Only Built 4 Cuban Linx

"Yo, the first branch, the third leaf, whoever want it got beef
I politic, show love, crush those who dare creep
Into my realm of sunshine I praise divine
Fine line between dawn of dumb, deaf and blind"

{ Raekwon, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, 1995 }

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"The poets find the refuse of society on their street and desire their heroic subject from this very refuse. This means that a common type is, as it were, superimposed upon their illustrious type."


"The incognito was the law of his poetry. His prosody is comparable to the map of a city in which it is possible to move about inconspicuously, shielded by blocks of houses, gateways, courtyards."


"He took up a profusion of allegories and altered their character fundamentally by virtue of the linguistic environment in which he placed them. The Fleurs du mal is the first book that used in poetry not only words of ordinary provenance but words of urban origin as well."

{ Walter Benjamin, Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism, trans. Harry Zohn, Verso, 1997 }

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The daily newspapers, in print and online, from several countries serve as the poet's sustenance. Or, better yet, the reader's compass. Who will annotate novels read in the notebook, offer simple commentary on the plot, characters and symbolism used. Music the words.

A Sunday digression, drink the coffee hope recuperate the following week's schedule. Translate, teach, grade, run, eat, sleep, read. Beyond whose reach are useless angers, fears and repercussions. Fill the paragraphs out with repetitive prose, a pose.