Art. Culture. Life. A World.

Musings on the journeys we take...

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Got Optimism?

Dear...,

I want to be optimistic. I do. And, I admit, I recently told my partner that I am incredibly full of hope, silly, poetic hope, but I must say times are dire and serious for a country when a black politician as eloquent and as solid as Obama, still, must defend his blackness.

I don't know what this blog will be. But I am a 39-year old black(red) woman writer and mother. I am the daughter of Midwest roots, by way of NC. I have traded words, in public and private, for many things over the last seventeen years. Now is the time to do something, to write something, to say something, using what little I have learned, earned, and, yes, hoped for, when I decided to be a writer.

In Hope. In Peace.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Blog more, everyday, twice a day!

Shonda Buchanan said...

Here's the deal, today. Have been think writing poems about the many things that have happened in the last week, since Theo Smalling's death, the shooting at Ft. Hood and Florida, the discovery of bones, 5 years worth, in a rapist's home in Cleveland, so much more, but it is daunting, the task of being the poet, the task of giving the testimonial to make sense of it. I think, and I think and haven't written yet. So I have to think about what was beautiful that happened instead. Tonight, Friday, my husband brought me my favorite Nina Simone CD. I only had the cassette tape, and he brought me Nina. Then he cooked, on a Friday. African red-red and plantains. And he smiled his warm, I-love-you-for-you smile. So that is good. Purely good. And I'll hang on to that for tonight and tomorrow. Maybe I will write something tomorrow, a new poem for the Nov. 13 reading at Selden Arcade. DT Norfolk. Maybe I'll read something about Theo. Something hopeful, something redemptive for those of us left behind. Thanks bwb. I'll try to write twice again.