Let Aubrey E. Drummond takes you on an emotional journey, from the pain of losing love, to a prayer to love again. Should we search for a ray of hope in this bitter world, or wish for the gift of flight to free ourselves from it? Witness the hatred of a bitter old man. Become lost in the voices that creep into our minds and just how does it feel to be black, living in today’s society. Experience all this and more in his new book: Hello Stranger.
Let Aubrey E. Drummond takes you on an emotional journey, from the pain of losing love, to a prayer to love again. Should we search for a ray of hope in this bitter world, or wish for the gift of flight to free ourselves from it? Witness the hatred of a bitter old man. Become lost in the voices that creep into our minds and just how does it feel to be black, living in today’s society. Experience all this and more in his new book: Hello Stranger.
Challenges come
Challenges go
But in the end
You must hold on
To this thing
called . . .
LIFE
Fly Away
When the time comes
I will know
When the day turns
I will go
Into the night sky
I will fly
Fly forever
Fly away
When Heaven Shakes Its Head at Night
Its head
Sometimes Heaven shakes
Cleaning itself
Washing its hair
From earth
We hear no sound of this
Yet
Wake we do
To a pretty sight
The ground so full
So pillowy white
When Heaven shakes
Its head at night
Homeplace
Tombs of rows
Frost winter snow
A force of searching souls
Open graves
Empty caves
A stream in heaven’s flow
Golden gates
Fiery fates
The fear of Satan’s blow
Heaven’s home
Spirit dome
The resting place for souls
Flying Bird
Flying bird, so shy
Every time I walk by
You take to the sky
Flying bird, why fly?
I cannot reach that high
Can only watch you
And “sigh”
From your perch in the tree
Where you smile in glee
As I kneel on bended knee
Sometimes as I stand
To you—reach out my hand
And hope, perhaps, you will land
Just want to be a part
Of your song “sing-along”
“Da-Deet-na-na-Deet-naaa”
The song
You won’t give me a try
You being far too shy
Can only stand and watch
You fly
Flying bird
Pretty
From me
Why flee?
Flying bird
Why flee
From me?
From me can’t you see
The love I have for thee
Flying bird, please hear
my plea
Just want to be a part
Of your song “sing-along”
“Da-Deet-na-na-Deet-naaa”
The song
Yet you take to the sky
With a fretful cry
Flying bird
You are
So shy
Yes, you take to the sky
With a frightful cry
Flying bird
Why be
So shy?
It never ceases to amaze. Today, it is clear that Aubrey E. Drummond is a profoundly prolific poet. The river of verse he has given us in recent years (even months) shows no sign of slowing. With each book, Drummond reveals more of his decades-long commitment to transcribing his world into poems of depth, humor, and love, grappling with the very nature of being. Hello Stranger is, perhaps, Drummond's strongest showing to date, leaning into his strengths while also venturing into levels of complexity that feel fresh and challenging.
In my time reviewing Drummond's work, I have often offered the opinion that he is especially brilliant as a poet of the short lyric. Hello Stranger feels like a gift in this regard. Short lyrics dominate the collection. And here, they demonstrate a heightened level of sophistication in their treatment of both the lyrical line and the subject matter. Image, mood, thesis, question, hope--all of these central elements are revealed with crisp treatment of diction and calculated attention to the emotional and intellectual life of the verse. With these shorter poems, Drummond achieves that difficult yet stirring trademark of an exemplary poet—an economy of language that fully captures and remediates the truest experiences of human interiority.
The handful of longer poems are among Drummond's finest and most vulnerable. The verses gathered here exercise a keen control of the line: short, bold fragments that call attention to each iota of the idea, memory, or narrative. Drummond's wit and humor populate these verses. But so, too, do his conversations between pain and hope. In "Mother's Hold," for instance, Drummond explores themes of intergenerational suffering and the desire to grow beyond the grasp of things past.
The final poems of Hello Stranger explore particularly complex consciousness of the body through lenses of race and age and solidify the timeliness and timelessness of Drummond's poetry. At all times, these poems are intersections of self and world, the individual as text and context. And though many of these poems were born decades ago, they speak powerfully to and about our current moment.
In short, Aubrey E. Drummond's Hello Stranger is, yet again, a shining addition to his ever-growing catalogue of books. This collection, which displays Drummond's talents at their finest, stands out as an especially polished entry in his poetic accomplishments.