Reading “In all of my dreams, the words I love you” by Hanif Abdurraqib

Poetry Lunch S3E12

Reading “In all of my dreams, the words I love you” by Hanif Abdurraqib published on Roadmap by Allma.

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Heavy hitter today to wrap this season of Poetry Lunch from somewhere down deep. Thanks for being with me in all the new work I’ve been reading!

This poem takes me up and down relentlessly and I felt so chilled after the first read through I actually went and put a hoodie on before reading it again. Too many beautiful lines and I love the long flow, the heavy waves buttressed by the interviewer becoming ever more human and the occasional gasps for air. I also really like the use of the word occasional in this poem. And that the super sadness that permeates it is not apologized for. It’s allowed, maybe even the point. At the least, a definite matter of fact.

I like the forgetting and remembering that keeps happening throughout the poem and how it becomes an act of drowning itself; I certainly feel washed up and shook up and glad to be alive here at the shore of just having read it.

Thanks Hanif for your deep yet always accessible ways with words, and the raw effort with which you share them.

Thanks all for your listening / reading / partaking of this little series this season and I hope summer finds you if not with light and love at least with good poetry books to buoy you up.

Till fall!

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Find the poem here: https://roadmapmag.com/articles/in-all-of-my-dreams-the-words-i-love-you

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PS yesterday morning a six year old asked me, upon waking, “why do dreams happen?” A very good question I intend to keep living into!