Poem of the Week: Sami Miranda

            

Found Poem - 

New Hampshire Avenue and Piney Branch

 

Please

          (this is what my mama taught me to say

           before I ask for anything)

I am need

           (this is my alter ego, my superhero identity

           the one that makes me do this electric boogaloo

           along the double yellow line, that makes me tap

           at your window with this handmade sign)

help God bless you

            (cause you know he ain't paying you

            no mind, just like you

            ain't paying me no mind

            but he will if you just pay, a quarter

            a dime or nickel, he'd prefer you pay in dollar bills

            twenties if you have them to spare

            meet me with kindness, in exchange

            blessings, blessings, blessings)

 

-Sami Miranda

Used by permission.


Sami Miranda is an educator, poet and visual artists who makes his home in Washington, DC. His work has been published in Al Pie De la Casa Blanca, Full Moon on K St, the Chiron Review, DC Poets Against the War Anthology, MiPoesias.com and Beltway among others. He has performed at venues such as the Kennedy Center, The Smithsonian Museum of American Art, The Smithsonian Museum of African Art and GALA Theatre. Sami curated the Sabor Sunday reading series in Washington DC, that brought two poets, a trio of musicians and two visual artists into conversation. He is currently recording a jazz and poetry collaboration with bass player Pepe Gonzalez. He develops and facilitates interactive poetry workshops for youth and adults and holds an MFA from The Bennington Writing Seminars.
 

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MAY Sunday Kind of Love: Richard Blanco and Sami Miranda

MAY

Sunday Kind of Love
Featuring 

Richard Blanco & Sami Miranda 

  
Sunday May 19, 2013
5-7m Busboys & Poets 
2021 14th St. NW Washington, DC 20009 
Hosted by Sarah Browning and Katy Riche
5$ online or at the door
As always, open mic follows! 
Co-sponsored by Busboys and Poets & Split This Rock   

Richard Blanco's acclaimed first book of poetry, City of a Hundred Fires, explores the yearnings and negotiation of cultural identity as a Cuban- American, and received the Agnes Starrett Poetry Prize from the University of Pittsburgh Press. His second book, Directions to The Beach of the Dead, won the Beyond Margins Award from the PEN American Center for its continued exploration of the universal themes of cultural identity and homecoming. Looking for The Gulf Motel, (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012) examines the blurred lines of gender, the frailty of his father-son relationship, and the intersection of his cultural and sexual identities as a Cuban-American gay man living in rural 

In January 2013, Blanco was selected by President Obama to be the inaugural poet, joining the ranks of Robert Frost and Maya Angelou.

Blanco's poems have appeared in top literary journals, including The Nation, the New Republic, Ploughshares, Michigan Quarterly Review, and TriQuarterly Review; and several anthologies including, The Best American Poetry, Great American Prose Poems, Breadloaf Anthology of New American Poets, and American Poetry: The Next Generation. Blanco is recipient of two Florida Artist Fellowships, a Residency Fellowship from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and is a John Ciardi Fellow of the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. A builder of cities as well as poems, he holds a bachelors of science degree in Civil Engineering and a Master in Fine Arts in Creative Writing.

Sami Miranda is an educator, poet and visual artists who makes his home in Washington, DC. His work has been published in Al Pie De la Casa Blanca, Full Moon on K St, the Chiron Review, DC Poets Against the War Anthology, MiPoesias.com and Beltway among others.  He has performed at venues such as the Kennedy Center, The Smithsonian Museum of American Art, The Smithsonian Museum of African Art and GALA Theatre.  

Sami curated the Sabor Sunday reading series in Washington DC, that brought two poets, a trio of musicians and two visual artists into conversation. He is currently recording a jazz and poetry collaboration with bass player Pepe Gonzalez. He develops and facilitates interactive poetry workshops for youth and adults and holds an MFA from The Bennington Writing Seminars.

Poem of the Week: Sami Miranda

we is

in conversation with the work of wilfredo valladares and ayo ngozi

we is not the singular

dotted i, black figure against

a white background.

we is the crowd

that moves into this

dance of morning

rituals, this waking

to the rooster crow of a city.

we is the dance

that shakes and rolls

down city streets,

shimmies into markets

for fresh fruit

salsas against traffic.

we is the traffic

rushing past the living

and the dead, forgetting

to write our songs

from images and found objects

and breathe each other's spirits

into chinese medicine bottles

so we can heal

the wounds of our entrances

and exits

we is the song

of migration, sung

from behind the masks

fragile resin, cast from

faces whose eyes must remain

closed so their pasts

do not pour from them,

so their present does not

burn away home.

we is home

where we are pieced together,

a collage on sheet metal,

a photograph behind a mask,

an image

that carries us into

conversation, about

holding a conversation about

a crowing rooster

a ritual,

dancing

and medicine

to cure what ails you.

-Sami Miranda

Used by permission.

Sami Miranda is an educator, poet and visual artist who makes his home in Washington, DC. His work has been published in Full Moon on K St, the Chiron Review, D.C Poets Against the War Anthology, MiPoesias.com and Beltway among others. He has performed at the Kennedy Center, The Smithsonian Museum of American Art, The Arts Club of Washington, GALA Theatre, and other venues. Sami curated the Sabor Sunday reading series in Washington DC, bringing two poets, a trio of musicians and two visual artists into conversation, and is currently working with DC based artists and musicians to create collaborations between the arts. He develops and facilitates interactive poetry workshops for youth and adults and holds an MFA from The Bennington Writing Seminars.

Miranda attended Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation and Witness.

Please feel free to forward Split This Rock Poem of the Week widely. We just ask you to include all of the information in this email, including this request. Thanks!

Split This Rock
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