Jenny Joseph (May 07, 1932 -) When I am an old woman I shall wear purple With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me. And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter. I shall sit down on the pavement …
Langston Hughes – The Weary Blues
Langston Hughes (February 01, 1902 – May 22, 1967) Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,I heard a Negro play.Down on Lenox Avenue the other nightBy the pale dull pallor of an old gas lightHe did a lazy sway . . .He did a lazy sway . . .To the …
Ama Codjoe – Of Being Sick and Tired
Ama Codjoe ⏤ After Pablo Neruda and Fannie Lou Hamer I’m tired of being a woman. I walk into grocery stores and laundromats wet with the cracked face of a maidenhead lurching across the Atlantic. I want to sleep like a seed in stony ground. I want the phone to stop biting my ear. I …
Maria Wisława Anna Szymborska – Possibilities
Maria Wisława Anna Szymborska (July 2, 1923–February 1, 2012) I prefer movies. I prefer cats. I prefer the oaks along the Warta. I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky. I prefer myself liking people to myself loving mankind. I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case. I prefer the color green. I prefer …
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Wendell Berry – A Questionnaire
Wendell Berry (August 05, 1934 -) 1 How much poison are you willing 2 to eat for the success of the free 3 market and global trade? Please 4 name your preferred poisons. 5 For the sake of goodness, how much 6 evil are you willing to do? 7 Fill in the following blanks 8 …
Ella Wheeler Wilcox – Protest
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (November 5, 1850–October 30, 1919) To sin by silence, when we should protest, Makes cowards out of men. The human race Has climbed on protest. Had no voice been raised Against injustice, ignorance, and lust, The inquisition yet would serve the law, And guillotines decide our least disputes. The few who dare, …
Sadiqullah Khan – Dark Clouds
Sadiqullah Khan From freedom To security Checked searched Interviewed Many times Paranoia Who stopped me This time “White or red” Or just soldiers In drawn lines Colors And appearances Matter Language and religion Race and ethnicity Dark clouds hovering On my horizon
Lucille Clifton – Lorena
Lucille Clifton (June 27, 1936 – February 13, 2010) —News Report *Woman cuts off husband’s penis,* *later throws it from car window.* it lay in my palm soft and trembled as a new bird and i thought about authority and how it always insisted on itself, how it was master of the man, how it …
