Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note

by: Leroi Jones

Lately, I've become accustomed to the way
the ground opens up and envelops me
Each time I go out to walk the dog.
Or the broad edged silly music the wind
Makes when I run for a bus--

Things have come to that.

And now, each night I count the stars,
And each night I get the same number.
And when they will not come to be counted
I count the holes they leave.

Nobody sings anymore.

And then last night, I tiptoed up
To my daughter's room and heard her
Talking to someone, and when I opened
The door, there was no one there...
Only she on her knees,
Peeking into her own clasped hands.


When you're weary and a bit jaded, you can see all the tragedies in the world. The beauty that is right there in front of you, wrapped in tufts of simplicity seem to evade you. It seems that in this poem, Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones) is talking about how he'd become a bit disillusioned and then the simple act of a prayer and the faith of his daughter gave him hope and brought back a bit of light. I love this poem, it inspires me to want to write. Let's hope I can come up with something just as haunting.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) is a poet, writer, political activist and teacher. He was born in 1934, in Newark, New Jersey. He graduated from Howard University in 1953, and published his first major book of poetry, Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note, in 1961. He founded Totem Press in 1958, which first published works by Kerouac, Ginsberg and other lesser-known writers of the time period.

In 1968, LeRoi Jones changed his name to Amiri Baraka in reverence of his Muslim beliefs. He has taught at several universities, and continues to write to this day.

Alfred A. Duckett

Sonnet

Where are we to go when this is done?
Will we slip into old, accustomed ways,
finding remembered notches, one by one?
Thrashing a hapless way through a quickening haze?

Who is to know us when the end has come?
Old friends and families, but could we be
strange to the sight and stricken dumb
at visions of some pulsing memory?

Who will love us for what we used to be
who now are what we are, bitter cold?
Who is to nurse us with swift subtlety
back to the warm and feeling human fold?

Where are we to go when this is through?
We are the war-born. What are we to do?

Alfred A. Duckett is the african-american writer pictured above. He wrote the aforementioned poem, Sonnet. I had to share this poem because of its haunting poignancy. I have the tendency to write poetry that catches you in the beginning and works hard to keep the imagery in your mind since your attention has been snagged but this poem is a the reverse. I love the way he starts off gently and builds the crescendo until the end. The last line makes you want to sob for the lonely lost people in the poem. They can be your next door neighbor, survivor of the Haulocast,

Poetry is a voice for the voiceless...

"Amidst the tearing and screaming, hope lingers between black and white lines, between the grandeur of what we long for and the squalor that presses cruel against the heels of the surviving spirit." -Staceyann Chin

I've long thought about what to do with my blog. Should it contain the ramblings that I have been known for? Or should I do something more emphatic with the opportunity that I have to give voice to other poets whose work I greatly admire? I've decided. My poet SPEAK blog will discuss, enumerate and expound on the greatest poets I've found and I'll include the works that I admire with an interpretation of the words that so greatly move me.

Am I a scholar? No, I'm a poet. I know what I think about the words. If you too have an interpretation of these things poetic, I'd love for you to share that with me so that we may have that dialogue on this blog. Let's create a community of poets and poetry aficionados here that are willing to share their voice so that we too may make the world change.