Teeth

by Aracelis Girmay

Overview

Winner, 2015 Whiting Award for Poetry 

Stunning, highly original poems that celebrate the richness of the author's multicultural tradition, Teeth explores loves, wars, wild hope, defiance, and the spirit of creativity in a daring use of language and syntax. Behind this language one senses a powerful, inventive woman who is not afraid to tackle any subject, including rape, genocide, and love, always sustained by an optimistic voice, assuring us that in the end justice will triumph and love will persevere.

LOVE,
you be the reason why
we swagger & jive,
lift the guitar, & pick up the axe.
when it is i tilt my hat to the side,
wearing colors & perfumes, it's cause, love,
you did it to me. oh,
you do sure turn my tongue to fiddle,
& make the salt taste sweet. man,
i don't need a rooster, or peacock even,
to help me spend my time, nope,
just you, love, right & solid as
a line.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781931896368
Publisher:	Northwestern University Press
Publication date:	06/01/2007
Pages:	130
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Aracelis Girmay, raised in southern California, is the inheritor of Eritrean, Puerto Rican, and African American traditions. A writer of poetry, essays, and fiction, her poems have appeared in numerous journals and magazines. She leads community workshops in New York and California.

Read an Excerpt

Teeth

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By Aracelis Girmay

Curbstone Press

Copyright © 2007 Aracelis Girmay
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-931896-36-8

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CHAPTER 1

    JACARANDA
    for Uncle Carl, & for —

    Jacaranda, I call you Jacaranda.
    Your hundred lives of purple
    above the houses, above the streets,
    streets in purple dresses, Jacaranda. Your ceaseless
    cease. Soft petaled color-camp of deaths fall down,
    cover our roads with the efficiency of rain,
    & a sadness rides my heart,
    with every hand, it knocks it down,
    but, still, you go on falling, Jacaranda,
    over the corners & schoolyards & papers & cars
    parked above their gleaming pans of oil.
    Parade, parade of trumpet bloom,
    purple heads blown in the afternoon, blown clean.
    You, funeral of sails, I admit to you,
    I am not born for this,
    this way of leaving, buzzards in the blood
    or clocks at all. I do not know what happens to our gone.
    I wish that I could walk them home, & return them
    to their beds & shoes & children. I do not know
    what happens to a body when it stops.
    But tell me a story that did not begin with love.
    You see, it's morning, & my life has been burned down,
    but I remember the house on Dove, I was five or six,
    I could see the flowers falling from the window.
    & I watched your flowers move with it, Jacaranda,
    which is to say: They got up. They danced away.
    I saw them — bodies flying like our dead.
    Featherless & defiant, godded
    above the branches.


    AFTER LIGHTNING, I DREAM OF ABRIGETTE

    Abrigette, evenings you are my head.
    I think of you at night & then in sleep; bricks
    of your house stacked neatly, your dogs & your cats,
    & I wonder if you are one hundred now, but think,
    Sometime, you must have walked out into it,
    the bejackled sky, sky all dressed with lightning, out
    into what was there. & did it sing your old husband's name?
    Or come to you in the voice of one of your brothers?
    & did you answer back to it? Or did you
    not even hear it at all, instead continue
    to wash a kitchen window, white rag in hand,
    as though trying to clean a great glass-eye
    from which you hoped
    to see more clearly, or, perhaps,
    be seen more clearly? & was it the sky, in fact,
    that mistook you for someone wanting relief —
    that understood the signal wrong
    & thought you to be ready, the rag in your hand to be
    a small white flag waving? & so, out of obedience, came down
    with all its ghosts & foxes, to take you
    quick or slow. & did it wait there, on your front lawn,
    as you had seen it do before with other neighbors?
    Did it take a seat by the side house window? Or dance
    on the tops of your cypresses? Did it spend days
    up there? Or days touching its face to flowers on their plots,
    learning their names? Or did it come quickly
    & take you by your hand? & is it true? Like I have dreamed?
    Did you walk out into it, the night, the way one walks
    into the cold, cold ocean? Slowly first, then plunging —
    head under, everything under.


    SANTA ANA OF GROCERY CARTS

    Santa Ana of grocery carts, truckers,
    eggs in the kitchen at 4 am, nurses, cleaning ladies,
    the saints of ironing, the saints
    of tortillas. Santa Ana of cross-guards, tomato pickers,
    bakeries of bread in pinks & yellows, sugars.
    Santa Ana of Cambodia, Viet Nam, Aztlán
    down Bristol & Raitt. Santa Ana.
    Boulevards of red lips, beauty salons, boomboxes, drone
    of barber shop clippers fading tall Vincent's head, schoolyards,
    the workshop architects, mechanics.
    Santa Ana of mothers, radiators, trains.
    Santa Ana of barbecues.
    Santa Ana of Trujillos, Sampsons, & Agustíns,
    Zuly & Xochit with their twin lampish skins.
    Santa Ana of cholas, bangs, & spray.
    Santa Ana of AquaNet, altars,
    the glitter & shine
    of 99 cent stores, taco trocas, churches, of bells,
    hallelujahs & center fields, aprons,
    of winds, collard greens, & lemon cake
    in Ms. Davenport's kitchen,
    sweat, sweat over the stove. Santa Ana
    of polka-dots, chicharonnes, Aztecs, African Fields', colombianas,
    sun's children, vanished children. Santa Ana of orales.
    Santa Ana of hairnets.
    Patron saint of kitchens, asphalt, banana trees,
    bless us if you are capable of blessing.
    When we started, there were cousins & two parents,
    now everything lost has been to you.
    The house, axed, & opossums
    gone. Abrigette & her husband John.
    & the schoolyard boys underneath the ground,
    undressed so thoroughly by your thousand mouths, Santa Ana,
    let that be
    enough.


    ODE TO THE BRAIN
    for Gail

    The day we got the news,
    my lungs fell down
    three flights
    of stairs.
    My heart, its bird
    was stole away, & rid of all
    its tambourines. I cannot know
    where you will go,
    or when, or if I'll be at all.
    But I wish some heaven for us,
    azucena & some mustard fields,
    glory of the mustard moon, some heaven strong
    as machete or
    Ax,
    strike through
    the thick box of these days,
    these days of endless, hazy news
    where your skull rides the brain
    like a wide umbrella,
    & the brain is a parrot or an angel, yes,
    no less, no less an angel
    even with the rock,
    even with the jungle growing,
    still, bless the brain its trying,
    its sturdy & its faithful
    gleaming back.


    ODE TO THE WATERMELON

    It is June.
    At El TaContento near 17th,
    the cook slices clean
    through the belly of a watermelon,
    Sandía, día santo!
    & honey bees
    grown in glistening temples
    dance away from their sugary hives,
    ants, in lines,
    beetles, toward your red,
    (if you are east, they are going east)
    over & over,
    toward your worldly luscious,
    blushed fruit freckled with seeds.

    Roadside, my obtuse pleasure,
    under strings of lights,
    a printed skirt, in grocery barrels,
    above park grasses on Sunday afternoon
    to the moan & dolorous moan
    of swings.

    Ripe conjugationer of water & sun,
    your opening calls
    even the birds to land.
    & in Palestine,
    where it is a crime to wave
    the flag of Palestine in Palestine,
    watermelon halves are raised
    against Israeli troops
    for the red, black, white, green
    of Palestine. Forever,
    I love you your color hemmed
    by rind. The blaring juke & wet of it.
    Black seeds star red immense
    as poppy fields,
    white to outsing jasmine.
    Again, all that green.

    Sandía, día santo,
    summer's holy earthly,
    bandera of the ground,
    language of fields,
    even under a blade you swing
    your quiet scent
    in the pendulum of any gale.
    Men bow their heads, open-mouthed,
    to coax the sugar
    from beneath your workdress.
    Women lift you
    to their teeth.
    Sandía, día santo,
    yours is a sweetness
    to outlast slaughter:
    Tongues will lose themselves inside you,
    scattering seeds. All over,
    the land will hum
    with your wild,
    raucous blooming.


SUDAN: HATUM ATRAMAN BASHIR, 35, IS PREGNANT WITH THE BABY OF ONE
OF THE JANJAWID RAIDERS WHO MURDERED HER HUSBAND AND
GANG-RAPED HER. WHEN THE JANJAWID ATTACKED HER VILLAGE, KORNEI, SHE
FLED WITH HER 7 CHILDREN. WHEN SHE AND A FEW OTHER
MOTHERS CREPT OUT TO FIND FOOD, THE JANJAWID CAPTURED THEM AND TIED
THEM TO THE GROUND SPREAD-EAGLE, THEN GANG-RAPED
THEM. THEY SAID, 'YOU ARE BLACK WOMEN, AND YOU ARE OUR SLAVES.'

from Darfur Testimonies, refugee camp, Chad, 2003

    One man holds her arm & leg out.
    Another man holds her other arm & leg out.
    They have spread her wide as a star.

    man hands
    around my hands
    man hands
    around my ankles
    on my back
    flip me over
    face down
    on my stomach
    every window
    crashed through
    over over
    broken thorough
    all doors all windows
    of this house
    all gone

    First, they ram their guns inside her.
    & then, their bodies.
    Her children are in a field outside of Kornei,
    waiting.
    Or, it is not Kornei, & it is not Sudan, & her
    children are not in a field, but in the next room,
    waiting.
    Or, they are in the bed beside the mother who is
    stretched wide, & they hear, & they see, & they are
    waiting.

    he says
    You are black, woman,
    & you are
    our slave

    The night is black.
    Night in fields above the land is black.
    Her braids are black. Her eyes.
    Her body rising up in ululation —
    magnificent. Black.


    PALIMPSEST

    What is it called,
    the word most sadness,
    stretched long as trains,
    rain on clotheslines,
    sheets on clotheslines,
    to undo the sun, in a back room,
    or under a tree, a tamarind tree,
    isn't there a word
    for yellow-husk morning
    of coke-eyed soldiers
    putting gun to daughter's head
    & enjoying, serpentine
    the Fuck this child or we will
    kill her, & fuck even
    your babies & your boys
    with our own 5 dicks.

    & the father,
    undoing his pants,
    his hands like rain,
    down to his ankles,
    his long thigh bone —
    a shiny scar
    that runs so long
    down to his shin,
    he, sobbing, naked,
    up to the sky,
    into her chamber
    smell of sweat;
    how he cannot stone,
    how no thing will gallop,
    how it is so quiet
    inside his ear
    the way she cries
    his name


    ADISOGDO'S SONG
    for Banna

    We are daughters of Adisogdo
    Lem Lem. Aster.
    We smell of shai
    Negisti. Maeza.
    Our gums are black
    Zewdi. Fiori.
    Our father's house is blue
    Abeba. Hannah.
    Here, the sun is the color of honey
    Feaven. Tsega.
    The grapes grow sweet on the vine
    Weyni. Zimam.
    Our tongues are red as peppers
    Delina. Eri.
    Out to dry, out to dry.
    We drive trucks through these mountains
    Abrehet. Almaz.
    We walk the roads at night
    Haragu. Melete.
    Our footsteps sound like freedom
    Haben. Nazinet.
    We are strong.
    We are daughters of Adisogdo
    Hewet. Abinet.
    See the babies on our backs
    Bereket. Awet.
    We paint our hands
    Azieb. Hewan.
    We line our eyes with kohl
    Saba. Silas.
    We dance like we are marching
    Banna. Remi.
    We sing like birds
    Berushti. Rahel.
    We are strong & laugh like soldiers
    Falen. Mheret.
    Because we are, because we are.
    Our shoulders do not shake
    Lula. Leah.
    To anything but drums
    Salem. Selam.
    The drums do make us sing
    WerKi. Naomi.
    We are strong.


    RIDE
    Barrio Obrero, San Juan, Puerto Rico

    I take the B9 from Viejo San Juan
    through Santurce, down
    into Barrio Obrero of doo-rags, cornrows,
    brown skin, white skin.
    Wide women scrub the counters
    of bars & restaurants. Palo Viejo,
    botellas de ron, shine diamond
    in the park.

    A little boy says 'Parmiso, Mrs., pero tu tiene' la hora?

    I think I hear him say Let's take over the bus.
    I think I hear him say Let's ride it into Banco Popular.
    Let's fill our bags, & build proper houses
    with radios & speakers in all the rooms,
    fans, mattresses, books,
    refrigerators full of refrigerated foods.
    For every car let's build a printing press,
    libraries, gardens, schools
    for all the people.


    THEN SING
    for Yosef


    1

    They dream you still, you, brothers,
    the color of clay,
    dancing hard in the basement,
    or March

    uprock battle bliss
    bodies sweat gladly in time
    & the feet going, "we will fly, we will fly"
    & the mouth going, "we are men!"

    Some dream you hucked, hacked,
    stop-trapped or shucked,
    shutter shut, oh, no, shot.
    But you're a river by now, & birds.


    2

    strong back
    smile maker
    shuffled
    sold with me
    solid
    trying to live
    no beds
    high swing
    salsa breakdance shovel shovel
    dictionary
    Now what do you do now
    with a chain around your foot
    or the doors all shut & the phone-wires cut?
    Make music with the chain,
    make raw the ankle.
    Locked, locked, locked & thrown away.
    Fall asleep, fall asleep, Houdini, they say,
    We've knocked down all your trees & Albizus.

    You say, Every time I breathe, I am going somewhere.
    Through the window. Out the door.
    At a food-stand on my way to the desert
    where a cook taps his foot to the dance-song
    of a silver radio. Even the radio antennae.
    Say, Even the triangle of vapor
    that hangs from your dashboard window as you drive
    into the deep, free night,
    is me.


    3

    If I were a river I would wash you good.


    4

    It's prison,
    I know they tell you
    You will not be anything, you will not even grow.
    Grow anyway.

    They will have you believe
    That your body is sick.
    Tell it Live.
    When they take away the sunlight,
    even the sunlight, be
    the sunlight.

    Let them tell you
    you cannot sing in hell, good man.
    Then sing.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Teeth by Aracelis Girmay. Copyright © 2007 Aracelis Girmay. Excerpted by permission of Curbstone Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Foreword by Martín Espada,
Arroz Poetica,
I.,
Jacaranda,
After Lightning, I Dream of Abrigette,
Santa Ana of Grocery Carts,
Ode to the Brain,
Ode to the Watermelon,
Sudan,
Palimpsest,
Adisogdo's Song,
Ride,
Then Sing,
Here,
II.,
To the (Heart) Horse,
Astigmatism,
Conjugation,
The Piano,
Teeth,
Consider the Hands that Write this Letter,
13,
Snail, or, To a House,
Hyena, Hyena,
Cyclops Mary (I),
Cyclops Mary on the Avenue, A Monologue (II),
The Incredible Story of Mother Mom & the Daughter Who Was Taken by Crows (As Told by the Oldest Girl),
Zouk,
Ish,
Aunt Margaret, Tree of Blackbirds, Tree of Oranges,
III.,
Chernobyl,
In the Cane Fields,
Limay, Nicaragua,
What Brang Me Here,
But When They Go to Light the Fire on Me,
Lázaro, for Don Tranquilino,
Lazrus & Girlie Speak of Rising a Hundred Days After Lazrus' Death,
Ghazal,
Tucutu Tán,
IV.,
Invocation,
Antinion,
V.,
Scent: Love Poem for the Pilón,
The Dog,
Ode to the Letter B,
For Estefani Lora, Third Grade, Who Made Me a Card,
Monologue of the Heart Pumping Blood,
Fiel,
Love,
The Photograph of Esther Ruth & {Cisco},
What Faith to Be this Kind of Fish,
For the Psychic at Broadway & 207th,
To the Child I Met Without Knowing the Story,
The Rain at Dzorwulu,
Litany,
Epistolary Dream Poem after Finding a Schoolbook Map,
About the Author,

Editorial Reviews

"In Teeth, the poems of Aracelis Girmay ring out with a burning truth as she transports the reader into the world of despair, discrimination, sorrows, triumphs, joy and the courage it takes to flourish as a woman of color. Her keen observations are put forth with an appetite for life without fear or self-consciousness as she weaves her words into a range of potent poems." —Nicholasa Mohr

"The poetry of Aracelis Girmay is so strong, so brave, so lyrical, so fiery, so joyful, that the usual literary superlatives fail. I think of Sandra Cisneros and her words of praise for another writer, Denise Chávez: 'I love this book so much it sounds like I'm lying. Exactly." —Martín Espada

"Teeth is a fantastic book of poetry. It is a cry for peace and understanding. It is a window." —Claire Hersom, Rattle

From the Publisher