Violence, I know you by Khadijah Queen

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend March 8, 2017   Violence, I know you   Khadijah Queen

so well it's like you're my real lover, the reason I can't stay attached to anyone, making a heaven out of beginning again & you knock at my voice as if I could speak you back in as mine & I had time enough to learn the secret of cruelty as if that made it lose its power over me, its antics failing notice,   but it lives in us all like a question we can't answer but keep trying because it feels good to & the secret is it can't last,  & that is when it hurts— we who can't bear to lose & stitch to any nothing that acts like a landing place but turns out to be a fissure, we pretend voices tell us it's music & familiar or alien we listen, it's only a dance            Copyright © 2017 Khadijah Queen. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "'Violence, I know you' is written after Alice Notley's book In the Pines. It is part of a new series I'm working on, where the speaker is a ghost—an ancestor navigating the legacy of her secrets while communicating the importance of voice, intuition, and self-knowledge to her descendants." —Khadijah Queen   Khadijah Queen is the author of I'm So Fine: A List of Famous Men & What I Had On, forthcoming next week from YesYes Books. She teaches in the Mile-High MFA program at Regis University.   Photo credit: Michael Teak   Poetry by Queen   I'm So Fine: A List of Famous Men & What I Had On (YesYes Books, 2017)  "The Wind" by Alice Notley "A Woman Is Talking to Death" by Judy Grahn "The Map" by Marie Howe Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. If you enjoy Poem-a-Day, please consider making a donation to help make it possible. 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

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