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Join us as Derrick Harriell reads from his latest collection, Stripper in Wonderland (Louisiana State University Press, 2017).
Derrick Harriell was born and raised in Milwaukee, and completed a PhD in English at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. He is the director of the Master of Fine Arts-Creative Writing Program and assistant professor of English and African-American Studies at the University of Mississippi. He’s the author of three collections of poetry: Cotton (Aquarius Press-Willow Books, 2010), Ropes, (Aquarius Press-Willow Books, 2013), and Stripper in Wonderland (Louisiana State University Press, 2017). His essays and book reviews have been published widely.
The Investment Banker Stumbles into a Vegas Strip Club
pumped on too many / Mollys / too many / dead
lines / too many / nose blown
superlatives / salute / the morals / integrity /
the hedge funds / the benefits / beneficiaries / bonds / blondes
adorn Vegas boys / we all die ugly
in empty caskets / we all die and sign off
souls to men / women / children we barely know / take
what’s reaped / what Harvard Wall Street afforded you
grim reaper / Candy Land Alexander / vanquisher
and ventriloquist / you got this / it’s yours
like the Ackermann deal / yours / like the wretched tie
lights you / a tier below / rappers / atmospheres above
teachers / your hand raised / trophy clench
Grey Goose / glows / fiancé belly like /
platinum rapper like / you know all the words /
all the words / all the worlds
backdrop this pageant / and beauty bangs
your brain pulsar / like that time
you stumble out your last one
-As appeared in The Louisville Review, Spring 2016
Sunday
and declared to be the Son of God with power,
according to the spirit of holiness,
by the resurrection from the dead
—romans 1:4
I’d only planned to observe / get in and out
anthropologic like / find bones and buried
blood of past violent moons / rehash
narrowly escaped burials / anatomy
salvaging politicking and midnight alley fleeing
to create a past moment from a future rendition
of a coward’s embellishment / like the way
I’m full of shit when I hand to God swear
that night in that yard that bullet almost ruined
this crown / the way we’re full of shit
when we hand to God swear
those threats from them boys that summer
didn’t have us shook / you know
teaching college English only saves you
when you’re teaching college English
but when you’re playing tourist to a ruined colony
you may find yourself negotiating for life /
so when a body devoid of bullets ta-da poofs
glowing silhouette of mystification ghetto strolls
an interruption of nostalgic hyperbole
the fucking exact face you fed cereal to
you like to believe you’ve crossed over /
because you cried a funeral at that funeral
watched him lowered deep / clinched
an almost perished tulip like the born again end
of an almost buried hand
-As appeared in Memorious, Summer 2016, Issue 26
Monday
he’s been on the wagon
for a moment sane we celebrate /
no cheers or toast or mention of being off /
we remember the relapse / the way
the diseased body does this Parkinson’s thing /
like the time it took a whole song to land
that bottle to his mouth / he amends
for moments at his bedside / times we awaited
the call / funerals I nightmared into
a eulogy speech almost memorized / we celebrate
this miracle of moment and wagon
until he’s agony flushed in forgiveness
overcome with cure
-As appeared in Memorious, Summer 2016, Issue 26