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Poem post #8 - Two poems for Elders

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"Kinfolk and Community" - Theme for Week #2, April 8 thru April 14

DevotionReader Series: 30 Ways of Looking at Black Poetry

A Grandfather Poem - William J. Harris

A grandfather poem
must use words of great dignity.

It can not
contain words like:
Ubangi
rolling pin
popsicle,

but words like:
Supreme Court
graceful
wise.

William J. Harris,  from My Black Me, edited by Arnold Adoff, Dutton, 1974.  

 

For My Grandmother - Countee Cullen

This lovely flower fell to seed;
Work gently sun and rain;
She held it as her dying creed
That she would grow again.

Countee Cullen, My Soul's High Song, The Collected Writings of Countee Cullen, Anchor Books, 1991


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

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