A poem:
Roses are red,
violets are blue,
and poetry is deader than swine’s with the flu.
Ok so it’s not the kindest of imagery, but it rhymes, and that’s what poetry is all about, right? Rhyming words together in a pattern, so it sounds a little like a kid’s song? Or old English phrasing, talking backwards about flowers and love? Well maybe this is true, but it’s not the whole truth. And maybe this idea of poetry is what’s given it such a bad rep over recent years.
Let’s face it; poetries following today is far from brag worthy, especially when compared with the old times, when poetry was IT! But now it’s like you mention the word poetry, and 8 out of 10 people turn their heads, roll their eyes and ask under their breath “when’s this boring fool gettin’ a DVD player,” and the two that didn’t are only pretending to listen, because they think all the smart kids read poems.
You could say that the reason for poetry’s flop is that we just don’t have the writers we used to, like Shakespeare, everybody’s go to lyricist. But as I recently found out, the lack of interest in poetry is not for a lack of talent.
When we lift up the large heavy rock under which poetry has been hiding, we find there are plenty of folks right under there with it, keeping it warm.
A story: A boy takes a trip to NY City, and in that city he takes the D-Train, and on that train he sees a well dressed man sweet talking a French girl, in one hand the brim of his fedora, in the other a stack of books, and on the cover is him. And upon seeing the boy this man turns from the French girl, and offers one of the books of poetry for 10 American dollars. A hustler, and a poet. Needless to say I accepted.
What I found did not disappoint me. This man who is content to call himself Blue, while being most definitely black, offers some of the most real and honest depictions of life that I’ve come across to date, and he does so in a way that’s always entertaining. His book is called Corner Stores In the Middle of the Block, and its undoubtedly bomb. His portrayals of Harlem life come off the page in a free flowing kind of way that never stumbles over itself for the sake of rhyming, and it always makes sense at first glance (unlike your boy Romeo, who made us read his lines 4 times each before we realized he was just trying to tap Juliet in a longwinded way).
His work is a collection of stories and thoughts, put on the page as they came and left alone to do the work themselves. What’s possibly the best part of reading Blue’s work is that he doesn’t talk endlessly about a heart break or the magic of a tree, but talks instead about his life, the significant and insignificant moments of it, struggles and joys, and even if you didn’t grow up in Harlem you can relate to his stuff.
When you read his work you can laugh at his troubles, you can feel the coldness in the bricks of the buildings he wrote from, you can picture the female he’s pursuing on the subway, and hear the bitterness when he talks about the people in his city too afraid to help themselves.
His writing is universal; it’s about people, period. And since we all know a little bit about those it’s unavoidable that you’ll be entertained by some of his poetry. It’s writers like this that are keeping poetry alive, helping it evolve and not letting it become something of the past. His words are fresh, they have life, they sound genuine and free from any constraint over genre and content. Nothing is withheld when Blue talks; it’s like when you read his work you just became close friends and he’s about to pour some realness on you, if you just accept the invite.
Blue’s raw, straight up way of telling his opinions through his poetry is giving breath back to a way of expression that we’ve used for centuries, and for good reason. Communication, whether its simple conversation, music, or poetry is just down-right good for the soul. To get out our thoughts and dreams, loves and hates in a creative way is something we as people need, and in a world of text messages and short e-mails I think its refreshing like kool-aid to find a counterculture still taking the time to express the thoughts of the not so rich and famous.
Check out these excerpts from one of Blue’s pieces
Urban Renewal
Deep is when a Lady will stand up to her man, yet she’ll run from a mouse…
But then again, that’s not Deep…
Deep is the way girls only seem to show interest in me when they see me with another girl…
So I started hanging out with lesbians…
And we Pick up girls together…
…
This is that poem that wants to tell that guy that has been dating that girl for three weeks that she’s not having sex with him because she’s still having sex with her ex-boyfriend…
…
The hood is where the neighbourhood restaurant can make an order of some chopped up bullshit that will melt in your mouth and cat soup is on the lunch special menu but you gotta ask for it under the name “Woo-hop”
And while I wait for my order I can be entertained by some jiggie 4 year old little boy with a pair of pants that can fit me
And he’s doing the shake and reciting the lyrics to every rap song that comes on the radio but when I asked him to recite his alphabet he couldn’t get past the letter E.
And I'm thinking to myself, I bet if he practiced the alphabet with a Puff Daddy remix, then he’ll get the shit right
Blue makes some good observations, ones that you might find yourself making. And it’s good to be reminded that you’re not the only one with these thoughts and ideas, and its good to see someone making your shared thoughts public. You might even say it’s just good to share, which is actually what poetry is about.
So unless you’re too busy chasing down business deals and reading Donald Trump’s How to Get Rich to listen to a genuine dude drop some genuine stories about things you’ve probably experienced and felt yourself, I highly recommend you give this independent artist a look up. And if you don’t, then at least realize that poetry, the rhythmic expression of the heart n' soul, is still very much alive, though it’s pulse has changed. So let’s keep talking, and writing, and reading, and listening,
Because like my friend Blue would say,
“We grown ups have this tendency to stop communicating, once we start phucking.”
I don’t think Shakespeare would know what to do with this guy, but I bet he’d read his book, and then ask for more.
JD
