Fragments II
You could bind the canon in skin, or parchment.
But the truth was on pottery shards. The inconsequential.

               We are most honest when unprepared. Struck truthful
               in a moment of terror, without pen or paper. Write faster.

Terror is always forthcoming. Like pressure on a specific point,
which trickles outwards to reveal our honest faults. Splinter here.

               My people invent kintsugi. Less a technique and more a faith.
               Faith: that form erupts magnificent from the broken thing. Scar paint.

We are helpless in the face of confession. In her upturned chin,
begging, "Admit. Admit you need me. Admit you need love." I split.

               In the way the broken vessel is helpless to pour. No matter
               how much it tries to hold itself to a standard of function. Spill out.

Gather up your dreams. Gather up the things you have named "dreams,"
which are just the chipped plates of your dropped stars. Don't cry.

               Did you know tears are sieved blood? Spit, too. We are just
               one leaky vessel trying to keep everything in. Keep trying.
from the journal SUGAR HOUSE REVIEW
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Images of Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady, who founded Cave Canem
"How Cave Canem Has Nurtured Generations of Black Poets"

"The first Cave Canem retreat in 1996 gathered about two dozen young writers for a week in a former monastery in upstate New York. The retreats, which are now held at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg campus, have earned an exacting reputation. 'You are in a crucible,' said Dante Micheaux, director of programs at Cave Canem. 'A creative crucible.'"

via THE NEW YORK TIMES
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Cover of Diver Beneath the Street
What Sparks Poetry:
Petra Kuppers on Language as Form

"In the case of 'Split/Screen,' the magic structuring principle of 'fourteen' hovered in my brain. The sonnet is a device I often use, not necessarily as a formal frame but as a couplet structure to hold against my freewrite. This offers a scaffold toward something that can spread out on the page and take up space in the world."
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