The Ani Continuum --- Stuff by Melissa NDSU English 358 Brooks

so, i'm at this ani difranco concert a couple years ago, and somewhere during it, towards the end, ani starts this little, talk i guess you'd call it, and it was kinda strange. we were watching and she was chanting in some dreamy little fitful sleep and her drummer, andy stochansky, was pound, pound, pounding away... and she said:

"…i don't know…i have no idea…let me tell ya…blah blah blah blah blah…maybe i'll read you some poetry…when you're driving all the time you find poetry on cassette…so i'm driving around in my stupid little car listening to poetry…maybe i'll give you a poem by lucille clifton…did you ever hear of lucille clifton…she's a very cool poet…a very cool woman…she writes a lot of poetry and there's this poem she wrote…called the lost baby poem…this poem was one of the first things i ever read about…about…that a woman wrote about having an abortion…and it fucking floored me…i've had several abortions myself…being the sort of…fuckface…that i am…you know, life is unpredictable…and i'm young…i couldn't really write about my abortion…for a long time…until i read this poem…and i found it on a cassette with lucille clifton reading her poetry…cuz that's just what i do…and so on this cassette, this recording of her reading…she spoke the poem, you know, the lost baby poem, and in her introduction to it she said that for a long time she couldn't write about her abortion until she read a poem by gwendolyn brooks called the mother…and that…brought that part of her out…and it fucking floored me when i heard her say that…i felt like a very tiny part of a very big continuum…a very tiny part of a very big continuum… a little tiny part of a very big continuum…a little tiny part of a very big continuum…a little tiny part of a very big continuum…a little tiny part of a very big continuum…"

and i pause, think, hmmm... gwendolyn's the mother begot lucille's the lost baby poem which in turn begot ani's lost woman song. and i don't really undertand these poems, not like another person might, a woman that had an abortion or pregnancy she thought better of later...

but the continuum is something else entirely. the idea that what we write or say or do, is read or heard or seen by someone else. that everything we do is part of a continuum. that we are a part of a circle. isn't that great? doesn't that leave you feeling less lonely than you were five minutes ago? we don't always see it, it's not like a chain-link fence we can see keeping out the rabid dogs, but it's there. you know, it is...

and maybe i'm not quite all together, or not quite all here, but i'll buy it, even if it's just to make myself feel better... so, under the guise of my obsession with my favorite poetess- songwriter- musician, a woman that i've travelled thousands of miles to see perform on various occasions, that i've gathered a complete released cd and small bootleg collection, have posters covering my walls, and have her voice flooding the room i'm sitting in now... here are my words, bouncing off hers...



my little tiny part
of the Continuum...