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The Grapevine Telegraph by H Bolin and S Whittemore

Jard Lerebours, Interview + 2 Poems

How are poetry and history tangled up?

Poetry and history are tangled up in the places where poetry’s bones have been broken and reset, its flesh has been burned and its body parts have been rearranged. As a Black poet, I am interested in our canon and its multidisciplinary nature. You got your Blues poets, poets infused with jazz, ragtime and now, the emergence of Hip Hop with poetry and rhyme. Shoutouts to my Descendants of American Chattel Slavery, as a first generation West Indian I am forever indebted to them and their literary innovations.

What is your writing practice like? Do you write every day, or only when the inspiration hits?

I used to write every day during my first two years of college because I’m a very social person and was constantly looking to share my practice with those I loved and was learning to love. Nowadays I rarely write, mostly out of feeling like my poetry has lost some of its emotion and vitality. I feel a lot of pressure to be able to monetize my art in ways that I didn’t experience during college.

Do your poems take different form depending on your location (NY vs ATL)?

It depends. I would say that my poems take different form depending on where my heart is. Most of the poems I’ve written back home in New York are very sad and written in the throes of heartbreak. Whereas at Oxford College and Emory, the poetry I wrote was more in the spoken word tradition. It was meant to be performed and had messages intended for my friends and our community. I wasn’t alone in my room anymore. When I was in Spain, I wrote a short collection called “Baptized in Lavapiez” that was informed by my experience of Spain. In that case, the subject of the poems was no longer myself but the atmosphere and my racialization in Spain.

How do photography and poetry mingle in your mind?

In the past I’ve compared my creative drive to a sex drive. I think of poetry and photography as masturbatory acts, whereas filmmaking and prose require foreplay, candles, all sorts of intricacies. In capturing life and its moments, photography and poetry move at the rate I need them to. I use them to divulge feelings and purify desires with raw energy, there’s not much editing. It just comes out.

MOON EYES

As a child
I found
hope in riddles
so I tried
to find
salvation in
your eyes
when I felt alone
and stared into
your yellow moon

I guess that’s
why I’m
at
the edge of
your bed
violently
vilely
kissing
your lips
till they’re black
and blue

Moon eyes
invites me
to her room
she was Southern
like swinging bodies
from trees
apple pies
and
signs of
white only
A halo
of purchased
Peruvian
curls
and swirls
I gave you
head
then repented
till my
tongue
bled
Moon eyes
knew
I was
just
another
pig
only thinking
with my dick
but she saw

gold in the sty

Moon eyes
Who cries
and curses
away love
like a scorned
banshee
but once
in a
blue
Moon
I doth
lay in
her bed
to distill
the Mccarthic spirits
reddening my head
until her
blood curdling
screams
became
serene
neck tingling
whispers
my tactile
digits lingered

Moon Eyes
half moon
quarter moon
crescent moon
pieces of
a girl who loved
who died
when her sun
collapsed
dancing
with the
residue of
a man
under sterile
blue sheets
Naive
Moon eyes
that can’t
tell a poem
from a lie
hug me
kiss me
grope me
tie rope
round my
wrist
control me
Moon eyes

the irony is
you can’t see
I want to be
your
Earth
just sell
your soul
and revolve
round me
but moons
never did
rotate for
meteorites
am I selfish
or is this my
right
have I no
rights
to your craters
and dark
side
As a child
she stayed
up till midnight
because mother
had other priorities
so she felt alone
and stared
into the blood moon

searching for importance
amidst turbulent
torrents
but I prefer
to smoke a forest
She’s my one non negotiable
the one clump of matter
that I need
the one miscreant
of God’s creation
that heals me when I bleed
the two heads
and arms
I lost
took lifetimes
to find
the one that’ll

cry over my
cold and molded flesh
when my brown eyes
subside
She’s my one non negotiable

THE TRAGEDY OF THE WHITE NIGGA

From the moment I could talk
and order my steps
there was the smell of rotten flesh
Every time my mouth flapped open to speak
It would whip and crackle against the roof

I wore my white mask proudly
Until it drained the color from my face

They told me I spoke white
They said my language didn’t
Match the gene placement
That made my skin
So Black and beautiful

They said my tongue was
The same one which harbored
The slave trade
A tongue of silky White
Like Native American genocide
Like Sun-beaten necks
Like Confederate Flags
Like Guilt
Like Privilege
Like The hands that tied noose
Like The Wizard robes
Like The harvesters of the strange fruit

I wore my white mask proudly
Until it drained the color from my face

From that moment on I wanted
To cut my fucking tongue out

I would look to prepare the knife and slice it open

I wanted to cut it out because
Jesse Jackson said Barack talked down to
Black people
I wanted to cut it out because
Charlemagne called Childish Gambino
A White rapper

Every time you call me an Uncle Tom
I see the bloody mass of Huey P. Newton’s face
And the bullet-ridden carcass of Malcolm X
And Booker T. Washington’s laser gaze
And I weep a little bit

I wore my white mask proudly
Until it drained the color from my face

From the moment I could talk
And order my steps
I received backhanded compliments
Like
A whip against my brother’s back
The house slave and the field hand

Every time my mouth flapped open to speak
The teacher would say
“He speaks so well”
“He’s so articulate”

But don’t lie
You loved it
Didn’t you?
You loved feeling better than
The other Black kids
Didn’t you White nigga?
You loved the words that belonged
To White people
You longed for the world that belonged
to White people

W.E.B. Du Bois called us the talented tenth
What he really meant was
The more digestible Black
Blackness you could swallow without
Staining your tongue

He meant blackness without soul
He meant reason without rhyme
He meant rap with no beat

I wore my white mask proudly
Until it drained the color from my face

Every time you call me a token Black
My skin crawls with how worthless I am
I am a token that can buy nothing
But ioweu’s for a post-racial America
There’s no 40 acres and a mule backing my currency

I have sinned against my ancestors
Every time you call me an Oreo
I wish to slit my black wrist
And drown into the milk of
White American bliss

Every time you question my Blackness
I question if Mother didn’t raise me right
I question why she didn’t knot my hair
And clot my blood
I question if she didn’t stress long enough
That my Black mind matters

Don’t ask me if I’m Black
No, no not me

I’m just a retired machete swinger
A sugarcane cutter
An African lost in the wilderness
Of the West Indies
Ask me if I’m the product of
Resilience and struggle?

Come correct or don’t come at all

Ask me about My great grandfather Sammy
Who
spoke a holy tongue
And farmed on a plot in St. Elizabeth, Jamaica

Ask me if I’m the grandson of
Gladys
Who was the first Austin
In university

Ask me if I’m the grandson of Joseph
Political refugee
Alcoholic and pastor

Come correct or don’t come at all

The cops never questioned if I was Black
When they tried to strip my
Emory ID
to put orange robes on my
Black flesh and me

No, no I am not your enemy
I just refuse to latch onto
The black monolithic centipede

I wore my white mask
Until it drained the color from my face

From the moment I could talk
And order my steps
There was the smell of rotten flesh
Every Time my mouth flapped open to speak
It would whip and crackle
Like White supremacy

You are loved White nigga
Your Blackness is appreciated
Don’t you ever forget that
Black people have always been post-racial

Centuries ago
There was a Black box
Made so small that only
Slaves could fit in
Made so small that they
Couldn’t recognize the difference
Between Ibo and Ashanti
Akan and Amhara
Made so small that my ancestors
Starved and died in their
Own feces and urine

You and I are too large for that slave ship
Our dreams are too big
Our experiences are too wide and varied

My Black is not a monolith
My Blackness is a black hole
From which
No parcel can escape
My gravitational pull
Has no restraint

I love my Blackness and yours
So let me wear my black face proudly
Let me have dignity
Understand that I love my people
Understand that every nigga
Dancing offbeat is not counterrevolutionary

Our blackness is self love
Our blackness is pride
Our blackness is eternal

Jard Lerebours is a multidisciplinary artist hailing from Bayshore, New York. Jard is a recent graduate of Emory University where he studied English and Creative Writing. His mediums include filmmaking, photography and music. His work explores themes of Black identity, first generation conflicts, sexuality, masculinity and the pervasiveness of social media. His current projects include rapping as the cyborg Jardi CGI (available on all streaming platforms) and a rotating cast of screenplays.

H Bolin and S Whittemore curate The Grapevine Telegraph.

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