Tonight is poetry night with my wing gal. She read Claude McKay's "If We Must Die." I am doing Langston Hughes' "Militant."
Below is her poem.
If We Must Love
If we must love, let not the law decree
Nor society dictate with cruel glares
Which lover is fit for you or for me,
Or how we love in the moments we share.
If we must love, let us love without rules;
Let us love red, yellow, black or brown, white.
Let children not learn in small-minded schools
That two boys is "wrong," but boy and girl "right".
Oh Lovers! Go forth and love one or more
Man, woman, or one of each! Freely love!
If we cannot love, then what is life for?
Let love's limits be, when all's said and done,
Constrained only by imagination.
(c) hmh, 2007
Here is my Hughes-inspired poem:
Apartheid
Head and heart
disconnected
a world apart!
Emotions exist
and they are real
yet I resist!
A giant brick wall
between thought and feeling
my own personal hell!
And the sick sad thing is
I like it that way.
Without that wall
I might sob and bawl
letting go of the pain
and I might be free!
No control!
No restraint!
But then I could not write,
And then I could not paint!
And I would not be me!
(c) fprm, 2007
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1 comment:
Groovy! I like the Harlem Renaissance. It's always difficult being a white person working with the art of people of color. Sometimes it can be a philosphical mine field. But it's always good to open up that dialogue, and remembner how important poets like Hughes and Cullen were to the American canon, so they don't get marginalized again. A fine tribute!
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