Trace DePass
USA
My name is always in conversation with the Queens poet I’m named after, Howard, my great-grandfather. NYC poets have called my name a poem. My work, particularly transforming this poem into a house song, is inspired by dancers like Les Twins. Musical influences of mine are Serpentwithfeet, Sango, Luther Vandross, Labi Siffre & Toro Y Moi. I’ve also been blessed to bounce off of a good poet & friend (who plays piano in the live footage with Matt Raybeam), Nkosi Nkululeko, as much as my father, the sound engineer behind Myopia’s house beat. If you would like to use the beat for non-profit use, I’m encouraging you to sing the prompt “I know” & reckon with no longer being able to see someone you love. I hope to be in conversation with you too!
Myopia
Artist Notes
Click the tab below to read
Transcript for Myopia by Trace DePass
Myopia
I know
The mother you used to be
But who was she
Mama
Who are you without your boys
Your first love joy
My birthstone yours
My health restores
From open soars
I know I never felt unloved
But to not be loved
It still comes up
With the ones I touch
I cry from care
& thoughts of us
I don’t mean to stare
When my eyes focus
I can barely see
Numbers 1, 2, 3,
Myopia
Counts my blessings (Like an NPC, MPC)
So, pardon me
I’m so sorry
to name a pain
That’s neglect (& decay & decades in me)
I know
The mother you used to be
But who was she
Myopia – Ode to Life
Transcript for Myopia - Ode to Life by Trace DePass
Ode to Life (Pt. 2 of Myopia)
Although my father produced music
I wouldn’t know if the song’s mistake why I cringe the thing away
or if its the wish to be yanked free
that gives hand to each [*beatbox*] snare that ain’t ’pposed to be there
In the rift
i only know /the lyrics to /the refrain of day,
this sternum’s soprano,
its longing to run flat
the line we cannot write.
our wrists remind us that
the clock does its rounds
no matter which poet you be, Pac/Anglou/Steez/Phife/Tonya
but, hand me them poets as songs in the bpm of us
God of watch, take, all,
God of unclear wants, & no healing,
here,
i’ll hand you my neck.
you makeshift a rift,
& pluck, knit, unstitch.
defibrillator,
[un]do/
redo/adieu me right between
another
& another.
just let us laugh at music,
while we can still laugh with music,
cry at its stops, skips, & plays &
cringe & yanks away & this.
But, again…
can we run
can we run
can we run that [*beatbox*]
back again?
Myopia – with Matt Raybeam verse
Transcript for Myopia - Matt Raybeam verse by Trace DePass
Matt Raybeam verse
momma
will you take me home
i know im grown
i got no friends
no i don’t like them
i met another guy
im scared of him
i met another guy
it means begin
i don’t know if i love him
how do i know i trust him
piece by piece i touch him
momma
i met another guy
im high in his bed
i met another guy
he wants me to beg
momma
will you take me home
i had enough fun
i had enough fun
it needs to end
Trace DePass
Biography
Trace Howard DePass is the author of self-portrait as the space between us (PANK 2018) & the former editor of Scholastic’s Best Teen Writing of 2017. His work has been featured with Poetry Foundation, Ours Poetica, NPR’s The Takeaway, SAND Journal, Entropy Magazine, Split This Rock, The Poetry Project, Bettering American Poetry, and the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day
series. DePass is a fellow with Poets House, Obsidian, and Teachers & Writers.
Myopia is a conceit around seeing: Black people becoming new people, how grief takes up space in how we love & perceive ourselves, our lovers, our mothers, & siblings. During the pandemic, I lost community, several aunts & a sister. Black communities go on living, loving & making art regardless of if we see eye to eye or possess the ability to see at all. But to see death & only see a singular end, I’m implying, is myopic. To inhabit a body with tools like glasses, or poetry, or fellowships, allows me to not only see the tangible nearby but what all (y)our mothers see when they see us & we see each other thru life, thru love, & thru death & back from it. I wouldn’t be here if not for poetry & the inquiry that originates from not being able to see things clearly, like death, until we’re too close. Black folk love through things & dual consciousness for me means double vision: that of sorting our truth out from neglect &/or abuse; sometimes it’s reminding ourselves that we are [worthy] of love & God. The body on the other side of the street I literally cannot see [without glasses, plastics, or corrective surgery] was still there, somebody’s if not everyone’s child.
Black Listening's website front page header art and Obsidian 49.2 cover art were created by Nettrice Gaskins