Tony Lindsay Presents... Haki R. Madhubuti

A poet has many tools: the sonnet, the ballad, the Haiku, rhyme, metaphor, allusion, but the hammer amongst these devices and structures is the theme – the message. The message is what drives the poem into the reader’s heart and mind.

First Impressions on a Poet’s Death
       (for Conrad Kent Rogers)  
Blk/poets die
From not being
read
& from, maybe,
too much
leg.
some drank
themselves
into
non-poets,
but most
poets who poet
seldom
die
from
overexposure.

Haki R. Madhubuti’s work ‘Liberation Narratives’ is a collection of poems that will leave a reader’s head ringing and heart pounding from the hard hitting and thought prying themes in each poem.



Only a Few Left
        (America’s Pushkin sings no more
           -To Langston Hughes)

The time has come
when bravery
is not he
who is abundant
with heroic deeds
for the state.
Bravery is that
little black man
 over there
surrounded by people
he’s talking-
bravery lies in his
words.
he’s telling the
truth
they say he’s
a
poet.


Wasted Life
He spent fifty years
of his life
 trying to convince
white people  that
he was as good as they were.
he not only failed
but
didn’t learn anything
from the experience except
to strategically forget his name and
lie in long sentences.

After reading Madhubuti’s ‘Liberation Narratives’ one experiences the writer’s deep love and commitment for and to his people. If this collection of poems was said to have a single motif, it would be the uplifting of a people.  This is not one to miss, for any student of literature or Black culture ‘Liberation Narratives’ is a must have.

Tony Lindsay is an award-winning author and adjunct professor at Chicago State University. His book ONE DEAD DOCTOR was chosen by Conversations Book Club as one of its Top 100 Books of 2012. Lindsay was named Conversations Author of the Year 2012-2013.  His new book EMOTIONAL DRIPPINGS is available now on Amazon.com. He can be reached at tonylinsay7045@sbcglobal.net or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tony.linssay2.