POETRY NIGHT

Oh the joy of poetry night. I leave on tepid feet, wondering if tonight I will be in the right space; if the poets will arrive as filled to the brim and excited as I.

Last night was absolutely grand. People came out ready and eager to hear some poetry. We had a larger crowd than our small collective was used to and we were ready. It was my turn to host. I worried about my raspy voice, just getting over a long bout of laryngitis. I wondered about the piece I had just finished, a reflection on the Vietnam War Memorial that I visited for the very first time in August 2003---a poem written to my father, a Vietnam Vet.

It was the first time I'd ever written about Nam or about my father. It was intensely personal and yet, as Poet, I bared my soul before people I didn't know. I spoke and while tears threatened to rise and fall, I knew that I needed to do it. I needed to say the words in that poem.

It's funny how things happen in Life -- how interconnected experiences are. It amazes me how easy writing becomes when you are just open to life, present, awaiting the arrival of the next gem --- looking at life as one opportunity after another. I volunteer in Kid 1's library every other Friday and stumbled upon an old Smithsonian magazine with Frida Kahlo on the cover. I thumbed through the magazine and saw two more interesting articles in it, one about the resurgence of Harlem and the other about Maya Lin, architect of the Vietnam Memorial. A power packed issue, I thought, and asked the principal if I could take it home. He said, Certainly.

I'd started this Vietnam poem back in August after visiting the memorial. The image of the rising granite walls, the names -- 58,000 names in chronological order of their deaths -- will leave you a changed woman. There is so much pain, yet so much liberation. People come from faraway places to leave artifacts, flowers, letters, wedding rings -- you name it. Behind something so tragic, there is still something so very beautiful. Somewhere behind this wall, there is a poem -- is what I told myself.

And so I started the piece back in August and as I always do with poetry, I write what is there, what comes and I put it aside. No poem I've ever written has been done at the first sitting. I knew I'd revisit it when the time was right and when there was more to say. I am always comforted by my belief that poetry is spiritual in nature, at least for me, and that my spirit will give the words to me in right time. That time came yesterday, after reading the piece about the building of the memorial and all the criticism that sister Lin endured during the commission. I finished the poem and carried it with me last night.

There wasn't a dry eye in the place after I read it. I wrote it for Daddy, a man I never knew; a man separated from my Mom by war and thousands and thousands of miles. A man who resisted war until the very last moment, on his way to college but drafted into a battle not of his own like thousands and thousands of young men his age. Audience members came to me after and wanted to know: where is your book? don't you have a book of poetry? Others affected by the war thanked me for saying what I said.

And so this is what war does: it separates families, it causes hearts to bleed and yearn and question and wish. War kills and war makes people, on both sides of the equation, suffer. But poetry, poetry is the river, it is the balm and the salve. Poetry is both the confession and the prayer. It is the bent knee and yet, the folded hands. Poetry is the hope for things not seen; it is faith in the power of the human spirit. As brother Haki Madhubuti says:

To be touched by living poetry can only make us better people.
The determined force of any age is the poem, old as ideas and as lifegiving as active lovers. A part of any answer is in the rhythm of the people; their heartbeat
comes urgently in two universal forms, music and poetry.
for the reader for the quiet seeker
for the many willing to sacrifice one syllable
mumblings and easy conclusions
poetry
can be that gigantic river
that allows one to recognize
in the circle of fire
the center of life.

***And yes, the poem will be added to the book ***

Be Good,
A.