Turning The TablesPoems For Billie Holiday And Bessie Smith From The Blair House Collective
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In the fall of 2018, Adia Victoria approached Ciona Rouse and Caroline Randall Williams about coming together for a group reading to celebrate her work as a blues musician. After attempts to meet at various locations all over town, the three women found themselves at Caroline's house on Blair Blvd. The house is old, high-ceilinged, wild and bought and paid for by another black woman writer — novelist Alice Randall.
When Adia, Ciona and Caroline sat down on the black velvet couch in the Blair House living room, a sisterhood was born. Together the three women have worked to number a series of creative projects together. The first, a series of poems devoted to Rosie, a blues woman of their own conception, inspired them to start thinking about the living, breathing, earthbound women who inspired their archetypal Rosie. Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith were the natural next thought.
Each member of the collective has written two poems — one for Billie, one for Bessie — and "plaited" a third. The Plait Poem, as we call it, consists of three stanzas. The first stanza is made up of lines from Adia and Caroline's poems, selected and arranged — or plaited — by Ciona. The second stanza is made up of lines from Ciona and Caroline's poems, selected and plaited by Adia. The third stanza is made up of lines from Adia and Ciona's poems, selected and plaited by Caroline. The exercise of trusting your sisters to find new ways to lift your words and share your stories is a hallmark of the Blair House Collective's collaborative work and spirit. —The Blair House Collective
Billie Poems
"HOLIDAY"
by Ciona Rouse
even though he made himself a stranger.
Lady claims truth from her larynx
looks the man in the eye, calls out his strange
bedfellows. Although the dart of her lips rise
at dawn, the day is blue and glows something strange.
A lady's father is killed today the way they
killed her father then. Do you hear the strain gently
pulse in her throat? Lady, too, is killed
then, black and restrained, just
the way a black lady still holds
and releases and dies today.
"Billie"
by Adia Victoria
just so onstage
gardenias splayed open
displayed mid-scream as crown upon her head
their impossible white
temporal, yes, yet--
by images are myths
made to rest
the lady remains both
siren and silent, wired
upright, electric in our memory still.
i wonder after the final note
dragged out riding the collapse
of your breath
do you release rough
arms and straining breast in the snatch
of solitude you could collect
when the curtain falls?
do you ease out from under
those gardenias?
do you smile at the petals
so dead-ended, now touched
by spreading brown?
"Treble"
by Caroline Randall Williams
in the home / this / high / yellow / moan
oh its violent / all white / everything / is violent
yes violent / yes / light / skin only mean
one thing / trouble
trouble to get / trouble to wear / a hard
story / a half mirror / this skin / mean
my blood / trouble / a high /in the voice
treble / junk for the high / trouble/ get white
in the head / it's violent
do you see / this sweet brown
in my hand / can you see me / seeing you
see me dark my skin to play
detroit / can you call me a lady
for the treble hours / those high white
notes of daylight / trouble / strain
my vein / for that treble/
/it's violent/
so I get alright / with my all white / hey
can you hold that mirror / and my blues
just this high / yellow / arm trying
to get some on purpose junk in the blood
Bessie Poems
"SMITH"
by Ciona Rouse
a leaf alone, though surrounded by a whole colony of green
children of sky and sun. She shines and moonshines,
she slices until you see her own bone. She survives. These blues
in my veins tether to a woman lurching for oxygen and ochre.
Nobody knows no body's true except in song
so she do we do you do & breathe.
"Bessie"
by Adia Victoria
reaching through blood-watered
earth
Say her roots run
South to grapple against all
that red, red,
red war-blasted clay
Say she drown loose
sister graves packed still
inside Jim Crow fist
Say she rock awake
a whole shock of brown
seed scattered the whole
South over.
"Altar"
by Caroline Randall Williams
I said, Lord, let me get rough, like Bessie,
I said God Jesus sent me some of that Stop
singing to spit that unfettered flow
I don't know
which rules I follow
that I really believe in -- Bessie, let me be wild.
Let there be gin.
Let my body be its own prayer,
myself an altar to myself. I'm in my sin
I am of God and I'm in my sin
--come let me deliver me.
Plait Poem for Billie and Bessie
from "Billie," "Treble," "Bessie," and "Altar"
plaited by Ciona Rouse
This red in the bone / this / high / yellow / moan
oh its violent
Say she a well. Say her roots
grapple against all that red red red
Say she rough, like Bessie
Be wild / Be gin / Be myself an altar
I'm in my sin
Ease out from under those gardenias
from "HOLIDAY," "Treble," "SMITH," and "Altar"
plaited by Adia Victoria
this / high / yellow / moan
do you hear the strain gently
lord, let me get rough, like Bessie
let my body be its own prayer,
let me be wild then, black and restrained, just
the blues in my veins
lurching for oxygen and ochre
oh its violent
from "HOLIDAY," "Billie," "SMITH," and "Bessie"
plaited by Caroline Randall Williams
the way a black lady still holds and releases and dies today
Say she a well. Say She drown loose. Say She rock awake.
she shines and moonshines, she slices until you see her own bone.
Out from under those gardenias, the final
note riding the collapse,
so she do we do you do & breathe