A "mixpage" is essentially the word I use to describe a cento or collage poem in which I create a new poem using various lines of existing poetry. This particular mixpage was created using from the works of various Black poets. The sources for each stanza can be found at the bottom of the page.
Black Mixpage
For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone
where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
On my brow an unfading frown
and hate in my heart always—
[Because] some such lesson I seemed to see
in the faces that surrounded me:
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
"their colour is a diabolic die.”
They pyrred a race of black, black men,
and burned them to ashes white, then
laughing, a young one claimed a skull.
You know how dangerous it is
to wear dark skin —
In Sanford, something happened in Ferguson
and Brooklyn & Charleston, something happened
in Chicago & Cleveland & Baltimore & happens
almost everywhere in this country every day.
probably someone is prey in all of our encounters.
My country tis of thee,
late land of slavery,
America was never America to me.
yeh
our people
yes people
every people
most people
uuuuuu, yeh uuuuu, most people
in pain
yester-pain, and pain today
(Screams) ooowow! ooowow! It must be
the devil
(jumps up like a claw stuck him) oooo
wow! oooowow! (screams)
Whatever shall i do with my dead,
my tombs & mausoleums?
For my people lending their strength to the years, to the
gone years and the now years and the maybe years,
washing ironing cooking scrubbing sewing mending
hoeing plowing digging planting pruning patching
dragging along never gaining never reaping never
knowing and never understanding:
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
You rise. Although
genial, you are in yourself again.
I observe
your direct and respectable stride.
Let me make the songs for the people,
Songs for the old and young;
Songs to stir like a battle-cry
Wherever they are sung.
I dream it, I work hard, I grind 'til I own it
I twirl on them haters, albino alligators
I battered the cordons around me
And cradled my wings on the breeze,
Then soared to the uttermost reaches
With rapture, with power, with ease!
And while I know there’s still darkness in this country as far as my
eyes can see, I don’t let the hatred stop me from spreading my wings.
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