POETRY IS NOT BLACKNESS...OH, IS THAT RIGHT?
There is a letter I received, titled "POETRY IS FOR THE MENTALLY ILL". The letter happens to be from a white girl named "Ms. Williams" from Wichita, Kansas. In the letter, she says that poetry is not representative of Blackness and Black people have absolutely no business celebrating National Poetry Month, which was in April. Now last month I took an oath saying I wasn't going to attack anyone on the sites, but THIS takes the cake. So....HERE...WE..GO...AGAIN.
Below is a letter I wrote to Ms.Williams:
Ms. Williams,
WOW...It seems that none of my friends has talked about receiving your letter as of yet, so I will be the first to tell you what you sound like sending me a letter like this: RETARDED.
First off, you are not one of US, so what gives YOU the right to judge what is or is not Black enough? You are neither the site administrator, nor the originator of this site. The last time I checked, Reginald Culpepper and Dante Lee were the originators.
You have the audacity to say that poetry is not representative of Blackness. While I don't consider myself to be a professional writer, in my opinion, POETRY IS BLACKNESS. Or have you forgotten that YOUR kind were the ones who stole what WE invented in the first place? Did you know before Mr. Shakespeare came on the scene, Black people were the ones writing his verses? We also invented rock and roll, r&b, jazz and hip-hop. Or did you also think that Elvis Presley, Kenny G, and Eminem invented that too?
And let me remind you that the sole purpose of having a blog is for ALL members to voice their opinions, and express ourselves, as long as it's done on a PG-13 level. So, Ms. Williams, before you come on the site looking like Richard Simmons Love Child, may I have the pleasure of welcoming you to the Freedom Of Speech Train. CHOO-CHOO!!!
My advice to you is that if you do not like what we are doing, please send yourself back to private life functions rather than that of ours and stop misleading the people with your rhetoric. Or better yet, start and manage a social network of your own.
Besides, I've been a member of this site since November, I may not write about the things that YOU are interested in hearing but take a look in the bottom left corner at who's the top bloggers on this site. Me and Mozell, the poets, of course. Now who gets the last laugh???
Siebra
P.S. I ain't mad cause I forgot my Twitter password. This is the BLACK FOLKS Twitter. If there is ANYTHING I learned from my participation on this site, it's that Halloween doesn't need to arrive every October 31 in exposing the ghosts and other keepers of hell because I'm looking at one.
Below is a letter I wrote to Ms.Williams:
Ms. Williams,
WOW...It seems that none of my friends has talked about receiving your letter as of yet, so I will be the first to tell you what you sound like sending me a letter like this: RETARDED.
First off, you are not one of US, so what gives YOU the right to judge what is or is not Black enough? You are neither the site administrator, nor the originator of this site. The last time I checked, Reginald Culpepper and Dante Lee were the originators.
You have the audacity to say that poetry is not representative of Blackness. While I don't consider myself to be a professional writer, in my opinion, POETRY IS BLACKNESS. Or have you forgotten that YOUR kind were the ones who stole what WE invented in the first place? Did you know before Mr. Shakespeare came on the scene, Black people were the ones writing his verses? We also invented rock and roll, r&b, jazz and hip-hop. Or did you also think that Elvis Presley, Kenny G, and Eminem invented that too?
And let me remind you that the sole purpose of having a blog is for ALL members to voice their opinions, and express ourselves, as long as it's done on a PG-13 level. So, Ms. Williams, before you come on the site looking like Richard Simmons Love Child, may I have the pleasure of welcoming you to the Freedom Of Speech Train. CHOO-CHOO!!!
My advice to you is that if you do not like what we are doing, please send yourself back to private life functions rather than that of ours and stop misleading the people with your rhetoric. Or better yet, start and manage a social network of your own.
Besides, I've been a member of this site since November, I may not write about the things that YOU are interested in hearing but take a look in the bottom left corner at who's the top bloggers on this site. Me and Mozell, the poets, of course. Now who gets the last laugh???
Siebra
P.S. I ain't mad cause I forgot my Twitter password. This is the BLACK FOLKS Twitter. If there is ANYTHING I learned from my participation on this site, it's that Halloween doesn't need to arrive every October 31 in exposing the ghosts and other keepers of hell because I'm looking at one.
Mr. Maxwell, I agree. When I think of poetry, the first to come to my mind is also Langston Hughes, whom I just absolutely adore! Then, I think about Shakespeare because back in the day especially, I was a huge fan of the romanitc way of writing...how every sentence was an overwhelming expression of a whole gambit of thought and emotion. And deconstructing it to find its true meaning was what kept my mind occupied. My favorite are MacBeth, Julius Caesar and Hamlet. I dig Othello and Romeo and Juilet, too. One of my favorite Langston Hughes poems is Cooleridge Jackson. It's so deep to me. I love all of Langston really, especially his Simple books. I can just read them over and over again.
As for this person's view on poetry being black or not, it's just plain ignorant and did not deserve to be entertained at all...except maybe to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of it all.
Blessings...