I’ve learned that you can’t write life but it’s important to write down things because it’s history. How and why you lived. Chicken & Rise is life. What happens when everything goes really right or super hell wrong. Like Forest Gump said, “...it happens!” Sooner or later we’re going to smush our feet through it. So what happens next? I’ve decided to do like Forest and keep running until the end because far worse can happen in life. My book is about eating, loving, suffering, and a little bit of regret, but most importantly it’s about living!
This is my very first book. It is vivid soulfoul poetry filled with short stories written with for the great intent of stimulating,marinating, and elevating all minds! Chicken & Rise is the 2012 Poetry Winner of the Southern California Book Festival. I am grateful to be recognized amongst many great poets and I hope everyone is never afraid to write and free their words because our voice is our Unity!
Excerpt
Consumed By Her
I was so afraid to look into your delicious eyes, but I wanted so bad to throw you onto the silver hood of my four door, automatic drive, eighty eight Buick Park Avenue that painted the moon’s crescent smiling countenance on its shiny turtle waxed canvas as if it were Leonardo Da Vinci’s beautiful Mona Lisa. Wanted to lay you out on the top of the steaming fuel injected V8 engine, unravel your veins and grounded arteries and connect them to the plus and negatives buried deep within my heart, to jumpstart that spark again. I wanted to tell, but the words kept turning into all- purpose flour, sticking to my palette like moist saliva bread. My tongue scrapped and scrapped against the pink walls, but they never fell. I looked at my hands then at the sky and tried again. Grabbing, pressing, folding, kneading, rolling the clouds out of the sky and fixing them into a small pearl for you, then slung it into the sky while you watched it yeast into a string nimbus necklace. I remember how your eyes glimmered, how you only saw clouds. How you never realized I saw heaven. But still I didn’t ask, never could, and every time I’d let those clouds yeast away until they burst. Pouring acid rain onto my fore head, eroding away, my lips, words, and heart. Then I’d sit alone, speechless, staring at you watching clouds, and watch as you ate my eyes out.
Professional Reviews
Raw Sistaz Literary Group
Lessons in living
Chris L. Wright, AKA Chicken, shares candid thoughts about things that have given light to his journey. He chose short, short stories and poetry as his vehicle. Wright shares a comical recitation on how he entered this world. He also tells how he lives in search of the right ingredients for happiness. Setting the temperature for patience and having the faith to stand still when your dreams start rising are two key elements.
Separated into seven categories, Wright gives readers much to think about. 'A Black Sun Rises' takes an animated look at the prejudice and racism that surrounds America . 'Follow The Leader' asks why a policeman's radar starts beeping when young Black Men are in their scope. 'Instances' is a melancholic dissertation as the writer remembers the instant sweet helloes become hasty goodbyes between lovers. 'Will You Feed My Sheep' questions our dedication to serving God. And finally Wright gives us 'To My Greatest Fan', a solemn, compassionate goodbye to his beloved grandma.
CHICKEN & RISE is about eating, loving, adversities and regrets, but it is mainly about life and living; quiet, inspirational, surprising.
First Edition Translation of Teselas by Carmen Crespo X111 César Simón Poetry Prixe 2016 Translated from Spanish by Robin Ouzman Hislop and Amparo Arrospíde
