Imani "Clio" Lang - Poet Laureate 2013
Imani “Clio” Lang started writing poetry when she was 13 years old. “No one told me to write poetry, I just found it,” she says. “To me, writing is about rhythm, rhythm is about space, everything around you.”
Clio has been an LSC-North Harris student since August 2012. She plans to finish her A.A. in creative writing here before enrolling in SCAD a university of creative careers in Savannah, Georgia. “That’s the place for me,” declares Clio, “where I can share ideas with other artists.” Even now she wants to share her passion with others and plans to be active in various arts and poetry events around campus.
Though writing commands much of her time and attention, Clio also enjoys music. “Sometimes music and poetry go hand-in-hand for me.” Her favorite poets are Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Oscar Wilde, John Keats, and Edgar Allen Poe.
In her future, Clio hopes to travel to inspiring places around the world: Paris, Colorado, Greece, and others. She will continue to write and profess her own art. But her true goal, she says, is to be “as philanthropic as possible to lost children; all children deserve to have a voice.” Her advice to all of us? “Don’t complain—help.”
Backwater Dream
by Clio
The illusion is at its finest now,
the ripples cave in
I stick the river Styx in the eye, then wrapped
his currents in a shroud
Metal pure and glorious
... Now I will rise, no pain and no more lies
Hera stares
watching, waiting for me to falter in her snare
The water comes full force, from the troughs and
the sewers,
while I shiver and a wooden square hits my ankle.
The Box confessed that I was disabled,
Though I realized that I wasn’t disadvantaged.
hearing the symphony of Beethoven
heightened my ears; erased my fears
Seeing the Ray Charles’ greed of the piano keys
inspired me to look deeper, I am my own dream keeper
Only fools are blind to the
Titanic army, on their boats, then on my turf
holding spears with Loki carvings
Now in the backwater,
there is my soul, no longer a wordless stone.
I’m awake now and the tea kettle is on,
“You will never conquer. Not rise. Not ever. So go disappear.”
If one believes this, then they’re already gone.
Coma
by Clio
The Other eye?
A cannibal to what I see fit
And what is fit is now unconscious,
What a Greek tragedy it is to sit by this
cold vixen and never chill
What a Greek tragedy to have
been bestowed a serious burn,
... dear Prometheus,
and never accept the fire.
How is thee so mind-barren?
Tell me?
For those bullets came this way
and inspired the unthinkable,
unthinkable I am.
Indiscernible is the title
for today,
missing 4 hours
a demon in me has set back
the clock 4 times.
I shall not see this again after I wake.
