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Once African
Contributed by
BEE
on
Friday, 13th April 2007 @ 03:34:03 AM in AEST
Topic:
Lifepoems
|
Once African
Once an african
Brought here
To amarica
Made someone we dident want to be
Forced, and controlled
Lifes changed
Such a disease
Of cold sound
The swarming
The heat
The beating
The devine work
Suffering from place to place
Named
And shoved into a den
Diffrence
To hear the moans
And aches
Of these grown men and women
Changed into
Someone new
African amarican
Copyright ©
BEE
... [
2007-04-13 03:34:03]
(Date/Time posted on
site)
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Re: Once African
(User Rating: 1 )
by Crow on
Friday, 13th April 2007 @ 08:21:47 AM AEST
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a Message)
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Hi Bee
this is a very good write, and read.
glad I stopped by. Vincent
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Re: Once African
(User Rating: 1 )
by Butterat_Zool on
Tuesday, 1st May 2007 @ 11:36:01 AM AEST
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You are reaching here, to make an important point, but it almost feels like you rushed it. When I read "the beating", i get a general negative feeling of sympathy towards the person being beaten. If you said "the snap of the whip as it flayed the backs of countless niggers, trying to survive", i would care much more deeply for them. I know what "heat" feels like, but when i read "the thick, dry air that turns sweat into salt and dust", i can feel how hard it is to be working in the field during the summer afternoons.
Also, I'd like to see mention of the civil rights movement. Blacks weren't suddenly accepted by whites after abolition. It took another hundred years of fighting just to end segregation. Though, for real strength of voice, do this without mentioning Dr. King's name.
Finally, your spelling says one of two things about this poem: Either it was written so as to suggest that it should be memorized, rather than read, following the oral tradition of black slaves, and that the people who did follow oral tradition would not have been able to read or write, and so would probably have made several spelling errors in writing it down, or this poem simply wasn't spell-checked before it got posted. If this is a link to the oral tradition, then you're absolutely genius. I love it. I would only ask that you included some more rhymes, a more steady meter, or maybe even some call-and-response stuff so that it becomes easier to memorize, like the old slave spirituals were. If the poem simply wasn't proofread, let me help you. America, didn't, lives, divine, difference, American.
Keep writing. I like the grandeur that this poem is reaching for and hopefully one day, you'll catch it.
Butterat Zool. |
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