‘Everywhere I turn
there’s Africa…’
On Sundays
congregated with bronze veins
I sever my own body
for the dejecting lack
of spewing creole
knowing informally
that I was trying to win over
the wrong continent
& not the dull, evangelical
passages of
unison
Still
I taught myself ‘kind regards’
to sound colloquial
to articulate
all hemisphere’s of hair
Ghetto shine! from the rugs. Shuddering Cadillac’s
inside renaissance bitches from sleeping jungles
who can’t
get the
fuck out my
sound system! lexicon on dat
A-track hype humming momma
home
I think what my political philosophy lecturer was implying, in a post-structuralist kind of way, was that we don’t [E]xist in the way we think we do.
That’s depressing on a Thursday night. :/
Also, anyone know where pilgrimsoulinme (Ess) went/is?
I
Geoffrey (the symbolic-
stealing nigger)
with a polaroid of
5 procreated analogies
& a subway wrapper
to his accolade
coiled under an archway
greater than his
own architecture
found reconciliation
easier when
fried chicken &
obstruction notices
were once the
quasi-negative counterparts
of figureheads commuting
first-class aquaplaning on
low evangelical gutters
through gridlocked capitalism
side-stepping at 90mph
propagating themselves
through the
discretion of tepid
dialectics
II
He collapsed
infatuated by the
cheap prophecy
of himself
& what the polaroid said/
what subway
& fried chicken said
people pass him
with the Homeric,
dactylic grandeur of
chess pieces
without strategy
palpitating from
their contradictions
inconspicuously
towards abstinence
further beyond
the theatre of apprehending
the responsibility
for another nigger’s
synchronic decline
Hey, thank you for your feedback, C.S.Henderson- I really appreciate you taking the time to have a look at it thoroughly. You’ve actually given me something to think about; the more I’ve read this piece aloud to myself, the more it makes sense to me, and the more I realise how overly personal this poem really is. Thus, I’ve been considering whether submitting this piece to the competition will actually do harm to the poem as I keep re-editing it to make it accessible. In hindsight, I don’t think I’ll enter this into the competition. Still, I’m really grateful for you taking the time to include your insight(s), and I’ll keep editing this poem to include as part of my portfolio for my final year project. Thanks again, C.S. Henderson! :)These are some notes I jotted down earlier this morning: S1: a bit lengthy phrase-wise. Not “easy” language, especially if it’s going to be read aloud. “Old light crippled…” is a good phrase. Pacing is odd — seems like it should be more loose, and the semi-colons slow it down. S3: nice, I like this. S4: not clear of what is going on here — if it’s hard for me to understand it while reading it, it’s going to be harder to comprehend listening to it. S5: seems superfluous. “October/February” — I don’t know if this is a common phrase outside of the States or if it’s personal. If the latter, it doesn’t make much sense since it’s contextless — overly personal instances like this draw the reader out of the poem because it becomes a “fact” they cannot relate to. So, either it needs to change or it needs context (unless, of course, it’s a common phrase). I like the poem overall, but it’s a “heady” poem. It takes multiple reads to understand what is actually being said, which I imagine is partly the point. But if we’re editing this for it to be read aloud, this might not be the best iteration because its comprehension depends on multiple reads.I have a poem I am working on for a poetry competition, and I think I’m almost done (it’s a more edited version of ‘First Draft’). I want to post it on here for you all to read- and this is where my favour comes in: would you be able to tell me if you understand it? Of course, feel free to…
I have a poem I am working on for a poetry competition, and I think I’m almost done (it’s a more edited version of ‘First Draft’). I want to post it on here for you all to read- and this is where my favour comes in: would you be able to tell me if you understand it? Of course, feel free to critique or offer suggestions, but I just want to make sure- if my poem is selected to read out to an audience- that people get it. PLEEEEEASE?! Thank you!! :)
“Tepid dawn of ancestral virtues”
- Aimé Césaire
I
At the spearhead of dawn
Bitter seeds of speech used to be indigenous like lavender when lips from old civilisations enraptured the history of long-winded oceans; and were sagacious when old light crippled over mountainous frailties; and would serenade the inflammation of an ancestral dance a phallus nigger used to do
until some of that light descends on a continent
that was never there
a regressed continent of livestock
superstitions
wild beds of twigs
shallow entrails disguised as impromptu delicacies
flamingos that explode into pigments of bright air
detonating into life from the potency of torrent rivers.
II
Today, it is quite formidable for anyone to regress from rhetoric
as it was for young, adolescent, back-alley foreplay.
I have never possessed the instincts
for Western themed surprises.
But infringements on a family of 10 under a corrugated roof shack, from the English colonial hum-drum, I know would be guised behind some model, populous fable in a Wiltshire corner shop
whilst two decedent, afrocentric, yellow-orphan niggers transcend their twelve other October/February relatives from the bark of a stable tree-
now how can I ignore that shit when I’m still alive?!
This discarding of any theatre or contempt for the Third World…
how can I merchandise that shit so that we might strip them back to the phallic stage
and scorn them
and think ‘how wonderful’
slurring from the bottle-heads of our fixated, macabre inflictions
so that even during the day
it would feel somewhat right to bastardise some ancestral fears that are no longer synonymous with the reunification of prejudice
to elate the irritable, shuffling crowd
that being black is an adequate consolation/
a consistent grace.
I feel sick just thinking about my life.
“Tepid dawn of ancestral virtues”
- Aimé Césaire
I
bitter-tasting speech used to be indigenous like lavender
and lips from old civilisations enraptured the history
of long-winded oceans
and antique sunlight
and mountainous frailties
with bulging eyes inflamed from an ancestral dance
a phallus nigger used to do
until some light descends on a continent
that was never there
a regressed continent of livestock
superstitions
wild beds of twigs
shallow entrails disguised as impromptu delicacies
flamingos that explode into pigments of bright air
when wildebeest conglomerate
detonating into life from the potency of rivers
II
Today it’s quite formidable to regress from rhetoric
as it was for adolescent back-alley foreplay.
Synchronically I don’t posses the instincts for Western themed surprises
just a discerning earlobe
and the freedom to say nothing
but infringements on a family of 10 under a corrugated roof shack
from the English colonial hum-drum
would sell off the same fable in a Wiltshire corner shop
as some decrepit foam from a priori to Hippocrates
whilst two decedent, afrocentric, yellow-orphan niggers
transcend twelve October / February relatives
from the same tree bark-
now how can I ignore that shit when I’m still alive?!,
discard any theatre and contempt for the Third World-
how can I sell that shit
so that we might strip them down to the phallic stage
and scorn them
and think how wonderful
so that during the day we’d probably be right
“but being black and yellow isn’t superficial”
they might slur from the bottle heads of their fixated
macabre inflictions
The white man called us niggers
while niggers called each other niggers
Now the white man’s ashamed to hear the word nigger
Now niggers ashamed to hear the word nigger
or be called a nigger
or call a nigger nigger
But the white man ain’t ashamed to see a nigger
call a nigger nigger
(so now the white man’s a nigger!?)
I'm James Goodwin, 22, from England. I'm mixed race with heritage from Africa & America. I'm studying BA (Hons) Creative Writing at the University of Greenwich (UK). This blog is mainly for my poetry, but I'm also into music (jazz, swing, blues, reggae, hip-hop), art, philosophy, politics, colonialism & other things you may come to find out. Please don't hesitate to start conversation or ask me questions, I love meeting new people.
