“Our particular whirlwind”: poetry by African-American Innovators
Posted: April 30, 2016 Filed under: Amiri Baraka, Bob Kaufman, Dolores Kendrick, English, Gloria Oden, Gwendolyn Brooks, Ishmael Reed, Jayne Cortez, Joseph Jarman, June Jordan, Lucille Clifton, Ted Joans, William J. Harris | Tags: African-American poetry, Black-American poets Comments Off on “Our particular whirlwind”: poetry by African-American Innovators
. . .
Gwendolyn Brooks
(1917-2000, Topeka, Kansas, USA)
Sadie and Maud
.
Maud went to college.
Sadie stayed at home.
Sadie scraped life
With a fine-tooth comb.
She didn’t leave a tangle in.
Her comb found every strand.
Sadie was one of the livingest chits
In all the land.
Sadie bore two babies
Under her maiden name.
Maud and Ma and Papa
Nearly died of shame.
Every one but Sadie
Nearly died of shame.
When Sadie said her last so-long
Her girls struck out from home.
(Sadie had left as heritage
Her fine-tooth comb.)
Maud, who went to college,
Is a thin, brown mouse.
She is living all alone
In this old house.
. . .
Gloria Oden
(1923-2011, Yonkers, New York, USA)
Testament of Loss
.
You would think that night could lift;
that something of light would sift
through to grey its thick self
sealing.
It’s five years now.
Still black gloams over
day unable to slip
across my sill
one finger
to raise its white form
of hope.
. . .
Bible Study
.
In the old testament
“Hizzoner” was forever
singling out someone
to speak with.
Dream
and he would make
a visit.
Cruise the world
from your favourite
mountain top
and he would come
to call.
Even out of the garrulous
mouth of the whirlwind
he would fetch
himself forth
for a bit of
spirited conversation.
Indeed,
he was apt to
catch up with you
at the most staggering
of times,
and in the most debatable
of places.
So, I think,
he does still.
Who else, my dear,
could have snapped us
together and put us
so warmly to bed?
What puzzles me now
is our particular whirlwind.
Tell me,
did the Old Guy
trumpet us out of
your upset
or mine?
. . .
Bob Kaufman
(1925-1986, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA)
Oregon
.
You are with me, Oregon,
Day and night, I feel you, Oregon.
I am Negro. I am Oregon.
Oregon is me, the planet
Oregon, the state Oregon, Oregon.
In the night, you come with bicycle wheels,
Oregon you come
With stars of fire. You come green.
Green eyes, hair, arms,
Head, face, legs, feet, toes
Green, nose green, your
Breasts green, your cross
Green, your blood green.
Oregon winds blow around
Oregon. I am green, Oregon.
Oregon lives in me,
Oregon, you come and make
Me into a bird and fly me
To secret places day and night.
The secret places in Oregon,
I am standing on the steps
Of the holy church of Crispus
Attucks St. John the Baptist,
the holy brother of Christ,
I am talking to Lorca. We
Decide the Hart Crane trip,
Home to Oregon,
Heaven flight from Gulf of Mexico,
The bridge is
Crossed, and the florid black found.
. . .
Dolores Kendrick
(born 1927, Washington, D.C., USA)
Jenny in Love
[the poet imagines the voice of a young black slavewoman in the nineteenth century]
.
Danced in the evenin’
while
the supper
burn;
.
whupped
in the morning:
.
danced again!
. . .
Ted Joans (born Theodore Jones)
(1928-2003, Cairo, Illinois, USA)
The Overloaded Horse
.
On a battu le cheval, au mois de Mai and they ate him
his buttons were crushed into powder for their soup
his hair was wovened into ship sails
his foreskin was sewn by an antique dealer
his manure supplied several generations with xmas gifts
and now they speak bad of him, the horse, the head of their family
On a battu le cheval, au mois de Mai and they ate him
his earwax was packaged in America
his rump was displayed on early morning garbage trucks
his crossed eye is on loan to a soap museum
his manners have since been copied by millions of glass blowers
and still yet, they spit at this stable, the horse, the head of the house
On a battu le cheval, au mois de Mai and they ate him
his ribs were riveted outside an airbase
his knees bend in shadows of Russia
his shoelaces are used to hang lovely violinists
his dignity is exported as a diary product to the Orient
and in spite of it all, those he loved most, lie and cheat horse’s heirs
On a battu le cheval, au mois de Mai and they ate him
his tears now drown the frowning yachtsmen
his urine flows rapidly across millionaires’ estates
his annual vomit destroys twelve dictators’ promises a year
his teeth tear wide holes in the scissormaker’s Swiss bank account
and even in death, filled with revenge, they eat him, again and again
they deny and lie as they speak bad of the horse,
the head of their house, the father of their home
. . .
Amiri Baraka (born Everett LeRoi Jones)
(1934-2014, Newark, New Jersey, USA)
How People Do
.
To be that weak lonely figure
coming home through the cold
up the stairs
melting in grief
the walls and footsteps echo
so much absence and ignorance
is not to be the creature emerging
into the living room, an orderly universe
of known things all names and securely placed
is not to be the orderer the namer, the stormer
and creator, is not to be that, so we throw it
from our minds, and sit down casually
to eat.
. . .
Jayne Cortez
(born 1934, Fort Huachuca, Arizona, USA)
Indelible
.
Listen i have
a complaint to make
my lips are covered
with thumb prints
insomnia sips me
the volume of isolation
is up to my thyroid
and i won’t disappear
can you help me
June Jordan
(1936-2002, Harlem, New York, USA)
All the World moved
.
All the world moved next to me strange
I grew on my knees
in hats and taffeta trusting
the holy water to run
like grief from a brownstone
cradling.
Blessing a fear of the anywhere
face too pale to be family
my eyes wore ribbons
for Christ on the subway
as weekly as holiness
in Harlem.
God knew no East no West no South
no Skin nothing I learned like
traditions of sin but later
life began and strangely
I survived His innocence
without my own.
. . .
Lucille Clifton
(1936-2010, Depew, New York, USA)
why some people
be mad at me sometimes
.
they ask me to remember
but they want me to remember
their memories
.
and i keep on remembering
mine.
. . .
Joseph Jarman
(born 1937, Pine Bluff, Arkansas, USA)
.
what we all
would have of
each other
the men of
the sides of ourworlds
contained
in a window
yes ” go contrary
go sing………. “
to give
all you have
yourself
to each yourself
yet never
to remember
to look back
into a void
––it is time
yes; to move from
yourself to
yourself again
to know
.
what you are
.
song
. . .
Ishmael Reed
(born 1938, Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA)
Dualism
(in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man)
.
i am outside of
history. i wish
i had some peanuts, it
looks hungry there in
its cage
i am inside of
history.it’s
hungrier than i
thot
. . .
William J. Harris
(born 1942, Yellow Springs, Ohio, USA)
Practical Concerns
.
From a distance, I watch
a man digging a hole with a machine.
I go closer.
The hole is deep and narrow.
At the bottom is a bird.
I ask the ditchdigger if I may climb down
and ask the bird a question.
He says, why sure.
It’s nice and cool in the ditch.
The bird and I talk about singing.
Very little about technique.
. . . . .
The poems above are by no means representative of all the Innovators among African-American poets; they are a brief sample. Readers should also look up the following poets’ work, wherever it is available – whether at the library, the bookstore, or upon the internet!
Lloyd Addison
Russell Atkins
Lawrence S. Cumberbatch
Randy Bee Graham
Percy Johnston
Stephen Jonas
Eloise Loftin
Clarence Major
Oliver Pitcher
Norman Pritchard
Ed Roberson
Melvin B. Tolson
Gloria Tropp
Tom Weatherly
&…
. . .
Photographs:
Bob Kaufman in the 1950s
June Jordan in 1968
. . . . .
Zócalo Poets 