[Music intro]

LYNNE THOMPSON: Hello! My name is Lynne Thompson, Poet Laureate for the City of Los Angeles and I’m so happy to welcome listeners to this installment of Poems on Air, a podcast supported by the Los Angeles Public Library. Every week, I’ll present the work of poets I admire, poets who you should know, and poets who have made a substantial and inimitable contribution to the art and craft of poetry.

LYNNE THOMPSON: Last, but certainly not least, among the 2022 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Prize finalists spotlighted on Poems on Air is francine j. harris. harris is the author of three collections of poetry and the first—allegiance—was a finalist for the Kate Tufts Poetry Prize. A Cave Canem Fellow and recipient of a Zell Fellowship from the University of Michigan, harris is an associate professor of English at the University of Houston.

LYNNE THOMPSON: Today’s poem is "My hair is falling out " by francine j. harris.

My hair is falling out

So bring it to the midnight crows and let them bring it to
a little black girl should she set out seeds of a sunflower.
May they wrap it around a chip of bright amber or tuck
it inside the nostril of a rotting field mouse. Hide age.
Teach her meat, she needs to know. Though the pink tendon
is worse as we age. like a gate at which we like to shut our
eyes. Rub the sore scalp. Sleep to Liszt and catch a snail
which they like it’s ok to make a world in which things
eat each other. Make room for believing. Climb down off 
the world dying and feed something. Open up the yard.

LYNNE THOMPSON: The Los Angeles Poet Laureate was created as a joint program between the City’s Department of Cultural Affairs and the Los Angeles Public Library and this podcast is available wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening!

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• Back to Poems on Air: Episode 60



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