Poems to Celebrate Black History Month
Nina's Blues
By Cornelius Eady
Your body, hard vowels
In a soft dress, is still. What you can't know is that after you died All the black poets In New York City Took a deep breath, And breathed you out; Dark corners of small clubs, The silence you left twitching On the floors of the gigs You turned your back on, The balled-up fists of notes Flung, angry from a keyboard. You won't be able to hear us Try to etch what rose Off your eyes, from your throat. Out you bleed, not as sweet, or sweaty, Through our dark fingertips. We drum rest We drum thank you We drum stay. |
First Fire
by Camille T. Dungy
Stripped in a flamedance, the bluff backing our houses quivered in wet-black skin. A shawl of haze tugged tight around the starkness. We could have choked on August.
Smoke thick in our throats, nearly naked as the earth, we played bare feet over the heat caught in asphalt. Could we, green girls, have prepared for this? Yesterday, we played in sand-carpeted caves. The store we built sold broken bits of ice plant, empty snail shells, leaves. Our school’s walls were open sky. We reeled in wonder from the hills, oblivious to the beckoning crescendo and to our parent’s hushed communion. When our bluff swayed into the undulation, we ran into the still streets of our suburb, feet burning against a fury that we did not know was change. |
The Birth of John Henry
by Melvin B. Tolson (1898–1966)
The night John Henry is born an ax
of lightning splits the sky, and a hammer of thunder pounds the earth, and the eagles and panthers cry! John Henry—he says to his Ma and Pa: “Get a gallon of barleycorn. I want to start right, like a he-man child, the night that I am born!” Says: “I want some ham hocks, ribs, and jowls, a pot of cabbage and greens; some hoecackes, jam, and buttermilk, a platter of pork and beans!” John Henry’s Ma—she wrings her hands, and his Pa—he scratches his head. John Henry—he curses in giraffe-tall words, flops over, and kicks down the bed. He’s burning mad, like a bear on fire— so he tears to the riverside. As he stoops to drink, Old Man River gets scared and runs upstream to hide! Some say he was born in Georgia—O Lord! Some say in Alabam. But it’s writ on the rock at the Big Bend Tunnel: “Lousyana was my home. So scram!” |
Yet Do I Marvel
by Countee Cullen (1903–1946)
I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind,
And did He stoop to quibble could tell why The little buried mole continues blind, Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die, Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus Is baited by the fickle fruit, declare If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus To struggle up a never-ending stair. Inscrutable His ways are, and immune To catechism by a mind too strewn With petty cares to slightly understand What awful brain compels His awful hand. Yet do I marvel at this curious thing: To make a poet black, and bid him sing! |
Quatrains
by Gwendolyn Bennett (1902 - 1981)
I, Too
by Langston Hughes (1902–1967)
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 America. |
Sing Poet
by Leonard A. Murray
I am waiting
Peering upon the crevice that love slipped into Trying not to turn my eyes away in resignation Hoping for the words to flow like the cream of satisfaction that ooze from the fissure of creation Sing And let the eyes know there is somewhere to watch besides god Sing Because at this crevice we seek satisfaction not salvation Sing And show all lovers how to be free, giving them life and love in the same drip Sing Or a poet I’m not and love like my word is dead. |
Black Boys Play the Classics
by Toi Derricotte
The most popular “act” in
Penn Station is the three black kids in ratty sneakers & T-shirts playing two violins and a cello—Brahms. White men in business suits have already dug into their pockets as they pass and they toss in a dollar or two without stopping. Brown men in work-soiled khakis stand with their mouths open, arms crossed on their bellies as if they themselves have always wanted to attempt those bars. One white boy, three, sits cross-legged in front of his idols—in ecstasy— their slick, dark faces, their thin, wiry arms, who must begin to look like angels! Why does this trembling pull us? A: Beneath the surface we are one. B: Amazing! I did not think that they could speak this tongue. |