Elegy Poem for Amiri Baraka

Imamu,
I know your spirit lives on through poem and song.
free
as your words. your rhymes. your rhythm.
free
jazz rhythm. funk rhythm. love rhythm. blues rhythm.
you co-wrote the soul of rhythm. blues. people.
you had a blues all your own.
a lifetime expressed over one long blue note
Architect of the Black Arts Movement
you set pages afire
words incinerated
by a mouthpiece so sinister
still leaves some folks afraid to administer you the title of cultural hero
or heretic
but you lived
under wire
under fire
writing and speaking your own truth
"Slaveboy, leroy from Newark Hill"
speaking and writing your known truth
your
revolutionary optimism
political in/correctness
unapologetically thinking
unapologetically speaking
your goddamn mind.

By Danielle Hall


Related:
Coverage on Amiri Baraka's passing