I'm Lying to You
Remember the old days? Before the internet—I used to read physical books. Read poems that shook me to the core. I’d go to the back of the anthology and read the 2 – 3 line bio and if possible there might be an entry for them in the World Book Encyclopedia. Maybe not, if they weren’t white or mainstream. Of course I didn’t need to know someone’s gender (Evelyn Waugh is a guy? S.E. Hinton is a woman?), or their orientation (hello! Go Tell It On the Mountain James Baldwin), or if they were black or white. Countee Cullen was REALLY confusing. I got the work though. O nce riding in old Baltimore, Heart-filled, head-filled with glee, I saw a Baltimorean Keep looking straight at me. Now I was eight and very small, And he was no whit bigger, And so I smiled, but he poked out His tongue, and called me, "Nigger." I saw the whole of Baltimore From May u...