Let's rap! (6.27.20)

The trepidations are beginning to leak in

To my inbox from people who say they're needin' 

Some kind of serious detox

For the poetry rap project objectif we've got, 

You know what I'm saying, I'm saying these big lots

Of rhythm & rhyme 

Jammed together in 5/4 time

Like jazz like hazardous material

For the lungs & the tongue 

That don't wanna be spoken so much as sung . . .

Sometimes, people, I just can't help myself!  Even when it's probably wiser to . . . Looking ahead 20 years, and assuming I'm still around, what today's blog might sound like to my nanogenetic self . . .  BUT!

Or as Elizabeth Warren might say, Nevertheless, I persist.

Look, people, we spend a lot of time and energy trying to make poetry for the ages the same way it's been made for ages, since Homer, in fact, and that's all well and good, at least for us in Western Civilization.  But sometimes it starts to feel . . . er . . . a little too Western?  As in one of those extended learning courses in Western Civilization that universities like UNC cook up for retirees (for a fee) so we can all feel educated and . . . civilized?

Occasionally, it's nice to eat dessert first, have a bowl of cereal for supper, drain a glass of wine for breakfast.  Sometimes, it's good to dance naked in front of the mirror.  SOMETIMES we need to stretch our ideas about what kind of poetry we can write, even if we don't ordinarily think of it as poetry.

Here's my two cents: the rhapsodes of ancient Greece were the original 50 Cent, Lil Nas, Queen Latifah and Nicki Minaj.  Then Homer came along, whoever he was, IF he was actually one poet, and codified the rhapsodes' raps into formal poetry.  The Troubadours wandering Italy and France resurrected rap, maybe in the form of villenelles (which at one time were really quite various in style and length), which in turn rejuvenated poetry until somebody reduced their songs to a single form--like the villenelle--and called it poetry.  Walt Whitman came along to toss out the stuffy sterile imitative stuff of American anglicized poetry and . . . well, you know what he did!  Then the Beats had to follow suit a hundred years later because poetry had slipped back into the merely academic again, or so they argued.  In the 1970s, partly out of cultural resistance, partly out of political will, came hip-hop, then rap . . . and voila! poetry reborn, saved from itself.

Here's a secret I would like to share with you: you don't have to be Eminem to write rap poetry.  And so I invite you to give it a try.  First, a few simple observations or rules, if you will--and yes, rap adheres to three but pretty strict rules--and then a few examples, brief plus extended, so you get the idea.

Rule 1: theme

If you're going to write a rap poem, settle on a simple theme.  The rap you're probably thinking of, that most offends you, is about night clubs, grinding, raw sexism, bad attitudes, selfishness, guns and cussing.  It's in your face.  That's not necessarily the only vehicle for rap, though.  You can write rappily about anything--what you like for breakfast (see "Ham & Eggs" below), about community, about writing poetry, about Donald Trump, about Queens Latifah and/or Elizabeth, about your dog or your cat, about your cluttered garage, about your favorite pair of pants.  The point is, choose a theme.  Next, brainstorm it--what is it, what does it sound like/look like/taste like/feel like, where do you find it, where don't you find it, what do you really know about it, etc., etc.?  How do you feel about it?  Themes in rap poems are often very personal, almost confessional (though they aren't always that way.)  A rap can address a reader or a historical person directly.

Rule 2: flow

This is the key to rap, and therefore to rap poetry.  What is flow?  Here's what it is not: flow is not meter, as in a popular song or a ballad or a traditional lyric.  In fact, flow is not even "rhythm" as we traditional writers of poetry think of rhythm, such as cadence.  Flow is not a regular rhyme pattern, as in a-b-a-b or a-a / b-b or as in a sonnet.  So what is flow?  Flow is unlineated and unpatterned in the usual sense.  Flow is a falling-driving rhythm that ignores line breaks (even if there are line breaks in the poem).  Flow can be written as prose, in fact, because it doesn't depend on line endings and beginnings.  If you look at the rap poem I wrote at the top of this blog you'll see the pace wants to be quick, the movement continually "forward," and the beat or rhythm always falling-driving from first to last.  This is because flow is sequential: a sequence of words that sound similar even if they don't actually rhyme (they may may have the same number of syllables with stressed syllables in the same place in each word or set of words in the sequence).  Hint: use words of two syllables or more or word clusters in which the first syllable is stressed.  Repetition ad nauseum is one way to get to rap's flow.  Reading it aloud should leave you breathless.

Rule 3: rhyme

A rap poem feeds on rhyme, but it doesn't rhyme in strict time (see Rule 2 above) or pattern.  A rap rhyme can be exact, off, near, slant, and gestural all within the space of a single image or sequence of words.  A rap poem will use masculine rhymes (rhyming words of one syllable) often extended to a series, one after the other.  A rap poem will deploy feminine rhyme (rhyming words of multi-syllables: Stella and her umbrella met a helluva fella).  Most of all, and most fun of all, a rap poem will go for partial rhyme or "part-rhymes," that is, choosing words in a series that may incorporate rhyming syllables at the same position in each word.

So there are your rules.  For me, flow is the most important.  No flow no go in yo po . . . etry.  Here are some examples.  Try reading them out loud a couple of times, looking for the pacing and tempo that best suits what the poems are attempting.

Internal to Internal

(This is a poem that I wrote and perform with my band)

We go out (yeah yeah)

And we come back (yeah yeah)

After awhile (yeah yeah, yeah yeah)

It's a wonder 

That we recognize each other,

You and I, internal to internal/

[Bridge]

On a case by case basis

We can make an oasis

Of each other, brother to sister

Sister to brother

But what we need is a bridge

To build a bridge with the courage

To abridge the spaces

Between us, I mean us

Because we need us

(Can you believe this?)

And be fly together

Like birds of a feather

No matter the weather

So if not now, if not right now then when?

Don't tell me never

Don't say to me whenever, whatever

We go out . . . etc.

. . . and my wife, Ann, who gave me the idea to challenge you all with this project, wrote this little rap about our dog . . .

Murphy's Rap

I have a little poodle

a really cool funny little dude

he loves to make art with his food

he runs around in circles

playing keepaway with dad

he always wins un-huh that's what I said

guard dog at the window

barking at all

you don't know that I'm not tall

I weigh 8 pounds 

and have 6 teeth in my head

but walk on by

I really don't mind

'cause after all I'm just saying hi

Rap poems and songs copped from the web . . .

It Pays Big

(a primer on how to write rap poems)

First press play, then we’ll play.
It’s the same old game, just cut, next frame.
Shakespeare first, then Molière.
Tragedy to comedy, an act so raw to me.
Start your flow, it’s your show,
‘else it’s paycheck, rain check, your own shipwreck,
Hands on deck, it’s mic check, say,
‘This is me for you to see, a gift, just pay your fee.’

And I’ll remember your face,
But I’m not coming home,
‘Cause I’m stuck in this place
Where it pays big to roam.

Break stage right, missed that flight,
Now it’s airport naps, short break, next port.
Who are you? Just ask the mirror.
Stake it out and fake ‘em out, next city break it out.
Time for rest, did your best.
Now you move it, groove it, fast, prove it.
She cries out, listen, hear her
Celebrate, initiate, live once, appreciate.

And I’ll remember your face,
But I’m not coming home,
‘Cause I’m stuck in this place
Where it pays big to roam


DOPE RAPPER

Am the microphone wrecker wacky mc’s thrasher
Call me punchline call me dope rapper
Lyrical tyrant punchline merchant
Don’t come close I got a wackiness repellant
Am the soldier in the ant the giga in the byte
Flows so sick you never ever bite
Don’t poke your eyes you might cry twice
Once bitten you gonna be shy twice
With your lame ass flow you don’t even cause a ripple
My rhyme so sweet it could make a girl tickle
Am the eagle you are a worm better wiggle
Blow the beagle am the boss man simple


ON KEY

I may sing off key but I rap on key
Rhyme so loaded am the rap donkey
Am like the rap tree you just a rap monkey
I got this locked down am the lock and the key
You cant get out you are under lock and key
With rhymes this good you cant get past me
Am a baller like Messi you no play pass me
Am on your tv and radio them too dey play me


THE A

Am the A in your apple
The whip on your back when you shit for temple
The itch on your head when you scratch your temple
Fall back watch me am the thrill in the movie
The movie in the ROM the kinda flows I drop make them shake their bumbum
Spitting rhymes like a well chewed bubble gum I make your liver pool but am sweet like tomtom
And I break rules like diego maradonna ready to blow with ma lyrical bazooka
Am the hay maker I make the sun shine and I aint bragging its just a punchline
Am so coded I got my own tune 99.9 I got the beat I got the tune
Am the generator men y’all the fume I smell good even with no perfume
Talk is cheap so I bought silence you wanna rant I give y’all the license
I make some sense even even when am talking nonsense cos my nonsense even get one sense
Some people no go grab cos them no get sense
The sense I make is not too common no be big deal cos now my rap is common
Am not a flash in a pan cos am known from Lagos all the way to japan
I got a master and I got a plan so you see I got a master plan
I know my master plans and his plans I don master am not stopping now cos now am going faster
Am repping Jehovah my one and only master


Ham & Eggs
By A Tribe Called Quest

I don't eat no ham n' eggs, cuz they're high in cholesterol
Ay yo, Phife do you eat em? (No, Tip do you eat em?)
Uh uh, not at all (Again)
I don't eat no ham n' eggs, cuz they're high in cholesterol
Jarobi, do you eat em? (Nope, Shah, do you eat em?) Nope
Not at all

A tisket, a tasket, what's in mama's basket?
Some veggie links and some fish that stinks
Why, just the other day, I went to Grandma's house
Smelled like she conjured up a mouse
Eggs was fryin', ham was smellin'
In ten minutes, she started yellin' (Come and get it!)
And the gettin's were good
I said, "I shouldn't eat it", she said, "I think you should"
But I can't, I'm plagued by vegetarians
No cats and dogs, I'm not a veterinarian
Strictly collard greens and the occasional steak
Goes on my plate
Asparagus tips look yummy, yummy, yummy
Candied yams inside my tummy
A collage of good eats, some snacks or nice treats
Apple sauce and some nice red beets
This is what we snack on when we're questin'
(No second guessin')

I don't eat no ham n' eggs, cuz they're high in cholesterol
Ay yo, Phife do you eat em? (No, Tip do you eat em?)
Uh uh, not at all (Again)
I don't eat no ham n' eggs, cuz they're high in cholesterol
Jarobi, do you eat em? (Nope, Shah, do you eat em?) Nope
Not at all

Now drop the beat, so I can talk about my favorite tastings
The food that is the everlasting
See I'm not fasting
I'm gobbling, like a dog on turkey
Beef jerky, Slim Jims, I eat sometimes
I like lemons and limes
"And if not that, I get the Roti and the Soursop"
Sit back, relax, listen to some hip-hop
Gum drops and gummy bears tease my eyes
A sight for sore ones and some bore pies
And other goodies that are filled with goop
With fried apple roots
Delectable delights, control my appetites
Mines is for me, right, but I know what I like
Chicken for lunch, chicken for my dinner
Chicken, chicken, chicken, I'm a finger lickin' winner
When breakfast time comes, I don't recognize
Pig in the pan or a pair of bogey chides
Mixed with stewed tomatoes, home fried potatoes
Or anything with flair, cook it, I'm in there
Pay attention to the Tribe as we impose
This is how it goes

I don't eat no ham n' eggs, cuz they're high in cholesterol
Ay yo, Phife do you eat em? (No, Tip do you eat em?)
Uh uh, not at all (Again)
I don't eat no ham n' eggs, cuz they're high in cholesterol
Jarobi, do you eat em? (Nope, Shah, do you eat em?) Nope
Not at all


Remember the Name
By Ed Sheeran, with Eminen & 50 Cent

Yeah, I was born a misfit
Grew up 10 miles from the town of Ipswich
Wanted to make it big, I wished it to existence
I never was a sick kid, always dismissed quick
"Stick to singing, stop rappin' like it's Christmas"
And if you're talkin' money, then my conversation's shiftin'
My dreams are bigger than just bein' on the rich list
Might be insanity, but people call it "gifted"
My face is goin' numb from the shit this stuff is mixed with
Watch how the lyrics in the songs might get twisted
My wife wears red, but looks better without the lipstick
I'm a private guy and you know nothin' 'bout my business
And if I had my 15 minutes, I must have missed 'em
20 years old is when I came in the game
And now it's eight years on and you remember the name
And if you thought I was good, well, then I'm better today
But it's ironic how you people thought I'd never be great
I like my shows open-air, Tokyo to Delaware
Put your phones in the air if you wanna be rocked
You know I want way more than I already got
Give me a song with Eminem and 50 Cent in the club

You know it ain't my time to call it a day
I wanna crack on and I wanna be paid
But it's 'bout time you remember the name
Ayy, ayy
You know it ain't my time to call it a day
I wanna crack on and I wanna be paid
But it's 'bout time you remember the name
Ayy, ayy

I can still remember (What?) tryna shop a deal (Uh-huh)
From Taco Bell to TRL
I climbed the Billboard charts to the top until
As fate would have it (Yeah), became an addict
Funny 'cause I had pop appeal
But they said time would tell (What?) if I'd prevail (Huh?)
And all I did was (What?) put nine-inch nails (Where?)
In my eyelids now (What?)
I'm seein' diamond sales like I'm in Zales (Yeah)
Without a doubt, by any means
If rap was skinny jeans, I couldn't do anything in 'em
I'd be splitting seams of denim when I'm spitting schemes
Which really means, no "if," "ands," or "buts" are squeezin' in between
You sleep on me 'cause you're only fuckin' with me in your dreams
Not even when I'm on my deathbed
Man, I feel like Ed, it isn't time to drop the mic yet
So why would I quit?
The thought that I would stop when I'm dead
Just popped in my head
I said it, then forgot what I said

You know it ain't my time to call it a day
I wanna crack on and I wanna be paid
But it's 'bout time you remember the name
Ayy, ayy
You know it ain't my time to call it a day
I wanna crack on and I wanna be paid
But it's 'bout time you remember the name
Ayy, ayy

Ain't nobody cold as me, I dress so fresh, so clean
You can find me in my whip, rockin' my Fendi drip
Man, you know just what I mean
Shinin', wrist with the rocks on it, Buscemis with locks on it
Everything my voice on, this shit knock, don't it?
Balenciaga saga, I'm in Bergdorf ballin'
It's just another episode, my hoes, I spoil 'em
She like the fly shit and I like to buy shit
Shit, I'm gettin' stupid money, what else we gon' do with money?
Bitch, we be ballin' out, the king bring you 50 bottles
Tonight, we gon' blow a check, worry 'bout your shit tomorrow
The turn up be so real, we 'bout to be super lit
Boy, I'm kickin' straight facts, that's just how we do this shit
Tomorrow, we hangin' over 'til we start feelin' sober
Then it's time to start it over, here we go again

You know it ain't my time to call it a day
I wanna crack on and I wanna be paid
But it's 'bout time you remember the name
Ayy, ayy
You know it ain't my time to call it a day
I wanna crack on and I wanna be paid
But it's 'bout time you remember the name
Ayy, ayy

 

A child and a poem (6.21.20)

Several of you at Wednesdays@One have already begun sending me your poems about children, so I can tell this is a project that piques your interest.  After all, everybody has kids and grandkids, right, and is proud of them?  Well, maybe not everybody.  I don't, for instance.  But that's another matter.

The project at hand is to write a poem for, to or about a child.  I imagine at least some of you plan on celebrating your own kids or grandkids in poetry.  Fine.  Only, please try to avoid sentimentalizing.  We're about poetry here--making art--not greeting cards.

I haven't read any of the poems you've shared yet, but I'm guessing you've just been caught with your hand in the Sentimental Cookie Jar.  To help you extract it, perhaps with a rewrite or two, here are some more and less famous examples of poems about, to, for children or young adults . . .

On My First Daughter

--Ben Johnson, 1616

Here lies, to each her parents' ruth,

Mary, the daughter of their youth;

Yet all heaven's gifts being heaven's due,

It makes the father less to rue.

At six months' end she parted hence

With safety of her innocence;

Whose soul heaven's queen, whose name she bears,

In comfort of her mother's tears,

Hath place amongst her virgin-train:

Where, while that severed doth remain,

This grave partakes the fleshly birth;

Which cover lightly, gentle earth!

from The Picture of Little T. C. in a Prospect of Flowers

--Andrew Marvell, 1681

See with what simplicity

This nymph begins her golden days!

In the green grass she loves to lie,

And there with her fair aspect tames

The wilder flowers and gives them names,

But only with the roses plays,

    And them does tell

What color best becomes them and what smell.

. . .

But O, young beauty of the woods,

Whom Nature courts with fruit and flowers,

Gather the flowers but spare the buds,

Lest Flora, angry at thy crime

To kill her infants in their prime,

Do quickly make th' example yours;

    And ere we see,

Nip in the blossom all our hopes and desires.

The Chimney Sweeper

--William Blake, 1794

A little black thing among the snow

Crying "'weep, 'weep," in notes of woe!

"Where are thy father & mother?  say?"

"They are both gone up to the church to pray,

"Because I was happy upon the heath,

And smil'd among the winter's snow;

They clothed me in the clothes of death,

And taught me to sing the notes of woe.

"And because I am happy, & dance & sing,

They think they have done me no injury,

And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King,

Who make up a heaven of our misery."

Spring and Fall

--Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1880

Margaret, are you grieving

Over Goldengrove unleaving?

Leaves, like the things of man, you

With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?

Ah, but as the heart grows older

It will come to such sights colder,

By and by, nor spare a sigh,

Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie.

And yet, you will weep and know why.

Now, no matter child, the name.

Sorrow's Springs are the same.

Nor mouth had, no, nor mind express'd

What heart heard of, ghost guessed.

It is the blight Man was born for,

It is Margaret you mourn for.

A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London

-- Dylan Thomas, 1937

Never until the mankind making

Bird beast and flower

Fathering and all humbling darkness

Tells with silence the last light breaking

And the still hour

Is come of the sea tumbling in harness

And I must enter again the round

Zion of the water bead

And the synagogue of the ear of corn

Shall I let pray the shadow of a sound

Or sow my salt seed

In the least valley of sackcloth to mourn

The majesty and burning of the child's death.

I shall not murder

The mankind of her going with a grave truth

Nor blaspheme down the stations of the breath

With any further

Elegy of innocence and youth.

Deep with the first dead lies London's daughter,

Robed in the long friends,

The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother,

Secret by the unmourning water

Of the riding Thames.

After the first death, there is no other.

Out, Out--

-- Robert Frost, 1916

The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard

And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,

Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.

And from there those that lifted eyes could count

Five mountain ranges one behind the other

Under the sunset far into Vermont.

And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,

As it ran light, or had to bear a load.

And nothing happened: day was all but done.

Call it a day, I wish they might have said

To please the boy by giving him the half hour

That a boy counts so much when saved from work.

His sister stood beside them in her apron

To tell them 'Supper,'  At the word, the saw,

As if to prove that saws knew what supper meant,

Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap--,

He must have given the hand.  However it was,

Neither refused the meeting.  But the hand!

The boy's first outcry was a rueful laugh,

As he swung toward them holding up the hand

Half in appeal, but half as if to keep

The life from spilling.  Then the boy saw all--

Since he was old enough to know, big boy

Doing a man's work, though a child at heart--

He saw all spoiled.  'Don't let him cut my hand off--

The doctor, when he comes.  Don't let him, sister!'

So.  But the hand was gone already.

The doctor put him in the dark of ether.

He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.

And then--the watcher at his pulse took fright.

No one believed.  They listened at his heart.

Little--less--nothing!--and that ended it.

No more to build on there.  And they, since they

Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.

Sara in Her Father's Arms

-- George Oppen, 1962

Cell by cell the baby made herself, the cells

Made cells. That is to say

The baby is made largely of milk. Lying in her father's arms,

           the little seed eyes

Moving, trying to see, smiling for us

To see, she will make a household

To her need of these rooms--Sara, little seed,

Little violent, diligent seed. Come let us look at the world

Glittering: this seed will speak,

Max, words! There will be no other words in the world

But those our children speak. What will she make of a world,

Do you suppose, Max, of which she is made.

from The Bath

-- Gary Snyder, 1972

Washing Kai in the sauna,

The kerosene lantern set on a box

outside the ground-level window,

Lights up the edge of the iron stove and the

washtub down on the slab

Steaming air and crackle of waterdrops

brushed by on the pile of rocks on top

He stands in warm water

Soap all over the smooth of his thigh and stomach

"Gary don't soap my hair!"

--his eye-sting fear--

the soapy hand feeling

through and around the globes and curves of his body,

up in the crotch,

And washing-tickling out the scrotum, little anus,

his penis curving up and getting hard

as I pull back skin and try to wash it

Laughing and jumping, flinging arms around,

I squat all naked too,

   is this our body?

 

 

We Assume: On the Death of Our Son, Reuben Masai Harper

-- Michael S. Harper, 1970

We assume

that in 28 hours,

lived in a collapsible isolette,

you learned to accept pure oxygen

as the natural sky;

the scant shallow breaths

that filled those hours

cannot, did not make you fly--

but dreams were there

like crooked palmprints on

the twin-think windows of the nursery--

in the glands of your mother.

We assume

the sterile hands

drank chemicals in and out

from lungs opaque with mucus,

pumped your stomach,

eeked the bicarbonate in

crooked, green-winged veins,

out in a plastic mask;

A woman who'd lost her first son

consoled us with an angel gone ahead

to pray for our family--

gone into that sky

seeking oxygen,

gone into autopsy,

a fine brown powdered sugar,

a disposable cremation:

We assume

you did not know we loved you.

 

 

Child Bride

-- Caroline Bird, 2006

Peel that scab off your knee,

pass me a piece of mud pie,

slurp me a soggy kiss

and lie down on the road,

I'll run you down with my tricycle,

we'll drink undiluted orange squash.

Put this chewing gum in your hair.

Let's make a potion,

I'll put some leaves in the blender,

can I read your diary?

Let's put pencils in our ears,

throw stones at a wall,

climb onto the roof of the greenhouse.

Can I see your underwear?

Let's pretend I'm a doctor.

You can bite me if you like,

you can share my crisps.

Peel that scab off your knee,

pass me a piece of mud pie,

let's pretend to make a cup of tea,

would you like to marry me? 

 

 

 

 

 

Delaney Davout Watson, 1958 - 2020

Wednesdays@One friends and writers learned this afternoon that our dear friend and fellow writer passed away earlier in the day.  Delaney had fought cancer since at least the first of the year and became debilitated by it only in the last few weeks.  When it took him, it took him fast, and we were informed that Delaney died peacefully at UNC Hospice, Pittsboro, North Carolina.

Everyone feels subdued, quietened, reined in by this news.  His attendance at our weekly salons had dropped off sometime after the beginning of the year, and now we know why.  

Delaney was a writer of sonnets.  To be more specific, he was a writer of English sonnets and the occasional Petrarchan sonnet.  His themes ranged from the occult to the spiritual, the Civil War, the Vietnam War (his last poem shared with W@1 is an anti-war diatribe recalling the war that America visited upon that small country), lovers and love, death and eternity, loss and gain.  We were always surprised when Delaney shared something other than a sonnet with us, but never surprised by the depth and passion of his poetry!  

Here is the last sonnet he shared, at our salon on February 19, 2020:

The Pursuit of the Red Mouse

I dreamt you walked among my treasures eyes ablaze.

Thin lines of light as fine as silk began to flow

Between our hearts until cocooned, I met your gaze.

The radiance consumed all discord one could know.

Your auburn locks were glowing, brightening a path

Into those umber orbs, so clearly seeking love.

While all who dared oppose were slain in fiery wrath;

You gently beckoned onward - raised a satin glove.

Behind my face my leaden vaults became unsealed.

Unleashed, the golden words, coin and currency

Of honest, precious, true desire, remained revealed.

A princely ransom, yet unclaimed, I cede to thee!

When I awoke, the morning treeline sketched her gown;

Where strands of sparkling gossamer were trailing down.

Kenneth Patchen could not have - never did - write a better love poem than this.  I wish I could write a love poem as good as this.