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Upcoming Events

• 10/5:     4 – 5 pm.  Decatur Book Festival: (Live) Reading. Emory Poetry Stage, Decatur, GA. Signing follows.

• 10/25:   7 pm PT/ 10 pm ET. (Virtual) El Gigante Poetry Series: Reading

• 11/17:    5 – 7 pm. (Live) Wild Indigo Poetry Series: Reading. New American Cider, 6350 Germantown Ave. Phila.

• 11/18:   5:30 pm. (Live) Monday Poets Celebration Series: Reading. Free Library of Phila., Donatucci Branch

  1935 W. Shunk St., Phila.

  https://libwww.freelibrary.org/programs/monday-poets/

NEW BOOK NEWS:  MIGRATION LETTERS GETS THE YES

• Short-listed for the Tenth Gate Prize from Word Works Press

• Forthcoming in 2023 from Beacon Press

Great Migration Pentimento, #3

When your mother waved you off to college, she shrunk back

to Saturday nights in Atlantic City.  Chicken Bone

Beach, heels in hand. Traveling to her sisters’

in Chester, the Bronx. Whooping at Woodside

Park.  Peg Leg Bates’s place, upstate

New York.  Southside Chicago,

maid-of-honoring her best girl.  Uniformed

in Margate, small white hands, right

and left, clutching hers.  Troop train

from Georgia, 1943. So few places summed

her up, classroom to bus doors

to vacuum.  No curlicued claim to upward

bound credits. No classes.  No dates

with Memphis lawyers. Her diploma pointed

outward: shorthand—maybe. Receptionist

absolutely — “just not quite right” for her.

Understudy for downtown retail, she sparkled

counters overmuch. Jitterbugged

up to the Sabbath day of praise. 

Circulator of the borrowed bassinet,

snowsuit, sandbox. Cupfuls

of Clorox.  Spotty clerical work. Never

permitted to shine without grope

or glare. Your witness. Her rally: that smile,

enough to swing Avon. Make food.

Make room.  Mark homework.