Prompt: Specificity
For A. “when you hear that sobbing, boy, rejoice, and know that love is the purpose of the human voice!” - James Baldwin
Prompt: Specificity
This week’s challenge: Write a poem specifically addressed to a person you love or hate or miss or can’t wait to forget. The important part is, who is it for?
I picked up James Baldwin’s Jimmy’s Blues and Other Poems this weekend. Explosive like dynamite — such power in a tiny volume.
It struck me that half of these poems were addressed to specific people.
Lucille Clifton wrote poems addressed to her parents, siblings grandparents, cousins, even strangers like Jackie Robinson and Satchmo.
Perhaps the most important aspect of finding a voice as a poet is to think critically about who I am speaking to!
Below is my thought process for this prompt, then excerpts from Baldwin, Clifton and Angelou poems for inspiration.
I look forward to seeing what you create! Let me know in the comments if you would like to be added as a writer.
“Are you writing this for me or for the world?” she asked.
If I write for every woman, every man Not a one will understand But if I write for one woman, one man All the world will understand
Clifton, Baldwin, Angelou, I can hear your collective chiding, sometimes I don’t notice what is just under my own nose.
Who is it for?
The name in the heading is the direction the art is heading, for love or remembrance, for heartbreak or joy, for defiance, who is it for?
Specificity, remember specificity, Stop merely writing and start speaking.
For Y.S., for Paula, for Prissly, For Jefe, for David, for A. For Mama, for Lena, for Bailey. . . For my loved ones For myself to speak to one is to speak to the universe.
Poems
Lucille Clifton
from The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton
my mama moved among the days like a dreamwalker in a field; seemed like what she touched was hers seemed like what touched her couldn’t hold, she got us almost through the high grass then seemed like she turned around and ran right back in right back on in
FOR PRISSLY girl looking like a wild thing if you keep on your loving way if you don’t stop caring and fearing and noticing things and understanding things people gone call you crazy
James Baldwin
From Jimmy’s Blues and Other Poems
Munich, Winter 1973 (for Y.S.) In a strange house, a strange bed in a strange town, a very strange me is waiting for you.
Le sporting-club de Monte Carlo (for Lena Horne) the lady is the apple of God’s eye: He’s cool enough about it but He tends to strut a little when she passes by
Some days (for Paula) Some days leave some days grieve some days you almost don’t believe. Some days believe you, some days don’t, some days believe you and you won’t. Some days worry some days mad some days more than make you glad. Some days, some days, more than shine, witnesses, coming on down the line!
Death is easy (for Jefe)
It is dreadful to be so violently dispersed. To dare hope for nothing, and yet dare to hope. To know that hoping and not hoping are both criminal endeavours, and, yet, to play one’s cards.
The Giver (for Berdis)
If the hope of giving is to love the living the giver risks madness in the act of giving.
For A.
Love, love has no gifts to give except the revelation that the soul can live: on a coming day, you will hear, from afar, I, your lover, pray. You will hear, then, the prayer that you cannot hear now, and, when you hear that sobbing, boy, rejoice, and know that love is the purpose of the human voice!
Maya Angelou
from the Poetry Foundation
Kin FOR BAILEY
You fought to die, thinking In destruction lies the seed Of birth. You may be right.
I will remember silent walks in Southern woods and long talks In low voices Shielding meaning from the big ears Of overcurious adults.
You may be right. Your slow return from Regions of terror and bloody Screams, races my heart. I hear again the laughter Of children and see fireflies Bursting tiny explosions in An Arkansas twilight.
California Prodigal FOR DAVID P — B
Around and through these Cold phantasmatalities, He walks, insisting To the languid air, Activity, music, A generosity of graces.
His lupin fields spurn old Deceit and agile poppies dance In golden riot. Each day is Fulminant, exploding brightly Under the gaze of his exquisite Sires, frozen in the famed paint Of dead masters. Audacious Sunlight casts defiance At their feet.
Guérin Asante Sylvia Wohlfarth Dennett Anna Rozwadowska Lindsay Lonai Linegar Carver Bain Michelle Muses Aaska Ejaz Chiedza Kikumi LB Blue Fences kurt gasbarra Tre L. Loadholt
Jo Ann Harris FILZA CHAUDHRY Suwimali Bandara Kurt Gasbarra Crystal E.Wild Flower Sarah Book Amy Jo Reynolds antoinette nevitt Dennett Joe Váradi Austin Briggman Dana Sanford Shringi Kumari Anisesh Tracy Aston
