storytelling? If not, I have two I can recommend, If I can Cook/You Know God Can by Ntozake Shange and Vertamae Cooks in The Americas’ Kitchen by Vertamae Grosvenor. Both books have great recipes but they also have stories, poems, folklore, family photos, and anecdotes. The recipes are just part of the narrative tapestry. In fact the narratives in Ntozake’s book are so good that you can sit down and read that and save the recipes for when you’re ready to cook.

Ntozake tells the reader in the introduction that “These perusals of history, literature, vernacular, culture, and philosophy, ‘long with absolutely fabulous receipts (Charlestonian for recipes), are meant to open our hearts and minds to what it means for black folks in the Western Hemisphere to be full.” She then begins the first chapter telling the story of how she was determined one New Year's Eve to cook a traditional, down home meal for her daughter, Savannah:

“Back we went into a small market, sawdust on the floor, and a zillion island accents pushing my requests up toward the ceiling. “A pound and a half of pig tails,” I say. Savannah murmured “pig tails” like I’d said Darth Vader was her biological father.

Nevertheless, I left outta there with my pig’s tails, my sweet potatoes, collards, cornmeal, rice and peas, a coconut, habanera peppers, olive oil, smoked turkey wings, okra, tomatoes, corn on the cob, and some day-old bread. We stopped briefly at a liquor store for some bourbon or brandy, I don’t remember which. All this so a five-year-old colored child, whose mother was obsessed with the cohesion of her childhood, could pass this on to a little girl, who was falling asleep at the dill pickle barrel….”

Ntozake ends the chapter with recipes for Pig’s Tails, Hoppin’ John (Black-eyed Peas and Rice), Collared Greens, and French-fried Chitlins.

As I said, Vertamae’s book has similar content to Ntozake's but the recipes are front and center in Vertamae’s book. She places the cultural narrative in footnotes like this one following a recipe for Philly Pepperpot Soup:

“During the Revolutionary War, when General George Washington’s troops were encamped at Valley Forge, it was bitter cold and the soldiers were hungry. The general implored the nameless cook, who was said to be a West Indian, to feed his men if he could. The cook’s stocks included only tripe and peppercorns but he nevertheless rose to the challenge. His peppery broth with chewy tripe not only fed the hungry fighters, but, some believed, also made them victorious.”

Because I love these books so much, I was thrilled to hear Bryant Terry,the author of Vegan Soul Kitchen on NPR yesterday. His book, contains recipes, poetry, photos, film recommendations, songs. I plan to get it.

A Google search of “literary cookbooks” pulled up several cookbooks that have been inspired by novels or children’s books. For example, a Winnie The Pooh Cookbook or Ann of Green Gables cookbook. There was also "The Literary Gourmet: Menus from Masterpieces" and "Book Lover’s Cookbook: Recipes Inspired by Celebrated Works of Literature and the Passages That Feature Them". These selections seem a little different than what I’m talking about. But on Alibris, a search of “literary cookbooks” did pull up these titles that I will check out:

Seasoned with Words: A Cookbook; Stories, Memoirs & Poems about Food

Plots and Pans: Recipes and Antidotes from the Mystery Writers of America

For National Poetry Month

Here's a Ruth Forman poem.....

Perhaps You're A Song

waiting to be whistled
tween some man's lips
perhaps you're a prayer
folded tween his hands
perhaps you're a love poem
waiting to be written

or perhaps you're already written
n wait
for someone to decipher your language

or perhaps you're not waiting
not waiting for anyone at all

perhaps you're already all of these things
a song a whistle a prayer a poem
playing just for the beauty of itself

--Ruth Forman, taken from Voices From Leimert Park (Tsehai 2006)

Rejection + the Writer. It Feels Like This:

This time last week I was nervous. I'd applied for a grant and the announcement would be made soon. The waiting part is the worst. Waiting for the letter in the mail. Waiting for a phone call. Waiting for an email. Looking for signs, big or small. I ate a fortune cookie that delivered this cruel joke: What you desire is about to come true.

And then the announcement time arrived. I woke from sleep to check the website. There was a winner. Nope, that wasn't me. I read the winner's bio and then went back to sleep relieved that the waiting was over.

The next day I felt pretty low. I'd wanted this grant to finish my novel. I'd told myself I couldn't finish it without it. I'd told myself I wouldn't write again.

There was more bad news at work, layoffs related to the recession, which made me even sadder. I floated through the day. Then I got an email from an editor about a short story I'd submitted. He loved it and would pass it on to the next round. Good news! I marched on.

The next day I was angry which felt empowering. At least when you're angry you can kick and lash. I'd spent several months on that grant! Although I wanted to remain in that anger, my mind wouldn't let me. It started being rational. It said that I needed to apply for more grants, contests, awards and get into the swing of this whole process. I was whining about one rejection. This writing thing is a hustle, my mind said.

I tried watching television or shopping to forget about the rejection, but those activities didn't work. The best distraction for me is writing. I realized I wanted to work more on a specific story set in Detroit, so I did. Writing was the only thing that made me feel better.

I guess it's a good thing that writing is this compulsion that I have. I will do it regardless. I just read that Toni Morrison had many rejections with The Bluest Eye and that she thought she'd be published posthumously. I'll take posthumous publication. There will be this stack of manuscripts in my house anyway.

This just in: the editor who loved my story sent a second email. He fought tooth and nail for the story so that everyone could see its brilliance, he wrote. He loved my mix of African-American popisms and magical realism. But alas, he lost the battle. It's not the right fit for their publication.....

Aracelis + Curbstone + Bilingual/Bilngue

Writers Venita Blackburn and Aracelis Girmay


Aracelis Girmay's reading on Wednesday night at Tempe Center for the Arts was a joyous event. Girmay fully engaged the audience with her reading of political and personal poems and then she sat down for a conversation with Catherine Hammond, the moderator of Tempe's Poetry in April series. If you haven't read Teeth yet, you have no idea what you're missing.

I left the reading thinking, too, about the importance of small publishers especially in today's economic climate.

Girmay's collection is published by Curbstone Press which states its mission as follows on its website:

"1) publishing creative literature that promotes human rights and inter-cultural understanding and 2) bringing writers and programs deep into the community to promote literacy, knowledge about many cultures, and an appreciation of literature. Curbstone publishes 8 to 10 books a year, brings authors into Connecticut high schools in year-round programs, and has formed community partnerships to stimulate reading and creative writing with many community and service organizations in the Windham/Willimantic area. It is this dual focus on publishing and educational programming that makes Curbstone unique among nonprofit presses."

Authors published by Curbstone include Ana Castillo, Martha Collins, Martin Espada, Danielle Legros Georges, Ho Anh Thai, and many others.

In February I heard Martha Collins read from her latest poetry collection, Blue Front.The collection was inspired by a lynching that her father witnessed as a boy. It was refreshing to hear a poet who is white speak about the legacies of racism and lynching and I'm thankful that a nonprofit publisher like Curbstone decided that this subject matter is not passe, but is still relevant.

Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingue partners with Tempe's Poetry in April series and it had a table featuring several books at Wednesday's reading. I picked up The Date Fruit Elegies by John Olivares Espinoza. Bilingual/Bilingue is "committed to publishing quality writing by or about U.S. Hispanics" and it has been around since 1973.

Here's to Aracelis Girmay, Curbstone Press, and Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingue. May they be around for many years to come.

What We're Reading on the Metro + A Recommendation

Here are titles I've seen recently on the train:

Bowerman and the Men of Oregon: The Story of Oregon's Legendary Coach and Nike's Cofounder by Kenny Moore

Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder from Childhood Through Adulthood by Edward M. Hallowell and John J. Ratey

Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

The Aeneid by Virgil

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

Here's what I've been reading on the train:

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel (I LOVED it. I highly recommend this original/funny/sad graphic memoir.)

Home by Marilynne Robinson (This book has been recommended by many people but I'm struggling to keep interest. I'll give it a while; I'm still at the beginning....)