we are the world 25 for haiti mp3 download

It framed his national policy, and remnants of that national policy are still present. But it goes back to the original problem presented to the American government of how to deal with the first successful slave rebellion in the Western hemisphere and how to keep that information and that inspiration away from black Americans. There are all kinds of complexities around the history of Haiti. I’m coming from what is popular knowledge among black people about the significance and the position of Haiti, which is that we generally understand that Haiti’s position is a matter of being punished for speaking back, for daring to be rebellious. Afaa Michael Weaver is widely published and traveled by now, a professor at Simmons College in Boston, though he identifies himself still as “a working-class African American poet from Baltimore.” Michael Weaver worked in the steel factories of Baltimore (the world of “The Wire”) for 15 years before he finished his college education and declared himself a poet - and before “Afaa,” the Ibo honorific meaning “oracle,” was added to his name. Selling news as if it were cheese and Michael Weaver Sticking their tongues out in the rubble, The pen of Jefferson moves to contain whatĬannot be contained, collapsed buildings,įamily photographs lying on broken bodies Writing a letter, plotting to buy Louisiana, Zombies the mute saints, pious and solemn, Pierced with jagged things, rocks and glass, Twisting the roots of our hearts, nowhere Hedge funds, Blackberrys, joys we hold onto Ledgers for the wealth of banks, investments, Of farmers ranking goats with black children, Some alien presence driving the real thing, The tiny plan of earth growing from the Earth, The wet mess of your heart suddenly slapping Ripping the cloth of the breath, suspendingĮvery wish you had in that single moment, The seam of the spirit tears in earthquakes, In the rubric of the crucifix planted on shores Near cement walls filled with sand on the bottomĬomplex chance of a soul torn from Ile Ife, The children under sheets, stiff and undone Would be pearl white, a bed of ice after snow If the sky were to crack, the floor of heaven “Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.

His poem “Port-au-Prince” is not “news analysis ” it’s a stab at fitting disaster news, now two months old, into a context between heart and history. Afaa Michael Weaver leads off a week of poets’ reflections on the catastrophe in Haiti.

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