Teahouse of the Almighty

THE NATIONAL POETRY SERIES

The National Poetry Series
was established in 1978 to ensure the publication of five poetry books annually through participating publishers. Publication is funded by the Lannan Foundation; the late James A. Michener and Edward J. Piszek through the Copernicus Society of America; Stephen Graham; International Institute of Modern Letters; Joyce & Seward Johnson Foundation; Juliet Lea Hillman Simonds Foundation; and the Tiny Tiger Foundation. This project also is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art.

2005 COMPETITION WINNERS

Steve Gehrke of Columbia, Missouri,

Michelangelo's Seizure

Chosen by T. R. Hummer, University of Illinois

Press

Nadine Meyer of Columbia, Missouri,

The Anatomy Theater

Chosen by John Koethe, HarperCollins

Patricia Smith of Tarrytown, New York,

Teahouse of the Almighty

Chosen by Edward Sanders, Coffee House Press

S. A. Stepanek of West Chicago, Illinois,

Three, Breathing

Chosen by Mary Ruefle, Wave Books

Tryfon Tolides of Farmington, Connecticut,

An Almost Pure Empty Walking

Chosen by Mary Karr, Penguin Books

COPYRIGHT
© 2006 Patricia Smith

COVER & BOOK DESIGN
Linda S. Koutsky

COVER ARTWORK
© Maurice Evans (
mauriceevansart.com
)

AUTHOR PHOTOGRAPH
© Peter Dressel (
peterdressel.com
)

Coffee House Press books are available to the trade through our primary distributor, Consortium Book Sales & Distribution, 1045 Westgate Drive, Saint Paul,
MN
55114. For personal orders, catalogs, or other information, write to: Coffee House Press, 27 North Fourth Street, Suite 400, Minneapolis,
MN
554.01.

Coffee House Press is a nonprofit literary publishing house. Support from private foundations, corporate giving programs, government programs, and generous individuals help make the publication of our books possible. We gratefully acknowledge their support in detail in the back of this book.

Good books are brewing at
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Smith, Patricia

Teahouse of the almighty : poems / by Patricia Smith.

p. cm.

ISBN
: 978-1-56689-366-4

1. African Americans—Poetry.
  
1. Title.

PS
3569.
M
537839
T
43 2006

378. 1'06—
DC
22

2006011899

FIRST EDITION | FIRST PRINTING

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Grateful acknowledgment is made to the editors of the following publications where these poems first appeared:
Spirit and Flame: An Anthology of Contemporary African-American Poetry:
“Building Nicole's Mama,”
Asheville Poetry Review:
“Map Rappin',”
Underwood Review:
“Forgotten in All This,”
Willow Review:
“Teahouse of the Almighty,”
Callaloo:
“Her Other Name.”

Special thanks to Edward Sanders, and to the benefactors and supporters of the National Poetry Series; to Luis Rodriguez, Michael Warr, and Marc Smith for an invaluable birth; to Stephen Dobyns and Tom Lux for the friendship, support, and unflinching guidance; to the national poetry slam community and the staff and students of Cave Canem, and to Kwame Dawes, the perfect “go-to guy.”

For Mikaila, The Face, who lights every corner of my world and work.

For Bruce, my doting husband and partner, the consummate editor.

For Damon, my son, who will prevail.

And for Boof! Fwa!

CONTENTS

Building Nicole's Mama

Giving Birth to Soldiers

It Had the Beat Inevitable

Mississippi's Legs

walloping! magnifying of a guy's anatomy easily

10 Ways to Get Ray Charles and Ronald Reagan Into the Same Poem

The World Won't Wait

Listening at the Door

The End of a Marriage

Boy Dies, Girlfriend Gets His Heart

Dumpsters, Wastebaskets, Shallow Graves

To 3, No One in the Place

Sacrifice

My Million Fathers, Still Here Past

How to Be a Lecherous Little Old Black Man and Make Lots of Money

Hallelujah With Your Name

Little Poetry

Can't Hear Nothing for That Damned Train

Drink, You Motherfuckers

Deltateach

Creatively Loved

Elegantly Ending

Sex and Music

Map Rappin'

In the Audience Tonight

Weapon Ultimate

Scribe

The Circus Is In Town

Her Other Name

Forgotten in All This

Down 4 the Up Stroke

Women Are Taught

Look at 'Em Go

Stop the Presses

What You Pray Toward

What Men Do With Their Mouths

Dream Dead Daddy Walking

Writing Exercise Breathing Outside My Binder

The Thrill Is On

Blues Through 2 Bone

Fireman

Psyche!

Related to the Buttercup, Blooms in Spring

When Dexter King Met James Earl Ray

All His Distressing Disguises

Teahouse of the Almighty

Running for Aretha

When the Burning Begins

            
If thou be more than hate or atmosphere

            
Step forth in splendor, mortify our wolves.

            
Or we assume a sovereignty ourselves.

            
—GWENDOLYN BROOKS

BUILDING NICOLE'S MAMA

for the 6th grade class of Lillie C. Evans School, Liberty City, Miami

I am astonished at their mouthful names—

Lakinishia, Fumilayo, Chevellanie, Delayo—

their ragged rebellions and lip-glossed pouts,

and all those pants drooped as drapery.

I rejoice when they kiss my face, whisper wet

and urgent in my ear, make me their obsession

because I have brought them poetry.

They shout me raw, bruise my wrists with pulling,

and brashly claim me as mama as they

cradle my head in their little laps,

waiting for new words to grow in my mouth.

You.

You.

You.

Angry, jubilant, weeping poets—we are all

saviors, reluctant hosannas in the limelight,

but you knew that, didn't you? Then let us

bless this sixth grade class—40 nappy heads,

40 cracking voices, and all of them

raise their hands when I ask. They have all seen

the Reaper, grim in his heavy robe,

pushing the button for the dead project elevator,

begging for a break at the corner pawn shop,

cackling wildly in the back pew of the Baptist church.

I ask the death question and forty fists

punch the air,
me!, me!
And O'Neal,

matchstick crack child, watched his mother's

body become a claw, and 9-year-old Tiko Jefferson,

barely big enough to lift the gun, fired a bullet

into his own throat after Mama bended his back

with a lead pipe. Tamika cried into a sofa pillow

when Daddy blasted Mama into the north wall

of their cluttered one-room apartment,

Donya's cousin gone in a drive-by. Dark window,

click, click, gone,
says Donya, her tiny finger

a barrel, the thumb a hammer. I am shocked

by their losses—and yet when I read a poem

about my own hard-eyed teenager, Jeffery asks

He is dead yet?

It cannot be comprehended,

my 18-year-old still pushing and pulling

his own breath. And those 40 faces pity me,

knowing that I will soon be as they are,

numb to our bloodied histories,

favoring the Reaper with a thumbs-up and a wink,

hearing the question and shouting
me, me,

Miss Smith, I know somebody dead!

Can poetry hurt us?
they ask me before

snuggling inside my words to sleep.

1 love you,
Nicole says, Nicole wearing my face,

pimples peppering her nose, and she is as black

as angels are. Nicole's braids clipped, their ends

kissed with match flame to seal them,

and
can you teach me to write a poem about my mother?