April Is National Poetry Month! 

AMERICUS, GEORGIA IN SIXTY THREE

PUBLISHED in 1975

LULU WESTBROOK GRIFFIN 

ONE OF 32 GIRLS LOCKED AWAY IN 1963 IN AN OLD 

CIVIL WAR STOCKADE FOR PROTESTING SEGREGATION IN 

HER HOMETOWN OF AMERICUS, GEORGIA.

CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST X SPEAKER X POET

Attribution: CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT ARCHIVE

Americus, Georgia in sixty three
There were obvious signs of bigotry,
Laws of Segregation were everywhere
White Supremacist Groups did not care.

The hatred they had for People of colour
Was blantant and vicious,
Toward my little sisters and brothers.

There were perpetrators, spectators,
Instigators, violators, Vigilantes, Agitators,
KKKS and NEGRO haters.

We marched with our Placards
And sang The FREEDOM Songs,
We were beaten and jailed
while making History at home.

Many fought for their freedom
to change the JIM CROW LAWS,
Now AMERICUS has signs of "LIBERTY"
And no more Segregated walls.

Read more about Civil Rights History and Poems @ CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT ARCHIVE

April Is National Poetry Month! 

AMERICA BLEEDS

FIRST APPEARED IN "MOTIVE MAGAZINE."

 

ANGELO LEWIS 

POET

it does, it does, i have seen it

bleeding brothers & sisters, 

i have seen it, i have seen it,

come rushing, walk crippled,

fall flatly on tears of sad streets

where creatures fall onward with

cold eyes over them, armies on

streets over them, police on

pavements over them, tear gas

in faces over them, fires &

minds, living dreams living,

all of them innocents, yes,

yes, i have seen it, it bleeds,

it bleeds, have seen it bleed,

spill blood at my brothers,

cough no at our dignity,

i tell you, i tell you, we must,

kick on this monster, till it

dies, till it dies, dies, dies,

dies, dies, lies in the dirt

with its blood & its sickness,

head fall rolling in gutter,

red, white, & blue, flow freely,

flow freely, move over, fall down,

down, down, be finished at

last.

April Is National Poetry Month! 

ARSON AND COLD LACE

(or how i yearn to burn baby burn)

"ARSON AND COLD LACE," FIRST APPEARED IN "UMBRA."

WORTH LONG

POET X FORMER STAFF COORDINATOR OF SNCC

We have found you out

Falsed face America

We have found you out

We have found you out

False farmers

We have found you out

The sparks of suspicion

Are melting your waters

and water can’t drown them

These fires a-burning

and firemen can’t calm them

With falsely appeasing

and preachers can’t pray

with hopes for deceiving

Nor leaders deliver

A lecture on losing

Nor teachers inform them

The chosen are choosing

For now is the fire

And fires won’t answer

To logic and listening

and hopefully seeming

Hot flames must devour

The kneeling and fleeing

and torture the masters

Whose idiot pleading

Gits lost in the echoes

Of dancing and bleeding

We have found you out

False farmers

We have found you out

We have found you out

False faced America

We have found you out

 April Is National Poetry Month! 

AMERICA 

APPEARED IN "AN ANTHOLOGY OF MODERN POEMS BY BLACK 

AMERICANS."

BOBB HAMILTON

POET X SCULPTOR X EDITOR

America

Is a fairyland fraud

Where democracy is pronounced

Dippty-Do

Ten Times on a T.V. commercial -----

insulting my

Black mother,

My black sister

My black wife,

My black self.

April Is National Poetry Month! 

I WANT TO HEAR AN AMERICAN POEM

DEF JAM POETRY EDITION

RAS BARAKA

POET X AUTHOR X EDUCATOR X SOCIAL ACTIVIST X POLITICAN 

X MAYOR OF NEWARK

Are there any American poets in here?

I wanna hear an American poem
Something American
South Carolina slave shouter
Alabama backwoods church shack call and response

I wanna hear an American poem
An American poem about
Share croppers on the side of the road
Of families in cardboard boxes
Not about kings or majestic lands
Or how beautiful ugly can be

I wanna hear some American Poetry
About projects
And lead poison
And poverty
And children in jail

I wanna hear a poem about a picket line
In a Joe Hill legend
Struggle for an 8 hour day
Hey you
Hey you
Where are all the American poems
About Harlem number runners
And barbershop conversations about
Colored faces on colored TVS

I wanna hear an American poem
Something American
As American as jazz
Or a South Bronx burner brandished on abandoned buildings
A scratch tune
A breakbeat
A backspin
A beatboxer
A rap song
In congo square
Niggas beating on buckets on broad street
As American as the Zulu Nation
And Latin Kings

I wanna hear an American poem
About a dead girl on Chadwick Avenue
With a bullet in her neck
From a cop doing his job
Ordered by Fascism
And crack cocaine

You know
Something made in the USA
Something American
And Afro-Cuban
New Yorican
Latin tinge
Beaten boom by and playna
Spiralling out of the wide open tenement windows
In the middle of winter
On the verge of East Harlem or North Newark
Palms of brown colonies
Of Albizu being tortured for breathing Taíno blood
Screaming African tongues
Dialoguing in Spanish for being him
Puerto Rican self, and
Worst of all
Loving it

My God where is all the American poetry
Just death marches
And stoic laughter
Niggas being funny
No more American poets
No I won't boost your morale
Or play your songs
Or make you feel comfortable
Or build your ego
Or Play my part

I just wanna hear an American poem
Something native
Like Trail of Tears
Wounded Knee
Like smallpox
And blankets

You know, American
Something that represents us
A colored rainbow
A big bright fist
An uncorrected sentence
Improper English

As American as COINTELPRO
As Peekskill, New York
As Robeson singing out the back of his truck
Like Nina Simone playing at the Village Gate
With Baldwin next to her on a piano stool
And Amiri and Amina Baraka in the audience
Air filled with Cognac
And Mississippi goddamn
Capture that moment!
Write Something about that

An American masterpiece
You know
An American poem
Something, strictly American
Like Red Summer
Strange fruit
pomarades

Hey you! Yeah you! Yeah you!
You, you!
Something American!
USA! America!
USA! America!
USA!

As American as the KKK

A poem about Emmett Till will do
The Tallahatchie River
Church bombings
Or child murders
About Alabama red dirt
And boycotts in Montgomery
About families migrating North
With dignity and shotguns

I wanna hear a poem,
A poem about a beautiful black boy
Can't you see him?
A beautiful black boy colored into the night
His eyes, the stars, his hands, our will
About a beautiful black boy in the middle of a project
Playing checkers with glass and stones
Who beat buckets or drums
And play the horn in his sleep

I wanna hear a poem
A poem about a beautiful brown girl
An incredibly beautiful brown girl
With an age, mahogany, smile, and
Flower pedals for her lips
And a beautiful brown girl with a poem in her eyes
A poem in her eyes
And a gun in her hand
Sitting in a puddle of tears
In Clinton’s women's facility
In the garden state
In the land of the free

You know something American
Something that represents me

 April Is National Poetry Month! 

AMERICA

Attribution: CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT ARCHIVE

ZELLIE RAINY ORR

FORMER FREEDOM SCHOOL STUDENT

I have believed in America
though she has never believed in me;
she enslaved my ancestors
in her Land of Liberty.

She used me in building America
but refused to give me pay;
even manipulated justice
to look the other way.

She gave me an education
second-rate at that;
and blames me for illiteracy,
poverty, and rats.

She threw me in her crowded jails
even beat me unmercifully;
when I stood up for my civil rights
and protested peacefully.

She brainwashed my mind—
destroyed my self-esteem;
denied me my God-given right
to be the best, I can be.

I see her flag of freedom
flying majestically for all to see;
but I know her stars and stripes
do not wave to me.

Read more about Civil Rights History and Poems @ CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT ARCHIVE

April Is National Poetry Month! 

I, TOO SING, AMERICA

LANGSTON HUGHES

RENOWNED HARLEM RENAISSANCE POET X NOVELIST 

X ESSAYIST X PLAYWRIGHT X COLUMNIST X SOCIAL ACTIVIST

I, Too, Sing, America.

I am the darker brother.

They send me to eat in the kitchen

When company comes,

But I laugh,

And eat well,

And grow strong.

Tomorrow,

I’ll be at the table

When company comes

Nobody’ll dare

Say to me,

“Eat in the kitchen,”

Then.

Besides,

They’ll see how beautiful I am

And be ashamed--

I, too, am American.