The Weekly Croissant: A Poem to Make You Love Poems

and why Hanif Abdurraqib inspires the S*it out of me

Written by Hanif Abdurraqib, published by Frontier Poetry

When it comes to connecting with art, timing is everything. You might come across a piece of writing, or hear a song in passing, and not really absorb it, only to stumble upon that same work later and have it completely change your life. Such is the case with poet Hanif Abdurraqib, a Columbus, Ohio-based poet and writer who was first introduced to me by my brother Jeremy.

One day, Jeremy sent me a link to a poem of Abdurraqib’s called “All The TV Shows Are About Cops”. Abdurraqib is from Columbus, Ohio, (where my brother lives) and a lot of his writing is centered around the city, one to which I feel no particular attachment. But through his description, his perspective, and his interpretation, Abdurraqib shows Columbus (and specifically his neighborhood and community) to be beautiful and meaningful. He can make any chain store, drive around the block, or broken piece of sidewalk into a story about the human condition. Maybe that’s just being a poet?

Some months later, that poem Jeremy had sent me, and specifically the writing style re-entered my mind. It was vivid, intense, and had so much movement. This time, I really dug into it and tried to take it in.

I’m a newcomer to poetry, having arrived at it first through a love of songwriting, and sometimes just looking at a page of poetry gives me a headache, because I’m working so hard to bring any life out of the words. Abdurraqib’s work is something very different, something that lives and breathes on the page. Something I wish I could do with just words and no music, but still feels very mysterious to me. I started looking around on the internet for more of his work, eventually coming to this poem, “Welcome to Heartbreak”.

This was the moment that his work really got me. I was astounded, moved to read the poem over and over. From there I bought his book “The Crown Ain’t Worth Much” and easily read it straight through. Once I “discovered” his work and started telling all of my friends about it, I realized that, as expected, I was extremely late to the party. Abdurraqib was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2021, and is well known in the writing world.

For a long time I have been a skeptic of songwriting that is overly poetic, that is when I can’t fully understand the meaning of the lyrics on a first or second listen. But in the past years, inspired by amazing songwriters like Adrianne Lenker, I’m trying to think more about the poetry, the three dimensional feeling, rhythm and dance of the words, not just the more easily accessible straight meaning of lyrics.

Feed My Addiction:

Photo by Siora Photography on Unsplash

Is there a poem or poet who has changed your life?

I would love to hear what you think about these Abdurraqib poems, and I hope you check out more of his work because it’s a gift that just keeps on giving.