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[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: I recently had the opportunity to serve as a Judge selecting the winner of the Kate Tufts Award which honors the first book of an American poet. This year’s offerings were excellent and it was difficult to choose just one for the prize. As a result, as we approach National Poetry Month in April, I’m going to highlight the work of the finalists for the Award. Desiree C. Bailey’s What Noise Against the Cane was one of those collections and is a fine example of where contemporary poetry is headed. Bailey, a native of Trinidad and Tobago, has already received substantial recognition for her work including the 2020 Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize, so I won’t be the last to take the opportunity to expose her work to a wide readership.
LYNNE THOMPSON: Today’s poem is "Fleshed Cartographies" by Desiree C. Bailey.
Fleshed Cartographies
after Katherine McKittrick
a blood work, akin to the moon’s map, its shadowed witness, its rerouting through a house of skin, pulped and spilling down the thigh; small breath into soil choked with haints. To explore the escape: body lilting across the uncharted edge of terrain; or the unescape; fallopian as factory assembling tools to tend the field, lubrication as evidence of a weeping or a wound. The exploration: not a dwelling in but the carving of a desire line, a new footpath to the oracle’s ear, reseeding the past to replot the prophecy.
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 53
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.