Nope Not Today
I didn’t want to break my own heart
oh no you didn’t exist as a point on a plane
in a modern philosophy of time my new thing
nope not today in a world where transcendent
incompetence is easy to spot if that’s what you want to see
and efficiency is still the enemy of poetry and of love
oh no you didn’t write poems on forgetting fearsome leave-taking
or crypto-amnesia that act of forgetting to cite fierce attachment
nope today is a day to be free to transcend pedestrian realities
O ethical imperative dire as plagiarism nope
O emotional appropriation not today
one form of redress is if you write me a letter
I will write you back give and take means
no hearts broken if we concede to exist
as a sudden broken thing not fearful enemies of love
we grow fierce as yes transcendence yes
on a plane in the sky or in my mind
no you didn’t forget nor did I nope not today
Copyright © 2019 by Tina Cane. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 15, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets.
“I wrote this poem during my trip home from AWP 2019, during two layovers. It came from notes I took at a panel called The Influence Lab on literary appropriation, borrowing, and theft. It also has to do with the nature of emotional and intellectual attachment. I stole the poem's title and refrain from this t-shirt I love and bought for $4.99 at Rainbow Shop which says in sequins: Nope Not Today. This poem is part of a manuscript called Dog Whistle, in which I wish to explore the nature of language and its use, code-switching, register, emotional and intellectual appropriation, modes of communication, and politics.”
—Tina Cane
Tina Cane
Tina Cane is the author of Once More with Feeling (Veliz Books, 2017). She is the founder and director of Writers-in-the-Schools, Rhode Island. She lives in Providence.