Day 34

Daily Assignment Chart - Week of 4/13

"...one ought every day at least to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words." -Goethe

A poem for today: "women's voting rights at one hundred (but who's counting?)" by Evie Shockley

women’s voting rights at one hundred (but who’s counting?)

eenie meenie minie moe
catch a voter by her toe
if she hollers then you know
got yourself a real jane crow

* * *

one vote is an opinion
with a quiet legal force ::
a barely audible beep
in the local traffic, & just
a plashless drop of mercury
in the national thermometer.
but a collectivity of votes
/ a flock of votes, a pride of votes,
a murder of votes / can really make
some noise. 

* * *

one vote begets another
if you make a habit of it.
my mother started taking me to
the polls with her when i was
seven :: small, thrilled
to step in the booth, pull
the drab curtain hush-shut
behind us, & flip the levers
beside each name she pointed
to, the Xs clicking into view.
there, she called the shots.

* * *

rich gal, poor gal
hired girl, thief
teacher, journalist
vote your grief 

* * *

one vote’s as good as another
:: still, in 1913, illinois’s gentle
suffragists, hearing southern
women would resent spotting
mrs. ida b. wells-barnett amidst
whites marchers, gently kicked
their sister to the curb. but when
he march kicked off, ida got
right into formation, as planned.
the tribune’s photo showed
her present & accounted for.

* * *

one vote can be hard to keep
an eye on :: but several /a
colony of votes/ can’t scuttle
away unnoticed so easily. my
mother, veteran registrar for
our majority black election
district, once found—after
much searching—two bags
of ballots /a litter of votes/
stuffed in a janitorial closet.

* * *

one-mississippi
two-mississippis 

* * *

one vote was all fannie lou
hamer wanted. in 1962, when
her constitutional right was
over forty years old, she tried
to register. all she got for her
trouble was literacy tested, poll
taxed, fired, evicted, & shot
at. a year of grassroots activism
nearly planted her mississippi
freedom democratic party
in the national convention.

* * *

one vote per eligible voter
was all stacy abrams needed.
she nearly won the georgia
governor’s race in 2018 :: lost by
50,000 /an unkindness of votes/
to the man whose job was purg
maintaining the voter rolls.
days later, she rolled out plans
for getting voters a fair fight.
it’s been two years—& counting.

January 4, 2020

A song for today: "Taxman" by the Beatles. Here's a fun game you can play with pop songs like "Taxman." Find other songs that borrow from it: "Start" by the Jam and "New Pollution" by Beck.

Works Cited

The Beatles. "Taxman." Revolver, Capitol Records, 1966.

Shockley, Evie. "women's voting rights at one hundred (but who's counting?)." Poets.org. https://poets.org/poem/womens-voting-rights-one-hundred-whos-counting. Accessed 15 April 2020.

Day 33

Daily Assignment Chart - Week of 4/13

"...one ought every day at least to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words." -Goethe

A poem for today: Brendan Kennelly's "Begin"

Begin

Begin again to the summoning birds
to the sight of the light at the window,
begin to the roar of morning traffic
all along Pembroke Road.
Every beginning is a promise
born in light and dying in dark
determination and exaltation of springtime
flowering the way to work.
Begin to the pageant of queuing girls
the arrogant loneliness of swans in the canal
bridges linking the past and future
old friends passing though with us still.
Begin to the loneliness that cannot end
since it perhaps is what makes us begin,
begin to wonder at unknown faces
at crying birds in the sudden rain
at branches stark in the willing sunlight
at seagulls foraging for bread
at couples sharing a sunny secret
alone together while making good.
Though we live in a world that dreams of ending
that always seems about to give in
something that will not acknowledge conclusion
insists that we forever begin.

A song for today: Alice Coltrane's "Journey in Satchidananda"

Works Cited

Coltrane, Alice. "Journey in Satchidananda." Journey in Satchidananda, Impulse, 1970.

Kennelly, Brendan. "Begin." Wake Forest University Press. https://wfupress.wfu.edu/poem-of-the-week/poem-of-the-week-begin-by-brendan-kennelly/. Accessed 14 April 2020.

Day 32

Daily Assignment Chart - Week of 4/13

"...one ought every day at least to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words." -Goethe

A poem for today: Theodore Roethke's "The Waking" is a villanelle (defined by poets.org as "a highly structured poem made up of five tercets followed by a quatrain, with two repeating rhymes and two refrains.") For more on villanelles, read the full article at poets.org.

The Waking

BY THEODORE ROETHKE

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.   

I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.   

I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?   

I hear my being dance from ear to ear.   

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?   

God bless the Ground!   I shall walk softly there,   

And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?   

The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;   

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do   

To you and me; so take the lively air,   

And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.   

What falls away is always. And is near.   

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.   

I learn by going where I have to go.

A song for today: Public Enemy's "Harder Than You Think." For the definitive PE albums, check out their late 80s masterpiece It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back and the early 90s Fear of a Black Planet.

Works Cited

Public Enemy. "Harder Than You Think." How You Sell Soul to a Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul?, SLAMjamz Records, 2007.

Roethke, Theodore (1908-1963). "The Waking." Poetryfoundation.org. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43333/the-waking-56d2220f25315. Accessed 13 April 2020.

Day 31

Daily Assignment Chart - Week of 4/13

"...one ought every day at least to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words." -Goethe

A poem for today: "Sunday Chimes in the City" by Louise Imogen Guiney

Sunday Chimes in the City

BY LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY

Across the bridge, where in the morning blow

The wrinkled tide turns homeward, and is fain

Homeward to drag the black sea-goer’s chain,

And the long yards by Dowgate dipping low;

Across dispeopled ways, patient and slow,

Saint Magnus and Saint Dunstan call in vain:

From Wren’s forgotten belfries, in the rain,

Down the blank wharves the dropping octaves go.

Forbid not these! Tho’ no man heed, they shower

A subtle beauty on the empty hour,

From all their dark throats aching and outblown;

Aye in the prayerless places welcome most,

Like the last gull that up a naked coast

Deploys her white and steady wing, alone.

A song for today: "Sunday Morning" by the Velvet Underground

Works Cited

Guiney, Louise Imogen (1861-1920). "Sunday Chimes in the City." Poetryfoundation.org. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52021/sunday-chimes-in-the-city. Accessed 12 April 2020.

Velvet Underground. "Sunday Morning." Velvet Underground and Nico, Verve, 1967.

Day 30

"...one ought every day at least to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words." -Goethe

A poem for today: Joy Harjo's "Remember" reminds us of how we are always surrounded by "alive poems" and how important it is to pay attention to them.

Remember

Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star's stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun's birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother's, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.

A song for 4/11: Mary J. Blige's "Real Love" from What's the 411? If this huge 90s hit sounds familiar, perhaps it's because you've heard Frank Ocean quote it in "Super Rich Kids."

Works Cited

Blige, Mary J. "Real Love." What's the 411?, Uptown Records, 1992.

Harjo, Joy. "Remember." Poets.org. https://poets.org/poem/remember-0. Accessed 11 April 2020.

Pizzi, Rudi. Just Ducky.