The Brightness of Fire: Poems From Another Time

The Brightness of Fire Poems From Another Time is a collection of poems written many years ago when I was a young woman. They are a plaintive cry to the wind, an accusation of the injustices and racial oppression that existed at that time. Restricted to the back of the bus, and legally obligated to give up my seat, even there, to any white person without a seat, was but one of the hundreds of laws that were designed to establish and subsequently ensure that I remained inferior, unequal, disenfranchised and less than human. Coming of age in the sixties, I along with millions of other Blacks were angry, frustrated, and resolved. We looked with clear eyes at the events of the day, waiting for the movement that would propel us out of the alternative reality where we dwelled into the world of reality. Our heroes became Stokely Carmichael, Angela Davis, Malcolm X, The Black Panthers, Martin Luther King, Jr, Rosa Parks, Rap Brown, Muhammad Ali, Nelson Mandela, Farrakhan, Huey Newton, and Bobby Seals for they, in their actions, were the ones we had been waiting for. They were the ones willing to die for our rights to be treated as humans. These poems speak of those times, those people, and those injustices, for those were the ideas and people about which poets write. Because forgiveness is the disciplined decision to give up ones justified right for revenge, I surmise that I and millions of fellow African-Americans today have forgiven America for its past sins. It is the racist actions that still plague us today, however, that stand accused and are in need of repentance.