I recently discovered this week’s C.O.R.A. Diversity Roll Call is about poetry and poets, so naturally I’m participating. While I’m supposed to talk only about a female African American poet, I’m going to broaden this to include my two favorite African-American Poets, Yusef Komunyakaa and Rita Dove, who is a more recent find thanks to The Writer’s Center and Kyle Semmel from where I won a book of poetry.
First, let’s talk about Rita Dove and share one of her poems. Rita is not only a poet, but also a script writer and story writer. She served as Poet Laureate of the United States and Consultant to the Library of Congress from 1993 to 1995 and as Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth of Virginia from 2004 to 2006. She now works at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville as an English professor. Check out her Webpage for more biography information.
This is one of my favorite poems, which can be found here with several others:
My Mother Enters the Work Force
The path to ABC Business School
was paid for by a lucky sign:
Alterations, Qualified Seamstress Inquire Within.
Tested on Sleeves, hers
never puckered — puffed or sleek,
Leg o’ or Raglan —
they barely needed the damp cloth
to steam them perfect.
Those were the afternoons. Evenings
she took in piecework, the treadle machine
with its locomotive whir
traveling the lit path of the needle
through quicksand taffeta
or velvet deep as a forest.
And now and now sang the treadle,
I know, I know….
And then it was day again, all morning
at the office machines, their clack and chatter
another journey — rougher,
that would go on forever
until she could break a hundred words
with no errors — ah, and then
no more postponed groceries,
and that blue pair of shoes!
I adore the detailed images in this poem and how each one is selected for its powerful message about the life and times of this mother entering the workforce. This is a very poignant social commentary about this one woman’s struggle as befitting to all others at the time.
I may have talked about Yusef Komunyakaa on this blog before during the last Book Bloggers Appreciation Week, but here he is again. I first learned of Komunyakaa’s work in a college seminar on Vietnam War literature and I’ve returned to his work ever since. Yusef was raised during the Civil Rights movement and served in the U.S. Army between 1969 and 1970 as a correspondent and editor of the Southern Cross during the Vietnam War.
Here’s one of my favorite poems from him, found here:
Camouflaging the Chimera
We tied branches to our helmets.
We painted our faces & rifles
with mud from a riverbank,
blades of grass hung from the pockets
of our tiger suits. We wove
ourselves into the terrain,
content to be a hummingbird’s target.
We hugged bamboo & leaned
against a breeze off the river,
slow-dragging with ghosts
from Saigon to Bangkok,
with women left in doorways
reaching in from America.
We aimed at dark-hearted songbirds.
In our way station of shadows
rock apes tried to blow our cover
throwing stones at the sunset. Chameleons
crawled our spines, changing from day
to night: green to gold,
gold to black. But we waited
till the moon touched metal,
till something almost broke
inside us. VC struggled
with the hillside, like black silk
wrestling iron through grass.
We weren’t there. The river ran
through our bones. Small animals took refuge
against our bodies; we held our breath,
ready to spring the L-shaped
ambush, as a world revolved
under each man’s eyelid.
Who are your favorites? Have you discovered any new African American poets?
