National Poetry Month

Thursday, April 22, 2009
By VeTalle Fusilier

Keep your head young, just do you…
they don’t  understand it’s just the God in you - Kokayi

This month is national poetry month, inspired by the success of Black History Month. Inaugurated in 1995, and maintained by the Academy of American Poets.  It is also recognized in Canada.  In some European countries, October is poetry month. Everywhere in these United States, there is poetry in April.  Many bookstores sponsor readings, and in fact many poetry books are published in late March, early April to leverage the interest into sales.  No doubt this is a month close to our DNA.  We have been rhyming since we learned the English language, and probably before that.  But that’s another story and I remain a victim of slavery, unable to speak my ancestral languages. 

But I do know what I like.   And I like rhymes.  Rhyme and politics, rhyme and rhythm, rhyme and rhetoric.   Our rhymes are full, never empty.  We have been educated and entertained, and informed by our poets since Paul Lawrence Dunbar explained wearing the mask. Gwendolyn Brooks and the sarcastic humor of Leroi Jones, his transformation to Amiri Baraka  and may others, blessed us with artistic witness to injustice, abuse, and our own imperfections.  Gil, the Last Poets, Dolemite, all of our poets paint portraits of blackness with words. Some better than others, some on the mic, some in notebooks stashed under the bed.  Some to our blushing and bedevilment.   And still, we rise.

Jason Mars

Women have been poetically vocal, long before this country gave them a voice. Phyllis Wheatley was the first black published poet, and her legacy was carried by Gwendolyn Brooks, and held up in the 60’s by feminized fists like Nikki Giovanni’s.  Now she is reaching back to connect us to the gift of hip-hop as poetry, while exposing our college writers to the combination of culture and couture that defines our black poets.  She teaches the caged bird to sing.

Nikki Giovanni

We rhyme so well; sometimes the words don’t even have to sound alike.  And sometimes we make the same words sound different.  Like E. E. Cummings on the mic, Sekou Sundiata was the jazziest, swingingest, black man to play with words in that way.  We miss him so much.  He bared his soul with soul and in him we see ourselves, the true gift of his delivery.  His art is our mirror.  A mirror, his art.   Now he can park his wings and put them down, get his feet used to solid ground.

Sekou

One of the most prolific poets of our times is the gifted songwriter and honey voiced singer, Smokey Robinson.  Listen to Tears of a Clown, Shop Around, You Really Got A Hold on Me, Get Ready, Quiet Storm, and it’s hard to argue that this is not poetry set to music.  He is still poetic in every sense of the word, representing on Def Jam Poetry series, not afraid to rhyme. He too, sings America.

Smokey

And if Smokey was then, Kanye is now.  While many of us can’t stand him, you got to give him his poetic props.  He has got a way with words, even if he says it too loud, You know that thing about being black and proud.  It is our own worse enemy sometimes.  But is he any more vain then the poets publishing their prosaic thoughts , masquerading their emotional outing inside  poetic vocal cadence  in slams and readings that indulge their need to be heard, but not our desire to listen and be moved?  Who knows, but he can drop a rhyme with reason, so we got to give it up.

Kanye West

And while we have worn the mask, we still learned to lift every voice and sing.  Ntozake explained pain, Langston Hughes explained dreams, and Claude McKay explained truth.  The rappers explained the streets.  And your favorite poet explains the world to you in images and rhymes that speak to your spirit.  And that voice commands attention, whether it be masculine or feminine, old or young.  Many voices are quiet, but we still have Wanda Phipps,  Eric Roberson, Forrest Hamer,  Elise, Perry,  Quincy Troupe ,  and  Natasha Trethewey We have poets all around and among us, and we know it.  And they still bring the noise, disturbing the universe, or at least the same ole, same ole.

Autumn Ashante

VeTalle Fusilier is a producer in Washington, D.C. It’s pronounced VEE-tal FEW-suh-leer.