more from
drink sum wtr
We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

when the poems do what they do

by aja monet

/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $10 USD  or more

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    First edition limited 2xLP pressing. Two pocket gatefold jacket with debossing and gold foil. Includes a limited edition 16-page full color photo & lyric booklet and 18" x 24" glossy full color photo poster. Includes digital download.

    Includes unlimited streaming of when the poems do what they do via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 2 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $45.99 USD or more 

     

1.
i am 03:48
i am a flowerpot sitting on the subway platform, dreaming of a southern sky i am the southern sky bruised hues of blues and inner city, with an ocean front view a holy ghost tongue possessed between the pews sleepless in the twilight a vision board invisible to eyesight loose hips humming under summer porch lights i’m the djembe drum rhythms spun between love drunk knees i’m a runaway river a sawed off shotgun creeping through the leaves a kiss that quivers a machete that bleeds i’m the bananas on Josephine's skirt, a brown liquor flirt the gardenia in Billy Holiday’s hair i’m a blues song in a cigarettes glare, a beaded zulu hat on Makeba’s head Bob Marley’s loc, a natty dread i’m Marcus Garvey’s last microphone, ancient lady of grace Nefertiti’s royal throne i’m a poem i’m a poem handwritten by La Lupe on the Malecón a grassroots meeting of orishas in the basement of a brownstone i’m a homegirl homegrown made of magic a mermaid of memories swimming through tragic times i’m the one, that got away i’m the love, i’m the love i'm the love i never had a cipher of butterfly wings i’m a little girl who had big dreams, and prayers in my mothers purse i’m the color of Saturday, bouncing off the walls i drizzle in the wind like a sun shower shawl i’m the final hour, before the moon rests i’m what a day looks like, honest and undressed i’m la cascarilla on the door, windows and vents a protector of realms a protector of realms i’m a Bwiti shaman who ascends i’m the mirror i am the mirror i am the mirror, i’m the root and the end i am i am i am not that i am i am and we are we, we, you and me i am i am because of you we are here together there’s no me without you i am i said there’s no me without you we are we x 2 ix3 i am i am, because we are we are i’m only possible because we are you and me, we are i am you made me possible i am x 2 i am, because we are
2.
why my love? 04:37
my love be a front line my love be a fighter a shade that sisters and saves my love survived the middle passage waded the waters my love be grassroots organises movements, the birds the bees my love be butterflies beaming my love be indigenous, ocean wide, sky deep my love listens to the land all natural no preservatives my love be homemade from the scratch scribbled handwritten notes, adoration my love be scripture be ritual, baptism, revival a cathedral built from bare hands a taj mahal, all the temples my love creates new ways to worship serenity, sorcery, hieroglyphs across your chest, tongue tied my love be sacred geometry past life premonitions revelations and gratitude prayer hands my love be call and response praise the eyelashes and the eyes my love be a river like the Nile, ancient and long my love be a crowd of shyness secret messages in the rosy red of deep dimples my love be a reflection a looking glass magic a song we only dance to my love, my love make no excuses my love be compassionate forgives but not stupid be backbone, be ass whooping, accountable my love my love be love abundant limitless, endless, giving, make no mistakes ‘less they lessons my love be book smart be Google be Google ready encyclopaedic, soul listening, kindred twin flame, seeking, questioning, answering, demanding, aggressive, hugging, consent, candle lighting, that tarot card, psychic healing, intuitive my love be brave my love be brave be heavyhearted, lightheaded, woozy, clumsy, knee wobbling, butterfly, belly dancing, floating and fluttering my love be goofy be goofy, be silly, trusting, foreplay, aching, tempting, tasting to savour, weary, wounded, ridding ghosts some things cannot be saged, but must be faced my love my love be partnership be collective don't leave when things get tough be flawed, stretch marked, pudgy, bold my love squeezes pimples, tweezes ingrowns memories my love my love be a lighthouse in the middle of storm be light why every time we tell man about himself, our love gotta come into question who said who said loving you would be a walk in the white section of the park who wrote the poems that made love in to a door mat, doorbell, pornographic, wet dream, male gaze, nonsense romance film who done turned love, into a battle of the sexes say I can't love my man and tell him where it hurts or how or when to stop or when to slow treat me with kindness who say, who say, who say I can’t teach you how to love me how to tender tug and touch how to witness and watch who say, who say love gotta humiliate me gotta turn me into a victim into a damsel in distress if i could tell you ‘bout yourself to your face, i wouldn't have speak to strangers why my love, why my love always gotta be in question gotta go through tests, relay races, obstacle courses gotta hop on one leg, and bark like a dog why my love gotta do backflips and learn rocket science and speak mansplain why my love x 2 why my love gotta wait till you ready to love you why the world ain’t why the world ain’t got my back and I always i always seem to have yours
3.
black joy 06:16
black joy joy is the will is the dimple that has endured a dance so deep in a dark cheek a wound without a scar without a trace the humour of hurt is the hell of being healed joy daps death lives in the grin singing from the blood bathes in a smirk testifies tenderness in a tear it is a smile silhouetted against the face witnessing the want the flower in the grenade a rose in the concrete a pirouette beside a barricade is the butterfly in the battlefield is disarming the swing set in the middle of a gunfight is dodging a bullet hopscotch and double dutch a fierce gaze, the side eye, the shade the sass, the snap, the head nod is the turn up, the swag joy is righteous and ratchet joy twerks and taps, jooks and jives harlem shakes, electric slides, dutty wines salsas on twos and rumbas joy is rhythm and repetition rhythm and repetition hums in harmony is the blues is a song in a cotton field or central bookings on a crowded subway joy is a song anywhere joy bes in the trap is a dilla beat in the middle east is fly is finger-licking good is pasteles with black beans or a patty and coco bread is fried chicken with bbq sauce or buffalo sauce or hot sauce or any damn sauce joy is a recipe passed on a language that survives savoury and sweet toe curling knocking boots the fight and the fury is making love to make up is the glow is an entire day in a lover’s arms, a carton of ice cream and a bed of books is illuminated in the aftermath is wrinkled lips, a pouted kiss, the shivering hips the theater of our thunder joy joy is a story traveling a rocking chair on the front lawn a wind chime in a window is a barbeque in the backyard subwoofers in a hoopty melanin gathered in a room is the entourage is getting your friends in the club joy joy is all about vibes is a roof over your head is clothes on your back is free 99 is having the rent when its due or having no rent at all is no debt or no credit check joy is shooting dice in a stairway it’s getting a hand in spades or a double six capicu in dominoes is hoops in a crate is opening a fire hydrant in the heat joy is a six-block willy through traffic with no handlebars in the rain is the catwalk is the voguing is the coming out is the crackhead with a dime bag and a dream is a fresh pair of white kicks with the check is bottle caps glued beneath dress shoes is three dollars in the tank is catching rain water in a tin cup a firefly in your palm buying sunflowers for yourself on a cloudy day is a moon in the sky as if in a school play is your father in the audience joy is skipping school or recess is a screen without static aluminium foil antenna is when the belt buckle snaps or the switch breaks or your mom gets too damn tired joy is waving down the ice cream truck a fresh line up and a clean doobie the perfect coil to a curl or a loosened nap and an afro pick is the gift of gab is rapping yo ass off is roasting or wrestling a sibling to tap out joy is yo mama jokes until it’s yo mama is the first foot out the jail, the homecoming, the graduation the step show at the probate joy x 3 is hugging the self, what conquers the heart and captures the blame is the madness of our meaning is the maturity of our memory is the irony of our forgetting is a helicopter four days after the hurricane on a roof with no water or food is a mother picking her daughter up from foster care is smoking a joint and a cop car switching lanes is food stamps on the first of the month is no snitching no snitching is loyalty, perseverance, protest, resilience, resistance is the food after the funeral or the parade the blessing and the curse the call, the response the prayer, the pulpit is evidence of things unseen is the hallelujah, the amen, the holy ghost is speaking in tongues is when the santo say you don't need no cleaning is genetic heirloom is the portable promised land it is the diaspora x 3 making it overseas or making it over the mason-dixon line joy joy is family is brotherhood is sisterhood is feeling another’s dimple in your face is together joy is together it's together unified on the frontlines our joy our joy will astonish the world because joy true joy has always been and will always be justice
4.
unhurt 06:36
hurt was here before we were someone you love will eventually disappoint you maybe even break your heart or hurt your feelings this will happen accept it sometimes repeatedly oftentimes repeatedly we will be hurt and it will feel lonesome and sickening and you will wonder what has gone mad in the world you will question everything beginning with yourself you may even wish you owned a rifle a knife a proper fist the perfect word to scar an inside but you will cry someone will hurt you today tomorrow the next day three years from now and you will love them one day you will love them for it there’s this thing this twisted appreciation for suffering you can only know love through the lens of neglect joy though the lens of pain and it’s fascinating actually how we wound with our wounds and call it humanity the first time you hurt someone you love you will question the last time you tended an open wound you will vow to never do it again you may even pray to some god some yemaya some universe anyone listening for forgiveness or the greatest death you will not care at all be prepared be prepared for a hurting is coming and it will come and it will take you suddenly and maybe you will be dancing or laughing or remembering maybe you wont even notice it at all and you will hurt yourself you will hurt yourself with all this hurt thought and you will love hurting and you will love no one really wants to hurt, you will say no one really wants to hurt and it will turn from blame to revelation i don’t really want to hurt and you will love did you know that? did you know you will love? never mind the who never mind the when it’s of no importance you will love and it will unhurt us all
5.
weathering 05:41
when the earth shatters beneath us and we are broken open picked apart by the silence let me tell you you are unrehearsed laughter sleeping between the murmur of my lips an unconscious love a man dipped in midnight lightening i will fix my body for you and fold in the bend of your arms a tortured jewel you are a freedom song humming in the shadow of my soul a healing heartache that kisses wounds and sets free tornadoes on my spine such a crippling tongue my spirit is dancing in the gospel of your chest and i have found music glowing in the whirlwind of your eyes may we create new skies to fall apart under together the sun bent its head on my skin this morning and i could hear the bones of butterflies creaking in the breeze the breath of birds heaving into the heart of my ears my eyes whistled open the air still smelling of lavender smoke and wet leaves i turn to you staring the lids of your jarred pupils your face your face is a naked desert at dawn an ancient heaven at horizon your mouth slightly caved open like an owling cow i smile blooming because somewhere before i remember this i remember this silence you sound of a starving angel when you sleep you snore like a wailing forest my love i think of you like a waking dream of your spine’s grip melted into the sand dunes of my palms last night last night your hands sprinkled across my flesh like rainstorms and i can feel the sun this morning he is strong and gleaming your eyelashes splinter from the blow of my lips rise and shine
6.
aja monet: the perfect storm empties a country of abuelitas padres hermanos mujeres y niños a disaster that doesn't seem so natural waves of wind damaged homes hovering roofs made of tarp if you wanted to take land from a people bent on resisting colonialism insert mcdonalds walmart or the jones act or blame it on a storm of a woman named Maria who grew up in spanish harlem who reminded us of the western story that as the rich are getting richer the poor are getting poorer never mind the wealth that ain’t so common under the foot of US force the way loss runs through steep hill sides or rivers swell the veins between vacant towns we blame the thirsty but not the corporations that tax water the shocking doctrines of profit over people exploited tunes and tones of rhythms Taíno for tourists and escapism por la isla de encanta we, we lament the boriquen tongue in power outages of spanglish cursing the companies of settler colonial conditions for the prayers and litanies tears like rosary beads in the sewers of sorrows where fantazma sing from the sore throat blueness of blood the border between refugee and nomad migration is the art of fleeing sad songs for blooming in suitcases la gente fuerte and mourn wondrous we belong we belong to each other before any notion of a nation no one will understand the tangled trues of being from here and nowhere the beaming cocqui that still visits in dreams they wont write us in history if we don't write ourselves the uncle who drowned in coronas and ham sandwiches visions of never playing pro baseball or the aunt who claps the roof of her mouth when she speaks asthmatic and always, always, always high who lost 6 children to the government or abuela who is always working 2/3 jobs to make up for the guilt of coming to america and how she couldn't face returning to no running water and still there are spirits there are spirits who know every chupacabra has its day it is time x 6 for us to take the red fire of our wounds and weapon our mouths toward new movement songs remember remember Campos suffering in silence separated by an ocean, and a language yet still free free in the love of a people fearless and unafraid always always a hurricane it’s always a hurricane it’s always a hurricane before the grand exodus before the grand exodus the fight for dignity and independence San Ciriaco rattles rattles, rattling in every roar every roar of revision is history pa’lante people pa’lante milagros de movimientos soar x 2 because if we are to live if we are to live with the fierce force of knowing anything anything that is sacred x 2 is worth fighting for x 2 bienvenido bienvenido a la lucha we are worth fighting for Eryn Allen Kane: worth, fight x 9 aja monet: we are worth fighting for the perfect storm always precedes great miracles and we are worth fighting for did you know x3 that you are powerful did you know that you have everything you need that every, everything you need is within you that you that you are worth you x6 i mean you are worth fighting for and that everything everything you need everything i mean everything everything x 2 everything you need x 2 is within you that you are so powerful great storms precede great miracles remember that great storms precede great miracles -The Young Lords-
7.
Novena Carmel: if wine was a river and i was a duck i’d dive to the bottom and never come up but since wine ain’t no river and i ain’t no duck imma drink this wine til i’m fucked up now dig all you cats and kitties out there whipping and wailing and sucking up all that ole fine juice well imma put a lady on you she is the coolest the sweetest the poet-est and the worldliest and she from new york city and this gal her name is aja monet aja monet: the devil you know taxes the air we breathe privatises the water profits of homelessness strangles the land and injects hormones in animals rapes the people and rewards the rich charges you for being sick sends a bill to your loved ones with interest when you die laughs at us coughing up our lungs gulping water, lead dripping off our chins buys private ships to the moon dancing with your demons the selfish, individualistic part of you the one who rather not have a foot on your neck or who shows up to the rally after sipping sweet comfort at a corporate gig that pays you just enough to die a little slower tired and community fostering care how being black or woman or queer or trans or other or human or inhumane computer or code able bodied ten fingers, ten toes running or right or wrong how none ofitmatters when the earth is a hand written letter from the past a ghost sculpted in blood, city sweating bitter memories flooded by crawling maggots and swollen hurt how, how the sewers sing of old sidewalks and cool breezes are our fairytales we spoon feed our children in the heat and we were never ourselves, had we known who we are without greed a world decorated by betrayal if we had a sense of humour x 2 we’d be more radical more migrant than citizen we’d breathe the air clean and ration our resources gathering hugs and holds set to bloom and pebbles of rain reasoning with riverbeds rinsing in daylight ridding pipelines and fossil fuels we would melt all the guns x 2 (melt all the guns) the moist in the back of our knees the lick between knuckles mocking evil and all its ill designed destruction we would choose the scar we would bulldoze the walls and plant windows where widows weep beautiful green lakes hushed in our cradling arms we’d become the tiny brooklet kissing creeks we are, we are near a point of no return a wounded woman scorn temper sharp as a thousand shards aimed in one direction i am weary for weeping “me too” she whispers “me too” the earth said. Interlude the most important election is in the heart a campaign of soul a candidate measured by their courage in the midst of the enduring strength of love voting for the inner standing how we make a way through no way in a basement church or a high school auditorium a family living room these days these days insanity is the sanity stifled sobs, despair, distress, thrill p r a i s e the people x 2 praise the peoples power the poet laureates of the poor care warm anthems sawn from the keyholes of closed, shut doors the whistle of who and why the architect of self-determination if you gon’ vote x 2 vote with your spine a head held high vote x 6 with the way you love a gut singing soft city sleep dreaming of protest the ballot the ballot is not a bullet but it can be a border or a bridge you choose (she got make me vote) how you gon’ vote pour into each other how we mourn those we’ve lost how we all hold the grief vote x3 with childcare how you nurse the sick lending someone your heart pay fair wages x 2 thats the least you can do, is pay fair wages vote vote by listening resist the artificial division of our deaths held together by a common thread of concerned, self-determined, reliant respect the body is a ballroom of grief and despair we the life we the chosen we the freed migrant rebel workers we the word workers we the shoeless and standing tall we the houseless and housing parks we the teachers still students we the farmers in the field we the shamans being healed revolution revolution is not a spectator sport silence is a noise too somewhere somewhere there is an incorruptible spirit re-remembering a time when we voted with the thoughts in our minds it begins with you it begins with you loving you enough to me as i am you we are the country’s consciousness rising and we are only as powerful as our vote made in the flesh our voice our voice bravely raising up reverberating new visions
8.
aja monet: what makes you feel loved Lonnie Holley: loved love is like a liquid of agape and i died within it and each and every day if i don't get but a single drop from the tip of a leaf that was caused by the morning dew that what makes me say i love you because love is a natural love is everything so in the wonders of love I feel wonderful I feel full of wonder and mysteriously in my abstract motion and my notions of abstractness they will never figure me out because i am of love born for love, created for love the identity of love itself love has been hued into stone and scattered like dust in the wind love hmm love that love has been so funny and that love has been so serious until it went with the ancestors in their grave that love has been given over and over and over and over and over and over and over to every generation that love has be given and reliven reliving it hmmm can’t you feel it? thats what I'm saying x2 all you gotta do is listen and then what you feel from that, you ride it because love is gonna be the one that push an opinion love is gonna be the one thats forcing the ink
9.
for sonia 07:04
as if we did not lose another as if life were never so convenient and guns so easy to reach our country’s so trigger happy these days or sad depending on who's dying today depending on the touch the moon raises my rivers yesterday i leaked all around the house a bad cough and a cloud looking over my shoulder as i wrote and though i cry i am celebrating a woman i love who loved me before i knew myself to be what blooms in the blood, what scratches the voice trembles words every day is a new mourning another fight we live to dance between tears beating on our faces i am tired of strength x 2 when i first showed up to the community organizing meeting i uttered the word ‘poetry’ and their faces sunk with confusion who's got time for poems, when the worlds on fire and your brother’s body on your front door and your sister’s been missing for weeks and your dad got laid off and your mother gone mad with mothering and your uncle locked up and your aunt need a fix i mean, i mean life can get you down and out but when the organizers was weary and all the marching wore them down and all the meetings ended in arguments and all the foundations bought out the snakes and all the trauma piled up on their desks and all the campaigns ended with politicians i offered, i offered poems in their palms like petunias revolutionary and blushing shades of plum i fed them Sonia and Jane and June and Pat Parker and Carolyn Rodgers how every poem still pierces true like yesterdays battlefield is tomorrows front yard still still, all my hero’s is fighting depression some live to see what they fought to prevent and we ought to keep our hopes high but all this comfort and security got our institutions kidnapped in broad daylight treaty torn and tricked bamboozled by the beaming brilliance of greed got our babies programmed for numbness content is and what is an enemy if we do not know who our friends are and who is a comrade these days when the poems are good depending on who reposts them depending on who's fetching for awards and who will feed our activists, our organizers freedom, if not the poets? we are losing our front line warriors to suicide and is not choosing to fight a sort of sacrifice a kind of offering all our children have become alters to the liberation front the other day, the other day we lost Amber Evans baby girl found in the Scioto River she was 28 and before that it was Erica Garner heart full of storm and lightening she was 27 and before that it was Marshawn McCarrel on the steps of the Ohio statehouse haunted by the hunting he was 23 Bassem Masri, Bassem Masri our Palestinian brother from another mother what about, what about Ferguson and Edward Crawford and Darren Seales and how dreams still smell of teargas and milk we cry we cry trumpets and turntables in the corners of our hopes we rhythm and blues and though i cry x 3 i am celebrating a woman i love she who turned the pen in her hand to a grenade haiku homegirl folklore florist flung stories into our minds planted orchids and daffodils sunflowers she who, she who shivered the sky rain showers and sunsets born of her blessing the flesh of her words kindred sister who wrote for daughters of a movement who say, do and act the call response resist riot of our rebellious laughter as we readied our reasons for writing we armed ourselves with her poems a strategy for organizing the heart prophetic prayers a smile made of spirituals and birth pains these days these days, it hurts to write every sentence is a false promise is we, or is we not trying to get free and when the poems do what they do they get it done Sister Sanchez eternal fellow fire spitter bad i mean bad i mean bad to the bone i never met a poet who loved us like you do all of us and when my anger knocks the wind out of my weeping i sit on the hills of your humming words and feast of all the ways, we got to get to where we’re going in the quiet mirror of a poem, how to be human how to shake loose arms outstretched summoning us, uncool and truth telling care how to heal in the cathedral of hands this is a poem for you and for us for all the poems that sistered us in this ancestral war all the lines somersaulting sister Sister Sanchez you are our North Star in our darkest nights.
10.
yemaya 12:38
i went to see someone about my pain and he told me that i had to meet the warrior at the edge of sea “do not carry anger that is not yours” says el brujo and just like that the sand is a quiet prayer rug under folded knee deep washed ashore rain passing the cheek a lick of salt from the lip longing for the wide arms of wind woozy and restless i rushed toward the deity of living sea horse of my heart running to the teacher of tides wet whisper of all that swims breathing beneath blue water color i’m here to heal my hurt i fall into the black mermaid of miracle and pearl mistress of moon and star below seven glittering waves, splash aqua marine a flamenco skirt dancing on the sky lightening fast footwork heaven on my shoulders arms flirt the clouds, a migrant bird outstretched el brujo rubs my body with the fruit and tears the shirt from my back, mumbling a tongue that teases me faint tell me you can hear those thrown overboard teetering on the plank the drowned out screams sink each shriek a shimmering shimmering face i bury my face in the chest of the ocean weeping for the voices remembering me god of cerulean scales and gold fins temper of turbulent rivers, roaring cleanse me of sadness and sorrow in this grandest lakes, lagoons or streams yemaya yemaya i offer i offer you papaya coconut and cotton flower deep labyrinth of worlds sunken under lady who levels the land queen of atlantis guaraca beneath Arabian sea the spirit of depth the mapless mountains inward how light goes to rest vanishing in the opaque largest body without borders lines fade nations navigating fishing boats filled with dreams that never dock guardian of the glistening ancient graveyard ghost gossiping with our tunes fortune teller of shivering shells soothing these stranger times i do not know i do not know which ancestor gave me this rage but i am ready i am ready i am so ready to lay it down i’m ready to lay down asé. Jadele McPherson: vocals aja monet: me traiga su bendición me libre de todo mal reina del mar madre de chango guerrera de mi corazón bendice a cada oriente bendice a cada oriente Jadele McPherson: vocals Assata Shakur: i hope that I can live up to my mother’s example and i hope that I can live up to my ancestor’s expectations because I really believe that I have a duty to all those that have become before me to all this who lie at the bottom of the ocean to all those who lost their lives whether it is in the cane fields, or cotton fields.. or you know, hanging off some tree to continue the struggle and to continue to love and to continue to believe and to continue to try to be human to be giving
11.
castaway 04:33
castaway i did not want to write a poem full of corpses so i wrote a sacred pink blue sky jewelled on the horizon laughter as the loudest star sleeps humour hugs every ache whole how heavy heads lay after a long day in the humid heat carribean moon size and joyous dreams i did not wish to speak of what should not be spoken so silence breathed into all the words a haunting i come from a language that does not write itself our ancestors speak hurricane a thunder tongue shivering tides and a petty revenge the mid atlantic is a vexed auntie rattling rivers and roofs ready for reckoning knocking at the chest of men on the other side on the other side of now there is a door where we return every island is a hip swaying between here and there a float in the dance to belong rocking in the arms of the edge where the sea is an emerald flag and palm trees praise the air every shore is an alter of remembrance embraced on purpose pickney of the sun ray where prayer trembles the light or how a storm retreats we marvel and move eternal unfawned and unlost hips hollering, elbows flapping like fanning flames bare feet chant in the sand or in a concrete jungle love taps quake the nape of the earths neck where daughters of the diaspora dream and inherit journeys of flesh where a smile is also a scar or how my grandfather came to see about us years after he died wearing my uncles face dimpled and shining eyes like two wet black beans baptised by a spirit rum slapped on his breath charming man and all he was checking on his grand babies fear not death x 2 we visit kinfolk there lingering in the blood where the ocean hums tribe of the great abyss a not knowing from where or what we come and still to arrive before they could conquer us we came by shipwreck by wind and wave pushed into the water splashing and shaking the wound the wound teaches us to remember where tomorrow glows listen listen to the animal clawing within a rooster calls directions between this world and the next there are roads that cannot be mapped and there are streets that do not have names we ran we ran we ran away into the ochre tinted mountains seeking maroon hills i was born borderless mounting a dollar van like an orisha scribbling visions on a train or in an airport travelling ritual voice and time i was born of distance in between now and then
12.
give thanks 06:28
13.

about

aja monet’s poems are a work of gravity. A surrealist blues poet, storyteller, and organizer born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, aja won the legendary Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam poetry award title in 2007. In 2018, she was nominated for a NAACP Literary Award for Poetry and in 2019 was awarded the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Award for Poetry for her cultural organizing work in South Florida. Her work moves, constantly, between origin and outcome, allowing them to exist in converse. In her debut album when the poems do what they do, releasing June 9 via drink sum wtr, we glimpse her indefatigable commitment to speak. Those thematic origins of this album at times center around Black resistance, love and the inexhaustible quest for joy.

In when the poems do what they do, aja monet appears as a woman of letters and storm, her poems do not roar in pentameter - but rather in storm surge because, “Who’s got time for poems when the world is on fire?!.” And this work isn’t one to pull apart into one liners, these are poems of things felt. There is a fullness here that can’t be encapsulated in even the boundaries that language offers.

aja is joined in effort on this album by musicians Christian Scott (trumpet), Samora Pinderhughes (piano), Elena Pinderhughes (flute), Luques Curtis (bass), Weedie Braimah (djembe) and Marcus Gilmore (drums). Together, creating music that is insistent and unrelenting.

When you finally reach the end of this album, you are left with a similar feeling you get when heartbroken, the gravity of barrelling back down to earth, sopping wet with tears, out of breath, overcome with love, despair, hope, and all too aware that all of this, is over far too soon. When the poems do what they do, they do absolutely everything.

credits

released June 9, 2023

Executive Produced by: aja monet
Produced by: aja monet and Chief Adjuah
Assistant Production: Def Sound
Recording Engineer: Dave Weingarten
Mixing Engineer: Dave Weingarten
Assistant Engineer: Brodie Means
Mastering Engineer: Paul Blakemore
Recording Studio / Location: Westlake Recording Studio (Los Angeles)
Written by: aja monet, Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah, Weedie Braimah, Luques Curtis, Marcus Gilmore, Elena Pinderhughes, Samora Pinderhughes
Cover photography: delphine diallo
Vinyl design: Rob Lewis
Record Label: drink sum wtr

Instrumentalists:
Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah - Chief Adjuah’s Bow, Adjuah Trumpet
Weedie Braimah - Percussion
Luques Curtis - Bass
Marcus Gilmore - Drums
Elena Pinderhughes - Flute
Samora Pinderhughes - Piano

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

aja monet Brooklyn, New York

Aja Monet is a poet, performer, and educator from East NY, Brooklyn, best known as the youngest individual to win the legendary Nuyorican Poets' Café Grand Slam title. She is an internationally established poet, recognized for combining her voice and powerful imagery on stage. Aja Monet has captivated audiences across the United States, Europe, Bermuda and Cuba. ... more

shows

contact / help

Contact aja monet

Streaming and
Download help

Report this album or account

If you like aja monet, you may also like: