Maybe the Saddest Thing
The National Poetry Series
was established in 1978 to ensure the publication of five poetry books annually through five participating publishers. Publication is funded by the Lannan Foundation; Stephen Graham; the Joyce & Seward Johnson Foundation; Juliet Lea Hillman Simonds; the Poetry Foundation; Olaf Olafsson; Mr. & Mrs. Michael Newhouse; Jennifer Rubell; The New York Community Trust; Elizabeth Christopherson; and Aristides Georgantas.
2011 Competition Winners
With Venom and Wonder
, by Julianne Buchsbaum of Lawrence, KS
Chosen by Lucie Brock-Broido, to be published by Penguin Books
Your Invitation to a Modest Breakfast
, by Hannah Gamble of Chicago, IL
Chosen by Bernadette Mayer, to be published by Fence Books
Green Is for World
, by Juliana Leslie of Santa Cruz, CA
Chosen by Ange Mlinko, to be published by Coffee House Press
Exit, Civilian
, by Idra Novey of Brooklyn, NY
Chosen by Patricia Smith, to be published by University of Georgia Press
Maybe the Saddest Thing
, by Marcus Wicker of Ann Arbor, MI
Chosen by D. A. Powell, to be published by HarperCollins Publishers
Self-Dialogue Watching Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip
Love Letter to Justin Timberlake
About the Time Two Ducks Advised Me on Matters of the Flesh
Interrupting Aubade Ending in Epiphany
Everything I Know About Jazz I Learned from Kenny G
Self-Dialogue Camping at Yellowwood State Forest
To a White Friend Who Wonders Why I Don't Spend More Time Pontificating the N Word
Self-Dialogue Staring at a Mirror
I remember the scene in that movie
Ars Poetica in the Mode of J-Live
When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong
The Message or Public Service Announcement Trailing a Meth Lab Explosion
Notes on Beats, Breaks & B-Sides
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To You
The mute boy piano
virtuoso in the deep
stone well.
That single-body
cold each day.
That, nights, he thinks
he shrieks.
That moonless dark
blotting out a mouth
hippo-wide. Hole
puncher is to paper
as who is to poem?
Easier magnifying
glass than mirror.
O, the things unseen:
enflamed epiglottis,
small busted voice
box, symphonies
scratched on stone
well linesâmore
loose leaf, really,
than ledger.
This voidâthat boy
is or could be youâ
depending on the eye.
Unless, you've never
longedâto be seen,
heard so bad. That,
nights, you caveâ
cancel the self.
Say it sad and plain:
that this poem
is a void.
That this well is
as far as your voice
has ever carried.
We know we are beautiful. And ugly too.
âLANGSTON HUGHES
I think I love you.
How you suck fried chicken grease
off chalkboard fingers, in public!
Or walk the wrong way down an escalator
with a clock around your neck.
How you rapped about the poor
with a gold-tooth grin.
How your gold teeth spell your name.
How you love your name is beautiful.
You shout your name 100 times each day.
They say, if you repeat something enough
you can become it. I'd like to know:
Does
Flavor Flaaav!
sound ugly to you?
I think it's slightly beautiful.
I bet you love mirrors.
Tell the truth,
when you find plastic Viking horns
or clown shades staring back,
is it beauty you see?
Or Vaudeville?
To express myself honestly enough
;
that, my friend, is very hard to do.
Those are Bruce Lee's words.
I mention Bruce Lee here, only
because you remind me of him.
That's a lie. But your shades do
mirror a mask he wore
as Green Hornet's trusty sidekick.
No, I'm not calling names.
Chuck D would have set cities on fire
had you let him.
You were not Public Enemy's sidekick.
You hosed down whole crowds
in loudmouth flame-retardant spit.
You did this only by repeating your name.
Flavor Flaaav! Flavor Flaaav!
I think I love you. I think I really might
mean it this time.
William. Can I call you William?
I should have asked 27 lines ago:
What have you become?
How you've lived saying nothing
save the same words each day
is a kind of freedom or beauty.
Please, tell me I'm not lying to us.
What of stepping outside the door on fire?
What of running down a faceless road
Let alone a busy strip, enflamed? Got-damn!
There must be 10,000 selves in an epidermis. Imagine
Yours. Imagine the skin-peeling flame of each self-
Inflicted arson. Imagine the freedom to say God
Damn! To consider what that feels like. To speak
A wild geyser spraying from a busted hydrant.
You watch Richard Pryor in a loud fire engine
Red suitâall flashing lights, sirens: 10,000 selves
Visible to the world, & consider what that feels like.
To think, you may or may not be God damned.
To know, at least, your dick is intact.
You have one of the longest,
thickest, most veined, colossal
set of hands that I have ever seen
and, frankly, they cast a spell on me.
Not that I'm the type of man
who goes around checking out
other men's hands, but I know
tightly tucked cuticles
when I see them. Even sexier
is the hourglass-shaping choke hold
you can put on a mic.
You could hurl a two-foot monkey
wrench at a mirror
or pull out
and push in a date's chair
with the flick of a wrist.
I bet you don't though. Bet you've never
carried a man up four flights of stairs,
limp arms flailing every which way.
And if you have, I bet you took care
to cradle his neck. To avoid banisters
and to walk slowly. Because you are fierce
in the way only a 6'7"black drag queen could be.
In one of my earliest memories, you are wearing
a pink sequined dress, endorsing a hamburger
Good enough for a man. Maybe a woman.
I am a black man who has never worn pinkâ
not a polo to a country club. Not gators
to a church. And still, that commercial
ravished me. How hard, to be sandwiched
between what and who you are, tickled
by every cruel wind, critic-voyeur