In this episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet and writer, Tommye Blount. He is the author of Fantasia for the Man in Blue (Four Way Books, March 2020) and the chapbook What Are We Not For (Bull City Press, 2016). Source
This episode includes a reading of his poem, "The Pedestrian", featured in our 2021 Get Lit Anthology.
"The Pedestrian"
When the pickup truck, with its side mirror,
almost took out my arm, the driver’s grin
reflected back; it was just a horror
show that was never going to happen,
don’t protest, don’t bother with the police
for my benefit, he gave me a smile—
he too was startled, redness in his face—
when I thought I was going, a short while,
to get myself killed: it wasn’t anger
when he bared his teeth, as if to caution
calm down, all good, no one died, ni[ght, neighbor]—
no sense getting all pissed, the commotion
of the past is the past; I was so dim,
he never saw me—of course, I saw him
Support the show