Poem 510

The Autobiography of Malcolm X had a big influence on me, notably in showing the constant evolution of Malcolm’s thinking and understanding of the world and the way that evolution first suited then didn’t suit other people around him …

… a poem is first and foremost an idea … I see poetry as a flexible form and a broad church – from the beginning I wanted my poems to be able to do anything and express everything … jewel-like observations, painted pictures, dramas real or imagined, jokes and assertions in my own or invented voices … say what you like about the writing, each poem here is the incarnation of its own unique idea, is saying something about and to life … that’s why I think of the totality of them as a kind of map of my mind …

Malcolm X

The white man is a devil

that was plain enough
the tallest blackest man in history
told you that
a real crowd-pleaser baby
a mouthful of piranha
and a brain that went to work on old whitey
like needle-nose pliers

too bad he was wrong
pity he had to find that out
he just kept on going
right through everything you wanted to hear
and out the other side