by BAR Poet-in-Residence Raymond Nat Turner
When our giants go down, our spines must straighten up and create new beginnings.
Redouble our efforts…
(For Robert Knight, Chokwe, Amiri,
And others known and less known…)
by BAR Poet-in-Residence Raymond Nat Turner
When our Knights are captured
Or fall on battlefields, as they
Surely must, and we lose their
Brilliant lights and we are
Scrambling to pry pens,
Swords, spears, bread and
Roses from stainless steel
Grips of their icy hands—
Scrambling to hoist our
Fallen banners, temporarily
Mired in mud and blood,
Even higher, scrambling
To staunch rivulets of
Brine from our sweetly
Shattered hearts…
When our giants — in
All sizes — go down,
Our spines straighten
Honoring, immortalizing,
Their legends, burnished
Names, by divvying up
Cosmic, ancient, work
Creating them in the
Beginning…
Raymond Nat Turner © 2014 All Rights Reserved
"End the Epstein shutdown and F-bombing our cities!" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
There will be no peace without justice.
We honor the life of Nigerian organizer Abiodun Aremu, a true Pan-Africanist whose legacy demands we intensify the fight for African sovereignty. His recent, suspicious death only underscores the…
Led by Amilcar Cabral, Guinea-Bissau was in the forefront of African anti-colonial movements. But independence for that nation in 1973 has been followed by continual struggle for true sovereignty and…
The U.S. is using Guyana as a proxy to escalate aggression against Venezuela. This manufactured crisis, fueled by oil interests, risks dragging the entire region into war.
