Toi Derricotte: Not Forgotten
I love the way the black ants use their dead.
They carry them off like warriors on their steel
backs.
Toi Derricotte: My great teacher, Galway Kinnell, taught me: “Speak the unspeakable.”
My father taught me:
You have to break the bones
To get to the heart
Toi Derricotte: My dad & sardines
i’ve made an altar called
The Altar for Healing the Father & Child
Toi Derricotte: The Minks
In the backyard of our house on Norwood,
there were five hundred steel cages lined up,
each with a wooden box
roofed with tar paper
Toi Derricotte: Invisible Dreams
I have to make a
place for my body in
my body.
Toi Derricotte | Christmas Eve: My Mother Dressing
My mother was not impressed with her beauty;
once a year she put it on like a costume
Toi Derricotte: In Knowledge of Young Boys
i knew you when your connections
belonged only to yourself,
when you had no history
to hook on to
Toi Derricotte: Black Boys Play the Classics
their slick, dark faces,
their thin, wiry arms,
who must begin to look
like angels!
Toi Derricotte: Holy Cross Hospital
would our bodies be the same? could we hide among the
childless? she always reminded me of a lady at the bridge
club in her mother’s shoes, playing her mother’s hand.
Video: Toi Derricotte reads “Blackbottom”
. Toi Derricotte reads her poem “Blackbottom” at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. Email subscribers may click on the title of this post to watch the video. . Blackbottom … Continue reading
Gail Langstroth: Muzungu, Muzungu!
Muzungu, Muzungu! Children scream as they touch my white skin and run. Muzungu, Muzungu! December, 2012, I am in Nakuusi, Uganda, a small African village, population 180. Early each morning … Continue reading
