LobodeSanPedro

In this poor body, composed of one hundred bones and nine openings, is something called spirit, a flimsy curtain swept this way and that by the slightest breeze. It is spirit, such as it is, which led me to poetry, at first little more than a pastime, then the full business of my life. There have been times when my spirit, so dejected, almost gave up the quest, other times when it was proud, triumphant. So it has been from the very start, never finding peace with itself, always doubting the worth of what it makes.

Basho ~ (Translated by Lucien Stryk)

* * *

I don't bite, I just like to tickle with my teeth ... and my pen.





The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose. ~ James A. Baldwin

Do dirt, get dirt. So I treat people with the same respect that I want. ~ DMX

Don’t mistake my kindness for weakness ... I am kind to everyone, but if you are unkind to me, weak is not how you will remember me.

It is impossible to be a mathematician without being a poet in soul. ~
Sophia Kovalevskaya
 
Hate gives identity. The nigger, the fag, the bitch illuminate the border, illuminate what we ostensibly are not, illuminate the Dream of being white, of being a Man. We name the hated strangers and are thus confirmed in the tribe.
~ Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me


* * *

daddy died violently [fury]
his father passed in the pulpit [passion]
I will crash into both [fate]

... but until that day when I hit that wall hidden by that hairpin turn, I'll settle for being a ...

proud father of four beautiful daughters - poet - writer  - spoken word artist - social critic - playwright - award winning educator (including an award from the New York Times)  - doctoral candidate at St. John's University - conservationist - graphic designer - supporter of independent Black graphic novel artists & comic creators - origami artist - a geek - a nerd - lover of all things sports - thrift market fanatic (vintage motorcycle jackets, bar ware) - foodie & travel enthusiast - sports analytics enthusiast (yeah I gamble ... playing it safe? What’s the fun in that ...)  

* * *







Anthony Bourdain ... he made the universal struggle understandable, and compelling .  I will miss him.




"Tuskegee Heirs", created by Greg Burnham  and Marcus Williams

My first tat was a of a black panther ... it celebrates and symbolizes so many things for me, including the incredible life of Fred Hampton ...

... when the Black Panther Party rose to political and social acclaim with people of color in the ‘60s and ‘70s, executives at Marvel comics considered changing their character’s name to the “Black Leopard”.

I remember as a kid thinking that the comic represented a superhero version of the Panthers, and that’s why I read it.

In reflection, the Black Panthers’ Ten Point Program is still very relevant today!

• • •



becoming your job

it was time to leave

wings of the sparrow
loping through juniper berries
caress my lids into submission

she's nesting
as I've fed her soft grain
as an afterthought
one pint at a time

zoophilous screams of the quartet
wane on down the boulevard

I jump in a taxi
less I'm seduced back inside

He asks me
Where to my brother

In the moment
it was only cue I needed

I ask him
What brings you here

Bad dreams
his reply
About my children
orphans all them

I ask
civil war

Worse
Poachers

How worse

Their mothers can't fight back
Because elephants can't shoot rifles

Orphans have nightmares
Crying well into the night
Then through the sunrise
And sunset

He tells me

He bedded with them
No more than straw
And a blanket

but the screams of infants
fell like mourning stars
in between the cackles of hyenas
Feasting on the flesh of their mothers

So he left
No longer able to soothe
innocence mutilated

he's trying to remember to forget
but he's like them now
nothing is forgotten

As published with Plum Tree Tavern

"becoming your job" grew out of a conversation I had after a late night at my favorite West African bar in Harlem, The Shrine.

Consequently, one year, my students and I participated in a project to create a world record number of origami elephants to help call attention to the butchering of these majestic creatures.  

Even the voices of children can bring light to the dark.

* * *

Seems like God don't see fit to give the black man nothing but dreams - but He did give us children to make them dreams seem worthwhile. ~ Lorraine Hansberry



Photograph taken by this ever humbled Dad

Less than 12 hours after "seeing" the now iconic "Fearless Girl" statue in NYC, my Maddi was born on Easter Sunday (April 16, 2017).  Her name London (Maddison) is a derivation of Matthew ... the two "d"s in her name are for her to remember she has two sisters who are incredible, and she too can do the same.
 
Matthew 19:14 Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

* * *

Daughters

She can
because she believes she can
My job is to get out of her way
And sometimes push her
When she forgets
She can



* * *  
 
... more lullabies for Maddi ...

Grandma told Mama I'd be born  
under the light of a full moon  
That I'd make swirls in the Milky Way  
with just a swish of my spoon  

Now I pluck stars from above to make my black hair glow  
I blow kisses to the rain because they make the flowers grow  
Then I go rescue the lost little worms who move to slow  

I tickle the sun for making my skin chocolate brown  
Then I rearrange the stars in my hair to form a crown  

Papi says I'll go to Australia
so Uncle D can teach me to surf  
He says I was a natural born swimmer  
right from birth  

Whether I'm swimming  
Or flying  
Or gliding on chutes  
Papi says I should always remember  
My African roots  

Mami says I've never been  
Little  
And don't walk the path called  
Girl  
Just keep my eyes and heart open  
While I mesmerize the world ...

• • •



Other favorite voices of note: Wheatley ~ Douglass ~ Dunbar ~ Alexandre Dumas ~ Hurston ~ Wright ~ Ellison  ~ Dr. Angelou ~ Franklin, A. ~ Mosley ~ Clemens (Twain) ~ Mamet ~ Simon, N. ~ August Wilson ~ Julie Taylor ~ Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel) ~ Charles Simic (The Lunatic) ~ Andres "Chulisi" Rodriguez ~ Kevin Young ~ Chris Rock ~ Taylor Mali ~ Alexander Case ~ Clint Smith ~ Ken Burns ~ Spike Lee ~ Dave Chappelle ~ Felino A. Soriano ~ Donald "Childish Gambino" Glover ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson ~ my DUP family ~ the vibrant voices of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe ~ members, directors and producers of the Full Circle Ensemble ~ those at my gym who punch me, kick me, roll with me while going for a tap. The pain endured tells me I'm alive.
*************************************************************************************
Publications/Presentations: Highlights Magazine ~  Embracing the Past: The Elders Speak ~ Pirates and Privateers: The History of Maritime  Piracy ~ Serendipity Magazine (Athens, Greece) ~ ArtsLinks (Athens, Greece) ~ Full Circle Ensemble: From the Page to the Stage (National Black Theater - NYC) ~ Haibun Today ~ Haiku Journal ~ Acrostic Tanka Poetry: Home of Modern Tanka ~ Poetry Quarterly ~ Jitter Press ~ Tanka Journal ~ Three Line Poetry ~ Dual Coast Magazine ~ Body Parts Magazine ~ Baby Lawn Literature ~ Inwood Indiana Press ~ Eskimo Pie ~ The Sacred Cow ~ Literary Mama ~ Rockland Literature (London) ~ Kneel Downe's Stolen Indie Anthology (The Virulent Blurb -UK) ~ Eyedrum Periodically ~ Whirlwind Magazine ~ Pilgrimage Magazine (Colorado State University - Pueblo) ~ Full Circle Ensemble: Standing In Our Truths: Featured Poet (National Black Theater - NYC) ~ Latinos NYC presents: For the Love of Poetry (Nuyorican Poets' Cafe - Featured Poet) ~ The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature ~ The Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide ~ mgv2 La petite mort (France) ~ "In Love with the Wrong One" presented by The Chappel Theater Group (St. John's University) in conjunction with 24 Hour Plays ~ all the sins (UK) ~ Defy! Anthology Robocup Press ~ Big Apple Theater Festival at the Producers Club (Off-Off Broadway) ~ Communicators League ~ Eyedrum Periodically Anthology #3 ~ Leaves of Ink ~ The Plumb Tree Tavern ~ Failed Haiku: A Journal of English Senryu ~ SBLAAM: Smokey Blue Literary and Arts Magazine ~ Wildflower Muse ~ Anti Heroin Chic ~ Choronogram ~ The Writer’s Cafe (UK) ~ The Awakenings Project ~ Best of Plum Tree Tavern Number 3 ~ Degenerates: Voices for Peace






Member: Haiku Society of America ~ American Academy of Poets ~ Full Circle Ensemble (NYC) ~ The Poetry Society of New York ~ U.S. Chess Federation ~ National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) ~ ASCD: Global Community of Educators

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rugiada (Italian)

abbattuti il cuore di un colibrì
solo per sentire il tuono
le lacrime nutriti prato

dew

culled a humming bird's heart
just to hear thunder
her tears fed the meadows

As published in Poetry Quarterly
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

cherry blossom trunk
our tremors pass through her grip
falling silk coats us

As published in Haiku Journal

ardent dragonfly
devours your soft butterfly
dripping amrita

As published in Failed Haiku: A Journal of English Senryu

spineless sharecropper
antediluvian chores
weave chambers of life
within soft wet coffee grinds
birthing a cascade of blooms

tertiary robe
descends in spiraling ebbs
weightless boughs beckon
sweet bombastic eulogy
as harvest ashes rustle

As published in Tanka Journal

*************************************************************************************
Evelina (1976)

I am everything she prayed
I wouldn't be

Couldn't be
Because of promises made by her
to her Lord

I always felt she was going to her knees
just for me
Last thing in the evenin'
First thing before the cock crow

Yet
I stole from her

I'd sneak in her purse to take a few of her cigarettes
Blowing circles that my stick limbs
Could hula hoop with

I'd sneak in her frig and steal a beer or two
Trying to numb the wails of a boy
So I might be a man in her eyes

Stole her homemade wine at night
Playing cards in her kitchen with the cousins
Her threatening the switch if we made her get up

Yes M'am
We sang in chorus
And then kept drinkin'

When my father died
I needed to steal her dignity
Her grace

Her faith

And like everything else
My grandmother let me have them

Praying I would become
Everything I am not

As published in Poetry Quarterly


I Captured the World in Mason Jars while drinking from Scooby Doo Jelly Jars ...

My pecan brown mother raised me to fear only one thing

failure.

It wasn't hard for me to understand this
hopscotching the needles and junkies painted along the sidewalks
like they belonged there and I was all wrong.

She sent me to my grandmother's farm during the summer so I'd know what was right

in me.

As the curtain rose
on many a cerulean night
Along the Bohicket River
the reverberations of crickets' altos
beckoned a response from the bass
of the bullfrogs under our porch.

They were the old deacons giving their guttural approval for the release of my dreams.

The sound of the chorus ricocheted off
the pitch of night
bringing the stars closer.

James Brown was right

Black is Beautiful.

By morning I'd set free the frogs I'd caught
and placed in mason jars.

They were replaced by

Dragonflies.

Red ants.

Black ants.

And fiddler crabs.

It didn't come easy cause I got

Bit.

Stung.

Pinched.

And pissed on.

"Boy what you learn from all that chasin?"

my grandmother Evelina would ask.

With bowed head I'd question her question with

"M'am?"

"You heard me boy."

"Dreams don't come easy," I told her, "sometimes it hurts chasing them.  Sometimes they die."

"Come ya'.  Have something to drink before you catch monkey next," she'd chuckle. Her honey toned skin beaming.

As I sipped her too sweet red Kool Aid out of my Scooby Doo jelly jar

I smiled

thinking about what I was gonna chase next.

Squirrels.

Raccoons from grandma's garden.

Hogs in my uncle's pen.

It was my world to conquer

my choice to make

because pecans and honey  

made it so.


Published by The Sacred Cow (2016)
Reprinted in The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature (2017)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* * *

Though I may try ... There is no perfect place nor time to love you.

When I first wrote my name on your body

it was as a child would.

Grabbing every crayon from the box.

Trees were purple and blue.
Grass was orange.
The sky yellow.
The dog red.

Didn't understand the lines and curves I slalomed over aimlessly
with my broad strokes.

I needed to feed my ego.

Not my soul.  

My tongue poking out and wrapped tight around my upper lip
because I wanted to prove I could master this creation.

Nonetheless you guided me patiently.

Tenderly.
Life weathered hands cupped my face to steer my eyes.

Exquisitely.
I inhaled your musk letting it drape my throat.

Ignoring my hubris.

The soft slopes of your body

were not defined by the lines
of Gauguin nor Degas.

You tried to teach me this
as you pealed back your supple layers
turning another page.

I foolishly ripped it.

Turned again

ripped again.

Turned

ripped.

Reckless though I was

you let me lay beside you.

Plucking the caramel of your skin
and the cinnamon dusted over it
as a boy would.

Lying on your side I saw your true form

Your hips ripe and full
imbued with the strength of ebony
not the meek ramblings of a blown dandelion.  

The concentric circles of your breasts
giving flight to my infinite dreams
feeding my hapless soul.

I listen to your heart
and it says you still want me to stay
though others lay lies like train tracks
between us.

So I'll put away the crayons
and use my spine for a quill

trying to define the undeniable that is

You.

Published by the Communicators League June 2017, along with "I Don't Belong to You".
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Marsha ... Marsha ... Marsha


Wasn't looking to live large
Just lovely

You know

like the Brady Bunch
All blonde and beautiful
With a dog named Tiger

Except I wanted to fuck Marsha
and Carol too
Yeah I know
Not in the script
But neither was my life

Prison Sundays

was the only time I didn't have to go to church
Except my moms still made me wear that
punk ass suit
with the
punk ass tie
And those
punk ass shoes

Visiting Daddy
in Attica

Guards patting me down
I was ten
Get used to it
one of 'em smirked

Like I was stupid enough to carry my screwdriver there

Showed Daddy my report card
All A's
Not bad for what I was supposed to be

What was that again?

Oh yeah
That's right
Just another nigga in the ghetto

Which meant I didn't surf in Hawaii
with Greg and Peter
Me and my friends
we surfed the tops of elevator cars
21 glorious stories up and down

Until that day Ricky slipped
I was there but I wasn't

When the cops ask

You never are  

I try to be a kid
Go to the corner store
Buy a pack of Now & Laters
and steal a Charleston Chew

I'll live Now
I supposed
die sooner than Later I guessed
Cause right in the mix they sell candy shaped like cigarettes
Packaged in fake real cigarette boxes

Now that's ghetto candy
Cause I've never seen sweet Cindy sucking on that shit

Blue Magic
China White
Caballo
They sell that in the candy store too

Funny

No commercials on TV  for where to buy your dope
or play your numbers
but everybody knows where

Is this my life God?
to know the unknown
And father a child before my time
with the first girl that says

Si Papi

because she's too scared and stupid
to know what she wants too?  

I watch the pigeons
circling and hovering above Grant's Projects

They have wings
But won't fuckin' leave
So what chance do I have?

I watch the Bradys
They're going to the Grand Canyon

So I pack my bags and pretend

Winner: Ghetto Life competition hosted by Zazzles

Published Eyedrum Periodically

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

pitch black sunrise

i danced to touch da ground  
but they laughed at me  
 
say, "Dats right boy show us how niggas dance"
one of 'em started on his guitar  
another da fiddle  
 
my body twitchin' like Sunday chicken  
fresh snapped neck  
 
i can still hear 'em all
and da creek of da rope pulling dat limb  
though one's cut off my ear  
 
they wanted souvenirs
things fo' they kids I reckon'  
i barely feel da blade takin' each toe  
 
da lil' gal smiles  
 
im choked out like midnight from da sky  
with its' stars too  
 
sky will be white again  
like da sheets that done dis to me  
 
Jesus didn't save me
hope he does better by my chillin' cause  
I can't breathe

Published Whirlwind Magazine

Rubin Stacy, a black man, was murdered July 19, 1935.  He was killed by a lynch mob because he was falsely accused of trying to harm Marion Jones, a white woman.  She later reported that he came to her door begging for food.

Eric Garner was killed July 17, 2014 by New York City police officers who employed an illegal choke hold to subdue him.  His crime, selling loose cigarettes in public - illegally - because he was unemployed.  The above poem is dedicated to both Mr. Stacy, and Mr. Garner, whose last words captured on videotape were, "I can't breathe."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
the lessen'

Massa say 10 lashes    
Overseea' Mr. Rex say 20  
Cause nigga blood bleed different  
 
My back say otherwise  
He cuts me to da bone  
 
Tastin' blood in ma' mouth  
I shits maself after 15  
Pass out after 18  
 
I ain't but 14 years  
Guess Mr. Rex means ol' niggas  



-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
... (oh Christmas tree)  ...

bare foot and pregnant
measured worth of blackened skin
strung like Christmas bulbs  


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Visual poets I admire: Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte, Leonardo Da Vinci, Stan Lee, Andy Warhol, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Patricia Polacco, Michael D'Antuono, Zdzisław Beksiński, Julian Strayhorn II, Kadir Nelson (below "Day at the beach"),

* * *

Spoken Word: Nuyorican Cafe-NYC ~ Mott Haven Cafe-Bronx, NY ~ El Fogon, Bronx, NY ~ ARTSLINK 2014 - Athens, Greece ~ National Black Theatre, Harlem NY



Sugahspank, she ruled the ArtsLinks festival in Athens, Greece.

hiding in her voice
susurrations of heaven
raindrops sing backdrop

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Playwright:  I'm also working on four  plays. One about the Puerto Rican revolution of the 1950s.  One hundred patriots, led by the brilliant Don Pedro Albizu Campos fought for the sovereignty of their island nation against 5000 American troops. The second, Last Season as a Boy, grew out of a haibun that blossomed into a short story published in Jitter Press.  The third grew out of my poem, "Marsha, Marsha, Marsha"; and the fourth centers on the death of everything everyone has ever believed in, so of course I'm penning it as a musical comedy ... this is hard work
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“there is a place in the heart that
will never be filled

a space

and even during the
best moments
and
the greatest times
times

we will know it

we will know it
more than
ever

there is a place in the heart that
will never be filled
and

we will wait
and
wait

in that space.”

― Charles Bukowski

"Slavery was never abolished, it was only extended to include all colors."
~ Charles Bukowski

"The universe is made of stories, not atoms." ~ Muriel Rukeyser"

“Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.”  ― Marilyn Monroe

"I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go." - Langston Hughes

"A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life." - Muhammad Ali

"Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even." - Muhammad Ali

"It isn't the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it's the pebble in your shoe." - Muhammad Ali

Poets who use their blood and marrow as ink, their spine their quill: Jackie Robinson, Bill Russell, Joe Louis, Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Jim Thorpe, Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Tim Duncan, David Robinson, Michaela DePrince, and Ronda Rousey ...

"When I was in school, martial arts made you a dork, and I became self-conscious that I was too masculine. I was a 16-year-old girl with ringworm and cauliflower ears. People made fun of my arms and called me 'Miss Man.' It wasn't until I got older that I realized: These people are idiots. I'm fabulous." - Ronda Rousey

"There's no such thing as talent, we are all born equals.  If you want to be something work at it."

- Conor McGregor
-------------------------------------------------------------------

"I know that if I wasn't scared, something's wrong, because the thrill is what's scary." - Richard Pryor

"If I thought about it, I could be bitter, but I don't feel like being bitter. Being bitter makes you immobile, and there's too much that I still want to do." - Richard Pryor

*************************************************************************************
Preparing my hands to do battle with my mind for the release of my soul. - LSP

Don't fight to the bell, fight through the bell. - LSP

My ultimate bucket list:

~ Get my EdD ~ 2020 graduation ... I have a bet to win.
~ See my Minnesota Vikings win a Super Bowl!
~ Throw out the first pitch at a New York Mets game
~ See all 30 MLB teams play in a single season (28 games in all)
~ Climb Kilimanjaro (Summer 2020)
~ Visit Japan to study origami, poetry, and judo; and from there to Australia so my brother can teach me to surf.
~ Buy a vintage Yamaha or Kawasaki motorcycle and a car like the ol' man use to have; I know a guy.
~ Visit Cuba before it’s infested with McDonald’s and Starbucks
~ Swim with whale sharks
~ Go back to Wisconsin (UW) to get that engineering degree



~ Go deep sea fishing like Papa.
~ Visit Bejing to see the Great Wall - the Forbidden City - and see the Terracotta Warriors and Horses.
~ Never join Facebook
~ Develop a roundhouse kick that shatters souls.
~ Bike down to Charleston, SC and maybe Savannah, GA to sit in antediluvian oaks draped with Spanish moss, and hide along backyard piers camouflaged by marsh and cattails ... and just write. Maybe I'll catch a bushel of blue crabs while I'm at it too.
~ Recite my poetry on the subway platforms of NYC.  If you pass me by toss some change in my cup.  I'm saving for a plane ticket to Paris.  I want to spend part of a summer there writing poetry and hanging out in little jazz clubs, great pubs, and hidden cafes.
~ Return to fencing and test my skills in Paris  ...




*************************************************************************************
frequent flyer mile restrictions

I shudder beneath my blankets

And there she is again

that girl
in that little village
that has no clean water

I laugh

a minute ago
it was the great wandering dog
without a home

it melts away
and she and her cub will drown

or starve

or both

too much
too little

but what am I to give

a fuck

sorry I don't

just $1.25 a day
he says
the price of a cup of coffee
saves the girl

and her family

$2.00 for the bear

my Glivec is $298 a day

$79 in Mexico

I guess we all live in the wrong place  


As published in Rockland Literature (London)

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melt reality
bourbon licks resignation
pour me another  

As published in Haiku Journal

"One who produces even a single good poem has not spent his life in vain"  ~ Basho

Travel & foodie faves: Georgie’s Bakery in Harlem on 125th, although no longer open, they had the BEST doughnuts 🍩 and sweet potato pies 🥧 I’ve EVER had; steaks at Peter Lugar's - NYC, Harry Caray's Italian Steakhouse  - Chicago, and Keens Steakhouse - NYC (Bourdain fave); charbroiled oysters at Acme Oysters, and beignets at Cafe du Monde in New Orleans; fish & chips at the Borough Market - London; meals shared on the Mediterranean Sea in Athens with poets and other artists; sippin' Pappy Van Winkle at the Silver Dollar after the Kentucky Derby; inhaling deconstructed corn beef hash in Seattle; brunch in NYC at Cafe du Soliel, B. Cafe and Pies n Thighs; drinks at the Russian Vodka Room and prix fixe at Milos; shrimps & grits, gumbo, stingray, raccoon and deer prepared in my grandmother's humble kitchen on John's Island, SC; BBQ at Smitty's Market in Lockhart, Texas; burgers at the original Jimbo's in Harlem (125th & Broadway), and Shake Shack (Bourdain fave); beers at Harlem Hops; hotdogs at Papayas NYC (Bourdain fave) and Nathan's - (Coney Island, NY); Charlie's in SoBro; sushi at Geisha House (NYC) , Charleston, SC faves: Beary Patch, Queen Street Market, and Page’s Okra Grill, COSME (NYC)

... In other words I'll eat Bambi, Nemo, and Sebastian too!



* * *

Roll the Dice

if you’re going to try, go all the
way.
otherwise, don’t even start.

if you’re going to try, go all the
way. this could mean losing girlfriends,
wives, relatives, jobs and
maybe your mind.

go all the way.
it could mean not eating for 3 or
4 days.
it could mean freezing on a
park bench.
it could mean jail,
it could mean derision,
mockery,
isolation.
isolation is the gift,
all the others are a test of your
endurance, of
how much you really want to
do it.
and you’ll do it
despite rejection and the
worst odds
and it will be better than
anything else
you can imagine.

if you’re going to try,
go all the way.
there is no other feeling like
that.
you will be alone with the
gods
and the nights will flame with
fire.

do it, do it, do it.
do it.

all the way
all the way.
you will ride life straight to
perfect laughter,
it’s the only good fight
there is.

Charles Bukowski (1920 - 1994)

* * *



August 21, 2017 marked an eclipse of historic proportions, it also marked a milestone birthday for me.  I've never liked birthdays or the idea that's the one day of the year you should enjoy most.  Bullshit!  Enjoy it all, don't take tomorrow for granted.

* * *

I received this note from a former student this summer, it helps heal me.

Dear Mr. Heyward,

I don't know if you remember me or not. I mean why would you, I was a blank face in a sea of kids in your class. My name is R. D., you taught me English in sixth grade. You had an assignment one day in class to write a poem about ourselves and I wrote about a poem about being black and loving my skin. That was the first poem I ever wrote. You entered me and a few other students into a program named Poetry Out Loud. I went and read my poem and at the time I didn't think it was all the special. I didn't really think about Poetry that much again.

I though it was for intelligent people and I never really put myself into that category even though others did. I would write from time to time and when  ever I showed it to you, you'd read it and tell me that I did a good job. In my first year of high school my mother died and I'm so happy that you introduced poetry to me because without it I don't think I'd be alive today.

All the pain that I felt I wrote down and I even wrote a little chap book. I hope to be a professional poet and to be honest it's because of that poem you had us write in 6th grade. I just wanted to thank you Mr. Heyward for igniting that in me.

Your student
R. D.