North Carolina Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green - 'A Ransom of Bones'

On Monday, February 18, 2019 Governor Roy Cooper will officially induct Jaki Shelton Green as North Carolina’s new Poet Laureate. In November of last year, Jaki added the music of her poetry to the Oxford American’s North Carolina Song Circle at Fletcher Music Hall in downtown Raleigh. We are happy to share that moment in honor of her special day!

[BUKCOLLECTOR]

Love your poem and reading. I’m a poet and children’s and adult fictional story writer and would like to share this story that I believe all Afro Americans will enjoy because of the unexpected but heartfelt ending. Takes place in the 1950s and is based on a true incident titled
ELOISE, EDNA & THE CHICKEN COOP

“based on a true incident”

~~

There was once a young Black lady named Eloise who in the 1950s inherited from her grandmother a parcel of land in the suburbs of Compton, California at a time when there was strong racial prejudice against women of color—especially those Black women who owned property in predominately white neighborhoods.
It happened there lived adjacent to Eloise’s land a white woman named Edna who did not like the fact that a Black lady owned land next to hers.
Eloise would try to be friendly because she believed Jesus when He said “Love Thy Neighbor” and to Eloise that meant even if your neighbor was unfriendly.
But whenever Eloise saw Edna, Edna would turn her back and ignore her and go about her business. In fact, ever since Edna’s husband died a decade ago, she became mean and unfriendly to everyone in the neighborhood.
But to Eloise, she was especially hateful and full of animosity so much so that at night when all the lights in Eloise home were off, Edna went to her own backyard where she kept her chicken coop and gathered up all the manure and dumped it on Eloise land and upon her tomatoes and her greens and everything she was growing, in an attempt to destroy it.
And when Eloise realized the next morning that there was all this manure, instead of becoming angry, she decided to rake and mix it in with the soil and use it as fertilizer.
Every night Edna would dump the manure from her chicken coop litter box on Eloise’s land and every morning Eloise would turn the manure over and mix it in with the soil.
This went on for several weeks until one morning Eloise noticed there was no manure in her yard.
One of the neighbors informed Eloise that Edna had fallen ill. But because Edna was so disliked because of her and unfriendly personality, no one came to see her.
But when Eloise heard about Edna’s condition she picked the best flowers from her garden, walked to Edna’s house, knocked on her front door and when Edna saw Eloise
she was in complete shock that this Black lady who she had been so cruel to, would be the only neighbor to visit and bring flowers.
Edna was deeply moved by Eloise kindness.
Then Eloise handed the flowers to Edna who uttered,
“These are the most beautiful flowers I’ve ever seen! Where’d you get them?”
Eloise replied
“Edna, I owe you a debt of gratitude; if it wasn’t for you, these flowers would not exist. It was you who helped me make them because when you were dumping in my yard, I decided to plant roses and use your manure as fertilizer.”
This unexpected act of kindness opened the floodgate of Edna’s heart that had been closed for so long.
“When I’m feeling better, I would love to have you over for tea, ” Edna informed Eloise.
“Thank you, “ Edna replied, assuring her she would come. And then added “ I will pray for your speedy recovery every night”
And with those words Eloise departed.
It’s amazing what can blossom from manure.
There are some who allow manure to fall on them and do nothing.
But then there are others—like Eloise —who “turn the other cheek” when abused or in this case “turn over the soil” to make something new like those beautiful red roses that opened a white woman’s heart.

—Al Fogel

[BUKCOLLECTOR]

Enjoyed your poem. I’m a poet also specializing in Japanese forms of poetic endeavor: haiku, tanka, haibun, kyoka, senryu. I hope you don’t mind me sharing a tanka /kyoka? and my haiku—a tribute poem to Bashō’s frog with commentary by the late Jane Reichold who also considered my poem among her top 10 haiku of all time. What an honor.
Here’s the Bashō poem and commentary:


Bashō, s frog
four hundred years
of ripples

- -Al Fogel


“At first the idea of picking only 10 of my favorite haiku seemed a rather daunting task. How could I review all the haiku I have read in my life and decide that there were only 10 that were outstanding? Then realized I was already getting a steady stream of excellent haiku day by day through the AHA
forum.

The puns and write-offs based on Basho's most famous haiku are so
numerous I would have said that nothing new could be said with this
method, but here Al Fogel proved me wrong. Perhaps part of my delight in this haiku lies in the fact that I agree with him. Here he is saying one thing
about realism–ripples are on a pond after a frog jumps in, but because it refers back to Basho and his famous haiku, he is also saying something about the haiku and authors who have followed him. We, and our work, are just ripples while Basho holds the honor of inventing the idea of the
sound of a frog leaping is the sound of water

As haiku spreads around the world, making ripples in more and larger ponds, its ripples are wider–including us all. But his last word reminds us all that we are ripples and our lives ephemeral. It will be the frogs that will remain”.

~~


My tanka/kyoka:

returning home
from a Jackson Pollock
exhibition
I smear my face with paint
and I turn into art

~~

—All love in isolation
from Miami Beach,
Florida,
Al

[BUKCOLLECTOR]

Brief Bio:
I’m Al Fogel born in 1945 and at an early age began writing poems. In 1962 I was introduced to a neighbor who just returned from Avatar Meher Baba’s “ East west” gathering and handed me a book titled “The Everything and the Nothing” that included brief but powerful passages by Meher Baba that touched me deeply and i became a “ Baba Lover” I continued writing poems and in 2010 while on Jane Reichhold’s AHA website workshopping poems I befriended a Chinese man who helped me perfect my Senryu and Haibun.
Subsequently I am now considered one of the nations leading authorities on Tanka, Senryu, and Haibun.
Here are some examples of each of my specialties

senryu
~
dentist chair
the hygienist removes
my Bluetooth
~
Internet argument
all his words in CAPS
hers in EMOTICONS
~
after the divorce
he spends more time
at the dollar store
~
damsel in distress
clarke kent still searching
for a phone booth
~
cauliflower ears
once a contender
now boxing vegetables
~
under
the influence —
moonshine
~
Audubon sale
all variety of seeds. . .
early birds welcome
~
Buddhist fortune cookie
the unfolded paper reads
“ better luck next birth!”
~
sudden downpour. . .
the adults run
for shelter
~
sidewalk cafe
the birds and people
tweeting
~
busy crosswalk
the seeing eye dog
leads the way
~
**senryu is usually humorous, but it can also be serious. For example, the following two of mine are horrific and heartbreaking ( dealing with the Holocaust):
~
cattle cars
between the slats
human eyes
~
stutthof —
the stench of burnt hair
from the chimneys
~
Tanka ( I already posted the Jackson Pollock one about painting his face but here’s another Tanka
~
Here is another Tanka:

thrift store purchase
inside the leather jacket
a tarnished half-heart
~
Haibuns

The Mathematics of Retribution

“Karma is i fathomable, ”
I inform her
It’s late and our conversation turns heavy
“ Seems simple to me, “my girlfriend responds.
“If I murder you, then it’s reasonable that I will be murdered in this or another life to balance the ledger.”

“ Not necessarily so” I’m quick to rejoin.
“What if you murdered me in this life
because I murdered you in a prior life
karmic debts and dues are now equalized.”

“But what if I get caught and I go to jail for life. Where’s the equal payback in that?”
“As I said, karma is unfathomable.”

We continue discussing reincarnation and then add the possibilities of “group karma” to the mix

Finally, at about midnight, we fall asleep

Stutthof —
the stench of burnt hair
from the chimneys
~~
Mama

There were days when I pretended to be too sick to go to school - - just for mamas loving embrace —her arms the heat of home

Even with the onset of dementia, her cheerfulness was so contagious it was a joy being around her despite the illness.

She made everyone laugh with her spontaneous unpredictable behavior.

nursing home
bumper wheelchair
her favorite pastime

Once a week I would whisk her away from the assisted-living facility and we would spend several hours together —grabbing a meal or frequenting some of her favorite second-hand stores where she loved to shop and donate clothes.

When we drove to her favorite thrift in November, her dementia worsened.

thrift store
the dress mama donated
she wants to buy

On a cold December morn mama passed.
The funeral was simple. There was a light drizzle as the family gathered at the gravesite. One by one, with eyes full of rain, we said our last goodbyes.

autumn twilight —
oh mama tuck me under
hug me one more time
~

‘Round Midnight
It was a huge ballroom on the top floor of a building on Broadway --an important midtown crossroads in the heart of the Great White Way.
My uncle still talks with reverence about how —in his heyday —he would travel by rail to the corner of Lenox and walk inside to the beat of jungle music. Who knew what to expect?  One night you might be listening with rapt attention to Theloneous Monk and Dizzy Gillespie the godfathers of bebop in their signature beret caps, or the Nicholas Brothers flashing their wild acrobatic spins and splits, or enchanted by the sweet taste of Brown Sugar —with Bojangles out front. And when the Bird was in flight, even the moon was not high enough.
But in 1940 the ballroom closed its doors to make way for a commercial housing development and another kind of night.

new Harlem
the a-train replaced
by the bullet
~

Atlantic City New Jersey
I had just graduated from high school
I remember stopping for saltwater taffy —as evening journeyed slowly into night. Nearing curfew, we sat on a protruded sandy enclave--holding hands, looking out at the ocean, not saying much. In the distance the lights from an ocean liner flickered as the night kept coming on in...

first “french kiss”
under the boardwalk
“over the moon!”
~~

All love,
Al