Anthology 19/20
Poems every black girl should read.
I AM A BLACK GIRL by April Chukwueke
With your head down and tears falling from your eyes
Listen to my words of wisdom and please don’t cry
You are so smart and beautiful beyond belief
Yet I know that your life has been filled with heartbreak and grief
Being told that your lips are too big for your face
Or that you are “too white,” even for your own race
You worry about the ways that you walk and speak
You try to be nice and turn the other cheek
But turning the other cheek doesn’t always work
Sometimes you want to scream and go berserk
You always go outside and scream your heart out to the world
And then you remember you’re so cute and twirled
You remember that your chocolate skin shines under the sun
It shines so brightly that you show it off by going for a run
You run so fast that you feel free like a bird
You are so beautiful that no one can say a word
The two words that describe you are beautiful and intelligent
You have black girl magic so rock your melanin.
To Black Women by Gwendolyn Brooks
https://kentakepage.com/five-inspirational-poems-for-black-women/
Sisters,
where there is cold silence
no hallelujahs, no hurrahs at all, no handshakes,
no neon red or blue, no smiling faces
prevail.
Prevail across the editors of the world
who are obsessed, self-honeying and self-crowned
in the seduced arena.
It has been a
hard trudge, with fainting, bandaging and death.
There have been startling confrontations.
There have been tramplings. Tramplings
of monarchs and of other men.
But there remain large countries in your eyes.
Shrewd sun.
The civil balance.
The listening secrets.
And you create and train your flowers still.
Still I Rise by Maya Angelou
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
Black Girl by GoldenBrown
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1968111/black-girl/
Black girl scared of her own image,
Her own reflection
When she looks in the mirror she sees imperfection,
So she looks the other direction
Black girls mind is full of misperceptions
Bleaching her skin so she can be white enough
Straightening her hair cause white hair ain’t tough
But all her efforts are never good enough
Black girl you’re too loud
Black girl you’re so ratchet
Black girl don’t make a sound
Black girl just shut it
But loud is not ratchet
Boldness is simply passion
For you’re voice, black girl
Is the voice of generations who
Were subjected to oppression
They have tried to keep you quiet
They have tried to **** you and your pride
But black girl you haven’t died
Black girl you’re still alive
Black girl take full stride
Scrutinized about her lips
But Kylie gets praised
Scrutinized about her hips
But plastic surgeons get paid
To have that silicon made for the kardashians to put on display. Along with their “boxerbraids”
Correction
Their called cornrows
So I’m sorry if you were under the impression
That the style is Kim kardashians invention
But It was Worn by slaves and others all through out oppression
As a form of self expression
Only made possible through the hands of a true magician
Black girl you are magic
But that doesn’t mean you don’t feel
Black girl you are real
So don’t conceal all your ebony appeal
Dark eyes, thick thighs we don’t have to apologize
Don’t listen to the world and it’s lies
Whether dark,light, or mixed racial
Your skin, your hair and your soul
Are beautiful
Black girl they don’t see you’re value
And they won’t until you do
They have tried to keep you quiet
They have tried to **** you and your pride
But black girl you haven’t died
Black girl you’re still alive
Black girl take full stride
Black girl power
Not just black girl hour
Black girl this is your time
Black girl rise up and shine
Black girl get in formation
Take control of the situation
Demand the attention of the entire nation
Because everything about you is captivating
Black girl you are a queen
You don’t need sunscreen
For You’re skin was made to be sheer butter or as rich as coffee beans
I’m sorry it’s beauty goes unseen
Whether dark,light, or mixed racial
Your skin, your hair and your soul
Are beautiful
Black girl they don’t see you’re value
And they won’t until you do
For one thing is true
They only envy everything ebony about you
Visiting Whitney Plantation by Rio Cortez
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/poetmorganparker/four-love-poems-for-black-women-by-black-women
Clouds hanging so low they almost touch
the wooden colonnettes of the big house
the brick, held together by animal
fur and mud, bousillage, the hands
that formed it. I raise my arm and rub
the belly of a cloud
our tour guide is Black and doesn’t remark
on architectural flourishes. I am grateful
and still wiping sweat from my brow
We are in Wallace, Louisiana
looking for our people’s names
now upon a marble wall of 70,000
first names in no particular order
I sidestep a white man with a camera
so that I can take my mother’s
hand from her mouth and hold it
On the way to New Orleans we stop
to gather Spanish moss
a groundsman opens the gate after hours
he looks softly after my mother and me
could it be that he is one of us
I fill my purse with moss and unlock
the rental car
How cruel the sun must’ve been
to the slave, I think, when I get back
to our French Quarter hotel and lay
poolside in a two-piece
desperate, almost
The Black Woman by Diedre Williams
https://theblackdetour.com/6-black-centered-poems/
Ode to my dark skin by Fatima Iman
https://theblackdetour.com/6-black-centered-poems/
I am a black woman
the music of my song
some sweet arpeggio of tears
is written in a minor key
and I
can be heard humming in the night
Can be heard
humming
in the night
I saw my mate leap screaming to the sea
and I/with these hands/cupped the lifebreath
from my issue in the canebrake
I lost Nat’s swinging body in a rain of tears
and heard my son scream all the way from Anzio
for Peace he never knew….I
learned Da Nang and Pork Chop Hill
in anguish
Now my nostrils know the gas
and these trigger tire/d fingers
seek the softness in my warrior’s beard
I am a black woman
tall as a cypress
strong
beyond all definition still
defying place
and time
and circumstance
assailed
impervious
indestructible
Look
on me and be
renewed
To Black woman by Gwendolyn Brooks
https://kentakepage.com/five-inspirational-poems-for-black-women/
Sisters,
where there is cold silence
no hallelujahs, no hurrahs at all, no handshakes,
no neon red or blue, no smiling faces
prevail.
Prevail across the editors of the world
who are obsessed, self-honeying and self-crowned
in the seduced arena.
It has been a
hard trudge, with fainting, bandaging and death.
There have been startling confrontations.
There have been tramplings. Tramplings
of monarchs and of other men.
But there remain large countries in your eyes.
Shrewd sun.
The civil balance.
The listening secrets.
And you create and train your flowers still.
