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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, we discuss the life and work of francine j. harris. She was a writer in residence at Washington University in St. Louis and taught creative writing at University of Michigan and Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. She is currently an associate professor of English at the University of Houston. Included in this episode is a reading of her poem \\u201cSingle Lines Looking Forward. or One Monostich Past 45."\\xa0
Full Poem:\\xa0
The joke is orange. which has never been funny.
For awhile I didn\\u2019t sleep on my bright side.
Many airplanes make it through sky.
The joke is present. dented and devil.
For awhile, yellow spots on the wall.
Obama on water skis, the hair in his armpits, free.
I thought the CIA was operative.\\xa0
Across the alley, a woman named Mildred.
Above the clouds in a plane, a waistline of sliced white.
I don\\u2019t sound like TED Talk, or smart prose on Facebook.
These clouds are not God.\\xa0
I keep thinking about Coltrane; how little he talked.\\xa0
This is so little; I give so little.
Sometimes when I say something to white people, they say \\u201cI\\u2019m sorry?\\u201d
During Vietnam, Bob Kaufman stopped talking.\\xa0
The CIA was very good at killing Panthers.\\xa0
Mildred in a housecoat, calling across the fence, over her yard.
If I were grading this, I\\u2019d be muttering curses.
The joke is a color. a color for prison.
Is it me, or is the sentence, as structure, arrogant?
All snow, in here, this writing, departure.
All miles are valuable. all extension. all stretch.
I savor the air with both fingers, and tongue.
Mildred asks about the beats coming from my car.
I forgot to bring the poem comparing you to a garden.
Someone tell me what to say to my senators.
No one smokes here; in the rain, I duck away and smell piss.
I thought the CIA was. the constitution.
I feel like he left us, for water skis, for kitesurfing.\\xa0
The sun will not always be so gracious.
From the garden poem, one line stands out.
Frank Ocean\\u2019s \\u201cNights\\u201d is a study in the monostich.
Pace is not breathing, on and off. off.
Mildred never heard of Jneiro Jarel.
I\\u2019m afraid one day I\\u2019ll find myself remembering this air.
The last time I saw my mother, she begged for fried chicken.\\xa0
My father still sitting there upright, a little high. \\xa0
Melissa McCarthy could get it.
Sometimes, I forget how to touch.
In a parking garage, I wait for the toothache.
I watch what I say all the time now.
She said she loved my touch, she used the word love.
In 1984, I\\u2019d never been in the sky.
My mother walked a laundry cart a mile a day for groceries.
Betsy DeVos is confirmed. with a broken tie.
Mildred\\u2019s five goes way up, and my five reaches.
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