ONLINE FEATURE

What Kind of Blues

By Derrick Harriell     Of Rivers: A Chapbook

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I’m done with magic
and prayer / done believing
Armstrong leaped across the moon
done preaching about some renaissance
in Harlem / 10 black boys died in 7 days
whole basketball game of dead
said the paper / and we’ll never know
what all this means for poetry
or blues singers on Lenox Avenue /
never feel the thump inside our throats /

I’m done with voting
and politics / done paying student loans
and taxes / done with black aesthetic conversations /
yesterday I watched my father’s body percolate
like an earthquake had started in him /
watched him reach for hooch  
like a hand / and I’ll never know     
what all this means for poetry
or moaning pianos / never know the optimism
a young poet in Harlem must’ve danced



DERRICK HARRIELL was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He holds an MFA in creative writing from Chicago State University and is currently a dissertator in UW-Milwaukee's English PhD program where he also teaches creative writing. He's worked as assistant poetry editor for Third World Press and is currently poetry editor for The Cream City Review. Harriell is a 2009 Pushcart Nominee, and his poems have appeared in various literary journals and anthologies. His first collection of poems is entitled Cotton.

SELECTIONS FROM OF RIVERS APPEAR IN VOLUME 49.3