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Tracie Morris

Visiting Poet

Tracie Morris

Poet, performer, and scholar, Tracie Morris works as a singer, sounds artist, writer, bandleader, and actor. She is at the forefront of the burgeoning international spoken word scene. She made a name for herself in the early 1990’s at the Nuyorican Poets Café (the spoken-word mecca of New York)—named champion of both the Nuyorican Grand Slam and the National Haiku Slam in 1993. Morris went on to win acclaim for her collaborations with other artists, particularly jazz musicians such as Donald Byrd and Vernon Reid.

Morris wrote the lyrics for choreographer Ralph Lemon’s epic “Geography,” (Brooklyn Academy of Music, 1999) and is currently at work on a commissioned project for The Kitchen. Her tough and sassy hip-hop rhymes have been featured in many anthologies, as well as on radio and television, and she has toured extensively here and abroad. The Brooklyn native was awarded a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, New Faces/New Voices Fellowship, and a Franklin Furnace Artist in Exile grant, and has published two collections of poems, Chap-T-her Won and Intermission.

Select Poems

for Marvin Sewell

Pack up and hit it

Road warrior got the

Big one

Like the Dipper

Urban area — a trip

Far gone

Click on the dusty boots

separated troops

Movin’ on

Movin’ on

Take him off the farm

Seen the Parée

Uh Huh

Hard to ‘yes, boss’

After francophillic

got some

Brothers swung low

Belles chimed

Sweet french quiches

“Boy” in the US

All man to

parisians

Scared the Crow

Plot-condemned–no way

couldn’t keep him

Flee to the

steel belt (work-related

health reasons).

Rusty got the clay

still baked to his

pained face

Collard green and hoe cake

withdrawal from his

momma’s place

Foul hawk breezing through

with the Negro

northern news

you ain’t never far away

enough to not need

the blues.

From INTERMISSION (Soft Skull Press, 1998)

bubble, bubble

toil and double

dutch too much

turning into trouble

tapping time ’till

we just can’t take it

chanting rhymes when

moments make it

blessed and cursed

being double handed

leaning to the left

strands deftly commanded

understudies be understanding

switchettes fidget digits

turning dispell, casting

breaking curses

portal dimensions

simple phrases

making mischief

not to be phrased as

bracelets clink

in sync thinking

sweethearts’ names

invocation through

games and–

“…tell me the name of…”

“…K-I-S-S-I-N-G…”

“Miss Lucy had a baby and this is what she said…”

“…saw James Brown sitting in the gutter…”

even when Ali needed mo’ machismo

he put dopes on a rope with a

butterfly float, flippant wrist

let loose noose’s grip

like girls we did

reworking the kinetics

left-turn, right-turn

over-handed aesthetics

feet thinking double-time

meter reason school’s

in season, flip in, flouncing

guild’s lillies

dust clouds breezes–

ten little drummers

summon up old stories

speak in tongues

old soul buster’s shoes

got the blues and browns

round white fronts

tassles flat down

keeping up chatter

through patter

in the ‘pation

vibes ‘verberating

teeny-bopper ‘timidation

tensile strength

making it stand

knot still yet grand

Significadence

ain’t random

We clasp our hands

in tandem.

From INTERMISSION (Soft Skull Press, 1998)

with apologies to Ted Joans

Writers are my nepenthe. They alone saved my soul more akin to

peyote than some mundane substance. The best kind of therapy.

Workshops and journals get holy sometimes. My jones gets going.

They are sanctified stages. But other places are like certain com-

mercial hospitals (where bloods are sold). I don’t dig their evange-

lists. I be on the side of the free but don’t come cheap. Ain’t into no

slave labor. Writing is still my nepenthe. Makes me feel better

’cause I hear the messengers. From: the right reverend amiri/seer

sonia/sister sandra maria/the wizard wonder/uncle etheridge/cler-

ic rakim/minister morrison/saviour sekou/baba john/deacon diva

lisa/empress erykah/rector victor cruz/zoastrian zora hurston/trix-

ter darius/freemason mosley/fundamentalist yusef/priestess pat

landrum/heirophant hattie gossett/holy roller nona hendrix/ecu-

menical ethelbert/monkess jayne cortez/guru babs

gonzalez/preacher quincy/his funkness formerly known as/deacon

steve cannon/ and sunday teacher ted joans/they let me lay my

burden low. they are the runaway from which I go! yeah, so, writers

are my nepenthe. Writers are….

From INTERMISSION (Soft Skull Press, 1998)

About Tracie

Poetry Center Reading Dates: April 2001