#Hanif Abdurraqib

[april-is]

April 24, 2024: How Can Black People Write About Flowers at a Time Like This, Hanif Abdurraqib

How Can Black People Write About Flowers at a Time Like This Hanif Abdurraqib

dear reader, with our heels digging into the good mud at a swamp’s edge, you might tell me something about the dandelion & how it is not a flower itself but a plant made up of several small flowers at its crown & lord knows I have been called by what I look like more than I have been called by what I actually am & I wish to return the favor for the purpose of this exercise. which, too, is an attempt at fashioning something pretty out of seeds refusing to make anything worthwhile of their burial. size me up & skip whatever semantics arrive to the tongue first. say: that boy he look like a hollowed-out grandfather clock. he look like a million-dollar god with a two-cent heaven. like all it takes is one kiss & before morning, you could scatter his whole mind across a field.

--

From the poet:

“I was at a reading shortly after the [2016] election, and the poet (who was black) was reading gorgeous poems, which had some consistent and exciting flower imagery. A woman (who was white) behind me—who thought she was whispering to her neighbor—said ‘How can black people write about flowers at a time like this?’ I thought it was so absurd in a way that didn’t make me angry but made me curious. What is the black poet to be writing about ‘at a time like this’ if not to dissect the attractiveness of a flower—that which can arrive beautiful and then slowly die right before our eyes? I thought flowers were the exact thing to write about at a time like this, so I began this series of poems, all with the same title. I thought it was much better to grasp a handful of different flowers, put them in a glass box, and see how many angles I could find in our shared eventual demise.” —Hanif Abdurraqib

Today in:

2023: Lit, Andrea Cohen 2022: Meditations in an Emergency, Cameron Awkward-Rich 2021: How the Trees on Summer Nights Turn into a Dark River, Barbara Crooker 2020: Ash, Tracy K. Smith 2019: Under Stars, Dorianne Laux 2018: Afterlife, Natalie Eilbert 2017: There Are Birds Here, Jamaal May 2016: Poetry, Richard Kenney 2015: Dreaming at the Ballet, Jack Gilbert 2014: Vocation, Sandra Beasley 2013: Near the Race Track, Brigit Pegeen Kelly 2012: from Ask Him, Raymond Carver 2011: Sweet Star Chisel, Dearest Flaming Crumbs in Your Beard Lord, John Rybicki 2010: Rain Travel, W.S. Merwin 2009: Goodnight, Li-Young Lee 2008: Bearhug, Michael Ondaatje 2007: Meditation at Lagunitas, Robert Hass 2006: Autumn, Rainer Maria Rilke 2005: On Turning Ten, Billy Collins

#nature #poetry #poem #race #bipoc poet #hanif abdurraqib

[soracities]

losing it a little at Hanif Abdurraqib's new year post

#quotes #typography #hanif abdurraqib #yellow tulips in a green vase #maxims #m #x #new years

[firstfullmoon]

Hanif Abdurraqib, in “Why this poet sees grief as its own kind of spiritual practice”

#um. okay okay #w #interview #hanif abdurraqib #if you will grant me one vivid morning I can chain it to me for fifty years

[sparklyslug]

Hanif Abdurraqib is the poetical voice of our time, our generation, our people

#hanif abdurraqib #ides of march #julius ceaser #Shakespeare #sparkly originals

[havingapoemwithyou]

it's not like nikola tesla knew all of those people were going to die by Hanif Abdurraqib

#Hanif Abdurraqib #poetry #poem

[tendermimi]

hanif abdurraqib, how can black people write about flowers at a time like this

#hanif abdurraqib #poetry #poem #writings #excerpts #words #quotes

[geryone]

Hanif Abdurraqib at Smith College

#quote #quotes #Hanif Abdurraqib #tried to get this down so quickly I was like!!!!!!! #it’s at the end of the stream / video

[juliens-bakery]

I love the dead because we cannot let each other down anymore.

Hanif Abdurraqib, There's Always This Year

#nat.twenties #hanif abdurraqib #there's always this year

[tunisian]

hanif abdurraqib, from “THE GHOST OF MARVIN GAYE STANDS OVER HIS FATHER’S GRAVE AND FORGETS TO ASK FOR AN APOLOGY” in A Fortune For Your Disaster

#hanif abdurraqib #a fortune for your disaster #poetry

[therisingfog]

-Hanif Abdurraqib

#poem #poetry #hanif abdurraqib #rejection #midwest

[llovelymoonn]

knives & nothing more

hanif abdurraqib prestige \\ stephanie foo what my bones know \\ franz kafka letters to milena \\ heidy steidlmayer knife-sharpener's song \\ richard jackson basic algebra \\ mary oliver march

kofi

#hanif abdurraqib #prestige #stephanie foo #what my bones know #webweave #parallels #web weave #my webweaving #compilations #webs #intertextuality #webweaving #mine #web weaving #on self #on love #web #ww #parallel #parallelism #compilation #intertext #comparative #comparatives #obsessed with everything hanif abdurraqib writes #franz kafka #kafka #letters to milena #basic algebra #richard jackson

[weltenwellen]

Hanif Abdurraqib in the interview "Why this poet sees grief as its own kind of spiritual practice"

#quotes #hanif abdurraqib

[soracities]

Hanif Abdurraqib, on Bruce Springsteen

#q #quotes #hanif abdurraqib #bruce springsteen #sanctum #portrait of the artist #nobody talk to me thanks #instagram #m #* #x

[firstfullmoon]

Hanif Abdurraqib’s contribution to Sad Happens, an anthology exploring sadness & tears, edited by Brandon Stosuy

#if there is a heaven and if it exists in the sky and if it holds everyone I have loved and everyone I miss it is certainly higher #than the heights any airplane can reach. I propose that this is the loneliest place #the body might not know it but it doesn’t matter the heart rings the loudest bell everything else falls in line!!!!! #w #lit #hanif abdurraqib

[havingapoemwithyou]

ode to Elliott smith, ending in the first snowfall of 2003 by hanif abdurraqib

#hanif abdurraqib #poetry #poem #words

[typewriter-worries]

It's world poetry day so here are some of my favorite poems:

Failing and Flying by Jack Gilbert

What the Living Do by Marie Howe

Night Walk by Franz Wright

Crossword by Lloyd Schwartz

The Great Fires by Jack Gilbert

Love Train by Tomás Q. Morín

Divorced Fathers and Pizza Crusts by Mark Halliday

Perhaps the World Ends Here by Joy Harjo

in another string of the multiverse, perhaps by Michaella Batten

acknowledgments by Danez Smith

Death Wish by Josh Alex Baker

San Francisco by Richard Brautigan

How to Watch Your Brother Die by Michael Lassell

You Are the Penultimate Love of My Life by Rebecca Hazelton

On Political(ized) Life by Kanika Lawton

All the Dead Boys Look Like Me by Christopher Soto

It Was the Animals by Natalie Diaz

In Time by W.S. Merwin

It Is Maybe Time to Admit That Michael Jordan Definitely Pushed Off by Hanif Abdurraqib

Dear Life by Maya C. Popa

I Could Touch It by Ellen Bass

To The Young Who Want To Die by Gwendolyn Brooks

Accident Report in the Tall, Tall Weeds by Ada Limón

#world poetry day #poetry #jack gilbert #marie howe #franz wright #lloyd schwartz #tomás q. morín #mark halliday #joy harjo #michaella batten #danez smith #josh alex baker #richard brautigan #michael lassell #rebecca hazelton #kanika lawton #christopher soto #natalie diaz #w.s. merwin #hanif abdurraqib #ellen bass #gwendolyn brooks #ada limón #recommendations #pinned #recs #these are a few of my favorite things