flitting frame by frame // numbers yet slept regally // soft manes of lion’s tail.
a haiku.
2025 // images sourced from. 2023.
there’s something about the form and the limitation of haiku that I like. upon, intending to do a haiku, the restrictions of slab placement line, spacing, and depth in the choice of words can be painstaking for pleasurable , casual activity if that is a focus or a centered goal of recreation and time spent in action.
In order to make use of cyber-and-potential-print space I used the “//“ double forward slash as a means of indicating line breaks, to mt knowledge/assumptions, a charistic of poetry amongst famously cherished authors in the USA as being designed by lay-folk, black authors, and various artists who are not associated or assimilated by allegiances to be “proper.”
the choice to roll out a special character for creative formatting puts a premium on originality rather than effort to maintain tradition, and special bonus features like the pacing of the reader, the look of the design, and the song/rhythm/melody this given relatively minor variations in the legacy. An importance to asking whether or not this piece of written word is worth reading yet, or in the context of haiku, something that would be highlighted and given as curriculum material for students learning of Japanese literature in their language arts, world history, and creative writing/humanities coursework.
Where should I seek permission to use the word “haiku” and who would authorize me a traitor for using a form I had never seen and assuming the transliteration originated in the midst of my family history taking a central position in the discussions I’ve been having about art on TikTok?
my in action asks where is the book? Where are those hundreds of pages of pros and poetry and captions and photographs and stories? Where is the publication that justifies a life seeking to justify a work called living with what I have and have been given. In the pursuit of being free, I hold onto visions of what could be five seconds from, now five eons from now, or 5 feet from here and now.
I remember at one time banning the use of descriptive nouns and adjectives as being sensational and an immature form of writing (being steep in off the cuff, judgments and micro aggressions at the binary opposite of descriptor used).
Recently in the news, I saw that Donald Trump made an announcement and was giving a speech to make English the official language of the United States of America. I’m using text to speech and can only assume that the words that I inhabit and the words that the processor will soon be led by political and economic values that both decry conditioned illiteracy/miseducation/poverty of access and the desire of many to include voices beyond what the ivory towers of academia, and pomp and circumstance of formal affairs related to who is invited to speak, write, or respond.
a people educated(indoctrinated)by any state is dependent on that state for affirmation and support through validation and representation. as long as there are disparities in standardized departmental education, surely there are going to be different views about slang: different views about what is proper And perhaps cultural values that are inherently anti-common tongue, anti-inferior dialect and pigeon, anti-post literacy or non standardized tongue. Using words that I have on the words at the processor was gonna be forced to going to have different views about slang.
I like relaxed language and I like blackness. This anthology is a celebration of both.
tawk
Sometimes we’re afraid to talk. Yes, WE. This might be about black talkin, but this here is for you too Sandy-Sue and Jin-Woo. I know you’ve had those days when somethin forces you to speak or preach or teach something you’d be much better off talkin about. You scour your brain in search of synonyms you learned in an English class (some time ago) or for some phrase you picked up from your favorite politically active musician – all for nada – because, in your scavenger-hunt for eloquence, you end up with 1000 syllables that don’t say anything. Trust me, I know the feeling. (Deleting those Gs and forgoing those apostrophes a few lines up still has me wary of some impending doom. O_o) [imagine the courage it took to include an emoticon.]
It is this fear of writing the way I feel most comfortable expressing myself that convinced me that this anthology needed to be compiled. It needed to be compiled and needs to be delivered to every writer that thinks their words aren’t good enough and to every reader that thinks some writer’s metaphors are too big and meaning too small. I want this anthology to combat any notion that in poetry white high-language is right language and that slang is to be reserved for Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou. This anthology, black-tawk, is intended to act as an examination of Black-American identity in contemporary poets through their specific use of colloquial vernacular, to be referred to as black-talk. These poems are compiled in order to reject “high language” (white-talk) as the only suitable means of intelligent and normative expression and that slave-talk is the only example of recognizable black expression. I seek to find a contemporary river of black voices that flow somewhere between a Mattie and a Michael Eric Dyson (and certainly above a Tyler Perry.)
So what does black-talk between a Mattie and a Dyson sound like? It sounds like black people you hear talking every day. There are no meanings lost in abstract metaphor, no need to keep a library assistant on call and there’s the occasional glimpse of slang. Nah, I ain’t only talkin ‘bout that talk you hurd on the corner’a 3rd and Main, because while that’s beautiful, this anthology hopes to reveal subtle currents of vernacular that black poets use to express blackness. Of course there’s more than a heap of uses of slang’s shining star - “ain’t,” but he’s joined by “nuff” and “betcha” and even “cd” (could.) And these are sometimes decorated by the absence of punctuation that lends itself to an exploration of space and caesura to create natural and lulling speech patterns that mimic the way black people talk. You won’t find Queen’s English here. Nothing like what Jamil (Robert Sims) in his poem “pre-sentence Report” (page____) refers to as “…nouns that // old Sigmund couldn’t EVEN spell.” Though in his poem Sims speaks of medical jargon, there are certainly poets that employ a sort of poetic jargon requires too much energy to decipher.
Not that deciphering is all bad, we wouldn’t want lazy readers, but when simplicity is forgone merely to sound poetic, the authenticity that makes poetry beautiful is lost. Stephanie Pruitt, a young poet from Nashville, could write novels about the process and love involved in getting her hair hot combed in the kitchen – but she doesn’t need to. Her haiku “Hair raising” (page _____) is beautiful in its ability to, concisely, resonate with black girls everywhere. “Hair burning in the kitchen” could easily become “kinky fibers laid straight by heated comb permeates the air in the place meals are made,” but it doesn’t need to. Now the form of haiku is innately simple but this same current of simplicity can be found throughout the anthology in various forms.
black
Sometimes we’re afraid to be black. Yes WE. This might be about black talkin but if you change black to “chino” or “country” this here is for you too Jose and Billy-Rae. It’s about black talkin because black talkin is what I know best. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been made to feel afraid to express my blackness (or asian-ness or mexican-ness.) If a university environment is any representation of the real world, and I fear it may be more forgiving of race, people don’t want black people to be black. Every scorned sagging pant, every kinky twist pressed to oblivion, every set of braids chopped off for a job where suits and ties are need can serve as a testament that black people aren’t allowed to be black.
Oh, but that’s not true, we have a black president! – right, having one black president negates the pressure every white professor ceo quarterback vice-president student government official city official member of congress employed contributing member of society member of congress places on black people to act white right.
…
…
I needed space to let that sit. The minority will always be made inferior when evaluated against the majority. Being black isn’t wrong, it’s just not being white. There are thousands of conversations to be had about blackness and black identity and defining what “black” is, but this is not a research paper and I am not an anthropological expert on the matter. So you ask, what does blackness have to do with this poetry anthology, and what does that contribute to life? Well, blackness is in the everyday things that black people do. There is no singular blackness. If you’re a black girl that gets a perm and a silky-smooth 32” Remy, you’re exuding blackness just as much as the sister pickin her afro every morning. If you’re a black boy with clean locks sitting proudly on the shoulder pads of your new Armani suit, you’re exuding blackness just as much as the scruffy brother in the newest Js and a tall-tee (although I personally detest tall-tees, that doesn’t negate the blackness found wearing it.)
Since poetry is a manifestation of expression based on personal experiences, black poets should be allowed to be black poets, right? No. An Essay by Evie Shockley entitled “All of the above: Multiple choice and African American Poetry” included in the introduction to the anthology “Rainbow Darkness,” edited by Keith Tuma, examines the reasons black authors are not allowed to be black authors. In short, he states (and I agree) that black authors (I would say all black artists) are subjected to “the poetics litmus test.” They must be judged based on political allegiances and racial “authenticity” rather than ability or talent. If a poet talks like Langston Hughes, they are authentically black, which is good, but they are a “black” poet not an “American” poet. According to Shockley, in order to receive the privileges “American” poets are afforded:
“An African American poet has had to avoid writing in styles or about subjects that are recognizably “black” in favor of “universal themes” and conventional aesthetics. Or she could slip in the back door by appearing willing to narrate ‘the black experience’ for white consumption in ways that do not fundamentally deconstruct white (liberal) understandings of race or directly advocate revolutionary social change.”
This provides a perfect explanation concerning why black poets are pressured away from talking black. Even I question whether or not I want to be “that black poet” every time my mind wants to pen a thought about kinky hair, “unique” names, or encounters with racism. Just as the fear of talking convinced me of the necessity of this anthology, the fear of being black doubly convinces me that there are people that need this.
black-tawk
I like relaxed language and I like blackness and this anthology is a celebration of both. These poets aren’t afraid to be black even when they’re not talking about black things. This collection includes poets just talkin and poets just being black and poets talkin about being black – none afraid to share their identity and the language they speak. Ntozake Shange isn’t afraid to write poems in a manner that is supposed to be talked. Sapphire sees the significance of what Claireece P. Jones has to say, and how she says it. Celes Tisdale saw the need for people to hear what inmates from Attica think. All of these voices have been gathered to fight the fear of being Black regular Mexican Asian poor Jamaican poorly-educated well-educated strange normal smart dumb black-tawking.
black-tawk is right. Don’t be shamed of it. These are your peers.
my tawk
And now that I’ve splattered you with my thoughts/rants about blackness and language and wooed you with my semi-intellectual prowess, I’d like to free myself of the black burden – a burden that has weighed heavy on my mind since I started compiling these poems. What is the black burden you ask? For me, it is the false interpretation that any black voice is THE black voice. To those reading in hopes of better understanding the black race based solely on the compilation of a 22-year-old-half-black-half-mexican-and-japanese-middle-class-college-guy I say: I am not THE black voice. I am not THE black voice. I am not THE black voice. I, like the poems selected for this anthology, do not represent the entire black race or encompass all Black-American identity. There is no anthology or single person that does. I, and these poems, do however represent a current of thought, a movement, towards talking. Towards tawking. Towards tawking black. black-tawk. Enjoy.
draftwork for my most recent literary venture
a long TIME from HOME: on the wings of monarchs.
YOUR INSTRUCTIONS (should you choose to accept)
1.) write a book of ?..s
2.) read the book of ?..s
3.) record the ANSWERS
this project, a collaboration with my mother, serves as sequel to my first poetry chapbook, interested in men, released as part of my educational rite of passage, #axhGRADUATION, which is an extension of the larger project #anexcerptofhim. i’ve filled dozens of journals and who knows how many tumblr posts with writings, questions, and visual work, and when my mom handed me this BEAUTIFUL journal, i realized i wanted my next work to be an extension of and gift to the woman (representatively all women) who have informed and nurtured me.
she gave me the journal this past november, and the first page was something she wrote in 2014. this entry on gifts, i consider to be the basis for how i craft the text and derivative works.
this work began as my attempt at creating a choose-your-own-adventure afro-chicano-futurist sci-fi children’s poetry coloring picture book. (a follow up to the yet unfinished coloring poetry book co-authored by my partner deanna, #anexcerptofus).
it’s arguable at this point whether or not ‘on the wings of monarchs’ is a poetry text, or if it’s children’s content at all, but my findings have birthed in me new ways of approaching the world & my place in it, and i hope once completed (if possible?) it could impart some of the same understanding i’ve gained from the process. i’m hoping to have a more solidified version of the text to share by my TEDxUF presentation in gainesville this april, so stay tuned for that!
my initial interest in writing this book was to synthesize all the information i’ve gathered since leaving my parent’s house in 2006 and create a simple, written & illustrated text, then use the text as a source code for my digital investigations and eventually, write a thesis-type research paper to more formally solidify my proof of college education.
i imagined the book would act as an experimental poem in which a reader could choose how to read the text and illustrations, find the meaning they wanted to find, and once published digitally, the reader/user could create a digital blog that would contribute to and expand their initial understandings of their own readings. if we take one word featured on the page below for example, “poem,” my understanding for this work and literacy works on 3 basic tiers: remembering, experiencing, imaging.
remembering - what has “poem” been for me in the past?
experiencing - what could “poem” be for me in this moment?
imagining - what could “poem” be for me in the future?
one possible reading (translation) of this page is:
FREE :
AND JUST LIKE THAT . .
ON THE WINGS OF THOUSANDS MONARCHS HE FLEW. .. .. . ... :
HE ACCEPTED HIS MISSION: :
GIVE YOURSELF TO... :
LIFE...LOVE...PEACE..PATIENCE...KINDNESS...SELF- .
CONTROL...KNOWLEDGE...LIGHT...UNDERSTANDING...WISDOM... .
THE PEOPLE...THE WORLD. .
DO NOT FEAR, instead .
TRUST + .
I AM | BECOME STRONG .
E|3UTTERFLY | BECOME WISE ...:
| BECOME BRAVE :
| BECOME : ....BIG.......: .
| BECOME ..: WHOLE :
| BECOME............: ..
.
a poem | a dance | a song | a praise | a dream | a man. . .
it’s part joy of play & discovery, part intentional rebellion against educational structures i feel restrict the limits of the imagination and our ability to think and learn for ourselves.
as i’ve been in the practice of writing in the book, sharing digitally, and applying the concepts in my lived experiences, it’s causing me to call into question my own assumptions of literacy altogether. i’ve written and explored the notions that words, numbers, letters, are all symbols that each contain greater meaning than their appearing, and now i’m starting to live in a way that explores a kind of self-induced synesthesia.
i understand language as complex algebra, with rules, exceptions to rules, representative symbology, socio-political history, and infinite possibilities of interpretation because every author & every reader present new variables, and each of the experiences they (or i) read into this (or any) work, illuminates greater understanding to the story. (a reminder why feedback has been a critical part of my process for all of my work.)
the practice of compiling this book has been a catalyst for me to begin reading all color, sound, taste, smell, and touch as decipherable language in order to deconstruct and reconstruct the notions of literacy i’ve learned and purported while teaching. the colorful pages above represent more information than i could probably contain in any single book, so one of the major questions i pose and continue to pose with every reading is, “what do you see?”
i’ve learned from teachers who cannot read or write in any codified language, and seen the kinds of hinderances abuses that arise when institutions of “higher education” rely almost exclusively on the limitations of written and verbal communication jargon to evaluate students and communicate with the public.
there are brilliant people all around the world whose ideas may never be heard or realized because institutions have created accreditation systems used to validate a person’s worth, and then limited access to resources. well funded institutional networks of religious, educational, journalistic governance decide who is allowed or not allowed to be evaluated by an inaccessibly self-evaluating system, and then releases their own chosen candidates for success to the public as “educated person in society, recipient of benefit, accolade, and favor.”
this is tragic, perpetual injustice.
(but i’ll save that for another post on colonization)
“he stood between the little boy blues, and the color purple and found....”
while words, and high language in particular, are incredibly valuable to me, they are not a universal language. all communication goes through some kind of translation that is completely unique to the recipient of any message, and i’m interested in the keeping my messages open vessels that encourage engaged learning and cathartic healing across a diverse spectrum of communication.
these initial investigations have helped me tremendously in defining and understanding myself, which has aided in growth throughout all of my creative endeavors, so hopefully someone with more language and resources can help me decipher and package all of it. (since mostly what i receive when i apply for things is pats on the back and rejection letters haha.)
i’ve been playing with the feedback from this fellowship application rejection letter from on my blog, launching the ujimaa garden, which mixes my interests in digital media, information literacy, engaged learning, children’s literature, music & dance, social justice, spirituality, sexuality, race, and creative expression, etc.
my work does follow the lines of inquiry, and rather than understand performance as the highlight of my existence, i transpose those lines of inquiry to my whole life. this helps me craft richer narratives, and more thoroughly interrogate the forms i exist in, which i’ve discovered, are manifold.
you can keep up with my contributions to “on the wings of monarchs” by following the hashtag #axhMONARCH on tumblr, insta, facebook, and twitter.
if you have ideas or feedback, as always, i’d love to hear them.
i invite participation and feedback on my research so you can share your thoughts about any of the work presented, womanhood, or sovereign governance in general (as the term monarch implies, ie: yassss queeeennnnn!) by using the hashtag #axhMONARCH.
nearing the closing of #axhCOLORED with releases from tomb of memory, king and i, midsummer HIGH hopes.
escape. a sketchbook // an acre of air somewhere is on hand to aim at 1, 5minute long sketch session each day. my mom and i have seen fruit, and the discipline is taxing. A few days off here and there despite being a relatively short task, requires more than expected in the initial use of sketches as therapy, cathartic release, or open relay sessions between paintings and sketches to stand on their own inventedness.
