Copyright © 2014 Cave Canem Foundation, Inc.

This chapbook was created as part of the Cave Canem Virtual Rent Party—SOUTH fundraiser to support the Cave Canem Foundation, Inc. All digital and print copies distributed are solely for that purpose. All poems included are published with the author’s permission.

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Cave Canem South

Poems by Southern Cave Canem Fellows

CONTENTSStephanie Pruitt 5

Remica L. Bingham 6 Jonathan Moody 7 L. Lamar Wilson 9

Kwoya Fagin 10shirlette ammons 11Amanda Johnston 13 M. Ayodele Heath 14

Cedric Tillman 16Bianca Spriggs 18

Bonus Track 19

STEPHANIE PRUITT-GAINS

MISSISSIPPI GARDENS

slaves, she answered, as I sink my fingers beneath the roots.

the knees of that blue housedress are threadbare. she wears it on Tuesdays and Fridays when we tend the flowers.

pullin’ weeds ain’t a time for talk she chides. I watch her uproot the creeping Charlie.

the fragrant blossoms we protect, hug our whole house. sweet peas were my choice.

we rarely buy those things for sale in the gardening aisle. don’t make sense to work the earth and not feel it.

I wanted those thick cotton gloves, but they stayed on the shelf. you gotta learn the difference between dirt and soil.

sometimes I notice how the ground changes.

denser, darker, moister a little more red in some places

in social studies class I learned about crop rotation

and how it keeps the land fertile.

Mama, what did they used to grow here?

REMICA L. BINGHAM

MAIEUSIOPHOBIA

My mother is unatainable and I have come to accept this. So when the doctor tells me—my legs spread wide, the tiny head of a probe invading my cervix—There may be a problem I am relieved, almost happy for the damage. I say Adoption is nice randomly, to my mother, driving through a flea market one day. Then My students are all I need on another. She watches me linger with children, then swiftly hand them back, but never says what she intuits. In the years to come I will say it outright: I can’t be you, meaning, not even one, not even one perfect one.

JONATHAN MOODY

DOOMY PONTIFICATES ON THE MEANING BEHIND A KISS, THE WHISPER IN THE BRAIN

A kiss on the forearmasks, How was your day?

A kiss on the elbowtwirls you around

in your black & whiteasymmetrical dress.

A kiss on the chinpops off white

wine bottle corks.A kiss on the ear

makes you strut in suedeknee-high boots.

The first kiss on the neckkicks out my roommate;

the second one slidesyour dress down

to your festive feet.A kiss on the shoulder

screens Tommy’sincoming calls.

A kiss on the stomachputs my television

on mute. A kiss on the eyelids

means you’ll see me in your dreams.

The whisper in your brain trains

you to never mention my name out loud

while you’retalking in your sleep.

L. LAMAR WILSON

I CAN’T HELP IT 

I talk too much. I cannot tell a liarfrom a preacher, so I tell youwhat you want: I’m saved & sickof this world, safe in God’s arms. God,give me this world in an honest man’sarms. An ego is hard to stroke. Or easy ifyou know how to quiet it, let a man feelhis burn in your throat. I talk too much.I’m sorry I’m not sorry enough. I’ll danceall over you. O liar. Preacher. Daddy-o, your tongue lashing is never hardor fast enough. When you lie still,stroking your chalice, the quiet makes meretch. I am a lone dandelion in a field,waiting. Come. Blow me to bits.        Still.You’ll die this way, saved by the liesthat burn like the ice water & alcoholMama sits me in to break the feversour silences brought. I’ll die thrashing,telling any body all my secrets.

KWOYA FAGIN

THE ALABAMA JAZZ QUARTET CELEBRATES BLACK HISTORY MONTH

One black man authenticates

everything.But why live by the river,the train? Why live so close to doorways,with no escape?

Crescendo curvesthe finger, calmsthe horn. The cake of percussion builds to the cherry on top.

Pride enters the room in a white suit.The black man gets his solo.His fingers slide in and out of the notes.He knows exactly when to come and when to go.

SHIRLETTE AMMONS

HISTORY MAKES CONCESSIONS FOR WHITE BOYS

from all my white sins forgiven, they feed - Philip Levine, “They Feed They Lion”

At the Food Lion, This cute one hangs and guts The pot-bellied pork; I suppose his kisses salt and slime, Which would have appeased the high school me, Ham gelatin swathing my tongueAs I lip-synced good vibrationsLike mark wahlberg wasn’t just A white boy in dropped boxersProtesting the mullet

I remember his face now, He and his girlfriend mashed like Juicy FruitIn that big-ass, Dixie-flagged, Ford F-150, Me, a member of the yellow school-bus clique, Sitting, suffocating, three deep in a pleathered seat; Mexican, black, po white trash, cousins of cousinsMuddled like the fuzz between pecan treesAnd AM radio stations; Her hands, gold nugget promise rings, Engaged his stringy hair; As his dual mufflers fumed down Highway 403, Racial divide scoured the windshieldsOf our wheeled, county property

He steps outside between slaughteringsTo smoke a red-boxed Marlboro. I notice his bangs have grown out;

He stares as if my locks carry remnantsOf barrettes and blurred bus numbers; We nod and smile, an understood country greeting; I figure he and his girlfriend still coast cramped, The same way public transportation taught us To Squeeze tight in our assigned seatsIn case the white boy’s pickup broke down

Why else would we make room for a passenger Who never needed a ride?

AMANDA JOHNSTON

DOMICILE

a chair is not a house and a house is not a homewhen there's no one there to hold you tight. – Luther Vandross

 Tucked under an overpass – a bedroomwith no walls. An Oriental rug divides highway soot and citymuck from what is claimed as home. In the center of the ruga queen size bed with fitted sheets and a turned down comforterrevealing two dusty white pillows. Heads rest thereunder thousands of pounds of concrete and steel trustingthat the weight of the world will not come crashing down.Is love made there in that bed? Do the world's voyeursdiscover over and over the exposed roomits contents and nothingness on display:yes, it is this simple. This too is a life worth sharing. I consider my home; cookie cutter stability in a shaky market.How would my life fit under a bridge? Would there be roomfor the fridge, the racks of shoes, my second living room set?Is the plasma TV enough? Its blank face reflecting our emptyarms and wayward dreams. Would he remember the lines?  For better, for worse For richer, for poorer Would that sealing kiss of vows hold our binding?

M. AYODELE HEATH

ETYMOLOGY OF AIN’T

Ain’t used to be an’t which comes from am not as in I ain’t you but also is not as in He ain’t me& also have not as in I ain’t been

and don’t wanna be

Ain’t is a state of that which is notAin’t is a state in the American SouthAin’t country, ain’t hip-hopAin’t nappy, ain’t cornrows, ain’t dreadlocksAin’t ignores dress codes no shoes, no socksAin’t wears no drawers don’t own any

Ain’t ain’t never apologized for beingAin’t never been apologeticSome say ain’t no future in ain’t& ain’t ain’t what it used to be but where ain’t is, is ain’tAin’t ain’t metaphysical?

Is you is or is you ain’t? I ain’t no haint Ain’t never been 3/5 of nothingAin’t trying to be no more than I am I is wholeBefore I was born I was all

They dug ain’t’s grave between ‘tis and ‘twasBut ain’t stands defiantly as don’t and won’tTar & feather me burn me down

I ain’t supposed to be here

But I is

CEDRIC TILLMAN

REV. HENRY, 1980 Matthew 10:32-39  By way of apology,  he had a double helping of Grandma’s  collard greens. He’d only eat legs.  He held a drumstick so light on his fingers  you could offer him your Sunday shirt   as a napkin and wear it to work  the next day.  His grey crown, neatly picked out and brighter than Glory half hid a picture of my granddaddy, frowning and heavy-handed  in his overalls, long dead  from the gravel pit’s dust;  In the den he crossed his legs  left over right, nodded at times, held back the knee  with knitted fingers while his wife spoke of Sunday School,  the Buds of Promise.   He sat starched over the lip  of the couch, waiting his turn  and when he’d Yes Lawd, sweet Jesus  sweet tea  just melted on the settee. Mother  against father ‘Gin, he warned,  daughter  against mother. 

Out beside the front porch, beyond the roses of Sharon, a burgundy Bonneville steeped in wax and country sunshine  had bonded burgundy leather  shiny like it’d been baby oiled and when it was in park the shifter   

sat up on the steering wheel  pointing at the sky like a crooked tree limb.  This was back when they made  preacher’s cars in Detroit, when we used to call Ms. Henry the first lady thinking that’s as close as we’d get. I loved that car  and when no one was looking I was toppling over, practicing how to sit. 

 BIANCA SPRIGGS

THE NATURE OF GLASS

once the rainmakergame me a gift it was last life and he gave me a heart made from shards of other folks’very best lovesI let him hold onto it, thoughbecause he tends to understand the nature of glass

the rainmaker left me alone, then and all I had left were old livesand this broken heartthat we (past) back and forth it shatters every timehe goes to leave

ON THE THIRD COAST an exquisite corpse

discover over and over

brighter than Glory

my fingers beneath the roots

a kiss on the stomach and

I is whole

crescendo curves

the finger, calms

the nature of glass

I’ll die thrashing

one perfect one

muddled like the fuzz

between pecan trees

Cedric TillmanCedric Tillman hails from Anson County, NC and was raised in Charlotte.  He is a graduate of UNCC and The American University’s Creative Writing MFA program. In 2011, his manuscript, entitled Human Events, was a finalist for Flying Trout Press’ annual chapbook contest; a book-length collection, entitled A Lily in the Valley, was a semifinalist for the 42 Miles Press/University of Indiana-South Bend Poetry Award. A Cave Canem fellow, Cedric’s poems appear in several publications including Crosscut, Folio, Kakalak 2009, The Chemistry of Color, Cave Canem Anthology XII: Poems 2008‐2009 and Home Is Where: An Anthology of African American Poets From the Carolinas, edited by Kwame Dawes. In 2013 his debut collection, entitled Lilies In The Valley, was published by Willow Books. He lives in Charlotte with his family.

M. Ayodele HeathM. Ayodele Heath is author of Otherness (Brick Road Poetry Press) and editor of the forthcoming anthology, Electronic Corpse: Poems from a Digital Salon. Recipient of fellowships to Caversham Centre for Artists (South Africa) and Cave Canem, he is a top individual 10-finisher at the National Poetry Slam. A graduate of the MFA in Poetry at New England College, he is a former McEver Visiting Chair in Writing at Georgia Tech. His work has appeared widely in journals and anthologies including diode, Muzzle, Crab Orchard Review, Mississippi Review, and India's International Gallerie. Virtually, he lives at www.ayospeaks.com. Physically, he lives and writes in Atlanta.

Amanda JohnstonAmanda Johnston earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Stonecoast at the University of Southern Maine. Her poetry and interviews have appeared in numerous on-line and print publications, among them, The Drunken Boat, Small Batch, New Literati, Pluck and the anthologies, di-ver-city and The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South. The recipient of multiple Artist Enrichment grants from the Kentucky Foundation for Women and the Christina Sergeyevna Award from the Austin International Poetry Festival, she is a member of the   Affrilachian Poets and a Cave Canem graduate fellow. She has served on the board of directors for the National Women's Alliance, the Kentucky Women Writers Conference, and is the founder and executive director of Torch Literary Arts. Currently, she serves as the retreat coordinator for Cave Canem Foundation, Inc. and is a Badgerdog teaching artist. Her website is www.amandajohnston.com

shirlette ammonsAward-winning, Durham, NC-based poet and musician Shirlette Ammons‘ debut solo album entitled “Twilight for Gladys Bentley” (T4GB) has been digitally released by independent record label Grip Tapes and is available for review. The album is a ‘re-imagining’ of 1920s blues singer and ‘bulldagger’ Gladys Bentley, a forgotten musical icon whom Shirlette spent a year researching to create what has been called ‘her best album to date.’ Shirlette's 2013 Hopscotch Music Festival performance was named amongst Blurt Magazine's top 10 performances of the festival.

Kwoya FaginKwoya Fagin is a writer from Charleston, S.C. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Alabama. She teaches creative writing in Birmingham, AL at the Alabama School of Fine Arts.

L. Lamar Wilson L. Lamar Wilson has poems in or forthcoming in African American Review, Los Angeles Review, jubilat, The 100 Best African American Poems, The New Sound, Black Gay Genius, and other journals and anthologies. Sacrilegion, his first collection, was selected by Lee Ann Brown for the Carolina Wren Press Poetry Series. Individual poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and won the 2011 Beau Boudreaux Poetry Prize. Wilson has received fellowships from the Cave Canem Foundation, the Callaloo Workshops, the Alfred E. Knobler Scholarship Fund, and the Arts and Sciences Foundation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he's pursuing a doctorate in African American and multiethnic American poetics.

Jonathan MoodyJonathan Moody received his MFA from the University of Pittsburgh. He’s a Cave Canem alum whose poetry has appeared in African American Review, Crab Orchard Review, Gathering Ground, Peter Doig: No Foreign Lands, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Xavier Review, among numerous other publications, and is forthcoming in Illya’s Honey, The Common, and Tidal Basin Review. Moody, author of The Doomy Poems (Six Gallery Press, 2012), teaches Dual Credit English at Pearland High School and lives in Fresno, Texas, with his wife and baby boy.

Bianca SpriggsAffrilachian Poet and Cave Canem Fellow, Bianca Spriggs, is a writer and multidisciplinary artist based in Lexington, Kentucky. She is a recipient of the Al Smith Individual Artist Fellowship in Poetry and multiple artist grants from the Kentucky Foundation for Women as well as a Pushcart Nominee. Bianca is the author of Kaffir Lily and How Swallowtails Become Dragons and the creator of The SwallowTale Project: Creative Writing for Incarcerated Women. She is the creator and artistic director of the Wild Women of Poetry Slam held annually at the Kentucky Women Writers Conference and serves as the current Managing Editor for pluck! The Journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture.

You can learn more about her numerous shenanigans here: www.biancaspriggs.com. 

Remica L. BinghamRemica L. Bingham, a native of Phoenix, Arizona, is an alumna of Old Dominion University and Bennington College as well as a Cave Canem fellow. Her first book, Conversion (Lotus Press, 2007), won the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award and was shortlisted for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. Her next book, What We Ask of Flesh, will be published by Etruscan Press in February 2013. Currently, she is the Director of Writing and Faculty Development at Old Dominion University. She resides in Norfolk, VA with her husband and children.

Stephanie Pruitt-GainesStephanie Pruitt is a dot-to-dot-to-dot connector. This poet, arts advocate and strategist has taught arts education, literature, and creative writing courses at Vanderbilt, the Sewanee Young Writers’ Conference, and numerous k-12 and community settings. Stephanie's publications include the Southern Women's Review, Palimpsest, the Feminist Wire, and several anthologies. The Cave Canem Fellow was named one of Essence Magazine/Essence.com's “40 Favorite Poets.” She recently created and completed the 30x30x30 project where the poet visited the Frist Center daily, writing 30 poems in 30 days related to works in the 30 Americans visual art exhibit. Her literary voice has been described as “high art with a hearty dose of biscuit-sopping goodness.” Currently, Stephanie curates arts engagement experiences, including Poems & Pancakes, a literary brunch series. She receives mail at the Nashville, TN home she shares

with her family and furkids.

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