Welcome to Poetically Yours. Poetically Yours showcases poems by northern Illinois poets but today WNIJ is closing out National Poetry month with work by Wisconsin poet Charles Payne.
Payne was born in Michigan. He currently resides in Madison, Wisconsin. As a child, he loved hearing the sound of Paul Harvey’s voice. Payne said Harvey’s innate ability to describe every intricate detail truly inspired him.
Payne’s works explore personal narrative and social commentary from his experience as a working poor Black male dying to live and living to die.
He's performed at poetry slams and is the winner of the ALL Originals prize for his poem “Dead End.” Payne also wrote a book entitled "Love, Payne, Hate and Adversity."
This week, he's sharing his confidence of vaccinations in his poem "The Cure."
put needle in skin
let the vaccine seep in
no withholding food or medicine
no poisoning Black & Indigenious North Americans
biased malpractice still exists
We no longer their experiments
Sarah Baartmen
Henrietta Lacks
We can trust a vaccine
designed by a woman who’s Black
but what about our First Nation’s
ghosts of racist’s past
turning their ugly head
when we ask
about Aboriginal children
government made lab rats
can’t go from to sea to sea
to the great white north
study unethical, tuskegee
wards of state, custody
north star ain’t set Us free
can’t stand in liberation, solidarity
racism is a virus with no cure
a vaccine will help us endure
racism is a virus with no cure
a vaccine will help us endure
- Yvonne Boose is a current 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.
