Earlier this year, I was one of seven recipients for the Midwestern Voices and Visions Residency, which offers unrestricted grant funds to support emerging artists of color in the Midwest. Check out this Twin Cities Daily Planet coverage of me and Ibrahima Kaba, another Minnesotan who received this grant.
IBé and May Lee-Yang win Midwestern Voices and Visions Awards to fund new work
Monday, February 22, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
POEMS THAT NEED A HOME
These are just some random poems I wrote in 2008. I don't anticipate they will have a home in any journal or any book, so here they are on my blog. Enjoy!
-May
INVASION
Today, poetry invades my life
Because it is tired of waiting
Tired of waiting for my schedule to clear
Tired of being pushed aside for other things
Today, poetry invades my schedule
Forcing me to pay attention
BAG LADY
You would think I was homeless the way I carry bags
My bags are always heavy
My right shoulder carries the weight of
Schedules, deadlines, notebooks, poems, receipts,
Letters I forget to read
Bills I’m supposed to pay
It carries medicine from my mother
Make-up smeared with ink
It carries more pens than I should have
Pens thrown in just in case the ink runs out
Very few have run out
I have blue bags from Let’s Talk Month
I have a black bag from a Vermont writing camp
I have a red bag from a peace organization
(Did I mention these are mostly tote bags, not designer ones?)
I once had a fashionable, faux-alligator bag that was a Christmas gift
But it could not handle all the weight of my world and so one handle broke
Still, it sits in my closet, awaiting disposal
I cannot let it go until I find a home for its contents
LETTING GO
I have a hard time letting go of things
People, places, paper
Yes, paper is part of my life
Looseleaf tucked in 3-ring binders
Stacks of stationary sitting on top of dressers
I have journals, tons of them, some I am afraid to touch
I want my words to be perfect before they hit the page, so the pages remain empty
I have notebooks
Twenty-five cent notebooks, five-dollar notebooks, notepads with most pages already torn out
But there are things I let go of freely
Like time
Each year, it disappears more rapidly
LEAVING
I am not one of those people who can get up and leave a place.
There are too many things to keep, to many things that need storage.
At twelve, I owned my clothes.
At fourteen, I owned a few books.
At sixteen, I owned a word processor.
At nineteen, I owned teddy bears.
At twenty-nine, I own a lot of things but they value at virtually nothing:
Movies, CDs, books, notebooks, a broken bed, and a dresser in need of repair.
I am cutting things out of my life. How a part-time employed person can be so busy I don’t know. I am cutting things out of my life because I am tired of living on deadlines, tired of knowing what the future looks like without the help of a psychic. How it’s possible that I could spend seven years with barely any free weekends in the spring, how I can have picnics plotted down like meetings, I’m not sure.
I know I need to leave this place.
CHASING WISHES
Today, my nephew Calvin and I are at Valleyfair. He is ten. I am twenty-nine, and we both do not want to ride the Corkscrew. So we wait on the bench for the others. It was then I saw the white puffs floating through the air.
Grab one and make a wish, I tell him. So we grasp for white puffs, make a wish and blow. I watch as my white puff moves, not floating away, but spiraling down until it falls. I follow it s movement until lands on the ground, stomped by Calvin’s unknowing feet.
Well, I wished for money, he says. What did you wish for?
I can’t tell you or else it won’t come true, I say.
Will these wishes really come true? He asks.
And though I want to humor him, I say honestly, I don’t know.
Still, I catch more puffs and make more wishes for the one that I know has been lost.
-May
INVASION
Today, poetry invades my life
Because it is tired of waiting
Tired of waiting for my schedule to clear
Tired of being pushed aside for other things
Today, poetry invades my schedule
Forcing me to pay attention
BAG LADY
You would think I was homeless the way I carry bags
My bags are always heavy
My right shoulder carries the weight of
Schedules, deadlines, notebooks, poems, receipts,
Letters I forget to read
Bills I’m supposed to pay
It carries medicine from my mother
Make-up smeared with ink
It carries more pens than I should have
Pens thrown in just in case the ink runs out
Very few have run out
I have blue bags from Let’s Talk Month
I have a black bag from a Vermont writing camp
I have a red bag from a peace organization
(Did I mention these are mostly tote bags, not designer ones?)
I once had a fashionable, faux-alligator bag that was a Christmas gift
But it could not handle all the weight of my world and so one handle broke
Still, it sits in my closet, awaiting disposal
I cannot let it go until I find a home for its contents
LETTING GO
I have a hard time letting go of things
People, places, paper
Yes, paper is part of my life
Looseleaf tucked in 3-ring binders
Stacks of stationary sitting on top of dressers
I have journals, tons of them, some I am afraid to touch
I want my words to be perfect before they hit the page, so the pages remain empty
I have notebooks
Twenty-five cent notebooks, five-dollar notebooks, notepads with most pages already torn out
But there are things I let go of freely
Like time
Each year, it disappears more rapidly
LEAVING
I am not one of those people who can get up and leave a place.
There are too many things to keep, to many things that need storage.
At twelve, I owned my clothes.
At fourteen, I owned a few books.
At sixteen, I owned a word processor.
At nineteen, I owned teddy bears.
At twenty-nine, I own a lot of things but they value at virtually nothing:
Movies, CDs, books, notebooks, a broken bed, and a dresser in need of repair.
I am cutting things out of my life. How a part-time employed person can be so busy I don’t know. I am cutting things out of my life because I am tired of living on deadlines, tired of knowing what the future looks like without the help of a psychic. How it’s possible that I could spend seven years with barely any free weekends in the spring, how I can have picnics plotted down like meetings, I’m not sure.
I know I need to leave this place.
CHASING WISHES
Today, my nephew Calvin and I are at Valleyfair. He is ten. I am twenty-nine, and we both do not want to ride the Corkscrew. So we wait on the bench for the others. It was then I saw the white puffs floating through the air.
Grab one and make a wish, I tell him. So we grasp for white puffs, make a wish and blow. I watch as my white puff moves, not floating away, but spiraling down until it falls. I follow it s movement until lands on the ground, stomped by Calvin’s unknowing feet.
Well, I wished for money, he says. What did you wish for?
I can’t tell you or else it won’t come true, I say.
Will these wishes really come true? He asks.
And though I want to humor him, I say honestly, I don’t know.
Still, I catch more puffs and make more wishes for the one that I know has been lost.
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