I recognized an intellectual kinship with his desire to explore the intersections of gender and race.

This part is interesting.

Changeseeker – You knew Calvin Hernton?! I can only imagine what a pleasure that must have been. I can only imagine what a remarkable man he must have been.

Wow, just wow.

From everything I’ve read about his life, he has influenced so many people in so many great ways. It’s amazing. Here’s another fave of mine:

The Underlying Strife

If a poet could latch on to the Word…
The Word indisputable which is more
Than a transient thing–
If a poet could latch on–
One little gesture… so slight a sigh might set
The strife in order.

But what is a poet?

A poet is not a holiday…
A poet is not a plaything
A poet is a perpetual struggle… an eternal
Cause-of-the-People
Toward the self-liberation of a wilderness dream
Deep-frozen in a profit-driven civilization.

Lord… if I am not a poet
Why are my hands so bloody?

The Distant Drummer

I am not a metaphor or symbol.
This you hear is not the wind in the trees.
Nor a cat being maimed in the street.
It is I who weep, laugh, feel pain or joy.
Speak this because I exist.
This is my voice
These words are my words, my mouth
Speaks them, my hand writes.
I am a poet.
It is my fist you hear beating
Against your ear.

Here’s the poem the blog title comes from:

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightening to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind—

There’s a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.

Heavenly hurt it gives us;
We can find no scar,
But internal difference
Where the meanings, are.

None may teach it anything,
‘T is the seal, despair,
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the air.

When it comes, the landscape listens,
Shadows hold their breath;
When it goes, ‘t is like the distance
On the look of death.