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New Day
Poem
for Walter H. Lively
By Melvin E. Brown Walt's thumbs were green
& his fingers were thick
vines;
that's why he was a vital &
leafy part
of the lives of East Baltimore's
poor.
He was always flinging blossoms
into their windows
& teaching them how to be full
of thorns
in their poverty, whenever they
needed to.
Whenever politicians &
bureaucrats came around,
the whole neighborhood would hide
all the things
that Walt could do -- so that
those things
would continue to grow. (Walt had
always said
that certain kinds of people
didn't believe
in the secret flowering of the
ghetto.)
The neighborhood knew that Walt
was
a part of their thriving, &
they knew that
he was trying to change the nature
of their lives
because his green thumbs &
thick fingers
were always clinging to the walls
of some condemned building
that they called home.
I knew it too.
But the reason I loved him
was because, sometimes,
when I stood behind his blooming
I could see the seasons transforming. |
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 |
Melvin E. Brown was born and raised in
Baltimore, Maryland. A graduate of the Johns Hopkins Writing
Seminars, Brown received his M.A. in 1977 to 1981. He was the
editor of Chicory Magazine, a publication of the Enoch
Pratt Free Library.
He has also been a faculty member at
Sojourner Douglass College. His first volume of poetry In the
First Place was published in 1974. Most recently, his poetry
appeared in In Search of Color Everywhere: A Collection of
African American Poetry. |
Blue Notes & Blessing
Songs
(Liberation House, 1995)
Reviews
Melvin follows the tradition:
griot, storyteller, musician. His poems are straight, clear
thinking. In the words of Etheridge Knight, he too "sees
through stone." Celebrate this new good book.—Lucille Clifton, Pulitzer Prize Nominee,
author of The Book of Light
Ooh, baby, baby--Melvin E. Brown,
at times, writes the way Smokey Robinson once sang. Brown's
latest volume is a book of remembrances. It's a collection of
poems "coated" with the blues and filled with a
special kind of love.—E. Ethelbert Miller, Director, African
American Resource Center, Howard University
It ain't just poetry to me. I hear
the codes for honest living, the quest to become a better human
being. I hear the love of friendship and memory, and the love of
memorable friendships. I feel the caring, the hurting, the
loving, the healing, the hoping. It's the heart-to-heart that's
really got a hold on me. Unh, unh, it ain't just poetry to me.—Peter J. Harris, author of Hand Me My
Griot Clothes: The Autobiography of Junior Baby
* * * * *
The
Corner /
The Corner—DeAndre and Prop Joe
The Corner—The Real Fran, DeAndre, Tyreeka and Blue!
The last ten minutes from the HBO
series
The Corner, where Charles S. Dutton, the
director talks to the real life characters, the story
was based on.
*
* * * *
Take This
Hammer
KQED's film unit
follows poet and activist James Baldwin in the spring of
1963, as he's driven around San Francisco to meet with
members of the local African-American community. He is
escorted by Youth For Service's Executive Director
Orville Luster and intent on discovering: "The real
situation of negroes in the city, as opposed to the
image San Francisco would like to present." He declares:
"There is no moral distance ... between the facts of
life in San Francisco and the facts of life in
Birmingham. Someone's got to tell it like it is. And
that's where it's at." Includes frank exchanges with
local people on the street, meetings with community
leaders and extended point-of-view sequences shot from a
moving vehicle, featuring the Bayview and Western
Addition neighborhoods. Baldwin reflects on the racial
inequality that African-Americans are forced to confront
and at one point tries to lift the morale of a young man
by expressing his conviction that: "There will be a
negro president of this country but it will not be the
country that we are sitting in now." The TV Archive
would like to thank Darryl Cox for championing the
merits of this film and for his determination that it be
preserved and remastered for posterity.
*
* * * *
Straight Outta Hunters Point /
Malcolm X Birthday (1970)
KQED News report
from May 19th 1970 on the Hunters Point community of San
Francisco's celebrations and remembrance for what would
have been the 45th birthday of political and human
rights activist Malcolm X. Features scenes of local
residents describing the personal impact that Malcom X
had on their lives and people enjoying live music. Ends
with views of public speakers addressing crowds outside
the Federal Courthouse in downtown San Francisco,
including the Reverend Cecil Williams who explains that:
"We are talking about the liberation of the people! And
that's what we want at this particular time."
* * * *
*
Marcus Garvey "Africa For The Africans" /
Look For Me in The Whirlwind
Marcus Mosiah
Garvey /
Marucs Garvey Speech
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updated 23 June 2010 |
