This month we are celebrating the titles that we’ve acquired over the past twelve months. Some of them, like the one we’re pleased to present today, came to us by way of Nomadic Press. Read more about our plans to welcome Nomadic Press titles to Black Lawrence Press here. Today we bring you Norm Mattox, whose forthcoming book Evaporating Rage will be published next summer.
Have a manuscript you think we’d like? During our June Open Reading Period we are looking for poetry (chapbooks and full-length collections), short fiction (again, both chapbooks and full-length collections), novels, novellas, nonfiction (CNF, biography, cultural studies), anthology proposals, and translations from German.
The Author
Norm Mattox is a poet. He served as a bilingual educator in the public school system of San Francisco Unified School District for over 30 years. Though retired, Norm is a teacher (‘maestro’ in Spanish) for life. His poetry is a journey through the voices that tell a story of love in a time of struggle and challenge.
Norm has shared his poetry as a featured reader, at open mics around the San Francisco Bay Area, select venues in New York City and other parts of the world across the ‘zoom universe’. Norm’s poetry has been published in two chapbooks. His first collection is titled, Get Home Safe, Poems for Crossing the Community Grid. Norm’s second chapbook length collection is titled, Black Calculus, published in 2021 by Nomadic Press. An audiobook by the same title was released in 2021.
On Writing Evaporating Rage
Why these poems? Why now?
It was almost 10 years ago, while reading through some essays written by and interviews with James Baldwin, when I came across this quote; “To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a state of rage almost, almost all of the time…”
As a bilingual public school educator I could feel the stresses and the strain of working against those systems from within the education system. Writing my reflections in the forms of short essays and poetry became the “bones” for poems that comprise the “rage” portion of the work in this full collection of poems, Evaporating Rage, soon to be published by Black Lawrence Press.
Although many injustices and examples of inequity persist, retirement from the education system and writing poetry has helped me to dissipate the pent up rage that has roiled in my guts for most of my 30 year professional career. Evaporating Rage is a collection of poems that documents the tempest of our times and my navigation across shifting dimensions to be present in this moment. I am encouraged to express my encounters with inner voices that speak of the journey across my inner verses in search of love for self and others, joy for the simple things, and peace within the ongoing chaos of our times.
Selections from Evaporating Rage
my Black not blue enough?
as if
being ‘good’ or ‘bad’
makes one a ‘better’ victim
like this is a victim competition
as if
suffering
is the measure of
someone’s Blackness
as if
my trauma
is forgettable
when that’s all
my body remembers
as if
doing time
being on probation
are normal time intervals
between grades
between jobs
between generations
as if
hard times measured
the amount of struggle
overcoming the myth
american dreams sleep
in Black minds
as if
the facade of calm
resembles compliance
while it never belies
the toxic burden
of unrequited rage
cooking my guts
into a fricassé
as if
my truth
needed confirmation
by the ones
who never believe
a word i say,
anyway
as if
my life
is a problem
that someone else
has a solution for
and love is
the only answer.
Ancestral Diatribe
no one said it was simple
to put your hand on the doorknob
scroll through the masks you wear
so you can return home alive
revolution is not a spin through
your life cycle a stationary bike
going the speed of breathing
last breaths
evolution is change
at the mitochondrial
layer of consciousness
unknowing is not enough excuse
to sustain status quo
i believe dawn and dusk are instruction manuals we never read
we think we know
how to live in the light
of day,
how to be light in the dark
of night.
emotions are like unplanned adventures
mind plans bends time
plots a destination
becomes a map
crosses internal oceans
gets lost anyway
love is a journey we take to find
our authentic selves
a reflection an echo
of a love that resounds
at humanity’s core
when i dare to be powerful
step into vulnerable
wipe the sweat from my palms
bring unexpected to status quo
speak truth to authority
step into the space that needs
my being not my doing
meditation threads
sitting straight back in the wooden desk chair
silent like meditation steady breathing
eyes closed glaring at the back of my eyelids
waiting for the tick tock
calendar pages turn
legs shifting feet shaking as
temperatures rise and
feelings start to boil
slicing like daggers thrown from
across the room aimed at your eyes
can’t see them coming
having ‘thinking crazies’
afraid of being seen hoping to be obscured can’t
wrap your arms around that “i know crazy and
this ain’t it! i’ve wrapped my arms around crazy
all i was hugging was me!”
push into vulnerability
feeling safe enough to fall into chaos
walking a fine line between now and
never again
i stand up against the wailing winds of trauma
gusting cycles of fear
pain, horror
sexual exploitation physical battering
emotional abuse
psychological triggers
set like minefields
torched forests burned beyond recognition
the body releases its carbon
every rock overturned
every wall crumbled
trauma echoes resound in the silent body
that mind wears like ill-fitting pajamas
makes us wear PTSD like calloused skin
broken bone scars scarred over
angers break my voice into fifteen shards of glass wood and
metal bearings imploding inside a vest wearing a mask
a quarter smile turns into a dark, dangerous
terror filled stare target shredded
survivors call for extra band-aids to tape the tail on the donkey
me feeling like an ass that i grew manhood out of wild seeds
thrown on fallow macho tattooed with a mustache expecting tree rings without nurturing the ground like you wanted something to grow