Welcome to Poetically Yours, where you'll hear the voices of Illinois poets as they share their words about the world around them. This week features Leaux of FourPoets, OneMic. It's called "Today."
Today Today I walked to class Wind wept Trees swayed My jacket grabbed my hand I stopped and I realized Life goes on without you Tears be wind We wept Like willows in water So Consider me tsunami Like tears (tares) in water Tears came in waves Trail of tears Like tear stained faces But I was also your shelter you held me during the storm I gave you ground Like trees stuck in their ways You thought you gave me breath [But fake can't die] Today I walked to class Wind wept Trees swayed My jacket grabbed my hand Today I wrote this poem And realized rain don’t reign forever if you don’t give it a throne [And you were my downpour] Today I walked to class And I stopped and I knew... Like storm It’ll pass
Aliya Bailey, who goes by the stage name Leaux The Heaux, is a spoken word artist from northern Illinois. She’s been writing and performing her whole life but started taking her craft seriously in 2013. She's a published playwright from Free Street Theater where she has helped to write and act in original performances. As of late, she cofounded a poetry group called ‘FourPoets, OneMic’ on the campus of Northern Illinois University. When she’s not putting on shows and guest performing, you can catch her and the group competing in local poetry slams. To keep up with her and the group, you can follow her personal Instagram @leauxtheheaux, and the group’s page @fourpoetsonemic.
- Yvonne Boose is a 2020 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of the GroundTruth Project. It's a national service program that places talented journalists in local newsrooms like WNIJ. You can learn more about Report for America at wnij.org.
