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Adam Falkner
Adam Falkner is a multiple-time member and coach of national poetry slam teams representing the youth community of Ann Arbor, The University of Michigan, and infamous Nuyorican Poets Café in New York City, which recently placed 5th in the nation at the 2008 National Poetry Slam in Madison, Wisconsin. Adam’s work has appeared in anthologies, magazines and academic journals, and his solo hip-hop LP (Control the Circle - 2005) has sold upwards of 5,000 copies. He and his students participated in the filming of an upcoming HBO documentary project focusing on Brave New Voices 2008, the National Youth Poetry Slam Festival in Washington, D.C. A collection of his latest poems and essays is forthcoming.
Adam is a National Associate for the Prison Creative Arts Project (PCAP) and the recipient of a National Martin Luther King Jr. Spirit Award in higher education. He currently teachers 11th and 12th grade English and Creative Writing at PROGRESS High School in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and is pursuing a Masters degree in Secondary English Education. Adam is a graduate of The University of Michigan, where in addition to earning a Bachelors degree in Creative Writing, he crafted his own independent academic concentration in the areas of Race Relations and Whiteness studies – the first of its kind at the university. He currently lives in Brooklyn.
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for david lee:
a fellow teacher who, during my first month in the
classroom, was shot and killed on his way into work
passing
barely just above the bar
trembling and chin raised
is camouflage
for students in my class
it is safe
like ninth inning cleats up
dust clouds
(out or not
your dirty
and that's cool)
it is
acrobatic tap dance
tailored for the tongue
like "good hair"
like "almost"
like sewn on name brands
it is mimicking to fit like same-shade
non-border pieces
in a jigsaw
hidden and unassuming like
a bladed edge napping in
flesh of an inner-cheek
what passing is not
is bullet through neck
on steps to the f train
or twitching like fly-bodies snared
against honey, it is not
the innards of a throat
gushing pulpy and black from the mouth
for a second hand watch, a pocket twenty crumpled
and church-to-work-week-graduated wingtips
with a wife and two daughters in college, it is not
how a 40-year teaching career should end
gruesome
and alone
to the pitter-pat of rat feet over iron grate platforms
it is more like what storm clouds do
when the worst moves beyond what we can see
Dear Grand Street Faculty:
We regret to inform you
of the recent passing of David Lee.
For information regarding a memorial service,
please see the payroll secretary in room 209.
a memo
in the mailroom
two weeks late
complete with
scotch tape and
spelling errors
costumed like the swallow and spit of
gentrification, call it what it ain't and
add bleach so the stains come loose
in the wash like sweater yarn
call it a passing
because
words like
"murder" and
"left for dead"
and "teachers being expendable"
and "lying because it's easier"
stink too much like the smoke
of something burning
reek too heavy like the rest of the story
like fatherless homes
and the manhood a gun gives
why the language demanded to
capture the way our blood bleeds
the hammers in our mouths
that we are taught to never bite become
brittle, loose steam, jam up
why our words seem to forget they can be stringless
when a murder ain't a murder
and it's just another happenstance
and silence is the only needle needed
to stitch our lips together
from questioning the camouflage:
how my classrooms
are beginning to blend immaculate
with 16 year olds
chained to each other on
a rickety old and overheated
number nine bus
upstate
how there are too many reasons as to
why a boy becomes broken enough
for the rush and weight of warm glock in hand
to fill the void of having never been
taught how to shave his face
or how to compliment a women
and why the shards of his life
are kicked and spread apart like
air force ones
in a routine strip-search
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© Adam Falkner
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