Showing posts tagged Derrick C. Brown
My Write Bloody order was waiting for me on the bench outside of my house when I arrived home from work today. Included are Anis Mojgani’s books, the newly released anthology of zombie poetry (which has over 50 featured authors, including people like Shappy Seasholtz, Laura Yes Yes, Tim Stafford, & Mindy Nettifee), and the film made from the Elephant Engine High Dive Revival poetry tour (which shows performances of the touring cast and guests, including Buddy Wakefield, Derrick Brown, Anis Mojgani, Mike McGee, Andrea Gibson, Shira Erlichman, & Robbie Q. Telfer). I’ve been blessed and fortunate enough to have met and eaten meals and drank beers and laughed until physical pain forced me to stop and been coached and taught and loved by some of these wonderful humans. They are the kind of people who do a legitimate service to the world simply by existing and doing what they love. Not enough people are very familiar with the slam/spoken word cluster, and I cannot sing enough praises of the intelligence and humor and heartfelt realness radiating from the talented centers of everyone involved. I’ve linked a sample performance by each mentioned artist above, so check into that if you’re looking for more. I mean, or don’t, but really, if you’re on tumblr as it is, what else are you really doing? Book excerpts are sure to come in time as I digest my new reading material. View high resolution

My Write Bloody order was waiting for me on the bench outside of my house when I arrived home from work today. Included are Anis Mojgani’s books, the newly released anthology of zombie poetry (which has over 50 featured authors, including people like Shappy Seasholtz, Laura Yes Yes, Tim Stafford, & Mindy Nettifee), and the film made from the Elephant Engine High Dive Revival poetry tour (which shows performances of the touring cast and guests, including Buddy Wakefield, Derrick Brown, Anis Mojgani, Mike McGee, Andrea Gibson, Shira Erlichman, & Robbie Q. Telfer).

I’ve been blessed and fortunate enough to have met and eaten meals and drank beers and laughed until physical pain forced me to stop and been coached and taught and loved by some of these wonderful humans. They are the kind of people who do a legitimate service to the world simply by existing and doing what they love. Not enough people are very familiar with the slam/spoken word cluster, and I cannot sing enough praises of the intelligence and humor and heartfelt realness radiating from the talented centers of everyone involved.

I’ve linked a sample performance by each mentioned artist above, so check into that if you’re looking for more. I mean, or don’t, but really, if you’re on tumblr as it is, what else are you really doing?

Book excerpts are sure to come in time as I digest my new reading material.

holdonmagnolia: Derrick Brown, excerpt from All Distortion, All the Time View high resolution

holdonmagnolia:

Derrick Brown, excerpt from All Distortion, All the Time

(Reblogged from theoryoflostthings)
holdonmagnolia: Derrick Brown, excerpt from The Unlimited Noises of Science View high resolution

holdonmagnolia:

Derrick Brown, excerpt from The Unlimited Noises of Science

(Reblogged from theoryoflostthings)
“

We were in the dumbest seasonal love.

We were laughing merlot up,
throwing bottles into the rafters,
wine narcotics dripping upon our skin
desire hoarse
an aurora parade
the body astonished.

For Halloween, you dressed as Thanksgiving.
I dressed as an “in-flight movie”
and bored you into my arms.

One evening I said, Margaret, every day, strangers tell me they love me.
I know that they don’t really love me; they love what I do.
I like it no matter the intention.
We’ve spent months together
and you have never said that you love me. I want to see what it does.
I want to see if I twitch.

She said, “I love what you do to me.”

I love what you do, too, Margaret.

The best relationships
fade out
and you’re not even sure
when it ended.

Derrick Brown
“Japanese Paper (3.)” (via littlebluepenguin)

(Source: cartographically)

(Reblogged from theoryoflostthings)

My Speech to the Graduating Class

I’ve been going through old lj posts for an hour or so, & I found one of the poems I typed up to keep track of & to remind me of a few things. This is called “My Speech to the Graduating Class” & is by Derrick C. Brown, one of the best slam poets out there & a generally really stand up guy. This is published in his book  I Love You Is Back, which I highly recommend. 

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“

You came swiftly across the sea.
I hovered there,
thirty miles outside of Galapagos,
placed myself in the screams of rival winds.

I hovered there for years alone
feeling on everything blue
shark fins, sea spray,
desire, memory and floating blueberries.

But you came swiftly across the sea
took away my death (though I guarded it).
Held my defeat by the neck and outsmarted it.
The ice in my breath floated before you
a crystal field of all my fears…
I was just getting used to the blueberries.

But you spun that warm ginger light.
Sent it spilling from the gold blaze of gasoline eyes.
Melted my breath.
Melted the soloist.
Melted the pumping thing inside.

You said, ‘Hello Blue, my name is Yellow.’
and I said… ‘Wa. Wow.’

I was stricken, I was struck
I was a bad joke about a duck who was down
that no one ever laughs at—

but Yellow she laughs-she’s a laugher
and she’s not even drunk!
I say Yeah Yeah!
“I want to be something ridiculous and wonderful and Yellow.”
She says, “Try margarine.”

No, I mean I want your firecracker smile Yellow,
I want your jacaranda kiss Yellow,
I want your timelessness
inside my eyeballs Yellow.

The way snow falls to earth
Yellow whispers to Blue—
“Would you be Green with me forever?”

“I do I do I do…”

Derrick is one of my favorite poets, and one of the (for lack of better words) coolest people I have ever had the pleasure to meet. I’m so glad to be able to share him with someone I love.
Derrick Brown, Pleased To Meet You Yellow, My Name is Blue

After reading in Laguna Beach, a woman came up to me and said ‘I liked your poem but I used to live on a farm in Wisconsin and to tell you the truth, blueberries don’t float.’ I said, ‘Well to tell you the truth, I don’t hover a few feet above the Pacific when I am sad. It’s called suspension of disbelief. Get off me.’ This is one of the few poems I have memorized and I recited it to couples when I used to be a gondolier. (via seductiontheory)
(Reblogged from theoryoflostthings)