De Poem's Birth

by Opal Palmer Adisa

Opal Palmer Adisa is an award-winning poet, literary critic, prose writer, storyteller, and artist. She is the author of several books of poetry and stories for both adults and children. She is the author of Pina, The Many-Eyed Fruit, Bake-Face and Other Guava Stories, Traveling Women, and Tamarind and Mango Women. Leaf-of-Life is her most recent poetry collection, and her latest novel is It Begins With Tears. Adisa’s Tamarind and Mango Women won the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award. Her poetry, stories, and articles have been anthologized widely in North America, the Caribbean, and Europe. Adisa is a professor of literature and creative writing, and former chair of the Ethnic Studies/Cultural Diversity Program at the California College of the Arts.

is whe
dis poem
come from
gwan like it bad
like any body fraid of it

mek it mus renk up de place
is who invite it any way

nothing worse dan
a poem dat don't know
its place
up enna everything
just nosey like
nosey cyaan done
chatting pan subject
it know nothing bout
pontificating
and expounding
like is soap-box
it deh pan

goweh poem
mek yu tink
anyone wan
hear wha yu ahfi seh
shet yu mouth
who give a damn
wha yu think
yu is a unda dog
seen
a unda dog

yu come from
a little island
wid a bloodclat dialect
acting like yu
used to wear long pants
go bout yu business
nobody wan hear what
yu ahfi seh
seen
yu's a little undadeveloped
squid
seen
you's a little
youth man
a boy not yet
in high school

move out de way
so big man can pass

but wait
dis poem
well nuff
won't back down
alright me go
gi yu a chance
so wha yu a seh
speak up
me don't have
all day fi waste
see yah now
just wha me figure
yu have nuff mouth
till is time fah yu to put down

seh wah
de likes of me
wouldn't understand
gwane facety wid me
mek me box you

so whe yu come from

de root of an idea

and
whe yu living now

de mouth of truth

well dat too deep fah i
so i gwane check you
lata
walk good      seen