"Half Girl, Then Elegy" by Omotara James

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend January 23, 2019   Half Girl, Then Elegy   Omotara James

Having fallen while no one was looking Having borne what fell through Having fallen early / Having barely fallen through myself My luck, so close to catching, Having caught the worst of it / Having fallen from the sky, and then Through it. Having landed to realize I had been part / Having parted the late sky, partly Sky where I am delicate, I took A tumble through the night bloom / I took the night with me as I tumbled, Delicate with the infinite, Which swells from the tallest branch / Having grown swollen As low-hanging fruit, I tell Nadra, I couldn't help it— / The fresh heave of new breast Thick switch of hip: a group Of unnamed gifts is called a steal / She says, fruit you can reach is still Precious. Her name means rare: her lean Thins towards the unusual. / In Lagos, we name our girls Darling, Sincere, Precious, because A name is a stake in the grave /   Having grieved and taken and taken On the way to Eros, Thanatos Having arrived late to my own bloom:   Halve me like a walnut Pry the part of me that is hollow From the part that yields fruit.            Copyright © 2019 Omotara James. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "As I go along my daily business of being a woman, I continue to be surprised by how the world defines me: by what I am no longer. From a position of transitional and unfixed womanhood, I was drawn to the metaphorical conceit of a great fall. The chosen image of the sky feels more appropriate than say, a rabbit hole, because girlhood is a pilgrimage we make in the open. Maybe the poem works to challenge the concept that girlhood is finite. Maybe it can't. The rhythm of the poem attempts to capture this slippage while turning on the homonymy of have and halve. For me, one of the surprises of this poem is the interrogation between possession of and division from the self." —Omotara James   Omotara James is the author of Daughter Tongue (Akashic Books, 2018), selected for the New Generation African Poets Box Set by the African Poetry Book Fund. Recipient of the Nancy P. Schnader Academy of American Poets Prize, she is an editor and teacher of poetry and lives in New York City. Poetry by James   Daughter Tongue (Akashic Books, 2018) "Pain Scale" by Catherine Barnett "Conversation with Phillis Wheatley #2" by Tiana Clark "Oughta Be a Woman" by June Jordan January Guest Editor: TC Tolbert   Thanks to TC Tolbert, author of Gephyromania (Ahsahta Press, 2014), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month's weekdays. Read a Q&A with Tolbert about his curatorial approach this month and find out more about our guest editors for the year. 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