#ama codjoe

[feral-ballad]

Ama Codjoe, from Bluest Nude: Poems; “Bluest Nude”

[Text ID: “I crave. I want to be seen clearly or not at all.”]

[soracities]

Ama Codjoe, from "The Bluest Nude" [ID'd]

[apoemaday]

On Seeing and Being Seen

by Ama Codjoe

I don’t like being photographed. When we kissed at a wedding, the night grew long and luminous. You unhooked my bra. A photograph passes for proof, Sontag says, that a given thing has happened. Or you leaned back to watch as I eased the straps from my shoulders. Hooks and eyes. Right now, my breasts are too tender to be touched. Their breasts were horrifying, Elizabeth Bishop writes. Tell her someone wanted to touch them. I am touching the photograph of my last seduction. It is as slick as a magazine page, as dark as a street darkened by rain. When I want to remember something beautiful, instead of taking a photograph, I close my eyes. I watched as you covered my nipple with your mouth. Desire made you beautiful. I closed my eyes. Tonight, I am alone in my tenderness. There is nothing in my hand except a certain grasping. In my mind’s eye, I am stroking your hair with damp fingertips. This is exactly how it happened. On the lit-up hotel bed, I remember thinking, My body is a lens I can look through with my mind.

[northwindow]

Ama Codjoe, from “Primordial Mirror”

[dk-thrive]

Walking alone in a forest, I came upon a deer-this was not a vision. It faced me, on its four thin legs, unmoved as a cave painting brushed by light. I made myself still. I spoke to it, softly. I can't remember what I said. The deer regarded me as a god would, eased by my astonishment. Then, slowly, I moved closer, and the deer did not run. By now, you know it was love I walked toward, not the deer, but what hung in the space between us. I know it was love because, as I held my breath, the deer took a few steps toward me before bounding into the camouflage of branches and leaves.

— Ama Codjoe, "The Deer" (via Read a Little Poetry)

[insaneclownpussi]

reading Ama Codjoe’s Bluest Nude right now and. holy shit its so good

[balfasulye]

When you look at me, in our most intimate exchanges, you drape my nakedness     in a fabric I neither sewed nor bought. You pin  my beauty with a tack against the wall, or me against  a four-poster bed: thighs splayed, nipples spilling      spoiled milk. In every light, the fact of history  strips me blue. These are the conditions. The point is  to go on. Drawing myself, as water from a well,      I can no longer believe in an innocence  that was never mine.

Ama Codjoe—from BLUEST NUDE

[manwalksintobar]

The Deer // Ama Codjoe

Walking alone in a forest, I came upon a deer—this was not a vision. It faced me, on its four thin legs, unmoved as a cave painting brushed by light. I made myself still. I spoke to it, softly. I can’t remember what I said. The deer regarded me as a god would, eased by my astonishment. Then, slowly, I moved closer, and the deer did not run. By now, you know it was love I walked toward, not the deer, but what hung in the space between us. I know it was love because, as I held my breath, the deer took a few steps toward me before bounding into the camouflage of branches and leaves.

[pityroad]

— On Seeing and Being Seen, Ama Codjoe (via)

[text ID: Tonight, I am alone in my tenderness. / There is nothing in my hand except a certain / grasping.]

[theoffingmag]

Pain is a message to pay attention. What often captivates my attention is painful, to use the analogy and reality we’re building together through this conversation — it is the knot.

Q&A with Ama Codjoe, Author of The Bluest Nude

[feral-ballad]

Ama Codjoe, from Bluest Nude: Poems; “On Seeing and Being Seen”

[Text ID: “Tonight, I am alone in my tenderness.”]

[soracities]

Ama Codjoe, from "The Bluest Nude" [ID'd]

[stoweboyd]

On Seeing and Being Seen | Ama Codjoe

I don’t like being photographed. When we kissed at a wedding, the night grew long and luminous. You unhooked my bra. A photograph passes for proof, Sontag says, that a given thing has happened. Or you leaned back to watch as I eased the straps from my shoulders. Hooks and eyes. Right now, my breasts are too tender to be touched. Their breasts were horrifying, Elizabeth Bishop writes. Tell her someone wanted to touch them. I am touching the photograph of my last seduction. It is as slick as a magazine page, as dark as a street darkened by rain. When I want to remember something beautiful, instead of taking a photograph, I close my eyes. I watched as you covered my nipple with your mouth. Desire made you beautiful. I closed my eyes. Tonight, I am alone in my tenderness. There is nothing in my hand except a certain grasping. In my mind’s eye, I am stroking your hair with damp fingertips. This is exactly how it happened. On the lit-up hotel bed, I remember thinking, My body is a lens I can look through with my mind.

(via Poem: On Seeing and Being Seen - The New York Times)

[seekingstars]

Blueprint - Ama Codjoe

[nibelmundo]

My body is a lens I can look through with my mind.

Ama Codjoe, On Seeing and Being Seen

[dk-thrive]

When I want to remember something beautiful, instead of taking a photograph, I close my eyes

When I want to remember something beautiful, instead of taking a photograph, I close my eyes... Tonight, I am alone in my tenderness. There is nothing in my hand except a certain grasping. In my mind’s eye, I am stroking your hair with damp fingertips. This is exactly how it happened. On the lit-up hotel bed, I remember thinking, My body is a lens I can look through with my mind.

—  Ama Codjoe, from “On Seeing and Being Seen” (NY Times, January 5, 2023)