Transcript: Poems on Air, Episode 13 - Kwame Dawes

[Music intro]

LYNNE THOMPSON: Hello! My name is Lynne Thompson, Poet Laureate for the City of Los Angeles and I’m so happy to welcome listeners to this installment of Poems on Air, a podcast supported by the Los Angeles Public Library. Every week, I’ll present the work of poets I admire, poets who you should know, and poets who have made a substantial and inimitable contribution to the art and craft of poetry.

LYNNE THOMPSON: As a final installment honoring Cave Canem’s 25th Anniversary, I’m pleased to spotlight faculty member, Kwame Dawes who, to my mind, is the James Brown of poetry. That is, he’s one of the hardest-working poets around. He is the Editor of the literary journal, Prairie Schooner, and teaches at the University of Nebraska and the Pacific MFA Program. He also directs the African Poetry Book Fund and recently took the reigns of the Poetry Foundation’s “American Life in Poetry” program. In 2019, he read his work for the Jean Burden Poetry Se-ries at Cal State, Los Angeles. His most recent book is Nebraska though I admit to a soft spot for his collection Wisteria: Twilight Poems From the Swam Country from which today’s poem is taken.

LYNNE THOMPSON: Today’s poem is “Skin" by Kwame Dawes.

Skin

This skin is leather black with time,
this skin is tough like old rooster flesh,
this skin won’t give like poulet,
you bite this skin you likely to eat crow,
this skin has wailed its own symphony
of blue black sorrow, tough like this,
this skin tasted the salt crystals,
licked them up and recorded the pain,
this skin’s been turned inside out, left to dry,
this skin’s swallowed the blast of sun,
collected the bite of January air
and still there, still there,
this skin has smelt the acrid smoke
of burning flesh, hanging there against
a new day, sniffed it, felt its layering
of old skin, soot carrying centuries
of suffering, this skin is washed with flow
of menstrual blood, love juice, old semen,
bitter spit, loose shit, every ugliness
dumped into the earth been through this skin,
this is no tenderloin, prime cut skin,
you bite me you likely to eat crow,
this skin is a walking museum,
when you see me coming read me
when you see me coming read me.

One day I will come to the river.
Oh, love will touch this skin
and I will rise, ebony glow and tender
crossing that river to the other side.

LYNNE THOMPSON: The Los Angeles Poet Laureate was created as a joint program between the City’s Department of Cultural Affairs and the Los Angeles Public Library and this podcast will be available on the Library’s website. In the future, episodes will be available on iTunes, Google, and Spotify. Thanks for listening!

[Music outro]

  • Back to Poems on Air: Episode 13

    • DISCLAIMER: This is NOT a certified or verbatim transcript, but rather represents only the context of the class or meeting, subject to the inherent limitations of real-time captioning. The primary focus of real-time captioning is general communication access and as such this document is not suitable, acceptable, nor is it intended for use in any type of legal proceeding. Transcript provided by the author.

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