26. For Babygirl -- So like I said in an earlier post, there are times in life when you think you've got everything all figured out, and then some time goes by, and you realize that you didn't have anything all figured out. Sometimes it takes finality to wrap your head around how wrong you'd been. Sometimes it takes someone to tell you exactly why you were wrong before you can see it. and even then, you sometimes aren't ready to sit down and put into words what you're feeling. And sometimes, later on, it all makes sense, and you wish you had had the words when you needed them. Times like that, all you can do is hope you've learned the lesson.
27. Redenbacher at the Strip Club -- The assignment for this piece was, well, Orville Redenbacher at the Strip Club. Orville Redenbacher looked like this, in case you don't remember:
And he sold popcorn on TV. And that's all I knew about him. The image of Orville making it rain probably could easily have been played for laughs, which is why I took it in another direction. Man, I actually don't even know if this was a real dude or not. Either way, there seemed to be something inherently sad about him. I also happen to feel like there's somethign inherently sad about strip clubs. So the end result was only natural.
27. Shadow Song -- Shadows are one of those topics that poets and photographers revel in -- I think it's not easy to do something with shadows that hasn't been done before. So I didn't really try. This feels pretty straightforward to me--a love story between the shadows of two lovers. And since I'm using go-to imagery, might as well go all out: hence the beaches, and the mangoes, and the waterfalls, and the sunsets. This to me is a typical poetry piece, which is something I'm not entirely comfortable with. I dig the way it came out though.
28. Fly Girls: You Got Me -- A lot of these poems wouldn't exist if it wasn't for The Roots. I won't necessarily explain that completely, but it's true. This piece was written specifically about The Roots for a young woman whose wildest dream was jumping onstage with The Legendary and singing the Erykah Badu part on You Got Me. (And yes, I know some of you nerds will call it the Jill Scott part, but you're NERDS.) I do have a regret or two when it comes to this piece: I don't think it really does justice to how amazing The Roots are in person, and I kind of wish I experimented a little more with rhythm and sound and style as I wrote it. Someday I'll do a more formal tribute piece for them.
29. Eulogy -- I fucking love Eulogy. I love it. I don't think anyone else does, but I do. So there. The assignment was to write about a box of unlabeled CDs. That was it. So I went sad with it. And I love it. It felt a lot like a play as I was writing it, but without any of the obligations I'd generally associate with writing a play, like, you know, finishing it. Or filling it out. Or making it all make sense. It's a sketch almost, and it's way more satisfying for me that way.
30. Mabey -- I knew a girl in high school who always spelled "maybe" wrong. This might not have been such a huge problem if she wasn't always writing me notes about she and I and us, and trying to seriously address our dating situation while butchering the English language. It irked me, and it stayed with me, and when it came time to write this poem (for the amazing Angie) about that strange feeling of being really annoyed by someone you care about, this approach was a natural. I'm not sure where the microfiche came from, but who doesn't love microfiche?
More soon.
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