You’ll need your dumbbells for today’s daily dare (About gives you the deets re: how heavy & where you can find cheap dumbbells). We’re using them to do bent-over rows (to balance our push-ups) and dumbbell hang power clean and presses. Super short (this should not take longer than 3 minutes) but super intense. Here we go:
5 bent over rows
3 dumbbell hand power clean & presses
5 pushups
3 times as fast as possible, rest 30 seconds, then twice more.
That’s it. Then get outside and enjoy this perfect day!
Sunday’s poem is by the award-winning-yet-under-appreciated poet Patricia Smith, who is working on a biography of Harriet Tubman.
Katrina
Patricia Smith (from Blood Dazzler, 2008)
I was birthed restless and elsewhere
gut dragging and bulging with ball lightning, slush,
broke through with branches, steel
I was bitch-monikered, hipped, I hefted
a whip rain, a swirling sheet of grit.
Scraping toward the first of you, hungering for wood, walls,
unturned skin. With shifting and frantic mouth, I loudly loved
the slow bones
of elders, fools, and willows.
—-
For an astounding, extended mix of poems in response to Katrina, check out some excerpts here, then buy Blood Dazzler.
May 9, 2015
KungLi
Queerfit queerfit 
5 responses to “Sun. – 5/10 Three minutes of life + Patricia Smith”
Cindy Lutenbacher
May 10th, 2015 at 08:36
Done, done, lordy. Subbed 5 presses with a higher weight than usual, since the cleans don’t work for me. With help from Coach Layla who tried to climb on the dumbbells and me, and from Coach Kiza who tried to lick my armpits during pushups.
Kung-Li, I don’t have your email or phone, so this public forum is what I have. I apologize if my comment about butchness and Solange troubled you. I was trying to bust a stereotype, but your response did that a bazoodyillion times better. Thank you. I intend to borrow (with proper citation) your words.
Patricia Smith–I didn’t know her work, and this poem and the excerpts you linked are amazing. Thank you. New Orleans is my home. Lost an uncle to the pain of Katrina. My dad built the home on cinder blocks, else it would have been sunk like the rest of the neighborhood and the homes of a dear friends. Been there through Hilda, Betsy, Killer Camille. And none of that compares with the true nightmare of Katrina.
KungLi
May 10th, 2015 at 17:38
Hey no worries – not troubled at all. Keep up the cheer-leading here on the site – we see you & appreciate you!
Glo
May 10th, 2015 at 18:36
Check!!
Cindy Lutenbacher
May 10th, 2015 at 19:07
Dayummm, Glo. You’re like the Energizer Bunny with tattoos and a smile.
eunicehcho
May 10th, 2015 at 22:30
Done with a gallon jug of water–still working on finding some dumbbells!