{"id":2596,"date":"2015-01-05T00:26:25","date_gmt":"2015-01-05T00:26:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=2596"},"modified":"2015-01-06T17:52:31","modified_gmt":"2015-01-06T17:52:31","slug":"before-you-kwame-dawes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=2596","title":{"rendered":"BEFORE YOU – Kwame Dawes"},"content":{"rendered":"

1<\/p>\n

Yes, we were country, lived in shotgun
\nshacks, where the road loses its way
\nto dirt and live oaks and all along
\nthe way ancient cypress, but we\u2019d play
\ndeep in the swamp, where Collins
\nbuilt his still, and made sweet peach
\nmoonshine; that is where we made stories
\nto cherish in our hearts, a place to reach
\nfor something warm, something to make
\na woman remember the blood rush
\nin the head, singing and doing the shake
\nand stump to the blues; there in the bush
\nwhere she was that pretty thing; her eyes
\nsoft with needing, her mouth full of lies.<\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

Yes, we was country, but even a country
\ngirl knows the power of her coochie,
\nhow it could wake her without mercy
\nlate at night because of the sweet mystery
\nof a dream; because of the scent
\nof burning tobacco in the air, the taste
\nof man; country, but I learned
\nthe calming of liquor, how all haste
\nleaves the head, how big laughter
\ncan rise off the skin like mist at dawn.
\nCountry, but I was a fine believer
\nin the power of my waist-line, the bone-
\nshifting sweetness of nights of blue air,
\nthe juke joint where you let go all cares.<\/p>\n

3
\nBefore you man, I didn\u2019t join no church;
\nbefore you, man, Bessie Smith was my girl;
\nbefore you, man, used to wear my skirt
\nhitched up high around my thigh, used to twirl,
\nshow off my hairy legs, so men could think
\nof all that hair climbing up my thighs.
\nBefore you, I told God to just wink
\nfor a minute while I learned the soft sighs
\nof women; before you, man, there were
\nno fences, no gates, just a wide
\nroad; before you, I used to swear
\nlike a whore and dance, all wild
\nand loose; so don\u2019t think I have forgotten,
\ndespite my new self, this good holy Christian.<\/p>\n

4<\/p>\n

Before you, man, I traveled, Lord, I traveled.
\nEvery town from Mississippi to Pennsylvania
\nwas a shelter and I found a place to revel
\nin the freedom and glorious regalia
\nof a queen girl, wearing silk and satin
\nand shoes so pretty they became a drug.
\nBefore you, man, people called me \u201cPassion,\u201d
\nor \u201cFast Rose\u201d or \u201cMagdalene,\u201d who ain\u2019t any
\nbetter than any hard-dancing girl; I made men
\nweep for their mamas, made bad women
\nsoft so they wanted to call be \u201cbest friend
\nfor life, sweet sister,\u201d and be my mother hens.
\nBefore you, I could run, man, but now
\nyou have caused this fast girl to take it slow.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"headshot,Kwame Dawes is the author of nineteen books of poetry and numerous other books\u00a0of fiction, criticism, and essays. He has edited more than a dozen anthologies. His latest collection, Duppy Conqueror: New and Selected Poems (Copper Canyon), appeared in 2013. He is Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner and teaches at the\u00a0University of Nebraska and the Pacific MFA Program. He is Director of the African Poetry Book Fund and Artistic Director of
\nthe Calabash International Literary Festival.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1 Yes, we were country, lived in shotgun shacks, where the road loses its way to dirt and live oaks and all along the way ancient cypress, but we\u2019d play deep in the swamp, where Collins built his still, and made sweet peach moonshine; that is where we made stories to cherish in our hearts, [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2601,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[108],"class_list":["post-2596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-purple-eden-by-romare-bearden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2596","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=2596"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2765,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2596\/revisions\/2765"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}