Hermine Pinsonhas published three poetry collections: Ashe (Wings Press), Mama Yetta and Other Poems (Wings Press), and Dolores is Blue/Dolorez is Blues (Sheep Meadow Press). She also released a cd, Changing the Changes in Poetry & Song, in special collaboration with Yusef Komunyakaa and Estella Conwill Majozo (2005). Her poetry, fiction, and critical essays have appeared in anthologies and journals such as Callaloo, Verse, Cave Canem Poetry Anthology, The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South, African American Review, Common Bonds: Stories by and About Modern Texas Women, Eyeball, Konch, Melus, Paintbrush Forum for European Contributions in African American Studies, and will soon appear in Richmond Noir. As associate professor of English, she teaches creative writing and African American literature at the College of William and Mary. 

Purchase her books here and here, and her collaborative cd here.

Seashell Poem
for the Wintergreen Women

After a season of floods, we amble down
Hatteras beach toward the lighthouse
we will not reach today,
sated with easy quiet or quick exchange
friendship relishes.

We pocket bits of fire, sky and night:
lion paws, queens, calico scallops,
God’s litter of sea jewels
and abandoned abodes.

Sandy, Rochelle and I are seashell snobs
and seashore griots who speak to passersby,
egrets, gulls, Wyeth’s grey-eyed dogs,
fishermen, whitebaby’s ears and jack knifes.

When did the mudsnail leave its fate
to the whim of wind and tide?

This one’s the color of lightning.
That one’s haint blue.
Over there is Sandy’s sienna.

Our talk, a common jingle
in the Atlantic wash,
all while the sea casts up
the stuff of earth’s watery keeping.

Our pockets heavy,
our hearts light with light,
we sing songs out of the clear blue
the ones that got us through—
“I don’t believe he brought me this far
to leave me.”

True tulip, Atlantic coquina, heart sea bean--
Rochelle, take this yellow cowrie,
American cousin of Ifa’s divining tool.

Horse conch, Atlantic cockle, urchin, auger—
keepers.
After a season of bad news
we amble toward the lighthouse,
seashell snobs, seashore griots,

Untitled

I
As tender the dollar singes everyone
at all hours
at all costs,
surely,
but for whom shall I be telling this
with burnt feelings
and to whom so well,
with a cry?

Anubis’ Prophecy

I am the alpha and the omega, says the Lord, the One who is
and was and is to come, the Almighty.
                                              “the prologue of the book of John”
                                               
Jesus, savior, pilot me over life’s tempestuous sea.
                                              “middle passage”
                                                —Robert Hayden

Beloved Gaius,
pressed against time’s chrysalis
we grow old
besieging heaven
with the breath
of unleavened prayers

Lord, I’m throwing lead line
on the la’board side.
quarter less twain,
don’t change your mind.
heave it in the water just-a one more time.
eight feet and a half, Mr. Pilot,
will you change your mind?

Hey,
for all it’s worth
here are our outstretched hands.
step out and greet us
each by name.
love yourself and then
all of us or

                        (Here’s the kicker)
will you change your mind

When the pilot bails us,
we’ll be
burned clean.