Princeton Makes’ Second Saturday Poetry Reading set for Sunday, March 13, at 4 p.m., features regional poets Todd C. Evans and Stacey Williams.
Evans, a Trenton native and current Willingboro resident, is the author of five chapbooks, founder of the Don Evans Players, and has hosted open mic sessions for Classics Books in Trenton and African American Cultural Collaborative of Mercer County.
In the following sample of his work, Evans references his late father, playwright Don Evans, in the title by referring to his father’s favorite pipe tobacco and subsequent nickname, Captain Black.
I wish
by son of black
I wish
Folks in this world
were more in touch
I wish
that Candace Owens
didn’t talk so damn much
I wish
That people
searched their souls
and didn’t go on silly hunches
and pandemics didn’t come in bunches
I wish
we lived in a world where it out to phase ya
when a cop
don’t know her gun from her Taser
I wish
When you can play the game
you can coach the game
Just the same
Yes
I wish the world was in touch
and I ain’t have to wish so damn much
Williams, originally from Newark and now living in Columbus, takes his inspiration from the Bible, science fiction, and hip hop and is the author of “Sneakers on the Cross.”
He is represented here by the following untitled poem:
When I was a child
I acted as a child
But when I grew up
I let those childish things go
Well not really
I still love to rhyme
Kung Fu flicks
And Thelma from good times
But as a man
Though I still hang with brothers
I look at the production
Of films by the shaw brothers
How they filmed
How they were written
Inspired my stories
In poems I’ve written
Newark NJ
MCs be bragging
But the avenues and streets
Was where I entered the dragon
My conscious narrated
With a Morgan Freeman voice
Stacey LIFE
Is a song called CHOICE
You can either sell or use
It’s up to you
To be at church in a coffin
Or sitting in a pew
Now let me get to
Women that looked like Thelma
How someone looks and who they are
Experience will tell ya
As a child
Only the body mattered
But just looks was a drama
That left my heart shattered
But life game me a choice
And I knew better
Some girls favored Beyonce
And some favored PRECIOUS
Pumps and weaves
And a deceitful kiss
Have reasons that are demons
That’s not fair to your kids
But every boxer has lost a fight
Every good QB throws interceptions
Life is an experience
And also a lesson
The Second Sunday Poetry Reading Featuring Todd C. Evans and Stacey Williams and followed with a limited Open Mic for the first 10 to sign up, Princeton Makes, Princeton Shopping Center, next to Metropolis Hair Salon, Sunday, March 13, 4 p.m. Free. Coordinated by Ragged Sky Press. For more information, contact Jim Levine: princetonmakes@gmail.com.
