Lately, I've become accustomed to the way
The ground opens up and envelops me
Each time I go out to walk the dog.
Or the broad-edged silly music the wind
Makes when I run for the bus...
Things have come to that.
And now, each night I count the stars,
And each night I get the same number.
And when they will not come to be counted,
I count the holes they leave.
Nobody sings anymore.
And then last night, I tiptoed up
To my daughter's room and heard her
Talking to someone, and when I opened
The door, there was no one there...
Only she on her knees, peeking into
Her own clasped hands.
Leroi Jones
is
Amiri Baraka
And for extra credit, take a look at some other real motherfucking radicals.
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6 comments:
i like this a lot, but i don't think i like this guy very much. did you read all the way through his wikipedia page? kind of a lot of props to murder, rape, and general unfounded hatred.
No, I did. A question to ponder: Do we have to agree with everything to appreciate someone as an artist, a radical, a person, etc.
Do you appreciate Ghandi's work any less knowing that he beat his wife and was mostly an asshole?
Can you appreciate Marcus Garvey without agreeing with black nationalism?
Can you give props to the panthers and still support gun control?
Can you like Bukowski's poetry but not the misogynistic alcoholic asshole he actually was?
Things I've been thinking about for awhile now.
i feel that.
like i said, i like the piece, so i guess we're kind of agreeing.
i guess statements like "real radicals" throw me, because if you're giving props to the piece more than the person than that should be more clear, but i dig it.
and to that i can only reply:
une petition est un poeme; un poeme est une petition
I'd like to talk more about this. I've yet to really develop my thoughts on relativism, so let's work it out.
Also, and perhaps most importantly, what is a radical?
isn't there something sort of implied in "radical" that means we are likely to hate a part of that person?
what i mean is, it seems like we all contain good and evil (yeah, it's oversimplified)
those who are moderate in nature exercise this good and evil moderately, those who are radical in nature do so radically.
so...the good they do is radically good, and the bad radically bad, while moderate thinkers' good is less legendary, and the bad is less offensive.
Sometimes the radicals' good changes history, and sometimes the bad defaces it.
and, like anne said, it's possible for a radical's extreme expression of good and evil to positively affect some, and negatively affect others.
so do we still love the radicals? this seems to touch on the contradiction of being human. ..and all I know for sure is, if you chose to only love the wholly good people, you would find yourself unable to love anyone.
Anne...could this even come down to the "ends defeating the means"? cause I can hear Mr. Wells asking it now. 4 years later. "Is the impact they had worth the pain they caused?"
i dont know how long ago yall wrote this, but isn't this just barrels of fun
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