The poem
One of the reasons I am drawn to poetry is the careful choice and the paucity of words. In some languages, diacritical markings and/or voice tone can help to ensure that the communication is as accurate as possible.
Nuances are left to adjectives in spoken languages but in Sign Language one is forced to absorb the word from the movement of the body of the signer.
Dance, like poetry can speak volumes. Once I held my breath as a dancer took 30 minutes to cross a stage drawing out the depth of emotions the refuge experienced escaping the violence of oppression.
We all know that words hurt, caress, shame, soothe, anger, and elicit a range of other emotions and thoughts. The bearer of the word may load a word or phrase in the rock of his or her slingshot. Others load the word in a carefully constructed quilt of tenderness and warmth.
Sometimes we string words together. Recently in the United States the phase “Let’s go Brandon” has become shorthand for F…Biden. The phrase is meant to stand in for a longer speech about fear.
Other words or phrases call forth the moments which define a life. “Love arrived as a zephyr quickly morphing into a cyclone which disturbed the air of the universe.”
Some words when used by a racist white person call forth a history of pain. The same words when used by a person of color with another person of color become an embrace.
One might accurately call a dog a bitch but if one calls one’s female partner a bitch, the goal is to discount her worth as a person.
Some words can merely describe a fun sexual act or when coupled with another term become a sword meant to slice through the humanity of a person.
Both the presence of and the withholding of words can communicate volumes. If, in a poem, i write “deafening silence” the reader is forced to hold one’s breath waiting for …
Poetry commands one’s attention and may kidnap one’s very being. It can call forth the confessions of the soul; the screams of the pain of 20 years of being a victim of abuse; the love which has waited patiently for 20 years.
A poem calls forth a story of a moment or lifetimes. If I begin a poem with “The war” the listener or reader finds himself or herself in the midst of a hologram. Recently I was at the new Greenwood Rising History Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma where one exhibit features a hologram of a black barber shop. Many know that the black barbershop is a place where black men and boys come to be informed, comforted, nurtured, tickled and to refuel. It may be the site of the planning of the community response to oppression or the site where one eulogizes a dear brother or sister. It is the place where one is gently and expertly prepared for the battle outside the shop. The hair becomes the headdress worn by one’s ancestors in Africa. The same is true for the black beauty salon. Men and women leaves these places armed and proud. The few minutes of the hologram elicit the story of the power of creating safe spaces such as barber shops, beauty salons, jazz clubs and churches.
The poem must become the altar which holds all that one has been, is and can be. It must hold the essence of one’s being; one’s pain, joy, laughter, tears, vulnerability, strength and anger.
Sometimes we allow words to roll off our tongue in waves with little thought of the poem they are creating; of the holograms they incite.
Poems create the space which holds the past, present and future. Each word withheld or spoken awakens a poem which directs the dance of all who receive it. The challenge is to take ownership of the power of the poem we create with and for each other? Each word, each phrase, spoken or withheld, is a power which challenges, nurtures or destroys.
Written November 3, 2021
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
One of the reasons I am drawn to poetry is the careful choice and the paucity of words. In some languages, diacritical markings and/or voice tone can help to ensure that the communication is as accurate as possible.
Nuances are left to adjectives in spoken languages but in Sign Language one is forced to absorb the word from the movement of the body of the signer.
Dance, like poetry can speak volumes. Once I held my breath as a dancer took 30 minutes to cross a stage drawing out the depth of emotions the refuge experienced escaping the violence of oppression.
We all know that words hurt, caress, shame, soothe, anger, and elicit a range of other emotions and thoughts. The bearer of the word may load a word or phrase in the rock of his or her slingshot. Others load the word in a carefully constructed quilt of tenderness and warmth.
Sometimes we string words together. Recently in the United States the phase “Let’s go Brandon” has become shorthand for F…Biden. The phrase is meant to stand in for a longer speech about fear.
Other words or phrases call forth the moments which define a life. “Love arrived as a zephyr quickly morphing into a cyclone which disturbed the air of the universe.”
Some words when used by a racist white person call forth a history of pain. The same words when used by a person of color with another person of color become an embrace.
One might accurately call a dog a bitch but if one calls one’s female partner a bitch, the goal is to discount her worth as a person.
Some words can merely describe a fun sexual act or when coupled with another term become a sword meant to slice through the humanity of a person.
Both the presence of and the withholding of words can communicate volumes. If, in a poem, i write “deafening silence” the reader is forced to hold one’s breath waiting for …
Poetry commands one’s attention and may kidnap one’s very being. It can call forth the confessions of the soul; the screams of the pain of 20 years of being a victim of abuse; the love which has waited patiently for 20 years.
A poem calls forth a story of a moment or lifetimes. If I begin a poem with “The war” the listener or reader finds himself or herself in the midst of a hologram. Recently I was at the new Greenwood Rising History Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma where one exhibit features a hologram of a black barber shop. Many know that the black barbershop is a place where black men and boys come to be informed, comforted, nurtured, tickled and to refuel. It may be the site of the planning of the community response to oppression or the site where one eulogizes a dear brother or sister. It is the place where one is gently and expertly prepared for the battle outside the shop. The hair becomes the headdress worn by one’s ancestors in Africa. The same is true for the black beauty salon. Men and women leaves these places armed and proud. The few minutes of the hologram elicit the story of the power of creating safe spaces such as barber shops, beauty salons, jazz clubs and churches.
The poem must become the altar which holds all that one has been, is and can be. It must hold the essence of one’s being; one’s pain, joy, laughter, tears, vulnerability, strength and anger.
Sometimes we allow words to roll off our tongue in waves with little thought of the poem they are creating; of the holograms they incite.
Poems create the space which holds the past, present and future. Each word withheld or spoken awakens a poem which directs the dance of all who receive it. The challenge is to take ownership of the power of the poem we create with and for each other? Each word, each phrase, spoken or withheld, is a power which challenges, nurtures or destroys.
Written November 3, 2021
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
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