Okay, so I'm in love w. words. Just the way I'm wired, I guess. But words on a page speak to me and enthrall me. Maybe that's why I'm such a hip hop head. Words seem to jump from the page into my head and fill it w. fanciful images. I'm such a 'linguistic learner' that I can hardly imagine what it's like for those who don't share this learning mode. I guess there are those as excited about numbers and patterns as I am about language.
Proof of my love: Tho' poetry's far from my favorite genre, these dudes speak to me: Paul Laurence Dunbar (he's one of the people I'd like to meet one day, but it'll have to be in eternity now), Claude McKay, and then there are poets of our time like Billy Joel, Barry Manilow, Elton John, and just about any balladeer (whether it's Ghostface Killa dedicating a song to his moms or it's No Doubt or Linkin' Park screamin' out a ballad, I actually feel the words). Well, 'nuf said.
Time to close w. one of my favorites, this tight Shakespearean / Elizabethan sonnet by Jamaican - American poet Claude McKay:
The Harlem Dancer
Applauding youths laughed with young prostitutes
And watched her perfect, half-clothed body sway;
Her voice was like the sound of blended flutes
Blown by black players upon a picnic day.
She sang and danced on gracefully and calm,
The light gauze hanging loose about her form;
To me she seemed a proudly-swaying palm
Grown lovelier for passing through a storm.
Upon her swarthy neck black shiny curls
Luxuriant fell; and tossing coins in praise,
The wine-flushed, bold-eyed boys, and even the girls,
Devoured her shape with eager, passionate gaze;
But looking at her falsely-smiling face,
I knew her self was not in that strange place.
I'm out!
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