Author Archives: Frédéric.Arps.blogs

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Oh, Lucille Clifton… “Listen Children/we have always loved each other” #BlackLivesMatter #ValentinesDay

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One of the most beautiful love poems for black children. So much love she has, and so careful to talk simply and direct. No big words, no flowers, chocolate or stars. Lucille Clifton passed away 5 years ago after many years of fighting cancer.

Listen Children

listen children
keep this in the place
you have for keeping
always
keep it all ways

we have never hated black

listen
we have been ashamed
hopeless tired mad
but always
all ways
we loved us

we have always loved each other
children all ways

pass it on

…………………………………………………

good times

my daddy has paid the rent
and the insurance man is gone
and the lights is back on
and my uncle brud has hit
for one dollar straight
and they is good times
good times
good times

my mama has made bread
and grampaw has come
and everybody is drunk
and dancing in the kitchen
and singing in the kitchen
of these is good times
good times
good times

oh children think about the
good times

………………………………………………….

Poem in praise of menstruation

if there is a river
more beautiful than this
bright as the blood
red edge of the moon if
there is a river
more faithful than this
returning each month
to the same delta if there

is a river
braver than this
coming and coming in a surge
of passion, of pain if there is

a river
more ancient than this
daughter of eve
mother of cain and of abel if there is in

the universe such a river if
there is some where water
more powerful than this wild
water

pray that it flows also
through animals
beautiful and faithful and ancient
and female and brave

………………………………………………….

The New Yorker remembers one of the great poets, Lucille Clifton!!

A longer, very satisfying, piece that has long lists of what to read for various age groups is at the poetry foundation.

BUY: My Black Me: A Beginning Book of Black Poetry (A Puffin Poetry Book)
NEW and USED: Abebooks.com My Black Me: A Beginning Book of Black Poetry 
NEW at independent bookstores NEAR you: My Black Me.

Green fingers :) Loving plants, trees, flowers, leaves… “Greenness” by Angelina Weld Grimké #BlackHistoryMonth #ValentinesDay

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Greenness by Angelina Weld Grimké

Tell me is there anything lovelier,
Anything more quieting
Than the green of little blades of grass
And the green of little leaves?

Is not each leaf a cool green hand,
Is not each blade of grass a mothering green finger,
Hushing the heart that beats and beats and beats?

.

“Caroling Dusk: an Anthology of Verse by Black Poets.” Edited by Countee Cullen.

NEW and USED: Abebooks.com Caroling Dusk
NEW at independent bookstores NEAR you: Caroling Dusk

Ted Joans sings out in love and gladness: “I SEE BLACK PEOPLE/I HEAR BLACK PEOPLE/I SMELL BLACK PEOPLE/I TASTE BLACK PEOPLE/I TOUCH BLACK PEOPLE” #ValentinesDay #BlackLivesMatter

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What a talented person… Painter, trumpeter and jazz poet…And revolutionary…

…and repatriate to Timbuktu and later moved to Canada where he died poor “was surviving by reading poetry and selling his personal papers to libraries. He had just completed his “Collaged Autobiography,” a remarkable memoir waiting for the right publisher.” See below for the link on this information.

Andandand short before he died he said:

“So in my rather sorrowful impecunious state, I find myself filled to the beautiful brim with love and with this shared love I continue to live my poem-life.”

Black People by Ted Joans:

I SEE BLACK PEOPLE
I HEAR BLACK PEOPLE
I SMELL BLACK PEOPLE
I TASTE BLACK PEOPLE
I TOUCH BLACK PEOPLE
BLACK PEOPLE IS MY MOMMA
BLACK PEOPLE IS MY DAD
BLACK PEOPLE IS    MY SISTER,BROTHER,UNCLE,AUNT,
.      AND COUSINS
BLACK PEOPLE IS   ALL WE    BLACK PEOPLE    EVER HAD
NOW THAT WE THE BLACK PEOPLE KNOW THAT
WE THE BLACK PEOPLE SHOULD BE GLAD

 

From: My Black Me: A Beginning Book of Black Poetry (A Puffin Poetry Book)
NEW and USED: Abebooks.com My Black Me: A Beginning Book of Black Poetry 
NEW at independent bookstores NEAR you: My Black Me.

Hold on onto life. Love. “For Black Poets Who Think of Suicide” Etheridge Knight #ValentinesDay #BlackLivesMatter

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For Black Poets
Who Think of Suicide

Black Poets should live — not leap
From steel bridges (Like the white boys do.
Black poets should live — not lay
Their necks on railroad tracks (like the white boys do.
Black Poets should seek — but not search too much
In sweet dark caves, not hunt for snipe
Down psychic trails (like the white boys do.

For Black Poets belong to Black People. Are
The Flutes of Black Lovers. Are
The Organs of Black Sorrows. Are
The Trumpets of Black Warriors.
Let All Black Poets die as trumpets,
And be buried in the dust of marching feet.

Etheridge Knight

.

From: The Oxford Anthology of African-American Poetry.
NEW and USED: Abebooks.com The Oxford Anthology of African-American Poetry
NEW at independent bookstores: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780195125634

“The sharing of joy… forms a bridge..which can be the basis for understanding.” Love joy :) Audre Lorde #ValentinesDay #BlackLivesMatter

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The sharing of joy, whether
physical, emotional,
psychic, or intellectual, forms
a bridge between the sharers which can be the basis for
understanding much of what is not shared between
them, and lessens the threat of their difference.

.                                   —

to that piece in each of us that refuses to be silent.

.                                   —

The oppression of women knows no ethnic nor racial boundaries, true, but that does not mean it is identical within those boundaries.

.                                   —

You loved people and you came to depend on their being there. but people
died or changed or went away and it hurt too much. The
only way to avoid that pain was not to love
anyone, and
not to let anyone get too close or too important.

The secret of not being hurt like this again,
I decided,
was never depending on anyone,
never needing, never loving.

It is the last dream of children, to be forever untouched.

Audre Lorde

Can a dream compete with onions, fried tomatoes and a hot shower? “Kitchenette Building” by Gwendolyn Brooks #BlackLivesMatter #BlackHistoryMonth #BlackWomenMatter #ValentinesDay

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Do you let a dream go by because there is so much else to do? So much to cook, take the trash out, sing out loud arias and dance around. And a hot shower makes you forget everything, a luke warm shower makes you want the heat so much that you keep standing in the hope the water gets warmer. It doesn’t. And then you’re too tired or ready to go out.
Kitchenette Building by Gwendolyn Brooks
…
But could a dream send up through onion fumes
Its white and violet, fight with fried potatoes
And yesterday’s garbage ripening in the hall,
Flutter, or sing an aria down these rooms
Even if we were willing to let it in,
Had time to warm it, keep it very clean,
Anticipate a message, let it begin?
We wonder. But not well! not for a minute!
Since Number Five is out of the bathroom now,
We think of lukewarm water, hope to get in it.
 .

From: The Oxford Anthology of African-American Poetry.
NEW and USED: Abebooks.com The Oxford Anthology of African-American Poetry
NEW at independent bookstores: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780195125634

For the love of food- Nikki Giovanni. #ValentinesDay #BlackLivesMatter

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Knoxville Tennessee by Nikki Giovanni

I always like summer
Best
you can eat fresh corn
From daddy’s garden
And okra
And greens
And cabbage
And lots of
Barbeque
And buttermilk
And homemade ice-cream
At the church picnic

And listen to
Gospel music
Outside
At the church
Homecoming
And go to the mountains with
Your grandmother
And go barefooted
And be warm
All the time
Not only when you go to bed
And sleep

From: My Black Me: A Beginning Book of Black Poetry (A Puffin Poetry Book)
NEW and USED: Abebooks.com My Black Me: A Beginning Book of Black Poetry 
NEW at independent bookstores NEAR you: My Black Me.

Love your peoples. “We’re an Africanpeople/hard-softness burning black” by Don L. Lee #BlackLivesMatter #BlackHistoryMonth #ValentinesDay

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From: African Poems

We’re an Africanpeople
hard-softness burning black
the earth’s magic colour our veins.
an Africanpeople are we,
burning softly, softer.
Haki Madhubuti (Don L. Lee)

My Black Me

More about Don Lee you can read here!

From: My Black Me: A Beginning Book of Black Poetry (A Puffin Poetry Book)
NEW and USED: Abebooks.com My Black Me: A Beginning Book of Black Poetry 
NEW at independent bookstores NEAR you: My Black Me.

“His work is characterized both by anger at
social and economic injustice and by
rejoicing in African-American culture.

His first six volumes of poetry were published in the 1960s. The verse collection Don’t Cry, Scream (1969) includes an introduction by poet Gwendolyn Brooks. Lee’s poetry readings were extremely popular during this time.”

You. love yourself: i bleed every month. but do not die. how am i not magic. 5 poems by #NayyirahWaheed #BlackLivesMatter #ValentinesDay

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i am mine.
before i am ever anyone else’s.

―

i fell apart many times.
so.
what does that say about me
besides
i live through
wars.

―

if
the ocean
can calm itself,
so can you.
we
are both
salt water
mixed with
air.

―

sometimes
the beauty of my people
is
so
thick and intricate.
i spend days
trying
to undo my eyes
so
i can sleep.

―

she asked ‘you are in love, what does love look like’ to which i replied ‘like everything i’ve ever lost come back to me.

―

Nayyirah Waheed

“Brown eyes that loved without a trace of fear” and grandmothers! #BlackHistoryMonth #ValentinesDay #BlackLivesMatter

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We begin with grandmothers. Isn’t it something else when you think we came out of of our grandmothers- in a very physical way… Her body gave either our father or our mother. You are physically a part of her body. Of course not everybody has a loving relationship with their grandparents or even *has* grandparents they know. Some people become our grandparents because of the air you breathe together or the houses you shared or the streets.

Part of a poem Face by Jean Toomer, it is a sad poem but he wrote it with so much love for the grandmother… loving her face:

Face

Hair—
silver-gray
like streams of stars,
Brows—
recurved canoes
quivered by the ripples blown by pain,
Her eyes—
mist of tears
condensing on the flesh below
.

From: November Cotton Flower
…
Brown eyes that loved without a trace of fear,
Beauty so sudden for that time of year.

.

All of the poem November Cotton Flower:

Boll-weevil’s coming, and the winter’s cold,
Made cotton-stalks look rusty, seasons old,
And cotton, scarce as any southern snow,
Was vanishing; the branch, so pinched and slow,
Failed in its function as the autumn rake;
Drouth fighting soil had caused the soil to take
All water from the streams; dead birds were found
In wells a hundred feet below the ground—
Such was the season when the flower bloomed.
Old folks were startled, and it soon assumed
Significance. Superstition saw
Something it had never seen before:
Brown eyes that loved without a trace of fear,
Beauty so sudden for that time of year.
.

.

“Caroling Dusk: an Anthology of Verse by Black Poets.” Edited by Countee Cullen.

NEW and USED: Abebooks.com Caroling Dusk
NEW at independent bookstores NEAR you: Caroling Dusk

I love you for your brownness. #BlackHistoryMonth #ValentinesDay #BlackLivesMatter #BlackHerStory

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To a Dark Girl by Gwendolyn Bennet

I love you for your brownness
And the rounded darkness of your breast.
I love you for the breaking sadness in your voice
And shadows where your wayward eye-lids rest.

Something of old forgotten queens
Lurks in the lithe abandon of your walk
And something of the shackled slave
Sobs in the rhythm of your talk.

Oh, little brown girl, born for sorrow’s mate,
Keep all you have of queenliness,
Forgetting that you once were slave,
And let your full lips laugh at Fate!

.

“Caroling Dusk: an Anthology of Verse by Black Poets.” Edited by Countee Cullen.
NEW and USED: Abebooks.com Caroling Dusk
NEW at independent bookstores NEAR you: Caroling Dusk

Love your mama/s and your papa/s. Loving your family!! “Monument in Black” by Vanessa Howard #ValentinesDay #BlackHistorymonth #BlackLivesMatter

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I think this is a great idea. Father, mother, grandfather and brother because

they built and sweated the nation.

Easy visual way to think back to what happened and how important they are. I would like to see the aunt and the nieces on the nickels too. All steps in one time. People would forget most of the day who is on their money of course and that’s okay: it can be part of the remembering, one step, one drop or one butterfly flapping. Slow is how it goes. Too slow. Pardon the pun.

Monument in Black by Vanessa Howard!

Put my black father on the penny
put his smile at me on the silver dime
put my mother on the dollar
for they’ve suffered for more than
three eternities of time
and all money couldn’t repay

Make a monument of my grandfather
let him stand in Washington
For he’s suffered more than
three light years
standing idle in the dark
hero of wars that weren’t begun

name a holiday for my brother
on a sunny day peaceful and warm
for he’s fighting for freedom he
won’t be granted
all my black brothers in Vietnam
resting idle in unkept graves.

.

From: My Black Me: A Beginning Book of Black Poetry (A Puffin Poetry Book)
NEW and USED: Abebooks.com My Black Me: A Beginning Book of Black Poetry 
NEW at independent bookstores NEAR you: My Black Me

“i paid my 30 cents and rode by the bus window all the way down…” Nikki Giovanni #BlackHistoryMonth #ValentinesDay

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nikki-giovanni
Photo by:

by Nikki Giovanni

i paid my 30 cents and rode by the bus
window all the way down

i felt a little funny with no hair
on my head
but my knees were shiny ’cause
aunty mai belle cleaned me up
and i got off on time and walked
past the lions and the guard straight
up to the desk and said
“dr. doo little steroscope please”
and this really old woman said
“Do You Have A Library Card?”
and i said
“i live here up the street”
and she said
“Do You Have A LIBRARY Card?”
and i said
“this is the only place i can use
the steroscope for
dr. doo little miss washington
brought us here this spring
to see it.”
and another lady said
“GIVE THAT BOY WHAT HE WANT. HE WANT TO LEAD THE RACE”
and i said
“no ma’am i want to see dr. dooolittle”
and she said “same thang son same thang”

.

.

From: My Black Me: A Beginning Book of Black Poetry (A Puffin Poetry Book)
NEW and USED: Abebooks.com My Black Me: A Beginning Book of Black Poetry 
NEW at independent bookstores NEAR you: My Black Me

.

“if i cud ever write a/poem as beautiful as u/little 2/yr/old/brotha…” Sonia Sanchez #ValentinesDay #BlackHistoryMonth

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To P.J. (2 yrs old who sed write
a poem for me in Portland, Oregon)

if i cud ever write a
poem as beautiful as u
little 2/yr/old/brotha,
I wud laugh, jump, leap
up and touch the stars
cuz u be the poem i try for
each time i pick up a pen and paper.
u. and Morani and Mung
be our blue/blk/stars that
will shine on our lives and
makes us finally BE.
if i cud ever write a poem as beautiful
as u, little 2/yr/old/brotha,
poetry wud go out of bizness.

Sonia Sanchez

 

From: My Black Me: A Beginning Book of Black Poetry (A Puffin Poetry Book)
NEW and USED: Abebooks.com My Black Me: A Beginning Book of Black Poetry 
NEW at independent bookstores NEAR you: My Black Me