CELEBRATING BLACK HISTORY MONTH ONE POET AT A TIME: ANDRE GERALDINE LORDE

ALL THIS MONTH OF FEB. IT'S BLACK HISTORY MONTH AND I HERE AT LIFE IN WORDS WILL BE SHOWCASING AFRICAN AMERICAN POETS.

AUDRE GERALDINE LORDE

SHE WAS BORN IN 1934 IN NEW YORK CITY AND WAS A POET, ACTIVIST AND WRITER. SHE IDENTIFIED HERSELF AS A LESBIAN AND A POET. IN HER OWN WORDS SHE SAID I AM "BLACK, LESBIAN, MOTHER, WARRIOR, POET." BEFORE SHE DIED SHE TOOK ON THE NAME GAMBA ADISA WHICH TRANSLATES TO "WARRIOR: SHE WHO MAKES HER MEANING KNOWN".

SHE WAS PUBLISHED IN LANGSTON HUGHES 1962 NEW NEGRO POETS, USA ALSO IN BLACK LITERARY MAGAZINES IN THE 1960'S. SHE WAS A STRONG PERSON IN HER VIEWS WITH CIVIL RIGHTS, ANTI-WAR AND FEMINIST MOVEMENTS. SHE PUBLISHED HER FIRST BOOK IN 1968.HER CRAFT IS ICONIC FOR THE WORD. SHE IS A MASTER AT WHAT SHE DID. LORDE WAS A MASTER AT WORDS NOT ONLY IN POETRY BUT IN SPEECHES. SHE STATED THAT:RACISM, SEXISM AND HOMOPHOBIA WERE ALL LINKED AND WAS ABOUT PEOPLE NOT WILLING TO ACCEPT DIFFERENCES. HER POETRY WAS A MIXED REALITY OF AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL LIFE. SHE STATED THAT LIFE IS TEXT.

"I am defined as other in every group I'm part of. "The outsider, both strength and weakness. Yet without community there is certainly no liberation, no future, only the most vulnerable and temporary armistice between me and my oppression".---LORDE

SHE PUBLISHED 15 BOOKS IN HER LIFE TIME AND WAS IN MANY OTHER PUBLICATIONS. SHE BECAME POET LAUREATE OF NEW YORK FROM 1991-1992. SADLY HER MORTAL VOICE WAS SILENCED WHEN SHE DIED IN 1997 FROM BREAST CANCER BUT HER IMMORTAL VOICE OF POETRY WILL LIVE FOREVER. SHE IS A MASTER AND A TRUE ONE OF A KIND POET.

POEM SPOTLIGHT:

The Black Unicorn

The black unicorn is greedy.

The black unicorn is impatient.

'The black unicorn was mistaken

for a shadow or symbol

and taken

through a cold country

where mist painted mockeries

of my fury.

It is not on her lap where the horn rests

but deep in her moonpit

growing.

The black unicorn is restless

the black unicorn is unrelenting

the black unicorn is not

free.

by Audre Lorde

CELEBRATING BLACK HISTORY MONTH ONE POET AT A TIME: ALICE WALKER

ALL THIS MONTH OF FEB. IT'S BLACK HISTORY MONTH AND I HERE AT LIFE IN WORDS WILL BE SHOWCASING AFRICAN AMERICAN POETS.

ALICE WALKER

ALICE MALSENIOR WALKER WAS BORN FEB. 9 1944. SHE IS A TRUE ICON TO THE WRITTEN WORD. SHE HAS WRITTEN MANY BOOKS. 18 NOVELS AND SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS TOTAL. SHE HAS ALSO WRITTEN 10 POETRY BOOKS. ALSO 11 NON-FICTION BOOKS. OF HER MOST ACCLAIMED NOVEL WOULD BE THE COLOR PURPLE WHICH SHE WON THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION. THE BOOK WOULD GO ON TO BE MADE INTO A WONDERFUL MOVIE.

MRS. WALKER IS A SELF-DECLARED FEMINIST AND WOMANIST. THE WOMANIST IS A WORD SHE MADE UP FOR WOMEN OF COLOR TO SEPARATE THE ASPECT OF FEMINIST AND ALSO THE STRUGGLE TO BE A WOMAN OF COLOR. IN 1965 SHE GRADUATED FROM SARAH LAWRENCE COLLEGE BY NEW YORK CITY. MRS. WALKER BECAME VERY INTERESTED IN THE U.S. CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT. SHE MOVED BACK TO THE SOUTH WHERE SHE WAS BORN AND TOOK UP THE CAUSE FOR VOTER REGISTRATION, WELFARE RIGHTS CAMPAIGNS AND ALSO WORKING WITH CHILDREN PROGRAMS IN MISSISSIPPI. WHILE SHE LIVED IN MISSISSIPPI SHE WAS HARASSED AND WAS ALSO GIVEN DEATH THREATS BY THE KU KLUX KLAN, THIS DID NOT BOTHER HER FOR SHE FOUGHT FOR HER RIGHTS AND STOOD STRONG IN HER BELIEFS.

SHE PUBLISHED AN ARTICLE IN 1975 THAT WAS FOCUS POINT IN BRINGING BACK THE WONDER OF WRITER ZORA NEALE HURSTON WHO HAD BEEN FORGOTTEN ABOUT IN THE BOOK WORLD. HURSTON WAS AN AMERICAN FOLKLORIST WHO MADE HER MARK IN THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE ERA AND ALSO WROUGHT THE BOOK THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD IN 1937. MRS. HURSTON HAS BEEN LISTED AS ONE OF THE 100 GREATEST AFRICAN AMERICANS. THROUGH RESEARCH MRS. WALKER AND HER FRIEND CHARLOTTE D. HUNT FOUND THE UNMARKED HIDDEN GRAVE OF THIS MASTER WRITER OF WRITTEN WORD IN FT. PIERCE FLORIDA. WALKER AND HUNT PAID OUT OF THERE OWN MONEY TO GIVE HER A HEADSTONE ON THE GRAVE SITE FOR SHE WOULD NOT BE FORGOTTEN ABOUT.

MRS. WALKER IS A TRUE ACTIVIST AND A HARD BEAUTIFUL AMAZING WOMAN, WRITER AND MOST OF ALL A POET. SHE CAPTURES THE BEAUTY OF WRITTEN WORD AND SHOWCASES THE STRUGGLE AND ART AND CRAFT OF WRITTEN WORD. MOST ALL HER WORK SHOWCASES THE STRUGGLES OF BLACKS, MAINLY WOMEN, THE FIGHT AGAINST RACIST AND SEXIST CULTURE AND A VIOLENT CULTURE. WHEN SHE WON HER PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION FOR THE COLOR PURPLE SHE WAS THE FIRST BLACK WOMAN TO EVER WIN. ON DEC. 6TH 2006 CALIFORNIA PLACED HER IN THE CALIFORNIA HALL OF FAME LOCATED AT THE CALIFORNIA MUSEUM FOR HISTORY, WOMEN, AND THE ARTS.

IF YOU ARE A LOVER OF BOOKS OR POETRY YOU SHOULD PICK UP HER BOOKS. SHE IS A STRONG POWERFUL WRITER THAT KNOWS WHAT SHES WANTS AND WHAT SHE WANTS SHOW. HER POETRY IS GIFTED AND STRONG AND BRINGS OUT SO MUCH TO THE READER.

POEM SPOTLIGHT

EXPECT NOTHING


Expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.Discover the reason why
So tiny human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.

BY: ALICE WALKER


POEM SPOTLIGHT:

I Said to Poetry

I said to Poetry:"I'm finished
with you."Having to almost die
before some wierd light
comes creeping through
is no fun."No thank you, Creation,
no muse need apply.
Im out for good times--at the very least,
some painless convention."

Poetry laid back
and played dead
until this morning.
I wasn't sad or anything,
only restless.

Poetry said: "You remember
the desert, and how glad you were
that you have an eye
to see it with? You remember
that, if ever so slightly?
"I said: "I didn't hear that.
Besides, it's five o'clock in the a.m.
I'm not getting up
in the dark
to talk to you."

Poetry said: "But think about the time
you saw the moon
over that small canyon
that you liked so much better
than the grand one--and how surprised you were
that the moonlight was green
and you still had
one good eye
to see it with

Think of that!"

"I'll join the church!" I said,
huffily, turning my face to the wall.
"I'll learn how to pray again!"

"Let me ask you," said Poetry.
"When you pray, what do you think
you'll see?"

Poetry had me.

"There's no paper
in this room," I said.
"And that new pen I bought
makes a funny noise."

"Bullshit," said Poetry.
"Bullshit," said I

CELEBRATING BLACK HISTORY MONTH ONE POET AT A TIME: IMAMU AMIRI BARAKA

ALL THIS MONTH OF FEB. IT'S BLACK HISTORY MONTH AND I HERE AT LIFE IN WORDS WILL BE SHOWCASING AFRICAN AMERICAN POETS.



Imamu Amiri Baraka

AN AMAZING CONTROVERSY POET BORN ON OCT. 7, 1934. HIS ORIGINAL NAME WAS LEROI JONES BUT HE CHANGED IT. HE IS A MASTER AT POETRY, DRAMA, ESSAYS AND MUSIC CRITICISM. HE IS A ONE OF A KIND, ORIGINAL POET THAT STEPS OVER TO THE DARKSIDE AT TIMES AND KNOWS HOW TO PUSH THE BOUNDRIES OF EXPRESSION.

HE IS WHAT TRUE FREE SPEECH IS ABOUT. HE PUSHES THE TONE, AND SMACKS THE FACE OF ALL THOSE LISTENING. HE HAS MANY WORKS OF POETRY, FROM VIOLENT LACED POETRY TO CALM AND COLLECTED POETRY. FROM POETRY THAT IS FILLED WITH BLACK OPPRESSION TO RACISM, SEXISM, HOMOPHOBIA AND ANTI-SEMITISM. AT TIMES HE IS HARD TO LISTEN TO AND READ BECAUSE OF HIS CONTROVERSIAL STANDS BUT WHAT CAN NOT BE PUT DOWN IS HIS POWER OF THE WORD OF POETRY. HE IS A MASTER TALENT THAT KNOWS HOW TO GRAB THE READER AND LISTENER AND FILL THEM WITH MANY MIXED EMOTIONS. I FOR ONE BELIEVE HE IS A TRUE MASTER POET.

POEM SHOWCASE:

Ka 'Ba

A closed window looks down
on a dirty courtyard, and black people
call across or scream or walk across
defying physics in the stream of their will
Our world is full of sound
Our world is more lovely than anyone's
tho we suffer, and kill each other
and sometimes fail to walk the air
We are beautiful people
with african imaginations
full of masks and dances and swelling chants
with african eyes, and noses, and arms,
though we sprawl in grey chains in a place
full of winters, when what we want is sun.
We have been captured, brothers. And we labor
to make our getaway, into
the ancient image, into a new
correspondence with ourselves
and our black family. We read magic
now we need the spells, to rise up
return, destroy, and create. What will be
the sacred words?

BY: Imamu Amiri Baraka

CELEBRATING BLACK HISTORY MONTH ONE POET AT A TIME: CORNELIUS EADY

ALL THIS MONTH OF FEB. IT'S BLACK HISTORY MONTH AND I HERE AT LIFE IN WORDS WILL BE SHOWCASING AFRICAN AMERICAN POETS.

Cornelius Eady

CORNELIUS EADY IS A POET WITH POWERFUL WORDS AND DEEP UNDERSTANDING TO THE ART OF WRITING GREAT POETRY THAT STANDS OUT AS ORIGINAL, NEW AND FRESH. HIS POETRY IS OFTEN ENRICHED WITH JAZZ AND THE BLUES. HE MIXES THE FAMILY LIFE AND ALSO THE IDEA OF THE VIOLENCE AND RACE AND CULTURE'S. HE IS A POWERFUL FIGURE IN THAT YOU CAN RELATE TO HIS POETRY.
HIS POETRY IS WRITTEN FOR THE BASIC READER AT HAND. A LOT OF POETS WRITE IN WORDS THAT YOU HAVE TO PAUSE AND GRAB A DICTIONARY TO UNDERSTAND THEM, EADY ISN'T ONE LIKE THAT, HIS POETRY FLOWS FOR THE READER AND IT'S BEAUTIFUL TO BE ABLE TO RELATE AND GET WHAT THE POET IS SAYING.

POEM SHOWCASE

I'm A Fool To Love You

Some folks will tell you the blues is a woman,

Some type of supernatural creature.

My mother would tell you, if she could,

About her life with my father,

A strange and sometimes cruel gentleman.

She would tell you about the choices

A young black woman faces.

Is falling in love with some man

A deal with the devilIn blue terms, the tongue we use

When we don't want nuance

To get in the way,

When we need to talk straight.

My mother chooses my father

After choosing a man

Who was, as we sing it,

Of no account.

This man made my father look good,

That's how bad it was.

He made my father seem like an island

In the middle of a stormy sea,

He made my father look like a rock.

And is the blues the moment you realize

You exist in a stacked deck,

You look in a mirror at your young face,

The face my sister carries,

And you know it's the only leverage

You've got.

Does this create a hurt that whispers

How you going to do?

Is the blues the moment

You shrug your shoulders

And agree, a girl without money

Is nothing, dust

To be pushed around by any old breeze.

Compared to this,

My father seems, briefly,

To be a fire escape.

This is the way the blues works

Its sorry wonders,

Makes trouble look like

A feather bed,

Makes the wrong man's kisses

A healing.

BY: Cornelius Eady

CELEBRATING BLACK HISTORY MONTH ONE POET AT A TIME: JESSIE REDMON FAUSET

ALL THIS MONTH OF FEB. IT'S BLACK HISTORY MONTH AND I HERE AT LIFE IN WORDS WILL BE SHOWCASING AFRICAN AMERICAN POETS.

JESSIE REDMON FAUSET

SHE WAS A TRUE MASTER AT THE CRAFT OF WORDS. SHE WAS AN EDITOR, A POET, AN ESSAYIST AND ALSO A NOVELIST. INTERESTING TO NOTE SHE ATTENDED PHILADELPHIA HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIRLS WHICH SHE WAS THE ONLY AFRICAN AMERICAN IN HER CLASS TO GRADUATE. SHE ALSO WAS THE FIRST AFRICAN AMERICAN TO GRADUATE PHI BETA KAPPA AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY IN 1905. SHE WROTE FOUR BOOKS. SADLY SHE PASSED AWAY FROM HEART FAILURE IN 1961. SHE WAS A TRUE TALENT THAT SPARKED THE WORLD OF WRITTEN WORD.

POEM SPOTLIGHT:

Lolotte, Who Attires My Hair

Lolotte, who attires my hair,

Lost her lover. Lolotte weeps;

Trails her hand before her eyes;

Hangs her head and mopes and sighs,

Mutters of the pangs of hell.

Fills the circumambient air

With her plaints and her despair.

Looks at me:

'May you never know, Mam'selle

Love's harsh cruelty.'

BY: JESSIE REDMON FAUSET

CELEBRATING BLACK HISTORY ONE POET AT A TIME: ETHERIDGE KNIGHT

ALL THIS MONTH OF FEB. IT'S BLACK HISTORY MONTH AND I HERE AT LIFE IN WORDS WILL BE SHOWCASING AFRICAN AMERICAN POETS.

ETHERIDGE KNIGHT

HE WAS BORN IN 1931 TO A VERY POOR FAMILY IN CORINTH MISSISSIPPI. HE WAS AN AMAZING TRUE TALENT FOR THE WORD OF POETRY. HE SPOKE THE TRUTH IN HIS WRITTEN WAYS THAT VERY FEW POETS CAN DO. YOU FELT HIS PASSION AND HIS PAIN AND MOST OF ALL HIS LOVE AND HATE INSIDE EACH POEM. HE PUBLISHED HIS FIRST BOOK OF POEMS CALLED POEMS FROM PRISON IN 1968. THIS BOOK IS ABOUT HIS 8 YEARS IN JAIL FOR ROBBERY. AFTER HE DROPPED OUT OF SCHOOL IN THE NINTH GRADE HE BECAME ADDICTED TO MARIJUANA AND HEROIN. TO CHANGE HIMSELF FROM THE DARKNESS THAT WAS CONTROLLING HIM HE DECIDED TO JOIN THE U.S. ARMY IN 1947. AFTER LEAVING THE ARMY IN 1951 HE STARTED THE ART OF TELLING TOASTS. WHICH IS A ORAL POEM THAT TELLS A NARRATIVE IN A THEATER LIKE MANNER ITS A TRADITIONAL BLACK STYLE OF POETRY. HE STILL WAS ADDICTED TO DRUGS. AFTER STEALING A WOMAN'S PURSE IN 1960 HE WAS SENT TO JAIL HINT THE START OF HIS WRITTEN POETRY AND THE FIRST BOOK POEMS FROM PRISON. WHAT WAS ODD IS THAT HE GOT 10 TO 25 YEARS IN JAIL FOR THIS, CLEARLY A MARK OF IT'S TIMES, THE JUSTICE SYSTEM AGAINST AFRICAN AMERICANS. HE BELIEVED THAT THE SENTENCE WAS UNJUST AND VERY RACIST WHICH I AM SURE IT WAS. THERE IN PRISON HE READ LANGSTON HUGHES AND THE BIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X. THESE READINGS BROUGHT FORTH HIS SPARK TO WRITE POETRY. IN JAIL HE PUBLISHED HIS BOOK AND FINALLY WAS RELEASED FROM JAIL AFTER SPENDING 8 YEARS. HE HAD FIVE BOOKS OF POETRY PUBLISHED IN HIS LIFE. HE TAUGHT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH, THE UNIVERSITY OF HARTFORD AND ALSO LINCOLN UNIVERSITY. HE WAS KNOWN TO BE A GREAT LOVER OF POETRY AND WAS OFTEN KNOWN TO HAVE A BOOK OF POETRY WITH HIM. SADLY HE DIED FROM LUNG CANCER IN 1991. HE WAS A MASTER AND A TRUE ICON TO POETRY THAT SPARKED TRUTH.

POEM SPOTLIGHT

The Violent Space (Or When Your Sister Sleeps Around For Money)

Exchange in greed the ungraceful signs. Thrust

The thick notes between green apple breasts.

Then the shadow of the devil descends,

The violent space cries and angel eyes,

Large and dark, retreat in innocence and in ice.

(Run sister run—the Bugga man comes!)

The violent space cries silently,

Like you cried wide years ago

In another space, speckled by the sun

And the leaves of a green plum tree,

And you were stung

By a red wasp and we flew home.

(Run sister run—the Bugga man comes!)

Well, hell, lil sis, wasps still sting.

You are all of seventeen and as alone now

In your pain as you were with the sting

On your brow.

Well, shit. lil sis, here we are:

You and I and this poem. And what should I do? should I squat

In the dust and make strange markings on the ground?

Shall I chant a spell to drive the demon away?

(Run sister run—the Bugga man comes!)

In the beginning you were the Virgin Mary,

And you are the Virgin Mary now.

But somewhere between Nazareth and Bethlehem

You lost your name in the nameless void.

"O Mary don't you weep don't you moan"

O Mary shake your butt to the violent juke,

Absord the demon puke and watch the whites eyes pop,

(Run sister run—the Bugga man comes!)

And what do I do. I boil my tears in a twisted spoon

And dance like an angel on the point of a needle.

I sit counting syllables like Midas gold.

I am not bold. I cannot yet take hold of the demon

And lift his weight from you black belly,

So I grab the air and sing my song.

(But the air cannot stand my singing long.)

BY: ETHERIDGE KNIGHT

POEM SPOTLIGHT:

Feeling Fucked Up

Lord she's gone done left me done packed / up and split

and I with no way to make her

come back and everywhere the world is bare

bright bone white crystal sand glistens

dope death dead dying and jiving drove

her away made her take her laughter and her smiles

and her softness and her midnight sighs--

Fuck Coltrane and music and clouds drifting in the sky

fuck the sea and trees and the sky and birds

and alligators and all the animals that roam the earth

fuck marx and mao fuck fidel and nkrumah and

democracy and communism fuck smack and pot
and red ripe tomatoes fuck joseph fuck mary fuck

god jesus and all the disciples fuck fanon nixon

and malcom fuck the revolution fuck freedom fuck

the whole muthafucking thing

all i want now is my woman back

so my soul can sing

BY: ETHERIDGE KNIGHT