Christine Taylor (editor)
Lift Every Voice: An Anthology of Poetry
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USD $12.00
59 pages Released October 2019 ISBN: 978-0-578-49203-2 A collection of poetry by twenty-eight contemporary writers, Lift Every Voice pays homage to the Black National Anthem penned by James Weldon Johnson in 1900 as a celebration of the perseverance and grit necessary to liberate our voices. Featuring work by the following writers: Aremu Adams Adebisi • Adedayo Agarau • Anthony AW • Jai Hamid Bashir • Melanie Bell • Meagan Cahuasqui • Jason B. Crawford • Kym Cunningham • Alexandre Ferrere • helga floros • Scott Manley Hadley • Faleeha Hassan • Juleigh Howard-Hobson • Naya Jackson • Keana Águila Labra • Bobbi Lurie • Jeremy Mifsud • Anna Press • Dani Putney • Julia Edith Rios • Aleah Sato • Cecilia Savala • Tamara Sellman • Megha Sood • Lazarus Trubman • Faye Turner-Johnson • Julie Weiss • Salam Wosu |
Excerpt
Trail of Blood by Faye Turner-Johnson
...we have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
we have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered...
—“Lift Every Voice and Sing,” James Weldon Johnson, J. Rosamond Johnson
my blood bleeds African red
all over the streets of America
it spills forth from the soil of cotton plantations
from the internment camps
of sharecropper farms
lynchings...cross burnings
following the north star's bloody trail to tenement slums
illegitimate slayings in the concrete jungle
blood spewing from puncture wounds
inflicted by officers of lawlessness
ordered to eviscerate the crime of non-white skin color
bullets to the back...severed spines...suffocation
our grief...tears...mocked
soothing the souls of bestial perpetrators
underground...over-ground
a movement toward Polaris in transformation
tentacles spreading...reaching farther...wider
gaining strength...marching forward
to a place beyond bullets...bomb threats...fire hoses
beyond tasers...beatings...pepper spray
Martin swore the promised land...the Family Stone vowed to take us higher
if now be the time...we stand ready
to stop the blood of Africa bleeding all over this land
...we have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
we have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered...
—“Lift Every Voice and Sing,” James Weldon Johnson, J. Rosamond Johnson
my blood bleeds African red
all over the streets of America
it spills forth from the soil of cotton plantations
from the internment camps
of sharecropper farms
lynchings...cross burnings
following the north star's bloody trail to tenement slums
illegitimate slayings in the concrete jungle
blood spewing from puncture wounds
inflicted by officers of lawlessness
ordered to eviscerate the crime of non-white skin color
bullets to the back...severed spines...suffocation
our grief...tears...mocked
soothing the souls of bestial perpetrators
underground...over-ground
a movement toward Polaris in transformation
tentacles spreading...reaching farther...wider
gaining strength...marching forward
to a place beyond bullets...bomb threats...fire hoses
beyond tasers...beatings...pepper spray
Martin swore the promised land...the Family Stone vowed to take us higher
if now be the time...we stand ready
to stop the blood of Africa bleeding all over this land
About the Editor
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Christine Taylor (she/her) resides in her hometown Plainfield, New Jersey (a.k.a. “The Queen City”), and is an English teacher and part-time librarian. She holds a B. A. in English and Pan African Studies from Drew University, an M. A. in English Literature from National University, and an M. L. I. S. from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.
She is the Editor-in-Chief of Kissing Dynamite: A Journal of Poetry, a humble online journal featuring poetry, art, and music, and the founder of Kissing Dynamite Poetry Press. She also serves as assistant editor at Human/Kind Journal. Her first poetry chapbook The Queen City (2019) is available through Broken Sleep Books. Find her online at christinetayloronline.com. |
