#14: Suddenly there's poetry all around - August in review
Forgive the tremendous delay in the posting of this newsletter! The release of Silksong has robbed me of my ability to know what day or month it is.
I had a surprising number of conversations about poetry last month—surprising because I haven't thought seriously about poetry in....oh, maybe a decade?
I used to write poetry all the time as a kid. Shel Silverstein was an early inspiration, and I churned out a lot of whimsical rhyming verse and song lyrics, which evolved into mediocre quatrains and sonnets once I learned what those were. Eventually, an English teacher guided me towards an anthology of free verse poems, and I began experimenting with form and structure. And then at some point, I fell out of it and never felt the urge to pick it up again.
But these conversations scrubbed the rust off those unused poetic cogs in my brain and got them churning again. It’s nice to stretch these muscles, after all this time. Suddenly it feels like there’s poetry all around me.
Though I haven’t actively engaged with poetry in years, I have kept up with poet Rowan Perez (@inkskinned on Tumblr; @rid.inkskinned on Instagram). Inkskinned went viral on Tumblr early on for her prose poetry, especially her poems about queer love and identity. (This story about archnemeses is a classic.)
Inkskinned is a master of capturing slice-of-life moments in imagery and metaphor. Her poems range from devastating to profound to silly and back again. As a reader, I find her poetry achingly resonant; as a writer, I find it endlessly inspirational.
I wanted to share one of her poems that has really stuck with me through the years, called “Relationship goals”:
treat yourself
like your girlfriend.i don't just mean love her, i mean
show her that you love her,
i mean bask in it. write poems to
only your ribs. when she's hungry,
feed her and make sure she likes it.
if she's craving chocolate cake
laugh while you eat it.love isn't just saying
"you're beautiful," love is waking her up
gently, is taking her seriously when she has
a problem, is letting her get angry or tired or mad,
is telling her: hey, it's okay, i'm here, and we'll get through this.
love is making her pancakes when she says she doesn't want to eat,
it's watching her favorite movies, it's
keeping every picture you take of her.love her like wearing a seatbelt and like going on the roller coaster
even though you're scared. love her like
yeah maybe chicken nuggets aren't the best breakfast
but you're eating and that's a good thing. love her like
there's six dollars in your bank account but yes,
you can spend it on your coffee. love her like
buy that ring, like save for a future together, like
the first person you call in an emergency is her, to ask her
if she's okay,
love her more than just on pretty mornings or
in the light of picnic afternoons. love like
sirens, like let me kiss the bruises,
like yeah you made a mistake but we all do
like even after watching her spiral hard,
crying on the floor of her room at two in the morning,
her tongue numb and her heart turned to wood -
you wake up and tell her,
"it was a bad night
but you're alive,
so you're doing pretty good."
This poem revolutionized my conception of self-care. It was the first time I’d seen self-care described not just as affirmations and treats and grace, but also as doing the hard things and finding ways to compromise. As seeing yourself as someone who is worthy of care.
This poem has been at the fore of my thoughts of late, particularly these lines from the opening: “i mean show her that you love her, i mean bask in it”. I’ve been making more of an effort lately to bask in the love I have for others—to write them letters and buy them coffee and help them clean their apartments. I need the reminder, sometimes, that it can be fun to love and care for myself, too.
Where I’ve Been:
The Nuyorican Poets Cafe was one of the few things on my NYC bucket list that I’d never even heard of prior to putting the bucket list together. In fact, I butchered the pronunciation of “Nuyorican” so badly the first time I said it that the friend I was with cried from laughing at me. And then she graciously gave me a crash course in the Cafe’s 50-year tenure as a pillar of the NYC and Nuyorican arts community, in order to save me from making a fool of myself in public.
The Nuyorican is currently undergoing renovations, so they’re partnering with other spaces to hold their monthly poetry slams. The slam I attended was held at the Bowery, which was a gorgeous venue with surprisingly cheap drinks. In addition to being my first Nuyorican event, this was also my first poetry slam, and I had absolutely no idea what to expect.
Unsurprisingly, I had a blast. The poets who performed were all so immensely talented! The sheer amount of wordplay and imagery and alliteration and emotion that these poets crammed into 3-minute-long performances was mindblowing. And hearing the audience gas up each performer, cheering and snapping and egging them on, was its own kind of incredible. I know I’m a broken record about this, but there is truly nothing more beautiful to me than seeing community in action. It was such a privilege to be part of this community for a night; I will absolutely be going back at the earliest opportunity.
Watch the second round from the performance I attended on Instagram
What I’ve Been Listening To:
British hip-hop duo Rizzle Kicks hit the scene in 2011, immediately sold a million singles, broke the Top 10 of the UK Singles Chart half a dozen times, sold out a headline tour, and then vanished again in 2013.
Now, more than a decade later, they’re back with a new album: Competition Is For Losers. This album is a little mellower than their early stuff, but it’s still quintessentially Rizzle Kicks: brassy, smooth, easy to vibe to.
Listen to Competition Is For Losers on YouTube
What I’ve Been Creating:
It turns out that once you get the rusty cogs turning, and you start greasing them up with inspiration and poetry slams, the whole machine might shudder into action and inspire you to write a proper poem for the first time in years. So please enjoy this poem I wrote last month! I hope something in this newsletter inspires you to write a poem of your own.
Happy hour
Sunlight slants golden across the street
And you, speaking Spanish
To the mamá sitting beside us
As a margarita—two straws—sweats, untouched,
Are radiantAglow with the love I feel for you
I wish I could immortalize the recipe for this perfect cocktail of joy
Tinged with the taste of summer and tequila and
The smile on your face, beatific,
A snapshot of elation