During our most recent workshop, Hyde Park began our session by attempting to fill in a map of the United States. This sparked a discussion about what it means to be part of a nation, the places in the US that dominate our consciousness, and who gets to decide what the United States is and who belongs. Looking into the past, we read an excerpt from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and learned about a long tradition of Black poets responding to his work, which maps out his ideas about America’s vast populations and landscape in a pre-emancipation America. Poets then wrote poems reflecting on what their America looks and feels like.
Ms. Gholston
“The PC” Poetry Club
“America’s Nation”
by Jeremiah S.
America has a lot of folk
Some call themselves woke
All the good people croak and many others
are broke
Too many smoke from the stick they hold
and the one you get hit with
OF dominated the US nation causing an
Inflation of girls giving in to temptation
The folk in our nation claim fame is
domination
“America”
by Tai’Shaun Allen
My America is greatness
The aroma from McDonald’s
The electricity powering my phone
The one that holds power
Is President Trump
These thoughts of triumph in wars
The thought of more fathers
“We are the people,” and we
Are the people who brought this
together.
In the newly built houses
I see the goat Malcolm
The only X mark on the
Calendar
