Poet A. Van Jordan has written a suite of poems that imagine the life of MacNolia Cox, the first black finalist in the National Spelling Bee Competition.
In his book M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A, Jordan uses a variety of formsand voices to portray Cox’s life. The poems draw on blues, jazz and prose stylings to depict racism and the Depression, two elements that framed life in 1936.
NPR’s Susan Stamberg talks with Jordan, who is also a professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, about his new book and the inspiration behind it.
For Cornelius Eady and Toi Derricotte
by MAKALANI BANDELE
enter the chorus, elongated,
skyward-raised arms of néré,
praise. vessels of juke,
herald the close of an act
of offerings buried
in escarpment’s face—
in lyrical crevices. a sprinkle
of elephant bone powder wishes
cast…
by KAMILAH AISHA MOON
woke up again parched from a dream
full of old water, the only urgent tide
in me lately. eddies of sweat,
promise perishing in each exhale.
i matter too why didn’t i believe i matter
more than an unblinking, shadowed eye
that…
Woman, I wish I didn’t know your name.
What could you be? Silence in my house
& the front yard where the dogwood
wouldn’t make up its mind about flowers.
Aren’t you Nature? A stem cringing, half-
shadowed beneath a torque of rain.
I…
Michael S. Harper’s “American History” http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15872
by ED ROBERSON
But for a low bank of cloud,
clear morning, empty sky.
The bright band of light beneath the cloud’s gray
I thought at first was open distance, but it’s ice
that by extension raised the lake above the lip of blue lake
and spilled it farther out than that horizon
