to move up and down
Be-Side
The Home of Hakm's B-Side e-alter ego...his auxiliary brain or external hard drive...
It is a distinct honor to represent the city I now call “HOME” in my hometown paper! Humbled, that a readership of 70,000 in the Philadelphia/South Jersey area is proud of how I serve community 2,000 miles away. Thank you Kim Mulford, the City of Albuquerque, my parents, the Albuquerque Poet Laureate Program, and the Courier Post! Read the article here.
Congratulations and Acknowledgment from the Senate of the NM State Legislature…to be shared with the Albuquerque Poet Laureate Program (APLP) organizing committee and founding sponsors. It was you, not me, who made the Albuquerque poet laureate a possibility! You, who made me feel like I’ve done the impossible. Thank you APLP organizing committee for your dedication, work and persistence. Thank YOU, Senator Tim Keller, for initiating this recognition. Lastly, we also thank the Senate of New Mexico’s 50th Legislature for following suit.
-Hakim Bellamy
Albuquerque Poet Laureate
Poem written for Albuquerque Poet Laureate Program Interview Segment
“Glory is not a conceit. It is not a decoration for valor.
Glory belongs to the act of being constant to something greater than yourself
To a cause, to your principles
To the people on whom you rely
And who rely on you in return.”
-Senator John McCain
Hero (for Poet Laureate of Albuquerque)
I’ve heard of God
Washing feet
But never writing poems
Even the Bible
Was written by man
God?
Was more of a performance poet
More about people
Than paper
More about practice
Than pens
And though God gets angry
And sometimes screams
She’s no slam poet
Not so big on ego
So in love
with nature
(And it’s androgynous qualities)
That Apollo found laurel’s sacred
And fashioned them into crowns
To king the meek
Poets & Heroes
Laureate means glory
We be the dispatches
That announce the victory
We be beyond
The Parliamentary Poet Laureate
Of Canada
With alternating terms in two languages
We before
We be
Four
Officially recognized languages
English, Spanish
AND Spanglish
Plus we speak
Sheet music
Written for the
Conquistadores’ trumpet
Before the conquest
Conjure constructs
As though our words
Carry the DNA
Of La Raza Cosmica
Our tongues
Should tie people together
Like the rope
Of Pope
Cause the revolution’s
Inside of us
But most of all
We have to meet two requirements
To be servants
And to be continually inspired
The people will admire
Us finding it
And in refinding it
And refinding it
And we’ll feel like a hero
Every time we write it
But it is us
Not the writing
That we should be striving
For them to admire
But alas
Every laureate will strive
To satisfy
The Roman Philosopher
Inside of us
As Pliny the Elder said
True glory
Consists in doing
What deserves to be written
In writing what deserves to be read
Hakim Bellamy February 22, 2012
The Albuquerque Poet Laureate Program is sponsored by Escuela del Sol Montessori,
a 501(c)(3) organization in Albuquerque, NM.
Your donation is tax deductable.
All Donors of $50 or over in 2011 will be listed as a Founding Sponsor/Collaborator.
