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By: TDHM

TDHM — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 21:47:08 +0000

I hope this will inspire you:
If African American Speeches Did Not Exist
If African American Speeches did not exist.
Then the speech I have a dream
By Rev. Martin Luther King
Would not have become Americas civil rights theme
or
What Frederick Douglass stated
Which would have been a lost
Stand by those princple
Be true to them, On all occasions
In all places, Against all foes
at whatever cost
If African American Speeches did not exist
Booker T. Washington Could not insist
That the laws of changeless justice
Bind oppressor with oppressed
And close as sin and suffering joined
We march to fate abreast
or
Sojourner Truth Ain’t I a woman
Would not have been heard
nor Shirley Chisholm or Rosa Parks
Most eloquent famous words
If African American Speeches did not exist
The different cultures in the world, would not have met
Langston Hughes or Mary Mcleod Bethune,
WEB Du Bois, just to name a few
Thurgood Marshall against the Supreme Court Judges
And now Barack O’bama’s Speech
when he accepted the Democratic endorsement
If African American Speeches did not exist
Where would we be as a society
This poem could not even fit
Because this is an African American Speech
Through the art of poetry
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By: ainnesoft

ainnesoft — Mon, 21 May 2007 14:42:20 +0000

its lovingly written infact …the childhood memories repeating itself in raising our own loving child.
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By: Tom T.

Tom T. — Tue, 08 May 2007 14:31:14 +0000

This is a lovely post that connects with my own coming into poetry a continent away from Kwame Dawes–thanks to a wickedly smart grandmother with countless poems memorized and a gift for delivery. And yet, I read Kenneth Goldsmith’s post and thought too of how bored I’ve grown of most readings. Perhaps we’re jaded in NYC. I KNOW we’re jaded in NYC. If only most poets were aware of the performance aspect of the reading — not condescending to it, not convinced of their own importance, but giving themselves up to it artfully. That’s what’s so brilliant about something like Jordan Davis’ Million Poems Show — it plays with the performance, recognizing read poetry as “entertainment” and gives it away like that, for pleasure… which includes the pleasure the intellect takes.
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By: Brian Hadd

Brian Hadd — Tue, 08 May 2007 14:09:35 +0000

Labor overall really makes people hear I think. Etiolated anything is dumb dumbspeak. IMHO.
The Hood Company
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