Queen Mother Dorothy Height

Poem by Askia Muhammad performed for African American, civil rights leader Dr. Dorothy I. Height before her 95th birthday in 2006.

ALVIN L. A. HORN

When love enters into your life it will never leave you. Love builds us up and tears us down, allowing us to grow again. A story of the past, good and bad painted into the present and future through a romantic erotic journey...
ALVIN L. A. HORN

 BRUSH STROKES-- a story about a man who gives up on love because of how it has hurt him in the past. His lifestyle and passions let women be near him, but not close enough to let any new possibility of love take control of him. But love is strange in how it finds it's way to us. Yet when it finds us, will we do what it takes to keep it?
ALVIN L. A. HORN

 Alvin Lloyd Alexander Horn, who goes by Alvin L.A. Horn, is an acclaimed

spoken word artist, poet, and musician. He is the 2012 Billboard Awards Best Male Expressionist of the year Erotic- sensual Romantic spoken word Artist. Born in the Northwest and his poetry, short stories and novels are the byproduct of growing up in the Seattle lifestyle of social awareness. He feels his writing was triggered by his mother sending him to the library when she placed him "on restriction, often for daydreaming in school.” He also credits the "little gray-haired Jewish lady, the librarian," an internment camp survivor for introducing him to the likes of Richard Wright and Zora Neale Hurston. Upon reading the work of Nikki Giovanni Alvin knew he wanted to b...more

                   ALVIN L. A. HORN - The Lonely Sun Alvin Lloyd Alexander Horn, video poem, THE LONELY SUN For his romantic novels, spoken word CD's and and written poetry visit http://alvinhorn.com

                 ALVIN L. A. HORN - Mountain Top

                ALVIN L. A. HORN - I Am That Man

Def Poetry - Amiri Baraka - Why is We Americans (+playlist)

Sista My Sista (+playlist)

Live Performance at Afrodisiac 9/17/2010. Featuring Elijah H. Muied/6 Deep the Messenger with musical accompaniment by Alvin L. A. Horn/Romantic Blues & Frenchie C. Lamont

avalon-if My people pray (+playlist)

Now is the season for healing
Deeply we need to see, God's mercy revealing
Where we have fallen from his ways
For we know he gives hope to the humble,
gives light in the darkness, and grace when we stumble
Let us, call on His name, together, knowing he will say

If my people pray
and reach for me with hearts, that are broken
I will not forget what I've spoken
Come and seek my grace
Heaven will rain, rivers of my grace, overflowing
Night and day my ears will be open...
If my people pray

Now is the day to awaken, to pray with conviction,
for the souls of the nation
(So) let us, call on His name
Whose faithful, promise still remain

If my people pray
and reach for me with hearts, that are broken
I will not forget what I've spoken (oo)
Come and seek my grace (seek ye and..)
Heaven will reign, rivers of my grace, overflowing
Night and day my ears will be open...
If my people pray

Let us not grow weary as we wait for the day
When the Light turns our night into morning
All we need is to call your name
As we lift our hearts to Heaven (yeah)
Knowing You will say...

If my people pray
and reach for me with hearts, that are broken
I will not forget what I've spoken (oo)
Come and seek my grace (seek ye and...)
Heaven will reign, rivers of my grace, overflowing
Night and day my ears will be open...
If my people pray(oo)
If my people pray

"Come Back Pharoah" - Amiri Baraka w/ Gwen Guthrie (1972)

Beautiful Black Women by Amiri Baraka

His Day is Done - A Tribute Poem for Nelson Mandela by Dr. Maya Angelou

A BLACK WOMAN'S SMILE BY TY GRAY EL: SPOKEN WORD

Everything Happens For a Reason

"Everything Happens for a Reason" Sometimes people come into your life and you know right away that they were meant to be there, to serve some sort of purpose, teach you a lesson, or to help you figure out who you are or who you want to become. You never know who these people may be (possibly your roommate, neighbor, teacher, fraternal brother or sister, long lost friend, lover, or even a complete stranger), but when you lock eyes with them, you know that at that very moment they will affect your life in some profound way. And sometimes things happen to you that may seem horrible, painful, and unfair at first, but in reflection you find that without overcoming those obstacles you would have never realized your potential, strength, willpower, or heart. Everything happens for a reason. Nothing happens by chance or by means of good luck. Illness, injury, love, lost moments of true greatness, and sheer stupidity all occur to test the limits of your soul. Without the small tests, whatever they may be, life would be like a smoothly paved, straight flat road to nowhere. It would be safe and comfortable, but dull and utterly pointless. The people you meet who affect your life, and the success and downfalls you experience, help to create who you are and who you become. Even the bad experiences can be learned from. In fact, they are probably the most poignant and important ones. If someone hurts you, betrays you, or breaks your heart, forgive them, for they have helped you learn about trust and the importance of being cautious to when you open your heart. If someone loves you, love them back unconditionally, not only because they love you, but because in a way, they are teaching you to love and how to open your heart and eyes to things. Make every day count. Appreciate every moment and take from those moments everything that you possibly can for you may never be able to experience it again. Talk to people that you have never talked to before, and actually listen. Let yourself fall in love, break free, and set your sights high. Hold your head up because you have every right to. Tell yourself you are a great individual and believe in yourself, for if you don’t believe in yourself, it will be hard for others to believe in you. You can make your life anything you wish. Create your own life and then go out and live it with absolutely no regrets. Most importantly, if you love someone tell them, for you never know what tomorrow may have in store. And finally, enjoy looking forward to learning a new lesson each day and enjoying the journey.

Julianne Malveaux News Update Promo

Oh, THIS is JULIANNE Malveaux --- but of COURSE!   Why was I thinking SUZANNE Malveaux.
Momma got the goods on and has had for a very long time.  A great speaker and one to be reckoned with.

Shihan - Father's Day

Def Poetry - Black Ice - Or Die

Sunni Patterson - We Made It

Talib Kweli - Def Poetry Jam

Def Poetry Jam- Alicia Keys

Def Poetry: Floetry- "Fantasize" (Official Video)

Def Poetry: Jill Scott

Amazing  POETRY in SONG . . . .

Stayceyann Chin "Feminist or a Womanist"

"I will be a hummingbird" - Wangari Maathai

A Poem for Dreamers

       A Poem for Dreamers
Written by ShyPoet1

    You lean into my eyes and you see rivers
Old rivers that stagnate in the past
Their fingers touch floors of this world
And wrap around the Blackness of my skin
Muddy, long, wet rivers
Like my 'peoples' path
And they flow everywhere

    In the deep brown scars in my eyes
You see how things used to be ...
Pyramids
And chains
And master mentality arrangements ...
Rigged hard like hot cotton fields
And you hope they never change
You see what you were told to see,
But, I, only wanted you to see me

   Now I talk to rivers
And the rivers talk back to me
They linger like dreams
And spread their life to everywhere
Like my 'peoples'
Even on the shores of a defeatist society ...

   Now I walk in deserts
Deserts of broken hopes and dreams
They seem to be everywhere ...
Black and White and blue ... - Yellow too
Now I see deserts of my people
But, I'm left wondering if ...
They truly see themselves?
As these old rivers, and truth, dry up to dust ....

   So many rivers have flowed through us
In bright and lustrous hearts
Poets remind us of what we can still be,
Maya
Langston
Malcolm X and Martin too ...
And many new Poets flew ...

   No, not like raisons dying in the sun
No, not like servants and lesser things
No, not like inferiors and a doomed beings ...
But, like Captains and Presidents
Soon we'll be Saints and Saviors too ...
And all American heroes for you ...

   Dreamers and cloud walkers
My 'peoples', my hopes
-- All walked inside the dream
They made dreams reality;
In the highlands and the low lands
The rivers flowed ...

   In dark darkness and smooth light
Like my 'peoples'
Each one of them, will love you too ...
And someday, the rivers
Like my 'peoples'
Shall flow again
Great the vision and dreams
Wise the rivers flow ...

Dr. Maya Angelou - Love Liberates

Mom & Me & Mom,

      from Mom & Me & Mom, by Maya Angelou (2013), to share with you



       Frequently, I have been asked how I got to be this way. How did I, born black in a white country, poor in a society where wealth is adored and sought after at all costs, female in an environment where only large ships and some engines are described favorably by using the female pronoun—how did I get to be Maya Angelou?

Many times I have wanted to quote Topsy, the young black girl in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. I have been tempted to say, “I dunno. I just growed.” I never used that response, for a number of reasons. First, because I read the book in my early teens and the ignorant black girl embarrassed me. Second, I knew that I had become the woman I am because of the grandmother I loved and the mother I came to adore.

Their love informed, educated, and liberated me. I lived with my paternal grandmother from the time I was three years old until I was thirteen. My grandmother never kissed me during those years. However, when she had company, she would summon me to stand in front of her visitors. Then she would stroke my arms asking, “Have you ever seen arms more beautiful, straight as a plank and brown as peanut butter?” Or she would give me a tablet and a pencil. She would call out numbers to me in front of her company.

“All right sister, put 242, then 380, then 174, then 419; now add that.” She would speak to the visitors, “Now watch. Her uncle Willie has timed her. She can finish that in two minutes. Just wait.”

When I told the answer, she would beam with pride. “See? My little professor.”

Love heals. Heals and liberates. I use the word love, not meaning sentimentality, but a condition so strong that it may be that which holds the stars in their heavenly positions and that which causes the blood to flow orderly in our veins.

This book has been written to examine some of the ways love heals and helps a person to climb impossible heights and rise from immeasurable depths.

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poetry i love (playlist)