Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Oh, what a night…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
21 Dec 2016
🖨️ Print Article

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

Our poet shares a scene from a late nite NYC subway ride home from this years' holiday party of the National Writers Union.

Oh, what a night…

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

“Oh, what a night…”

Red letters emblazoning big white cake

“Workers of the WORD, Unite!”

150 small, cloth flags hanging

from the ceiling, above our food,

Representing places, spaces

Working-class brothers and sisters gather

Breaking bread, sipping wine, gulping water…

Making memories, visualizing peace—better lives—

Not children’s, grandchildren’s broken, bloody bodies…

“Oh, what a night…”

Our NWU holiday party

Wild women of the WORD—

Friendships of fifty years

Talking “class struggle”, “socialism”

A woman, UAW leader, pops in

Announcing victory:

Research and Teaching Assistants

Won unionization at Columbia!

“Oh, what a night…”

Six bottles of sparking cider lighter,

On the A Train, heading

Home to Harlem in a hurry

Brothers behind me loud talkin’—

Not dissin’ or arguing—more like preachin’

To the choir

Brother One’s shouting ‘bout Cuba’s

schools and literacy compared to here.

Brother Two’s chimin’ in ‘bout the Bay of Pigs,

Allen Dulles, killing of Kennedy— just before

Brother Three jumps to billionaire appointees

Only in New York!

“Oh, what a night…”

Never mind three delays

between 34th and 125th

Couldn’t take it any longer—

Got up, got some of that WORD:

“Is this ‘The Friendship Train’

Listen to us—woop-woop—…doin’ our thing?

Y’all scaring me and folks up front with

that revolutionary foolishness!”

Smiling eyes, belly laugh betrayed me—but

Crescendo “Oooh!” response to my call:

“Hell, folks been asleep 8 years!”

Plus, pregnant pause, birthed this poem

Granting you permission to: pimp-slap, kick

fear-mongers to the curb; they squander

Seeds of struggle, rays of resistance… Listen to

Lil’ David’s lesson: Goliath’s gotta bring ass to kick ass…

Poet’s Note:

NWU is National Writers Union

UAW is United Auto Workers

Raymond Nat Turner © 2016 All Rights Reserved

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


More Stories


  • BAR Book Forum: Michael Rothberg’s “The Implicated Subject”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Michael Rothberg’s “The Implicated Subject”
    26 May 2021
    Most people contribute to injustice not as direct perpetrators but as indirect participants who enable, perpetuate, benefit from, and inherit histories of violence and contemporary systems of explo
  • BAR Book Forum: C. Riley Snorton’s “Black on Both Sides”
    C. Riley Snorton
    BAR Book Forum: C. Riley Snorton’s “Black on Both Sides”
    26 May 2021
    The inhabitation of the un-gender-specific and “fungible” also mapped the affective grounds for imagining other qualities of life and being for those marked by and for captivity.
  • How Black Lives Matter Changed the American Conversation About Israel and Palestine
    Marya Hannun
    How Black Lives Matter Changed the American Conversation About Israel and Palestine
    26 May 2021
    The surge of attention to the Israeli occupation is unimaginable without last year’s “George Floyd” protests.
  • Silent for 20 Years, an NBA Player Erupts in a Cogent Critique of Anti-Black Media
    Jon Jeter
    Silent for 20 Years, an Ex-NBA Player Erupts in a Cogent Critique of Anti-Black Media
    26 May 2021
    The corporate sports media practices a kind of settler state “Orientalism,” blaming black players for the ills of an industry owned by rich white men.
  • The Emperor’s New Rules
    Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies
    The Emperor’s New Rules
    26 May 2021
    The US claims that it respects the international rule on law, but instead makes up the rules as it goes along, resulting in the death of millions.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us