Poetry & Art

Interview

From Member Spotlight, Poets & Patrons, Chicago, Illinois

Jocelyn Ajami, a painter and filmmaker for over twenty years and founder of Gypsy Heart Productions, was interviewed by Caroline Johnson. As an artist with a global perspective, Jocelyn has been the recipient of numerous awards, including major grants from the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, The Leadership Foundation, International Women’s Forum, and the Goethe Institute. She turned to writing poetry in 2014 and has been published in several anthologies of prize winning poems, including Encore (2018) in which her poem, Un Deseo, won the Founders Award/first prize, from the National Federation of State Poetry Societies.

When did you begin writing poetry?

I had been a painter for over twenty years with no real interest in poetry. I started writing in 2014 even though I didn’t think of it as poetry, just words to share. When I performed Still Until at the Green Mill, I started to get the message that this was spoken word poetry and by 2017 these “shared words” lead me to the semi-finals at the Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic competition.

 

What triggered your interest in creating poems?

I turned to writing poetry out of despair. It was around the time of Laquan McDonald’s murder and I decided to write “texts” to accompany a couple of my drawings on a project called FRAGILE. The poems, Still Until and Chicago Burning were examples of this.

 

Who are your favorite poets?

This is a tough question. My taste is pretty eclectic from rappers Nas and Tupac Shakur to Baudelaire, Emily Dickinson, Federico Garcia Lorca, Octavio Paz, Gwendolyn Brooks, Mahmoud Darwish, Juan Felipe Herrera, Tracy K. Smith, Ocean Vuong and many of my fellow poets.

 

What inspires you? Other poets, painting? music?

As artists, I think everything has the potential to inspire us, from a tossed feather to the condition of humanity. I also find poetry, painting and dance to be direct sources of inspiration.

Fragile

 

Where have you published?

I have been published In the Journal of Modern Poetry, The Ekphrastic Review bottle rockets press, Modern Haiku, Encore, Distilled Lives, Northern Colorado Writers, Highland Park Poetry

 

Are you in a feedback group that meets regularly? If so, How often?

Yes, Brown Bag Poets at the Cultural Center once a week and Poets & Patrons workshops four times a year.

 

We know every poem is different but–on average–how many revisions does one of your published poems require?

More often than not, I make twenty or more revisions. With haiku, I might hit on it right away or change it dozens of times. But I am still learning.

 

Do you gear some of your work toward performance poetry rather than the written form? Why or why not?

I actually don’t. Several of my performance pieces just ended up that way, but I notice that these pieces usually have a political or protest bias. However, I wrote some, based on music and dance, that also seem to come alive with performance. Others are more introspective. I don’t think these distinctions matter too much, except in the world of publishing which seems to avoid “spoken word” in print and has a nose bleed when it comes to rhyme. Although that is slowly changing.

 

How long might you struggle with a poem that doesn’t seem to want to come together?

It feels like a lifetime. Seriously, I might work on a poem for a whole year.

 

Is there a special person in your life you’re inclined to share your work with? Explain.

My fellow poets are a great source of support and insight, but I find that folks outside the literary realm can hone in on weaknesses immediately because they are unfiltered. My husband, Jim, has a great ear for pointing out when something is out of sync.

 

 

Sample Poetry

Tea and Rubble

Not a wisp of green.

Beams and wires crisscross the horizon like giant spiders.

She gasps at the cloudless blue sky mocking her world of ashes.

Tempted to wallow in the wreckage and surrender to the cruelty
of fate, she surveys the last vestiges of home: shards of glass,
spines of books, splinters of plaster and wood.

Fouled illusions stifle her breath more than rising smoke.

She rummages for a morsel of food, finding only a mangled tea bag
covered in soot.

As she squats in the rubble, her tears cascade into a torrent of memories:
the laughter of cousins, her father’s cigar, grandmother brewing tea,
the bloom of roses on porcelain cups, figs and apricots.

The ritual of Sunday tea with family and friends always quelled the fury
of her fears, calming her with the certainty of infinite moments
In the grip of remembrance, she retrieves the solace of those afternoon
sips, infused with the flavor of hope and the fragrance of jasmine.

 

Highland Park Poetry Anthology, Coffee Tea & Other beverages 2018

 

 

Un Deseo (A Wish)

Find me
In the hollow of your hand, clutching
fallen dreams

In the salt of your tears, burnishing
the wounds of old Seville

In the bristles of your broom
sweeping alleys
on the crescent of the moon

Find me
In the crystal bowl, galloping
through liquid chambers

In the speckled eel, coiling
like a dancer’s lunar train

In a child’s first breath at
the Banquet of Words

Find me
In the smallest worm, crawling
through the brambles

In the fragile caterpillar, propping
temples on common ground

In the burnt weed, floundering
on sacred mounds

Find me
at your feet, a solitary ant
bewildered
by the commerce of devils

Find me
a desert pebble
on a snowcapped mountain
insignificant and bare

near the midnight border
of somewhere, Anywhere

 

First Prize, Founders Award, NFSPS, Encore Anthology, 2018

 

 

Danny

Birthed on the steps of a church,
buttressed by the love of an unripe mother,
he grows into Struggle

hobbling against the clench of poverty.
His toothless smile betrays the gnaw of hardship.

In Chicago’s frenzied Loop, he merges into the urban din,
a miscellaneous noise, an unheard beat in the boisterous
rhythm of the street.

Tall and slight, he blends into a parade of poles and posts,
shrinking towards a vanishing point, unnoticed.

Despite subzero temperatures, he stands daily in the shadow
of looming towers, extending his hand with a generous grin:

Streetwise, Streetwise

Stalwart and steady, he assumes the role of magazine vendor,
sidestepping the claw of homelessness and the flail of indignity.

Many pass him by.

Those who stop are drawn by his fervent conviction.
Their imagined benevolence shifts to validation, welcoming
his friendly nod and streetwise savvy:

Tickets half price, the day of the concert.
Take a shortcut through the arcade.
Thank you for your business.

Danny is a man of authority, territory and purpose.
He commands the corner, courting customers into friendship.
His presence humanizes the cold and neutral concrete.

On rare moments when he is absent, the street dims,
divested of essence

 

Anthology, Rise, Northern Colorado Writers, 2019

 

 

Haiku

bitter frost
the bone chill
of an empty crib

 

in the shadow
of her tombstone, wisps
of baby’s breath

 

zigzagging
into a clearing
the right path

 

a child
picks up a toy
collateral damage

 

These Haiku were published respectively in Frogpond, Modern Haiku, ISPS Distilled Lives Volume 4, and the Kusamakura prizewinning anthology.