Poetry for Building Community | Common Good Collective

New Motherhood, a Dictionary

Wed, 04 May 2022 18:00:52 +0000

This Sunday, American’s celebrate Mother’s Day. It’s a bittersweet celebration this year as the contemplate whether or not parenthood is a sacred choice or a law-bound mandate. Namrata Poddar contemplates motherhood in her poetic dictionary below.

New Motherhood, a Dictionary
By Namrata Poddar

Motherhood: Goddess squad gracing the walls of Hindu temples, wifehood and motherhood balanced perfectly in those slender waists and big breasts, ever ready to nurse.

Motherhood of the Goddess Consort, a male fantasy like their Virgin Mother.

Motherhood: a border, a wall sundering your life into prebaby and post-baby days. Wait till he grows up, they say. It comes back—the physical mobility, the energy, the yoga, the reading, brunches with girlfriends, happy hour with colleagues, the love-making too.

Motherhood: your new role—now that you’ve given them a legacy with a baby boy—as an addendum in their parties, neither the text you’ve aspired to be nor the footnote you used to be.

Motherhood: its own game of power in heterodomesticity, one you keep fighting for dignity, one you keep losing for sanity.

Motherhood: shield for your baby boy from the silence and self-hatred of those mother figures, wired to perpetuate toxic masculinity.

Motherhood: quarantine before quarantine becomes a global thing, worthy of empathy.

Motherhood: a feminine logic of love. How it strips romantic love of its luster, that transactional love between adults driven by a capitalist logic of profit.

Motherhood: an unending play of paradox, a dance in chiaroscuro.

Motherhood: Adi Shakti, primordial Goddess Mother, Creatrix to all that was, is, will be. How she empties you of the masculine drive to possess meaning. How she anchors you into the fleeting, into what is yet to be born. Your alignment with eternal becoming.

This piece was originally published by Raising Mothers.

“This is what was bequeathed to us”

Wed, 27 Apr 2022 18:00:49 +0000

At first, I learned that a story was a series of conflicts, always this versus that. Later, I learned that a story was a series of disconnections and reconnections. These days, I’m pretty sure that both are true, but connection matters first and most. These animations speak to that.

“This is what was bequeathed to us”
By Gregory Orr and Taian Lu

“Careful”

Tue, 26 Apr 2022 18:00:35 +0000

I went to grad school in downtown Chicago. The only draining part was the train ride home, which often included a combination of Pabst Blue Ribboned baseball fans and caffeinated stock traders on their cellphones. Both groups were all kinds of brash and oblivious to the rest of us riding home. My challenge: to see these temporary neighbors with generosity. In this song, I think the speaker is getting curious about himself and the humans sitting next to him.

Click the image to hear “Careful”.

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Click the image or here to hear “Careful”.

“Careful”
By Devin Bustin

Careful
You’re about to get an earful
Or even get a mouthful
And wouldn’t that suck?

You’re not
The only story at the bus stop
The only one who needs a day off
But you’re the loud one on the phone

I know
I’m the one who’s got the headphones
With the monologues of my own
But it’s the one that I choose

I’m not
Trying to keep you within earshot
So I’m applying earlock
To hear myself think

Take me
Where I can think clearly
And maybe
I won’t mind my mind

This city
Where everybody sits near me
And I’m learning how to sit beside myself

Tell me
Who’s the tallest in your family
Who’s carrying a baby
Who’s carrying grief

Me, I was an ocean in my past life
I don’t know why I look away
When people wave

“It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way”

Wed, 20 Apr 2022 18:00:45 +0000

Songwriter, author, and activist Andre Henry describes his latest song with the following, “This is the new version of my signature song. It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way. The point of the song is that all of these injustices we see in the world are changeable, because of the power of collective action.”

“It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way”
By Andre Henry

Bless up di whole a di people dem weh seek truth and justice
hope’ and power wi a deal wit
Fi mashup Babylon system
Dem cya’ conquer wi
Yuh done know

Five hundred sneakers stomp on the pavement
All of their fists clenched tight in the air
Cardboard and banners wavin’
Hear the sirens wailin’
Five hundred voices shouting for change
Sayin’

If all lives to matter to us
Tell me why some
Sleep on the street at night
If all lives to matter
Why do the bombs fly (Why?)
If everyone has their worth
And love is what we deserve
Why do they keep their knee on our necks?
All I gotta’ say is…

It doesn’t have to be this way
it doesn’t have to be (No)
It doesn’t have to be (No, no)
I know! We have the power to change it
It doesn’t have to be (No)
Doesn’t have to be (No)

We are like gods and don’t even know it
Whatever we do becomes history
They may have the guns but we got the poets
The future will be whatever we sing

And we refuse to accept
Whatever’s left after the 1% eats
Di worl’ belong to wi
As much as anyone else
Everyone has their worth
And love is what we deserve
You bout to get your knee off my neck
All I gotta’ say is…

It doesn’t have to be this way
it doesn’t have to be (No)
It doesn’t have to be (No, no)
I know! We have the power to change it
It doesn’t have to be (No)
Doesn’t have to be (No)

from It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way (Deluxe Single), released June 19, 2021
Lyrics, Track, and Production by Andre Henry
Mixed by Ryan Lipman
Mastered by Pete Lyman
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

“I Have a Dream”

Wed, 13 Apr 2022 18:00:27 +0000

This week marks the 82nd birthday of Herbie Hancock, one of the most transformative figures in
American music during the past 60 years. Here’s a track written in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
shortly after King’s death.

“I Have a Dream”
By Herbie Hancock

“Backwards”

Wed, 06 Apr 2022 18:00:11 +0000

One in 15 children are exposed to intimate partner violence each year, and 90% of these children are eyewitnesses to this violence. In “Backwards”, poet Warsan Shire shares her experience witnessing the abuse of her then-pregnant mother, and remembers the violence she suffered as well. While the mainstream media often tries to sensationalize conflict — especially between high-profile characters of the Elite class — the common good knows that we are only as safe as the most vulnerable among us.

Backwards
By Warsan Shire

The poem can start with him walking backwards into a room.
He takes off his jacket and sits down for the rest of his life;
that’s how we bring Dad back.
I can make the blood run back up my nose, ants rushing into a hole.
We grow into smaller bodies, my breasts disappear,
your cheeks soften, teeth sink back into gums.
I can make us loved, just say the word.
Give them stumps for hands if even once they touched us without consent,
I can write the poem and make it disappear.
Step-Dad spits liquor back into glass,
Mum’s body rolls back up the stairs, the bone pops back into place,
maybe she keeps the baby.
Maybe we’re okay kid?
I’ll rewrite this whole life and this time there’ll be so much love,
you won’t be able to see beyond it.

You won’t be able to see beyond it,
I’ll rewrite this whole life and this time there’ll be so much love.
Maybe we’re okay kid,
maybe she keeps the baby.
Mum’s body rolls back up the stairs, the bone pops back into place,
Step-Dad spits liquor back into glass.
I can write the poem and make it disappear,
give them stumps for hands if even once they touched us without consent,
I can make us loved, just say the word.
Your cheeks soften, teeth sink back into gums
we grow into smaller bodies, my breasts disappear.
I can make the blood run back up my nose, ants rushing into a hole,
that’s how we bring Dad back.
He takes off his jacket and sits down for the rest of his life.
The poem can start with him walking backwards into a room.

“There Is No Table Long Enough”

Wed, 30 Mar 2022 18:00:14 +0000

This poem moves from distance and fear to closeness and courage. In this time of threat and violent conflict, these stanzas are worth memorizing.

“There Is No Table Long Enough”
By David Whyte

One man’s unspoken inner edge of darkness
un-confronted and un-transformed
sitting far away in his own fear,
like someone looking through
the wrong end of a child’s telescope,
like someone sitting at the end
of an absurdly lengthened table:
holds his intimate circle in fear of death
and torture, threatens their families,
poisons their lives along with his enemies,
sews everyone into the straight jacket
of immobile fear, then carefully tailors
a uniform of death for every single one
of his bullied young men to wear.

May we see then, in this allegory,
as we too, in this time, sit so far away,
the simple way an individual life
no matter how imprisoned,
transformed by generosity, saves
so many lives in the future.

May we take the time, while we confront
this fear now, on the outside
with necessary and courageous physical action,
to preempt any future evil by bringing
every hidden edge into the light, by bringing
our inner troubles into the conversation,
where heads are allowed to lean close
to one another at a table shortened
to the point of mutual understanding.

There is no table long enough
to keep us from our own unspoken darkness
but, thanks be to God, and every power
beyond us, there is no table long enough
to hold the riches of darkness transformed,
to hold the wine raised and the bread
consumed, to hold every item of our shared bounty,
brought from every field of our endeavour,
in a promised future, that despite ourselves,
will always be destined to forgiveness.

This poem was originally posted by Compassionate San Antonio

Two Poems by Crystal Wilkinson

Wed, 23 Mar 2022 18:00:45 +0000

Crystal Wilkinson is Kentucky’s Poet Laureate. The following poems are from her most recent publication entitled Perfect Black, a memoir in verse which elegantly explores rural Black girlhood, religion, sexual abuse, and growing up in Southern Appalachia.

Many of her poems model the courage it takes to shed expectations and worry, while concurrently accepting the reality of living in an imperfect society.

Undersong:
To be free from societal expectations for our bodies – “Black & Fat & Perfect”
To be free from worrying about our children’s safety – “Mother’s Day”

Black & Fat & Perfect
by Crystal Wilkinson

He knows there is truth in silence,
in the stillness of perfect black,
perfect balance-bliss from the kiss
of ancient chants. They are patient
as the clouds of dust in the corners-
remnants of the sloughing of old skins
reborn in the us of them. Round tree to bark back
they lie in moonlight & haze till day breaks
& the dust floats into the light above them
a magical veil to cover their faces
a balm to heal all wounds.
Light dances in the window
& the work of morning begins.
He brews the coffee. She churns the sausage.
He scoops her waist from behind,
cups the girth of her belly & she is black & fat
& perfect in his capable, warm hands.

Mother’s Day
by Crystal Wilkinson

Last night
i dreamed
my son joined a gang
A gang
one million strong

This gang
these brothers
spoke Swahili
Spanish
& street talk

& nobody was afraid

This gang walked around
in broad daylight
& after midnight
dreadlocked
cornrowed
hair kinky crazy

& nobody pointed their pistols

This gang
they wore kente durags
around their foreheads
cowries around their necks
didn’t take no shit

& nobody was afraid

This gang
one million strong
These sons
were intelligent
educable
like they always been

& nobody said they were not able

This gang
they were the future
doctors
lawyers
teachers
poets
all about the business
of being correct

& nobody was afraid

This gang
they walked the streets
in great numbers

& nobody cuddled their purses

This gang
they stood up
& spoke up
when justice showed
its true colors

& the swat team didn’t come

This gang
they went to schools
where no teachers made them feel
worth less or like criminals

& nobody cried rape

This gang
they praised god
their way
& remembered ancestors
in old as time ceremonies

& nobody was afraid

They
beat drums
They beat drums
& beat drums

& nobody was afraid

This gang
sang their
warrior songs
baritone voices
stirring all those
with ears bent

& nobody was afraid

Last night
i dreamed
by son joined a gang
a gang
one million strong

This morning
i woke up
said a prayer
& prepared him
for another day
in fayette county public schools

& was very much afraid

“What a Good Woman Does”

Tue, 22 Mar 2022 18:00:35 +0000

Joy Williams has several solo albums and was also part of the Grammy winning duo The Civil Wars. Her music acknowledges the tension between brilliance and tragedy in this life.

Undersong: To be free from the prescribed gender-specific roles of stereotypes.

What a Good Woman Does
by Joy Williams

Lyrics:

I can’t carry the weight of this war
I can’t do it anymore
Everyone’s wounded, nobody’s won

Hear me
I haven’t lost my voice without you near me
I can tell the truth about you leaving
But that’s not what a good woman does

Don’t feel sorry for yourself
You’ve got everything you want
Everyone’s watching you pick up and run

To hear me
I haven’t lost my voice without you near me
I can tell the truth about you leaving
But that’s not what a good woman does

Ooh, a good woman does
That’s not what a good woman
Ooh, that’s not what a good woman does

Can’t carry the weight of this war
I won’t do it anymore

Hear me
I haven’t lost my voice without you near me
I can tell the truth about you leaving
But that’s not what a good woman does

Ooh, a good woman does
That’s not what a good woman
Ooh, that’s not what a good woman does

“Don’t Give Up”

Wed, 16 Mar 2022 18:00:18 +0000

There are times, like I feel today, when we don’t want to keep fighting. We place down our pen, our phone, our tools, and look at the unfinished tasks and chaos stretched before us with shear exhaustion and defeat. Sampa Tembo, known professionally as Sampa the Great, is a Zambian-born Australia-based rapper and songwriter who wrote the song entitled “Don’t Give Up.” Her message is simple, yet the composition of this piece is thick with uplifting power.

“Don’t Give Up”
By Sampa The Great