ARTSPEAK! Harlem Renaissance poem "Let There Be Poetry"

Welcome to day #5 of 2018 ARTSPEAK!, in which I am focusing on art and artists from the Harlem Renaissance. It's also Spiritual Journey Thursday, and today we are gathering at Carol's Beyond LiteracyLink to talk about poetry as spiritual practice.

Before we get started, be sure to visit  Jan at bookseedstudio to read the next line of this year's Progressive Poem!

Today I'm continuing my Harlem Renaissance poetry project with Aaron Douglas who was often called the “official artist of the Harlem Renaissance," or the “Father of Black American Art.”

Aaron Douglas illustrated many books during the 1920's, and I learned in the book HARLEM STOMP! by Laban Carrick Hill that his work came to embody all that the Harlem Renaissance stood for – the culturally rich aspects of African-American life and heritage. So for the first week of this project, I will be writing after his work.

Aaron Douglas poems so far:

"Boy with Plane" after Boy with Plane by Aaron Douglas
"To a Dancer" after Sahdji (Tribal Women) by Aaron Douglas
"For the Builders" after Building More Stately Mansions by Aaron Douglas
"This Poem is a Dream" after Aspiration by Aaron Douglas

Today's piece is a powerful one. I love it so much that I very nearly made it the cover image for my project. Indeed, I DID make it my cover image, but then I showed it to some others, and they didn't think it screamed "Harlem Renaissance," so I went with another image (which I also love!).
Anyhow, this piece seemed perfect to me to do double-duty on this Spiritual Journey Thursday, in which we are talking about the spiritual practice of poetry.
What are we, if not creators? And where do these words come from anyway? What is more important to a spiritual life than gratitude? Isn't the best part sharing the words with others? So I tried to put all of that into today's poem. :) Which means my poem is longer than the ones I typically write for this series... which is fitting, right?

Let There Be Poetry

On that first bare day,

God said, these words are yours

and letters and syllables came

tumbling from his hands,

a monsoon of words –

some words were swallowed,

some were swept away; others hid,

and the rest declared themselves:

rainbow   butterfly     heartbeat

The bulging, soggy world

began to crumple,

so you said to God, what now?

And God was quiet for a long time.

Finally you heard it: Listen,

and the words will create you anew.

You did listen, and words

swarmed your skin,

nestled themselves into your eyes,

your ears, every crevice

until your beehive heart

was so swollen with words

you couldn't even cry out –

but God heard, and he said,

words are for giving away

and so you began with small words

yes    we   love

Soon you could breathe again,

and then words became phrases,

phrases evolved into poems –

poems and poems and poems

Yet somehow words didn't dry up,

they multiplied, spilled over,

and you didn't need God to tell you

that when it comes to poetry

there's always enough

for everyone

- Irene Latham