"hey dick, you're great"

Blah Blah Blah Poetry series!!

Blah Blah Blah Poetry Series TOMORROW NIGHT 3/26
featuring Ishle Yi Park and Ainsley Burrows
@ the Bowery Poetry Club 8pm!
308 bowery st
take the f train to 2nd ave
take the b,d train to bway Lafayette
take 6 train to bleeker st

OPEN MIC
5 dollars with student ID
7 dollars without

Be there!

brown-rihanna reinactment

I'm not sure how I feel about this. What do you guys think?

Writers Block Party aftermath

( left to right: Soulful Jones, Kesed, RIP, me, Falu, and Jason Reynolds)


I particularly enjoy this show because it connects and even reconciles having a good time and being socially or politically conscious where as often we see them in opposition to each other. Most people think poetry is the voice of an oppressive, depressed, or highly romanticized individual and that simply because you talk about such matters linguistically or subject wise that in fact you are the entirety of that. I would care to argue that it is because I write about such things or in such ways that I can be typically a happy and very hopeful person. The subjects or moods of my poems do not define the person I am off stage or behind the page, it simply creates a mode of creativity where I can express certain feelings and thoughts and given experiences. I think it is a very stupid thing to judge a person entirely based upon their work but I do believe it holds a given amount of weight into the perspective of an individual.
As for Writers Block, a friend, poet, and emcee RIP brought this collective together and it has proven to always be an incredible evening. The smooth and often anticipated transition from poetry to party is almost miraculous. One moment all you hear the crowd saying is "ooooohhhh" "ahhhh" "spit that shit" damn!" "woowww" in amazement of the poems to jerking and jiving, gyrating and jiggling. How we can manuver easily from the sensory importance of listening, being moved through words and thoughts to then being moved physically from the bumping rhythm of your all time favorite hip hop, pop, and reggae music. It feels like a complete house party at the bowery poetry club. I commend RIP for bringing together some dynamic artists and an incredible audience. I kid you not, there had to be around 250 people stuffed into the Bowery this past thursday and it was something to witness for sure.

Any way, I didn't even mean to speak about this I actually wanted to share photos that were taken that night from a friend of mine, Nelson Caban. He's an artist in all respects of the word and was kind enough to come through and take some photos for me. Check em out HERE and keep up with him on his BLOG as well. For those of you that came out to this amazing show, I hope you all made it home safe and that we were able to plant some seeds as well as water them. Much love and mad blessings. good times.

always, aja-monet

share a poem

here's a poem by an old poetry professor of mine, Jeffrey Mcdaniel, he's an incredible accomplished author and performer and I encourage you all to search out his body of work in your local book store ( i recommend The Splinter Factory). He is truly a metaphor god in some universe. enjoy.

always,
aja-monet

what do you remember?

Here's an exercise a professor gave real quick for getting a list poem: write 10 sentences starting with "I remember"
7minutes

I remember list
by aja-monet

I remember the freckled summer sky we met beneath.
I remember your breath grazing my neck.
I remember your laughter disturbing the wind.
I remember your toes shedding from the cold.
I remember the frame and portrait of your body mounted up against the wall like a family heirloom.
I remember the forest of your skin after a shower.
I remember your grandmother stuttering through her memories of you and how light left your face.
I remember the time you called me crazy and I put all your socks in your underwear drawer.
I remember putting you in a head lock while we wrestled through each others bodies.
I remember scaling your razor bumps like braille.

pictures!

Some may know that I admire the art of photography a great deal and am hoping to seriously pursue photography in the coming year. but in the mean time i love to be the lady in front of the camera as well as behind it. a great professor of mine once told me that all pictures are a self portrait of the photographer and i found that quite interesting. but i say all of this to say-- let this be a notice to all photographers...if you need a lovely lady to take pictures of as long as they arent nude photos (unless it involves painting the body) i'm down. haha. who says i cant be america's next top model. sike. i can't deal. but here are some photos a man by the name of peter dressel took not too long ago for an independent project he is working on. please check him out at peterdressel.com Let me know what you guys think.

always,
aja-monet

lawrence road middle school

here's a short poem by a 13 year old girl from uniondale whose a part of the poetry workshop i teach on fridays (the one with the glasses ;-):


ABC Blocks
by Ahzhanae Sands

we walk on air
look through mirrors
sit on front porches
and scream to the top of our lungs
as we capture teddy bears in combat boots
in glass cages.

share MY poem:

a list poem
by aja-monet

You are a steady storm
a street light trembling
a field of shivering homes
a rusted goodbye pressed gently against the ear
whisper me a hurricane,
you are the flood
you are the knuckles of trees
set aflame.
You are the sky’s shoulder blades breaking
a cloud threading open
an angel folding his hands
the aftermath
a chandelier of fire tilting in my eyes
every time you leave.

true hip-hop stories

so i stumbled across this video on facebook when i saw a friend of mine commenting on it. For some random reason I was drawn to look at this video, I mention this because normally I wouldn't look twice. I am glad that i did because I thought this was a great story to be told. for a short this was moving to say the least. I encourage those of you to watch this and check out Derrick "D-Nice" Jones if you don't already know about his dopeness, now you know. much love.

always,
aja-monet



True Hip-Hop Stories: Homeless Emcee from D-Nice on Vimeo.

since i havent shared my poems in a while....

Victim

by Aja-Monet

i do not live in this word
am not bitter, broken, or swoon
not scarred or ripped or
bleeding any of these types of blood.

you call me a wretched mistake of a word
and do not know
how I own every vein barbed around this heart,
have collected the scraps in this junk yard of a soul
for giving, gifts for you that I make
when you are away,
pretending the world has no spirits
watching you, living in you
and I make beautiful things
with these old window screens, these shards of glass,
and belt buckles
the missing father i found in a mirror
and a lady a lot like my mother who whimpers in my voice
and I am miracle
an arts and craft collage of some God
who has too much time on and in his hands.

lucky you,
a man who makes love with this woman
a woman who lives in the hands of some God.

um, is it just me?

it is MARCH which means this is the month we assigned to celebrate "women's history." And yet, I see NO celebrating going on except a few events here and there (scarce). What happened to the network television promos and montages to women, huh? I don't mean to be the raging feminist here--but uh, how about some damn parades, call in the troops ladies and bring the yogurt n soy milk commercials with you!! it seems we now feel less important than we already knew we were. hahaha. i kid, i kid. remember, things are changing. of course we're important! after all, we have vaginas now don't we. and we all know how wonderful vaginas are...we create moons and planets and miracles and little screaming people that come out of our bodies only to grow up and invent ridiculous concepts to hate other people for....ahh what greatness it is that is we. women. But no seriously, im totally not on my period, i promise. don't confuse this for pms anger. i'm not angry and i'm definitely not an angry black woman, why that would be ridiculous. in this day and age, women have more class than that, than to get angry and concerned with themselves. why, we just live in the idiot box as a nice accessory to your family household. awwww....ain't that somethin' special.

share a poem

Mahogany Browne put me onto Margaret. Shes pretty fresh.


The Moment
by Margaret Atwood

The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,

is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can't breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.

Do not miss this show!

This show has never failed to impress, with the best music, the best poetry, and the best people ever!!! Come through and come ready to dance, laugh, and be moved! Shout out to RIP.

little person dancing

haha okay, i know this may not be funny to anyone else but me. but i can live with that cuz this video gets me every time. i can not help but hysterically laugh when ever i see it no matter how many times. i hope you laugh as much as i do....

so i joined TWITTER!!!!!!!

yes, yes I know... I have become victim to the internet status update frenzy. sue me. it is all peer pressures fault and the need to be cool has overwhelmed my sense of internet humility. i have just about joined it all. but it is a means to create a mass following of little internet addicts that resemble myself...it is indeed a new age in technology and by all means if you can support a sister in her endeavor, please do. i rarely if ever ask for money via product or support in that way. dont really have product like some other hustling poets out there, taking care of biz, on they CD and self publish grind. I'm still very self critical in ways that has not allowed me to put my work to an actual CD or book. I did one chap book like a year and a half ago. only a few people have those. (i am working on my book manuscript as well as some future product possibilities so be on the look out)So I ask for your support via word of mouth and these internet networks. tell a friend, bring a lady-poet such as myself out to your college or venue to perform, or just stay posted. i mostly enjoy the live performances so thats where people can catch me, but in order to stay connected and to parade my coolness i am taking advantage of the quirky swag of internet networking sites. so i ask that you take the time to get on the aja-wave follow me on twitter, myspace, facebook, or here. More importantly, spread the word. i only ask that you share who i am and my work with folks.i am hoping to someday have greater influence in that way. however i can get folks connected positively using my art as a frame of reference for love, honesty, and activism. thats my movement.

Click here to follow me on TWITTER

Click here to add me on MYSPACE

share a poem

One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII

by Pablo Neruda

I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,

or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:

I love you as one loves certain obscure things,

secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries

the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,

and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose

from the earth lives dimly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,

I love you directly without problems or pride:

I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,

except in this form in which I am not nor are you,

so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,

so close that your eyes close with my dreams.

Translated by Mark Eisner

i got my own

so mad random--im secretly or maybe not so secretly in love with Ne-yo. I can't stop watching this video with him, Jamie Fox, and Fabolous and also that "Mad" video. current soundtrack to my life. haha-strange cause I usually be on my old soul and folk music, not so moved by popular songs today--but Ne-yo is another story...haha. the man's got lyric writing skills, which is fresh. i'm about his whole vibe. word: