Griots Poems - Poems about Griots

TO THE TASK AHEAD FOR OUR WRITERS

...TO THE TASK AHEAD FOR OUR WRITERS

No one can write our story but us;
His story merely footnotes us:-
In the culture of the penned word,
We must personally ink ourstory;
Footnoting history’s ke...

President

...Don’t be like that elephant that caused the infants
to slaughter one another indifferent to its posterity
he lifted the corrupt dropped the ripe and bullied 
the resolute warrior 

don’t be like...

Of Allegorical Echoers

...(Apropos of Black Poetic Griots)

We may not be deemed apostolic recorders
But we poets, guided with divine wisdom, are
The lay scribes thereof in the chronicling of
Our life’s sojourn in the sh...

Awake, Walking In Faith

...Loneliness brings tears...
				Togetherness brings tears too:
				Despair can't bring joy...

With needles of pain
I crocheted emotions
into a web of depression
cocooning myself in defeat

C...

Lineage

...Never forsake the lineage in which we
originated from because
the ancestors are watching us
Their eyes are on the sparrow
anticipating us to soar into
our excellence 
Wash ourselves in their ro...

Smiling With the Ancestors

...Smile if I could
smile if I would
smile as I should…
I can see 
ancestors smiling
down on you and me…
They’re singing
for us to lean
on them when 
we feel weak
for they are 
with us
like ...

Eulogy To Mrs Aminat Olaboopo

...EULOGY TO MRS (Ph.D) ALIHAJA, AMINAT OLABOOPO                                        
I
From ‘Asabari’, I stand on the moon
Blowing the flute of ‘Okere’
Telling the tale of your heroic arrival.
...

Africa Under Siege

...Africa is raped. The continent of life is pumped dry, and the colonizer won’t stop, ’till he is stopped. And blocked.

We pay colonial tax for the baskets we have weaved. Our own weaved baskets. We...

Poets That We Are

...Poets That We Are…

Poets are umbilical cords—
chosen links of the pregnant mind
and its births—amniotic guardians
of the poetic descendent.

As mere servants of the word,
we cannot be more o...

Who Are We But Who We Are

...Who Are WE but Who We Are…

We are the conscience of the heart;
custodians of its emotions—conjuring,
molding and etching its most sacred feelings
upon the canvas of time’s time;

We are devot...

Dance of Gladiators and Amazons

...ah! ’tis blue azure greet’ng the dark maidens
dancers of the ancient drums of my warriors
yea! the ever-ready danc’ng mbari maidens
o, dancers amid the smooth-throat’d hunters –

’tis like an ev...

A Letter To the Humans

...We, are your friends
We spend each and every day with you including the weekends
Become your griots in the night, singing close to your eardrums
Our race love to dance, but you pretend to clap at ...

Two - O - One - Six

...I heard, foremost; that you were grave,
then heard that you were excellent.

For by some ‘men’ you turned a slave,
who served them everywhere they went.

That you were grave: without remorse.
...

The New Griots--Pouring Down Raining Words

...The New Griots—Pouring Down Raining Words
From the wombs
of our pregnant minds
may our charged words
drop like God’s tears
reaching the depths
of the precincts 
 of your souls
seeping like Hi...

Come, Let Us Beat the Ancestral Drum

...COME, LETS BEAT THE ANCESTRAL DRUM

Sitting here flowing
through the meters of time
like a smooth spring stream
meandering through forest greens,
I peruse the many folds
of the caverns of this...

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