Tag: America

A Song for Myself

by Melvin B. Tolson

Melvin Beaunorus Tolson February 6, 1898 – August 29, 1966 // Public Domain

I judge

My soul

Eagle

Nor mole:

A man

Is what

He saves

From rot.

The corn

Will fat

A hog

Or rat:

Are these

Dry bones

A hut’s

Or throne’s?

Who filled

The moat

’Twixt sheep

And goat?

Let Death,

The twin

of Life,

Slip in?

Prophets

Arise,

Mask-hid,

Unwise,

Divide

The earth

By class

and birth.

Caesars

Without,

The People

Shall rout;

Caesars

Within,

Crush flat

As tin.

Who makes

A noose

Envies

The goose.

Who digs

A pit

Dices

For it.

Shall tears

Be shed

For those

Whose bread

Is thieved

Headlong?

Tears right

No wrong.

Prophets

Shall teach

The meek

To reach.

Leave not

To God

The boot

And rod.

The straight

Lines curve?

Failure

Of nerve?

Blind-spots

Assail?

Times have

Their Braille.

If hue

Of skin

Trademark

A sin,

Blame not

The make

For God’s

Mistake.

Since flesh

And bone

Turn dust

And stone,

With life

So brief,

Why add

To grief?

I sift

The chaff

From wheat

and laugh.

No curse

Can stop

The tick

Of clock.

Those who

Wall in

Themselves

And grin

Commit

Incest

And spawn

A pest.

What’s writ

In vice

Is writ

In ice.

The truth

Is not

Of fruits

That rot.

A sponge,

The mind

Soaks in

The kind

Of stuff

That fate’s

Milieu

Dictates.

Jesus,

Mozart,

Shakespeare,

Descartes,

Lenin,

Chladni,

Have lodged

With me.

I snatch

From hooks

The meat

Of books.

I seek

Frontiers,

Not worlds

On biers.

The snake

Entoils

The pig

With coils.

The pig’s

Skewed wail

Does not

Prevail.

Old men

Grow worse

With prayer

Or curse:

Their staffs

Thwack youth

Starved thin

For truth.

Today

The Few

Yield poets

Their due;

Tomorrow

The Mass

Judgment

Shall pass.

I harbor

One fear

If death

Crouch near:

Does my

Creed span

The Gulf

Of Man?

And when

I go

In calm

Or blow

From mice

And men,

Selah!

What . . . then?

Melvin Tolson, “A Song for Myself” from Harlem Gallery and Other Poems of Melvin B. Tolson (Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, 1999)

Source: “Harlem Gallery” and Other Poems of Melvin B. Tolson (University Press of Virginia, 1999)

Tags America, American poetry, art, Arts, Literature, poem, poet, Poetry

American American Poetry Black History General History Phillis Wheatley poet Poetry Religion and Spirituality Uncategorized United States women women poets

On Being Brought from Africa to America

Post author By TDarris
Post date February 2, 2022
No Comments on On Being Brought from Africa to America

by Phillis Wheatley

Listen to “On Being Brought from Africa to America” by Phillis Wheatley

‘Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
“Their colour is a diabolic die.”
Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,
May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train.

This poem is in the public domain.

Reprinted in “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African”

America American Black History Celebration Faith James Weldon Johnson poet Poetry Religion and Spirituality Uncategorized United States

“Lift Every Voice and Sing”

Post author By TDarris
Post date January 31, 2022
No Comments on “Lift Every Voice and Sing”

by James Weldon Johnson

James Weldon Johnson circa
(1900 – 1920) / SOURCE: U.S. Library of Congress

“Lift Every Voice” / Original Version

Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us,
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun
Let us march on till victory is won.

“Lift Every Voice” by James Weldon Johnson, sung by Committed

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

Alicia Keys – Lift Every Voice and Sing Performance

God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand.
True to our God,
True to our native land.

This poem is in the public domain.

Tags african american history, african american literature, African American poet, America, American Literature, American poetry, art, Arts, Black History, black history month, Black Poetry, faith, Literature, poem, poems, poet, Poetry

19th century 20th century American Poetry Black History Celebration modern poetry United States William Braithwaite

“Rhapsody”

by William Braithwaite

I am glad daylong for the gift of song,
For time and change and sorrow;
For the sunset wings and the world-end things
Which hang on the edge of to-morrow.
I am glad for my heart whose gates apart
Are the entrance-place of wonders,
Where dreams come in from the rush and din
Like sheep from the rains and thunders.

Tags America, American poetry, Arts, Literature, poem, poems, poet, Poetry, William Braithwaite

American American Poetry Martin Luther King, Jr. poet Poetry United States

The Streetsweeper

by Martin Luther King, Jr.

(Original Caption) 4/3/1968-Memphis, TN: One of the last pictures to be taken of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. — speaking to a mass rally April 3 in Memphis — when he said he would not halt his plans for a massive demonstration scheduled for April 8 in spite of a federal injunction. The Nobel Peace Prize Winner was felled by a sniper’s bullet, April 4.

If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper,
sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures,
sweep streets like Beethoven composed music,
sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera.

Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry.
Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say:
Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well.

If you can’t be a pine at the top of the hill,
be a shrub in the valley.
Be the best little shrub on the side of the hill.

Be a bush if you can’t be a tree.
If you can’t be a highway, just be a trail.
If you can’t be a sun, be a star.
For it isn’t by size that you win or fail.
Be the best of whatever you are.

Tags America, american history, American poetry, art, Arts, Black History, black history month, civil rights, History, Literature, Martin Luther King, poem, poet, Poetry

20th century African-American American American Poetry Langston Hughes Literature Poetry

“Song”

Black-and-white photograph of an alley in Miami, Florida, USA. — Photograph by manolofranco from pixabay.com

by Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes in 1936 photo by Carl Van Vechten

Listen to / “Song” by Langston Hughes, Read by Teyuna Darris

Lovely, dark, and lonely one,
Bare your bosom to the sun,
Do not be afraid of light
You who are a child of night.
Open wide your arms to life,
Whirl in the wind of pain and strife,
Face the wall with the dark closed gate,
Beat with bare, brown fists
And wait.

This poem is in the public domain.

Tags America, American poetry, art, Arts, Literature, poem, poems, poet, Poetry

20th century American American Poetry Black History English General Harlem Renaissance Langston Hughes Literature modern poetry Poetry Uncategorized United States

“My People” by Langston Hughes

Post author By TDarris
Post date November 6, 2021
No Comments on “My People” by Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes in 1936 by Carl Van Vechten

My People

The night is beautiful,

So the faces of my people.

The stars are beautiful,
So the eyes of my people.

Beautiful, also, is the sun.
Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.

20th century African-American America American American Poetry Black History General Langston Hughes modern poetry Poetry Uncategorized United States

“When Sue Wears Red”

by Langston Hughes

Portrait of Langston Hughes. Photo by Gordon Parks / Library of Congress.

When Susanna Jones wears red
Her face is like an ancient cameo
Turned brown by the ages.

Come with a blast of trumpets,
Jesus!

When Susanna Jones wears red
A queen from some time-dead Egyptian night
Walks once again.

Blow trumpets, Jesus!

And the beauty of Susanna Jones in red
Burns in my heart a love-fire sharp like pain.

Sweet silver trumpets,
Jesus!

20th century African-American American American Poetry Black History Harlem Renaissance Langston Hughes Uncategorized United States

“Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes

Post author By TDarris
Post date November 22, 2018
No Comments on “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes

"Mother to Son"
by Langston Hughes

Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.

But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.

So boy, don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps
’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now—
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

Tags 20th century, African American poet, African-American Literature, African-American Poetry, America, American Literature, american poet, American poetry, Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes, Literature, poem, poet, Poetry, United States

18th Century American Poetry Uncategorized women poets

“The Watcher” by SARAH JOSEPHA HALE (1787 – 1900)

Post author By TDarris
Post date September 4, 2018
No Comments on “The Watcher” by SARAH JOSEPHA HALE (1787 – 1900)

“The Watcher”

by Sarah Josepha Hale

The night was dark and fearful,
The blast swept wailing by;
A Watcher, pale and tearful,
Look’d forth with anxious eye;
How wistfully she gazes—
No gleam of morn is there!
And then her heart upraises
Its agony of prayer!

Within that dwelling lonely,
Where want and darkness reign,
Her precious child, her only,
Lay moaning in his pain;
And death alone can free him—
She feels that this must be:
“But oh! for morn to see him
Smile once again for me!”

A hundred lights are glancing
In yonder mansion fair,
And merry feet are dancing—
They heed not morning there.
Oh! young and lovely creatures,
One lamp, from out your store,
Would give that poor boy’s features
To her fond gaze once more.

The morning sun is shining—
She heedeth not its ray;
Beside her dead, reclining,
That pale, dead mother lay!
A smile her lip was wreathing,
A smile of hope and love,
As though she still were breathing—
“There’s light for us above!”

Tags America, new england, Poetry, Sarah Josepha Hale, United States, women poets

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