faux haiku on being a poetry judge for a student literary magazine:

I wrote this very quickly the other day after reading a few very good poems and many poems that flustered me (maybe I just didn't get them?) in a packet of poems sent to me by the editor of a student literary magazine. I am honored they thought of me to be a poetry judge. It means that I have perhaps done enough in my community to merit this (what seems to me) recognition.

I realized quite a few things while I was reading, most of which could be summarized in this faux haiku:

let me get out the gavel....

i've learned the reason

editors delegate.

I hope that the faux haiku at least evokes a few giggles. I also hope to remember to utilize what I've learned here, not to judge others' work, but to consider graceful ways in which to frame how a writer may create more effective poetry and why some of the commonalities in each of those poems should be avoided.

I consider the term "poetry judge," strange and unsettling, quite possibly because I consider poetry an art I am still and will always be learning. I am a student and I hardly consider myself an expert. I also think that poetry is for everyone.

I found myself wanting to write all over the poetry pages with yearnings, suggestions and questions for the writers. While I read, I had a general feeling of reaching out so that each writer could eek out of the abstractions, used as crutches, what they really meant. I yearned so much for the stories that were hiding behind those tall, tall abstractions....

I suppose that means that I should definitely pursue, amongst other things, my MFA. My heart seems to be in it, even if it takes ten years before I am able to formally coach this craft.

I Am Alarmed

This semester I decided to take a class called "Prejudice and Discrimination in Modern Society." It is a very good class. I highly recommend it. It is eye-opening and impassioning.

For the bulk of my college career, I have shirked such classes. I have shirked such classes because I was not sure that any productivity came from them. I'd envisioned long talks in anger and hatred and continued separation in an "us vs. them" kind of stream. I worried that no healing came from such classes and that they created greater and greater rifts between groups of people.

I also shirked such classes because all of my life I have felt guilty. I have felt guilty for not being "black enough," not white, for being a woman, for being bisexual, for being somewhat intelligent and motivated and for wanting a good life, even. I have received flack for all of these things to the point that I have felt (and have been told that I should feel this way) that I am not entitled to taking part in the conversation because I have become integrated and I do not have the right kind of experience to take part. I did not grow up in the right community. I embraced the "wrong" mentalities. I am not part of "the struggle" and further, I am in between things. Attending such classes for me meant that I would live again through that guilt, and that by simply being there, my presence would offend. I certainly did not want that. I am trying to learn to like myself, you see.

Now I am almost in tears. I have not quite yet processed what I have been learning about this nation and my culture (my training), but I can say this:

* I now understand the meaning and reasoning behind the Sankofa bird. The bird is not daft. Remembering history is of the utmost importance and walking forward in that truth--remembering does not mean that one is wallowing in the past. It means that one is well equipped.
* I now understand why I have felt silenced and unable to express in a manner that is both satisfying and contributive to my society.
* I now realize that there is great need to contribute to the conversation with my particular points of view.
* I now realize how most of us have been silenced in a world that touts "freedom of speech and expression."

I am almost in tears because I wonder how many of us actually realize that we are living in a depoliticized history. Our story is a myth. Further, we have been trained to be acritical (with the near inability or blatant inability to think critically), politically correct (with the near inability to say anything without offending someone unless our terms are so broadened that they mean almost nothing), non-argumentative (with the inability to step forward against those things we disagree with or with those things that do not seem right at all) and therefore quiet!

It's a silent war, and perhaps the most deadly because it is rendering us all inept or at least forgetful. Our world is becoming Disneyfied, watered down and rewritten right under our noses, and has been for hundreds of years. This is extremely alarming to me because most of us are not budging. Most of us are keeping to ourselves, saying nothing and letting the rewriting continue.

My whole entity screams "No!" to that. I just don't know yet what to do about it. Learning and harboring the information is one thing. Taking some sort of action is another. New knowledge always means new responsibility, doesn't it?

**originally published on yourhub.com, May 2, 2009: http://denver.yourhub.com/Denver/Blogs/Archive/Politics/Activism/Blog~610679.aspx

Why cones are at the Downing & Louisiana station

On my way to school one morning, I decided I was too lazy to take the stairs down to the light rail. I hopped on to the elevator, and pressed the button to go down. Things were fine until I was on the Light Rail floor. When the door was supposed to open, it didn't. It was jammed! The door seemed to make an effort to open. It strained against itself, popping and giving up over and over. I simply watched. There was little else to do.

I looked at the button panel to see if there was some sort of emergency telephone or intercom that could ring me through to someone important and helpful. My cell phone was left at home. I wondered if my cell would work inside the elevator anyway. Of course, either because of my increasing heart rate or because the button simply was not there, I was out of luck.

I pressed the "open door" button again, trying to keep my cool. By this time I was thinking that I was going to be late to my first class. I was also thinking about some experiment where monkeys continually pushed buttons for some effect, even after the wanted effect was long overdue. (No you will not get a banana. No, the door just isn't going to open for you! What are you thinking!?)

I began remembering that at least once or twice a week, I had seen a cone or some caution tape wrapped around the elevator. I suppose I thought since the blocking materials were not in place, it was fine and good to be lazy.

I thought about jamming pens in the elevator's crevice to attempt to pry the doors open. I knew that the effort would be futile, though, so I just twiddled my thumbs.Some minutes passed. It felt like twenty minutes or more, though I doubt it was quite so long. Despite my intention to be be calm, I began feeling panicked. I began yelling for some assistance, beating on the thick windows. No one on the outside heard the banging. No one heard the yelling. If they did, they didn't flinch. My head rumbled from the reverberation of the thick windows thrumming throughout the elevator chamber.

There was an emergency button on the button panel, which I pushed. The button made a weak alarm bell sound, but apparently it didn't alarm anyone. Usually alarm bells are so horrid they can be slotted right alongside nails scratching down or across a blackboard. This alarm was cartoonish in comparison of alarms signifying any other real danger. The morning crowd at the light rail station just stood there absolutely passive with their backs facing at me. They waited for their trains to work. None of them looked toward the elevator. None of them were curious about the bell. At this point, I began to get a little irate.

I told myself to breath. Anger and nervousness were not going to get me anywhere. Just as I told myself to do this, something really anticlimactic happened. The door finally opened. I hurried out of the elevator to wait under the bridge where I could catch a train to class. I vowed to call RTD later.

I decided that I would never be lazy again. It's a good thing too. Ever since I was caught in the elevator, I have seen workman by it, in it, over it and on either side of it, almost every day. If the workers were not there, then there were cones or tape.

Every once in awhile there is nothing to clue light rail folks that the elevator should be entered on an "at-your-own-risk" advisory. Maybe I will make a sign and tape it with duct tape on the metal for those who view the door from down stairs and from upstairs. Of course, I might be cuffed or given a citation for defacing public property.

***originally published 3/19/2007 on yourhub.com: http://denver.yourhub.com/Denver/Blogs/Archive/Blog~281038.aspx