i believe etheridge can move stones...

i don't wanna say too much, because i'm gonna say a helluva lot on tuesday for the graaaaand presentation. but, i wish to share how deeply in love with etheridge's words i am, as well as am marveled by his life. as all great artists are, they have their triumphant moments, where the word saves them, and those demons that haunt them for most of their life -- the "monkey on the back", my folks call it. but i can safely say, up until now, no other artist we've read has moved me like etheridge. many have put me in spells, no doubt; but i hadn't felt that soul grip, reading on the bus (or even on the way to the club. i know. what the hell. *NERD*)

one particular poem that stood out to me in its music, and its longing for stillness and peace of the soul, is "a poem for myself (or, blues for a mississippi black boy)." it resonated for me, in its brief story of etheridge that he allows us to see (leaving home at 12, ie, 1943, his father, an alcoholic, so "irreverent" as to be piss drunk on a Sunday morning - damn). his opening the poem with "i was born in mississippi; / i walked barefooted thru the mud.  / born Black in mississippi; i walked barefooted thru the mud" seeks to remind readers that he has roots in the deep south that cannot be undone, no matter where his feet land in the world. the repetition drives this point home. this is where his blues began, his pain. he sought out what most Black folks in the south sought out during that time period: the desires of the North, the "better life" ahead. but, why would a 12 year old leave home to seek this out? i am told on one hand by his bio that his family moved to indianapolis, but etheridge reveals that his father did not come with him. from the "my daddy chopped cotton" line, he reveals that they were sharecroppers as well, doing the grueling work to maintain the land they rented.

what sticks out for me most, though, are these lines:

I been to Detroit & Chicago

Been to New York City too,

I been to Detroit & Chicago

Been to New York City too.

Said I done strolled all those funky avenues

I’m still the same old black boy with the same old blues.

Etheridge recognizes the privilege he had to venture to these big cities, but the act of moving away never fully cured the pain that he carried with him since childhood.  All these funky avenues, full of entertainment, art, music, distractions, drugs. Moreover, in these cities he maintained his drug habit to escape from it, which only numbed it.This line struck a chord for me, as having been "the one" to move away and see many cities and towns across the US and Cuba, but how as a poet, we are constantly writing for (or against) our childhoods, consciously or subconsciously. I don't have the same old blues per se, but home never leaves my veins, no matter how far I go. The title "A Poem For Myself" appears an attempt to heal from that pain through writing, as we all must write for self-therapy now and again; if we don't, how will we ever focus to lend these words to something or someone else?

Nevertheless, Etheridge knew that going back was an option after all. The ending is chilling -- "Going back to Mississippi/this time to stay for good/Gonna be free in Mississippi/or die in the Mississippi mud." (I wonder how long he stayed...not long, it seems, even though he says "to stay for good".) Mississippi hasn't exactly cuddled up next to the word "free" for Black folks in the 20th century (Nina Simone standing out, namely), but something about being home for him had the possibility of being free. Perhaps he imagined being free from his own demons, after all this time, or having time to reflect and move forward. He was also aware of the strong possibility of not being free, at all, and ending up dead on the same mud he placed his footprints as a child. Either he'd die the hands of white supremacists, or, from his own self  -- "Poem for Me (after recovering from an OD)" showed that he had been given a second chance at life already. 

Dammit, I've said too much. Oh, well. I just love this man's work. I'll end Tuesday's teaser here! AHAHA. Hearts!