Rodney Terich Leonard
Some people don't schwa the A in her name,
they won't ah it, like they do for ago & anonymous.
Into secondhand enunciation, they dote on & long-
chew the alphabet's first letter, its crunch-gristle, A-dele.

The Manhattan in me says Adele.     Toodle loo—
I, too, sing along, with & through, her numbered albums,
the years & poundage of a nightingale's wake turbulence:
Right under my feet is air made of bricks.

But when I close my eyes, throw back my head,
sway it from side-to-side in a bop that might
daze the confused who think they know
what no in its haze & flesh looks like,
I am spinning in belief, foaming
for the next yes note—before,
between & after a swallow of spit,
waiting for the spoils of Aretha, Gladys, & Leela,
to be took to the water.

& for some reason,
I get stuck somewhere,
on the edge of something,
listening to Joss & Amy & Dusty.

Coloratura—
peony-splattered drama
atop bedside books.
Dear Adele,
25 strands me someplace
unlit & parched.

"Vulnerability, mistrust and melancholy,"
said The New York Times of Ta-Nahesi Coates'
We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy.
Sax the truth      let the poem say Amen,
politics edit & fickle my taste.
from the book SWEETGUM & LIGHTENING / Four Way Books
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"What can I do with this feeling?" was snatched from “Hooked On Your Love,” a tune penned by Curtis Mayfield and sung by Aretha Franklin on "Sparkle," her 1976 soundtrack album. I wanted to write a poem about how Adele and I listen to each other; music learns us. The stanzas are deliberately overwrought to match Adele’s nuance. I await her next numbered opus.

Rodney Terich Leonard on "What can I do with this feeling?"
Stylized illustrations of individuals standing at windows six feet apart
"Windows on the World: Pandemic Poems" 

 "Six of the UK’s best poets reveal exclusive new work and reflect on the last year, losing relatives, long-distance relationships and ‘artistic claustrophobia.’"  For Jay Bernard, "If the pandemic has taught us anything, it is: drop the perfectionism, because it’s not working for you, or for me."

via THE GUARDIAN
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Cover of Robert Hayden's Collected Poems
What Sparks Poetry:
Rion Amilcar Scott on Robert Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays"

"I often think about the precision in Hayden's language. The words that take on the work of casting several meanings. 'What did I know, what did I know/of love’s austere and lonely offices?' I know all the words he used, but in this formation, with the repetition, the odd use of the word 'offices' and its proximity to the words 'austere' and 'lonely,' the words seem alien and strange in the best way."
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