"Single Lines Looking Forward. or One Monostich Past 45" by francine j. harris

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend January 29, 2018   Single Lines Looking Forward. or One Monostich Past 45   francine j. harris

The joke is orange. which has never been funny.   For awhile I didn't sleep on my bright side.   Many airplanes make it through sky.   The joke is present. dented and devil.   For awhile, yellow spots on the wall.   Obama on water skis, the hair in his armpits, free.   I thought the CIA was operative.   Across the alley, a woman named Mildred.   Above the clouds in a plane, a waistline of sliced white.   I don't sound like TED Talk, or smart prose on Facebook.   These clouds are not God.   I keep thinking about Coltrane; how little he talked.   This is so little; I give so little.   Sometimes when I say something to white people, they say "I'm sorry?"   During Vietnam, Bob Kaufman stopped talking.   The CIA was very good at killing Panthers.   Mildred in a housecoat, calling across the fence, over her yard.   If I were grading this, I'd be muttering curses.   The joke is a color. a color for prison.   Is it me, or is the sentence, as structure, arrogant?   All snow, in here, this writing, departure.   All miles are valuable. all extension. all stretch.   I savor the air with both fingers, and tongue.   Mildred asks about the beats coming from my car.   I forgot to bring the poem comparing you to a garden.   Someone tell me what to say to my senators.   No one smokes here; in the rain, I duck away and smell piss.   I thought the CIA was. the constitution.   I feel like he left us, for water skis, for kitesurfing.   The sun will not always be so gracious.   From the garden poem, one line stands out.   Frank Ocean's "Nights" is a study in the monostich.   Pace is not breathing, on and off. off.   Mildred never heard of Jneiro Jarel.   I'm afraid one day I'll find myself remembering this air.   The last time I saw my mother, she begged for fried chicken.   My father still sitting there upright, a little high.    Melissa McCarthy could get it.   Sometimes, I forget how to touch.   In a parking garage, I wait for the toothache.   I watch what I say all the time now.   She said she loved my touch, she used the word love.   In 1984, I'd never been in the sky.   My mother walked a laundry cart a mile a day for groceries.   Betsy DeVos is confirmed. with a broken tie.   Mildred's five goes way up, and my five reaches.              Copyright © 2018 francine j. harris. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "After the 2016 election, I was having a tough time writing, and then I started designing a class on contemporary lineation. I used Robert Hass's approach to form, beginning with the monostich and the integrity of a single line, in order to introduce the semester. So this poem came out of that thought process, and it helped me start writing again. I was trying to avoid thinking of the single line as a quip or pun and wanted to preserve a moment in every line. For me, it sort of turned into hope." —francine j. harris   francine j. harris's most recent book is play dead (Alice James Books, 2016), which was the winner of a 2017 Lambda Literary Award and the Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry and was a finalist for the 2017 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. Originally from Detroit, she is currently writer in residence at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Poetry by harris   Play Dead (Alice James Books, 2016) "Alarm" by Kimiko Hahn "Praxis" by Wendy Xu "C.R.E.A.M." by Danez Smith January Guest Editor: Kaveh Akbar   Thanks to Kaveh Akbar, author of Calling a Wolf a Wolf (Alice James Books, 2017), who curated Poem-a-Day this month. Read more about Akbar and our other guest editors for the year. Help Support Poem-a-Day   If you value Poem-a-Day, please consider a monthly donation or one-time gift to help make it possible. Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today's poets each weekday morning. The free series, which also features a curated selection of classic poems on weekends, reaches 450,000+ readers daily. Thank you! 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