Poem of the Week selected by George Wallace:
Patricia Carragon's winning poem is a delight to read, a considerable success relying for its effect on an ability to reproduce the fragmented sensory experience of dodging through traffic on a wild frenetic taxi-ride at night, witnessing the bedazzled experience through distortion of a bleary windscreen. Carragon deftly blends together the splintered diametrics of that experience—at once enticing, menacing, energizing and unnerving—as the headlights come hurtling and the taxicab swerves and shifts. So many headlights on the black-slicked boulevard! The poem's effect is enhanced by its layout, something which I found particularly pleasing. Rather than being an arbitrary stylistic contrivance, the diadic lines adhere to and are model for WCW's 'rhythm of ideas,' offering the reader a truly jarring and memorable ride.
Poem of the Week
Patricia Carragon
Paris the Beautiful
(on a rainy night)
jazz drives a taxi
makes conversation in the NYC glare
(raindrops seduce windshield metronomes fondle)
(a CD track plays “Paris the Beautiful”)
Gigi Gryce’s sax mourns for ‘the city of light’
his rhythm has grit
(a New York accent)
sweet & light moody & remorseful
(yearns for the intangible)
wishes upon a dying star
(skyscrapers see but can’t reach out)
(life’s programmed for extremes)
with jazz a shitty affair’s beautified
(& sadness & addiction support the craft)
jazz cruises past the lights on Broadway
(hums along with the rain)
feral sophistication runs in my arteries
(the streets give free lessons)
jazz reaches my destination
(guesswork pays my fare)
the storm outside no different than the one within
(the rain understands me more than myself)
***
Patricia Carragon’s latest book is Meowku (Poets Wear Prada). Her first novel, Angel Fire, is forthcoming from Alien Buddha Press. She hosts Brooklyn’s Brownstone Poets.
Honorable Mention
A.i. Firefly
ways
a body can
fold:
ribbed vault
ogival
diamonds
triangles
graceful
archways
or
asymmetrical
lopsided
crumpled
at
times
or
in pieces
a
return
to
original
form
a blessing
***
A.i. Firefly, mama & educator, writes poems and songs and loves to play outside.
Honorable Mention
E Penniman James
all the stories
all the stories
from all the years
the greeks
egyptians
orkeny islands
the sioux and the navajo
yoruba
aboriginal australia
the stories of humanity
through the millennia
told
over and over
from father to son
mother and daughter
from your lips
to god’s ears
ringing
like bells
in harmony
all the stories
of mankind
ringing
across the sky
around the world
let me tell you
all the stories
of humankind
of man and woman
of the lost tribes
wandering in paradise
lost
lost
***
E Penniman James lives and writes poetry in Brooklyn. He reads frequently at spoken word events and jazz jam sessions in NYC. His poem “they came to watch him bleed” appears in great weather for MEDIA’s 2018 anthology Birds Fall Silent in the Mechanical Sea.
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