There are two parts here: A. and B.
A. Directions: Click here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFZJoU44uOo) to watch Ariana Brown’s “Ode to Thrift Stores” (transcript included at bottom of the page). Then, offer your opinion to these questions:
1. What’s your overall take on this work? Did you connect with it?
2. Talk about any specific moments in the poem (lines, phrases, words) that helped you picture what you were hearing.
3. Through offering praise to thrift stores, the poem also seems to explore the following themes: how wisdom is handed down through generations; how class identity is shaped through family relationships, and how (as the saying goes) “Necessity is the mother of invention.” Of those three themes, which one came across most effectively for you?
B. Directions: Click here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pN5HtfzqTc) to watch Ariana Brown’s “Ode to The City Bus” (transcript included at bottom of the page). Then, offer your opinion to these questions:
1. What’s your overall take on this work? Did you connect with it?
2. Talk about any specific moments in the poem (lines, phrases, words) that helped you picture what you were hearing.
3. Through offering praise to the city bus (to this specific form public transportation), the poem also seems to explore a number of other themes. Identify TWO other themes, and explain a bit about how or why.
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A. Transcript of “Ode to Thrift Stores”:
A rich girl once told me she didn’t shop in thrift stores because they were “sad places.” And immediately I pictured myself, trotting alongside my mom at the Community Thrift on the Southside, the dusty heaven that produced all my toys and dresses.
I remember “This Will Be,” some Natalie Cole, or Otis Redding, or Earth, Wind & Fire shooting through the speakers, my mom humming about everlasting love while scouring the kitchen utensils, and I know the rich girl is wrong, that thrift stores are anything but sad.
Mom had rules when I was young. Pants should be under $10, shirts less than 5, a good jacket maybe 15 or 20. I’m not sure if she made these rules or inherited them, as I did, but I keep them with me everywhere I go. Know that a woman who came before you knew you would need guidance, and so she gifted you, from her tired palms, her oldest blueprints for existing.
The women in my family have always been the most original. Trust them to find a way to do something when every easy option is gone. Turn the blouse backwards and now, it fits better. Roll up the sleeves, remove shoulder pads, learn to sew so you can hem your own clothes.
What can you create when the only thing in front of you is your hands? How fast can you think? How deliberate can you be?
Can you imagine something better than what you have, then make the thing you have, better? Who taught you to make a solution where there is none? Who was it that said “adapt or die”? And did they meet my mother? Queen of couponing and early morning yards sales before the Texas heat brushes the back of the neck. When I tell you department stores overwhelm me, what I mean is,
15% off Is not a sale.
I’m not even sure why they have sales because I’m not showing up til it goes on clearance. Mom says everything goes on clearance.
Mom also says the only things you should buy new are shoes and underwear. That just because you don’t have money, doesn’t mean you can’t be sanitary. Don’t leave the store til you’ve seen everything. The selection changes every day. Every 24 hours, a handful of new chances to become an artist.
My mom says she used to write poetry. My father, when he was alive, was a dancer. Did I learn grace, or was it passed through the blood? Have I always been creative and practical?
Today I bought two sweaters, two belts, and a mason jar for three dollars. Texted my mom, “thinking of you.”
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B. Transcript of “Ode to Thrift Stores”:
The longest relationship I’ve ever been in has been with the public transportation system. I ride the bus. I ride or die for the bus. Hasn’t there always been a bus ready to pick me up and drop me off somewhere kind of close to the vicinity of where I was trying to go? Oh city bus, you taught me to love walking. I give thanks for Google Maps, for each wrong bus I entered and each time I exited too early, you keep me humble. I do not in fact always know where I am going. Oh bus stop two blocks from my current apartment, how your buses pass me most mornings. As I run through crosswalks with toast in my mouth, trying to reach you in time. I will wave my lunchbox a thousand times to get your attention, if it means you’ll come closer. Do not trust anyone who thinks they’re too good to run for the bus. We are not perfect. I know this because you don’t always show up when you’re supposed to…or at all. Your mantra is “They’ll wait.” My tardy, good-hearted shepherd, you take my quarters and you take me anywhere, almost anywhere. Thank you to every black bus driver who got me home safe. Thank you to every brown bus driver who got me home safe. When we protested police brutality in Austin, it was enough to see your hands wave, the pride on your faces. Oh million elders in uniform transporting the people safely, automobile of the movement, indestructible justice machine. I’ve never seen a bus get in an accident, I’m not saying it hasn’t happened, I just think they might be indestructible. I want every college student I meet to be more considerate, to take your backpacks off and move all the way to the back. You can always tell who’s new or uncomfortable, but the bus will pick anyone up. Oh smelly harbor of funk. Oh strange stained bus seat. I did not see you til I sat in you. My mistake. We are all too close for comfort here. But I trust you more than any other mass transit system. I’ve never felt more like a southerner when trying to take a train to New York, I ended up on the wrong train in the middle of New Jersey. Those are different places. Thank you to every bus driver who’s given me directions, who remembered my face on a familiar route, who saw in me a daughter, who let me write this poem in the ride home in the rain.
