"Nothingness" by Dawn Lundy Martin

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend August 5, 2019   Nothingness   Dawn Lundy Martin

I don't want to say anything. What is it to be saying? Force speech, rape speech. I have no subjectivity or light subjectivity. Speaking, defunct. Land mass floats. And the forests have been felled. And the antlers, snapped. Morphed lips, already sewn. Most of us are keen to mouth the word, "beast." Everyone is talking talking talking like dentures, clack clack, but nothing is really said. Or so much chatter static. I am not saying anything either, am waiting and breathing. My body is speaking. Expressing the thingness of the thing. It chats at me, motoring. In the taxi, a tree shaped purple fragrance floats across face.   --   To be a red scratch or red scotch, depending on your liking, calculation of the sublime, or the sublime itself—   Memory fixed— —and then splatter. My mother in her pink kitchen washes what the garden and its grey chemicals produced. Outside, the gate ajar, the dog run wild-ing. A thing called girl splay, or wheat heart. We could draw a chalk line there.   This is not conceptual. This is a poem. You are a poem. I am.   The hesitancy. The undoingness.   More secrets: humiliation as release.   The men all say "I want to stretch you out," feel themselves big in this small corner of the world. How chivalrous, the ache of any obvious sliding down. What would the poem be without wings to block out the light?            Copyright © 2019 Dawn Lundy Martin. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 5, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets. About This Poem   "This poem comes out of despair. Its first concern is the problem of discourse in this age of fascism, global populism, global warming, mass migration, and the persistent assault on female and femme bodies. When I say 'discourse' I mean, the network of meaning that comes from all utterances and the way they overlap. If nothing is produced in this supposed 'meaning making'—nothing that elevates our humanness—what is left for us to do?" —Dawn Lundy Martin   Dawn Lundy Martin's most recent book of poems is Good Stock Strange Blood (Coffee House Press, 2018). She is Professor of English and Founder/Director of the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics at the University of Pittsburgh. She lives in Pittsburgh, PA and Brooklyn, NY. Photo Credit: Max Freeman Poetry by Martin   Good Stock Strange Blood (Coffee House Press, 2018) "To Be Continued:" by June Jordan "You're really faithful to your abusers, aren't you?" by Samiya Bashir "Arthritis is one thing, the hurting is another" by Camille T. Dungy August Guest Editor: Ruth Ellen Kocher   Thanks to Ruth Ellen Kocher, author of Third Voice (Tupelo Press, 2016), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month's weekdays. Read a Q&A with Kocher about her 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