2011 World AIDS Forum: Featured Poet: Tim’m T. West

“medicine”

 

how i do it

this not-always-easy

how i keep strong

on weak(er) days

is

i think of the joy

beckoning

for me to claim

the stuff of dreams

and fantasy

the weightlessness

my pillows hold

holding them

like a wish

how i do it

is

i keep keepin’

the promise

i make to myself

daily

that i deserve and am

gonna get it

and think…

this might be the day

this might be the moment

this might be the year

it all happens

hope

being my spoonful of sugar

medicine

goes down easier

having something so precious

to live for

something even

one would die for

something

like love

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Tim’m T. West is a poet, emcee, scholar and the author of three books Red Dirt Revival, BARE, and Flirting. A graduate of Duke, The New School, and Stanford universities, he is also Co-founder of the now defunct rap group DDC. Tim’m followed their success with three solo projects, “Songs from Red Dirt,” “Blakkboy Blue(s),” and the 2009 release “In Security: The Golden Error”. He also created and hosted the “Front Porch” Spoken Word/Soul/Hip Hop showcase in DC, Oakland, Chicago, Brooklyn, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston and various U.S. Colleges and Universities. While in Houston between 2008 and 2011 and having served as Program Coordinator at The FUSION Center of St. Hope Foundation, he also served as a Visiting Lecturer in Ethnic Studies at Humboldt State University in Northern California. In June 2011, he debuted his new one-man-show “Ready, Set, Grow: a coming of age story” at Austin’s (TX) Black Arts Movement Festival. On Independence Day 2011, he released his 4th solo Project, “Fly Brotha.” Find more about Tim’m’s work at www.reddirt.biz