REAL poets wore berets
and argued about whether
Keats or Whitman
wrote a better poem about Autumn.
I just wrote.
To keep myself alive.
To help slay demons whose names I couldn’t say out loud.
To process the feelings too big to get from my heart to my throat.
Being a laureate wasn’t even a thought for a rapper-slash-slam kid who came up spitting on street corners for dinner money.
… and when I applied earlier this year it felt like the same kind of far away dream …
but …… y’all ……
I WAS AWARDED A 2022 FELLOWSHIP FROM THE ACADEMY OF AMERICAN POETS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
like … THEEEEEEEEEEEE ACADEMY.
One of the things this means is that from now until Sacramento Poetry Day on 26 October 2022 (details will be posted here), I will be working with Sacramento poets to create an interactive poetry curriculum and experiences that will be available to educators throughout the city that day, as well as a cash prize poetry contest for the youth across the city.
In addition, six of my poems were selected to be PUBLISHED BY THEEEE ACADEMY and on Poets.org.
I am still processing all the feelings too big to get from my heart to my throat.
Me and that little boy who started writing so he wouldn’t have to carry the dark clouds around inside of him are going to celebrate.
Shoutout to everyone who ever helped me find my words,
especially those who I can’t pick up the phone and call anymore. 333
But most of all – ::cue Snoop Dogg video::
I guess that makes me an academic now.
Welcome to the renaissance.
(correction to the AP article – the poetry contest I’m sponsoring is not the first cash prize poetry contest in the city … Shoutout SAYS and VOY and everybody who’s been out here for years. It’s just the first Sacramento Poetry Day contest ever. 💜)
—andru defeye
Flommist Andru Defeye is the Guerrilla Poet Laureate of Sacramento. Copyright © 2022 Andru Defeye.
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