POEM: There it is, Jayne Cortez, 2009

Editors, The Black Agenda Review

19 Oct 2022

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The late Jayne Cortez spits fire, reminding us of the need to fight, resist, organize, and unify to seize power. You should read her NOW.

Jayne Cortez (May 10, 1934–December 28, 2012) was a poet, a performance artist, an activist, a Black Arts Movement blueswoman steeped in free jazz and surrealism, a pan-African feminist and an anti-imperialist whose uncompromised voice and visiom stalked the imperial highways. She released a dozen books of poetry and as many albums, led The Firespitters (with her son, Deanardo Coleman, on drums), founded the Watts Repertory Company and Bola Press, co-founded the Organization of Women Writers of Africa, and was the moving spirit behind the legendary literary gathering Yari Yari : Black Women Writers and the Future, held in New York City in 1997. Born in Fort Huachuca, Arizona, Cortez lived in Los Angeles, New York, and Dakar – the place she felt was her home. “Cortez’s life, touched the entire black world,” the poet E. Ethelbert Miller once wrote, while acknowledging that, despite her influence and energy, she has not received the recognition she deserves. To speak of the “power” of her poetry does not convey that very power. Read it. Hear it. And you will understand how much we need Jayne Cortez right now.

There It Is

Jayne Cortez

My friend

they don't care

if you're an individualist a leftist a rightist

a shithead or a snake

They will try to exploit you absorb you confine you

disconnect you isolate you or kill you

And you will disappear into your own rage

into your own insanity

into your own poverty

into a word a phrase a slogan a cartoon

and then ashes

The ruling class will tell you that

there is no ruling class

as they organize their liberal supporters into

white supremacist lynch mobs

organize their children into

ku klux klan gangs

organize their police into

killer cops

organize their propaganda into

a device to ossify us with angel dust

preoccupy us with western symbols in

african hair styles

inoculate us with hate

institutionalize us with ignorance

hypnotize us with a monotonous sound designed

to make us evade reality and stomp our lives away

And we are programmed to self-destruct

to fragment

to get buried under covert intelligence operations of

unintelligent committees impulsed toward death

And there it is

The enemies polishing their penises between

oil wells at the pentagon

the bulldozers leaping into demolition dances

the old folks dying of starvation

the informers wearing out shoes looking for crumbs

the life blood of the earth almost dead in

the greedy mouth of imperialism

And my friend

they don't care

if you're an individualist

a leftist a rightist

a shithead or a snake

They will spray you with

a virus of legionnaire's disease

fill your nostrils with

the swine flu of their arrogance

stuff your body into a tampon of

toxic shock syndrome

try to pump all the resources of the world

into their own veins

and fly off into the wild blue yonder to

pollute another planet

And if we don't fight

if we don't resist

if we don't organize and unify and

get the power to control our own lives

Then we will wear

the exaggerated look of captivity

the stylized look of submission

the bizarre look of suicide

the dehumanized look of fear

and the decomposed look of repression

forever and ever and ever

And there it is

Jayne Cortez, "There It Is" from On the Imperial Highway (Hanging Loose Press, 2009)

Black arts movement

Jayne Cortez

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