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Back Mutiny Save as PDF
Chapters (46)
  1. Cover
  2. Also by Phillip B. Williams
  3. Epigraph
  4. Final First Poem
  5. Of the Question of Self and How It Never Quite Gets Answered
  6. Final Poem for the White Students Next Door Who Say “Nigga” When Singing Along to Rap Songs Loud Enough for Me to Hear
  7. Final Poem as Request for Maskot for White-Ran Journal, or “They Sure Do Love Them Some Black Pain.”
  8. Order of Events
  9. Final Poem for a King
  10. And Now Upon My Head the Crown
  11. Tabula Rasa
  12. Final Poem for War During War
  13. Interlude: Sasa and Zamani
  14. Final Poem for Amiri Baraka
  15. The Flying African
  16. Mushmouf’s Maybe-Crown
  17. Final Poem for the Crow
  18. Final Poem for the “Black Body”
  19. January 1, 2018
  20. Final Poem as Tidalectic Elegy
  21. Herald
  22. The Field
  23. Hunter
  24. Final Poem for the Deer
  25. Final Poem as Nocturne into Aubade, or Sonrise
  26. Final Poem for the Biography of a Black Man as Animal and His Enforced Embrace of a Human Praxis
  27. Black Joy
  28. Judgment
  29. Final Poem for the Famous Poet
  30. January 28, 1918
  31. Final Poem for the Bullet
  32. “Ne Me Quitte Pas”: I Put a Spell on You: Nina Simone: 1965
  33. Final Poem for the Moon
  34. The Void
  35. Final Poem for My Father Misnamed in My Mouth
  36. Final Poem for the “Field of Poetry”
  37. The Asphodel
  38. Shame
  39. Final Poem for Grandma Elizabeth’s Cancer
  40. Final Poem of Persona
  41. Mastery
  42. In the Beginning
  43. NOTES
  44. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  45. About the Author
  46. What’s next onyour reading list?

FINAL POEM AS REQUEST FOR MASKOT FOR WHITE-RAN JOURNAL, OR “THEY SURE DO LOVE THEM SOME BLACK PAIN.”

Tell us duh one bout dem chirren and duh bullets dey eat

Tell us duh one bout dem roaches makin love to yo feet

Tell us duh one bout yo grandmammy’s hands:

callused and cookin, cansuh everywhere but her hands

Tell us bout her mouf too: “Oh Lawdy Jesus,” “Wrench around . . . ,”

“Bout scared me half to DEATH” she make purty sounds

Tell us duh one bout white people cuttin you

in line [did yuh neck do that back

and forf thing finguh waggin

lips lippin “nuh uh no she di-int”]

Tell us duh one bout duh woman duh rope and duh bridge

[O dere was a baby dat fell out and bumped its head

on duh wata followin duh drinkin gourd

or nah?]

Is you submittin to my journal or nah?

You spoken word or nah?

You hopin whitey gets his just due

flippin duh bird or nah?

All da boys in duh hinterland killed

cause uh duh hoodie monster

You gots anymo uh dem po-lice poems wit duh

Hippity Hop refrences wit dem thugs and da trees?

I sho love me some Hippity Hop refrences

But why thugs always smokin on dem trees

Don’t dey know dey histry is

to run from burnin trees?

Duh way you write nigga makes me thank [of] my mama

Tell us duh one bout music comin from duh eyes

Was dat “Purple Rain” or “Duh Coluh Purple” or is it a suhprise?

Tell us “stolen milk,” “watch my chirren when I’m gone,”

“Don’t let him see me dis way,” “I’m so glad Jesus is my home!”

Got anymo uh dem poems bout Celie?

Got some “Give us us free”

in yo packet, yo pote-folio, or yo spahklin CV?

How much fo duh WIC-EBT-lost-bus-card sonnet?

How much fo slave wenches wearin wata-melons as bonnets?

What you got up in dat verse what you got up in dat verse

[a couple uh guns / a couple uh blunts / a couple uh suicide

doors / Dior chokers / all duh shit you adore?]

Dat one gets me so hard/wet at night in duh dahk

Duh dahk got a poem too soundin jus like a knife

slidin through some cone-bread

Soft as a baby

Tell us duh one again bout duh baby

Order of Events