Photo courtesy of Chad Davis from Minneapolis, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0via Wikimedia Commons
The Harriet Tubman Center for Freedom and Equity at Binghamton University warmly invites you to our upcoming 2nd annual Speaker series. We are very much looking forward to hosting on March 31, Distinguished Professor, Omowunmi Sadik, who will speak on the topic of developing STEM leaders of the 21st century. Eminent historian, Dr. Leslie Alexander, will join us the following week on April 6 to discuss policing in the age of Covid.
RECENT POEMS by the brilliant Brenda Cave-James
Otherwise, these challenging times call for not only new pioneering scholarship but art and artistry. This we have in the person and work of Brenda Cave James whose poems so poignantly give a window into our troubled times.
By way of introduction, she says of the first poem: “Here is a poem to honor the young Amir Locke- I was moved to write it after the (yet another) recent shooting. Thank you.”
Farewell
Farewell, dear fathers
sons and brothers
my cousins, uncles.
fine friends, others.
Farewell in advance
my sweet loverman!
Kiss me once more-
hold me twice long
when you leave my door.
When sun goes down
when day is through-
If I may change the poet’s words-
When night comes tenderly
dark, like you…
by morning you could be far gone
somehow, struck by thunderbolts-
or fall and roll down
yonder hill.
Let me say how I love you all.
I love you so, it worries me.
Keeps me awake.
It shakes my faith.
I pray for you
my handsome, strong
devilish, Godly
brilliant, witty
Black boys and men.
My nephews, grandsons, precious ones.
I’d weep and thrash
tear my clothes
if somehow before early dawn
(or light of day)
you met your death.
Farewell!
Goodbye now – just in case.
Inside your car
upon your porch with key in hand
you suffer a most dreadful fate.
Be vigilant! Keenly aware
of simmering volcanic holes.
Of dinosaurs.
A train might jump the overpass!
Don’t reach to help a soul in need.-
You mustn’t walk or ride your bike.
Don’t ever drive.
Please, do not jog!
No ice cream in your easy chair.
It’s dangerous.
While you should not sleep in your bed-
Never, I implore you, dears-
Never doze off on your couch!
A firing squad could get a key
burst inside
shout and scream-
all that in nine seconds, flat-
and take you out…
Silly me.
…what chance
of that….
copyright: Brenda Cave-James c2/2022
FIRE!
(For Nikole Hannah -Jones and the late Toni Morrison)
Before coffee or comb
this morning it came.
From tellers and sayers
from since
time began.
Something from
my great grandmothers came.
Black. White. High Yellow. Tan.
Skin beaten purple.
Barefoot. Pregnant in high heels.
However confined
they fantasized-
practiced sass.
How is it they know
ancient
lyrical
sing-song strains?
Fire cannot be burned.
Fear not, friends-
Sisters, brethren of the pen!
With scribbled unkempt pages
of knowledge and necessary.
We’ll serve up your forbidden fruits
from baskets weighing on our heads.
They cannot ban nor arrest our souls-
collect chewed pencils
toss our tongues
in bloody piles.
They cannot burn fire.
It came to me this morning
before the rush and grind of day.
Poets are created
by and for the Creator.
Appointed, empowered.
Anointed, endowed.
Keepers.
Truthers of light and dark.
Knighted with a two-edged blade
for truth in mystery,
truth in beauty,
truth in foul, odious things-
’tis planted in a poetess
like seed in womb.
Slayers, we are
of liars and demagoguery.
At first light before coffee
it came-
after sirens wailed warnings.
They’re disappearing books with words.
Hiding milk and honey.
Water. Meat. Oxygen.
Truth.
Powers in print
to undress Miss Ann-
peep Ofay’s hold card.
Deflate lionized rapers
of flesh and mind
and spirit
and land.
Poets know instinctively
euphorically
with beckoning blank paper-
to write,
then sing
or bellow
in righteous indignation.
They can bury books.
They cannot burn fire.
copyright: Brenda Cave-James c2/4/22
PRESS IN NY TIMES, March 26, 2022
“Descendants Trace Histories Linked by Slavery.” by Amanda Holpuch
Find Anne C. Bailey's non-fiction book : 
