In the human species, there has always been the mantra that we are higher order beings. Even though homo erectus led to homo sapiens, it is still true that we share some common DNA with great apes. They’ve proven to have reasoning skills, dexterity, cognitive and affective domain traits, as well as the social paradigm structure of nuclear and extended families.
With that backdrop, it’s hard to figure out what has caused the social breakdown of modern society, and particularly in the African-American persuasion. No physiological, sociological, psychological, or ideological constructs are able to prove clinically, and/or empirically what’s wrong.
New York’s Hell’s Kitchen, Miami’s Overtown, Chicago’s Westside, Gary’s Glen Park, Memphis’s Orange Mound, New Orleans’s Ninth Ward, and L.A.’s Compton, could well be the say place, as all the same social stereotypes and maladies are ever-present. The same could be said about most other U.S. urban centers, as they relate to the fate of African-Americans. To be sure, the black male is a low-valued commodity; and, arguably close to extinction.
“Life Pages” is an anthology of poems that will take you on a sensory journey of emotions. Its aim is to inspire you to seek and gain a better understanding of history, and a better self. I hope you’ll embrace, or at least find new appreciation for our ancestors’ crucibles, pain, and unwavering fidelity to their personal constitution. When boiled down to a low gravy, that means approach life with zeal, and forthrightness, with all deliberate speed. I trust that among other things, you will come away with the distinct understanding of the thought processes of the innercity youth, and the day to day struggles growing up in today’s society. A quest to figure out where the Black youth belongs in this swath of earth called America.
“Man can clone man, but he’ll never be able to clone my pains!”
History. His story? Whose story? My story—what I’ve witnessed! “I have a dream,” was not my story. “By any means necessary,” was not my story. Crossing the Edmund Pettis Bridge, was not my story. My story is being the twelfth child of a married couple from the Delta of Greenville, Mississippi that moved to Chicago, then Gary, Indiana, in the late 1940s. My story is their 8th and 10th grade educations. My story is about them cobbling out an upbringing for all sixteen of their children, even though one died just a few days after birth. As I pen this ode of homage to them, I’ve lost three more of that original sixteen. Oh yes, this is my story.
Hand-me-downs? You better believe it! Meager subsistence living? Yep! Knocked down many times, yet answering the bell after each? Take it to the bank! Evicted? Absolutely! We were the very caricature of heads being bloody, but unbowed. My story is about growing lush vegetation, in the aftermath of the tsunami. This is my story—my life pages.
Our literary ancestry—the proverbial family tree, if you will—is heavily laden with low hanging fruit. If we don’t harvest it now, it will fall to the earth and rot. I will prevent it from falling, because I’d be unable to bear the stench of its decay. This fruit is sweet and delectable; it is the life blood to us. The smallest and newest buds are our children. If it’s not nourished and harvested in a timely fashion, that fruit will parish, without exception.
What fruit? Tyler Perry, Carter G. Woodson, James Baldwin, Oprah, Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou. Oh, the wafting of sweet aromas. This book is underpinned by these luminaries, and their life struggles that preamble their subsequent eminence. Accordingly, the following volume of poetry seeks to send a powerful message of struggles and successes, emphasizing inner-city tumults, faith, family, and future for African Americans. This is Life Pages.
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