"Ode to the Happy Negro Hugging the Flag in Robert Colescott’s 'George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware'" by Anaïs Duplan

[View this email on a browser]( [Forward to a friend]( [facebook-icon]( [tumblr-icon]( [twitter-icon]( January 23, 2018 [Ode to the Happy Negro Hugging the Flag in Robert Colescott’s “George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware”]( [Anaïs Duplan]( I have waited all my life to find me find you perched around my black neck in repose songing of me in repose your black legs songing of me in repose your black legs a dangle around me I have waited to find you find your black toes to find them sundering at the base your black toes your black toe- nails hale and bright your black feet a straddle around me around my black waist a straddle I finding I was born I was born who operated in the white was born who was born who operated in the white chapel who found your black thighs in repose songing to each other in repose across my chest an extended black for blocks a neighborhood song in repose your crotch an extended black at my neck your black groin a straddle around me in repose what life what there it is there I had been looked at there o lord sucked His black thorax which spanned as a fracture spanned as I who grow up in you there as a fracture find your black breast o lord quiescing atop my head your other black breast o lord hale and bright around me o lord a pendulum o lord to my black ear my black ear that finds you songing of me in repose in your stature toppling to one side of my one side find your black shoulders a gaping around me death your body armless around me death none can skirt it in your mother's way o lord is finding black fingers there your black neck is finding lord is rising past the cumulus-line an extended black o lord is an extended black o lord is thinking of self and thinking of self is finding you there so that when I entered I entered the pulpit I entered. [Like this on Facebook]( [Share via Twitter]( Copyright © 2018 Anaïs Duplan. Used with permission of the author. [Anaïs Duplan reads "Ode to the Happy Negro Hugging the Flag in Robert Colescott’s George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware"]( About This Poem “In Robert Colescott’s 1975 painting George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware: Page from an American History Textbook, the famed American inventor is depicted standing at the bow of a rowboat making its way across an intrepid Delaware River. Carver is accompanied by a band of Sambo-esque figures, including one Revolutionary War army general who hugs the American flag with a kind of serenity about his expression. The painting is a response to—or a refusal of—an earlier painting by a German American artist, completed in 1851, showing George Washington and his all-white cadre in the same scene.” —Anaïs Duplan [Anaïs Duplan]( Anaïs Duplan is the author of Mount Carmel & the Blood of Parnassus (Monster House Press, 2017). They are a joint Public Programs Fellow at the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Photo credit: The Rumpus [Mount Carmel & the Blood of Parnassus]( Poetry by Duplan [Mount Carmel & the Blood of Parnassus]( (Monster House Press, 2017) "America Gives Its Blackness Back To Me" by Shane McCrae [read-more]( "Diorama" by J. Mae Barizo [read-more]( "Blackbottom" by Toi Derricotte [read-more]( January Guest Editor: Kaveh Akbar Thanks to Kaveh Akbar, author of Calling a Wolf a Wolf (Alice James Books, 2017), who curated Poem-a-Day this month. Read more about [Akbar]( and our other [guest editors for the year.]( Help Support Poem-a-Day If you value Poem-a-Day, please consider a [monthly donation]( or [one-time gift]( to help make it possible. Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today’s poets each weekday morning. The free series, which also features a curated selection of classic poems on weekends, reaches 450,000+ readers daily. Thank you! [Small-Blue-RGB-poets.org-Logo]( Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit [Poets.org](. You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click [here](. © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038