Sunday, April 14, 2013

National Poetry Month: Kathy Acker






from the novel Florida
(Kathy Acker)

Baby don’t give, baby don’t get.
When it’s cold, baby gets wet.
When baby gets wet, baby gets weak.
Baby don’t find, baby don’t seek.

You want to know the story of this song

It’s about a woman who loves to go wrong.
She gets contented like a big fat cat
Only when she’s lying flat on her back.

Well, this woman fell in love with a man

Just like some women unfortunately can.
This man had nuts but was nuts in the head
He refused to take this hot babe to bed.

Baby don’t give, baby don’t get.

When it’s cold, baby gets wet.
When baby gets wet, baby gets weak.
Baby don’t find, baby don’t seek.

He told her he loved her: he told her he’d give

Anything to her so she’d continue to live.
He’s buy her minks and he’d buy her pearls
He just wouldn’t give her cunt a swirl.
Too many women were pursuing him
And he was fucking too many girls.

So she sang him this sad song

About how the world was always wrong:
DIE IF I DO, DIE IF I DON’T
DIE IF I WRITE, DIE IF I DON’T
DIE IF I FALL IN LOVE AND DIE IF I WON’T

He didn’t give a shit, he didn’t care.

She shouted to the cold winter air;
She slashed her wrists; she shaved her head:
She refused to eat so she’d almost drop dead.

He didn’t run to her, he told her he

Was sick of people and their needs.
All he wanted to do was sit alone
In his country house by his telephone.

Baby don’t give, baby don’t get.

When it’s cold, baby gets wet.
When baby gets wet, baby gets weak.
Baby don’t find, baby don’t seek.

So listen girls, do what you can

To find a horny loving man.
Give him all you’ve got to give,
Give him more so you can live.


"Baby don't give baby don't get" by Kathy Acker appeared in her novel Florida. Acker studied poetry during the 1960s under Jerome Rothenberg before turning to novel writing.  From the introduction to Young Lust  (1988): "I came out of the poetry world of America. Specifically, I was taught by the second generation of the Black Mountain poets and by Jackson MacLow who was a crossover between that group and Fluxus. Among the many lessons I had learned by the time I was in my early twenties was a practical one: poets never make money and are, as both Rimbaud and Patti Smith said, the white niggers of this earth." 

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