Make No Apologies For Yourself
Dear you, make no apologies for yourself
because you are covered in a listening skin
Because every ache you feel is not your own
Because of the bowl of sorrow your mother carries
Because of your father’s wildfire moods
Because of how many rivers they crossed
Because of the lynching tree
Because when you enter bookstores
volumes fall off shelves into your open palms
Because you ask questions of the universe
and it answers and opens before you like a page
Because you can read the sky: those clouds
and that murder of crows
Because poets are your wounded idols
Because the truth even if it hurts
it is to be cherished and held
and just because people die
does not mean they don’t walk with you daily
Because the river has a mouth that speaks their names
Because the river flows with stories
Because you sit on the shore and listen
Because alone is more comforting
than being together
Because your pen is oceanic
Because you are eyes wide
equipped with outer and inner sight
Because you suffer from what you see and hear
Because you have sinus arrhythmia, and your breath is short
Because asthma is one of the monkeys on your back
Because your heart is the vehicle you choose to ride this go round
Because it can go forward and backwards in time
Because bookstores are your oracles
Because poetry is your greatest archeological tool
Because you plummet even though you can barely swim
Because you trust the ride of journal and journey
even if you do not always float
Because your heart beats to your breath
Because of this music you dance raw and wild
Poet Teaching Artist
Trackbacks & Pingbacks
[…] Glenis Redmond travels all over the world, and is a Warrior Road Poet with two posts as the Poet-in-Residence at The Peace Center for the Performing Arts in Greenville, South Carolina, and also Poet-in-Residence at State Theatre in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Glenis served as the Mentor Poet for the National Student Poets Program, and in 2014 and 2015 she prepared student poets to read at the Library of Congress, the Department of Education, and for the First Lady Michelle Obama at The White House. Glenis is a Cave Canem Fellow, a North Carolina Literary Fellowship Recipient, and a Kennedy Center Teaching Artist. She helped create the first Writer-in-Residence at the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site in Flat Rock, North Carolina. Glenis believes that poetry is a healer, and she can be found across America in the trenches applying pressure to those in need, one poem at a time. CLICK FOR MORE […]
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