From the Wall Street Journal Speakeasy blog: Throughout the 2012 London Olympic Games, Guggenheim fellowship-winning poet Kwame Dawes will be writing verses that capture the spirit of the day’s action, with a particular focus on the Jamaican team.
WE ARE HERE
i
Ms. Gabriella finally speaks her mind
First I don’t like so much that “flying squirrel”
thing. They are rodents, you know, like rats;
they carry diseases and even though
I know y’all find them cute, me, I prefer
“queen”, “woman”, or just “amazing”.
And, second, all y’all well-thinking folks
who don’t like the way some of those
tv commentators been dogging me
or expressing their doubts,
talking about how I can fall apart
so easily and all of that;
or making it look like I done
stole something from somebody,
please don’t worry about me,
cause trust me, I can’t hear them
while I am doing my thing. Mostly,
all I hear is a lot of noise and me
calculating every move in my head.
Third, I know some of y’all really wanted
Jordyn to win since she was
world champion and all, and even
if she lost at the trials, and all,
and to be honest I wanted it, too,
cause I like Jordyn—who wouldn’t?
But here’s the problem, I came
to beat her, really–I came to beat
everyone of these nice amazing
girls up in here, and more, and my mama
came all this way to see me win,
so just let me have this, ‘k?
And last thing: some of you’all need
to know how hard it is to go everyday
with your head on straight, everyday
concentrating about each move, each leap,
each hand position, the way the body
has to obey my imagination, I have to stay
hydrated, have to keep my blood sugar up,
and every night I go to sleep trying to hear
myself think, trying to push back the pain
in my bones, trying to keep it together.
I know, its been a while since
and the perm is slipping away,
and I could do one ponytail instead
of two, or take some time to look
all pretty like Madam C. J. Walker
would want. But I have to tell you,
all y’all Hair Police, just be glad
I remembered to brush my teeth
and wash my behind each morning, ‘cause
the fact is that this little lady had a few
golden things on her mind all week.ii
the day the races begin
One hallelujah
Two Mek dem come now
Three but we talawa
You might imagine that with the world
staring at this island, calculating
the genius of its runners, the whole
world scrutinizing; the great powers
flush with wealth, with arrogance
with the need to dominate, that
perhaps because of all this pressure,
these twelve, these nimble
youths from a spot of earth so tiny,
so basic—you might imagine
that fear, or worse, the resignation
to inadequacy, might overtake them,
shake them, break them into tremors.
But these are the unruly first off
the slave ship folks, the maroons
commanding mountains and hills
subduing an empire of violence.
These are the people of Garvey,
Bogle, Bookman, Nanny, Manley, Marley;
a people who never got the memo
to think themselves too small
to breathe expansively in this world,
a people defying scale, who expect glory
as if it was promised them.
So you might imagine fear might
haunt them while they wait. Fear,
okay, perhaps enough to make
the heart leap as it must; but unbelief
or doubt? Never, not this crew,
not this crowd of fluent bodies, music
in their bones and skins, who move
with the bearing of contained explosions.
One hallelujah
Two Mek dem come now
Three but we talawa