Welcome to this week’s Poetically Yours. This segment features poetry from northern Illinois poets. Today’s segment features Estacious Charles White.
White is a poet and an educator. His work experience encompasses managing schools and teaching a variety of subjects. White found his passion for writing poetry, short fiction, playwriting and non-fiction over 25 years ago. He won one of six prizes in the Rockford New Play Festival with West Side Show Room for his play “Incarcerated Christmas.” He is married with three children. He's also a New Orleans native. Here’s his poem “I am a Blues Poet.”
I write the blues
With the blood of ancestors
I fill my pen
And scribble memories
Of hurt and hope
I am a blues poet
Guitar rifts sprinkle my soul
Dirty south growls
In every phrase I roll
Red dirt roads and cotton fields
Lace my words
Every syllable in my minds eye
Gives rise to field Hollas
And busted dreams
I am a blues poet
Guitar rifts sprinkle my soul
Dirty south growls
In every phrase I roll
Fedora tilted
As I walk words over decades
Of Blue Monday’s
And mannish trails
A wolf howls in the distance
As I Back Door Man my way
Into your heart
I am a blues poet
Guitar rifts sprinkle my soul
Dirty south growls
In every phrase I roll
- 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.
