Wicked Wednesday

 

Wicked Wednesdays

This week’s Wicked Wednesday will feature poets with natural hair in honor of National Poetry Month! By far, one of my favorite months of the year thanks to 30/30. Hope you enjoy this installation of Wicked Wednesday!

Gil Scott-Heron

ANGEL DUST

He was groovin'
and that was when he coulda sworn
the room was movin'
But that was only in his mind
He was sailin'
he never really seemed to notice
vision failin'
'cause that was all part of the high
Sweat was pourin' --
he couldn't take it
The room was exploding --
he might not make it.
Angel Dust/Please, children would you listen.
Angel Dust/Just ain't where it's at.
Angel Dust/You won't remember what you're
missin', but down some dead end streets
there ain't no turnin' back.

They were standin'
ev'rybody in a circle;
the whole family
listening to the preacher's words
Sis was cryin'
She alone held all the secrets
'bout his dyin'
tears fallin' to earth
Maybe her fault
He was so trusting
God only knew why
they was dustin'!
Angel Dust/Please children would you listen.
Angel Dust/Just ain't where it's at.
Angel Dust/You won't remember what you're
missin', but down some dead end streets
there ain't no turnin' back.

Carl Phillips

Custom

There is a difference it used to make,
seeing three swans in this versus four in that
quadrant of sky. I am not imagining. It was very large, as its
effects were. Declarations of war, the timing fixed upon for a sea-departure; or,
about love, a sudden decision not to, to pretend instead to a kind
of choice. It was dramatic, as it should be. Without drama,
what is ritual? I look for omens everywhere, because they are everywhere
to be found. They come to me like strays, like the damaged,
something that could know better, and should, therefore-but does not:
a form of faith, you've said. I call it sacrifice-an instinct for it, or a habit at first, that
becomes required, the way art can become, eventually, all we have
of what was true. You shouldn't look at me like that. Like one of those saints
on whom the birds once settled freely.

Carolyn M. Rodgers

From Space to Time

on a day when
we were dark
and not so full of
light
we met
    what did we find?
nothing.
everything, when we closed
our eyes
which anyway
had never been open.

once, we thought we
loved each other
       who can reverse
    time?
we tried.
we stepped out
of space
into some new
step of distance
and fell-
and not in love.

 Ai

Conversation

We smile at each other
and I lean back against the wicker couch.
How does it feel to be dead? I say.
You touch my knees with your blue fingers.
And when you open your mouth,
a ball of yellow light falls to the floor
and burns a hole through it.
Don't tell me, I say. I don't want to hear.
Did you ever, you start,
wear a certain kind of dress
and just by accident,
so inconsequential you barely notice it,
your fingers graze that dress
and you hear the sound of a knife cutting paper,
you see it too
and you realize how that image
is simply the extension of another image,
that your own life
is a chain of words
that one day will snap.
Words, you say, young girls in a circle, holding hands,
and beginning to rise heavenward
in their confirmation dresses,
like white helium balloons,
the wreathes of flowers on their heads spinning,
and above all that,
that's where I'm floating,
and that's what it's like
only ten times clearer,
ten times more horrible.
Could anyone alive survive it?

Mari Evans

The Rebel

When I
die
I'm sure
I will have a
Big Funeral ...

Curiosity
seekers ...
coming to see
if I
am really
Dead ...
or just
trying to make
Trouble ...

Cornelius Eady

Grief Bird

After those buildings fell,
And New York City stank from bad intent,
And the wind twirled with human pigment,
And the sky darkened in one spot and howled,

There we walked, newborn, holding flashlights and shovels,
Dusty with shock, the streets painted mad,
Ears still smarting from the evil crumble.

Now the combing, the sifting,
Now the hauling, the uncovering.
The astonished song.

Would you like to be featured in Wicked Wednesday? Submit your picture to spokenheart_mf@aol.com!

Wicked Wednesday

Wicked Wednesdays

This week’s Wicked Wednesday will feature poets with natural hair in honor of National Poetry Month! By far, one of my favorite months of the year thanks to 30/30. Hope you enjoy this installation of Wicked Wednesday!

 

Lucille Clifton

"poem to my uterus"

you uterus
you have been patient
as a sock
while i have slippered into you
my dead and living children
now
they want to cut you out
stocking i will not need
where i am going
where am i going
old girl
without you
uterus
my bloody print
my estrogen kitchen
my black bag of desire
where can i go
barefoot
without you
where can you go
without me

Quincy Troupe

"Snow & Ice"

ice sheets sweep this slick mirrored dark place
space as keys that turn in tight, trigger
pain of situations
where we move ever so slowly
              so gently into time - traced agony
the bright turning of imagination
so slowly
grooved through revolving doors, opening up to enter
mountains where spirits walk voices, ever so slowly
swept by cold, breathing fire
                        as these elliptical moments of illusion
link fragile loves sunk deep in snows as footprints
the voice prints cold black gesticulations
bone bare voices
              chewed skeletal choices
in fangs of piranha gales
spewing out slivers of raucous laughter
glinting bright as hard polished silver nails

 

Alice Walker

"THEY WHO FEEL DEATH"

(FOR MARTYRS)

They who feel death close as a breath
Speak loudly in unlighted rooms
Lounge upright in articulate gesture
Before the herd of jealous Gods

Fate finds them receiving
At home.

Grim the warrior forest who present
Casual silence with casual battle cries
Or stand unflinchingly lodged

In common sand
Crucified.

 

Robert Hayden

"Those Winter Sundays"

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?
   

Would you like to be featured in Wicked Wednesday? Submit your picture to spokenheart_mf@aol.com!

Wicked Wednesdays

Wicked Wednesday

During a time where people of color were fighting daily to have our basic rights, there was a sub group of people that had a whole other struggle that was going unrecognized or maybe just devalued. While fighting next to men everyday in a war of equality, women were still struggling to be considered equal to their counterparts. Here are a few natural women that helped both people of color and women in general become recognized as people.

Elaine Brown

The Black Panther Party is praised for the work that it did for the Black community and the power and confidence it provided to our people. But, they still struggled to see women as equivalent. Elaine Brown was one of few female leaders in the Black Panther Party and was appointed by Huey Newton, himself. While in power she put a focus on community service and founded the Panthers Liberation School. She was once asked how she felt about being a Black Panther and answered with the following,"It meant surrendering our lives to something greater, which was the notion of, of getting rid of oppression and all the things that oppression meant and mean in this country for Black people and other people in the country."

Kathleen Cleaver

Kathleen Cleaver was the Communications Secretary of the Black Panther Party. She became involved with the party after meeting her future husband, Eldridge Cleaver, at a student conference at Fisk University. In addition to being the secretary she also was a spokesperson and press secretary for the party. When Huey Newton was jailed, she led the campaign to free him and she also placed third when she ran for California's 18th state assembly district as a member of the Peace and Freedom Party. She and her husband often found themselves being harassed by the police as a result of their dedication to the Black Panther Party.

Assata Shakur

Assata Shakur was also a member of the Black Panther Party and eventually left and became a member of the Black Liberation Movement. After being pulled over by a member of the New Jersey Police Department in 1973 she was shot twice and charged with the murder of a police officer. She and her comrade were convicted of murder even though there was no evidence of her having a weapon on her person or firing any weapons and sentenced to life in prison. She escaped from NJ Edna Mahan Correctional Facility after 6.5 Years and fled to Cuba. She still remains in Cuba and is revered as leader in the movement for the Black Liberation Movement, Student Rights Movement and The Movement to End the War in Vietnam.

Safiya Bukhari

Safiya Bukhrai became a part of the movement in 1969 when she intervened on behalf of a young Panther whom was being harassed by the police for selling the Party’s newspaper on a street corner. After defending the young Panther’s First Amendment right, she found herself handcuffed in the back of a police car. Her focuses as an activist were on community and welfare rights. She led self defense lessons, volunteered her time to the liberation school, sold the Black Panther paper, taught political education classes and even joined in the Breakfast for children program. After only being involved in the party for two years, she became the leader of the New York chapter’s Information and Communications. After her work with the Black Panther Party she also became involved with The Black Liberation Army. After her release from prison, where she served close to 9 years, she continued her work with a focus on political support for incarcerated political prisoners and former Panthers.

Tarika Lewis

Tarika Lewis is often recognized as the first woman to join the Black Panther Party. She found the party during her work in the Black Student Union at Oakland Tech where she led sit ins for Black studies courses. She has recounted many stories about the struggles of being a woman in the Black Panther Party. She recalls having to work harder than her male counterparts just to prove that she was equal to them and the threats of rape from police officers that were made to her and her female peers. She taught drill class and led political education sessions during her work as a Panther.

Don’t forget to send your favorite pictures of yourself and your natural looks to spokenheart_mf@aol.com to be featured in Wicked Wednesday!

Wicked Wednesday: Afro's and Fashion

Wicked Wednesday: Afro's and Fashion

Pat Cleveland

Pat Cleveland was discovered by the editor of Vogue in 1967 as she was traveling on a New York subway. Her career took off in the 70’s as people became mesmerized by her mulatto features. With a Cherokee, Irish and African America heritage she was marked by light skin and flowing black hair that allowed her to "pass" enough to use "Whites Only" washrooms.

Her distinctive features allowed her great fame and success but not enough to disenchant her with the obvious racism and lack of respect for her heritage. She has recounted stories of her and her fellow colleagues being attacked and even attempted rape from the KKK. This lack of respect prompted her to move to Paris to further pursue her career and she vowed to never return until US Vogue printed its first black cover.

After getting married and making a family she mostly retired but still passed her love of fashion and modeling her daughter, Anna von Ravenstein.

                               Grace Jones

Grace Jones is a Jamaican born model, singer and actress who began capturing fashion lover’s hearts in the 70’s. Her striking features and androgynous looks were hard to ignore and her daring fashion sense secured her as a fashion icon.

By the end of the 70’s she had secured a record deal and secured a name for herself on the US dance charts and earning her the title "Queen of the Gay Discos" After an anti disco movement she released more experimental work.

Then she took a break to focus on film work and  

She has also acted in a number of movies like James Bond and Boomerang.

Eventually she did return to her music career and is still performing to this day.

Donyale Luna

Donyale Luna is considered one of the first black covergirls and was the first black woman to be on a cover of Bazaar. She considered a pioneer as far as black women and the fashion industry grows. She was discovered in the same year as the Civil Rights Act by David McCabe who rushed her to meet Nancy White. Nancy was so engrossed by her beauty that she immediately had her drawn and featured on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar.

At the tender age of 16, she was whisked away to New York and enveloped in the world of fashion and beauty where her career took off as quickly as it started.

She found herself hurled into a world of famous friends with access to anything they wanted when she learned of her mother killing her father out of self defense. She found herself immersed in world of drugs and alcohol despite her firm belief against drug abuse.

Like most talented African Americans of her time, she fled to London and her career recovered.  

At the time of her death she left behind her 18 month old daughter, Dream.

(Dream Cazzaniga, daughter of Donyale Luna)

Alek Wek

Alek was discovered in the UK in the 90’s shortly after her family fled her hectic home of Civil War amidst a dangerous Civil War.

She first caught attention when she made face in a Tina Turner video and then became a common face in ads by Clinique, Victoria Secret and Donna Karan, amongst others.

She has also appeared in quite a few music videos since her career has taken off.

She has also worked on the US Committee for Refugees during her time working for humanitarian rights.

She is both an author, she released the auto-biography "Alek: From Sudanese Refugee to International Supermodel" in 2007, and handbag designer.

She is also a missionary for World Vision, an ambassador for Doctors Without Borders and a volunteer for UNICEF.

 

Jade

Jade was discovered in Cycle 6 of ANTM. Raised in Philly of African American and Indian heritage, Jade had prior experience in modeling and music videos before her discovery on ANTM. During her time on ANTM she was constantly ridiculed and scolded for her arrogance, although she struggled to recognize this trait in herself. Since her appearance on the show she has had much success in her modeling career.

She has even opened her own productions company "Biracial Butterfly Productions" and featured in several ads for Apple Bottom Clothing Line.