Get Lit Minute

In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight Nate Marshall, an award-winning author, editor, poet, playwright, performer, educator, speaker, and rapper. Interested in learning more about poetry or bringing our spoken word curriculum into a school near you? Visit https://www.getlit.org/ for more info. 

"Praise Song"

praise the Hennessy, the brown

shine, the dull burn. praise

the dare, the take it, the no face

you’re supposed to make.

praise the house, its many rooms,

hardwood and butter leather couches;

its richness. praise the rich, their friendship.

praise the friends: the child of the well off,

the child of the well off, the child of well,

the child of welfare, the child of welfare.

praise the diversity but praise the Hennessy,

and again,           and again.           praise

the new year upon us. praise my stumble,

the shaky eye, the fluid arm, but the steady

hand. praise my hand, the burning it has.

praise the dive into the gut of a friend; the dousing

of my hand in his ribs. praise the softness of skin,

the way it always gives.

praise the pulling, the calming down.

Read the full poem here. 

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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight Crystal Valentine, a nationally and internationally acclaimed poet. Crystal is a generator and fierce protector of black joy, and strongly believes that intersectionality is a key factor in liberation. As a queer, black, woman, a lot of her work revolves around bridging the ever-present gap between her identities. Her goal is to provide a sanctuary within her poems that can be accessible to ALL black people: queer, trans, women, gender non conforming, disabled, poor, loud, angry, ghetto, for it is when all of these voices are present and accounted for that we can really begin the gruesome work of understanding and breaking down systematic oppression.  

“On Evaluating Black Privilege”

Black privilege is the hung elephant swinging in the room,

Is the memory of a slave ship,

Praying for the Alzheimer’s to kick in.

Black privilege is me having already memorized my nephew’s eulogy,

My brother’s eulogy,

My father’s eulogy,

My unconceived child’s eulogy.

Black privilege is me thinking my sister’s name,

Safe from that list.

Black privilege is me pretending like I know Trayvon Martin on a first name basis,

Is me using a dead boy’s name to win a poetry slam,

Is me carrying a mouthful of other people’s skeletons

To use at my own convenience.

Read the full poem here. 

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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight American poet, novelist, and editor, Morgan Parker.

"Heaven Be A Xanax"

When people say how are you

I say good

It is a rule no one can answer

Crying in The Gap by my therapist’s office

or I am still angry with my parents

for traumatizing me

through organized sports

Dangerous and satisfying body of water

I can almost remember heaven

or Still a woman slaughtered for wonder

or Unfortunately misplaced grip

I am not doing a good job waiting

When I get to heaven I’m going

to wear my good bra

so no one can stay mad at me

I won’t have any feelings to hurt just

cheeseburgers on cheeseburgers on

deep colored slumber

Just men offering their golden bodies

And I will take the offering on my tongue

And it will not be a vault

And someone will not invade me

And I will kneel to pray

And I will address the prayer to myself

And I will be allowed

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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight Paul Laurence Dunbar,  an American poet, novelist, and short-story writer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Dunbar was one of the first influential Black poets in American literature.

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In this episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist, Langston Hughes. One of the earliest innovators of the literary art form called jazz poetry, Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance.

excerpt of “Let America Be America Again”
Let America be America again.

Let it be the dream it used to be.

Let it be the pioneer on the plain

Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—

Let it be that great strong land of love

Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme

That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty

Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,

But opportunity is real, and life is free,

Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There’s never been equality for me,

Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.“)

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?

And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,

I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.

I am the red man driven from the land,

I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—

And finding only the same old stupid plan

Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,

Tangled in that ancient endless chain

Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!

Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!

Of work the men! Of take the pay!

Of owning everything for one’s own greed!

 ....

Read the full excerpt and learn more about Hughes at http://getlitanthology.org/poemdetail/57/

Watch our Get Lit Poets perform in the movie "Summertime" directed by Carlos Lopez Estrada, and written and produced by Get Lit. Visit www.getlit.org for info on the film or to learn about accessing our programming for your school or literacy needs. 

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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight  Jamaican American poet, essayist, teacher, and activist, June Jordan. In her writing, she explored issues of gender, race, immigration, and representation.

Jordan was passionate about using Black English in her writing and poetry, teaching others to treat it as its own language and an important outlet for expressing Black culture.

Jordan was inducted on the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor within the Stonewall National Monument in 2019.

“A Short Note to My Very Critical and Well-Beloved Friends and Comrades”

First they said I was too light

Then they said I was too dark

Then they said I was too different

Then they said I was too much the same

Then they said I was too young

Then they said I was too old

Then they said I was too interracial

Then they said I was too much a nationalist

Then they said I was too silly

Then they said I was too angry

Then they said I was too idealistic

Then they said I was too confusing altogether:

Make up your mind! They said. Are you militant

or sweet? Are you vegetarian or meat? Are you straight

or are you gay?

And I said, Hey! It’s not about my mind

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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet Krysten Hill. She received her MFA in poetry from the University of Massachusetts Boston, where she currently teaches and is the recipient of the 2016 St. Botolph Club Foundation Emerging Artist Award and 2020 Mass Cultural Council Poetry Fellowship.

Do you LOVE poetry? Check out our monthly Free Verse Membership Club for the opportunity to network, collaborate, and just hang out with fellow artists/poets. Also make sure you watch the movie "Summertime" featuring 27 of our Get Lit Poets and directed by Carlos Lopez Estrada, in theaters on July 9th. More info at http://www.getlit.org

"Nothing"
I ask a student how I can help her. Nothing is on her paper.

It’s been that way for thirty-five minutes. She has a headache. 

She asks to leave early. Maybe I asked the wrong question. 

I’ve always been dumb with questions. When I hurt, 

I too have a hard time accepting advice or gentleness.

I owe for an education that hurt, and collectors call my mama’s house. 

I do nothing about my unpaid bills as if that will help. 

I do nothing about the mold on my ceiling, and it spreads. 

I do nothing about the cat’s litter box, and she pisses on my new bath mat. 

Nothing isn’t an absence. Silence isn’t nothing. I told a woman I loved her, 

and she never talked to me again. I told my mama a man hurt me,

and her hard silence told me to keep my story to myself. 

Nothing is full of something, a mass that grows where you cut at it. 

I’ve lost three aunts when white doctors told them the thing they felt 

was nothing. My aunt said nothing when it clawed at her breathing.

I sat in a room while it killed her. I am afraid when nothing keeps me 

in bed for days. I imagine what my beautiful aunts are becoming 

underground, and I cry for them in my sleep where no one can see. 

Nothing is in my bedroom, but I smell my aunt’s perfume 

and wake to my name called from nowhere. I never looked 

into a sky and said it was empty. Maybe that’s why I imagine a god 

up there to fill what seems unimaginable. Some days, I want to live 

inside the words more than my own black body. 

When the white man shoves me so that he can get on the bus first, 

when he says I am nothing but fits it inside a word, and no one stops him, 

I wear a bruise in the morning where he touched me before I was born. 

My mama’s shame spreads inside me. I’ve heard her say 

there was nothing in a grocery store she could afford. I’ve heard her tell 

the landlord she had nothing to her name. There was nothing I could do 

for the young black woman that disappeared on her way to campus. 

They found her purse and her phone, but nothing led them to her. 

Nobody was there to hold Renisha McBride’s hand 

when she was scared of dying. I worry poems are nothing against it. 

My mama said that if I became a poet or a teacher, I’d make nothing, but 

I’ve thrown words like rocks and hit something in a room when I aimed 

for a window. One student says when he writes, it feels 

like nothing can stop him, and his laugher unlocks a door. He invites me 

into his living.

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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight American poet and educator, Terrance Hayes. His 2010 collection, Lighthead, won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2010.

About his work, Cornelius Eady has said: "First you'll marvel at his skill, his near-perfect pitch, his disarming humor, his brilliant turns of phrase. Then you'll notice the grace, the tenderness, the unblinking truth-telling just beneath his lines, the open and generous way he takes in our world."

He has received many honors and awards, including a Whiting Writers Award, a Pushcart Prize, a Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism, and three Best American Poetry selections, as well as fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation

“George Floyd”

“You can be a bother who dyes

his hair Dennis Rodman blue

in the face of the man kneeling in blue

in the face the music of his wrist-

watch your mouth is little more

than a door being knocked

out of the ring of fire around

the afternoon came evening’s bell

of the ball and chain around the neck

of the unarmed brother ground down

to gunpowder dirt can be inhaled

like a puff the magic bullet point

of transformation both kills and fires

the life of the party like it’s 1999 bottles

of beer on the wall street people

who sleep in the streets do not sleep

without counting yourself lucky

rabbit’s foot of the mountain

lion do not sleep without

making your bed of the river

boat gambling there will be

no stormy weather on the water

bored to death any means of killing

time is on your side of the bed

of the truck transporting Emmett

till the break of day Emmett till

the river runs dry your face

the music of the spheres

Emmett till the end of time”

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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight American poet and essayist Rita Dove. From 1993 to 1995, she served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. She is the first African American to have been appointed since the position was created by an act of Congress in 1986 from the previous "consultant in poetry" position

"Heart to Heart"

It’s neither red

nor sweet.

It doesn’t melt

or turn over,

break or harden,

so it can’t feel

pain,

yearning,

regret.

It doesn’t have 

a tip to spin on,

it isn’t even

shapely—

just a thick clutch

of muscle,

lopsided,

mute. Still,

I feel it inside

its cage sounding

a dull tattoo:

I want, I want—

but I can’t open it:

there’s no key.

I can’t wear it

on my sleeve,

or tell you from

the bottom of it

how I feel. Here,

it’s all yours, now—

but you’ll have

to take me,

too.

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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we take a look at the life and work of poet, essayist, and fiction writer, Destiny O. Birdsong.

“failed avoidance of ‘the body’ in a poem”

your therapist wants to know where

in your body you most feel your anxiety.

you tell her in the bones

behind your face. they have their own

music, like ptolemy’s universe,

and chirp like shuriken

dancing in the road. your therapist says

you hurt because there are things

you’ve never been taught to do:

how to hold yourself in sleep.

how to drive. how to live with men.

back when you were five—or maybe four—

your father knelt before you for the last

time, close enough

that you could smell him, a zephyr

of kool’s filter kings and leaving.

he pushed the tricycle toward you, purple and white

streamers limp as hair on the handlebars.

by the time you mounted the cranium-shaped

seat, he was gone.

your new goal is to learn to breathe

through bones, to make flutes of them.

although, in reality, you are much more supple:

a crooked fold of flesh that comes so quickly

when called. you are the warm-bellied

animal on the shoulder,

coated in sunscreen and your father’s curiosity:

white-haired possum with his green, green eyes.

you’re now the oldest you may ever be.

you have never before been this afraid.

there are no bodies bound to rush in the room

when your own becomes a bullet ringing the tiles.

you know all about “love’s austere and lonely

offices”: checking your stools for blood.

checking your breasts for lumps. checking your neck

for swelling nodes. checking the locks,

the coffeepot, all the cracked

eyes blinking fire on the kitchen stove.

your own weep against a pillowcase

you haven’t washed, stiff with the

miasma of your hair. you stare

at pictures of the girlfriend grinning in sunlight.

you feel bad for not being taken with yourself more,

but your body is all asymptotes and fractals.

your own skin splinters in the dark

from your dense heat. the pieces

come back together under a halo of prescriptions

steeping your head in yellow light. sometimes,

while combing your hair, a sliver of cartilage

lodges in your finger pad. you lick

the glittering blood and spit out the shard.

compared to your father, this is not unkind.

somewhere between your skull and the skin

that swaddles it, all the songs you didn’t know

you needed to learn from him appear

and vanish with the rhythm of your breathing.

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