making sh!t for your girlfriend since 2007

.....................................

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Craft Mart ~ Nov 8 (6pm - 11pm) & Nov 9 (11am - 7pm) ~ Hamilton Artists Inc. ~ 155 James Street North, Hamilton
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Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Why you shouldn't read with headphones on...

Ever notice how the lines of certain poems, when taken out of context, sound like rap lyrics?


...Run your hands across the wheel. Stop
at ten and two, check the rearview, pop
the clutch and...nothing - shit - the thing's been up on blocks since 1982.


See? Now that's Elizabeth Bachinsky's poem "B&E" from Home of Sudden Service (Nightwood Editions, 2006), but it could just as easily be something off of Straight Outta Compton (Ruthless Records, 1988). Wait, there's more:



I know the hoe is never tired
it never needs to sleep or pass
the day just sitting in the shade
you made the hoe so straight I can't
chop down its purpose Boss it's good
for one thing only nothing else...
Maurice Manning, "can I say whew to you now Boss" from Bucolics (Harcourt, 2007)

Should I talk with the chalk of my white inside
On the board of my minstrel-blacked outside
Should I bleach my bile-name or mash it to a stink
Should I read for you straight or Gunga Din this gig
Daljit Nagra, "Booking Khan Singh Kumar" from Look We Have Coming to Dover! (Faber and Faber, 2007)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

*This* is truly Comparative Lit. Keepin' it real, as always, you are.

It's no secret that poetry has never been welcome in my alley, but the Bachinsky/NWA comparison has me swayed.

Straight Outta Compton. Hahahaha...

D-Sisive said...

so good.

why don't you post something from Skeelo's poetry book?