January 5, 2013: Blues

INTRO:

A well respected teacher and poet with an impressive academic and professional resume, including being only the fourth poet to read at a presidential inauguration ("Praise Song for the Day" - Obama 2008), Alexander often writes about the intersection of history and the present moment.

TODAY'S POEM:         Blues
WORDSMITH:             Elizabeth Alexander (1962 - Present)
SOURCE:                    Body of Life

Blues

I am lazy, the laziest
girl in the world. I sleep during
the day when I want to, 'til
my face is creased and swollen,
'til my lips are dry and hot. I
eat as I please: cookies and milk
after lunch, butter and sour cream
on my baked potato, foods that
slothful people eat, that turn
yellow and opaque beneath the skin.
Sometimes come dinnertime Sunday
I am still in my nightgown, the one
with the lace trim listing because
I have not mended it. Many days
I do not exercise, only
consider it, then rub my curdy
belly and lie down. Even
my poems are lazy. I use
syllabics instead of iambs,
prefer slant to the gong of full rhyme,
write briefly while others go
for pages. And yesterday,
for example, I did not work at all!
I got in my car and I drove
to factory outlet stores, purchased
stockings and panties and socks
with my father's money.

To think, in childhood I missed only
one day of school per year. I went
to ballet class four days a week
at four-forty-five and on
Saturdays, beginning always
with plie, ending with curtsy.
To think, I knew only industry,
the industry of my race
and of immigrants, the radio
tuned always to the station
that said, Line up your summer
job months in advance. Work hard
and do not shame your family,
who worked hard to give you what you have.
There is no sin but sloth. Burn
to a wick and keep moving.

I avoided sleep for years,
up at night replaying
evening news stories about
nearby jailbreaks, fat people
who ate fried chicken and woke up
dead. In sleep I am looking
for poems in the shape of open
V's of birds flying in formation,
or open arms saying, I forgive you, all.


QUERIES:

1.  Today, I too feel like "the laziest girl in the world."  Here I am waking up in the morning about the blog and I'm thinking of crawling back in bed, the comfort of my pillow, the pleasure of "letting my eyes rest just for a little bit longer."  Do you relate to Alexander in this way too?  Are you ever just "lazy"?  Do you ever just do what you want instead of what you think you should do?  Is there a time and place in our lives for being less than perfectly productive people?

2.  In what ways do you indulge this "lazy" or "non-productive" side of yourself?  How do you feel when you do these things?  Do you feel like you have the right to indulge?  That you've worked hard and are entitled to indulging? Do you feel guilty?  Do you feel like you're letting others down?  Letting yourself down?  What emotions do you have when you indulge your "wants" instead of your "shoulds"?

3.  Alexander recalls the way she used to be.  Near perfect school attendance, wholehearted dedication to ballet practice, and an obsession and drive to be "industrious."  Have there been times in your life when you've been this way?  Are you this way today?  If so, what drives you?  If not, what drives you from being "industrious"?

4.  In this poem, Alexander also mentions the environment and culture of her upbringing.  How there was pressure to succeed, to be a shining example of what her family and indeed her race could accomplish, to avoid shaming the family at all cost, and to give back to those who made your opportunities a reality.  In what ways does Alexander's story resemble your own?  Where you pressured to succeed?  To be the best?  Or was it so extreme that it was just merely expected of you, an unstated contract that must be fulfilled or else!  How in your live have you been motivated out of fear of disappointing others?  Yourself?

5.  In what ways, have you or still put added pressure on yourself to please others? Do you think of what "they" will say about you?  What "they" will think about you?  What "they" will hold back from you or what doors "they" will open for you? How much impact have "they" had on your life and on your decisions?  Do you even know who "they" are?  If so, name them.  If not, will you continue to let "them" influence your life?

6.  For years, Alexander claims to have avoided sleep and to have thought of the "others" out there in the world as stereotypes, something or someone she never wanted to become, someone she would work hard to prove she was not.  What are you trying to prove?  Who are you avoiding becoming?

7.  Now, the poet dreams in her sleep of forgiveness and of humanity working together for a greater purpose than one person can do alone.   In the state of sleep, where she has no control of her thoughts, she is open to the possibilities of another way of seeing the world and herself.  Are you open to this too?