D.S. Hooker

Poetry, music & zingers.

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Does C.J. Cherryh, Gabriela Mistral, or Grace Paley ever make your TBR list? Ursula K. Le Guin spent a lifetime advocating for these and countless other women writers who’ve been excluded from the literary canon. In her spirit, here are five women writers she cites as major influences in Ursula K. Le Guin: Conversations on Writing, and whom we refuse to forget.

[spinojp]

- What’s that ? 

- It’s a tree. 

- Huh. Never seen a tree before. 

                                                                 It’s pretty.

Blade Runner 2049 (2017) dir. Denis Villeneuve

[70sscifiart]

Patrick Woodroffe, 1974

[thechanelmuse]

Oh, you know there’s more.

[miles-monk-mingus]

[geekhideout]

Bowie is hypnotic

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Rest In Space, Goblin King.

[nevver]

Kenta Torii

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“I’ve Never Been a Woman” by Father John Misty, from I Love You, Honeybee (7”)

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“The Drum Thunder Suite“ by Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers, from Moanin’

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“Gold Smile” by Adrian Matejka

(in the perspective of Jack Johnson) Teeth hadst thou in thy head when thou wast born, To signify thou camest to bite the world: —Henry VI They call teeth dent in France, & the name makes sense the way teeth do what they do to bacon & shoulders & cakes. The French world for gold is or, so when the folks in Paris describe my smile it sounds like what happens when I punch a door: dents d’or. Dents d’or, the French children say when I open wide. Dents d’or, Etta says when she locks herself in the powder room. Tommy Burns said dents d’or when I was hooking him into asking for forgiveness. His people back in Canada would have said the same thing if they were in Sydney to witness our spectacle. Before we got into the ring, I told Tommy the only reason I got gold uppers was to make every bite of my food twice as expensive.

[dshooker]

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“Solar” by the Bill Evans Trio, from Sunday at the Village Vanguard

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“Small Poems for Big” by Chinaka Hodge

Twenty-four haiku, for each year he lived when you die, i’m told they only use given names christopher wallace

no notorious neither b.i.g. nor smalls just voletta’s son

brooklyn resident hustler for loose change, loosies and a lil loose kim

let me tell you this the west coast didn’t get you illest flow or nah

had our loyalties no need to discuss that now that your weight is dust

that your tongue is air and your mother is coping as only she can

i will also say that i have seen bed-stuy since b.k. misses you

her walk has changed some the rest of the borough flails weak about itself

middle school students not yet whispers in nine sev know the lyrics rote

you: a manual a mural, pressed rock, icon, fightin word or curse

course of history most often noted, quoted deconstructed sung

hung by a bullet prepped to die: gunsmoke gunsmoke one hell of a hunch

here you lie a boy twelve gauge to your brain you can’t have what you want be

what you want you black and ugly heartthrob ever conflicted emcee

respected lately premier king of the casket pauper of first life

til puff blew you up gave you a champagne diet plus cheese eggs, welch’s

you laid the blueprint gave us word for word for naught can’t fault the hustle

knockoff messiah slanged cracked commandments, saw no honey, more problems

a still black borough recoiled, mourned true genius slain the ease of your laugh

the cut of your jib unique command of the room truthfully biggie

what about you’s small no not legend not stature real talk just lifespan

yo, who shot ya kid n.y.p.d. stopped searching shrugged off negro death

well, we scour the sky we mourn tough, recite harder chant you live again

of all the lyrics the realest premonition rings true: you’re dead. wrong

[dshooker]

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“Ruby, My Dear” by Thelonious Monk, from Thelonious Alone In San Francisco

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“Songs of My Father” by Yusef Komunyakaa

I told my brothers I heard You & mother making love, Your low moans like blues Bringing them into the world. I didn’t know if you were laughing Or crying. I held each one down & whispered your song in their ears. Sometimes I think they’re still jealous Of our closeness, having forgotten We had to square-off & face each other, My fists balled & cocked by haymakers. That spring I lifted as many crossties As you. They can’t believe I can Remember when you had a boy’s voice. * You were a quiet man Who’d laugh like a hyena On a hill, with your head Thrown back, gazing up at the sky. But most times you just worked Hard, rooted in the day’s anger Till you’d explode. We always Walked circles around You, wider each year, Hungering for stories To save us from ourselves. Like a wife who isn’t touched, We had to do something bad Before you’d look into our eyes. * We spent the night before Easter Coloring eggs & piling them into pyramids In two crystal punch bowls. Our suits, ties, white shirts, shoes, All lined up for the next day. We had memorized our passages From the bible, about the tomb & the angel rolling back the stone. You were up before daybreak, In the sagebush, out among goldenrod & mustard weed, hiding the eggs In gopher holes & underneath roots. Mother always argued with you, Wondering why you made everything so hard. * We stood on a wooden platform Facing each other with sledgehammers, A copper-tipped sieve sunken into the ground Like a spear, as we threaded on five foot Of galvanized pipe for the pump. As if tuned to some internal drum, We hammered the block of oak Placed on top of the pipe. It began inching downward As we traded blows—one for you, One for me. After a half hour We threaded on another five foot. The sweat Gleamed on our shirtless bodies, father & son tied to each other til we hit water. * Goddamn you. Goddamn you. If you hit her again, I’ll sail through That house like a dustdevil. Everyone & everything here Is turning against you, That’s why I had to tie the dog To a tree before you could chastise us. He darted like lightning through the screen door. I know you’ll try to kill me When it happens. You know I’m your son & it’s bound to happen. Sometimes I close my eyes till I am On a sea of falling dogwood blossoms, But someday this won’t work. * I confess. I am the ringleader Who sneaked planks out of the toolshed, Sawed & hammered together the wagon. But I wasn’t fool enough to believe That you would’ve loved our work. So, my brothers & I dug a grave In the corner of the field for our wagon That ran smooth as a Nat King Cole Love ballad. We’d pull it around The edge of our world & rebury it Before the 5 o’clock mill whistle blew. I bet it’s still there, the wood gray & light as the ribs of my dog Red After somebody gunned him down one night. * You banged a crooked nail Into a pine slab, Wanting me to believe I shouldn’t have been born With hands & feet If I didn’t do Your kind of work. You hated my books. Sometimes at dusk, I faced you like that Childhood friend you trained Against, the horizon crimson As the eyes of a fighting cock. * I never asked how you Passed the driver’s test, Since you could only write & read your name. But hell, You were good with numbers; Always counting your loot. The Chevy truck swerved Along back roads night & day. I watched you use wire & sunlight to train The strongest limbs, How your tongue never obeyed The foreman, how the truck motor Was stunted, frozen at sixty. * You wanted to fight When I told you that a woman Can get rid of a man With a flake of lye In his bread each day. When you told her what I said I bet the two of you made love Til the thought flew out of your head. Now, when you stand wax-faced At the door, your eyes begging Questions as you mouth wordless Songs like a red-belly perch, Assaying the scene for what it is, I doubt if love can part my lips. * Sometimes you could be That man on a red bicycle, With me on the handlebars Just rolling along a country road One the edge of July, honeysuckle Lit with mosquito hawks. We rode from under the shady Overhang, back into sunlight. That day bounced off car hoods As the heat & stinking exhaust Brushed against us like a dragon’s Roar, nudging the bike with a tremor, But you steered us through the flowering Dogwood like a thread of blood. * You leaned on a yard rake As dry leaves & grass smolder In a ditch in mid March, Two weeks before you sixty-first Birthday. You say I look happy, I must be in love. It is 1986, Five months before your death. You toss a stone at the two dogs Hooked together in a corner of the yard. You smile, look into my eyes & say you want me to write you a poem. I stammer for words. You Toss another stone at the dogs & resume raking the leafless grass. * I never said thanks for Butch, The wooden dog you pulled by a string. It was ugly as a baldheaded doll. Patched with wire & carpenter’s glue, something I didn’t believe you had ever loved. I am sorry for breaking it in half. I never meant to make you go Stand under the falling snowflakes With your head bowed on Christmas Day. I couldn’t look at Butch & see that your grandmother Julia, The old slave woman who beat you As if that’s all she knew, had put love Into it when she craved the dog from oak. * I am unlike Kikuji In Kawabata’s Thousand Cranes, Since I sought out one of your lovers Before you were dead. Though years had passed & you were with someone else, She thought I reminded her Of a man she’s once known. She pocketed the three dollars. A big red lampshade bloodied The room, as if held by a mad Diogenes. Yes, she cried out, But she didn’t sing your name When I planted myself in her. * You spoke with your eyes Last time I saw you, cramped Between a new wife & the wall. You couldn’t Recognize funeral dirt stamped down With dancesteps. Your name & features half X-ed out. I could see your sex, Your shame, a gold-toothed pout, As you made plans for the next house you’d build, Determined to prove me wrong. I never knew We looked so much like each other. Before I could say I loved you, you began talking money, Teasing your will with a cure in Mexico. You were skinny, bony, but strong enough to try Swaggering through that celestial door.

[explore-blog]

For Billie Holiday’s 100th birthday, William Gottlieb’s gorgeous vintage photographs of jazz legends. 

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“Sinnerman” by Nina Simone, from Pastel Blues

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“how to get over (senior to freshman)” by t’al freedom ford

pick the big bitch: the chick who look like she chew screwdrivers. hunched at the lunch table copying homework, shredding syllables with a mouthful of metal.

shush the rebel in your throat, that ghost of punk funking dark circles in the pits of your polo. resist the impulse to shittalk your way through ranch dressing and lunchroom throng.

bumrush: snatch song from her ears, tangle of headphone wires and tracks of mangled weave. nevermind uglying her face with nails or an armful of bangles.

she already a jigsaw puzzle of scratch and scar, every exposed part caked in vaseline. every fold of fat fortified with that free-free — french fries, chickenshit shaped like tenders, cheese sticks.

she will slip’n slide you if you don’t come correct. pick you up by your bookbag till you feel fly, camera phone red eyes winking your punkass almost famous.

but that ain’t your fame to claim. pitbull her ankles till she drop, till ketchup and corn splatter, scatter abstract like technique from our 5th period art class.

as she knuckles herself up from chickenfeed, ain’t no need to run. instead smile for the video, that soul-clap in your chest is your heart.