"you with the full ashtray/ and empty scotch glass/ for a therapist/ you must have felt it/ because you've got/ a pocket full of lottery tickets/ for a financial strategy/ a vibrator for a love life."
— from "The Movement of a Trapped Animal."
This brotha here.
Jamaal May.
I'm feeling heads from Detroit. Everyone says the city is dying but every time I've been there the African-American community is doing something vibrant and reverent. Maybe that's what the death of a Midwestern city looks like.
Speaking of vibrant and reverent, I am going to participate in my very first Umoja Karamu ritual tomorrow.
The people who call Kwanzaa Black Christmas will call this Black Thanksgiving, but it's deeper than that. It was started in 1971 by Dr. Edward Sims and it's a ritual that vibrantly and reverently honors and acknowledge Black people from slavery to the present and beyond.
May's new book of poetry is called "Hum."
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