Dear Readers,
June’s newsletter did not include my previously scheduled book review. The yet two more police murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, as well as the lynching* of Ahmaud Arbery, left me less than enthusiastic to write about or address anything else. I remain so.
My one desire right now is to acknowledge current events. By “current,” I mean since the beginning of our country. By “events,” I mean white supremacy. And, by “acknowledge,” I mean temporarily setting aside my essay-writing self to highlight a few Black poets in lieu of a review. Black poets who were already writing about white supremacy.
*See endnote on lynching.
Beginning with Donte Collins from “What the Dead Know by Heart”
[…] I wonder
often: if the gun will unmake me
is yet made, what white birth
will bury me, how many bullets, like a
a flock of bluejays, will come carry my black,
to its final bed, […]
For Donte Collins’s 2017 sharing of the full poem click here. See Collins’s website here.
“My Love Is Black” by DéLana R.A. Dameron, 2018
I don’t want to love
like this. But there is a gun
in the holster & a hand
on the gun in the holster
& my husband’s hands
are no longer in his pockets
because it is night & we are
just trying to breathe […]
You can find DéLana R.A. Dameron’s website here and the full poem here.
“What Shall I Tell My Children Who Are Black (Reflections of an African-American Mother)” by Dr. Margaret Burroughs, 1963
What shall I tell my children who are black
Of what it means to be a captive in this dark skin
What shall I tell my dear one, fruit of my womb,
Of how beautiful they are when everywhere they turn
They are faced with abhorrence of everything that is black.
Villains are black with black hearts.
A black cow gives no milk. A black hen lays no eggs.
Bad news comes bordered in black, black is evil.
And evil is black and devil’s food is black …
Dr. Burroughs’s reading of this poem can be found here.
From Parnesha Jones’s “What Would Gwendolyn Brooks Do”
Another day, when I have to tip-toe
around the police and passive-aggressive emails
from people who sit only a few feet away from
me.
Another day of fractured humans
who decide how I will live and die,
and I have to act like I like it
so I can keep a job;
be a team player, pay taxes on it;
To read more click here. Parneshia Jones’s website can be found here.
From “alternate names for black boys” by Danez Smith, 2014
4. coal awaiting spark & wind
5. guilty until proven dead
6. oil heavy starlight
7. monster until proven ghost
8. gone
Read full poem here and Danez Smith’s website here.
Closing with Langston Hughes, “Let America Be America Again,”1939
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America was never America to me.)
Find Hughes’s full poem here and a 2017 reading of this poem by Danez Smith here.
Black Lives Matter.
Black Voices Matter. Black Poetry Matters.
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* Lynching is an act of terroristic murder in which the perpetrators feel entitled, on the basis of their identities, to police others on the basis of their identity. These extrajudicial executions are meant to exert control, not only over victim, but also over an entire community or group of people to determine what spaces that community have the right to exist in, or whether to exist at all. Moreover, the perpetrators, on the basis of their own identities and the identities of the victims, do not expect to be held accountable for their violence.
The term lynching is often understood more narrowly as white mobs murdering Black people, usually men, as acts of public spectacle justified by false claims of having committed some crime, usually the rape of a white women. However, these acts of terror can be carried out in private by just a few people, or be carried out against non-Black people. For example, white, straight men lynched Matthew Shepherd because he was gay, and did so in the dark, far from public view.
