This week's Poet of the People is Jennfer Bartell Boykin. I first met Jennifer when she was a student at the University of South Carolina and she has graced the mic of poetry events I host in the Midlands. She is busy advocating for poetry throughout our community and I encourage you to hear her if you have an opportunity.; she is an insightful and delightful poet and serves us the Poet Laureate of Columbia, SC. - you won't be disappointed.
Bio:
Jennifer Bartell Boykin is from Bluefield, a Black community in Johnsonville, South Carolina. She is the Poet Laureate of Columbia, South Carolina, writes poetry and nonfiction and teaches in Columbia, SC. http://www.jenniferbartellpoet.com/
She has a new book, 'Traveling Mercy.'
Your Grandfather’s Collard Green Patch
I watch the boys play
at a tailgate of his truck.
Or I should say only one
is kneeling in the dirt.
Three black boys. Two black men.
In a field between Lynchburg
and Bishopville. Where the cotton
has already been picked, piled, and hauled
off. Their grandfather’s collard greens
stand proud in the background.
The one kneeling is listening
to the dirt, learning how to make
it yield. And it is the granddad’s
voice that whispers back into his
ear. The collard greens standing
proudly in the background, their price
already haggled. They will be New Year’s
greens with the field peas and black eyed-peas,
our chance for good luck even though
Omicron is looming, and Delta has yet to leave.
But still the grandfather smiles and the grandsons
laugh, because this overcast Wednesday
is one more day.
Waiting: Starbucks on Piney Grove
for Mary Kathryn Coleman
Feels like I’ve been here before but
it is the first time. I’m trying to be
within myself. I’m looking out of the
window at the yellow and black design
of Waffle House. I am sipping my coffee
drink, that is more than just coffee;
my coffee game is notoriously weak.
My father drank Sanka. Instant
coffee. That’s decaffeinated. And that
is my coffee blood line. I’m trying
to get some writing done. I’m trying
not to look at the three teenagers
together, but not, each on their phones,
a convex mirror to the outside world.
This is how to hang with your friends
and not. In this world we have managed
to build for ourselves. To be trapped in
the orbit of our own small illuminated
planet. The baristas are baristering.
People come in and out,
some to pick up their mobile orders,
others to get orders to go. The only
other person in here is a guy on his laptop.
Is this his office? A woman comes in with
her daughter. I am waiting for my friend
who I haven’t seen in months, who has
had a baby since last I saw her, who has
bought a house. The guy on his laptop
is packing up. He is moving on too, but
here I will remain, to wait for my friend.
To see her and smile, and laugh
because it’s been too long because of life,
but because of COVID too. Thanksgiving
is tomorrow, and most days I am grateful
for the simple breath that keeps this body
upright from day to day. Thanksgiving
is a Day of Mourning. But I am going to go
to somebody’s house and eat some macaroni
and cheese. It better be good. I digress.
There’s wonder in the wait. The Always Open,
the hotels and restaurants that surround this place,
the interstate just in the distance.
Home
for Monifa Lemons
Santee, you see is where you meet me,
with arms like poetry flung wide
and a smile
that could love and cut
at the same time.
When you think of South Carolina,
you think of home and where
the ancestors walked and where,
if you are real quiet and still,
you can hear the Spanish moss
whispering your name.
Santee, you see, is where us tribe be,
but us tribe be in the air and everywhere
and infinity times two. At Santee we got
poetry and poetry got us.
Muh knee is fa’ praying
and Monifa praying that
BLACK LIVES MATTER
BLACK POETS MATTER
SC is ours. They can’t have it.
Santee, you see, is where you met me,
but not where you left me.
We walk this dirt road to find
The Watering Hole, to find the sweet water
that sustains us in these bitter times.
And the dirt road welcomes you back,
remembers your footprints, and the prayers
you sent. The dust underneath your feet
exhales: Welcome Home.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
for Blless
They’re back in their spawn
Oh, damn. Here we go again. I’m trying
to level this fucking Kar.
What you doing? I’m ‘bout to eat soup
my wife made for me.
I need to level up my gun. It’s dumb
slow: this call of duty
of working all day, creating truth from beats,
and melodies from the vision of a future
that will never come. Maybe I win today. Damn.
He is garbage. Finding peace
at being who you are gets tiring and over-
rated as most games are. Win.
Defeat. Coalition. Begin. You, being
the one that fell again. The one who got up.
This Road I Take
Whether it slithers like the satan-
like snake or lies flat like a sheet
on a freshly made bed, we must
travel either way. Peace, be
like a sword. Traveling mercy,
follow me wherever I may go.
Joy, don’t forget me at night
either; I need you then too.
Grief, my life partner, don’t
be as cruel in the end as you
were in the beginning. Whether
it be forked or diverging in a woods,
I know not. I must travel it,
I must come to know
each bog and bump on this road.
Though it is not smooth
the whole way, I made it.
And I had so many along the way
to give me cool drinks of water.