The Hourglass(Poem 11-updated)

            Blessed with ninety-two dollars, not many reach such a sum

              Spent the first nine in shining armor against villains

                   Who lay in wait on the dark playground.

                         Ten blown on a Marshall's tie

                             to appear less child-like.

                                But braces leave him

                               stuck in youth,

                                  alone with

                                     Clue Jr.

                                      Next-

                                Bar Mitzvah. 

                                Manhood gains one-hundred-fifty.

                         Electric guitar steals one-hundred gained

                             in order to woo lovely high-school dames. 

                          Tuxedo for prom and one special girl's corsage

                         Takes the cake with a whopping eighty-seven

                             Remaining thirty-six spent on senior pictures and vodka

                         But even alcohol cannot make him forget the impending future

                          Two hundred forty-two dollars- did he spend the money wisely?

      

                               

                        

                        
                        

                            

                           The Hourglass(Original) 

    Blessed with ninety-two dollars, not many reach such a sum

    Spent the first twelve on shining armor against villains

                Who lay in wait on the dark playground.

                     Six blown at the gentleman’s gym

                                In time for college tuition.

                                 Seven on solely textbooks

                                         Four for pens

                                            At office

                                                Job.

                                               Next

                                      Wedding Wagon

                                     Cost five greenies

                              Twins double that expense.

                          Eight on Little League practice.

                    Ten spent on expanding their knowledge

                Whopping twelve left for severe back injury.

              Eleven buys him golf and swanky country club,

           Remaining seven cannot pay for dying eyes- or heart.

        A whole ninety-two dollars-did he spend the money wisely?

                                

             

                  

                         

    

                                

Lessons I Learned from Kiki Petrosino's Hymn for the Black Terrific

Before reading Kiki Petrosino’s Hymn for the Black Terrific, the only poetry book I was really familiar with was Shel Silverstein’s Light in the Attic. Obviously, I wasn’t so experienced with poetry before this course. I chose Petrosino’s book because the name sounds particularly unique; like its title, the content of the book is unique as well. Petrosino divided her book into 3 sections: Oiseau Rebelle, Mulattress, and Turn Back Your Head & There Is The Shore. Since I’m unfamiliar with the format of poetry books, I always thought each poem was supposed to be read as a separate entity rather than relating to each other. In the first section of Hymn for the Black Terrific, the poems are separate from each other,  but in the next two sections, they are organized into a series of poems relating to one another. The first lesson of the book was that poems can be established as either separate or a series, or both.  

In the first section Oiseau Rebelle, which means rebellious bird in French, the poems seem to be separate from each other. Though the author explores different types of poetic forms in this section, the poems I found to be the most distinct were the prose poems. I really enjoyed how the speaker was able to tell a story in this format while still managing to maintain poetic language throughout the poem. For example, in This Woman’s Face is Your Future, the speaker uses alliterations such as “dumb as dommett”(Petrosino 6) or “Dulsome as Dallas ditchwater”(Petrosino 6). These alliterations are made up of some words I’ve never even heard before, yet they are still so musically pleasing to the ear. In another prose poem- The Terrible Test of Love- the repetition of the words “knife”, “loop”, and “scrim”  add a strong poetic element that make it clear that the poem is not just any story. I have yet to produce a successful prose poem in my poetry for the class, and the prose poems in the first section definitely gave me a few pointers on how to make a prose poem still sound like an actual poem. I hope to emulate her prose voice in my own poetry. Though I feel like I have come a long way in producing vivid imagery since the beginning of the class, I was even more inspired by Petrosino’s extraordinary descriptions in her poetry. In her poem Alverta, “smell of coins & salt”(Petrosino 15), “light hair twisting through a comb like speech”(Petrosino 15) and “stars drowned in her skin”(Petrosino 15) are only a few examples of her incredible descriptions. Alliterations, repetition, and powerful descriptions all come together to create model prose poems. Of course, prose poems were not the only poems in Oiseau Rebelle even though I feel that I learned the most from them. Hymn for the Black Terrific- the poem the booked was named after- has a particularly interesting controlling metaphor that is carried out through most of the stanzas in the poem. In the first stanza, “kayak” symbolizes a balanced grin, in the second it carries blood, in the third it’s in the ocean, and so on. I’ve never seen a poem in which the controlling metaphor is constantly changing its abstract meaning. This is definitely something I would want to experiment with in one of my poems, since I’ve only established controlling metaphors in which the meanings remain constant. Petrosino’s style made me really have to constantly question the meaning of the kayak, and I think the sense of mystery she builds in her poetry is what makes it especially unique.

The second section of the book is Mulattress, which is defined as a woman with one black and one white parent and also derives from French.  Mulattress is made up of ten fifteen-line single stanza poems. The poems cover multiracial identity and its relationship to beauty. This is the first time I was introduced to “series poems.” This is also the first time I’ve seen a cut-up poem in action, used by a professional poet. At first, I thought that the phrases that were italicized at the end of each line throughout the series were meant to stress the words, but in the notes at the end of the book, the author reveals that the italicized phrases were taken from a line in Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 14: “They secrete less by the kidneys, and more by the glands of the skin, which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odor”(Petrosino 55). This line is a statement that is generalizing the whole black population in a negative way, yet Petrosino cuts up the line in her poem and redefines it as positive through her poetry.  The cut-up poem was one of my favorite exercises this semester, so I appreciated getting to see such a clever one in an actual poetry book. This series exemplified how to insert cut-up phrases into poems in a way that seems unforced. Although the end-words were repeated in the same order, the form of the poems still reminded me of the form of a sestina. The author demonstrates that brilliant poetry can emerge from non-traditional forms of poetry as well as fixed forms, such as the sestina.

Unlike Mulattress,the Turn Back Your Head and There Is The Shore series of poems are all in prose form. The series contain a narrative of a character named “the eater”, as her desires push her to continuously turn to eating. For example, in one prose poem of the series- Eating House- desires to have a baby causes “the eater” to eat; in another poem- Destiny Comes Together As A Cold Plate- loneliness is the drive behind her constant eating and in the next poem- Top Of A Dumpling, Top of A Temple- the eater’s mind is dark, so she eats. Apparently, Petrosino chose the names of the poems in the series based on dishes served to her on her trips to mainland China. We have established in class that titles play important roles in the poems, and I think this was an extremely creative way to decide on titles for the poem. The titles are especially fitting, as they have to do with food and the main character of the poems is “the eater.” This particular section taught me that anything can be significant in relation to poetry, even the names of dishes on a menu.

Hymn for the Black Terrific definitely broadened my horizons on different ways in which poets can experiment in their writing. I personally think Petrosino is an extremely brave, creative poet as she experiments with different poetic forms and unusual imagery to establish a very unique voice. I definitely plan on emulating her style in my own way in future poems. The next poetry book I plan on reading is Fort Red Border, Kiki Petrosino’s first poetry book, to compare how her poetic style has changed since her first book.

What Lies at the End of the Tunnel(Poem 10-updated)

Knees lurch forward with the train,
Elbow someone in the eye
as I grasp for the chilled pole.
Growling eyes pierce mine sharply
in response to my unintended elbow.
None on this train are kind- nor am I.

Red-lipped woman cackles softly while
the tall man beside her shifts back and forth.
A pug-nosed child rolls his eyes at both.
Men, women, and children-none exempt from this train
we were all once urban dwellers of the night.
Villains that haunted the streets as the saints slept.

The next stop is Grand Central. 
Where our train crosses paths with
the glowing train heading uptown.
Only saints ride the uptown
to the grandest destination in all the city.
Doomed to downtown since the beginning,
we watch their train whoosh past us. 

Yanked back to the reality of our train,
silence captures each of our throats.
Our hearts are far too frozen or proud
to converse with one another.
This is our chance to reflect,
but too late to repent.

"But I was born into this cage of crime"
is what I plead to anyone who will listen.
The screeching of the wheels against the track
drown out my voice.
Whether we were influenced by nature or nurture- 
no matter, once we're on this train. 

My mind drifts back to the uptowners,
upright citizens in their day.
Members of the creme de la creme,
it was from their pockets I drew.
Giving to others rather than me, myself, and I-
that's something I never knew.

Even when the end of the tunnel is near,
we are still unable to form bonds.
The unions we may have shared before-
for no one's benefits but our own.
That's how it was, how it will always be
Criminals always work alone.

The next stop is Astor Place. 
We've already run out of street numbers;
this must mean my minutes are numbered.
The train rattles our skulls to and fro
but we were already shaking.
The monster that awaits us at the end
knows we are fast approaching.

Fluorescent orange and yellows of the seats
blind me as impending infinity looks bleak.
The pug-nosed boy weeps quietly
into his sleeve so none of us can see.
The emotion  we lacked above ground
only overcomes us now.

The subway pole is my only companion
as we descend further into the darkness.
Grip it in a tight embrace,
try to convince myself the final descent will be painless.
Tap my shoes together rapidly,
Wish to be anywhere but here.

The stop before our clock halts entirely.
Sinners to the core,
finally about to discover the punishment
that inevitably follows the crime.
We all know the truth about the 6 train:
it transports us straight to the 666.

The train shrieks to a stop,
the harsh signal that we have arrived.
Whether or not I'm ready,
the devil may care.
Brace myself for whatever beasts await,
the subway door swiftly opens-

I fall into the dead.


What Lies at the End of the Tunnel(original)

The next stop is 59th Street. 
Knees lurch forward with the train,
Elbow someone in the eye
as I grasp for the chilled pole.
Growling eyes pierce mine sharply
in response to my unintended elbow.
None on this train are kind- nor am I.

The next stop is 51st Street. 
Red-lipped woman cackles softly while
the tall man beside her shifts back and forth.
A pug-nosed child rolls his eyes at both.
Men, women, and children-none exempt from this train
we were all once urban dwellers of the night.
Villains that haunted the streets as the saints slept.

The next stop is Grand Central- 42nd Street. 
Where our train crosses paths with
the glowing train heading uptown.
Only saints ride the uptown
to the grandest destination in all the city.
Doomed to downtown since the beginning,
we watch their train whoosh past us gracefully.

The next stop is 33rd Street. 
Yanked back to the reality of our train,
silence captures each of our throats.
Our hearts are far too frozen or proud
to converse with one another.
This is our chance to reflect,
but too late for to repent.

The next stop is 28th Street. 
"But I was born into this cage of crime"
is what I plead to anyone who will listen.
The screeching of the wheels against the track
drown out my voice.
Whether we were influenced by nature or nurture
does not matter once we're on this train.

The next stop is 23rd Street. 
My mind drifts back to the uptowners,
upright citizens of society in their day.
Members of the creme de la creme,
it was from their pockets I drew.
Giving to others rather than me, myself, and I-
that's something I never knew.

The next stop is 14th Street- Union Square. 
Even when the end of the tunnel is near,
we scoundrels are unable to truly form bonds.
The unions we may have shared before
were for no one's benefits but our own.
That's how it was, how it will always be
Criminals always work alone.

The next stop is Astor Place. 
We've already run out of street numbers;
this must mean my minutes are numbered.
The train rattles our skulls to and fro
but we were already shaking.
The monster that awaits us at the end
knows we are fast approaching.

The next stop is Bleecker Street. 
Fluorescent orange and yellows of the seats
blind me as impending infinity looks bleak.
The pug-nosed boy weeps quietly
into his sleeve so none of us can see.
The emotion we lacked above ground
only overcomes us now.

The next stop is Spring Street. 
The subway pole is my only companion
as we descend further into the darkness.
Grip it in a tight embrace,
try to convince myself the final descent will be painless.
Tap my shoes together rapidly,
Wish to be anywhere but here.

The next stop is Canal Street. 
The stop before our clock halts entirely.
Sinners to the core,
finally about to discover the punishment
that inevitably follows the crime.
We all know the truth about the 6 train:
it transports us straight to the 666.

The next stop is City Hall. 
The trains shrieks to a stop,
the harsh signal that we have arrived.
Whether or not I'm ready for my judgment,
the devil may care.
Brace myself for whatever beasts await,
the subway door swiftly opens-

I fall into the dead.