This post is going to be a bit different for my blog. On Twitter this month, I’ve been writing a thread celebrating black poets for Black History Month, honoring a different poem/poet each day of the month.
I’m going to transpose the thread here and publish it to my blog. I hope you enjoy! If anyone would care to, I’d greatly appreciate it if you’d also like and retweet anything you enjoy from the thread. Thank you!
One of my favorite poets, Langston Hughes would have been 117 today had he not passed away 52 years ago.
— Nella Dower🌱 (@drawnoutofshape) February 1, 2019
He wrote some fascinating poetry about American identity, especially as it relates to people of color.
Here's one of my favorites: pic.twitter.com/kjOmvnO23Y
Day 2 of #BlackHistoryMonth!
— Nella Dower🌱 (@drawnoutofshape) February 2, 2019
This brilliant poem by Gwendolyn Brooks has always stuck with me. It tells of the dangers of lives lived fast and hard. I especially love the structure Brooks employs, disconnecting "We" from all the pitfalls to that kind of life she lists. pic.twitter.com/1Onskm4jgc
Day 3 of #BlackHistoryMonth!
— Nella Dower🌱 (@drawnoutofshape) February 3, 2019
Lucille Clifton's "homage to my hips" is part of a series of poetic homages celebrating black female bodies. With playful language, she explores the nature of her body, associating it with with concepts of freedom, mobility, and personal autonomy. pic.twitter.com/qGBoveMYup
Day 4 of #BlackHistoryMonth!
— Nella Dower🌱 (@drawnoutofshape) February 4, 2019
Countee Cullen's "To The Swimmer" explores the theme of confidence in the face of struggle and warns us that strength of body is nothing without strength of spirit and vice versa. We need both to overcome the waves that rise against us. pic.twitter.com/wliSe8Xek5
Day 5 of #BlackHistoryMonth!
— Nella Dower🌱 (@drawnoutofshape) February 6, 2019
Audre Lorde's 1997 poem "A Woman Speaks" illustrates the power of women of color's voices. With breathtaking imagery, she describes her own voice as ancient magic garnered from her ancestors that reshapes the world. pic.twitter.com/iNBwgiWFad
Day 6 of #BlackHistoryMonth!
— Nella Dower🌱 (@drawnoutofshape) February 6, 2019
Claude McKay's "December, 1919" depicts a soul-crushing picture of a boy torn between hiding emotion from his mother and later wanting, but no longer being able to cry at all. There's an important lesson here to gain for any man who'd read it. pic.twitter.com/p9kQns7hWd
Day 7 of #BlackHistoryMonth!
— Nella Dower🌱 (@drawnoutofshape) February 7, 2019
Nikki Giovanni's "Nikki-Rosa" will break your heart and put the pieces back together again. This beautiful poem paints a picture of black family life as it's understood and experienced internally and perceived externally. pic.twitter.com/bCOGkpc4pa
Day 8 of #BlackHistoryMonth!
— Nella Dower🌱 (@drawnoutofshape) February 8, 2019
Amiri Baraka bares his soul in his 1964 work "An Agony. As Now." Disassociating his soul from his body and illustrating the fracture between the two, he tells a tale of the emotional and spiritual paralysis of a soul trapped behind a mask. pic.twitter.com/ktf4t8fnup
Day 9 of #BlackHistoryMonth!
— Nella Dower🌱 (@drawnoutofshape) February 9, 2019
Paul Laurence Dunbar's "The Debt" is a poem of the burden of regret and grief. He paints a powerful picture of the pitfalls to indulgence in either, leading those who do to nothing but added interest in trauma long since past. pic.twitter.com/r8i0K8yPwj
Day 10 of #BlackHistoryMonth!
— Nella Dower🌱 (@drawnoutofshape) February 10, 2019
Phillis Wheatley's "A Hymn to the Evening" is a meta-poem, meaning a poem about poetry in which the speaker sings of the threats to beautiful days and hopes that her light (her poem) can guide her readers through the darkness that overcomes them. pic.twitter.com/quqF6aVazl
Day 11 of #BlackHistoryMonth!
— Nella Dower🌱 (@drawnoutofshape) February 11, 2019
Robert Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays" is a poem about the regrets that come with learning as the speaker, now an adult, looks back on his apathetic childhood view of his father with the regret of a man who now understands what it's like to be one. pic.twitter.com/o0GdH0Zqpd
Day 12 of #BlackHistoryMonth!
— Nella Dower🌱 (@drawnoutofshape) February 12, 2019
June Jordan's "July 4, 1974" paints a portrait of her son, first by describing an intentionally dry list of factual circumstances and then pivoting into a beautiful metaphor that will leave you with a feast for your mind's eye. pic.twitter.com/E7yPkOydzv
Day 13 of #BlackHistoryMonth!
— Nella Dower🌱 (@drawnoutofshape) February 13, 2019
[CW: intense lynching imagery]
From Jean Toomer's 1923 masterpiece Cane, "Portrait in Georgia" is an imagist poem that paints a horrifying picture of the burning body of a woman of color. By far the most painful & powerful poem I've ever read. pic.twitter.com/uW2vypF1eU
Day 14 of #BlackHistoryMonth!
— Nella Dower🌱 (@drawnoutofshape) February 14, 2019
Described by MLK as "one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity," the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing is the subject matter for Dudley Randall's "Ballad of Birmingham". I can't read this without crying 😢 pic.twitter.com/KWCECtcV6P
Day 15 of #BlackHistoryMonth!
— Nella Dower🌱 (@drawnoutofshape) February 15, 2019
Haki R. Madhubuti implores poets to write with political defiance to the mechanisms that oppress and undermine us with his meta-poetic criticism "For the Consideration of Poets" and I couldn't agree more. Poetry can turn tides. pic.twitter.com/AXJknD3yaI
Day 16 of #BlackHistoryMonth!
— Nella Dower🌱 (@drawnoutofshape) February 16, 2019
Terrance Hayes enacts exactly what Madhubuti implored poets to do in yesterday's selection, weaving what he's described as a "complicated, contradictory, and fucked-up history" into his "Probably twilight makes blackness dangerous". pic.twitter.com/JAc5GWnxor
Day 17 of #BlackHistoryMonth!
— Nella Dower🌱 (@drawnoutofshape) February 17, 2019
James Weldon Johnson writes of the dichotomy between art and trade in the aptly named "Art vs. Trade," exploring the line between art made for sharing truth and art made for selfish gains. pic.twitter.com/ixN6cvzVZY
Day 18 of #BlackHistoryMonth!
— Nella Dower🌱 (@drawnoutofshape) February 18, 2019
Etheridge Knight's "Apology for Apostasy?" is a poem that resonates with me in many ways as one whose candy is also deferred. Let's hope there are sweeter futures for us all on the horizon. pic.twitter.com/YUam92nlH4
Day 19 of #BlackHistoryMonth!
— Nella Dower🌱 (@drawnoutofshape) February 19, 2019
James Baldwin's "The giver (For Berdis)" is a powerful poem about the nature of giving and the guilt that comes with being a giver who can never give enough. pic.twitter.com/X25VMzTA2w
Day 20 of #BlackHistoryMonth!
— Nella Dower🌱 (@drawnoutofshape) February 20, 2019
"Canary" by Rita Dove elegizes Billie Holiday in homage to jazz music, attempting to capture her image and the complexities of her music in poetry. pic.twitter.com/T07chSbDPx
Day 21 of #BlackHistoryMonth!
— Nella Dower🌱 (@drawnoutofshape) February 21, 2019
In keeping with yesterday's theme, Maya Angelou teaches us why the caged bird sings in her classic "Caged Bird," singing us a gorgeous song of freedom from the inside of a cage. pic.twitter.com/Mu5j7dosTC
Day 22 of #BlackHistoryMonth!
— Nella Dower🌱 (@drawnoutofshape) February 22, 2019
George Moses Horton's "On Liberty and Slavery" continues the theme of songs born of the yearning for freedom. Again making use of bird imagery, his sing songs of liberty drowned out in a world lacking it. pic.twitter.com/zoXPWJePEi
Day 23 of #BlackHistoryMonth!
— Nella Dower🌱 (@drawnoutofshape) February 23, 2019
Michael S. Harper's "Jazz Station" takes us on a musical journey through Portland, OR, exploring through poetry the impacts that jazz music has had on the landscape of the city. pic.twitter.com/IYOktvS3Ui
Day 24 of #BlackHistoryMonth!
— Nella Dower🌱 (@drawnoutofshape) February 24, 2019
Cornelius Eady once said, "I really enjoy the idea of the language that's inside of music itself… I try to find a way to translate or interpret what I hear in music," which is exactly what he did in this elegy to the recently deceased Nina Simone. pic.twitter.com/2FlAgoJc78
Day 25 of #BlackHistoryMonth
— Nella Dower🌱 (@drawnoutofshape) February 27, 2019
Elizabeth Alexander's "Ars Poetica #100: I Believe" is another beautifully constructive metapoem that teaches us where to look for poetry in our lives. pic.twitter.com/Z5JAP5xjCw
Day 26 of #BlackHistoryMonth!
— Nella Dower🌱 (@drawnoutofshape) February 27, 2019
Marilyn Nelson's "Green-Thumb Boy" speaks of a botanical savant with a gift for cultivating plants and human relationships alike. pic.twitter.com/Qugkh7iDzj
Day 27 of #BlackHistoryMonth!
— Nella Dower🌱 (@drawnoutofshape) February 27, 2019
Margaret Walker's "Sorrow Home" is a heart-wrenching poem with a speaker who longs to return to a home overwhelmed by hate that leaves her in exile. pic.twitter.com/GJEq3MJow3
Day 28 of #BlackHistoryMonth!
— Nella Dower🌱 (@drawnoutofshape) February 28, 2019
We began the month with Langston Hughes telling us how he, too sings of America, and we're ending the month with the voice of W.E.B. Du Bois poetically singing us out with his, "My Country 'Tis of Thee". pic.twitter.com/VSwM7ouYSk
Thank you, everyone who's been following this thread. I'm so glad my ban was lifted so I could finish it. I hope you've enjoyed it and learned a thing or two.
— Nella Dower🌱 (@drawnoutofshape) February 28, 2019
All of this work has been so underappreciated historically. I adore every line of it and I hope you have too!
If nothing else, I hope this will inspire some appreciation for it that will extend beyond #BlackHistoryMonth as all of this work deserves.
— Nella Dower🌱 (@drawnoutofshape) February 28, 2019
Regardless, happy BHM!
Credit to the poetry foundation as source for all of screenshots of the poems presented, https://t.co/GCGTxgtgLd
