Translator: Riyad Almubarak Checker: Anwar Dafa-Alla
My name is Wes Matthew.
I am a 15 year old poet from the city of Detroit, Michigan.
I have the honor…
thank you.
(clap)
thank you.
(clap)
I have the honor to stand on this podium
To talk about my City Wade poets who care about poetry,
And to share with you a poem I wrote
Which I find so far has a very strong relationship with who I am.
City Wade Poets is a post-school non-profit organization dedicated to the arts of literature
For the youth of Detroit, Michigan,
For the category between 13 and 19 years.
Its goal is to inspire children to think in a broad and creative way,
Express themselves as human beings, and identify themselves as individuals.
I find it helped me in that regard
To gain more confidence in what I do and gain a definite love for what I do.
I love poetry too.
I thank the poets of City and supported me on this platform to talk to
And to do something so beautiful.
What I used to do this without poets City Wade, so …
I thank them for that.
But I also think it’s important for Detroit,
Because we are in a city where they take literary programs from our schools,
The poets of City and Id are present,
Giving students free space to express themselves creatively what they want
And think about the breadth.
I think that’s very important in the city of Detroit
Because students are gifted in a wonderful way,
But often do not find the platform for themselves
Or do not find the space they are offering
With satisfaction of their talents or their arts.
I think this is a good space to say,
“This is the arts, the arts are beautiful, the arts are good, the arts are you.
You can do that. “
So, that’s what was said,
I would like to present a poem I wrote a while ago.
Called, “Emmett to the end.”
(Lead) I saw his body distorted. Misplaced. The barbed wire surrounds the neck.
Eyes are bulky.
One or two rounds, soft tissue,
Hwina went to another South Saturday,
The bones and black flesh were stripped
Flow into Mony’s raging veins, summer Mississippi.
Or whatever the Chicago boy is calling for, which turns another river into blood.
A black boy gets a tributary for a coffin,
A courtroom raises his fingers, the white man boasts, “You killed him.”
“I thought of killing him,” “The best of them are colored in their places.”
Open the casket. Show me the dead.
Sirens of American History
Where the dead birds simulated dead dead hanging from poplar trees,
Hanging by a loop over a burnt pile of birds’ voices.
Perhaps, that’s how things are.
Perhaps what a BlackBerry never forgets is broken,
Such as a quirky system that chooses spiders of color, melanin matrix.
This coffin is still a capsule, Talahachi travels through time,
Flowing through the spark of summer, forever,
That the Mississippi courtroom would not be wet inside the hands of black boys.
Strong souls lose their luster under the weight of those trembling fingers
With a banner saying: “Black life is an important issue,”
Tell the truth to anyone who already knows the value of life
Wearing yesterday’s goals to face the lead today.
Whether brick in a water-filled mouth, broken airbrake,
Open coffin, or ashes scatter with wind,
The only fools who repeat themselves twice, America continues to stutter,
Imm … Imm … Imm, Imm, Imm even
Immit to the end. “
thank you.
(clap)
My name is Wes Matthew.
I am a 15 year old poet from the city of Detroit, Michigan.
I have the honor…
thank you.
(clap)
thank you.
(clap)
I have the honor to stand on this podium
To talk about my City Wade poets who care about poetry,
And to share with you a poem I wrote
Which I find so far has a very strong relationship with who I am.
City Wade Poets is a post-school non-profit organization dedicated to the arts of literature
For the youth of Detroit, Michigan,
For the category between 13 and 19 years.
Its goal is to inspire children to think in a broad and creative way,
Express themselves as human beings, and identify themselves as individuals.
I find it helped me in that regard
To gain more confidence in what I do and gain a definite love for what I do.
I love poetry too.
I thank the poets of City and supported me on this platform to talk to
And to do something so beautiful.
What I used to do this without poets City Wade, so …
I thank them for that.
But I also think it’s important for Detroit,
Because we are in a city where they take literary programs from our schools,
The poets of City and Id are present,
Giving students free space to express themselves creatively what they want
And think about the breadth.
I think that’s very important in the city of Detroit
Because students are gifted in a wonderful way,
But often do not find the platform for themselves
Or do not find the space they are offering
With satisfaction of their talents or their arts.
I think this is a good space to say,
“This is the arts, the arts are beautiful, the arts are good, the arts are you.
You can do that. “
So, that’s what was said,
I would like to present a poem I wrote a while ago.
Called, “Emmett to the end.”
(Lead) I saw his body distorted. Misplaced. The barbed wire surrounds the neck.
Eyes are bulky.
One or two rounds, soft tissue,
Hwina went to another South Saturday,
The bones and black flesh were stripped
Flow into Mony’s raging veins, summer Mississippi.
Or whatever the Chicago boy is calling for, which turns another river into blood.
A black boy gets a tributary for a coffin,
A courtroom raises his fingers, the white man boasts, “You killed him.”
“I thought of killing him,” “The best of them are colored in their places.”
Open the casket. Show me the dead.
Sirens of American History
Where the dead birds simulated dead dead hanging from poplar trees,
Hanging by a loop over a burnt pile of birds’ voices.
Perhaps, that’s how things are.
Perhaps what a BlackBerry never forgets is broken,
Such as a quirky system that chooses spiders of color, melanin matrix.
This coffin is still a capsule, Talahachi travels through time,
Flowing through the spark of summer, forever,
That the Mississippi courtroom would not be wet inside the hands of black boys.
Strong souls lose their luster under the weight of those trembling fingers
With a banner saying: “Black life is an important issue,”
Tell the truth to anyone who already knows the value of life
Wearing yesterday’s goals to face the lead today.
Whether brick in a water-filled mouth, broken airbrake,
Open coffin, or ashes scatter with wind,
The only fools who repeat themselves twice, America continues to stutter,
Imm … Imm … Imm, Imm, Imm even
Immit to the end. “
thank you.
(clap)
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