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poetry

McLadies

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I am my grandmother’s granddaughter
Full of her boldness, laughter, moles, hair, love, bookishness, and audacity

I am my mother’s daughter
Friendly, sharp-tongued, bright smiled, tomboyish, and proud

I am me


A concoction of these women who steeped
Me in the hot water of black womanhood
Poured me into an oversized mug of a body
And brewed a testament to their existence

poetry

July 4, 1974-June Jordan

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Washington, D.C.

At least it helps me to think about my son
a Leo/born to us
(Aries and Cancer) some
sixteen years ago
in St. John’s Hospital next to the Long Island
Railroad tracks
Atlantic Avenue/Brooklyn
New York

at dawn

which facts
do not really prepare you
(do they)

for him

angry
serious
and running through the darkness with his own

becoming light

poetry

Eve Remembering- Toni Morrison

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1

I tore from a limb fruit that had lost its green.
My hands were warmed by the heat of an apple
Fire red and humming.
I bit sweet power to the core.
How can I say what it was like?
The taste! The taste undid my eyes
And led me far from the gardens planted for a child
To wildernesses deeper than any master’s call.

2

Now these cool hands guide what they once caressed;
Lips forget what they have kissed.
My eyes now pool their light
Better the summit to see.

3

I would do it all over again:
Be the harbor and set the sail,
Loose the breeze and harness the gale,
Cherish the harvest of what I have been.
Better the summit to scale.
Better the summit to be.

poetry

Saturday Class: Janie Crawford is Grown- Kelly Norman Ellis

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In class today,
We mused on Janie and Tea Cake
And how love saves and wounds.

And I said,
Who is Janie’s true love?
And they said,

Tea Cake.
And I said
Are you sure?

And Eboni said,
She love herself like she ’posed to.
She wanted to be like the bee and the flower

But her granny wouldn’t let her.
And we all nodded.
Logan treated her like a mule

And Joe like a doll baby
And Tea Cake was her
Bae. But in the end

She come back home.
And I said
Is this the end of the story?

And Chynna said,
Naw, she ain’t but forty’
It’s just the beginning

Janie got money, and a house
And she ain’t studyin’ nothin’.

poetry

Stars in Alabama – Jessie Redmon Fauset

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In Alabama
Stars hang down so low,
So low, they purge the soul
With their infinity.
Beneath their holy glance
Essential good
Rises to mingle with them
In that skiey sea.

At noon
Within the sandy cotton-field
Beyond the clay, red road
Bordered with green,
A Negro lad and lass
Cling hand in hand,
And passion, hot-eyed, hot-lipped,
Lurks unseen.

But in the evening
When the skies lean down,
He’s but a wistful boy,
A saintly maiden she,
For Alabama stars
Hang down so low,
So low, they purge the soul
With their infinity.

poetry

The Remnants

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No one tells you
the truth about loss
you know about its permanence
and the void it leaves in its wake

But no one prepares you
for the attacks of grief that it brings
the swells of tsunami like
emotions that repeatedly attack
you like the East Coast during hurricane season

No one prepares you
for the actual heartache
so fierce that you’re forced
to clutch your chest at times
In an attempt to soothe the pain

People talk about loss
telling you it’s just
it’s a part of life
discounting that it’s a
disease you live with in
the aftermath