Saida Agostini Poem Appears in Pride Poems 2022
For pride month 2022 Saida Agostini reads her (VERY NSFW) poem "Adventures of the Third Limb"
"Adventures of the Third Limb," Saida Agostini's boisterous and celebratory love poem was chosen as part of DC Pride's poem a day celebration. The project hosts 30 short videos of queer DC-area poets reading a love poem and archives them all on their website: pridepoems.com. You can watch Saida read her poem HERE. The full text is below (NSFW WARNING) and you can help out DC pride by volunteering or donating at capitalpride.org. You can also support Saida directly by buying her book, let the dead in, wherein "Adventures of the Third Limb" originally appears.
Adventures of the Third Limb
I want to name our cock chocolate thunder, tammy thinks
I have lost my mind. I see our cock as a blaxploitation heroine
resplendent in the finest of neon spandex, draped in golden chains
and a velvet cape, stiff in resolution to kick any jive turkey punk
muthafucka ass into submission.
our cock has framed pictures of prince on the wall, and listens
to deon estus to show her sensitive side.
she is fluent in seven languages, drinks dos equis, can paint, sing gospel,
praise dance and is head usher at the church of dynamic discipleship.
our cock is the renaissance dick, and if you are looking at her sideways:
bitch, what has your cock done for you lately?
our cock doesn’t hide when company comes, stalks out butt naked
in sequined pumps, shining with lube, sits spread eagled on
the dinner table and says embarrassing shit about things she
would do to kerry washington.
and when everyone else leaves, and only the three of us are left,
all limbs and laughter, she pulls me and tammy closer, our pussies
—climbing
up her veined girth.
this is how we fit together-loud, tight and eager, our wails her
composition, agitated aching notes-accesso and broken
chord. in the studio later with smokey, outfitted in a double breasted
stacey adams suit, matching gators, pinky ring and straw panama
—hat, she’ll share a blunt,
and then play cruisin while talking shit about how hard we came,
—and the scent of wet
—— but in that moment, oh! my love!
Fiddlin’ Around in Ireland
Nothing buoys the spirits like a walk along Grafton Street. Gray day or sunny, it’s bright with noise and laughter. Loud “hellos,” babies crying, neighborly gossip, rich brogues and lilting Irish airs float up onto the breeze. Our chosen course allowed for a stroll through St. Stephen’s Green. Sunlight dappled the leafy brakes. Inspired by the moment, Lawrence liberated his fiddle and sawed out a hornpipe. He was joined in his performance by a pair of amorous ducks.
On Grafton street we were immediately surrounded by music. A couple of 9 and 10-year-old boys, Donald Reagon and Paul O’Neill, were delighting passersby with smooth moves on the fiddle and concertina. College students with shaved heads played sitars. Old men played jazz. A guitarist somewhere was plucking out George Harrison tunes and singing, “Here comes the sun, little darlin’ here comes the sun.”
On that musical street there was only one poet—a threadbare character who, for a pound or a punt (Irish pound) or nothing at all, would recite a poem by a poet of one’s choosing. I selected Yeats and was honored with “The Fiddler of Dooney”:
“When I play on my fiddle in Dooney, Folk dance like a wave of the sea . . .”
An Interview with Elizabeth Hazen, Baltimore Poet and Baker Award Finalist
Baltimore poet, Elizabeth Hazen’s first collection of poems is entitled Chaos Theories. Last week the young poet was announced as a finalists for the prestigious Baker Artist Award in literature. We sat down to talk with her about her experience in Baltimore as an artist and what programs like The Baker Awards mean to artists.
Elizabeth Hazen Announced as a Finalist for the 2019 Baker Award
This year, ASP’s own Elizabeth Hazen, author of the poetry collection Chaos Theories, is a finalist for the $10,000 literary honor. Hazen is a Baltimore resident and ardent supporter of the city’s burgeoning arts scene (named by Thrillist and Departures magazines as one of the best arts cities in America). She received her MFA from Johns Hopkins University and currently teaches English at the Calvert School in Baltimore.