I've been thinking about what I wanted to post in honor of Father's Day. Over the weekend I've read many posts that both celebrated and challenged men. I saw the sweetest photos of fathers with their children. I read posts about men who are uncles, big brothers, and mentors for children who don't have fathers in their lives. I also read posts about absentee fathers and the overwhelming stats on men of color who are incarcerated.
This morning I wanted to join in the celebration of fathers, of men, by highlighting poets who are men of color. In a way, their poems have mentored and nurtured so many of the young people I work with. When I do a poet study, I print out a photo and bio of the poet and hang it on the Artist Wall. I believe it is important for young people to see the faces of brown and black men who are vulnerable, who take artistic risks, who, in some cases, have overcome similar obstacles as my students.
Some of these poems I've used in the classroom, some I haven't. I encourage you to do some digging and find the gems they've penned. This list is not exhaustive by any means, just a very small sampling to get us thinking.
Legacy
by Derrick Weston Brown
My father's vocabulary
is extensive but
he still can't find the words
for I love you.
Nor the synonyms
acronyms
or abbreviations.
I guess this is why I am
a poet.
I inherited the words
lost to his dictionary.
I am the new volume.
Updated.
New testament.
. . .
Like Father
by Jericho Brown
My father’s embrace is tighter
Now that he knows
He is not the only man in my life.
He whispers, Remember when, and, I love you,
As he holds my hand hungry
For a discussion of Bible scriptures
Over breakfast. He pours cups of coffee
I can’t stop
Spilling.
My father’s embrace is firm and warm
Now that he knows. He begs forgiveness
For anything he may have done to make me
Turn to abomination
As he watches my eggs, scrambled
Soft. Yolk runs all over the plate.
A rubber band binds the morning paper.
My father’s embrace tightens. Grits
Stiffen. I hug back
Like a little boy, gripping
To prove his handshake.
Daddy squeezes me close,
But I cannot feel his heartbeat
And he cannot hear mine—
There is too much flesh between us,
Two men in love.
. . .
Knock, Knock
by Daniel Beaty
Click HERE to watch the Def Poetry Jam performance of Knock, Knock
. . .
Jorge the Church Janitor Finally Quits
by Martín Espada
Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1989
No one asks
where I am from,
I must be
from the country of janitors,
I have always mopped this floor.
Honduras, you are a squatter's camp
outside the city
of their understanding.
No one can speak
my name,
I host the fiesta
of the bathroom,
stirring the toilet
like a punchbowl.
The Spanish music of my name
is lost
when the guests complain
about toilet paper.
What they say
must be true:
I am smart,
but I have a bad attitude.
No one knows
that I quit tonight,
maybe the mop
will push on without me,
sniffing along the floor
like a crazy squid
with stringy gray tentacles.
They will call it Jorge.
. . .
Those Winter Sundays
by Robert Hayden
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
feeling the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
. . .
Crazy Bunch Barbecue
by Willie Perdomo
Jefferson Park, Summer 1999
This is definitely
for the brothers
who ain't here
who woulda said
I had to write a poem
about this get together
like a list of names
on a memorial
to celebrate
our own old-timers day
for those of us
who age in hood years
where one night
can equal the rest of your life
and surviving the trade off
was worth writing on the wall
and telling the world
that we were here forever
The day started with snaps
on good-livin' pot bellies
receding hair lines
and new roles as Mr. Moms
Jerry had the best joke of the day
when he said that my family was so poor
that on Thanksgiving
they had to buy turkey-flavored Now & Laters
the laughter needed no help
when we exposed the stretch marks
of our growing pains
Phil had barbecue on the grill
He slapped my hand when
I tried to brush extra sauce
on a leg
“Yo, go find something to do
write a poem
write something
do something
I got this
I'm the chef
You the poet
Talk about how you glad to be here
do something
look at that little boy
on the baseball diamond
running circles around second base
today is his birthday
look at him
beat the wind
with his balloon.”
It used to take a few drinks before
we could cry and say I love you
we have always known how to curse
and bless the dead
but now we know how to talk in silence
as we walk into the sun
like the little boy's sneakers
we disappear in a cloud of dirt
and we go home
grown up
and full
This is definitely
for the brothers
who ain't here
who woulda said
I had to write a poem
about this get together
like a list of names
on a memorial
to celebrate
our own old-timers day
for those of us
who age in hood years
where one night
can equal the rest of your life
and surviving the trade off
was worth writing on the wall
and telling the world
that we were here forever
. . .
The N-Word
by Frank X Walker
Charles Evers
Hearing that word launched
from the back of any throat
brings back the smell
of German shepherd breath
of fresh gasoline
and sulfur air
of fear--both ours and theirs.
I hear nine brave little girls
lifted up to heaven too soon.
Instead of a rebel yell
I hear a rifle bark.
Instead of a whiskey-soaked yee haw
I hear a window break
and children sobbing for a father
face down in a pool of blood.
I hear all my faith collapse
on the winds of a woman's scream.
I can't hear anything less
and absolutely nothing funny.
