The Ghetto and Its Seasons
by America Fontenot
University of Missouri - Kansas City
America Fontenot is a passion driven, creativity seeking, and a soul cleansing writer. She began writing at six years old to escape the hardships and traumatic childhood after her parent’s divorce. As a Mexican-American, America feels the pressures and limitations that are constrained to a single hyphenation, and with that she challenges the way in which these stories are perceived and told. She is pursuing her BA in English Creative Writing from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Instagram: @ame__rica.
The Ghetto and Its Seasons
The seasons in the ghetto are as follows;
Winter is coming,
Let’s get the worst out of the way.
The homeless built their pyramids
Under the overpass.
They play saucers in the intersection.
They made home at the corner;
Repurposed withered dining tables
For their savaged feasts.
Strung lights linger from the holiday past
Embossed with icy fangs,
A twisted candy cane of hope.
Spring thaws its way through dead cats.
Kids mistake coons for cats
Crying out “Kee-Kee!”
The begging cat;
That knows no love,
Other than what the kids leave out.
Just as the mal-planted hydrangeas
Shoot through the ground.
“Scorch!” Say the sun on those petals.
New flowers. Bought. Planted.
Into the grave of the old.
Fireworks
Mark the death of another.
Sounds like it anyway.
“Independence” Sam says,
Gangs say nah,
And spray sealed fates
With bloody drenched bullets.
X____________________
Signature Here
Haunted streets loom an ugly gray.
At Least in spring for a brief
You may dream of Brookside.
A pair of sneakers hang from the power lines,
The kid dressed up as the bad guy.
Winter again,
Dragging into the new year,
The year again,
Again,
Until cardboard boxes
Mark an X on the planner.
Interview with the Poet
1. What was your inspiration for this piece?
Kansas City is named one of the most dangerous cities in America. I’ve lived here nearly my entire life, and I couldn’t love/hate it more than I possibly do at this very moment in my life. When you begin to grow into your own house and finally plant those beautiful hydrangeas you’ve always wanted to steal off of some wealthy person’s lawn, only for them to die because it didn’t like your cheap soil or the unforgiving sun without the shade of gorgeous oak trees, your brain goes crazy. Now you’re making a plan for yourself to move out of the ghetto because you know change will never come to rescue, you have to rescue yourself or your dreams will die with it.
2. What is your creative process? (How do you go about writing or creating?)
Simple. Pen. Specifically a sharpie pen, because I retired my Pilot G-6 in highschool. Any scrap piece of paper I find, because usually a good poem only comes fresh out of the shower. I have to see the poem, let it play, zoom in on the smallest details like a dew drop on a rose petal. I usually let my hand write unconsciously, and if I get stuck Google usually is like a rubber ducky to me, “Hey Google what rhymes with stuck?” Bushbuck, what the hell is a bushbuck. Oh an antelope, okay that’s pretty. Then suddenly this became a nature poem.
3. What are some influences on your artistic process?
My culture mostly, which is purely ironic. My biggest fear is that my culture is quickly disintegrating before me, and that is partly my own fault. I do everything in my power to correct the wrongfulness that stems from the toxic traditions, so it feels like my responsibility to capture it while I can still witness it.
4. Is there anything more you’d like our readers/viewers to know about you or your work?
The only way you can read my writings is with your eyes closed. No seriously if you aren’t dreaming about what in the world I’m painting for you as an artist, you are doing it wrong.