Reginald Dwayne Betts: Pick of the Week [ed. Terence Winch]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reginald Dwayne Betts. Photo by Mamadi Doumbouya

______________________________________________________________

Blood History

 

The things that abandon you get remembered different.

As precise as the English language can be, with words

like penultimate and perseverate, there is not a combination

of sounds that describe only that leaving. Once,

drinking and smoking with buddies, a friend asked if

I’d longed for a father. Had he said wanted, I would have

dismissed him in the way that youngins dismiss it all:

a shrug, sarcasm, a sharp jab to stomach, laughter.

But he said longing. & in a different place, I might

have wept. Said, once, my father lived with us & then he

didn’t and it fucked me up so much I didn’t think about

his leaving until I held my own son in my arms & only

now speak on it. A man who drank Boone’s Farm and Mad

Dog like water once told me & some friends that there is no

word for father where he comes from, not like we know it.

There the word father is the same as the word for listen.

The blunts we passed around let us to abandon the English

language. Not that much though. But what if the old

        head knew something? & if you have no father, you can’t

hear straight. Years later, that same friend asked about

longing, wondered why I named my son after my father.

       You know that’s the kind of shit turns the rest of your life

into a prayer no dead man will answer.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Reginald Dwayne Betts is the founder and director of the Freedom Reads. A poet and lawyer, he is the author of four books. His latest collection of poetry, Felon, was awarded the American Book Award and an NAACP Image Award. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, an Emerson Fellow at New America, and a Fellow at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies. He holds a J.D. from Yale Law School. [For more about Reginald Dwayne Betts, click here.]

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

                                                     William H. Johnson. Man in Vest. Smithsonian American Art Museum

 

Comments

[Susan Campbell]

Great poem.

[David Lehman]

"There the word father is the same as the word for listen." Wonderful line in an arresting poem.

[Abbie Mulvihill]

I am a big fan of Reginald Dwayne Betts. I’m so glad you made him your pick and this is a fantastic poem to feature!

[Terence Winch]

Thanks, Abbie. I'm glad you liked it.

[Diane Ward]

What an amazing poem, thank you for writing it and for posting it.

[Eileen]

Love this poem. Strong and a bit wistful. This poem had me remembering my own father who was a great listener.

[Grace Cavalieri]

Sometimes a poem is more than a poem. A prayer, a prophesy, a light.

[clarinda]

Betts is a favorite of mine. Thanks for posting this beauty.

[Terence Winch]

Thanks back to you, Clarinda.

[Eileen Estes]

Betts is a genius. This poem manages to be intensely personal and yet it lets you into some secrets about the world; not just his world. Thanks for sharing.

[Terence Winch]

Eileen: glad you liked it.

[Don Berger]

What a terrific poem, packed with surprising detail, urgent. I love how conversational the language is while all along the poem stays set in a musical measure that doesn't distract, impede, and the words run forward.

[Peter Kearney]

When the poet holds his little son in his arms, he can now speak of his father's leaving. I think that he "speaks on it" directly to his dead father and indirectly through naming his son after his father. This two-fold speaking is his prayer that his father will be a listener, but he knows that won't happen, and we share his sorrow.

[Gerald Fleming]

Mr. Betts' "Million Book Project" is an absolute act of heroism. Object: get as many books to prisoners as possible/expand that idea eventually toward a pedagogy. This guy is a force of nature.

[lally]

bam