I just bought this book today. The first poem I read, and absolutely love, is by Kevin Young:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eddie Priest’s Barbershop & Notary
Closed Mondays

is music   is men… Read full post »

There is a particularly trenchant scene in the documentary film, Robert Blecker Wants Me Dead, in which Blecker — who teaches at New York Law School and is the nation’s most prominent pro-death penalty scholar — travels to Tennessee’s Riverbend Prison for the execution of c… Read full post »

 

This is my son. He goes to a school where he is, racially speaking, a "minority". He is seven and in the first grade. Since he started first grade, he has had to deal with another child telling him his "skin is like poop" as well as being hit…

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 Not very orderly looking, I admit. Biodiversity isn’t always neat and orderly – especially if you’re into companion planting, which I definitely am. Flowers. Arugula. Collard greens. More flowers.

 

 

 My seed. I learned to be a m… Read full post »

When I heard the news of bin Laden's death, hmmm America went into another country without that country's knowledge or approval and summarily executed a man. How awfully democratic.

I also wondered how different that was from people flying planes into buildings.

Then I saw the reports of the jubilia… Read full post »

Visibly invisible,
indigo stains my psyche
while I struggle with the reality
that flesh doesn’t live forever.
 
Memories of a turquoise ring
which encircled and encapsulated
but now it is now like the children
the mothers raised placards for:
disappeared.
 
My soul mined like Afghani lapis lazul… Read full post »

in the beginning
he was hale and hearty
with the look of someone
who fed regularly
on jpork and corn.

he and the others
who looked just like him
rejoiced at the chance to spread
good american ideology abroad.
but then came sightings of
white bodies
hardened and curled
in the snow
of a german winter.

it was unfat… Read full post »

1

uncountable the number of skins shed

during the infinity of my existence.

one more sloughing off insignificant

like fecal matter.

 

i slither free of medusa

an almost millennial endeavor

involving

stripping gods and goddesses… Read full post »

wind carried cold
through el barrio
to le grotto ghetto
that secret space
where muralistas
channeling frieda
diego and zarraga
paint monuments
to the past
to lives not lived
and anything else
eyes itch to see.

cold curled up next
to the frescos
hoping its frigidity
would halt
the desecration.

wind didn’t wai… Read full post »

A stone’s throw from Sun

A ball that doesn’t bounce

Earthen circle suspended

Down there

In the under space;

Home to humanity

And other life forms

Worth saving only

If we want

A repeat

Of this gathering

Millennia… Read full post »

I represent the oppressed black womb
Penetrated too early in my development.
No one takes the time to explain abortion to me
Before I am strapped in the clinic gurney
To have the baby he planted scrapped out.
One day, I was watching Dora and the next day
My teacher said I was a… Read full post »

I keep hearing the word “responsibility” as in black people should take responsibility and stop blaming colonialism, poverty, etc. Today, I woke up wondering about that because it seems to me that responsibility is something that is avoided like the plague and not just by black people.… Read full post »

Lord, I was twelve

A week away from thirteen

When I vowed

I’d never pray again;

Never address you

Even though

That was blasphemy.

 

I have kept to my sacrilege up until now.… Read full post »

Roaming the blogosphere as I am wont to do, I came across a challenge on calyx press’ blog. Of course, at 43, I do not qualify as a “young feminist” (if I ever did) but still it set me to thinking about my intentions to write a review of Home Girls:… Read full post »

( i don't normally do caveats because well, that's just not me but in this case, it's necessary because it is not my intention to be cruel and my stance does not translate into neglect of any children. as the title states, it's a rough draft of my emotional state being… Read full post »

I was all set to give Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez a half nod when I remembered a survey type of conversation I participated in a few years back. The questions we [a bunch of writers loosely connected through an online writing board] were asked was this: if we lived as/…

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Was she the first to have blood drain from her body? Or was it something that migrated from whomever gave birth to her? Did the ancient antecedents of today’s traditional practitioners notice that Dinqnesh’s menses coincided with the moon’s shine? I suppose no one back th… Read full post »

The writing prompt for this week’s participants in the Literary Blog Hop over at the Blue Bookcase website is what is the most difficult literary work you've ever read? What made it so difficult? The question immediately to mind the book I’m currently reading, Cane by Jean Toomer –… Read full post »

If you were to ask who my favorite African woman writer is, my mind would immediately go to Ama Ata Aidoo and her novel Our Sister Killjoy. Detailing an African woman student’s journey throughout Europe, the main character, Sissie, is the novelistic equivalent of a phrase I… Read full post »

If you google John A. Williams, you’ll find a quote referring to him as “arguably the finest Afro-American novelist of his generation”. I considered that statement to be PR hyperbole until I actually bought and opened one of his books over ten years ago.

My memory does not provide… Read full post »

Drawing from the 1993 killing of Amy Biehl in apartheid-era South Africa, Mother to Mother, a novel by Sindiwe Magona, shares with us a different perspective.  Literature about murders of white people by black people tend to avoid the women in the killer’s life – unless it’s fr… Read full post »

When I got pregnant, my ex-husband, who I had divorced the previous year, asked me to marry him. I said no. A year into my son’s life, I packed him and most of my belongings in my small Toyota and drove/moved halfway across the country. My ex-husband was not invited along… Read full post »

In my twenties, I would have inexplicable moments of happiness. I say inexplicable because, back then, I was learning about dialectical materialism and, according to that philosophy, there had to be a material reason for my happiness. I couldn’t simply be happy for happiness’ sake. My… Read full post »

no, i didn't flouncek, bounce or any of that nonsense.

 

real life:

]i've been writing every day for the past three months and it's time to let all the written marinate/gestate/what have you.

in addition, my lil black star's camp ended and i've been focussing on him.

so i'll… Read full post »

Universe of cement

formulated into a square.

Footsteps do nothing;

leave no impression.

Grass and weeds curl

almost unnoticeably

around one edge.

Earth-made will always trump

man-made.