01-31-2013, 10:25 AM
I'll think about this one for a while, and see what I want to do with it.
I'm usually stubborn about the things I write. Like I've said before, I feel so connected to them. Kind of like they're my children or something.
With this one, I wrote it in a kind of trance. You know that light-headed feeling when you haven't had anything to eat in a couple days, and you start to feel high? I was feeling that way, and I started thinking about a lot of poems by women (not just black women) in the '60s and '70s that dealt with these social issues. How many of them read at a very fast tempo, with lots of "And"s. I was using that rhythm, tone and tempo.
Some people cap every line. I don't always do it. And in this poem, it might be better if I don't. "Suga plums" is letting the black dialect sneak in. I say "suga" when I talk, most people in the rural south, around here, speak in the so-called black dialect, even the openly racist white people.
Of course, it's Christmas day if it's in the AM; but it's still night, and the person speaking would most likely consider Christmas to be "tomorrow". Other than the dashes, which are something I use a lot, I wanted to write it as it would be written by the speaker. He or she might even use the dashes.
So I'll think about this one. And come back to it in a while.
I'm usually stubborn about the things I write. Like I've said before, I feel so connected to them. Kind of like they're my children or something.
With this one, I wrote it in a kind of trance. You know that light-headed feeling when you haven't had anything to eat in a couple days, and you start to feel high? I was feeling that way, and I started thinking about a lot of poems by women (not just black women) in the '60s and '70s that dealt with these social issues. How many of them read at a very fast tempo, with lots of "And"s. I was using that rhythm, tone and tempo.
Some people cap every line. I don't always do it. And in this poem, it might be better if I don't. "Suga plums" is letting the black dialect sneak in. I say "suga" when I talk, most people in the rural south, around here, speak in the so-called black dialect, even the openly racist white people.
Of course, it's Christmas day if it's in the AM; but it's still night, and the person speaking would most likely consider Christmas to be "tomorrow". Other than the dashes, which are something I use a lot, I wanted to write it as it would be written by the speaker. He or she might even use the dashes.
So I'll think about this one. And come back to it in a while.