Devotion Reader

Black poets have fulfilled the role of griot – recording stories of our families, and preserving our diverse national identities as Black people throughout the U.S., Caribbean and South America. Here, in week one of our series highlighting the influence of ancestral African griots in modern Black poetry are selected stanzas from James Weldon Johnson’s poem, “O Black and Unknown Bards,” and "I Want to Write," a poem by Margaret Walker Alexander that represents the important role of the traditional griot in recording the experiences of African descendants.

Poem post #7 for 4/7/2010

I Want To Write – Margaret Walker

I want to write

I want to write the songs of my people

I want to hear them singing melodies in the dark.

I want to catch the last floating strains from their throb-torn throats.

I want to frame their dreams into word; their souls into notes.

I want to catch their sunshine laughter in a bowl;

fling dark hands to a darker sky

and fill them full of stars.

Then crush and mix such lights till they become

a mirrored pool of brilliance in the dawn.

Margaret Walker Alexander, This Is My Country: New and Collected Poems, 1988

Devotionreader.com 30 Days of Looking at Black Poetry -- Day: One O Black and Unknown Bards Two Listen Children Three For the Record Four Ballad of Birmingham Five Six The Idea of Ancestry Seven I Want to Write Eight A Grandfather Poem Nine Sweet Sound Ten My Brother is Homemade Eleven Those Winter Sundays Twelve SOS Thirteen Resurrections Fourteen Jessie Mitchell's Mother Fifteen April Rain Song Sixteen I've Got A Home in that Rock Seventeen Earth Screaming Eighteen Returning Spring Nineteen Newark, for Now [68] Twenty Dawn Twenty-One Fir Twenty-Two Comin Strong Twenty-Three From a Black Feminists Conference Reflections on Margaret Walker: Poet Twenty-Four My Africa Twenty-Five Strong Men Twenty-Six Today's News Twenty-Seven My Guilt Twenty-Eight Forward, Always Forward Twenty-Nine The Seven Principles of Kwanzaa Thirty What Harriet Said