Poetry 365 - Evanston Public Library

This month for Poetry 365 we’re featuring Marcus Wicker’s stellar new book Maybe the Saddest Thing. Winner of the 2011 National Poetry Series Prize as selected by D.A. Powell, Wicker’s outstanding debut mixes meditations on memory, family, race, and desire with complicated love letters to African-American icons such as Pam Grier, Flavor Flav, and Dave Chappelle. Fearless, vibrant, and hip, these 38, excitingly varied poems have been favorably compared to the work of Terrance Hayes who praised the collection for “showing us what it is to be in vigilant conversation with the world and with the self.” So check out this wonderful new book, sample a poem below, and make sure to stop back next month for Poetry 365.

Love Letter to Dave Chappelle

Dear Dave,

Discovery’s turned on. I am watching

sheets of ghastly, squirming, horny termites

gnawing inside a wall and missing you.

Today marks my twelfth stab at this.

Each time I begin to say something real

I collapse. Shortcomings. You understand.

This is not the one about the black comedian.

Or his fear of the toddler

pushing Kush on an ave. in the a.m.

This is not about the moment after

that joke. When the audience

slump, just a smidgen, in their seats.

When they question your position

on the ghetto’s flowchart

or reconsider a weed dealer’s

average age. And when they laugh–

well, this does not concern that.

This isn’t a poem

about some cowboy cracking up

over a blackface skit. How his cackle

sounded like a bigot’s brain

lodged inside a beating heart, thinking

out loud. This is not about that sound

imploding the logic for your craft.

Not about you leaving me hoarse

and lonely on Wednesday nights.

I repeat. This is not a love thing.

Not even a little.

Russell J. (Readers’ Services)

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