{"id":5808,"date":"2013-04-28T22:02:06","date_gmt":"2013-04-29T02:02:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/?p=5808"},"modified":"2013-04-28T22:02:06","modified_gmt":"2013-04-29T02:02:06","slug":"day-28-of-national-poetry-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/04\/day-28-of-national-poetry-month.html","title":{"rendered":"day #28 of National Poetry Month ~"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

\"image\"<\/a>I’m the kind of traveler who immerses herself — as far it’s possible — in the history of the places I visit. I want to know about the ‘actual’ history — who, when, where, why. But I also want to know the foods, the music, the arts and the weather and the names of birds that sing outside the window.<\/span><\/h3>\n

So it’s a lovely afternoon in Makawao, and I’m scrolling through websites, looking for poems by and \/or about Hawai’i. \u00a0This is one of several I find (courtesy\u00a0of the Poem in Your Pocket Hawai’i Edition <\/a>site).<\/p>\n

Domestic violence is a huge problem in Maui, as it is in many places with huge divides between haves & have-nots. As it is among many victims of racism & classism and other isms. And children are always the collateral damage…<\/p>\n

Here’s ‘Wrecks’ by Tyler Miranda. The structure & syntax owe a debt to Pidgin<\/a>, the Hawai’ian Creole language shaped by the island’s diverse speakers:<\/p>\n

Wrecks<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Outside our house on P\u016bp\u016b Street,
\nI play with my Star Wars figures.
\nI went cut holes in the Styrofoam Big Mac container,
\nmake space ship, ah.
\nHo, I make Luke Skywalker fly all around,
\nDarth Vader no can catch him.
\nMy father, he yelling at my mother again.
\nBut me, I just keep playing,
\npretend I get deaf ear.
\nLuke, he the best pilot in the galaxy,
\nfly around the tree,
\nover the flower bed,
\nthrough the rose bushes.
\nLuke, he fly across the yard,
\nhe think he lost Darth Vader,
\nbut then, lasers start shooting at him.
\nHe make any kine moves for dodge the blasts.
\nCan hear my mother yelling at my father now,
\nshe asking him for put something back.
\nLuke, he turn around and fly straight into Darth Vader’s ship,
\ncan hear glass breaking,
\nthen my father come out of the house,
\npunching the screen door open
\nand fling my mother’s bird on the ground.
\nThe buggah went skip on the concrete,
\nlook like one pebble on water.
\nI look at my father,
\ncan hear my mother crying inside,
\nhe look at me,
\nI get one smashed Styrofoam spaceship in one hand,
\nLuke’s undamaged one in the other.
\nHis eyes come small,
\nlooking straight at me he say,
\n“That fuckah never going fly around my house again.
\nShit on everything.
\nFricken bird.”
\nHe look at me little bit more,
\nno blink,
\nhis tongue digging the inside of his mouth.
\nMy mother start cussing at him from inside the house,
\nhe go back inside,
\nready for continue the battle.
\nMe, I go look at my mother’s bird,
\nall hamajang,
\nthe wings spread,
\nthe head crooked to the left–
\nstill twitching.
\nMy stomach come all funny kine,
\nlike when I like beef with somebody at school.
\nI start making fists,
\nthe Styrofoam space ships popping between my fingers,
\nmy hands shaking.
\nBefore I could stop,
\nI went fly my spaceships across the yard.
\nWent get stuck in the rose bushes.
\nI looked down at my mother’s bird,
\nthe thing stop moving,
\nthe feet all curl,
\nget feather skid marks
\nand blood on the concrete.
\nI touch the wings and think,
\nat least you had one chance for fly.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m the kind of traveler who immerses herself — as far it’s possible — in the history of the places I visit. I want to know about the ‘actual’ history — who, when, where, why. But I also want to know the foods, the music, the arts and the weather and the names of birds…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[11,1181,1187,262,468,531,318,1190,529,530],"class_list":["post-5808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-beginners-heart","tag-britton-gildersleeve","tag-buddhism","tag-buddhist-blogs","tag-domestic-violence","tag-hawaiian-poems","tag-national-poetry-month","tag-poetry","tag-tyler-miranda","tag-wrecks"],"yoast_head":"\nday #28 of National Poetry Month ~ - Beginner's Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I'm the kind of traveler who immerses herself -- as far it's possible -- in the history of the places I visit. I want to know about the 'actual' history\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/04\/day-28-of-national-poetry-month.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"day #28 of National Poetry Month ~ - Beginner's Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I'm the kind of traveler who immerses herself -- as far it's possible -- in the history of the places I visit. I want to know about the 'actual' history\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/04\/day-28-of-national-poetry-month.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beginner's Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-04-29T02:02:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/files\/2013\/04\/image13-150x150.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Britton Gildersleeve\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"day #28 of National Poetry Month ~ - Beginner's Heart","description":"I'm the kind of traveler who immerses herself -- as far it's possible -- in the history of the places I visit. I want to know about the 'actual' history","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/04\/day-28-of-national-poetry-month.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"day #28 of National Poetry Month ~ - Beginner's Heart","og_description":"I'm the kind of traveler who immerses herself -- as far it's possible -- in the history of the places I visit. I want to know about the 'actual' history","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/04\/day-28-of-national-poetry-month.html","og_site_name":"Beginner's Heart","article_published_time":"2013-04-29T02:02:06+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/files\/2013\/04\/image13-150x150.jpg"}],"author":"Britton Gildersleeve","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/04\/day-28-of-national-poetry-month.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/04\/day-28-of-national-poetry-month.html","name":"day #28 of National Poetry Month ~ - Beginner's Heart","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/04\/day-28-of-national-poetry-month.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/04\/day-28-of-national-poetry-month.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/files\/2013\/04\/image13-150x150.jpg","datePublished":"2013-04-29T02:02:06+00:00","dateModified":"2013-04-29T02:02:06+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#\/schema\/person\/b4348bfbe2223c0ec325db830aa95f52"},"description":"I'm the kind of traveler who immerses herself -- as far it's possible -- in the history of the places I visit. I want to know about the 'actual' history","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/04\/day-28-of-national-poetry-month.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/04\/day-28-of-national-poetry-month.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/04\/day-28-of-national-poetry-month.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/files\/2013\/04\/image13-150x150.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/files\/2013\/04\/image13-150x150.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/04\/day-28-of-national-poetry-month.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"day #28 of National Poetry Month ~"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/","name":"Beginner's Heart","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Britton Gildersleeve","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#\/schema\/person\/b4348bfbe2223c0ec325db830aa95f52","name":"Britton Gildersleeve","description":"Britton Gildersleeve is a 'third culture kid.' Years spent living on the margins - in places with exotic names and food shortages - have left her with a visceral response to folks \u2018without,\u2019 as well as a desire to live her Buddhism in an engaged fashion. She\u2019s a writer and a teacher, the former director of a federal non-profit for teachers who write. She believes that if we talk to each other, we can learn to love each other (but she's still learning how). And she believes in tea. She is (still) working on her beginner's heart ~","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/author\/brittongildersleeve"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/398"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5808"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5824,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5808\/revisions\/5824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}