I have a link to the essay "Masters and Master Works: On Black Male Poetics" by Afaa M. Weaver on my Kings and Kindreds page, and today I read his essay more slowly. World issues and his prose inspired this poem, "All About Black Men," but after I finished writing it I also thought of the poet Aberjhani's poems "I Made My Boy Out of Poetry" and "The Man that Poetry Made." Perhaps I've been reflecting on black men more lately because I'm the mother of a black teenage male whose father is not in the home, or perhaps it's simply because I am a black woman who watches my people—the wounded, the struggling, the proud and strong.
All About Black Men
People click my site: Kings and Kindreds,
poem pages of black men,
what you call them good men,
African-American brothers.
I see surfers' Google strings—sex,
black sex with black men, low down down low sex, MSMs,
white women with black men and horses sex,
black women and black men having erotic video sex, good
black sex the poem, find me "fat azz" texting illiterates on a PC sex
stereotypographical cartoon error jungle fever fantasy,
Al Jolson fallacy Mammy song sex,
and ask.com with show me fucking good
black men the poem.
Sometimes clicks come for the bitch:
"show poems pissed off by big black dicks"
I hate him too, black daddy gone again with
no remorse, no calls for MLK 'til January.
People surf black men for that Afro Whores movie,
hard-core, coochie-eating Zane metaphors with screams knocking walls,
or news at six stanzas in blood
not symphonic Miles Kinda Blue verse or
Mike in motion lines, red beans and rice with
silver screen romance rhythms or similies from The Learning Tree or
black fathers who done right dying in a bed of smiles so
mothers can nurse the black babies Bennett used
in his holocaust scenario by radio supposed to
make you see an abortion travesty—convenient
that white atrocity exchange for pro-life points.
I see red
Google strings
lynching black men.
Too much make me wanna holler never make it to the page 'cause
it hurts to write of brothers penning poems with needles and bullets
in Harlem in
on lovers on offspring on prison block rock.
I wait for the stronger to pen better poems,
more undeferred dreams like
Barack Obama or a Malcolm renaissance
or a Martin in every season.
I wait for an army of African-American brothers to pen lives
all about kingly black men
and how to grow black boys to harmonious verses
and my people to a masterpiece tome.
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LINKS
- Whose Shoes Are These Anyway
- African-American Books Examiner
- "New Orleans Literature Examiner"
- "Shaniya Davis, Dead at 5: A Story Nearly as Ugly as Precious"
- Nordette Adams on Twitter"
- Praise Poem for the Day Reloaded: Attack of the Inaugural Poem
- "A Poem and Essay on Race and Racism: Behind the Color Blind"
- Reciting Aberjhani's poem, "And then the Rain God Screamed for Love"
- Contact the poet.
