The Blast
BY NATE MARSHALL

it was The Box
the TV station I had to sneak
in Grandma’s basement
like a girlfriend
it was the command
the reminder
we all come from the party
the keep on dancin’
we had to do
the capoiera in Brooklyn rain

it was tears
the open weeping
of an eleven year old me
after years of gangsta rap
and gospel
and Motown
and music that moved but couldn’t define me
it was finding the glory
of reality in the instrumental
it was the girls
giggling
unable to pronounce Talib Kweli
it was me
struggling
to pronounce myself

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Nate Marshall is from the South Side of Chicago. He was the star of the award winning full-length documentary Louder Than A Bomb and has been featured on HBO’s Brave New Voices. He is an MFA candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Michigan and received his BA at Vanderbilt University. His work has appeared in Learn Then Burn, Vinyl Poetry, The Spoken Word Revolution: Redux, on Chicago Public Radio and in many other publications. Nate has performed poetry at venues and universities across the US, Canada, and South Africa. He is also a rapper.