———- Forwarded message ———
De : Split This Rock info@splitthisrock.org
Date: ven. 30 mai 2025, 06:00
Subject: Poem of the Week: Quenton Baker
To: Poem of the Week Reader miladyrenoirmiladyrenoir@gmail.com
every cloud that rolls off the ocean / pours my dead on me
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*Content Notice: grief; refers to Transatlantic trafficking of enslaved
Africans*
I AM IN THE WEATHER by Quenton Baker
every cloud that rolls off the ocean
pours my dead
on me
the mad
the sick
the brave
the faceted
who chose the wave over their making
in this colonial hell
bell-shaped and bloated with venom
what good is good when its price is all of my blood’s blood
my loves
your mist stings my eyes
i cannibalize you as water on broken skin
you loan me the requisite loam and
gristle
to bury this world within itself
i wear you as dripping carapace
you laureates of the sea’s undersong
feed me
in
your unnamable droning
Listen to an audio version of this poem at Split This Rock’s website:
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audio version of the poem is below the poem text.]
*Image Description of Audio Graphic: A circular red play button is to the
left of a red outlined sound wave. The graphic is a link to the poem at
Split This Rock’s website. The audio version of the poem is below the poem
text.*
Poem used with permission.
About The Poet
[image: In a black-and-white portrait, Quenton Baker faces forward. They
wear glasses and a black hoodie.]
*Image Description of Photo of Quenton Baker: In a black-and-white
portrait, Quenton Baker faces forward. They wear glasses and a black
hoodie.*
*Quenton Baker *is a poet, educator, and Cave Canem fellow. Their work has
appeared in The Offing, Jubilat, Prairie Schooner, The Rumpus and
elsewhere. They are a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, and the recipient of
the 2018 Arts Innovator Award from Artist Trust. They were a 2019 Robert
Rauschenberg Artist in Residence and a 2021 National Endowment for the Arts
Literature Fellow. They are the author of we pilot the blood (The 3rd
Thing, 2021) and *ballast *(Haymarket Books, 2023).
Photo above of Quenton Baker by Dean Davis.
Similar Poems from The Quarry
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Such Thing As the Ridiculous Question –” by Siaara Freeman
resilient web / as i pull the bundle apart” – *“Hull” by
Lisbeth White
ancestors. / Who lived black and free in the sun until their
capture.” – *“Black
Mermaids and Swimming and Red Hair and Ancestry” by Sasa Aakil
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