AfroPoets Famous Writers

Toomer


(Jean Toomer)

I did not wish to "rise above"
or "move beyond" my race. I wished


to contemplate who I was beyond
my body, this container of flesh.


I made up a language in which to exist.
I wondered what God breathed into me.


I wondered who I was beyond
this complicated, milk-skinned, genital-ed body.


I exercised it, watched it change and grow.
I spun like a dervish to see what would happen. Oh,


to be a Negro is-is?-
to be a Negro, is. To be.

Written by Elizabeth Alexander

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