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Milwaukee, 1968
Say it loud! I’m black and I’m proud
—James Brown
I was there the day black stopped
being the worst thing you could call somebody.
Right on 16th Street between Friebrantz
and Olive. The day before, the exact same word
could get you beat up or spanked, but that morning
we turned on the radio and it was as if the sun had come out
of the closet, as if the moon was burning her underwear.
And we didn’t just stand around and watch
either. Me, Michael, Sherrie, David,
and Theresa—we marched up and down the street
singing ourselves into brand new people,
doing our part to free the nation.
And when the street lights came on, I marched
right up the stairs to our second floor flat
still singing loud and proud, praying my mother
had heard we weren’t colored anymore, kind of worried
and yet no turning back, marching around and around
the kitchen table, was not going to be moved,
was like a tree planted by Lake Michigan,
finally peeking over at my mother washing dishes,
spying her trying not to laugh
and wonder who I’d be if she’d done the opposite,
if by the following week we weren’t both wearing afros.
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Valencia Robin is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice includes poetry and painting. A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, her debut poetry collection, Ridiculous Light, won Persea Books’ Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize, was a finalist for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and was named one of Library Journal’s Best Poetry Books of 2019. She holds an MFA in Art & Design from the University of Michigan and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Virginia. She currently lives and teaches in Johnson City, Tennessee.
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Valencia Robin, Memory is a Strange Thing, 36 X 36, acrylic and pencil on canvas.
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Author: Terence Winch
