Newspaper Poetry During COVID-19
We're All the Lone Ranger by Ishmael Reed
Maybe it’s a good idea to keep homo sapiens/Indoors/less opportunity to get into mischief
How about two months every year/The Yang administration would pick up the tab
The oceans and the forests could take a deep breath
Men would pay as much attention to their/Loved ones, as they do to guns
Every house would have a treadmill/Rowing machine and bike/Stomachs would be flattened
The streets of Oakland would be as clean as/The streets of Vienna
Bears would inhabit the meadows of Yosemite/Instead of tourists
Species terrorized by humans/Could relax
Families would eat at the dinner table/Instead of in the parking lots/Outside of shrines to sugar and salt,/Where carbohydrates rule/
The dining room/No longer as useless as/The Appendix
Books that are used as props and as/Backdrops during interviews/Get read/Crime would take a holiday/Off the streets
Maybe my students will look/Up the names with which/They are unfamiliar
Duke Ellington Langston Hughes/Paul Robeson Lana Turner/George Gershwin Martha/
Graham Gwendolyn Brooks the WPA/Katherine Dunham John Garfield, Will Rogers/ Dorothy Dandridge Mae West Nat King Cole/Orson Welles James Cagney Canada Lee/ Kathleen Battle (singing “Summertime” on YouTube)/The WPA, World War II
They do that, and I’ll check/Out Pink
----
Ishmael Reed’s latest book is “Why No Confederate Statues in Mexico.”
Maybe it’s a good idea to keep homo sapiens/Indoors/less opportunity to get into mischief
How about two months every year/The Yang administration would pick up the tab
The oceans and the forests could take a deep breath
Men would pay as much attention to their/Loved ones, as they do to guns
Every house would have a treadmill/Rowing machine and bike/Stomachs would be flattened
The streets of Oakland would be as clean as/The streets of Vienna
Bears would inhabit the meadows of Yosemite/Instead of tourists
Species terrorized by humans/Could relax
Families would eat at the dinner table/Instead of in the parking lots/Outside of shrines to sugar and salt,/Where carbohydrates rule/
The dining room/No longer as useless as/The Appendix
Books that are used as props and as/Backdrops during interviews/Get read/Crime would take a holiday/Off the streets
Maybe my students will look/Up the names with which/They are unfamiliar
Duke Ellington Langston Hughes/Paul Robeson Lana Turner/George Gershwin Martha/
Graham Gwendolyn Brooks the WPA/Katherine Dunham John Garfield, Will Rogers/ Dorothy Dandridge Mae West Nat King Cole/Orson Welles James Cagney Canada Lee/ Kathleen Battle (singing “Summertime” on YouTube)/The WPA, World War II
They do that, and I’ll check/Out Pink
----
Ishmael Reed’s latest book is “Why No Confederate Statues in Mexico.”
This one by Tennessee Reed was also timely:
Plague Poem 2020 by Tennessee Reed
I remember when I could/attend face to face classes/instead of online classes
I remember when I could/go to the grocery store,/and not stand in line
for sometimes an hour and a half to get in/only to find the products I wanted missing
or worry about someone not wearing a mask or gloves/leaning over me to get avocados
Same goes for/the hardware store
I remember when I could/walk at the Emeryville Marina/
or Golden Bear Track/without worrying about runners,/
walkers and bicyclists/taking up the entire path/
or squeezing by/again without a mask/or not being six feet apart/
I remember when I could walk/around the neighborhood
with the neighbor’s dog/and cordially greet my neighbors
without the awkwardness/of stay in place
These are mere minor inconveniences
Imagine sitting in a hot Dallas car/awaiting your turn/at the food distribution center
-----
Tennessee Reed's latest recent poetry collection, "Calafia Bueninf: New and Selected Poems 1987-2019" is forthcoming from Dalkey Archive Press
I remember when I could/attend face to face classes/instead of online classes
I remember when I could/go to the grocery store,/and not stand in line
for sometimes an hour and a half to get in/only to find the products I wanted missing
or worry about someone not wearing a mask or gloves/leaning over me to get avocados
Same goes for/the hardware store
I remember when I could/walk at the Emeryville Marina/
or Golden Bear Track/without worrying about runners,/
walkers and bicyclists/taking up the entire path/
or squeezing by/again without a mask/or not being six feet apart/
I remember when I could walk/around the neighborhood
with the neighbor’s dog/and cordially greet my neighbors
without the awkwardness/of stay in place
These are mere minor inconveniences
Imagine sitting in a hot Dallas car/awaiting your turn/at the food distribution center
-----
Tennessee Reed's latest recent poetry collection, "Calafia Bueninf: New and Selected Poems 1987-2019" is forthcoming from Dalkey Archive Press
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Further Reading:
"The idea is to get all app subscribers reading the same poem at the same time. Or you could try Poetry magazine's poetry app." offlinereport.net
This work by AJ Fish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
