[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: The journal, Pratik, The Ghosts of Paradise, guest-edited by local poet and professor, Tony Barnstone in 2021, published 88 Los Angeles poets. The poet selected for today’s podcast, Cece Peri, is on one level a typical Angeleno: she’s a transplant from New York. But Peri has many levels, in particular, a recognition of the shadows many of us are living with these days. Peri received the first Anne Silver Poetry Award and awards from NoirCon, the Arroyo Arts Collective’s “Poetry in the Windows,” and honorable mention in the Steve Kowit Poetry Prize.

LYNNE THOMPSON: Today’s poem is "It’s Noir" by Cece Peri.

It’s Noir

       for some people, it’s hard knowing what’s noir and what’s not.
							                                          Max Bloom
If there’s a hitchhiker
  border crossing
    or sudden change of plans
if someone’s named Vera
  The Wall
    or Lola Molina
if there’s a knife fight
  gun fight
    or bare knuckle justice
if a guy 
  lights a match
    with his thumb
if someone’s after payback
  a payroll
    or the lay of a lifetime
if the dead
  are buying land
    out in the valley
if there’s car
  a cliff
    and a claims adjuster
if a wife buys a black veil
  before she needs
    a black veil
if it’s night
  if it’s raining
    if the music’s complicit
the drugs illicit
  the whole set up—
    suspicious
if the guy you’re rooting for
  winds up hugging
    a manhole cover
if even
  the moon
    ends up in the gutter
and if nobody ever
  had a chance
    to begin with
		   it’s noir.

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 is available wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening!

[Music outro]

• Back to Poems on Air: Episode 43



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