AUDIO of THIS BE THE VERSE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rjRYSfCJvM

Philip Larkin

“This Be The Verse”

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

AUDIO of DOUCHEBAG ODE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPF_yj22wZU

Sharon Olds

“Douchebag Ode”

When I hear the young refer to someone as a douchebag
I want to say, “You may have never seen a douchebag.
They were red rubber bags like hot water bottles
You’d fill it and hang it high enough so that gravity….
I can’t go on….”

I see my mother’s douchebag, my poor mom’s
pathetic douchebag, with its clamps
and its aorta tubes, dangling over the bathtub
awesomely shameful,
and which reminded me, I’d been some
kind of catsup Halloween costume in her
almost before I was human.
And so to call someone a saline sac?
Let’s take some pity on the creepiness
of how women were treated in the 1950s.
It drove my mother crazy, but she did the best she could.
She never turned and said,
“I could have got rid of you, my little Valentine,
but I gave you the warm, rose-colored
lunch bag of the placenta, I gave you
my heart to eat,”

and now I remember it, not my mother’s,
but mine, like a dowry,
lock the door, then
hang it from the shower rod
like food hung over a bough
out of wild animal reach
slide the perforated wand inside
you then unclasp the clamp
then Lo, you are a night clearing
in which a fountain of Aphrodite leaps up
and cascades down, making her music,
her brine sea-chantey,
her sparkling douchebag song.

AUDIO of HOLY SHIT: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/play/75054

Peter Pereira

“Holy Shit”

It used to be more private—just the
immediate family gathered after mass,
the baptismal font at the rear
of the church tiny as a bird bath.
The priest would ladle a few teaspoons’
tepid holy water on the bundled baby’s
forehead, make a crack about the halo
being too tight as the new soul wailed.
We’d go home to pancakes and eggs.

These days it’s a big Holy-wood production—
midmass, the giant altar rolls back to reveal
a Jacuzzi tub surrounded by potted palms.
The priest hikes up his chasuble, steps
barefoot out of his black leather loafers
and wades in like a newfangled John as
organ music swells and the baby-bearing families
line up like jumbo jets ready for takeoff.

But when the godparents handed my niece’s newborn
naked to their parish priest, and he dunked her
into the Jacuzzi’s bath-warm holy water,
her little one grew so calm and blissful she
pooped—not a smelly three-days’ worth, explosive
diaper load, but enough to notice. As the godparents
scooped the turds with a handkerchief,
the savvy priest pretended he hadn’t seen,
swept through the fouled water with his palm
before the next baby in line was submerged.

After mass, my niece sat speechless,
red-faced, not knowing what to say—
or whether—as church ladies, friends, and
family members presented one by one to
the tub where the babies had been
baptized. As they knelt and bowed
and dipped their fingers in,
and blessed themselves.

Franny Choi

“Impulse Buy”

bugzapper dress
laughing teeth beacon whats
yr name again dress
filled w/my hips (not fables of yr
lips & pulling me close &
saying the word beautiful) so
hot shit dress. oh i cum
from the future dress
electric zinging super christ & fuck
that! dress. what’s that?
phone #? passwd.s? well, that’s for me
to keep and you to
drool for. in which case:
mr. pavlov bell/ringer dress
take a number & get in line dress
neon polish, programmed to scoff.
bathroom fuck dress. highball hookup
greygoose in splintered shotgunz pow/pow/
we die soon dress. hair dye blue dress.
sloppy wink dress. chlorine in the sink dress.
me without you dress

AUDIO of THIS IS A FUCKING POEM: https://media.sas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/Wagner/4-15-10/Wagner-Catherine_17_This-is-a-Fucking-Poem_Xavier-Univ_4-15-10.mp3

Catherine Wagner

“This Is a Fucking Poem”

don’t expect too much.

Well I expect you to go into the
fucking human tunnel
I’m going.

pink grimy glossed
entabulature, welted
and tattooed. Enfolded in
ropy ceiling-hangings
but it isn’t a room,

and bumblingly sliding
out, little legs of

a little girl, bum on the wall/opening

pink legs sticking out like a
hermit crab’s, she’s coming!

shudder out the little-girl
legs with a little
girl head mostly eyes, no ears,
bug brain, aimless

Send her to school

It’s cold, and where should she
go, she will eat her
legs with her mandibles

her eyes will retract inside.

Stroke her riding hood
Settle down, little

nobody will hurtcha

by breaking off your little legs,
six little legs,
if you come.

AUDIO of AT THE DOWN-LOW HOUSE PARTY: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq6Cc2ISUKU

Danez Smith

“at the down-low house party”

don’t expect no nigga to dance.
we drink hen, hold the wall

graze an elbow & pray it last forever.
everybody wants to touch a nigga, but don’t.

we say wats gud meaning i could love you until my jaw
is but memory, we say yo meaning let my body

be a falcon’s talon & your body be the soft innards of goats
but we mostly say nothing, just sip

some good brown trying to get drunk
with permission. sometime between here

& being straight again, some sweet
boned, glittering boi shows up, starts voguing & shit

his sharp hips pierce our desire, make our mouths water
& water & we call him faggot meaning bravery

faggot meaning often dream
of you, flesh damp & confused for mine

faggot meaning Hail the queen! Hail the queen!
faggot meaning i been waited ages to dance with you.

AUDIO for N.Y. STATE OF MIND: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hI8A14Qcv68

Nas

“N.Y. State of Mind”

Yeah, yeah
Ayo, Black—it’s time, word (Word, it’s time, man)
It’s time, man (Aight, man, begin)
Yeah—straight out the fuckin’ dungeons of rap
Where fake niggas don’t make it back
I don’t know how to start this shit, yo—now;

[Verse 1]
Rappers; I monkey flip ’em with the funky rhythm
I be kickin’, musician inflictin’ composition
Of pain, I’m like Scarface sniffin’ cocaine
Holdin’ an M16, see, with the pen I’m extreme
Now, bullet holes left in my peepholes
I’m suited up with street clothes, hand me a 9 and I’ll defeat foes
Y’all know my steelo, with or without the airplay
I keep some E&J, sittin’ bent up in the stairway
Or either on the corner bettin’ Grants with the cee-lo champs
Laughin’ at base-heads, tryna sell some broken amps
G-packs get off quick, forever niggas talk shit
Reminiscin’ about the last time the task force flipped
Niggas be runnin’ through the block shootin’
Time to start the revolution, catch a body, head for Houston
Once they caught us off-guard, the MAC-10 was in the grass, and
I ran like a cheetah, with thoughts of an assassin
Picked the MAC up, told brothers “Back up!” — the MAC spit
Lead was hittin’ niggas, one ran, I made him back-flip
Heard a few chicks scream, my arm shook, couldn’t look
Gave another squeeze, heard it click, “Yo, my shit is stuck!”
Tried to cock it, it wouldn’t shoot, now I’m in danger
Finally pulled it back and saw three bullets caught up in the chamber
So, now I’m jettin’ to the buildin’ lobby
And it was full of children, prob’ly couldn’t see as high as I be
(So, what you sayin’?) It’s like the game ain’t the same
Got younger niggas pullin’ the triggers, bringin’ fame to their name
And claim some corners, crews without guns are goners
In broad daylight, stick-up kids, they run up on us
.45’s and gauges, MAC’s in fact
Same niggas will catch you back-to-back, snatchin’ your cracks
In black, there was a snitch on the block gettin’ niggas knocked
So hold your stash ’til the coke price drop
I know this crackhead who said she gotta smoke nice rock
And if it’s good, she’ll bring you customers and measuring pots
But yo, you gotta slide on a vacation
Inside information keeps large niggas erasin’ and their wives basin’
It drops deep as it does in my breath
I never sleep, ’cause sleep is the cousin of death
Beyond the walls of intelligence, life is defined
I think of crime when I’m in a New York State of Mind
[Chorus]
New York state of mind
New York state of mind
New York state of mind
New York state of mind

[Verse 2]
Be havin’ dreams that I’m a gangsta, drinkin’ Moëts, holdin’ TEC’s
Makin’ sure the cash came correct, then I stepped
Investments in stocks, sewin’ up the blocks to sell rocks
Winnin’ gunfights with mega-cops
But just a nigga walkin’ with his finger on the trigger
Make enough figures until my pockets get bigger
I ain’t the type of brother made for you to start testin’
Give me a Smith & Wesson, I’ll have niggas undressin’
Thinkin’ of cash flow, Buddha and shelter
Whenever frustrated, I’ma hijack Delta
In the PJ’s, my blend tape plays, bullets are strays
Young bitches is grazed, each block is like a maze
Full of black rats trapped, plus the Island is packed
From what I hear in all the stories when my peoples come back
Black, I’m livin’ where the nights is jet-black
The fiends fight to get crack, I just max, I dream I can sit back
And lamp like Capone, with drug scripts sewn
Or the legal luxury life, rings flooded with stones, homes
I got so many rhymes, I don’t think I’m too sane
Life is parallel to Hell, but I must maintain
And be prosperous, though we live dangerous
Cops could just arrest me, blamin’ us; we’re held like hostages
It’s only right that I was born to use mics
And the stuff that I write is even tougher than dykes
I’m takin’ rappers to a new plateau, through rap slow
My rhymin’ is a vitamin held without a capsule
The smooth criminal on beat breaks
Never put me in your box if your shit eats tapes
The city never sleeps, full of villains and creeps
That’s where I learned to do my hustle, had to scuffle with freaks
I’m a addict for sneakers, 20’s of Buddha and bitches with beepers
In the streets I can greet ya, about blunts I teach ya
Inhale deep like the words of my breath
I never sleep, ’cause sleep is the cousin of death
I lay puzzled as I backtrack to earlier times
Nothing’s equivalent to the New York state of mind

[Chorus]
New York state of mind
New York state of mind
New York state of mind
New York state of mind

[Outro: Sample]
“Nasty Nas—”