{"id":1952,"date":"2014-03-11T20:32:24","date_gmt":"2014-03-11T20:32:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=1952"},"modified":"2014-03-14T15:40:13","modified_gmt":"2014-03-14T15:40:13","slug":"1952","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=1952","title":{"rendered":"ACCENTS & Poem – Denice Frohman"},"content":{"rendered":"

my mom holds her accent like a shotgun,
\nwith two good hands.
\nher tongue, all brass knuckle
\nslipping in between her lips
\nher hips, all laughter and wind clap.<\/p>\n

she speaks a sanchocho of spanish and english,
\npushing up and against one another,
\nin rapid fire<\/p>\n

there is no telling my mama to be “quiet,”
\nshe don\u2019t know “quiet.”<\/p>\n

her voice is one size better fit all
\nand you best not tell her to hush,
\nshe waited too many years for her voice to arrive
\nto be told it needed house keeping.<\/p>\n

English sits in her mouth\u00a0remixed
\nso “strawberry” becomes “eh-strawbeddy”
\nand “cookie” becomes “eh-cookie”
\nand kitchen, key chain, and chicken all sound the same.<\/p>\n

my mama doesn\u2019t say “yes”
\nshe says, “ah ha”
\nand suddenly the sky in her mouth becomes Hector Lavoe song.<\/p>\n

her tongue can\u2019t lay itself down flat enough
\nfor the English language,
\nit got too much hip
\ntoo much bone
\ntoo much conga
\ntoo much cuatro
\nto two step
\ngot too many piano keys
\nin between her teeth,
\nit got too much clave
\ntoo much hand clap
\ngot too much salsa to sit still
\nit be an anxious child wanting to
\nmake Play-Doh out of concrete
\nEnglish be too neat for
\nher kind of wonderful.
\nher words spill in conversation
\nbetween women whose hands are all they got
\nsometimes our hands are all we got
\nand accents remind us that we are still
\nbomba, still plena<\/p>\n

say \u00a0“wepa”
\nand a stranger becomes your hermano,
\nsay “dale”
\nand a crowd becomes a family reunion.<\/p>\n

my mama\u2019s tongue is a telegram from her mother
\ndecorated with the coqui’s of el campo<\/p>\n

so even though her lips can barely
\nstretch themselves around english,
\nher accent is a stubborn compass
\nalways pointing her
\ntowards home.
\n 
\n 
\nWEAPONS<\/strong><\/p>\n

At entrance of a West Philadelphia high school,
\nan officer with a gun perched on each waist,
\nasks me if I have any weapons.
\nI hold up my book.
\nHe doesn\u2019t find that funny.
\nTells me to empty pockets,
\nwalk through metal detector.
\n8:03am.<\/p>\n

I wait for 2 students to pass through first.
\nAlready I wonder what they have learned.<\/p>\n

I am escorted to an auditorium,
\nwhere there are 130 Black and Latino students.
\nWe talk about hip-hop,
\nthey think poetry is what old white people do.
\nI tell them my favorite poem is \u201cMs. Fat Booty\u201d
\nbecause I like the storytelling.
\nThey giggle as if they are still kids.<\/p>\n

One girl shouts, \u201cRack City, bitch!\u201d
\nAnd the whole room explodes in unison,
\ntheir bodies bouncing
\nas if they were sitting on trampolines.<\/p>\n

I ask them if they have dreams.
\n11 students raise their hands,
\nbarely above their shoulders
\nas if they were sitting in History class
\nunsure of the right answer.<\/p>\n

A student named, Luciano, in the first row
\nis waiting for me to tell him what page to turn to.<\/p>\n

Another student, in the 8th row
\nstudies my face, trying to decide if this is a trick question.<\/p>\n

There is no right answer, I say
\nbut they are too comfortable
\nwith the right to remain silent.<\/p>\n

I ask them do you have a family member in prison,
\n122 students mechanically raise both of their hands,
\nas if a string, tied around their wrists,
\nwas yanked for them.<\/p>\n

Their hands remain up this time.
\nAnd I can see all of them, perfectly.<\/p>\n

I heard the newly built prison a few miles away
\nbought their test scores as wallpaper.<\/p>\n

The principal is staring at me.
\nin anticipation of what I have to say next.<\/p>\n

He is afraid they will leave with weapons.
\nI am afraid
\nthey will not know the ones
\nthat already exist.
\n 
\nAll rights reserved to Denice Frohman, may not be transcribed, performed, copied without written consent from author. Copyright \u00a9 2012 Denice Frohman.
\n 
\n\"headshot,DENICE FROHMAN is an award-winning poet, lyricist, and educator, whose work explores the intersections of race gender, sexuality, and the \u201cin-betweeness\u201d that exists in us all. She is the 2013 Women of the World Poetry Slam Champion, 2013 Hispanic Choice Award and 2012 Leeway Transformation Award recipient. Her work has been fatured in the Huffington Post, Upworthy, Buzzfeed, The Apiary and more. Her poem “Dear Straight People” went viral and has over 700,000 views on Youtube. She has performed and taught poetry across the country and internationally, and is the Program Director at The Philly Youth Poetry Movement. She is currently touring as one half of the spoken word duo, Sister Outsider. Her debut CD, Feels Like Home, is available now. www.denicefrohman.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

my mom holds her accent like a shotgun, with two good hands. her tongue, all brass knuckle slipping in between her lips her hips, all laughter and wind clap. she speaks a sanchocho of spanish and english, pushing up and against one another, in rapid fire there is no telling my mama to be “quiet,” [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2046,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1952"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2047,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1952\/revisions\/2047"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}