Get Lit Minute

This week's Get Lit Minute focuses on Marquesha Babers, a Get Lit Poet and artist. We review her life to date and how she began her artistic journey. This episode also features a reading of Baber's poem "That Girl."

About Marquesha Babers: After growing up homeless and channeling her pain into power, Marquesha has become a mentor for Get Lit and an ambassador for the film Girl Rising, which stresses the importance of education for girls in developing countries. With Get Lit, she has performed at the MUSE Conference in Oregon, at the Women in the World Summit at Lincoln Center (alongside Angelina Jolie and Hillary Clinton), at Cadogan Hall in London, and at colleges and universities throughout the nation. She has also appeared on the series Verses and Flow, and she is a blogger for ONE.org. Look out for her poetry anthology and memoir, coming soon to a bookstore near you! She is also featured in the upcoming 2020 film "Summertime", directed by Carlos López Estrada, who's first feature film "Blindspotting" (starring Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal) was nominated for the 2018 Sundance Grand Jury Prize, with Estrada nominated by the DGA for Outstanding Directorial Achievement of a First-Time Feature Film Director. “Summertime” premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, and will be distributed by Good Deed Entertainment in the Spring of 2021."

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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, we discuss the life and work of poet Dudley Randell. Included in this episode is a reading of Randell's poem, "Booker T. and W.E.B." The full poem is also available below. The influence of Dudley Randall, founder of Broadside Press and Detroit’s first poet laureate, “has been one of the strongest—some say the strongest—in the black poetry movement of the last 15 years,” argued Suzanne Dolezal in Detroit magazine. “As publisher of Detroit’s Broadside Press between 1965 and 1977, Randall provided a forum for just about every major black poet to come along during those years. And dozens of anthologies include his own rapid, emotional lyrics about Detroit’s bag ladies, lonely old drunks, strapping foundry workers, and young women with glistening, corn-rowed hair,” she continued. “Beyond Randall’s contributions as a poet, his roles as editor and publisher have proven invaluable to the Afro-American community,” R. Baxter Miller wrote in the Dictionary of Literary Biography.

BY DUDLEY RANDALL

“It seems to me,” said Booker T.,

“It shows a mighty lot of cheek

To study chemistry and Greek

When Mister Charlie needs a hand

To hoe the cotton on his land,

And when Miss Ann looks for a cook,

Why stick your nose inside a book?”

“I don’t agree,” said W.E.B.,

“If I should have the drive to seek

Knowledge of chemistry or Greek,

I’ll do it. Charles and Miss can look

Another place for hand or cook.

Some men rejoice in skill of hand,

And some in cultivating land,

But there are others who maintain

The right to cultivate the brain.”

“It seems to me,” said Booker T.,

“That all you folks have missed the boat

Who shout about the right to vote,

And spend vain days and sleepless nights

In uproar over civil rights.

Just keep your mouths shut, do not grouse,

But work, and save, and buy a house.”

“I don’t agree,” said W.E.B.,

“For what can property avail

If dignity and justice fail.

Unless you help to make the laws,

They’ll steal your house with trumped-up clause.

A rope’s as tight, a fire as hot,

No matter how much cash you’ve got.

Speak soft, and try your little plan,

But as for me, I’ll be a man.”

“It seems to me,” said Booker T.—

“I don’t agree,”

Said W.E.B.

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In this week's episode, we discuss the life and work of Claudia Rankine, winner of an Academy of American Poets Fellowship and the MacArthur Genius Grant.  Rankine was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and educated at Williams College and Columbia University. Her work has appeared in many journals, including Harper's, GRANTA, The Kenyon Review, and the Lana Turner Journal. She co-edits (with Lisa Sewell) the anthology series American Women Poets in the 21st Century: Where Lyric Meets Language. Today's episode also includes a reading of Rankine's poem, "Weather."

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In this week’s episode, we focus on the poet who learned to start a revolution through art, Sonia Sanchez. Included in this episode is a reading of Sanchez’s poem, “This is Not a Small Voice.”

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In this week’s episode, we talk about Somali-British poet, Warsan Shire. This episode includes a reading and discussion of Shire’s poem “Ugly” from her collection Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth. More about Warsan Shire: Shire’s work deals with her cultural roots, immigrations, womanhood, Identity, and Somalia. She is the author of many collections, including Her Blue Body and Our Men Do Not Belong To Us, but her work has been featured in so much more. 

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In this week's episode, we focus on writer, performer, and poet Danez Smith. This episode includes a reading and discussion of Smith's poem "Rose" (also featured in Get Lit's Anthology).

More about Danez Smith:
Danez Smith is a Black, queer, non-binary, HIV-positive writer and performer from St. Paul, MN. They are the author of the poetry collections Boy and Don't Call Us Dead: Poems, both of which have received multiple awards.

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In this week's episode, we remember the life and work of American soul and jazz poet, musician, author, and spoken-word performer, Gil Scott-Heron. Included in this episode is a reading of Scott-Heron's piece "I Think I'll Call It Morning."

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In this week’s episode, we discuss the work of Cameron Awkward-Rich, who began writing at the age of 12 and continued on to become a beloved contemporary poet and essayist. 

He writes: “A lot of Slam Poetry is the perfect example of what an essay is. You have a hook, evidence, and all sorts of other things to present ideas.”

Nia also reads Cameron’s poem, “Cento Between the Ending and the End.” This poem is composed of language from Cameron’s friends and favorite Poets, including Danez Smith, Franny Choi, and the incomparable Lucille Clifton.

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In this week's episode, we discuss the life and work of American author and journalist, Ta-Nehisi Paul Coates. Also included is a reading of an excerpt from his book, "Between The World & Me." It is written as a letter to the author's teenage son about the feelings, symbolism, and realities associated with being Black in the United States. Coates recapitulates American history and explains to his son the "racist violence that has been woven into American culture." Coates draws from an abridged, autobiographical account of his youth in Baltimore, detailing the ways in which institutions like the school, the police, and even "the streets" discipline, endanger, and threaten to disembody black men and women. The work takes structural and thematic inspiration from James Baldwin's 1963 epistolary book The Fire Next Time. Unlike Baldwin, Coates sees white supremacy as an indestructible force, one that Black Americans will never evade or erase, but will always struggle against.

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In this week's episode, we discuss the work of Elizabeth Acevedo, a Dominican-American poet and author. She is the author of The Poet X, With the Fire on High and Clap When You Land. The Poet X is a New York Times Bestseller, National Book Award Winner, and Carnegie Medal winner.

This episode includes an excerpt from Acevedo's live performance of her poem "Afro Latina."

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