Workshop Series #4: What do you long for?

Is that what it means to long - to have a precious thing you chase your whole life? Is that the difference between to long and to simply want?

Ever since Reginald Dwayne Betts taught me the difference between wanting and longing - the world is clearer. The world is richer. The world aches and aches. I want a slow morning but it’s the arid, crisp breeze of the Sacramento Valley I long for. Yes, of course, I wanted a father, that’s old news. It was a belonging to someone, somewhere, someplace that I longed for.  This isn’t the poem we’re writing with today, but it is a damn good one.

I was 22 in North Carolina with a shaved head and 2 pairs of pants to my name sleeping on the couch of an old friend alongside their Rottweiler. They handed me Shahid Reads His Own Palm by Reginald Dwayne Betts and I read it cover to cover.  I was a double feature for a Grand Slam Finals show alongside Jeffrey McDaniel and a few of my loved ones drove 16 hours to watch me read poems for 15 minutes - that was it. That was the pinnacle of my writer’s life. 

Here’s a photo of 22 year old me trying to keep my shit together while asking Jeffrey McDaniel to read my favorite poem during his set

Anyway.. that’s a story for another workshop - this one is about Ada Limon.