Beginning

16 x 20 nothing on canvas. Yet.

Me

I'm so spoken word I remember sending out tapes because YouTube wasn't born.

Me

I'm so World Stage my son was in Billy Higgins drum class on Monday nights.

Me

I'm so spoken word I remember when George McDonald hosted a poetry night in L.A. and all the performers were given stripper names. I don't remember mine but Rain Wilson was "Drip Drop!"

Me

I'm so spoken word I remember when Jennifer P Bowens used to kill the room (any room) with "I am the reason for the muthafuckin season!"

My art

An acrostic poem a day for July 2014 - for day 21 - I didn't survive slavery for this

I am here / see my body / see me alive / I

Did not survive to surrender my voice
I did not survive forgetting my fight / I
Did not forget who I am / I did
Not forget who you are / I know why I am here
To remind you of who you are / I

Survived slavery to remind you that we were not always slaves / I survived to remind you to
Use your minds and stretch back to yesterdays beyond what America
Remembers / remember royalty / remember trees / remember land / remember roaming freely
Violently captured from our home
I did not survive slavery to forget
Violet skies and baobob trees / I did not survive to forget my tribe
Easy morning lessons with my mother / night kisses with Baba

Slavery interrupted my
Life for generations
Angels and guides remind me in my sleep
View world from my perspective
Every truth to be searched for
Reading, writing, teaching ourselves / we have no faith in their system / their laws
Youth, babies, elders learning, remembering together

Forward
Onward
Reaching

Today we build for tomorrow
His, hers, we build for all of us
I know we can do this
See us, hear us, we free us

Draft one

In progress

My room