Poem # 3

I gather up



each sound


you left behind


and stretch them


on our bed.


each nite


I breathe you


and become high.

 
   -Sonia Sanchez

Sonia Sanchez-Tongue-Tied

How she overcame stuttering ( I can relate to her story)

blk/rhetoric

Sonia Sanchez,  in her 1969 poem, "blk/rhetoric," invoked Baraka's language to question what might happen after the calling had been done:     

"who's gonna make all
that beautiful blk/rhetoric
mean something.
                            like
I mean
        who's gonna take
words
            blk/beautiful
and make more of it
than blk/capitalism.
                    u dig?
        i mean
                like who's gonna
take all the young/long/haired/
natural/brothers and sisters
and let them
                grow till
                        all that is
imp't is them
                selves
                        moving in straight/
revolutionary/lines/toward the enemy
(and we know who that is)
                               like.     man.
who's gonna give our young
blk people new heros

[. . . .]

( instead of quick/fucks
    in the hall/way of
                    white/america's
                                        mind)
like. this. is an S.0.S.
me. calling. . . .
                        calling. . . .
                                    some/one.
        pleasereplysoon."

                         --Sonia Sanchez