I Have This Way of Being by Jamaal May

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend January 28, 2016   I Have This Way of Being   Jamaal May

I have this, and this isn’t a mouth             full of the names of odd flowers   I’ve grown in secret.             I know none of these by name   but have this garden now,             and pastel somethings bloom   near the others and others.             I have this trowel, these overalls,   this ridiculous hat now.             This isn’t a lung full of air.   Not a fist full of weeds that rise             yellow then white then windswept.   This is little more than a way             to kneel and fill gloves with sweat,   so that the trowel in my hand             will have something to push against,   rather, something to push             against that it knows will bend   and give and return as sprout             and petal and sepal and bloom.            Copyright © 2016 Jamaal May. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “The poem keeps negating its considerations while essentially building on the first idea, which is also one way to think of struggle and growth. I think the closest anyone could get to an honest answer about who they are is a metaphor that shifts and evolves as they try to express it. In that reach towards articulation we might spark, within ourselves, broader ideas and questions about the world we grapple with.” —Jamaal May   Jamaal May is the author of The Big Book of Exit Strategies (Alice James Books, 2016). He lives in Hamtramck, Michigan. Poetry by May   The Big Book of Exit Strategies (Alice James Books, 2016) "The Wall Hanging I Never Noticed" by Dorothea Lasky "Darling, You Are the World's Fresh Ornament" by Laura Cronk "Verge" by Mark Doty Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038