Toni Morrison on Life and Language

"We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our living." Toni Morrison

Review: In the Dark, Soft Earth

In the Dark, Soft Earth by Frank Watson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars 

In this collection, Frank Watson seeks inspiration from works of art and music, from nature, and from human relationship. The results are often interesting, as in the section inspired by paintings derived from a Tarot deck.

His language and imagery are both spare and simple. His metaphors sometimes strain, seemingly trying to resurrect a comparison from overuse. His lines are short and pithy and he makes good use of regular and irregular rhyme.

Overall, the poetry is less complex and rich than the art works printed alongside and the language sometimes edges towards the stale traditional. But there is an earnestness here, and the poems are accessible to those who do not regularly read poetry.


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Meat for Tea - The Valley Review will publish three of my poems in an upcoming issue.

Meat for Tea - The Valley Review will publish three of my poems in an upcoming issue. They have previously published my work. Thank you Editor Elizabeth MacDuffie. 

Review: The More Extravagant Feast: Poems

The More Extravagant Feast: Poems by Leah Naomi Green
My rating: 4 of 5 stars 

With eloquent simplicity and an eye for the telling detail, Leah Naomi Green writes poetry that encompasses nature and the very personal into a lyric tapestry. The growth of her daughters in her body and then--after they are born--outside that body.

"This is the way we came
to remember the world."

The likening of a wood stove being opened on the first cold day of Autumn and finding they had prepared wood to burn with the opening of her body in a C-section to the separate life of her daughter.

"i believed
at least one of us
must know the way"

The father who kills and dresses a deer for them to eat as a sacramental act.

"It is all I see,
a thing, alive, slowdown becoming my body."

"When we eat,
what we eat is the body

of the world"

The death of her father and faith in life as a candle of flickering light embodied in wax

"whose job is not to spark,
or hold a flame, but to keep the lit wick steady,
constant and disappearing."

A moving, personal, yet universal collection.

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My poem "Kharon" will be included in a collection on the COVID pandemic call "Tales from Six Feet Apart" to be published by iō Literary Journal later this year.

My poem "Kharon" will be included in a collection on the COVID pandemic call "Tales from Six Feet Apart" to be published by iō Literary Journal later this year. 

My thanks to the editors who have previously published 3 of my poems. 

Let America Be America Again BY LANGSTON HUGHES

Let America Be America Again

BY LANGSTON HUGHES
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free?  Not me?
Surely not me?  The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine—the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!

Do something

It's the action, not the fruit of the action, that's important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there will be any fruit. But that doesn't mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result.

~ Mahatma Gandhi