About it...

I'm increasingly disinclined to talk about my ideas that have yet to translate into work product, online or out loud. I guess it comes from taking my ideas more seriously and the protectionism that comes from the threat of ganking. I've had a friend take an idea right out of my mouth and write with it, which irked me to no end but I never confronted said individual 'cause perceived* bark aside, in my personal relationships there ain't no bite, just occasional drunken aggrievement in confrontation's stead. I've had people pick my brain for their own gain, again and again and it's annoying. Anyway, a couple of ideas I've had can be distilled into a line from a poem by my imaginary mentor, the late great Gwendolyn Brooks (when flesh and blood mentors cannot be found, you can always get yourself a haint) whose germinal poem, "We Real Cool", I reworked for this blog's title some years ago. I haven't written or read much poetry in almost a year due to a horrid workshop experience and general anxiety but each banal day and busy night I process much of what I encounter through it: that of others I've committed to memory and the formless stuff I write on the back of receipts, tissues, Post-its® and journals bought for me by my dad or auntie. I won't identify the line in question but here's the poem.

Sadie and Maud

Maud went to college.
Sadie stayed home.
Sadie scraped life
With a fine toothed comb.

She didn't leave a tangle in
Her comb found every strand.
Sadie was one of the livingest chicks
In all the land.

Sadie bore two babies
Under her maiden name.
Maud and Ma and Papa
Nearly died of shame.

When Sadie said her last so-long
Her girls struck out from home.
(Sadie left as heritage
Her fine-toothed comb.)

Maud, who went to college,
Is a thin brown mouse.
She is living all alone
In this old house.

Gwendolyn Brooks

And for your listening pleasure: "All You'll Be" by Tiombe Lockhart and Leron Thomas

*Irrespective of my manner, to many, all I'll be is an angry Black woman.