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Carl Hancock Rux

Visiting Poet

Carl Hancock Rux

Poet, dramatist, novelist, and musician Carl Hancock Rux recently released a volume of poems, Pagan Operetta, and a spoken word/music CD from Sony, entitled Rux Revue, which explores combinations of poetry, soul, rock, hip-hop, jazz, and folk blues. Rux is a product of Harlem, New York City’s foster care system, and Columbia University — while his work has ghetto roots and rhythms, it is informed by a careful reading of the modern and contemporary masters.

Rux has performed in Europe, West Africa, Indonesia, and Scandinavia, working with such artists as Vernon Reid, Toshi Reagon, and Nona Hendryx, as well as The Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, The Urban Bush Women, and Movin’ Spirits Dance Theater. He was recently featured on National Public Radio and in The Village Voice, which named him one of “Eight Writers on the Verge of Impacting the Literary Landscape,” and selected by the New York Times Magazine as “One of Thirty Artists Under the Age of Thirty Most Likely to Influence Culture Over the Next Thirty Years.”

Select Poems

Conflation of rapture and regret

born out in those sequestered regions

of the body, unterrained —

outlawed by our

mothers, subjected to extreme

lore of hope and monotheism —

turns when

you touch me — an apocalypse

of destroying temples, and murdering eunuchs

who keep the Sabbath,

The sins of strangers

that guard the covenant are robbed when you

transgress the rules of my stomach…

An unfettered desire

discovers my feet

naked at the threshing floor

(where you have been forbidden to sleep

for centuries)…

In elegant disobedience you lie there,

like the heads of Hydra —

laureate corpses

scalpeled against velvet,

strumming a mandolin

tongue soaked in wine

gourd of honey roped at your waist…

hair pinned with pigeon heads and peacock feathers

red amber and coral beads —

dress of

gold and yellow

tiny mirrors sewn into its bodice,

Rasputin’s mouth

slips palm oil into mine

In these, our last years toward a millennium

we make dust of leviathans, leave our mothers

aging alone in the apartments of our youth

burn the bodies of priests upon

alters who refuse to admit they know something

about

decadence and its legacy

toward complete holiness —

The discourse of liberation and pagan practices,

its contribution to the reshaping

of identity

becomes a private dialect between thigh and toenail

regarding what savages scratched into walls

years before the comet came crashing down

spilling molten ore, petrifying the reality of

kisses such as ours…

Photograph us if you like, lover

our detonate throe

and the lure of primitive interaction

between us…

From PAGAN OPERETTA (Fly By Night Press, 1999)

dey took away

dey took away the drum

dey took away

dey took away the drum so ah use my hands

yeh

so ah use myself

yeh

to sing ov da rivah

an da blood

to get across ah use myself

yeh

ah use myself….

ugene ugene*

ugene ugene

wit my chest ah sing

yeh

wit my chest ah sing

yeh

ov da flesh torn open

ov da wall an da gate

ov da hate

dat took away my land

dat took away da man

from da shore

took away da drum

took away da drum

yeh

ah use myself

Abia

dey took away

dey took away

da drum

so ah use my feet

so ah use my dance

to step into da heavens

an walk away

to bring down da God

ah know

He kiss me

wit His music

an set fire to mah heels

He bid me dance to

da rhythm

A new song

yeh

A new wail

yeh

Ah sail across da ocean

an resurrect da bones

dey rest alone at da bottom

ov da sea

Ekwee

an dis prayer is to

da God ah know

to da drum

ov myself

yeh

to da drum

ov myself

Abia

From PAGAN OPERETTA (Fly By Night Press, 1999)

to live to die to die to live to be to what? To know to then to now with

what? understanding.

we ask to seek to search to find to not to say you do to where to look

to read to hear to trust to pray to lose to ask to not be answered. and

if I should or not or if I must bleed to bend or if and then the gush

is not for sure and if or not if the bow is not promised anointing after

the curtain fall then should I not or must I then be clear, with who for

what and how? That should and could are not for sure and if or not if

means nothing anymore*to any of us*not now*not ever*well

then, the thought is this, if the thought of being well is just a thought

of being other than what you are but if the thought of being well is

just a thought of being what you are not then how to know it is a

thought that could bring a state of being if you have never been in that

state at all, having never been it? or if you think, well then, that being

well you once have been and for now are not then why the thought?

why not the state of being simply willed into the now, if not, then how

to know it is a thought that could bring a state of being, but if the

thought could very well will the state then the thought is this. could

the thought will the state and it is true that those who die all willed it

so because they did not think of being well then, or as far as that goes,

those who fail and those who fall, all willed it so by not being well

then or willing the state of being well, well then if they did, the

young, the old, the in-between, we would what to will or want

right away, that is life, and what not to will or want, that is death, and

if we did, so willed it so, then why the fear and why the fight and how

could we want what we do or will such so if the state of life and the

being of death are all inevitable, for one comes first and then the next,

the opposite is still a thought and not a fact, and still the state of being

well, must be a thought of being what we have never been, what none

of us really are, well then, how or why, could the thought ever be the

thing that wills the state, and is it true, at all, that those who live and

those who die all willed it so, or have I asked this before, and us who

say we want, we need, we must be well, is this what we really want or

do we know what to want, that is what we are not, some state of being

well then?

From PAGAN OPERETTA (Fly By Night Press, 1999)

About Carl Hancock

Personal Website
Poetry Center Reading Dates: September 1999