Thursday, December 30, 2021

Elizabeth Alexander

 

Alexander-RecitingMyPoemforObamasAmerica.jpg






















Toomer


(Jean Toomer

I did not wish to "rise above" 
or "move beyond" my race. I wished


to contemplate who I was beyond 
my body, this container of flesh.


I made up a language in which to exist. 
I wondered what God breathed into me. 


I wondered who I was beyond 
this complicated, milk-skinned, genital-ed body. 


I exercised it, watched it change and grow. 
I spun like a dervish to see what would happen. Oh, 


to be a Negro is-is?- 
to be a Negro, is. To be.

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