Patricia Smith



STRAIGHTENING THE KINK


   Johannesburg, 1994

In the nurturing motherland I imagined,
spiced smoke wafts from brass pots,
impossibly-hipped women carry homes
on their heads. I expect blessed snakes
of braid, sculpted kink, dripping dreads.
But shelves in almost every store tout
concoctions that promise to render hair
free of curl and kink! And what are we to make
of the skull and crossbones on the boxes?
Giggling thick-breasted teens are safely snapped
into snug Ts touting the lightning-kissed logos
of American soft drink companies, their feet
crammed into fake hoop shoes with pumps,
pistons and flashing lights. The indicted mugs
of Cali rappers glare from the front of knockoff
Champion sweats. And every cream everywhere
is the best, the very best, at whitening the skin.
My anxious brown sisters wobble in heels
and rush to burn the hair from their heads
because there’ll soon be a new man to woo.
Democracy's sad cousin is flying in from the
States, lounging smugly in first class.
Nothing can keep him from grinning in his sleep.





Patricia Smith is a 2008 National Book Award finalist for "Blood Dazzler," which chronicles the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina. Her other books include "Teahouse of the Almighty," a National Poetry Series selection and winner of the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award; "Close to Death"; "Big Towns, Big Talk" and "Life According to Motown". She also authored the ground-breaking history "Africans in America" and the award-winning children's book "Janna and the Kings". Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, TriQuarterly and many other journals, and has been performed around the world, including Carnegie Hall, the Poets Stage in Stockholm, Rotterdam's Poetry International, the Aran Islands International Poetry and Prose Festival, the Bahia Festival, the Schomburg Center and on tour in Germany, Austria and Holland. She is a Pushcart Prize winner, a Cave Canem faculty member and a four-time individual champion of the National Poetry Slam, the most successful poet in the competition's history. She teaches in Stonecoast MFA program at the University of Southern Maine.







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