A young poet from Winston-Salem is headed to Washington, D.C., in April to compete in the national Poetry Out Loud finals.
High school senior Richmond Parris, of UNC School of the Arts, clinched the spot after winning a regional poetry recitation competition in Charlotte last month, earning praise for his passionate and eloquent recitations.
Parris joined WFAE's Nick de la Canal to reflect on one of the poems he recited in the regional competition, and the impact it's had on him.
Nick de la Canal: One of the poems that you recited last month — and that I understand you will recite in D.C. — is a piece by Marge Piercy titled, "To have without holding." You say that this is a piece that you feel a real connection to. How did you come across this piece to begin with?
Richmond Parris: Yes. So we were doing a project in class called "Poetry in Motion," where we take a poem and devise it into, like, a staged work. And I had to go through the database that they gave us from Poetry Out Loud's website, and I read this poem "To have without holding," by Marge Piercy, of course. And the first line is: "Learning to love differently is hard," and automatically that resonated with me.
I feel like throughout life, we have a way that we have loved people, and for some other people in our lives, it can be different.
De la Canal: Do you mind reading for us just the first stanza of that poem?
Parris: Yes, of course.
Learning to love differently is hard,
love with the hands wide open, love
with the doors banging on their hinges,
the cupboard unlocked, the wind
roaring and whimpering in the rooms
rustling the sheets and snapping the blinds
that thwack like rubber bands
in an open palm.
De la Canal: That’s really beautiful, and a little scary or painful, too. The poem goes on to say that “it hurts … to love wide open … to have and not to hold,” and “ to love consciously, conscientiously, concretely, constructively.” You say that you feel that this poem was meant for you. What do you mean by that?
Parris: I mean that love is constantly changing, and our definition of love changes as we go throughout life. And I think the "conscientiously, concretely, constructively," line is the prime example of that. We have to learn how to be able to change our love languages and how we love others to best benefit them — and us — throughout our lives.
De la Canal: Do you think that this poem has changed your thinking or the way that you love?
Parris: I believe so, yes. I think that there are so many different aspects of love that I didn't really think about before reading this poem. And I've tried to learn how to be able to love dynamically and in different ways, and love the people around me in the ways that benefit them the best.
De la Canal: You've competed in school poetry recitation competitions before, but you say that you never took them that seriously before. What changed this time around?
Parris: This year I wanted to really push myself. And this was my final year of high school. I was like, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to go ahead and go out with a bang. And it was just so much fun, and I really didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did. But I really enjoyed this whole process.
De la Canal: Well we heard you read the first stanza of that poem. Do you think maybe you could read the last stanza?
Parris: Yes, I definitely can do that.
I can't do it, you say it's killing
me, but you thrive, you glow
on the street like a neon raspberry,
you float and sail, a helium balloon
bright bachelor's button blue and bobbing
on the cold and hot winds of our breath,
as we make and unmake in passionate
diastole and systole the rhythm
of our unbound bonding, to have
and not to hold, to love
with minimized malice, hunger
and anger moment by moment balanced.
De la Canal: You know, the author of that poem is still living. And I’m wondering — if you could say something to her about this piece that she wrote, what would you say?
Parris: I would say thank you. Poetry really was not my strong suit in the past, and this one really connected to me. And for (her) to be able to write a work that felt really personal to me, and allowed me to change the way I go about my life. I just want to thank (her) so much for helping me grow as a person and to love in different ways.
