LaShonda Morgan at Ashland Plantation by Nordette N. Adams

Originally published by Scalawag Magazine, the poem "LaShonda Morgan at Ashland Plantation" has been posted here in 2026 by the poet herself, Nordette N. Adams. The poem is ekphrastic and inspired by the work of Chandra McCormick, a gifted black, female Louisiana photographer. 

Nordette N. Adams is currently working to revive her website, her411.com aka WirtingJunkie.net. In the meantime, learn more about her via her411.com where eventually links will be updated.

"Say Thank You Say I'm Sorry" -- Jericho Brown, Alfre Woodard

"Say Thank You Say I'm Sorry" poem by Jericho Brown (Pulitzer Prize for poetry) recited by the indomitable and stellar Alfre Woodard.


 #COVID-19 and #Coronavirus exposure #essentialworkers

Rattle Magazine published my poem last month

Almost a month has passed since Rattle Magazine published my poem "Digital Anthropologists Find Our Hashtags" for its Poets Respond series. The poem explores specifically the consecutive shooting deaths of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, by police officers in the first full week of July.

Just hours after I submitted the poem, a sniper killed and wounded police officers in Dallas, Texas. That week of July brimmed too much with violence, grief, and pointed fingers. So, although I was pleased Rattle had accepted the poem, I was also too through with humanity to share at this blog my poem's publication on Tuesday, July 12.

I share it now because since then I've gotten notes and calls from people telling me how they felt about the poem, which you may read at Rattle's site. Acknowledging publication at my blog is appropriate.

The poem was one of two the magazine published that week following the shootings. On Sunday, July  10, the site posted "The Dead Line," a poem by Nicole Homer, a poem that uses repetition to good effect.

Also, the website for the Academy of American Poets, Poets.org, published a poem by the current Poet Laureate for the United States, Juan Felipe Herrera, entitled "@ the Crossroads--A Sudden American Poem." Herrera's verse also addresses the present crisis and sorrow of police relationships with black and brown communities. Clearly he wrote his poem after the Dallas tragedy because the epigraph names the slain officers and is dated July 10. Homer and I wrote our poems before Dallas.

Sadly, by the time America solves this problem, by the time we all do the hard work of facing the root causes of this race-related crisis and too often reasonable distrust of police of officers, the world may have volumes of poems exploring or tackling this subject. There is no easy solution here because solutions means behaviors and systems must change, and people fear change, especially when change challenges the foundation of long-held world views and practices.

Verse can soothe, make space for catharsis, and initiate dialogue beyond the heated center. Poetry may not be as popular as it once was in this nation, but the art remains a source humans turn to during troubling hours.

The worst thing the Democratic Party can do now

Dear Democratic Party Members:

by Nordette N. Adams

A "presidential" candidate has stood

on television where he has proclaimed

his genitalia grand and ready wood.

Even in such small things, it’s his aim

to shield his huge ego no matter what.

Just imagine him negotiating pacts

with other nations -- then, each year, his gust

on every network lobbing crass attacks.

And whom among us will he target next?
He’s mocked women, the disabled, ethnic groups.

Yet, fans cheer him wildly, shout, "He's right!"
So, now the Grand Old Party is perplexed.

They huff and race to kick him off the boat.

But Dems, don't happy dance just yet.
Don't ever count your voters till they vote.

Quaint Magazine Interview with Nordette N. Adams

And so this happened: I was interviewed by Quaint Magazine about the big poetry and music event I coordinated for this weekend, Born to the Beat.

I am grateful to Quaint for interviewing me about Born to the Beat because I am trying my best to promote the mini-festival so the poets have an audience. And I.do not deny that I can be so corny that I would make a Poet Tree for a poetry event because I did, That's what you see above. I've been tweeting that and other graphics to get the word out that this Saturday is the big day, 2:00 p.m., at Morning Call in City Park.

As they say in the old church, "Those of you who know the word of prayer, please pray for me." I need all the help I can get.

Kia Groom, the publisher and editor of the literary magazine asked me a question about the list of impressive poets lined up for this event in honor of the Beat Generation. Here's the full list here with the most recent addition, Nigerian poet and University of New Orleans professor Niyi Osundare, Ph.D. And it is an impressive group. I think I may have intimidated myself. Every one on the list has been published and many of them have won award for one of their poems or for a collection of poetry, even the emcees are literary stars, Megan Burns, a poet, and Alex Jennings, a fiction writer. The Shiz band is playing, too, and it has a poet as well.

What I was thinking pulling together all these gifted people in one spot? I've scared myself.

William F.DeVault
Dennis Formento
Gina Ferrara
JohnGery
Tyler Gillespie
KiaGroom
Kelly Harris-DeBerry
Carolyn Hembree
Julie Kane
Kay Murphy
Biljana Obradovic
Niyi Osundare
Valentine Pierce
A Scribe Called Quess?
M. E. Riley
Kristina Robinson
Mona Lisa Saloy
Terri S .Shrum
Clare Welsh
and our emcees,
MeganBurns
and
AlexJennings 

Alexie and Another Dolezal

Posts about Alexi's editorial were the first thing I saw when I entered the Facebook vortex today, and the topic was so full of smoke and mirrors identity issues that my head exploded. Here are its contents:

The summer was strange and wonderful, but since my return to the real world my mind's been full of American splinters, namely race matters, even race matters in the poetry community. Call me an observer.

The last time I wrote anything on this topic I think it was the Hoagland-Rankine thing at AWP, which I've since moved offline except for the initial post. Then last week I poked at the wall a little myself when I discovered the Poetry Foundation suffers from a certain obtuseness about European denigration of Africa and African-Americans. Other than that, I am essentially a nobody in the world of poetry, and let that admission serve as the excuse you need not to read this lonnnnng essay that I pecked out before I even realized I was writing.

On the blood trail of even more well-earned AWP drama about lack of diversity with blind push-back from a Kate Gale, the poetry community has been again upturned with Sherman Alexie's recent editorial for The Best American Poetry 2015 anthology in which he justifies his inclusion of a poem by a white man who used a Chinese  woman's name. This white man was apparently in the middle of a WMT (white man tantrum) when he did this, the conniption some white men have when they perceive everything they say and write is no longer the Word of God.

He pretended to be Chinese because he wanted to prove that people of color are favored over white people in poetry publications these days or something like that. This attempt is akin to what Rachel Dolezal wanting to prove about Africana studies, I think. She did, after all, first sue Howard University for "reverse discrimination." And it's definitely what Mindy Kaling's brother wanted to prove about med school admissions except he did so because he believes black people are favored over Indian and Asian people. Even getting harassed more by the police and store clerks didn't turn his unethical ship around. The difference is the impostor poet targeted Asian people and did not change his speech or subject matter. He merely lied about his name.

That said, no matter what others may assert, the impostor's poem selected for BAP 15 was still published because of its white maleness and affection for the hegemony. Alexi admits he thought first about the oddity of such colonialist affection in what he thought was a Chinese mind when he first put the poem in the maybe pile:

"When I first read it, I'd briefly wondered about the life story of a Chinese American poet who would be compelled to write a poem with such overt and affectionate European classical and Christian imagery, and I marveled at how interesting many of us are in our cross-cultural lives, and then I tossed the poem on the "maybe" pile that eventually became a "yes" pile."

Identity always plays a role in the creative process and how we perceive the world. In the Alexi case the European aesthetic still won. Alexie was curious about the poem as banana and in that way he reveals something’s going on in his head regarding his own appleness. (Yes, I’m playing off the Oreo trope.)

When I worked at a black weekly back in the 90s, whenever we didn’t seem to be down 100% with “the struggle” the editor would say, “That’s 'cause you’re not black in your mind!” The statement always struck me first from the view of slavery as death of the self (Slaves are forced to take on the identities of the masters.) and later as the ways in which the colonized often suffer from Stockholm syndrome. Even when we resist, some thread of whiteness remains in us because it’s difficult to not be influenced by the culture that surrounds you with claims of superiority.

So, Alexie's published a poem that's not Chinese in its mind, so it is not "Chinese;" therefore it has no real validity as proving a point about people of color being more privileged in poetry publications (statistics prove they are not). The only thing it's proven is how Sherman Alexi's mind works.

Poems that show no evidence of the ethnic identity of a poet of color are not “ethnic” poems. If I write a poem about a love of nature in a way that has no relation to how I identify as a black woman, then I’ve written a nature poem, and unless people know I’m black, the assumption of authorship defaults to white poet. If I write a poem about my old life in the Jersey suburbs that reveals nothing of my identity other than frustrated housewife, then it’s a life poem also known as a white poem and it's assumed the speaker is the stereotypical frustrated white housewife.

Someone could publish an anthology of a hundred poems written by people of non-European descent, but if in reading them you get no inkling that any of the poets were written by black, brown, and yellow people, and none of the poems challenged the status quo of white supremacy, you would be reading a white anthology also known as vanilla. It would be an anthology with which even a conservative white male might be comfortable, and it too would probably be called something something American.

This doesn’t mean that POCs should only write poems that reveal their ethnic heritage or overtly protest the hegemony. It means that often publications produced by white publishers get to count having a representative publication when they actually don’t have any such a thing. What they have is another book that completely upholds the white perspective and Western-European aesthetic but happens to include some people known to have darker skin.

Think of my current governor Bobby Jindal and his position in the Grand Old Party. Think of the words that come out of his mouth. The GOP counts him as evidence that they’re open to everyone, but who is Piyush "Bobby" Jindal really? Is he saying anything different from his Duck Dynasty friends?

Alexie has over-analyzed himself away from the anger he could have maintained and convinced himself that he published that poem simply because it’s good, but he’ll never know the truth about the poem:

1. He can’t un-think his first curiosity about what kind of Chinese person was that in love with European culture.
2. He could not separate his ego from his initial decision to publish the poem and from his desire to prove that he was still objective when he learned of the deception. Nobody is that objective. In fact, it’s the Enlightenment Age mind that privileges white male notions of rationality that has Alexi thinking he could be objective at all. He fought with his own thread of whiteness and his own maleness and  those aspects of himself won.

I noticed that he never discusses whether the poem moved him other than to a place of confusion and curiosity.

So, even if the impostor had actually been a Chinese poet, the poem itself added nothing to diversity in the anthology no matter what Alexie told himself when he accepted it and what he says now. The poem may be a good poem, but it was its perceived unique identity that drew him in. Would it have made the cut if the BAP used a panel of editors from different backgrounds? We'll never know.

Born to the Beat: NOLA poets prepare for The National Beat Poetry Festival

Visit the mobile site for B2TB

In conjunction with the National Beat Poetry Festival, a New Orleans poetry event, Born to the Beat is in the works. The poetry and prose reading is set for Saturday, September 12, outside Morning Call Coffee Stand at City Park, New Orleans, 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. (inside if it rains).

Some of the poets who will be reading are former Louisiana poet laureate Julie Kane, Dillard University professor and poet Mona Lisa Saloy, Kelly Harris-DeBerry, Carolyn Hembree, A Scribe Called Quess?, and John Gery. Local Indie band The Shiz will provide music, and Nordette Adams will be joined by Megan Burns and Alex Jennings as emcees.

It's free! So, if you'd like to attend why don't you let us know on Twitter (@BeatPoetry504) or Facebook.

There's more to say, but until next time . . .

Woman found with heart missing in time for Valentine's Day (Video)

Just in time for Valentine's Day, a not-so-happy love poem for all those who are a little sad this day because they know how love can take a bite out of a person's heart. No, that does not feel very good, does it?

From the Lost Love News: Woman found, heart missing

New Orleans, Louisiana - On Wednesday night NOPD officers entered a home in the 900 block of Love Struck Lane and discovered a ghastly scene. A woman, now identified as the poet Nordette Writes, lay in a pool of blood. Her heart was missing.

It's incredible, but when paramedics arrived, they discovered the poet still alive. "It's impossible!" said Dr. Harland Cousteau of Wilde Maladjustments Hospital, "This woman should be dead. No one has ever survived without a heart."

Police spokesperson Roderick Joseph said officers were called to the scene after a neighbor reported loud wailing coming from the woman's little shotgun home. Writes came to, according to officers, swearing that a lion in man's clothing had disrupted her entire life.

"She says he'd been coming to spend times with her for weeks," Joseph reported. "He romanced her and promised to protect her, but without warning he gobbled her heart whole right out of her chest."

The refused to speak directly with Lost Love News, but a nurse at the hospital who prefers to remain anonymous said she overheard Writes tell a priest that the man was not only a lion but also another poet.

A neighbor, Miss Hester Prynne, said she has not seen any lions in the neighborhood, however, "Ms. Nordette has been entertaining a tall, dark gentlemen. He has a deep, sexy voice and is very polite. But I never caught his name."

"Saints preserve us!" Sister Mary Francis Benedictine told us. She ministers to the hopeless at the hospital. "We've never seen anything like it. It's a miracle," she said.

Dr. Cousteau said he'd hardly call it that, and he refuses to believe the patient's lion story. "Somehow we are being fooled. It's some kind of illusion, and I will get to the bottom of it, I assure you. There are so many ways to trick us now with technology."

His colleague, Dr. Jung said he believes Writes is suffering from shock and is confused, "She's in what we call a fugue state. With proper treatment, we may bring her back to sanity, and she may even grow a new heart."

Writes remains in her room, resting comfortably but is emotionless, according to the anonymous nurse.

"It's all very puzzling," said Joseph. "Very puzzling indeed."

Beauty, Race, and the Death of Amede Ardoin

On Facebook, I have written briefly about the beautiful book of poetry, If you abandon me, comment je vas faire: An Amédé Ardoin Songbook, by former Louisiana poet laureate Darrell Bourque, but I have not said much about the man honored by the book, Amédé Ardoin.

Ardoin was a black man who is considered to be the father of Zydeco/Creole/Cajun music by many in Louisiana. At the very least, he was a singer/songwriter and "accordion virtuoso." Sometime around 1940, the story goes, Ardoin was assaulted by a group of angry white men and later died.

While playing at an event before a white crowd, the singer asked for a towel to wipe the sweat from his brow. A white woman handed him her handkerchief. This gesture angered some white men who may or may not have been from Louisiana, and they followed Ardoin home, beat him, and ran over him with a car or carriage, crushing his vocal cords.

Unable to sing again, he fell into a deep depression. He died in an asylum later and was buried in an unmarked grave. I can't help think but of Zora Neale Hurston now who died in a home for the indigent and was also buried in an unmarked grave until Alice Walker resurrected Hurston's legacy.

The video below tells more about this gifted man, Ardoin, whose life was brutally shortened.

You can listen Bourque's interview with Susan Larson on WWNO at this link and hear him read some of his work from his Ardoin chapbook and other collections. I love to hear him read and talk.

Profits from If You Abandon Me go toward creating a memorial of some sort for Ardoin.

Poems for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, 2015

It's that time of year again when educators, church leaders, and parents begin to look for short poems that may be recited at Martin Luther King Jr. Day. As usual, I am seeing a spike in the search for my two poems honoring Dr. King, "Remembering a Life" and "Marking Martin's Day."

One of the things that has given me joy as I get older is discovering that so many different people have used the poems--from elementary school and college students to ministers delivering sermons on that day. Sometimes the poems are recited and sometimes printed in school and church bulletins.

But lately my poem "Behind the Color Blind" seems to be used more often for recitations. I think that's partly because of its heavy use of end rhyme and a steady rhythm. While those poems were written a while ago, I'm glad people continue to appreciate them.

Blacksplain vs. Mansplain vs. Whitesplain vs. Poem

I wrote the poem "Song of the Fatigued Blacksplaining Folk" during National Poetry Month of this year, and recently turned it into a digital poster that's embedded farther down in this blog post. As the title indicates, and to borrow the words of Fannie Lou Hamer, "I am tired of being sick and tired" of explaining racism in America and how racist policies hurt not only people of color but the entire country.

Of course, living under Jim Crow laws, Ms. Hamer had a much tougher life than I did. Still, I get frustrated sometimes because some of the words that come out of the mouths of some white people sound like they'd be fine with returning to Jim Crow. Yes, there are many "white allies," who want America to live up to its credo, but there area also many who refuse to even attempt to understand systemic racism and how it contributes to many of the problems found in black communities, especially poor black communities.

Also, the last two years have been more difficult than usual because of the increase in the number of unarmed black people killed by either police officers or by white citizens. Both the officers and the vigilantes tend to claim they felt threatened even when the black person, often a young black male, is unarmed. Essentially they assert black people's bodies are weapons.

I had the pleasure of reading my poem at the Poetry Buffet at Latter Library on St. Charles Avenue earlier this fall. The multi-ethnic audience appeared to enjoy it.

© 2014 Nordette N. Adams

Click picture to enlarge.

You may have heard the invented words mansplain, which is a combination of man and explain, and whitesplain, as in white people explaining. The word blacksplain is a combination of black, meaning black people, and explain. However, unlike mansplain, which is the word given to a condescending explanation a male gives to a female, the word blacksplain is usually not associated with condescension, unless, of course, a white person is defining it who's shown him or herself to be a racist jackass. If that's you, then a black person may have blacksplained something to you in a condescending manner before.

Usually to blacksplain is to explain some aspect of black culture, history, heritage, or experience to a person who is not black. That person may be a sincere person who is asking a potentially offensive question but does not mean to offend. Or that person may be a racist jackass who still doesn't understand that America works this way: A black person has to be able to shift between white culture and black culture/white world and black world easily in order to be successful. But often white people don't have to know anything significant and factual about black people in order to be successful.

Frequently black people end up blacksplaining on some racism-related topic. For example, at UrbanDictionary.com, the first definition of blacksplain is actually an example of racist hate speech that's allowed to remain there probably because their editors are hipsters (see hipster racism) who think it's okay to have the offensive defintion since a more accurate definition follows it. In reality, the definition of blacksplain on that website is very similar to how n*gg*r used to be defined in the Webster's dictionary as "a Negro person." Only the worst stereotypes are included in the definition, but they let it ride because I guess they consider themselves "urban."

The word urban is often used as a euphemism for people of color, primarily black people, Latinos, and Mexicans, but as is the often the case, on one hand its used to marginalize people of color and on the other a white person uses it to make money. An even better example of that phenomena would be the success of Thug Kitchen. At CNN, healthy food activists Bryant Terry does an excellent job of blacksplaining why Thug Kitchen is problematic.

Now for the term whitesplain, it usually means that a white person is speaking condescendingly to a black person or other person of color when giving a white person's definition of racism (often wholly inadequate and stuck on overt racism) or is explaining why everything in America is fair and just: black people just need to work harder, and what about that "black on black crime" and those fatherless households. Another example of whitesplaining involves a white person telling a black person that in their eyes skin color is irrelevant. "I see everyone as the same. I'm color blind," they say, even as they speak to the black person in ways that make skin color very relevant.

It's possible also for a black person to whitesplain the world because frequently you may come across black people who have internalized the white supremacist propaganda against black people and don't think much of their own black skin and culture. For instance, it's possible that a black person wrote the first blacksplain definition at UrbanDictionary.com. Ironically that definition reads like whitesplaining.

But I'm not going to write here again all the reasons I am tried and worn out from blacksplaining. If you're interested in why that may be, though, please read my post on Toni Morrison's 1975 lecture. I'll just say here that I was a lot less tired before Trayvon Martin's death and the violent deaths of black people who have followed him since then and who were pre-judged and killed because they are black. And I'm really disappointed in myself that I've written this blog post that has some blacksplaining in it again.

100 Thousand Poets for Change Today in New Orleans

100 Thousand Poets for Change, New Orleans3 pm today, Zeitgest Theater

1618 Oretha Castle Hailey Blvd.$5 donation at door #NOLA #poets

Stuck in a Black Bird's Groove: obsessive love (Video)

We like to call our romantic fixations "crushes, torches, or love-sickness," and this video poem is probably more along the romantic vein rather than stalker, but I know some psychologists who would call any inability to stop thinking about someone and still longing for the person's company to be an obsession. Some even say infatuation is a form of mental illness.

The speaker of this poem is not in a state of mind to give up yet.

I wrote this poem in 2006. Between coming out of a harrowing divorce and attempting to date again, I may have been a touch crazy back then (not about the ex, though), but I still like this poem. Also, I had a muse of sorts, one I wish would go back to writing a few love poems again, but the person's gone uber spiritual, rather lofty. The work is good; I just miss the poet's old stuff.

The video for "Stuck in a Black Bird's Groove" is a remix. I made an older video for the poem and posted it to YouTube two years ago, but I was just learning how to use Windows Movie Maker back then, so, the video had some issues. I never rally liked it. Last week I decided I really, really didn't like it, so I made that video with its 200 views private, and produced this one.

For those reading who like to document process, first I edited the poem a little, nothing major, and then I went in search of royalty-free music, pictures, and video clips. I became a member of Dreamstimes.com for still shots and VideoBlocks.com for video.

Doing poetry videos every once in a while fulfills me in some way. I do it even though the videos don't draw a lot of hits (with the exception of "Misery," which did better than average for original poetry). And this one comes on the heels of the "Break-Up Poem," which I did last week and hardly anyone's watched. At the end of August I also produced a video of another poet's work, "An Angel for New Orleans," for the 9th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

I didn't post the written poem of "Stuck in a Black Bird's Groove" on YouTube. I've posted them here.

Stuck in a Black Bird's Groove
by Nordette N. Adams

I cannot speak to you.
But my eyes still seek out you.
My soul's been meek for you.
But I cannot speak to you this truth.

When the evening come and all my sorrows stretch
prostrate before silver streams of early moon weeping,
When birds come to roost in charcoal blue,
tangled strands of my mourning,
my head still tilts toward your breath.

I listen and I long.
I listen for your song.

You do not seek out me.
You've not been meek for me.
Your outlook's bleak for me.
You do not seek out me, your sooth.

When the morning come and my joy seeps out,
vanishing with coral dreams of dawn,
When birds take flight and leave me
to grieving gray days of my journey,
my soul turns toward your heartbeat.

I listen and I long.
I listen for your song.

The blues is black with me.
Black blues fall back on me.
This deck's not stacked for me.
The blues is black with me.
It's you.

When noon bring sun to seek my scarlet sins,
and sun drops in pale sky to cast its shadows,
When black birds fly past with wings spread wide,
and I stand on Earth in envy,
my dreaming conjures your heartfire.

I listen and I long.
I listen and I long.

© 2006 Nordette Adams
....

Break Up Notes: The Recovery Edition

No, I have not recently broken up with anyone. This is one of my old poems that I had removed from the Web, but I discovered a few weeks ago that someone posted it in a discussion forum about beauty in art apparently before I deleted it. Written in 2005, it's one of many poems that I wrote while trying to emotionally process my divorce as well as navigate the dating world (something I still don't do very well).

I decided since someone else appreciated the poem, perhaps it will comfort others. I've edited it based on what I've learned about poetry since then, and I also created this video, which is something I'm into lately.

If you appreciate this poem or you know of someone else who would appreciate it or who needs to hear it, please share this link. File these verses under love and recovery.

An Angel for New Orleans (Video)

In 2005, Rahkyt aka Mark Rockeymore, produced the music and audio for this poem, "An Angel for New Orleans" by Aberjhani, after Aberjhani recorded the recitation. Nordette Adams created the video this weekend in recognition of the 9th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Recent clips have been added at the end to acknowledge the city's progress since that tragic day, August 29, 2005.

Tweeted Poem: On Florissant

On Florissant

Some on #Ferguson streets seek stars on mayhem's stage. Others explode too-long tamped-down rage birthed in the system's dead-end maze.
— Nordette Adams (@nordette_verite) August 18, 2014

Adage the news: Today's thought on dissent in Ferguson

Click the image to enlarge it.

It is the first responsibility of every citizen to
question authority. - Ben Franklin

Not for the Sake of Dissent

Humans in positions of power
generally do what they should do.

But without the people questioning,
would the powerful stay true?

Nordette N. Adams
2014

Elegy for Maya Angelou (1928-2014)

For Maya Angelou (1928-2014)

About now, Maya, would be time for me to learn
to write an elegy, a form I've never tried.
You have joined the ancestors.
But even in death you urge a woman to learn.

About now I should write the lofty verse,
place you with Amiri in Heaven,
brown feet deep in Elysian grasses or in the river
near Enkai's hidden hut. I should write
you reciting before the Creator.        You now
have audience eternal with Dunbar,
salons with Hurston, Hughes, and Brooks.
You hug Martin and Malcolm again and again,
grasp why we have been burdened.
Then you see Jimmy Baldwin!
You're greeting, too, those unfamously departed
you made feel famous in their time.
     (That girl behind me in college —
      you rushed me to tell her of her beauty.
       Her dark skin, polished copper.
       Her nose like yours.
       Her thick lips, the invitation to life.
       She glowed and glowed.
       What became of her?
       She needed to hear.
       Did I?
       I did not know then who I was or maybe
              you saw how much I knew,
       and for a long time I struggled with how
       you looked through me. Did I resist blessing?)
Maya, you leap again — I should write — dancing
the dance none may rehearse.

But you do not need a poem from me.
My thin voice need not elevate
your memory: the world breathes your legacy.
Everywhere an article.
Everywhere a tweet.
Everywhere your face, your height,
your wisdom words
make books of mourning.

Nordette N. Adams, May 28, 2014

7 Pieces of Timeless Wisdom from Maya Angelou at Mother Jones
Maya Angelou, a daughter of the South, a voice for us all at the Los Angeles Times

National Jazz Month: 'Billie Holiday Was No Victim'

I've paid my respects to National Poetry Month, once through Bayou Magazine on Twitter, and also here at my blog ("Song of Fatigued Blacksplaining Folk"). But I'm also a jazz and blues lover, so, I can't let Jazz Appreciation Month go by without comment. My musical focus: Billie Holiday.

I discovered the BBC documentary on the Billie Holiday Story on YouTube. According to it, the famous movie Lady Sings the Blues, starring Diana Ross, got the singer's story wrong. The film asserts that despite being raped at age 11, receiving poor legal advice that resulted in her being sent to prison, being in a physically abusive relationships, and losing her life to the ravages of alcohol and drug abuse, Holiday should not be remembered as tragic victim.

The singer did as she pleased, made a lot of money, and spent it all, says one of her acquaintances. Poet Maya Angelou appears and says that Holiday made the use of profanity an art, so much so adds another person that her constant use of "motherfucker" didn't sound offensive when Holiday said it.

Someone else says that the singer was bisexual, loving sex with both men and women. Later her affairs with Orson Welles, Tallulah Bankhead, and a white heiress are discussed briefly, as well as her facility with a razor as weapon, her apparent preference for abusive men, and her propensity to beat the hell out of others if she felt a beating was in order.

The video also talks about Holiday's racial consciousness, her political activism, and how she had to deal personally with white people doing things like putting out their cigarettes on her fur coat or calling her "nigger woman" and her having to enter hotels through the freight entrance. She recorded the classic song, "Strange Fruit," protesting the lynching of black people," and though she faced hostility for it, she continued to sing the song with conviction.



"Strange Fruit" was written by Abel Meeropol first as an anti-lynching poem. Later music was added.

Not surprisingly, Holiday's autobiography Lady Sings the Blues (the movie borrowed the name), written and published  in the 1950s, was censored. The publishers didn't like her frequent use of the word "bitch," and white Hollywood stars who'd been intimate with her denied knowing her, accused her of lying.

The documentary's an intriguing watch. For those who haven't seen it, I've posted it up top.

Song of Fatigued Blacksplaining Folk

Song of the Fatigued Blacksplaining Folk
by Nordette N. Adams

Oh, that we had a time machine to launch some people
back as black men born to slavery in 1853
and have them stay alive through the Civil War, survive
the Jim Crow South and see 1964 when LBJ
signed The Act assuring liberty for Black folk in
America, land of the White called "free."

Then see their sons and daughters locked up
for suspect cause and be told they're deluded, always
playing bogus race cards, whenever they perceive
this nation less than godly pure, not sainted love
community, not post-racial, not yet cured.    Better,
let some privileged citizens go back as black and

woman born in shackles, her body for experiment,
a breeder, merely chattel, who even after
Emancipation Proclamation, and Civil Rights,
and Women's Rights, she's scowled at in this nation.
Let the Scarboroughs and O'Reillys, the Limbaughs
and DeMints live our ancestors' lives and ours.
But would that make a difference?

Once returned to present time, again in their white
skins, would they have the fortitude to teach
their brethren,      or      what if they returned but retained
the darker body, would their former friends
suppress credulity? Could it be in privileged eyes,
see Black, see invalidity?

(c) 2014

I avoid writing on race these days, as I've said before, because it's so draining. Yes, I do feel guilty sometimes about not dissecting "the struggle" weekly, but I'm only human. Also, I know I'm not alone in this burned-out space. Nonetheless, a few race-related issues have caught my eye over the last few months, and I've seen my brothers and sisters lamenting on Facebook and Twitter some of the racialized issues in the news.

Perhaps, I've been absorbing so much subconsciously that I have not written about a poem had to appear. Today when I saw a friend post on his page a recent comment by Joe Scarborough saying President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder play the race card too much, this poem emerged. I would say also that the Melissa Harris-Perry apology to conservatives, the MSNBC apology and staffer firing over an honest tweet, everything certain myopia-afflicted white people have said about black people and Stand Your Ground laws, as well as the recent uproar over Hank Aaron speaking his mind, have all (with myriad other stories) played a role in this poem's emergence.

No, this poem is not the kind that would fly well in a poetry writing workshop. Someone would say, "It's too on the nose," or "It's too rhetorical," but I'm feeling it and this is my blog,  so here it is. And thank God it's National Poetry Month, too. Maybe someone read it.