Powerful poems from POOR

by POOR News Network

At POOR Magazine, where marginalized people come center stage to tell their stories, a crowd gathered in Mama Dee and Uncle Al’s Café in POOR’s headquarters for the Fifth Annual Poetry and Music Battle of ALL of the Sexes on Valentine’s Day 2012 to hear the powerful and passionate spoken words of many poets, including these first and second place winning poems.

This year’s battle honored ancestors Uncle Al Robles and Mama Dee and all who have been victims of po’lice terror, racism and poverty. First place winner was Trina Brigham, and Muteado Silencio placed second.

First place winner: ‘Birth Out Mother Earth’

by Trina Brigham, aka Realness

Trina-Brigham-POOR-Valentines-Day-Poetry-Battle-0214121, Powerful poems from POOR, Culture Currents I was formed from dust and chiseled out the womb of my mother.

I’m Mother Earth’s first born …

When her water bag broke …

She baptized me in many bodies of waters …

She washed me in her oceans …

She showered me in crimson tides …

We are compatible genetically incline …

My soil is fertile; I reproduce as well as multiply …

Not only did I receive my mother’s blessings …

I also inherited her earthly treasures …

I birth out diamonds, minerals and exotic stones out my womb …

I bleed symphonies of oils and fossil fuel …

Not only do I have evidence, I’m living proof …

I help sustain life beyond measure …

I reproduce jewels as well as treasures …

I cradle civilization; man’s roots are as ancient as me …

The Garden of Eden she lives here with me …

The first tree grown rose up out the dirt from me …

Which is why I question why are my people living in poverty?

I reproduce the highest quality of natural resources from within me …

There are more than enough to feed every part of me …

God gave me the ability to reproduce and do so abundantly …

So why must my people perish from starvation and poverty?

My people are a chosen generation …

Their generational seeds are implanted through me …

With provision came decision …

I have always been whole …

A whole continent …

A whole nation …

A whole country …

A whole people …

I’m birthed out of Mother Earth

I’m Africa and Africa is me!

Second place winner: ‘El Machete’

by Muteado Silencio

Muteado-Silencio-POOR-Valentines-Day-Poetry-Battle-021412, Powerful poems from POOR, Culture Currents From sun up to sun down, rain or shine,

365 days with machete in hand,

cutting or chopping the harvest to live another day,

to live for my family,

for my wife, for my children, with humanity, with

Mother Earth.

to stay alive,

to survive to see tomorrow’s sun rise.

365 days with machete in hand to defend the future

of my family, my wife

my children the future of humanity, of Mother Earth.

365 days with machete in hand to stand against the

injustice against

the ones who cannot defend themselves

Against the raping of Mother Earth 365 days

with machete in hand to defend Mother Earth.

Read more about issues of poverty and race written by the people who face them daily at POOR Magazine/POOR News Network, www.poormagazine.org.