More videos from Jamie Zoe Givens (playlist)

Course of Intuition

Dark and cloudy, lost driving
on an unknown highway byway,
how do I find the direction north?
When ruby throat hummingbirds
beat wings, speed counts two
hundred times per second, do
they have an inkling their flight
is south? Is it the same instinctual
intention that takes porcupine
caribou through a migratory loop

leading to Arctic tundra calving
grounds? A flash of insight, one
may reason, reveals knowing
I don't like someone, yet not
knowing why. Is it a sudden
inspirational voting booth
epiphany that casts a name
on the ballot in a school board
election after moving to a new
location? How about the hunch

playing red twenty-two as
the roulette wheel spins. Is this
the same foreseeing when playing
a number on the company employee
Super Bowl football pool?  Is it direct
innate perception that shows which
path of faith is the correct reflection
to believe in? Do we listen for
the Buddha of Wisdom and follow
a course of intuition? Or, do we ignore
smelling the Holy Spirit's breath.

Jamie Zoe Givens interview with Ruby Givens recorded in 1985 Part Two

For National Listening Day, 2012, I uploaded an oral history project from 1985. My grandmother agreed to be interviewed by me for a seventy-five minute interview.

Jamie Zoe Givens interview with Ruby Givens recorded in 1985 Part Two

Jamie Zoe Givens interviews Ruby Givens 1985 Part One

For National Listening Day, 2012, I uploaded an oral history project from 1985. My grandmother agreed to be interviewed by me for a seventy-five minute interview.

Jamie Zoe Givens interviews Ruby Givens 1985 Part One

Appreciation Mesostic

                                from the mArket

                           below the turnPike, changing lanes

                                          an opPortunity

              the feeling was familiaR; it was like the time

                             mangos are nEver sold

                               moments? i Compared your juicy fruit

                                        with raIsins, covered in cornmeal

                              ripe for the eAting

                                       enchanTs my mouth

                       as if seeking nourIshment from

                                                gOlden festivals

                                              i kNow where i want to die

This poem is my answer to writing assignment from a Modern and Contemporary American Poetry class from Coursera. Each line is from a series of poems I wrote about mangoes. The spine spells out appreciation, the theme for a November poetry reading.  

Tomato Arts Festival 2012

My tomato themed poem for Poetry in the Brew which took place the same day as the Tomato Arts Festival.

Tomato Salad

Hot Pink Lady waits

for her Best Boy Bradley

or perhaps the Purple Cherokee

or the Black Crimean

who rides a Green Zebra.

Your blood of sun

comingles with my juicy soul

feel free to eat me

your seeds eclipse

my red Roma heart.

For G.

While playing with three black cats which crossed his path,

standing in the full brunt of a straight-line Reiki wind,

waiting for an emoticon spaceship whose lights twirl

like the smoke tendrils from exhaled dragon’s breath, he loves us.

Excluding the bwoks from chickens or barks from dogs,

fifty quiet acres surround a gentle heart. While sitting

outside yesterday (or any other day) with head tipped back

watching trees…he loves trees.

But, he is not a person who would hug a tree,

(I am sure fir and pine needles danced in the breeze)

gazing at the trees he realizes how he had it backward,

the trees were hugging him; (gee) it was quite a moment.