Still I Rise

[Dee Miller]

what are some of your favorite poems by black authors?
 

Maya, Angelou’s, Still I Rise.  LOVE IT!!! It's life-changing, spirit-boosting, reminiscent of the power of our ancestors, reasons to love, laugh, forgive, stand in our truth, persevere and have the audacity to smile, wink and walk away gracefully.

 

[richardmurray]

@Dee Miller

I will say Zora Neale Hurston is who I am thinking of but like me, her little section of the black populace when she was growing up was a place of positivity for her in a way most black people didn't and don't have in the usa.

 

Poem 

Title: Zora

Take me down to Eatonville
Take me right down to Eatonville where the vineyards
ripe with currants dressed in plum, cherry, and of course a blushy peach
all swing with me
brush their bruised skin—
drop against the sediment that covers their sweet

Take me down to Eatonville
Take me right down to Eatonville where the laughter crackles, shrieks
roars rude as belches, fine as gratitude
thick as contrite
where notes grab me by the waist side
squeeze my handles and brush my skin against
grins set with peppered sweat

Take me down to Eatonville
Take me right down to Eatonville where the eyes are set apart
but roam like unbridled streams, coil like kitchen hair
all over because of Song of Solomon 1:5
not because of the fruit

Take me down to Eatonville
Take me right down to Eatonville where
glazed hardwood floors are for lindy hop scuffs—
not blackened knees

Take me down to Eatonville
Take me right down to Eatonville
Where I’ll be—
But you won’t, Zora

Because you’re too busy sharpening your oyster knife

 

In amendment, for me, alot of Black music is poetry with instrumentation

so I have to add the following

 

Weed Smoker's Dream
by Joe McCoy and Herb Morand 

Sitting on a million, sitting on it everyday
Can't make no money giving your stuff away
Why don't you do like, like the millionaires do
Put your stuff on the market and make a million too
Face of a betting women, she bets on every hand
She's a tricking modafunkyou everywhere she lands
Why don't you do now, like the millionaires do
Put your stuff on the market and make a million too
May's a good looking frail, she lives down by the jail
On the back though she got hot stuff for sale
Why don't you do now, like the millionaires do
Put your stuff on the market and make a million too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyjW8FTGxbI

 

Why Don't You Do Right?
Joe McCoy 

You had plenty money in 1922
You let other women make a fool of you
Why don't you do right like some other men do?
Get outta here and get me some money too
You're sittin' down, wonderin' what it's all about
If you ain't got no money they gon to put you out
Why don't you do right, like some other men do?
Get outta here and, get me some money too
if you had prepared, twenty years ago
You wouldn't be drippin from door to door
Why don't you do right, like some other men do?
Get outta here and, get me some money too
...
I fell for your jargon and I, took you in
Now all you got to offer me is a, drink of gin
Why don't you do right, like some other men do?
Get outta here and get me some money too

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oavQY5V0xpg
 

 

 

[Dee Miller]

@richardmurray when I think about Zora’s experience, I’m like, ‘Good for you, sis. Now take those experiences and inspire others who didn’t even know Eatonville-like experiences was even a thing’.

Bruh, easier said than done

 

I can relate to Joe and Herbs experience because - you don’t even know that there’s  green grass on the other side. And even if you’ve had a glimpse of the green grass, the glimpse can be intimidating.  Like many of us, you do better when you know better’.  Perhaps they know, now, that they have choices beyond their existence, and the glimpse = possibilities. Choices be like…
 

Thanks for sharing!  I enjoyed the read

[richardmurray]

well said @Dee Miller