boy /boi/ n. human male child I was probably in 7th grade, crushing on one or many, the first time I felt real tears for a black boy. One I didn't know and because the evening news reported I never would. My friend told me we were not connected; that there would be others to [...]
Category: politics
The Whole Story: Reviewing ’42’
I wonder if the film "42' could do all that is asked of it in Dave Zirin's review in The Nation. I also tend to ask a lot of art so I understand the line of questioning. From Dave Zirin's review in The Nation: "42 rests on the classical Hollywood formula of “Heroic individual sees [...]
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What had happened… (True story)
In 1999 or so a guy died in police custody. I know--a quite unfamiliar story. Especially in the sleepy little colonial capital of Dover, Delaware. Not that I hadn't been taught early on that "Dover cops" were "cowboys." They shot a dude in the dentist's chair! True story. There was mad shade surrounding [...]
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Rock Me Mercy: A Poem Written in Mourning
Rock Me, Mercy: A Poem Written In Mourning by Yusef Komunyakaa The river stones are listening, Because we have something to say. The trees lean closer today. The singing in the electrical woods has gone down. It looks like rain, because it is too warm to snow. Guardian angels, wherever you’re hiding, We know you [...]
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Dear John (for the brothers)
Dear You, I told myself that it was because of my father that I fell in love with you. I loved him in the unconditional way children typically love—without acknowledgement or understanding of flaws. My father’s flaws became part of my definition of all men. Once I stopped loving you all by default, I started [...]
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Damned Hoodies (Again)
On the day the Sharmeka Moffitt story broke, I worried aloud to one of my students that I was bringing my memories of the Tawana Brawley case to bear on my assessment of the case. I refused blogs and looked strictly to news sites for my details. In the days following my fears were realized--the [...]
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The Poet President
These are from the Spring 1981 edition of Feast, a biannual literary magazine of Occidental College writers. Not bad, B, not bad.
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The Elegant President by Julian Gough
" I was fascinated by Mitt Romney's honest and thoughtful words in the recent video filmed at a $50,000-a-plate dinner for his donors. And I was sad to hear him say yesterday that he thought he could have expressed himself in a more elegant way. There is nothing more elegant than verse, and so I [...]
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The Beautiful Struggle
“The worst illiterate is the political illiterate, he doesn’t hear, doesn’t speak, nor participates in the political events. He doesn’t know the cost of life, the price of the bean, of the fish, of the flour, of the rent, of the shoes and of the medicine, all depends on political decisions. The political illiterate is [...]
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Three Questions for Barack Obama
(reprinted from http://www.myspace.com/darleneanitascott 21 October 2008) Asking me about my politics or my spirituality is like asking me what color panties I'm wearing. Those are intimate conversations to be had with a very select population. But I was reading a blog by a guy I used to know; he was writing about his skepticism with the election [...]
darlene anita scott 