Category Archives: Charles White

Charles White Endures – Updates 21-A and 22-A

January 16, 2012

Two new poems have been added to “Charles White Endures”
21-A. Charles White Shelters “Harriet”
harriet taubman
harriet anyone
my aunt harriet
flees north
blanketed under
blood eyes
wary on
you

To see “Harriet” by Charles White, please click here
22-A. Charles White Lights
video in sunny
hollywood hill gallery
recalls ‘seventy-seven
exhibit here featuring
charles white artwork
and interview skin
collapsing from bony
face he rasps about ideas
art and decries even
concept [...]

Also posted in Art, Drugs, Harriet Taubman, Los Angeles, Painters, Poetry - GTC, Slavery, Tobacco, Tuberculosis

Amiri Baraka Clears Mind

January 14, 2012

decades ago when poet amiri baraka’s
surname jones rebuked for obscenity by
langston hughes in essay “that boy leroi”
boy now almost eighty on stage with
fiftyish daughter at hammer museum and
can’t remember abstract impressionist
painter who dripped
jackson pollock she said
and the mexican muralist my man
diego rivera she said
baraka generally lucid especially recalling
duke ellington said imagine if we were in
place [...]

Also posted in Amiri Baraka, Art, Diego Rivera, Duke Ellington, Economics, Hammer Museum, Jackson Pollock, Music, Painters, Poetry, Poetry - GTC, Poverty

Charles White Endures – Updates 25 & 26

November 29, 2011

Two new poems have been added to Charles White Endures
25. Housing Update for Charles White
rolling hills road’s
still pretty
houses decent
don’t know which
was yours
driving out
canyon route
shaded by
dense trees
two unpleasant
young men
interrupt
stepping onto road
waving to stop
i speed by
to see barred
altadena windows
and guys who
built them
sitting around
wish you’d sometimes
painted that
too
26. Mural News for Charles White
endless steel
cages surround
mary mcleod bethune
library [...]

Also posted in Art, Los Angeles, Painters, Racism

Charles White Endures

October 29, 2011

(These poems were originally published out of chronological order and are here reorganized to form a life story.)
1. Goodbye Father
daddy’s dead but
momma says we’ve got
to sit way back in church
and from there
i watch everyone
especially the family
in front
crying even harder
and realize where
daddy’s been
six days a week
2. “The Drinker”
you’re home
and i’m still awake
dreading [...]

Also posted in Alabama, Art, Chicago, Civil War - American, Elizabeth Catlett, Hammer Museum, Harriet Taubman, John Brown, Los Angeles, Marriage, Mexico, Murals, Nat Turner, New York City, Newspapers, Painters, Pasadena, Poetry - GTC, Racism, Slavery, Tobacco, Tuberculosis