Naming Ceremony by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

 Naming Ceremony 

by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

VOICE

for Jerry Ward, Jr.

Shallow curve of the land
between master and owned
I have dismissed you until I come
upon kin     Since time my jaws
have collected accusations
from memory     No logic
grinding my teeth     I have not
been sold     The telling of the coppers
between fingers     (Skin)
I think that I have known freedom
This old story and yet I grieve
accented by our home
Your line reaching back
while I search for the cloth
of our mother’s  bodice
My line snapped     My mind
flying home at Ibo Landing
I think that I have known liberty in
the caverns I have lived in
Valley of Senegambia
Coast of Slaves    Gold    Ivory
(Loss)     The mud of the Bights
Benin     Listen to the talk
beaten by a man and his apprentice
a mortgaged youth     My body
lightened     mongreled currency
Biafra     beaten     Hear me
beaten down blood     free
unclaimed by garbled deity
My father’s call tricks
the music of stopped ears
The flesh of the young men is burning
One of us is Cain     the gardener
of perfidy     unblessed by lineage
the flesh of the young men is aglow

KISS

Wampum by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Memphis Resurrection by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Dreams of My Father by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

The Gospel of Barbecue by Honorée Fannonne Jeffers

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers / The Prophetess Sojourner Truth Discusses the Two Different Versions of Her Most Well-Known Speech, One Nearly Unknown and One Very Beloved Yet Mostly Untrue

Washita Battlefield National Historic Site by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Chorus of the Mothers-Griot by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Naming Ceremony by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers / Portrait of Dido Elizabeth Belle Lindsay

Blues: Odysseus by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers / Lost Letter #1: Phillis Wheatley, Boston, to Susannah Wheatley,BostonSelah Honorée by Fanonne Jeffers

Allison Benis White / “Waldgeist,” “Sheathe,” and “Ignis Fatuus”

 

Allison Benis White

“Waldgeist,” “Sheathe,” and “Ignis Fatuus”

Waldgeist

The souls trapped
in the trees in Dante’s forest
of suicides can only speak
when their branches are broken
as they bleed.

What else is language
now but injury: why did you
break me?

Why did you leave me?

And relief: to bleed
in one place, for one reason,
to say I failed to live
sanely on earth
without you.

---

 

Sheathe

Even in the dream,
we lie awake in the
dark, side by side.

When I ask
if you’re dead, you say,
Alive in your mind.

And of the four truths,
I remember two: we are
alone, we will suffer.

It’s no wonder
we cannot sleep.

We cannot die,
your cool hand
in my hand, carved
from ivory or ice.

---

 

Ignis Fatuus

It is possible to be
lovely in the dark.

A few thin trees
leaning toward
each other.

In ghost or pale
light, my fingers
on my lips.

If to speak is to die,
I will whisper.

If to speak is to die,
I will make
trees of my hands—

I will say nothing
by shivering, I will
say everything.

Chorus of the Mothers-Griot by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

 

Chorus of the Mothers-Griot

by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

for Phillis Wheatley (c.1753-1784)

[amnesiac wood]

[nostrils of girls]	        [who was bought]	        [uncle’s hand]
[guts on the air]	        [who was sold]		[defeated man]
[history’s charnel]	        [i say] 	                [trader’s silver]

                                [sailing knot to knot]

[naked in the corner]	[door of no return]	[sing the mutiny]
[in the slave house]	[sniff bougainvillea]	[who stands ashamed]
[i say]		 	[ready dawn’s kill]	        [naked in the corner]

                                [jealous sharks]

[i shall]			[who did]		        [i say]
[they did]		        [i’m here]		        [my name]
[who shall]		        [i say]		        [yes here]

                                [on the battlefield] 

[call woman]		[call america]		[call revolution]
[call the brother]	        [call myth]                  [i say] 
[call the auction]	        [call africa]		        [call revolution]

                                [in God’s name]

[is this called]		[is my mother]		[is my kin]
[i say]			[is this called]		[is some land]
[is my mother]		[and what] 		        [is this called]





	after Lucille Clifton

KISS
Wampum by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
Memphis Resurrection by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
Dreams of My Father by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
The Gospel of Barbecue by Honorée Fannonne Jeffers
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers / The Prophetess Sojourner Truth Discusses the Two Different Versions of Her Most Well-Known Speech, One Nearly Unknown and One Very Beloved Yet Mostly Untrue
Washita Battlefield National Historic Site by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
Chorus of the Mothers-Griot by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
Naming Ceremony by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers / Portrait of Dido Elizabeth Belle Lindsay

Blues: Odysseus by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers / Lost Letter #1: Phillis Wheatley, Boston, to Susannah Wheatley,BostonSelah Honorée by Fanonne Jeffers

Washita Battlefield National Historic Site by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

 

Washita Battlefield National Historic Site

by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

for Chief Black Kettle & the Cheyenne People

I. 2016                that journey   i was tired not ready for a long drive i live here now my land here now & the cheyenne my new duty    as i travel i am afraid carved country in this part of   oklahoma my dark skin   my kinky hair  the worries       the ugly tales of travel i am afraid all this to write some short history for peace at the battlefield it’s near evening no one here to guide through the bones i must go alone on one branch  a flash  cloth bundled   a head  with no features       a jump in grass no further i should take off my shoes where they died i walk down the trail the sounds the horses butterflies hop they intone       find that place   where you walk  this is where    we wait woman

II.  1864–68    that time  for years                       the old ones                 waiting                         an old story                  an old people   caution a whisper          hope & survive  don’t be afraid             just wait                        the world          has lasted         this long           a legacy            we rely upon     lists of treaties  medicine lodge black kettle       a kind man suffered power for peace i grieve this man i grieve his wife no words to justify definition in suffering i place my prayers in spirit in a gift a bullet  lost in blood     pray before       it talks to you    what a man offered left behind children women beaten by memory the dawn custer’s music the warriors point to trees soldiers there   a battlefield quickly leave     the offerings for your tongue

III.  1868    that dawn memory i must respect i must respect the beginning the beginning the dawn a mourning a hot sun of migration in this place stillness before claiming river through trees & elders surely know broken vowels sand creek counseling quiet faith in life through waiting then a massacre black kettle medicine woman later stop asking me to understand to absolve soldiers no words no words i claim in testimony buried inside a memory it speaks in books it chides the truth calm never lasts i want peace calm never lasts i want peace i can’t forget custer’s music the women sing to children do not forget  a massacre  remember  tend to stories find the words

KISS

Wampum by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Memphis Resurrection by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Dreams of My Father by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

The Gospel of Barbecue by Honorée Fannonne Jeffers

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers / The Prophetess Sojourner Truth Discusses the Two Different Versions of Her Most Well-Known Speech, One Nearly Unknown and One Very Beloved Yet Mostly Untrue

Washita Battlefield National Historic Site by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Chorus of the Mothers-Griot by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Naming Ceremony by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers / Portrait of Dido Elizabeth Belle Lindsay

Blues: Odysseus by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers / Lost Letter #1: Phillis Wheatley, Boston, to Susannah Wheatley,BostonSelah Honorée by Fanonne Jeffers

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers / The Prophetess Sojourner Truth Discusses the Two Different Versions of Her Most Well-Known Speech, One Nearly Unknown and One Very Beloved Yet Mostly Untrue

 

The Prophetess Sojourner Truth Discusses the Two Different Versions of Her Most Well-Known Speech, One Nearly Unknown and One Very Beloved Yet Mostly Untrue

by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

VOICE

I believe that white lady
meant well, but she took liberties
with my story.
There was a pint,
and I am a woman,
but I never did bear
thirteen young.
There was an audience,
and I did stand.
At first, hesitant, but then,
speaking God’s clear
consonants in a voice
that all might hear, not
with apostrophes feeding
on the ends of my words.
And I am six feet tall,
and some might say, broader
than any man.
And I was a slave.
And my child was taken
from me, though I fought
to get him back.
And I did work hard.
And I did suffer long.
And I did find the Lord
and He did keep
me in His bony-chested embrace.
And if I showed you my hands,
instead of hiding them in my sleeves
or in a ball of yarn,
you could see my scars,
the surgery of bondage.
And I have traveled to and fro
to speak my Gospel-talk—
surely, I’ve got the ear of Jesus.
But I forgive that lying woman,
because craving is a natural sin.
She needed somebody
like me to speak for her,
and behave the way
she imagined I did,
so she could imagine
herself as a northern mistress.
And there I was,  
dark and old,
soon to fold my life
into Death’s greedy hand.
And in this land,
and in this time,
somebody who could never
shout her down.

KISS
Wampum by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
Memphis Resurrection by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
Dreams of My Father by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
The Gospel of Barbecue by Honorée Fannonne Jeffers
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers / The Prophetess Sojourner Truth Discusses the Two Different Versions of Her Most Well-Known Speech, One Nearly Unknown and One Very Beloved Yet Mostly Untrue
Washita Battlefield National Historic Site by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
Chorus of the Mothers-Griot by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
Naming Ceremony by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers / Portrait of Dido Elizabeth Belle Lindsay

Blues: Odysseus by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers / Lost Letter #1: Phillis Wheatley, Boston, to Susannah Wheatley,BostonSelah Honorée by Fanonne Jeffers

The Gospel of Barbecue by Honorée Fannonne Jeffers

 

The Gospel of Barbecue

BY HONORÉE FANONNE JEFFERS

   for Alvester James

Long after it was

necessary, Uncle

Vess ate the leavings

off the hog, doused

them with vinegar sauce.

He ate chewy abominations.

Then came high pressure.

Then came the little pills.

Then came the doctor

who stole Vess’s second

sight, the predication

of pig’s blood every

fourth Sunday.

Then came the stillness

of barn earth, no more

trembling at his step.

Then came the end

of the rib, but before

his eyes clouded,

Uncle Vess wrote

down the gospel

of barbecue.

Chapter one:

Somebody got to die

with something at some

time or another.

Chapter two:

Don’t ever trust

white folk to cook

your meat until

it’s done to the bone.

Chapter three:

December is the best

time for hog killing.

The meat won’t

spoil as quick.

Screams and blood

freeze over before

they hit the air.

Chapter four, Verse one:

Great Grandma Mandy

used to say food

you was whipped

for tasted the best.

Chapter four, Verse two:

Old Master knew to lock

the ham bacon chops

away quick or the slaves

would rob him blind.

He knew a padlock

to the smokehouse

was best to prevent

stealing, but even the

sorriest of slaves would

risk a beating for a full

belly. So Christmas time

he give his nasty

leftovers to the well

behaved. The head ears

snout tail fatback

chitlins feet ribs balls.

He thought gratitude

made a good seasoning.

Chapter five:

Unclean means dirty

means filthy means

underwear worn too

long in summertime heat.

Perfectly good food

can’t be no sin.

Maybe the little

bit of meat on ribs

makes for lean eating.

Maybe the pink flesh

is tasteless until you add

onions garlic black

pepper tomatoes

soured apple cider

but survival ain’t never been

no crime against nature

or Maker. See, stay alive

in the meantime, laugh

a little harder. Go on

and gnaw that bone clean.

KISS

Wampum by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Memphis Resurrection by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Dreams of My Father by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

The Gospel of Barbecue by Honorée Fannonne Jeffers

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers / The Prophetess Sojourner Truth Discusses the Two Different Versions of Her Most Well-Known Speech, One Nearly Unknown and One Very Beloved Yet Mostly Untrue

Washita Battlefield National Historic Site by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Chorus of the Mothers-Griot by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Naming Ceremony by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers / Portrait of Dido Elizabeth Belle Lindsay

Blues: Odysseus by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers / Lost Letter #1: Phillis Wheatley, Boston, to Susannah Wheatley,BostonSelah Honorée by Fanonne Jeffers