For this week’s readings the poems that resonated with me the most were in the section: It Was the Music That Made Us from Bum Rush the Page. This section began and stayed relatively strong with a womanist, or feminist take on hip hop. Thank you to the editors Tony Medina and Louis Reyes Rivera for not just including a token splice, but allowing us to breathe a layered representation of critical thought and savvy poetic flow. From Jessica Care Moore’s poem “I’m a Hip Hop Cheerleader” to Nzinga Regtuinah Chavis’s “enter(f*#@ckin)tained” I was delighted to engage with readings that demonstrated both a love for hip hop in form and yet were critical of content reflected in the mainstream.
In “I’m a Hip Hop Cheerleader” Jessica Care Moore is not afraid to express her gender and bravely shows us a feminine strength in raising serious issues with humor and pom poms. I first came across Moore’s work through a circle of girlfriends who sent one of her poems, “I’m in Love With Potential,” around through email. With a recent breakup having just passed at the time, her poem hit me in a nurturing, strong way and made me laugh. I enjoyed it so much I posted it on one of my blogs! Here it is,
I'm in love with potential
I keep falling in love with potential
But it never seems to work out
He was full of a lot of it
And he was TALL
But potential had a way of becoming diluted with insecurities
And just cause you can see the beauty of someone
Doesn't mean they can see it for themselves
Still I believed potential would eventually love me
As much I loved him
Then begin to love himself
The way I loved myself
But there was someone else
There always is
Potential had an influential way
Of showing me what my potential was
And he celebrated all I could do without him
Potential reminded me of how he loved my commitment
To doing whatever I had to do to exercise my own potential
Even if that meant potentially leaving him behind
Still I unconditionally loved potential
And held on to the potential future we could have
If only he would see our potential
Without being intimidated by my own potential
If he would just stop loving me with conditions
Especially when I loved him
Simply for the possibility of how great
He could become and already was
But didn't know it
Cause he was caught up in my potential,
Instead of seeing my life
As a reflection of what he already had or
What we could potentially have together
And that meant loving you when you hadn't yet
Reached your full potential
But helping you get there as quickly as possible
Isn't it just a bit too easy to fall in love
With someone after the glory and
Not along the slow, goal setting, potential way?
And if I didn't love your possibilities
Then I didn't love you
And if you didn't realize our possibilities
Because you were too wound up in my potential
Then you didn't really love me
I guess sometimes we give potential too much credit
And borrow interest from our own accounts
Without taking ourselves into account
How many times did I blow off your behavior
Relying on potential?
I can no longer count
Or wait around for you
To let me stand naked in front of you
So you can see yourself as worthy of my love
You loving me for me and not through me
Can really be potentially dangerous
Now again in Bum Rush The Page, Moore has poetically delivered a similar upbeat, feisty attack with “grown ass woman” tactics. An aspect I appreciate in both of these two poems by Moore is her ability to not let us “off the hook” as women. She challenges us to take responsibility for our choices and not settle for less than what we righteously deserve, whether it be our choice of partner in a relationship, or the music we listen to or create. In this “the personal is political” style Moore reminds me of our local Bay Area heroine poet, Aya de Leon who is best known for her work on these themes such as in her book Thieves in the Temple: The Reclaiming of Hip Hop (which she later turned into a one-woman show) and her performance, act of self-love in “Deciding to Marry Myself.”
Jessica Care Moore’s “I’m a Hip Hop Cheerleader” carries as a hip hop ballad and battle for women, witnessing herself and other women who continue to represent. She masterfully repeats the music sample lines from “There I go, There I go” (from “Same Song” by Tupac and Digital Underground) in the middle and toward the end of the poem (p 191) and changes the lyrics to,
there she go
there she goes...
An ending that has no end and pushes us to come along with her in a wave of optimism and change for new voices to enter. Thank you, Jessica Care Moore!
tight.
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