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For deLawd |
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people say they have a hard time understanding how I go about my business playing my Ray Charles hollering at the kids-- seem like my Afro cut off in some old image would show I got a long memory and I come from a line of black and going on women who got used to making it through murdered sons and who grief kept on pushing who fried chicken ironed swept off the back steps who grief kept for their still alive sons for their sons coming for their sons gone just pushing
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Lucille Clifton |
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CommentaryI’m borrowing this poem from the great black poet, Lucille Clifton, for good reason—because it inspires me that it's ok to just keep pushing -- that our struggles are the same as the struggles of other oppressed peoples though history.
As my friend, Tom Preston puts it, “This poem speaks to me volumes of the analogous activism of the gay future--just pushing.” |
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When I watch you wrapped up like garbage sitting, surrounded by the smell of too old potato peels or when I watch you in your old man's shoes with the little toe cut out sitting, waiting for your mind like next week's grocery I say when I watch you you wet brown bag of a woman who used to be the best looking gal in Georgia used to be called the Georgia Rose I stand up through your destruction I stand up |
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Miss Rosie |
Lucille Clifton |
Commentary“A simply smashing pome. Immediately relevant to Lesbians but to all "queers," male or female. The brown bag refers to the old brown bag test for blacks--brown being the "light" black & hence more acceptable to whites--since she's the color of a "wet" brown bag, she's, of course, "black" black. The double meaning of "I stand up" is simply radiant--I stand up to salute you & because you're the wreck you are, I am able to stand up when you couldn't. Like "For deLawd" this is an anthem for gay/human rights as well as for black human (“civil”) rights. And Miss Rosie is "sitting." Yes!” — Tom Preston
I’d also like to thank Tom for introducing me to the work of this important poet. If you’d like to learn more about Lucille Clifton, please visit the following websites: _______________________________________
http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/clifton/clifton.html
http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/1419/Lucile_Clifton_has_the_gift_of_verse
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/clifton/clifton.htm
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/79
http://voices.cla.umn.edu/vg/Bios/entries/clifton_lucille.html
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"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." |