dilletante

Dilettante: “A person who cultivates an area of interest, such as the arts, without real commitment or knowledge.” I prefer to think of myself as a person with a great capacity for curiosity. Do I lack knowledge or commitment? At the beginning, perhaps, but I don’t flit from one thing to another whenever a challenge presents itself. Yet “mastery” isn’t everyone’s goal; sometimes we learn enough just by allowing ourselves to be a beginner again. In some ways, it’s almost a disadvantage to be proficient in one field (writing) because you then feel quite humbled by your initial attempts at something new. My shadow puppetry class ended last weekend and it took a few days for me to feel good about my efforts. I was very aware of my limitations but I also made a serious attempt at learning new skills: I made my stage/screen out of a pizza box as demonstrated in class, and I added an Anansi character to my existing script. I should have developed a new, short sketch for the class instead of trying to animate my fairly detailed narrative. I barely got three scenes done before I realized that a story set in outer space isn’t really suited to shadow puppetry—unless you’re willing to have a white screen, which I’m not. So I signed up for Toy Theater II instead of the next shadow puppetry class and look forward to building another stage with the tools I’ve already acquired. I met the other fellows in my Black puppeteer residency last night and we were assured again and again by our mentors that it’s the process that matters most, not the final product. Which was a relief to many of us since we all have areas where we need help. Everyone’s got a project that will evolve over time—we just have to decide how the next eight weeks could best be used. I have three weeks before my next class starts so I’ll do a little research on my own, try making some puppets and sets, see how close I can get to the image that’s in my mind. Look into hiring an assistant. One of my classmates created a stunning tableau and it made me wonder if/how I actually want to use movement in my performance. Our shadow puppet instructors ended the class by sharing some of their own work and one play was done as a PowerPoint! Which is a good option for a solo puppeteer who only has two hands but multiple moving pieces…

Today I’m trying to focus on poetry and tomorrow I’ll need to give some time to the next dragon book. I sent the series to the organization that’s trying to restore the Forum and got an invitation to tour the building! I’m so excited. Urban Juncture just got a million-dollar grant to turn the Forum into a cultural hub for the community, which will include a Lorraine Hansberry theater. Amazing! I took a walk yesterday to see more of historic Bronzeville and there are so many buildings that have witnessed more than a century of change. How can I help them testify? I’ve got my cast of characters so I was looking for homes where they could have lived in the 1890s—neighbors to Ida B. Wells-Barnett and other important activists. But that book will have to wait…no flitting allowed! There’s enough space in my imagination for these ideas to marinate while I focus on the tasks at hand: writing a poem a day, building my toy theater, finishing the outline for Book #5. This is the poem I wrote on Thursday…

 

I don’t want to write about Ukraine even though

I cry every night while watching the news and

fume when I empty my spam folder each morning

and find at least eight messages insisting that

Beautiful Ukrainian Girls Are Waiting To Meet You

I want to write about the innocent children of Yemen

who are dying of starvation and the women in northern

Ethiopia being gang-raped by soldiers every bit as evil

as the Russians in Bucha but I haven’t shed any tears

over them because the media isn’t covering those

conflicts 24/7 (or at all) BLACK LIVES MATTER and

when I pointed that out on Facebook a White friend

accused me of whataboutism (after declaring his anti-

Zionist credentials) and I am tired of all the spaces

where I am expected to be silent and offer sympathy

to those who despise me and my kind BLACK LIVES

MATTER Tedros dared to say as much but couldn’t

say it outright of course because they hate him

already for being a Black African running the World

Health Organization and steady reminding the west

that they will never be safe—not even after three four

or five booster shots—if the rest of the planet has been

left unprotected BLACK LIVES MATTER a White cop in

Grand Rapids shot Patrick Lyoya a Congolese refugee in

the back of the head over license plates last week he was

already on the ground on top of the man we’re only seeing

the footage now of course ten days later and the cop

turned off his bodycam near the end but someone filmed

it from the street I am tired today could barely haul myself

out of bed and out for a run but I have to take care of my

health because who else will took some photos of the tulips

and daffodils bending but not breaking against the brutal

wind that sort of scene translates easily into verse that’s

the poem I expected to write today because I committed

to writing one poem a day for the month of April but

instead I have written about the war

this is my poem for Ukraine

this is it

it’s all I’ve got

BLACK LIVES MATTER

© Zetta Elliott

#NationalPoetryMonth2022

 

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