CLEVELAND, Tenn.—“Can you name three poets?” Kwame Alexander asked as small hands went up quickly.
Shakespeare, Dr. Seuss and Edgar Allen Poe were the answers he got.
Alexander, a poet who performed one of his works at an inaugural ball for President Barack Obama, visited children at the Cleveland Family YMCA day camp Friday.
“I want to inspire young people to become avid writers and readers,” he said in an interview after the visit. “If they are inspired, then they begin to think maybe this reading thing is cool.”
He read his first children’s book, “Indigo Blume and the Garden City,” and his new book for kids, “Acoustic Rooster,” set for publication in September.
“The kids know about President Obama, so they were very excited to meet someone associated with him,” camp director Sharon Bradley said.
When a friend asked him to write an inaugural poem, Alexander said he immediately said yes, then spent two weeks thinking about what to write.
“What is an American poem?” became the first line.
“Once you have figured out how it begins, the rest comes easier,” he said. And the rest of the poem is an answer to the question.
Alexander has two poems in the forthcoming book “100 Best African-American Poems,” edited by famed poet Nikki Giovanni. Alexander also produces “Capital BookFest” each year in Washington, D.C.; Pennsylvania; and Charleston, S.C., and is founding director of “Book in a Day,” a literacy workshop for older children and teens.
Literary inspiration comes from everything and everyone around him, Alexander said, including comments from children during visits like the one here.
The kids had questions, too.
“Can you take us to Washington?” a girl asked.
“How could I take you with me, and you would still be here after I’ve gone?” Alexander wondered aloud.
The kids quickly caught on to the idea and had answers — by using imagination, drawing pictures or writing another book, they said.
Randall Higgins covers news in Cleveland, Tenn., for the Times Free Press. He started work with the Chattanooga Times in 1977 and joined the staff of the Chattanooga Times Free Press when the Free Press and Times merged in 1999. Randall has covered Southeast Tennessee, Northwest Georgia and Alabama. He now covers Cleveland and Bradley County and the neighboring region. Randall is a Cleveland native. He has bachelor’s degree from Tennessee Technological University. His awards ...
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HARLEM RENAISSANCE: NOT I by Carl A. Patton
(Foreword: Fallen Letters: Mis-education & Intellectual Confusion (Essays on the Black Experience) FreedomJournal Press, 2077).
There was once a time among a creative people that the arts among Black folk became revived, enlightened and brought back to life.
Just where had the Arts of Black folk been?
Although these were hard times, they were also golden days of the 1920’s. Jazz and blues made its way from New Orleans and the Mississippi Delta to Chicago and on to New York.
Why had Jazz and Blues come up the Mississippi River from the South? Where did the poets come from?
Harlem was the resting place for many souls of Black folk. At this place their numbers were unrivaled. Here Duke of Ellington swung at the Cotton Club for many outsiders.
Was creativity ever stifled due to Jim who was also Crow?
Meanwhile the creative juices flowed like the days of milk and honey. Here the poets and writers also cried out with pencils and mighty pens. Many thoughts about Blackness ensued.
Is it the creative artist’s role and responsibility to record and critique the landscape?
We salute but the world honors and pays tribute to Langston whose last name was Hughes, Cullen whose first name was Countee and the wayward Black Parisian McKay who some called Claude.
Was peace found in artistic expression in a foreign land?
There were also many that left The land of two ropes. For one took life and one stifles intellectual growth. Thus then came Baldwin, James, Ellison, Ralph and Richard Wright.
Who can name the scholars of a people with no knowledge?
There were also great scholars and activists and those that made more people mad than glad. But they also revived our lost art form
Knowledge to some was mis-information to others.
Carter G. Woodson, Oh! How he sought to re-educate the mis-educated Negro. He also established the need to study Black history as we see Black daily. But the Negro still seeks a yearly celebration in February.
There will always be a Judas branch. Will they get paid?
Cont.
Cont. Harlem
Eventually one of our greatest scholars came upon the scene who stood in the shadows of no man in W.E. B. DuBois. A man of many letters he once held a Civil Rights Organization in principles and intellect and in the stead of all Black folk and not just a few. These were the days when Blacks had some power even though the power lost is not power gained.
There is power in control and useless energy in deceit.
Did this legendary scholar come in conflict with a man of manual skills that wanted to teach all of our people only one way to pull the Black man and woman up by its torn boot straps?
The philanthropists bowed and scratched the head of the Judas branch.
Just why was the man of “fetch-it” fame important? Was Marcus who came from the Islands also important? As DuBois sought to analyze the Black experience so did Garvey. Was race pride the time of being rebuked and scorned? As Garvey shook up America with Black pride did this cause his demise?
Would the returning ships hold all Black folk?
Meanwhile during those days the left seemed to be right. And many fled to the Left Bank of Paris. Is the Left the same now as it Was then?
Where have all the Liberals gone? Have liberal thoughts made an acid transition to all things immoral?
Regretfully those that only glimpsed Jesus saw little during their day. So they never realized that Jesus who brought these wretched souls to the brink of the Renaissance was the Light. But they saw nothing.
Glory to God now for the Spiritual Messenger.
Many days have now passed and we have soaked up the messages the Renaissance men inspired. However New thought and Old now comes among those who are inspired.
The way to Peace and great inspiration is neither left nor right.
Now Paris does not support a Right Bank as the Left Bank has gone evil, full of transgressions and stagnant in things unbecoming of the Law.
The City of Lights is dark if we cannot see the Light.
Those that see Jesus have no love nor any place among the lost to seek refuge. So went the pens of Peace, Jazz and Blues.
Kill all the writer’s of Truth and bury Voltaire as he did not know God.
What will the world have thought of a Renaissance of Harlem had it been about Truth?
Truth is often seen and heard however the paymaster is silent unless you see and feel the wind.
What Books would have recorded the message of Good News by so many writer’s. Where would Black people be if Truth only came from intellectual and worldly sentiments of social problems solved not by politics or money? Who calls for the distinction of the world and God?
Love is the rule of those that see into the future as they ride the carpet of the past and present.
Harlem Renaissance not I for I would be still a castaway. Here our fortunes are revealed in persecution and a reward in life everlasting.
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