Welcome to Poetically Yours. Poetically Yours showcases poems by northern Illinois poets. This episode features Scott Suma.
Suma lives in Rockford. He has many published works and is known for his haikus. Today he is sharing his poem “I Wish I Was Black.” This is a cento poem. This poetry form is put together by using lines of poetry from other poets. It is sometimes referred to as a patchwork poem.
The writer credits can be found after the poem.
I Wish I Was Black
I’d be beautiful and somebody
Powerful with a purpose
A history and a future
Creative with a cause
My time would be now and always.
I Wish I Was Black
I would be a person of substance, of flesh and bones
My soul would grow deep like rivers
I’d have the nerve to walk my own way
I would arm myself with my conscience
And live in the along.
I Wish I Was Black
I’d refuse to get up
Get in good trouble
Find diamonds in the rough
Lift as I climb
I’d bring a folding chair.
I Wish I Was Black
I’d be both African and American
Engage in struggle and make progress
Ask myself, what am I doing for others?
I’d know nobody's free until everybody's free
I would join with anyone as long as they want to change the miserable conditions that exist on earth.
I Wish I Was Black
I’d shout I’m Black and I’m proud
I would face the rising sun, lift my voice and sing, and march on ‘til victory was won
I’d blow out what is in me
Play my guitar upside down
To thee I would sing.
I Wish I Was Black
I‘d steal home
Become queen of the court
Float like a butterfly and sting like a bee
Raise my fist, take a knee,
Let the world know I am not property.
I Wish I Was Black
I’d do the math to the moon and back
Gaze into the universe
I’d keep your heart beating just fine
Or cut you open and fix it
I’d bring you blood on the battlefield.
I Wish I Was Black
I’d have body and soul
Feast on sweet potato pie
Say “Amen”
Overcome
Rise, rise, rise.
References
Line 1 Scott Suma
Line 2 Grandassa Models and Jesse Jackson
Line 3 Stokely Carmichael
Line 4 Dr. Carter G. Woodson
Line 5 Harlem Renaissance
Line 6 Black Lives Matter
Line 7 Scott Suma
Line 8 Ralph Ellison
Line 9 Langston Hughes
Line 10 Zora Neale Hurston
Line 11 James Baldwin
Line 12 Gwendolyn Brooks
Line 13 Scott Suma
Line 14 Claudette Colvin, Rosa Parks
Line 15 John Lewis
Line 16 Mary McCleod Bethune
Line 17 Mary Church Terrel
Line 18 Shirley Chisolm
Line 19 Scott Suma
Line 20 W.E.B. DuBois
Line 21 Fredrick Douglas
Line 22 Rev. M.L.K. Jr.
Line 23 Fanny Lou Hamer
Line 24 Malcolm X
Line 25 Scott Suma
Line 26 James Brown
Line 27 James Weldon Johnson
Line 28 Louis Armstrong
Line 29 Jimi Hendrix
Line 30 Marian Anderson
Line 31 Scott Suma
Line 32 Jackie Robinson
Line 33 Serena Williams
Line 34 Muhammad Ali
Line 35 Tommie Smith, John Carlos, Colin Kaepernick
Line 36 Curt Flood
Line 37 Scott Suma
Line 38 Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughn, and Mary Jackson
Line 39 Neil deGrasse Tyson
Line 40 Otis Boykin
Line 41 Daniel Hale Williams
Line 42 Charles Drew
Line 43 Scott Suma
Line 44 Coleman Hawkins (Johnny Green)
Line 45 Donna Henderson
Line 46 Thomas Dorsey
Line 47 Charles Albert Tindley, Atron Twigg and Kenneth Morris
Line 48 Maya Angelou
- 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.
