#etheridgeknight

[beblk]

Last Words by “Slick” by Etheridge Knight | Poetry Foundation

Now, when I / die, dont you bury me

baba etheridge knight blk! asé

[bagleywrightlectures]

Today on @theparisreview: An excerpt of Terrance Hayes's Bagley Wright Lecture on Etheridge Knight.  Terrance will deliver the full lecture, “Three Acts of Love: ‘As You Leave Me,’ ‘Upon Your Leaving,’ and ‘Feeling Fucked Up,’ ” tomorrow at 5 P.M. at Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House / NYU in NYC. Read on and join us . . . http://www.theparisreview.org/…/the-space-between-everythi…/

[pictured here: sketch of Etheridge Knight in prison by Terrance Hayes]

[whenava-tiyewhere]

Etheridge Knight: Mama Sonia's Man...

The Sun Came

BY ETHERIDGE KNIGHT

                                                        And if sun comes                                                         How shall we greet him?                                                                      —Gwen Brooks

The sun came, Miss Brooks,—

After all the night years.

He came spitting fire from his lips.

And we flipped—We goofed the whole thing.

It looks like our ears were not equipped

For the fierce hammering.

And now the Sun has gone, has bled red,

Weeping behind the hills.

Again the night shadows form.

But beneath the placid face a storm rages.

The rays of Red have pierced the deep, have struck

The core. We cannot sleep.

The shadows sing: Malcolm, Malcolm, Malcolm.

The darkness ain't like before.

The Sun came, Miss Brooks.

And we goofed the whole thing.

I think.

(Though ain't no vision visited my cell.)