I have long said that a bad day in Detroit is better than a good day anywhere else in the world.
Maybe I'm just burned out from traveling, but in recent years, I have roamed around the world more than a few times, and these experiences have only solidified my conviction that there's no place like Detroit. I call it home because I believe we have the strongest arts community anywhere, filled with working-class poets, performers and artists who collaborate and cooperate with much mutual respect and honor.
That's why I thought Metro Times editor Kim Heron's suggestion was brilliant. He had just read a cento — a "patchwork" poem — compiled by my old friend, New York poet David Lehman, who had recently edited the Oxford Anthology of Poetry. The poem was a collection of lines plucked from other works, and Kim wondered whether such a project might be doable locally. A resounding yes. What better way to pay homage to Detroit's poets of the past, present and the future.
Reflecting on Lehman's approach, I scoured the anthology, Abandon Automobile: Detroit City Poetry 2001 (Wayne State University Press, $22.95), which I co-edited with poet Melba Joyce Boyd. In addition, I've included up-and-coming poets who have arrived on our scene since that publication.
"The City Has Moved Too Close to the Sun" is somewhat surrealistic and metaphorically abstract, but I think it paints an accurate portrait of our diverse, complex and unique community. Think of each line as a distinct poem by one of our great writers. Then, weave them together for a vibe of the city. Here is Our Detroit in words and images. —M.L. Lieble
The editor has taken some minimal liberties by adding minor punctuation, articles and prepositions so the piece flows more smoothly.
The city has moved too close to the sun. 1
In childish confusion I'd respond: 2
"There is no music." 3
At night and in dream 4
The moon is raw light. 5
I stand before it naked 6
Without warning 7
Beneath the dissipating fog 8
On the river front in downtown Detroit. 9
In a personal war of independence 10
In Motown at the Millennium, 11
A spasm in the search is 12
Thrown, barreling towards the future 13
Right past happiness. The sentence ends 14
By the river. 15
While birds stand by without applauding, 16
I stalk memories 17
Of Detroiters born in the Carolinas 18
On a grain of rice 19
Behind Plexiglas weeds 20
In the suffocating dusk, 21
While busses roar by like urban dinosaur rat-catchers. 22
We want our city back! 23
Detroit gave me my first America, 24
Which put me firmly and finally in the world 25
Like a hurricane backspin, 26
In the hard stares of mannequins 27
Where we had lost our voice in the suburbs,
In Conant Gardens 28
Only to meet the needs of civilization 29
In the center of a vacant lot 30
To choke in factories. 31
We danced endlessly 32
Towards the apocalypse. 33
Paradise Valley, this once was 34
Where the river slid like an eel 35
And billions of footsteps once chattered here/nipped snaggles of silence 36
Like rocket propelled glockenspiels — 37
Blessed sounds — 38
The rhythms of your dream 39
That bloomed in the night garden
Of the valley. 40
Detroit as the intimate secret of my love, 41
I understand that the current citizens have been employed 42
To materialize before the eye
Of memory — your Afro-Indian features — 43
Smell of salt and sea. 44
I listened for a long time. 45
I paint you some pictures to show people who you really are Senor Capitalist. 46
But I knew. How could I not know? 47
It was on TV. 48
Artists born from persistent gray. 49
Born on slow knives 50
Walking towards the river 51
Pushed through a crack in earth 52
Just blending in with the crowd 53
Against the jagged truth — 54
A memory in the sewers of time 55
Calling you to a Great Reawakening 56
In this earthly paradise
Of North America. 57
Money and wheels — the combination makes me shiver 58
And gaze intensely 59
At the deserted assembly plant, 60
Without limit in the bright and distant land, 61
In a culture of collective energies 62
Against the intrusion of thieves, 63
Grizzled and bleary-eyed as memories. 64
The headlines never say good morning any more. 65
Taste the blood in my mouth 66
Smooooth. In syncopation to dashboard jazz 67
Lightenin' up the blues 68
With no money — how do we 69
Fish off the dock
And never catch anything — 70
The color of significant waiting. 71
Stretched over the empty lot
Embedded in frozen
Grass felled by chain saws — 72
Be where real poets are: in the streets, in the shelters, in the ghetto 73
Where they see Malcolm walking down Woodward 74
Beyond the river that
Ran through the city like a leak. 75
Sooner or later a beauty will strike, 76
in the city spit: 77
Strait City
City of Straits
Detroit. 78
Alternative routes are advised —
It's midnight in the Motor City. 79
Oh — you gotta be a walkin' Bodhisattva! 80
I believe we exist to subvert what we believe 81
For hunger and sweetness. 82
I cried out, "I believe, I believe," 83
As Shadows from past ghosts soar among streetlights— 84
Across the heavenz —
Calling r ancestorz, 85
Prune black, with bloodshot eyes and one white tooth. 86
"Don't be afraid," 87
When summerstink crawls the street on its belly. 88
What would it take to have you come here —
To ... the other side of Eight Mile 89
Where time falls back 90
Shooting at no one to empty the thing 91
That seems to be petrified wings of butterflies 92
With the dull ends of abandonment. 93
I say the earth blows out its green 94
Bullets from the gun 95
Let us stop this madness! 96
Get me out of this idea 97
Of the waxing and waning of the moon 98
In old Coke bottles where 99
The world once again gets its industrial passion play 100
Foreigners banging at the gate 101
With lights behind closed eyes. 102
West of the Belle Isle Bridge 103
There are pinholes in the social fabric through which we see. 104
I am part of the landscape
That nobody told me about — 105
It wraps around me. 106
We stopped singing. 107
Even slave songs lost refrain. 108
I trip the hood, grope about blindly in the dark. 109
Some point to this house here and say, "This is where..." 110
Your money your heart your body
Where your mouth was. 111
Trust Jesus, I said to myself. This is Detroit. 112
Low yellow Renaissance Towers, 113
Gum in the ashtray, 114
Caught in the belly of denial — 115
"This is where your mother and I first held you brother and sister." 116
It's easy being young. 117
What happened? 118
As always, I was on my own. 119
Where did her love go? 120
She's moving on — 121
Her essence was extracted. 122
Waking in a dream 123
In a valley of rust 124
Cold from the sun. 125
The air smells different here. 126
Music like water 127
Rushing over the open wound 128
Dissolved by sunlight 129
In the space where my wife's wings must have been ... 130
Now, a blizzard of absurd low stars 131
Will sleep sound — 132
With a simple grin and a Sanders chocolate box. 133
After they close the casket, 134
I can still feel his heart is beating beneath
concrete 135
Into dump-yards, into graves,
Into glutted rivers of amber 136
As subtle as the scent of the neck rising. 137
This is our history.
This is the way it was. 138
I believe there is no freedom, 139
But slant the map to suit yourself; it is we who see the land. 140
Grab a shovel —
Dig!!! 141
See Also:
Poet Index
M.L. Liebler is the author of Wide Awake in Someone Else's Dream (Wayne State University Press, 2008), available at mlliebler.com, and the forthcoming Working Words: Literature of Work, Class & Art (Coffee House Press). Send comments to [email protected].
