Avant GardeAuthor(s): Constance MerrittSource: Callaloo, Vol. 24, No. 3, The Best of Callaloo: Poetry. A Special 25th Anniversary Issue(Summer, 2001), p. 835Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3300206 .

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from Vol. 14, No. 3 (Summer 1991)

AVANT GARDE

by Constance Merritt

I burn to turn a line, tight and funky, The rhythm of some city in my mouth, But there is only one time that speaks me: Molasses days spent lonely in the South. I got to know this place where I found friends And learned irreverent love for those long dead. I took them to my heart or home to bed. Everything and nothing ever ends.

"You don't sound like you come from Arkansas." "I thought she was some white girl on the phone," An uncle says; this makes my mother proud. "I think you'd like this book; it's really weird." ". . . You cain't say nothin' nice don't talk at all." "Eze-kiel connec-ted them dry bones."

Callaloo 24.3 (2001) 835

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