Conversation: Poetry and Justice

Testimony

to

JUNETEENTH

The Mark Twain Library

June 18, 2021

4:00 PM

Do not confine your children to your own learning

For they were born in another time.

-Hebrew Proverb

The event:

Free at Last: A Juneteenth Poem

Sojourner Kincaid Rolle

General Granger brought the news to

Galveston: "The war is over! "

President Lincoln signed a decree;

The Emancipation Proclamation

declares, "All who live in bondage here

shall from now until be free."

After 300 years of forced labor;

hands bound, descendants of Africa

picked up their souls - all that they

owned - leaving shackles where they fell

on the ground, headed for the nearest

resting place to be found.

Some went no further than the shack

out back; oft only a lean-to shed -

hard ground for a bed; hard labor, no

pay, but the will to survive.

‘though they couldn't call it their own,

They still declared, "this is my home."

Some went to the nearest place of the

Lord; to some hollow place in the

brush or to a clearing in a grove

where folk gathered ‘neath a still standing

tree and sang, "Thank you

Jesus, for delivering me."

Some ran as far as they could go

into the service of the man

on the neighboring land

Working for a pittance

and a little plot of space

much like they did as a slave.

Some made a beeline for nearest saloon

singing a song, picking a tune;

toasting the Union and Lady Luck,

settin' da flo, dancing the jig and the buck;

patting themselves on their whip-scarred backs;

carousing from night into day.

Some went the way of the river,

following the Rio Grande

or swimming the up-flowing Mississip.

Hastening to get as far as they could -

thrusting their futures into sanctuary and

friendless unknown territory.

Some kept running like a stone on a

hill - never to grasp a firm place to rest.

Some even went to the promised land;

Wherever they went alone or abreast

At the end of their journey, they cried,

"I've done my best."

Every year in the Lone Star State, and

in towns from sea to sea,

sons and daughters of the ones who

were held celebrate the time when

their forebears got the news -

"the war was over; all men were free."

They will always remember;

they will never forget Juneteenth

When their forebears could shout,

"Free at Last! Hallelujah, I'm free."

Video: Free at Last: A Juneteenth Poem - YouTube w/ pictures

And a contemporary take:

Let America Be America Again

Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.

Let it be the dream it used to be.

Let it be the pioneer on the plain

Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—

Let it be that great strong land of love

Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme

That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty

Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,

But opportunity is real, and life is free,

Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There’s never been equality for me,

Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?

And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,

I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.

I am the red man driven from the land,

I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—

And finding only the same old stupid plan

Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,

Tangled in that ancient endless chain

Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!

Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!

Of work the men! Of take the pay!

Of owning everything for one’s own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.

I am the worker sold to the machine.

I am the Negro, servant to you all.

I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—

Hungry yet today despite the dream.

Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!

I am the man who never got ahead,

The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream

In the Old World while still a serf of kings,

Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,

That even yet its mighty daring sings

In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned

That’s made America the land it has become.

O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas

In search of what I meant to be my home—

For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,

And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,

And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came

To build a “homeland of the free.”

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?

Surely not me? The millions on relief today?

The millions shot down when we strike?

The millions who have nothing for our pay?

For all the dreams we’ve dreamed

And all the songs we’ve sung

And all the hopes we’ve held

And all the flags we’ve hung,

The millions who have nothing for our pay—

Except the dream that’s almost dead today.

O, let America be America again—

The land that never has been yet—

And yet must be—the land where every man is free.

The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—

Who made America,

Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,

Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,

Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—

The steel of freedom does not stain.

From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,

We must take back our land again,

America!

O, yes,

I say it plain,

America never was America to me,

And yet I swear this oath—

America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,

The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,

We, the people, must redeem

The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.

The mountains and the endless plain—

All, all the stretch of these great green states—

And make America again!

Video: Let America Be America Again by Langston Hughes, read by Willie

Jennings - YouTube

Videos - a perspective (Both available via YouTube)

•. Nikky Finney - Acceptance Speech - Book Award for

Poetry - November 16, 2011 (Five minutes)

• Viola Davis - Acceptance Speech - Emmy’s 2015 YouTube. (Three

Minutes)

A declaration- An Inaugural Poem:

On the Pulse of Morning

Maya Angelou

(Inauguration Day – January 20, 1993)

A Rock, A River, A Tree

Hosts to species long since departed,

Marked the mastodon,

The dinosaur, who left dried tokens

Of their sojourn here

On our planet floor,

Any broad alarm of their hastening doom

Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.

But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,

Come, you may stand upon my

Back and face your distant destiny,

But seek no haven in my shadow.

I will give you no hiding place down here.

You, created only a little lower than

The angels, have crouched too long in

The bruising darkness

Have lain too long

Face down in ignorance.

Your mouths spilling words

Armed for slaughter.

The Rock cries out to us today, you may stand upon me,

But do not hide your face.

Across the wall of the world,

A River sings a beautiful song. It says,

Come, rest here by my side.

Each of you, a bordered country,

Delicate and strangely made proud,

Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.

Your armed struggles for profit

Have left collars of waste upon

My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.

Yet today I call you to my riverside,

If you will study war no more. Come,

Clad in peace, and I will sing the songs

The Creator gave to me when I and the

Tree and the rock were one.

Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your

Brow and when you yet knew you still

Knew nothing.

The River sang and sings on.

There is a true yearning to respond to

The singing River and the wise Rock.

So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew

The African, the Native American, the Sioux,

The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek

The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheik,

The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,

The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher.

They hear. They all hear

The speaking of the Tree.

They hear the first and last of every Tree

Speak to humankind today. Come to me, here beside the River.

Plant yourself beside the River.

Each of you, descendant of some passed

On traveller, has been paid for.

You, who gave me my first name, you,

Pawnee, Apache, Seneca, you

Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, then

Forced on bloody feet,

Left me to the employment of

Other seekers—desperate for gain,

Starving for gold.

You, the Turk, the Arab, the Swede, the German, the Eskimo, the

Scot,

You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, bought,

Sold, stolen, arriving on the nightmare

Praying for a dream.

Here, root yourselves beside me.

I am that Tree planted by the River,

Which will not be moved.

I, the Rock, I the River, I the Tree

I am yours—your passages have been paid.

Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need

For this bright morning dawning for you.

History, despite its wrenching pain

Cannot be unlived, but if faced

With courage, need not be lived again.

Lift up your eyes upon

This day breaking for you.

Give birth again

To the dream.

Women, children, men,

Take it into the palms of your hands,

Mold it into the shape of your most

Private need. Sculpt it into

The image of your most public self.

Lift up your hearts

Each new hour holds new chances

For a new beginning.

Do not be wedded forever

To fear, yoked eternally

To brutishness.

The horizon leans forward,

Offering you space to place new steps of change.

Here, on the pulse of this fine day

You may have the courage

To look up and out and upon me, the

Rock, the River, the Tree, your country.

No less to Midas than the mendicant.

No less to you now than the mastodon then.

Here, on the pulse of this new day

You may have the grace to look up and out

And into your sister’s eyes, and into

Your brother’s face, your country

And say simply

Very simply

With hope—

Good morning.

Video: Angelou Reads 'On the Pulse of Morning’ - YouTube

A declaration- An Inaugural Poem:

The Hill We Climb Amanda Gorman

(Inauguration Day - January 20, 2021)

When day comes we ask ourselves,

Where can we find light in this never-ending shade?

The loss we carry,

a sea we must wade

We braved the belly of the beast

We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace

And the norms and notions

of what just is

Isn’t always just-ice.

And yet the dawn is ours

before we knew it

Somehow we do it

Somehow we weathered and witnessed

a nation that isn’t broken

but simply unfinished

We the successors of a country and a time

Where a skinny black girl

Descended from slaves and raised by a single mother

Can dream of becoming president

Only to find herself reciting for one.

And yes we are far from polished

far from pristine

But that doesn’t mean that we are

striving to form a union that is perfect.

We are striving to forge our union with purpose

To compose a country committed to all cultures, colours,

characters and conditions of man.

And so we lift our gaze not to what stands between us

but what stands before us

We close the divide because we know to put our future first

We must first put our differences aside

We lay down our arms

So we can reach out our arms

To one another.

We seek harm to none and harmony for all.

Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:

That even as we grieved, we grew

That even as we hurt, we hoped

That even as we tired, we tried.

That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious.

Not because we will never again know defeat

But because we will never again sow division.

Scripture tells us to envision

That everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree

And no one shall make them afraid.

If we’re to live up to our own time

Then victory won’t lie in the blade

But in all the bridges we’ve made

That is the promise to glade

The hill we climb

If only we dare.

Because being American is more than a pride we inherit

It’s the past we step into

And how we repair it.

We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation

Rather than share it

Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.

And this effort very nearly succeeded.

But while democracy can be periodically delayed,

it can never be permanently defeated.

In this truth,

in this faith we trust

For while we have our eyes on the future,

history has its eyes on us.

This is the era of just redemption.

We feared at its inception

We did not feel prepared to be the heirs

of such a terrifying hour

but within it we found the power

to author a new chapter.

To offer hope and laughter to ourselves.

So while we once we asked,

how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?,

Now we assert

How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?

We will not march back to what was

but move to what shall be.

A country that is bruised but whole,

benevolent but bold,

fierce and free.

We will not be turned around

or interrupted by intimidation

because we know our inaction and inertia

will be the inheritance of the next generation.

Our blunders become their burdens.

But one thing is certain;

If we merge mercy with might,

and might with right,

then love becomes our legacy

and change our children’s birthright.

So let us leave behind a country

better than the one we were left with.

Every breath from my bronze pounded chest,

we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.

We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west,

We will rise from the windswept northeast

where our forefathers first realized revolution.

We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states,

we will rise from the sunbaked south.

We will rebuild, reconcile and recover

and every known nook of our nation and

every corner called our country,

our people diverse and beautiful will emerge

battered and beautiful.

When day comes we step out of the shade,

aflame and unafraid,

The new dawn blooms as we free it.

For there is always light,

if only we’re brave enough to see it.

If only we’re brave enough to be it.

Amanda Gorman reads inauguration poem, 'The Hill We Climb' YouTube

And then again:

I, too, sing America.

by Langston Hughes

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.

Video: Read by Langston Hughes - I, Too - YouTube

And another poem:

Unified in Diversity.

That's what people today should be.

Humans embracing harmony and happiness.

Hope that flowers from the seed,

That will allow us all to prosper.

Why does colour or race matter?

Why not join together, instead of being scrambled and scattered?

Why can't we just not plainly see,

The unity in diversity?

People will be people all the same,

And under the setting sun,

Nothing may ever change,

But I am here to take a stand,

To show the world how to finally be,

Unified in Diversity.

- Peter Vector

What about disclosing the daily expectation?

I Am Waiting

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I am waiting for my case to come up

and I am waiting

for a rebirth of wonder

and I am waiting for someone

to really discover America

and wail

and I am waiting

for the discovery

of a new symbolic western frontier

and I am waiting

for the American Eagle

to really spread its wings

and straighten up and fly right

and I am waiting

for the Age of Anxiety

to drop dead

and I am waiting

for the war to be fought

which will make the world safe

for anarchy

and I am waiting

for the final withering away

of all governments

and I am perpetually awaiting

a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Second Coming

and I am waiting

for a religious revival

to sweep thru the state of Arizona

and I am waiting

for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored

and I am waiting

for them to prove

that God is really American

and I am waiting

to see God on television

piped onto church altars

if only they can find

the right channel

to tune in on

and I am waiting

for the Last Supper to be served again

with a strange new appetizer

and I am perpetually awaiting

a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for my number to be called

and I am waiting

for the Salvation Army to take over

and I am waiting

for the meek to be blessed

and inherit the earth

without taxes

and I am waiting

for forests and animals

to reclaim the earth as theirs

and I am waiting

for a way to be devised

to destroy all nationalisms

without killing anybody

and I am waiting

for linnets and planets to fall like rain

and I am waiting for lovers and weepers

to lie down together again

in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed

and I am anxiously waiting

for the secret of eternal life to be discovered

by an obscure general practitioner

and I am waiting

for the storms of life

to be over

and I am waiting

to set sail for happiness

and I am waiting

for a reconstructed Mayflower

to reach America

with its picture story and tv rights

sold in advance to the natives

and I am waiting

for the lost music to sound again

in the Lost Continent

in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the day

that maketh all things clear

and I am awaiting retribution

for what America did

to Tom Sawyer

and I am waiting

for Alice in Wonderland

to retransmit to me

her total dream of innocence

and I am waiting

for Childe Roland to come

to the final darkest tower

and I am waiting

for Aphrodite

to grow live arms

at a final disarmament conference

in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting

to get some intimations

of immortality

by recollecting my early childhood

and I am waiting

for the green mornings to come again

youth’s dumb green fields come back again

and I am waiting

for some strains of unpremeditated art

to shake my typewriter

and I am waiting to write

the great indelible poem

and I am waiting

for the last long careless rapture

and I am perpetually waiting

for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn

to catch each other up at last

and embrace

and I am awaiting

perpetually and forever

a renaissance of wonder

Lawrence Ferlinghetti - I Am Waiting - YouTube

What about a measure of seeing?:

Sunrise

You can

die for it–

an idea,

or the world. People

have done so,

brilliantly,

letting

their small bodies be bound

to the stake,

creating

an unforgettable

fury of light. But

this morning,

climbing the familiar hills

in the familiar

fabric of dawn, I thought

of China,

and India

and Europe, and I thought

how the sun

blazes

for everyone just

so joyfully

as it rises

under the lashes

of my own eyes, and I thought

I am so many!

What is my name?

What is the name

of the deep breath I would take

over and over

for all of us? Call it

whatever you want, it is

happiness, it is another one

of the ways to enter

fire.

–Mary Oliver

Video: Poem Reading: Sunrise, by Mary Oliver - YouTube

And more- how long ago these words?:

I HAVE COME INTO THIS WORLD TO SEE THIS

I have come into this world to see this:

the sword drop from men's hands even at the height

of their arc of anger

because we have finally realized there is just one flesh to wound

and it is His - the Christ's, our

Beloved's.

I have come into this world to see this: all creatures hold hands as

we pass through this miraculous existence we share on the way

to even a greater being of soul,

a being of just ecstatic light, forever entwined and at play

with Him.

I have come into this world to hear this:

every song the earth has sung since it was conceived in

the Divine's womb and began spinning from

His wish,

every song by wing and fin and hoof,

every song by hill and field and tree and woman and child,

every song of stream and rock,

every song of tool and lyre and flute,

every song of gold and emerald

and fire,

every song the heart should cry with magnificent dignity

to know itself as

God:

for all other knowledge will leave us again in want and aching -

only imbibing the glorious Sun

will complete us.

I have come into this world to experience this:

men so true to love

they would rather die before speaking

an unkind

word,

men so true their lives are His covenant -

the promise of

hope.

I have come into this world to see this:

the sword drop from men's hands

even at the height of

their arc of

rage

because we have finally realized

there is just one flesh

we can wound.

~ Hafiz ~

Just so - the pledge

Beginners

Dedicated to the memory of Karen Silkwood and Eliot Gralla

“From too much love of living,

Hope and desire set free,

Even the weariest river

Winds somewhere to the sea—“

But we have only begun

To love the earth.

We have only begun

To imagine the fullness of life.

How could we tire of hope?

— so much is in bud.

How can desire fail?

— we have only begun

to imagine justice and mercy,

only begun to envision

how it might be

to live as siblings with beast and flower,

not as oppressors.

Surely our river

cannot already be hastening

into the sea of nonbeing?

Surely it cannot

drag, in the silt,

all that is innocent?

Not yet, not yet—

there is too much broken

that must be mended,

too much hurt we have done to each other

that cannot yet be forgiven.

We have only begun to know

the power that is in us if we would join

our solitudes in the communion of struggle.

So much is unfolding that must

complete its gesture,

so much is in bud.

~ Denise Levertov ~

Video: Poetry for the Exile: "Beginners" by Denise Levertov - read by Goldfinch

Weaver-Kreider - YouTube