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April 09, 2008 |
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For Lack of a Black Pen
FOUND by Mama Grouch
in South Minneapolis along 38th Street, Minnesota
I like the fact that the author took a running start with the prototype and then just busted loose with the poem.
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Back OFF! November 03, 2007 |
George March 16, 2007 |
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We collect FOUND stuff: love letters, birthday cards, kids' homework,
to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, telephone bills, doodles -
anything that gives a glimpse into someone
else's life. Anything goes...
"black is the color of the shadows my people run from"
lol.
my people.
I also like the blue pen part.
Let my people run!
Love it! Props to Minneapolis, 38th street finally made it to found. Keep up the good work!
Every night at 11:00 MDT I check both Woot and Found because they both change at the same time. Tonight when I went to Woot, I thought I had gone to Found by mistake. Pretty funny photo there.
Wonder which "my people" it is? A lot of people run from shadows. I'm more for running from whatever's CASTING the shadow...but find out what it is, first!
my gravestone will say something like,
'it's yin yang, you fools"
My people use pencils. We run from nothing.
"same as with in a funeral"
I guess black is not the color of English class.
Black is the absence of color.
I'm with you, Lars.
I love the serious tone of it... until you get to the pen part! That was my favorite.
reading too much, that's my favourite part, too. I love the incongruity of it.
That's people burning tires. Stop it rednecks!
It's not easy facing up when your whole world is black.
@black and blue in my heart, white is the absence of color, black is all the colors mixed together.
The writing...in this... Find...is...so...bad...
must...resist...urge...to be ... overly critical...so people...don't think...I'm a total...ass..(Arggghhh growing weaker....)
Best poem ever!
Please pass the Twinkie wrapper - I need something better to read than this.
I like that the finder is called Mama Grouch.
I don't think it's so bad for a rough draft. Before computers, we had rough drafts. They looked like this mid-edit. This looks exactly like my handwriting on one of my rough draft poems when I was in 6th or 7th grade. At first I thought it WAS mine. The part about the blue pen is like something I would have written too. But I don't think I've ever been to Minneapolis.
Black is the color of my true love's hair
Her lips are like some roses fair
She has the sweetest smile the gentlest hands
And I love the ground whereon she stands...
(Sorry. Had a Celtic Moment.)
I love how intense the Found's author is trying to be... Right up until the end. I imagine it being a class exercise and the teacher calling time and the kid going "aawwwww fug it!" *scribble scribble scribble* "There. Done."
What is woot?
Great find! Love the last sentence, of course.
I read this and thought about that scene in Liar Liar where Jim Carrey is trying to write "The Pen is Black" but he can't lie and ends up right "The Pen is Blue" all over the place.
this poem is VERY similar to a song by Black Star - so much so I think it is based on it. Here's a segment of the lyrics:
Black like my baby girl's stare
Black like the veil that the muslimina wear
Black like the planet that they fear, why they scared?
Black like the slave ship that later brought us here
Black like the cheeks that are roadways for tears
that leave black faces well traveled with years
Black like assassin crosshairs
Blacker than my granddaddy armchair
He never really got no time to chill there
Cause this life is warfare, warfare
@Smallbear, you have it exactly backwards. White is all colors, black is no color. (Of course, this works with light but not Crayolas, which may be why so many people are confused about it.)
Loving this. So deep and dramatic
Ian, you are correct about light. . .but Smallbear is correct as well. In this case we're dealing with art and colors on paper, so i'm going with Black is the combination of all colors.
It's like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black.
@nadine- I thought the same thing about Liar Liar!
I wonder if this was a decision made to write a poem entitled "Black" with a blue pen on blue lined paper or if it was a realization at the conclusion... We're probably giving way more credit than it deserves.
I wonder what people would say about the lists of the US states that I would write when I was bored in class in college? And then what they would assume when the newer lists included the capitals after I had mastered the states? I bet this is a boredom induced poem...
Hey, up to my ears! I do the same thing! And the presidents too. I might not pay attention in economics, but I could kick ass on Jeopardy.
As to this find, I remember having to write stupid color poems in 8th grade English. Damn Ying-Yang Twins teaching the younger generation to mispell yin-yang!
Ahh, you must be emo. Adam and Andrew wrote a song about you, dude.
a little local info (from a local -- eeks! I'm disclosing more personal information!). 38th Street runs west from the Mississippi River bluffs through diverse urban neighborhoods -- some rougher than others -- and effectively terminates at a huge cemetery nestled in the chain of lakes of the swank Uptown area.
It's not the main drag (Lake Street, eight blocks north, claims that title), but its a secondary residential/commercial thoroughfare.
From those who live, work, bus, and walk along 38th Street, this poem could conceivably been written by a Somali, White, Hmong, Black, Lao, Latin, Native, Khmer, Ethiopian -- giving expansive range to the concept of "my people" and different ethnic twists on its images. The would-be poet might be wealthy, "middle class" (whatever that means), or poor.
I like its urban-style gravitas, immediately lifted by the absurdity of the ink. Harp on its petty grammatical gaffs all day, but you can't discredit its compelling soul. Well, that sounds like an unintended challenge. Someone will probably try.
@Brian: this is a pretty commonplace poetic formula (color similes -- a mainstay of primary/secondary school poetry units) and none of the images bear much resemblance to Black Star's. I'd say it's tough to argue it as a source for the find.
Black is the colour of my heading cos I'm not signed in.
'have same as with in a funeral'?
What?
(Spam protection: '1+1+1 equals?'
I put '11' but it rejected it.
There are 10 sorts of people -- those who unerstand binary numbers and those who don't.)
@NSCACMH: You may not be so clever at creating a handle, but you are definitely more than clever at information. Scintillating springs to mind.
Thank you. The last time I was in Minneapolis was in the mid-60s. I had no idea it was so diverse. I bet you can't even get lutefisk there anymore. ;)
Brian - That's exactly what I thought of when I saw it, and now I have that song stuck in my head.
jonathan - i would have responded the same way. yahoo for binary numbers.
about the poem - when i was in jr. high, this was how i cured my boredom in english class. i had a notebook full of old poems and stories. i'm now giong to have to raid my mothers attic!
@NSCACMH: Great description of 38th and the incredible ethnic diversity around that area. To pinpoint the found location more accurately, I picked this up right outside of Sabathani Community Center on 3rd and 38th. This would lend credence to those of you who are thinking it was a boredom poem or school assignment, they have a lot of school-type activities going on in the building. I was assuming it came from someone in there.
This is absolutely hilarious, I hope beyond hope that this isn't a school kids boredom poem, I desperately want it to be a piece of satirical performance poetry. It is genius.
I love this!
for me, the color poem unit was in the 5th grade.. blue is the sky, blue is a van, blue is the face of a very sad man... (retch)
I see a red door and I want to paint it black.
Re: yingyang...where I came from, it was a euphemism for "asswhole" as in "I've got chocolate cake up the yingyang, you want to take some home?" Why this was an acceptable slang phrase to mean "far too much of something" I don't know.
Yeah, what is Woot? I tried but I got an online wine vendor out of Texas. I want to see Woot.
@Ian I was thinking of what my Elementary Art teacher taught me many years ago, when I posted, not light. Didn't think of light at all in fact, but what you say makes sense.
@Putting Pen to paper, thanks for helping to educate and clarify Ian and myself on this subject.
I loved it.
LOVE
the blue pen
part of course.
Thank you Ian. I was thinking of the light spectrum and not the color wheel when I said "black is the absence of color" this morning.
Putting Pen to Paper, I could argue with you that we're dealing with art and colors on this Find, but I don't really care. It's not always right to be right.
My grandmother called all of her grandchildren "ying-yangs" when we'd do stupid stuff.
My 7th grade science teacher would not accept homework in any other color pen except black. (He must have been "penist". He was a real dick.)
Whenever I found out what a yin-yang symbol was called, it must have taken me forever to be able to say it. The neighborhood I grew up in had a very large Asian population, mostly Vietnamese and "yang" was a racial slur against them, I probably heard it everyday, but it was a really diverse area, so we also learned a diverse lot of slurs at a young age. On the bright side, I learned how to curse in Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, Tagalog, and Spanish. Too bad I can't remember much of it now.
@Tang and everyone else who want to know what woot is try this address:
http;//www.woot.com/
It worked for me. The picture of a very diminutive Batman and Robin is really funny and cute.
The author's first mistake was starting off without the proper color pen; a writer always keeps proper writing instruments close at hand.
I'm getting a very 'black' feeling from this poem.
Blue is the new black! But it will be back. Back in Black!
*****
Alice in the looking glass. That's a great song but I love Nina Simone's dark and sultry version:
Black is the color of my true love's hair
His face so soft and wondrous fair
The purest eyes
and the strongest hands
I love the ground on where he stands
I love the ground on where he stands
Black is the color of my true love's hair
Of my true love's hair
Of my true love's hair
Oh I love my lover
and where he goes
yes, I love the ground on where he goes
And still I hope
that the time will come
when he and I will be as one
when he and I will be as one
So black is the color of my true love's hair
Black is the color of my true love's hair
Black is the color of my true love's hair
Hey Jonathan, I think they are looking for addition in base 10, not base 2... In which case the correct answer is 0 mod 3
"but blue for this paper, because I don't have a black pen."
best ending ever .