Good evening, and welcome to the DKos PSlam/Open Mic. Sit at a table or sit on
the floor, and please step up to the mic and share some poems, stories, whatever
you like, your own work or the works of your heroes & sheroes.
Please join me in honoring Black History Month by sharing some works by black
poets, writers and playwrights.
The turmoil and turbulence of the '60's and '70's shook America, until Uncle Sam
grudgingly granted Equal Rights for all. (On paper, anyway... we still aren't
there yet.) There was Black Power, Black Pride, Black Panthers, Molotov
coctails, pipe bombs, riots, bank robberies, demonstrations, Kent State. It was
very intense. Muhammad Ali announced that he
was not going to Viet Nam to kill poor people, and he was stripped of his Title.
The Last Poets released two scorchingly revolutionary albums.
Then one day in the mid '70's, waiting for a train in a subway station in
Manhattan, I saw a poster for Ntozake Shange's for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf: a choreopoem. I felt the tipping point had passed, and things were forever changed. I felt calmer, safer, and liberated.
EXCERPT
FROM THE PLAY
lady in orange:
our whole body
wrapped like a ripe mango
ramblin whippin thr space
on the corner in the park
where the rug useta be
let willie colon take you out
swing your head
push your leg to the moon with me.
Here's another Shange poem:
People of
Watts
by Ntozake Shange
where we come from, sometimes, beauty
floats around us like clouds
the way leaves rustle in the breeze
and cornbread and barbecue swing out the backdoor
and tease all our senses as the sun goes down.
dreams and memories rest by fences
Texas accents rev up like our engines
customized sparkling powerful as the arms
that hold us tightly black n fragrant
reminding us that once we slept and loved
to the scents of magnolia and frangipani
once when we looked toward the skies
we could see something as lovely as our children's
smiles white n glistenin' clear of fear or shame
young girls in braids as precious as gold
find out that sex is not just bein' touched
but in the swing of their hips the light fallin cross
a softbrown cheek or the movement of a mere finger
to a lip many lips inviting kisses southern
and hip as any one lanky brother in the heat
of a laid back sunday rich as a big mama still
in love with the idea of love how we play at lovin'
even riskin' all common sense cause we are as fantastical
as any chimera or magical flowers where breasts entice
and disguise the racing pounding of our hearts
as the music that we are
hard core blues low bass voices crooning
straight outta Compton melodies so pretty
they nasty cruising the Harbor Freeway
blowin' kisses to strangers who won't be for long
singing ourselves to ourselves Mamie Khalid Sharita
Bessie Jock Tookie MaiMai Cosmic Man Mr. Man
Keemah and all the rest seriously courtin'
rappin' a English we make up as we go along
turnin' nouns into verbs braids into crowns
and always fetchin' dreams from a horizon
strewn with bones and flesh of those of us
who didn't make it whose smiles and deep
dark eyes help us to continue to see
there's so much life here.