If you grow up love love loving poetry, as I did — and still do — you take poetry classes and remember them.
So, of course, when choosing this month’s heart-centered practice of WE happened at the same time as this powerful new phase of the Black Lives Matter movement, pretty much the first thing I thought about was the famous Gwendolyn Brooks poem, “We Real Cool”.
Gwendolyn Brooks is, to quote one of my favorite websites, the Poetry Foundation, “ one of the most highly regarded, influential, and widely read poets of 20th-century American poetry. She was a much-honored poet, even in her lifetime, with the distinction of being the first Black author to win the Pulitzer Prize. She also was poetry consultant to the Library of Congress—the first Black woman to hold that position—and poet laureate of the State of Illinois. Many of Brooks’s works display a political consciousness, especially those from the 1960s and later, with several of her poems reflecting the civil rights activism of that period. Her body of work gave her, according to critic George E. Kent, “a unique position in American letters. Not only has she combined a strong commitment to racial identity and equality with a mastery of poetic techniques, but she has also managed to bridge the gap between the academic poets of her generation in the 1940s and the young Black militant writers of the 1960s.”
“We Real Cool” is a short poem. The kind of poem that is easy to teach to high school students — and then get them to engage in a lively debate.
WE REAL COOL
The Pool Players.
Seven at the Golden Shovel.
We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.
I still remember some of our conversation about this poem. Yes, it was written about black teenagers, but couldn’t they have been any rebellious teenagers? How you read the poem depends on what tone you give to it. We were asked to read it righteously, rebelliously, ruefully. We were asked to notice that it was June — the traditional month of graduation. But these were dropouts.
We were asked to think about a lot of things.
But we were never asked to think about how the color of our skin affected our reading of this poem. Because in those days white privilege was a given, not a topic of deep conversation.
Well, such are the power of words and such is the power of poetry that I am still thinking about this poem. But now I’m reading it from the perspective of this new reckoning, this new conversation, this new awakening of the Black Lives Matter movement.
And all I can hear is that last line. Because Brooks wrote that poem in 1963. Eight years after Emmett Till was murdered — followed by countless other young black men — preceded by countless other black people. Killed for being black by white segregationists, the 20th-century word for violent white supremacists.
We die soon.
Just to think about this poem right now is more heartbreaking than ever..
I suppose that is why I have resisted writing about it this month. Because although heart-centered practice isn’t supposed to be a walk in the park, but rather a wrenching away of old head-based habits and a return to Love, I try to find the hope and healing in everything.
So I was grateful this morning, after finally deciding to write about this poem, to discover a second We poem by Brooks.
It’s about another black life that mattered. To the African-American community and to every worker and oppressed person around the world for his global work as a humanitarian. And of course to lovers of music. It is about Paul Robeson.
PAUL ROBESON
That time
we all heard it,
cool and clear,
cutting across the hot grit of the day.
The major Voice.
The adult Voice
forgoing Rolling River,
forgoing tearful tale of bale and barge
and other symptoms of an old despond.
Warning, in music-words
devout and large,
that we are each other’s
harvest:
we are each other’s
business:
we are each other’s
magnitude and bond.
The other day I posted a photo of my father and Paul Robeson and shared Robeson’s life story of overcoming racism in his own life over and over again to use his powerful voice to speak up on behalf of oppressed peoples around the world. What I didn’t share was that Paul Robeson and my stepmother were lovers and that she always credited him for saving her dream. It was Robeson who loaned her the money that allowed her to stay in London and not have to go home to Australia,. She always spoke of him with such deep gratitude and love for supporting her creativity at a time when being an independent working woman was not the norm by any means.
In this poem Brooks is speaking about what Robeson meant to so many because of how he used his voice — to sing the songs of slavery and oppression all over the world. In particular, she is talking about the song. “Ol’ Man River” in which Robeson sings; “I’m tired of living but scared of dying.”
Brooks understood the power of one raised voice to raise awareness and to fight oppression and to speak truth to power. But as an African-American woman, Brooks recognized just how every oppressed person (and hopefully any sentient being) who heard Robeson sing heard this:
that we are each other’s
harvest:
we are each other’s
business:
we are each other’s
magnitude and bond.
To be honest, I don’t remember what my take on “We Real Cool” was in my high school poetry class. But I absolutely remember what I felt the first time I heard Robeson sing “Ol’ Man River”. It’s what I still feel when I hear it. And it is exactly what Brooks wrote. Which is exactly what I believe, what I pray, what I hope we are learning from this awakening about racism and white privilege that is happening around this country and the globe. And it is the essence of this heart-centered practice of we:
We are each other’s harvest.
Without one another, we have no plenty, no supply, no abundance.
With each other, we have the power of the Oneness of Love..
We are each other’s business:
We have to make the well being of each and every person on this planet our business, our commitment, our duty, our promise.
We are each other’s magnitude and bond.
Alone we are nothing. Together we the immensity of the Power of Love. We are all on this same ship together. If it sinks, we all sink.
But together, in Love, we are One.
Together, in Love, we heal one another and our world. We are each other’s.
What a powerful way to live.
BUT.
We have a choice — right now more than ever.
We can live in Love or die in hate and fear.
Either way, we are each other’s.
Let’s be each other’s in LOVE.
PLEASE listen to Paul Robeson singing “Ol’ Man River” in 1936.